The poets of democratic ages can never, therefore, take any man in particular as the subject of a piece; for an object of slender importance, which is distinctly seen on all sides, will never lend itself to an ideal conception.

Thus the principle of equality; in proportion as it has established itself in the world, has dried up most of the old springs of poetry.

Let us now attempt to show what new ones it may disclose.
When scepticism had depopulated heaven, and the progress of equality had reduced each individual to smaller and better known proportions, the poets, not yet aware of what they could substitute for the great themes which were departing together with the aristocracy, turned their eyes to inanimate nature.

As they lost sight of gods and heroes, they set themselves to describe streams and mountains.

Thence originated in the last century, that kind of poetry which has been called, by way of distinction, the descriptive.