Some critics, pitying so lofty, so respectable an ambition, have whispered that he found a little Island of the Blest and there planted modest myrtles of mediocre immortality.

Yet this is not the truth.

On such a quest there was only failure or success.

He did not succeed.

His cold mincemeat from Diocean tables, tepid historic parallels, artificially concocted legends, could not create Greek poetry again beneath the ribs of death.