And I will begin by saying that soundness in this respect is the corner-stone of all artistic excellence.  Virtue, or the loving of worthy objects, and in a worthy manner, is most assuredly the highest interest of mankind;—­an interest so vital and fundamental, that nothing which really conflicts with it, or even postpones it to any other regards, can possibly stand the test of any criticism rooted in the principles of human nature.  To offend in this point is indeed to be guilty of all:  things must be substantially right here, else there can be nothing right about them.  So that, if an author’s moral teaching or moral influence be essentially bad; or even if it be materially loose and unsound, so as to unstring the mind from thinking and doing that which is right; nay, even if it be otherwise than positively wholesome and elevating as a whole; then I more than admit that no amount of seeming intellectual or poetical merit ought to shield his workmanship from reprobation, and this too on the score of art.  But then, on the other hand, I must insist that our grounds of judgment in this matter be very large and liberal; and that to require or to expect a poet to teach better morals than are taught by Nature and Providence argues either a disqualifying narrowness of mind in us, or else a certain moral valetudinarianism which poetry is not bound to respect.  For a poet has a right to the benefit of being tried by the moral sense and reason of mankind:  it is indeed to that seat of judgment that every great poet virtually appeals; and the verdict of that tribunal must be an ultimate ruling to us as well as to him.

But one of the first things to be considered here is the natural relation of Morality to Art.  Now I believe Art cannot be better defined than as the creation or the expression of the Beautiful.  And truth is the first principle of all Beauty.  But when I say this, I of course imply that truth which the human mind is essentially constituted to receive as such.  And in that truth the moral element holds, constitutionally, the foremost place.  I mean, that the human mind draws and cannot but draw to that point, in so far as it is true to itself:  for the moral consciousness is the rightful sovereign in the soul of man, or it is nothing; it cannot accept a lower seat without forfeiting all its rights, and disorganizing the whole intellectual house.  So that a thing cannot be morally false and artistically true at the same time.  And in so far as any workmanship sins in the former kind, just so far, whatever other elements of the Beautiful it may have, it still lacks the very bond of order which is necessary, to retain them in power; nay, the effect of those other elements is to cultivate a taste which the whole thing fails to satisfy; what of true beauty is present tends to awaken a craving for that part which is wanting.