we may give this as the universally prevailing characteristic of their literature.
To trace the action of the critical element upon literature in long periods, let us compare some Greek work with a modern. In the "Prometheus" of Æschylus, we see gods, demigods, and personages exalted above humanity, as actors. These personages were the subject of an active religious belief in the audience; so that, whilst they viewed the author as a man, they saw something divine, consecrated, and inspired in his work. They recognized the Divine Spirit in humanity; but, in becoming divine, it ceased to be human, and was clothed to their minds in forms of superhuman grace, beauty, and strength. The actors in the Greek heroic and tragic works were rarely, if ever, mere men. In the early ages of Greece, and even till after the age of Pericles, whilst such unequalled splendor and magnificence of art were lavished on temples and sacred places, we learn that no private man presumed to appropriate such splendors to his own use and convenience.
If we take now a drama of Shakspeare, "Hamlet," for instance, we find all changed. In Greece and Rome, the gods gradually ceased to be divine. No longer inspiring belief, they had existed in literature as ornament, until, worn out even for this use, they were laid aside altogether. But literature must have an upper element in which to work. A higher religion succeeded the poetical theology of the Greeks. This new religion also revealed a poetic side. which was availed of for the production of great works of art and literature among the Italians and other nations. In the North, it took a more severe, and at the same time more spiritual character, which, whilst rendering it unavailable for the purposes of art and literature, made it too sacred for such profanation, as it was esteemed.
Whilst the divine element was thus removed to a sphere beyond the reach of literature, and skepticism had banished to the vulgar the belief in intermediate powers, a higher element was developed in man himself. The ancient hero was a demigod: the modern is a man.
Accordingly, we find in Hamlet an exalted personage
