Page:Studies of a Biographer 4.djvu/71

Madoc was the best English poem since Paradise Lost. 'This is not exaggerated praise, for unfortunately there is no competition.' Madoc must, indeed, be compared with the Odyssey, not with the Iliad but it is a good poem, and must live. He objects to being called the 'sublimest poet of the age,' for on that point Wordsworth and Landor are 'at least his equals.' But this statement is not to be suspected of 'mock-modesty,' as he sufficiently proves by adding that he 'will have done greater things than either,' though not because he possesses 'greater powers.' In fact, there are different classes of excellence. His mind, he admits, is wholly unlike Milton's, whose proper analogue is Wordsworth. For himself, he may be fairly compared with Tasso, Virgil, or Homer. Every generation, he observes elsewhere, will afford some half-dozen admirers of Kehama, 'and the everlasting column of Dante's fame does not stand upon a wider base.' Meanwhile, he points out that contemporary popularity can only be won by compliance with the faults of the time—a consoling doctrine which he shared with Wordsworth and Landor. Unfortunately, there are other roads to unpopularity besides simple excellence. Southey, however, was able