This, which
had at one time been matter of doubt, had at an early stage come to be
his decision. Sot had the choice of English been made for the sake
of popularity, which he despised. He did not desire to write for the
many, but for the few. But he was enthusiastically patriotic. He had
entire contempt for the shouts of the mob, but the English nation,
as embodied in the persons of the wise and good, he honoured and
reverenced with all the depth of his nature. It was for the sake of
his nation that he was to devote his life to a work, which was to
ennoble her tongue among the languages of Europe.
He was then to write in English, for the English, not popularly,
but nationally. This resolution at once limited his subject. He who
aspires to be the poet of a nation is bound to adopt a hero who is
already dear to that people, to choose a subject and characters
which are already familiar to them. This is no rule of literary art
arbitrarily enacted by the critics, it is a dictate of reason, and has
been the practice of all the great national poets. The more obvious
examples will occur to every reader, But it may be observed that even
the Greek tragedians, who addressed a more limited audience than the
epic poets, took their plots from the best known legends touching the
fortunes of the royal houses of the Hellenic race.
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