There are many kinds of literature because there are many kinds of life. Pope felt one kind and Wordsworth another and Poe another—and so on and on. There are no universal poets, not even Homer and Shakespeare. Nor, of course, are there any universal critics, not even Lessing and Sainte-Beuve. Neither creator nor critic can make himself universal by barely taking thought about it; he _is_ what he _lives_. The measure of the creator is the amount of life he puts into his work. The measure of the critic is the amount of life he finds there. THE REVENGE OF THE BARDS “The natural desire of every man,” says Peacock in _The Four Ages of Poetry_, “to engross to himself as much power and property as he can acquire by any of the means which might makes right, is accompanied by the no less natural desire of making known to as many people as possible the extent to which he has been a winner in this universal game. The successful warrior becomes a chief; the successful chief becomes a king; his next want is an organ to disseminate the fame of his achievements and the extent of his possessions; and this organ he finds in a bard, who is always ready to celebrate the strength of his arm, being duly inspired by that of his liquor. This is the origin of poetry.... The first rude songs of all nations ... tell us how many battles such an one has fought, how many helmets he has cleft, how many breastplates he has pierced, how many widows he has made, how much land he has appropriated, how many houses he has demolished for other people, what a large one he has built for himself, how much gold he has stowed away in it, and how liberally and plentifully he pays, feeds, and intoxicates the divine and immortal bards, the sons of Jupiter, but for whose everlasting songs the names of heroes would perish.” The bards meanwhile, according to Peacock, do not neglect their own status. “They are observing and thinking, while others are robbing and fighting: and though their object be nothing more than to secure a share of the spoil, yet they accomplish this end by intellectual, not by physical, power: their success excites emulation to the attainment of intellectual eminence: thus they sharpen their own wits and awaken those of others.... Their familiarity with the secret history of gods and genii obtains for them, without much difficulty, the reputation of inspiration ... being indeed often themselves (as Orpheus and Amphion) regarded as portions and emanations of divinity: building cities with a song, and leading brutes with a symphony; which are only metaphors for the faculty of leading multitudes by the nose.”