[The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay<br> Vol. 1 (of 4) by Thomas Babington Macaulay]@TWC D-Link book
The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay
Vol. 1 (of 4)

PART I
113/114

I fear that the critics of our time will form an opinion diametrically opposite as to these every points.

Some will, I fear, be disgusted by the machinery, which is derived from the mythology of ancient Greece.

I can only say that, in the twenty-ninth century, that machinery will be universally in use among poets; and that Quongti will use it, partly in conformity with the general practice, and partly from a veneration, perhaps excessive, for the great remains of classical antiquity, which will then, as now, be assiduously read by every man of education; though Tom Moore's songs will be forgotten, and only three copies of Lord Byron's works will exist: one in the possession of King George the Nineteenth, one in the Duke of Carrington's collection, and one in the library of the British Museum.

Finally, should any good people be concerned to hear that Pagan fictions will so long retain their influence over literature, let them reflect that, as the Bishop of St David's says, in his "Proofs of the Inspiration of the Sibylline Verses," read at the last meeting of the Royal Society of Literature, "at all events, a Pagan is not a Papist." Some readers of the present day may think that Quongti is by no means entitled to the compliments which his Negro critic pays him on his adherence to the historical circumstances of the time in which he has chosen his subject; that, where he introduces any trait of our manners, it is in the wrong place, and that he confounds the customs of our age with those of much more remote periods.

I can only say that the charge is infinitely more applicable to Homer, Virgil, and Tasso.


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