taking to things which are impotent to reward the attention they catch.  And thus men of such taste, or rather such want of taste, naturally fall in with the genius of sensationalism; which, whatever form it takes on, soon wears that form out, and has no way to sustain itself in life but by continual transmigration.  Wherever it fixes, it has to keep straining higher and higher:  under its rule, what was exciting yesterday is dull and insipid to-day; while the excess of to-day necessitates a further excess to-morrow; and the inordinate craving which it fosters must still be met with stronger and stronger emphasis, till at last exhaustion brings on disgust, or the poor thing dies from blowing so hard as to split its cheeks.

It is for these reasons, no doubt, that no artist or poet who aims at present popularity, or whose mind is possessed with the spirit of such popularity, ever achieves lasting success.  For the great majority of men at any one time have always preferred, and probably always will prefer, that which is disproportioned, and especially that which violates the law of moral proportion.  This, however, is not because the multitude have no true sense of the Beautiful, but because that sense is too slow in their minds to prevent their being caught and carried away by that which touches them at lower points.  Yet that sense is generally strong enough to keep them from standing to the objects of their present election; so that it is ever drawing them back one by one to the old truth from which the new falsehood withdrew them.  Thus, however the popular current of the day may set, the judgment of the wise and good will ultimately give the law in this matter; and in that judgment the aesthetic and the moral conscience will ever be found to coincide.  So that he who truly works upon the principle, “Fit audience let me find, though few,” will in the long run have the multitude too:  he will not indeed be their first choice, but he will be their last:  their first will be ever shifting its objects, but their last will stand firm.  For here we may justly apply the aphoristic saying of Burke:  “Man is a most unwise and most wise being:  the individual is foolish; the multitude is foolish for the moment, when they act without deliberation; but the species is wise.”

I have said that in the legislation of Art the moral sense and reason must not only have a voice, but a prerogative voice:  I have also said that a poet must not be required to teach better morals than those of Nature and Providence.  Now the law of moral proportion in Art may be defeated as well by overworking the moral element as by leaving it out or by making too little of it.  In other words, redundancy of conscience is quite as bad here as deficiency; in some respects it is even worse, because its natural effect is to set us on our guard against the subtle invasions of pious fraud:  besides, the deficiency we can make up for ourselves, but the evil of such suspicions