'Tis true the Greeks granted an immunity from taxation to
some of their artists, who were often great men in the state, and
even the companions of princes. And are not some of our poets peers?
Have not some of our artists received knighthood from the hand of
their Sovereign, and have not some of them received pensions?"
To answer objections of this latitude demands the assertion of
certain characteristic facts which, tho' not here demonstrated, may
be authenticated by reference to history. Of these, the facts of
Alfred's disguised visit to the Danish camp, and Aulaff's visit to
the Saxon, are sufficient to show in what respect the poets of that
period were held; when a man without any safe conduct whatever
could enter the enemy's camp on the very eve of battle, as was
here the case; could enter unopposed, unquestioned, and return
unmolested!--What could have conferred upon the poet of that day so
singular a privilege? What upon the poet of an earlier time that
sanctity in behoof whereof
"The great Emathian conqueror bid spare
The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower
Went to the ground: and the repeated air
Of sad Electra's poet had the power
To save the Athenian walls from ruin bare."
What but an universal recognition of the poet as an universal
benefactor of mankind? And did mankind recognize him as such, from
some unaccountable infatuation, or because his labours obtained for
him an indefeasible right to that estimate? How came it, when a Greek
sculptor had completed some operose performance, that his countrymen
bore him in triumph thro' their city, and rejoiced in his prosperity
as identical with their own? How but because his art had embodied
some principle of beauty whose mysterious influence it was their
pride to appreciate--or he had enduringly moulded the limbs of some
well-trained Athlete, such as it was their interest to develop, or he
had recorded the overthrow of some barbaric invader whom their
fathers had fallen to repel.
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