There can never be another Jacob's Dream. Since that time, the heavens
have gone farther off, and grown astronomical. They have become averse
to the imagination; nor will they return to us on the squares of the
distances, or on Doctor Chalmers's Discourses. Rembrandt's picture
brings the matter nearer to us. It is not only the progress of
mechanical knowledge, but the necessary advances of civilization, that
are unfavourable to the spirit of poetry. We not only stand in less
awe of the preternatural world, but we can calculate more surely, and
look with more indifference, upon the regular routine of this. The
heroes of the fabulous ages rid the world of monsters and giants. At
present we are less exposed to the vicissitudes of good or evil, to
the incursions of wild beasts or "bandit fierce", or to the unmitigated
fury of the elements. The time has been that "our fell of hair would
at a dismal treatise rouse, and stir as life were in it". But the
police spoils all; and we now hardly so much as dream of a midnight
murder. _Macbeth_ is only tolerated in this country for the sake of
the music; and in the United States of America, where the philosophical
principles of government are carried still further in theory and
practice, we find that the _Beggar's Opera_ is hooted from the stage.
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