Read what follows as you would a note at the bottom of a page.
But ah! Mecænas is ywrapt in clay, and great Augustus long ago is dead.
(This is a natural sigh, and natural too is the reflection that follows.)
And if that any buds of poesy Yet of the old stock 'gin to shoot again, 'Tis or _self_-lost the worldling's meed to gain, And with the rest to breathe its ribauldry, Or as it sprung it wither must again; Tom Piper makes them better melody.
But though natural, the complaint is not equally philosophical, were it only on this account,--that I know of no age in which the same has not been advanced, and with the same grounds. Nay, I retract; there never was a time in which the _complaint_ would be so little wise, though perhaps none in which the _fact_ is more prominent. Neither philosophy nor poetry ever did, nor as long as they are terms of comparative excellence and contradistinction, ever can be _popular_, nor honoured with the praise and favour of contemporaries. But, on the other hand, there never was a time in which either books, that were _held_ for excellent as poetic or philosophic, had so extensive and rapid a sale, or men reputed poets and philosophers of a high rank were so much _looked up_ to in society, or so munificently, almost profusely rewarded. Walter Scott's poems and novels (except only the two wretched abortions, _Ivanhoe_ and the _Bride of Ravensmuir_, or whatever its name may be) supply both instance and solution of the _present_ conditions and components of popularity, viz. to amuse without requiring any effort of thought, and without exciting any deep emotion. The age seems _sore_ from excess of stimulation, just as, a day or two after a thorough debauch and long sustained drinking match, a man feels all over like a bruise. Even to admire otherwise than _on the whole_, and where "I admire" is but a synonym for "I remember I _liked_ it very much _when I was reading it_," is too much an effort, would be too disquieting an emotion. Compare _Waverley_, _Guy Manner__ing_, and Co., with works that had an _immediate run_ in the last generation, _Tristram Shandy_, _Roderick Random_, _Sir Charles Grandison_, _Clarissa Harlowe_, and _Tom Jones_ (all of which became popular as soon as published, and therefore instances fairly in point), and you will be convinced that the difference of taste is real, and not any fancy or croaking of my own.