The opening of the epoch, then, was as marked in Great Britain as
elsewhere. Only in special fields she afterward fell behind, and lost
something like half the century. In others she kept abreast, or even
in advance.
Criticism was not content to exercise its new powers and apply its
newly-framed laws exclusively in the investigation of any branch of
philosophy. It brought them to bear upon the arts. The discovery of
the buried cities of Campania aided in attracting renewed attention to
the art-stores of Italy, ancient and modern. The principles of taste
and beauty which they illustrated were searchingly analyzed and
carefully explained. Painting and sculpture began slowly to emit their
rays through the eclipse of more than a century. The allied art shared
in this second and secondary renaissance. Haydn was in full fruit,
Mozart ripening, and Music watched, in the cradle of Beethoven, her
budding Shakespeare. A fourth Teuton was studying the symphonies of
the spheres; and within the first five years of the century, while
the "crowning mercy" of Yorktown was maturing, a planet that had never
before dawned on the eye of man took its place with the ancient six,
and "swam into the ken" of Herschel.
Pages:
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27