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This particular failure in the ancients opens a large field of raillery to the little wits, who can laugh at an indecency, but not relish the sublime in these sorts of writings. The present Emperor of Persia, conformable to this Eastern way of thinking, amidst a great many pompous titles, denominates himself "the sun of glory" and "the nutmeg of delight."
In viewing the higher position to which recent philosophical systems have raised the theory of art in Germany, we must not overlook the advantages contributed by the study of the ideal of the ancients by such men as Winckelmann, who, by a kind of inspiration, raised art criticism from a carping about petty details to seek the true spirit of great works of art, and their true ideas, by a study of the spirit of the originals.
What a merciful and polite goddess was the necessity of the ancients, compared with the necessity of the moderns. Political necessity has been hard at work in our times from Robespierre to Sedan, from St. Helena to the Vatican, from the Tea-chests of Boston Harbor to the Great Rebellion.
But the Pisans feeling the power that the fortress had against them in case of future war, and doubtful of the issue of council at Florence, sent a private negotiator to the member of the Council of Ancients who was known to have most influence, though one of the poorest of them, Aldobrandino Ottobuoni; and offered him four thousand golden florins if he would get the vote passed to raze Mutrona.
Our chief knowledge of the geography of Europe daring the five centuries between 500 and 1000 A.D. is given in the reports of successive pilgrims. This period may be regarded as the Dark Age of geographical knowledge, during which wild conceptions like those contained in the Hereford map were substituted for the more accurate measurements of the ancients.
But the genius of the ancients was displayed in prose composition as well as in poetry, although perfection was not so soon attained. The poets were the great creators of the languages of antiquity. It was not until they had produced their immortal works that the languages were sufficiently softened and refined to admit of great beauty in prose. But prose requires art as well as poetry.
The story of the Deluge, and other incidents recorded in the Old Testament, together with numerous legends, were known and treasured by the Ancients as sacred traditions from the earliest ages of the world. We learn from St. Paul that "Moses was skilled in all the knowledge of the Egyptians."
Our greatest surprise in this satire comes not only from discovering the expression, "sweetness and light," made famous by Matthew Arnold in the Victorian age, but also from finding that a satirist like Swift assigned such high rank to these qualities. He says that the "Ancients" thus expressed an essential difference between themselves and the "Moderns":
Nowadays there is a guild of learned men and artists, and they prepare, by perfected methods, all that spiritual food which man requires. And they have prepared so much of it, that it is no longer necessary to refer to the elder authorities, who have preceded them, not only to the ancients, but to those much nearer to us.
With such sentiments the necessity for child-destruction would not fail to clash, and I believe we find the trace of divided feeling in the Tahitian brotherhood of Oro. At a certain date a new god was added to the Society-Island Olympus, or an old one refurbished and made popular. Oro was his name, and he may be compared with the Bacchus of the ancients.
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