Hebrew poetry. He has no “taste.” He is “indecent.” Out with Ezekiel!—Here is Dante. Open the tremendous pages of the _Inferno_. What is this about the she-wolf Can Grande will kill? What picture is this of strumpet Thais?—ending with the lines— “Taida è, la puttana che rispose Al drudo suo, quando disse: Ho io grazie Grandi appo te? Anzi meravigliose.” What is this, also, in the eighteenth canto?— “Quivi venimmo, e quindi giù nel fosso Vidi gente attuffata in uno sterco, Che dagli uman privati parea mosso: E mentre ch’ ìo là giù con l’occhio cerco, Vìdi un col capo sì di merda lordo, Che non parea s’era laico o cherco.” What is this line at the end of the twenty-first canto, which even John Carlyle flinches from translating, but which Dante did not flinch from writing?— “Ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta.” And look at these lines in the twenty-eighth canto:— “Già reggia, per mezzul perdere o lulla Com’ io vidi un, cosi non si pertugia, Rotto dal mento insin dove si trulla.” That will do. Dante, too, has “indecent passages.” Out with Dante!—Here is the book of Job: the vast Arabian landscape, the picturesque pastoral details of Arabian life, the last tragic immensity of Oriental sorrow, the whole overarching sky of Oriental piety, are here. But here also the inevitable “indecency.” Instead of the virtuous fiction of the tansy-bed, Job actually has the indelicacy to state how man is born—even mentions the belly; talks about the gendering of bulls and the miscarriage of cows; uses rank idioms; and in the thirty-first chapter especially, indulges in a strain of thought and expression which it is amazing does not bring down upon him, even at this late date, the avalanches of our lofty and pure Reviews. Here is certainly “an immoral poet.” Out with Job!—Here is Plutarch, prince of biographers, and Herodotus, flower of historians. What have we now? Traits of character not to be mentioned, incidents of conduct, accounts of manners, minute details of customs, which our modern historical dandies would never venture upon recording. Out with Plutarch and Herodotus!—Here is Tacitus. What statement of crimes that ought not to be hinted! Does the man gloat over such things? What dreadful kisses are these of Agrippina to Nero—the mother to the son! Out with Tacitus!—and since there are books that ought to be publicly burned, by all means let the stern grandeur of that rhetoric be lost in flame.—Here is Shakespeare: “indecent passages” everywhere—every drama, every poem thickly inlaid with them; all that men do displayed; sexual acts treated lightly, jested about, mentioned obscenely; the language never bolted; slang, gross puns, lewd words, in profusion. Out with Shakespeare!—Here is the _Canticle of Canticles_: beautiful, voluptuous poem of love literally, whatever be its mystic significance; glowing with the color, odorous