But this is an "age too late." So doubted Milton, while the shadow of Shakspeare had scarce left the earth, and while he himself was writing the greatest epic the world ever saw. And so any one may say, provided he does not mutilate or restrain his genius in consequence. We have reason to bless Providence that Milton did not act upon his hasty peradventure. But some will attempt to prove its truth, by saying that the field of poetry is limited--that the first cultivators will probably exhaust it, and that, in fact, a decline in poetry has been observed--the first poets being uniformly the best. But we deny that the field of poetry is limited. That is nature and the deep heart of man; or, more correctly, the field of poetry is human nature, and the external universe, multiplied indefinitely by the imagination. This, surely, is a wide enough territory. Where shall poetry, if sent forth like Noah's dove, fail to find a resting-place? Each new fact in the history of man and nature is a fact for _it_--suited to its purposes, and awaiting its consecration. "The great writers have exhausted it." True, they have exhausted, speaking generally, the topics they have handled. Few will think of attempting the "Fall of Man" after Milton--and Dryden and Galt, alone, have dared, to their own disgrace, to burst within Shakspeare's magic circle. But the great poets have not verily occupied the entire field of poetry--have not counted all the beatings of the human heart--have not lighted on all those places whence poetry, like water from the smitten rock, rushes at the touch of genius--have not exhausted all the "riches fineless" which garnish the universe--nay, they have multiplied them infinitely, and shed on them a deeper radiance. The more poetry there is, the more there must be. A good criticism on a great poem becomes a poem itself. It is the essence of poetry to increase and multiply--to create an echo and shadow of its own power, even as the voice of the cataract summons the spirits of the wilderness to return it in thunder. As truly say that storms can exhaust the sky, as that poems can exhaust the blue dome of poesy. We doubt, too, the dictum that the earliest poets are uniformly the best. Who knows not that many prefer Eschylus to Homer; and many, Virgil to Lucretius; and many, Milton to Shakspeare; and that a nation sets Goethe above all men, save Shakspeare; and has not the toast been actually given, "To the two greatest of poets--Shakspeare and _Byron_?" To settle the endless questions connected with such a topic by any dogmatical assertion of the superiority of early poets, is obviously impossible.