The subject should be intelligible and interesting to the public to which it is addressed. But this end the poet or the artist will attain only so far as, by his general spirit, his work responds to some one of the essential ideas of the human spirit and to the general interests of humanity. The particularities of an epoch are not of true and enduring interest to us. If, then, the subject is borrowed from remote epochs of history, or from some far-off tradition, it is necessary that, by our general culture, we should be familiarized with it. It is thus only that we can sympathize with an epoch and with manners that are no more. Hence the two essential conditions; that the subject present the general human character, then that it be in relation with our ideas. Art is not designed for a small number of scholars and men of science; it is addressed to the entire nation. Its works should be comprehended and relished of themselves, and not after a course of difficult research. Thus national subjects are the most favorable. All great poems are national poems. The Bible histories have for us a particular charm, because we are familiar with them from our infancy. Nevertheless, in the measure that relations are multiplied between peoples, art can borrow its subjects from all latitudes and from all epochs. It should, indeed, as to the principal features, preserve, to the traditions, events, and personages, to manners and institutions, their historic or traditional character; but the duty of the artist, above all, is to place the idea which constitutes its content in harmony with the spirit of his own age, and the peculiar genius of his nation. In this necessity lies the reason and excuse for what is called anachronism in art. When the anachronism bears only upon external circumstances it is unimportant. It becomes a matter of more moment if we attribute to the characters, the ideas, and sentiments of another epoch. Respect must be paid to historic truth, but regard must also be had to the manners and intellectual culture of one’s own time. The heroes of Homer themselves are more than were the real personages of the epoch which he presents; and the characters of Sophocles are brought still nearer to us. To violate thus the rules of historic reality, is a necessary anachronism in art. Finally, another form of anachronism, which the utmost moderation and genius can alone make pardonable, is that which transfers the religious or moral ideas of a more advanced civilization to an anterior epoch; when one attributes, for example, to the ancients the ideas of the moderns. Some great poets have ventured upon this intentionally; few have been successful in it.