This is the most striking instance, the most astounding at first, the most illuminative afterwards; and it will give us a key to all the rest. It must for instance be a fresh stumbling-block, and no small one, to find Joubert, who could prefer Delille to Milton, quite cool, almost harsh, to Racine, saying that Racine is “the Virgil of the ignorant,” that those whom he suffices are “poor souls and poor wits.” But the way round the obstacle is perfectly clear to the practised traveller in our country. Racine’s was not the poetry of Joubert’s own time and generation; Delille’s was. His language, his words, his imagery could convey whatsoever of poetry was in them—though it might not be very much—to Joubert’s ears and wit and soul better than Racine’s could. And once more, as those ears and wit and soul were exquisitely sensitive to even a trace of poetry that _did_ reach them, the difficulty becomes no difficulty at all, but, on the contrary, a real paradox of the most illuminating and helpful kind, constantly to be remembered, and especially good against those estimable doctrinaires who will have a hard and fast hierarchy in poetry, a “best, better, good, not so good, bad,” arranged in rigid classes. _That is poetry to a man which produces on him such poetical effects as he is capable of receiving._ The reader takes it, as the writer makes it, _poeticamente_. You may possibly—it is not certain, but it is possible—_educate_ his poetic sense; say to it, “Friend, come up higher.” You may certainly remove merely mechanical obstacles, such as Joubert’s ignorance of English. But until something of this kind is done, it is better that the man should even excessively admire Burns or Béranger, Macaulay or Moore, than that he should simulate admiration of Shelley, or Hugo, or Heine. It would be pleasant to dwell on this, which has never, I think, been dwelt upon, or expounded fully before; but words to the wise must be here, as always, our motto: the hints given can easily here, as elsewhere, be expanded by those who have the wits and the inclination. [Sidenote: _Additional illustrations._]