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Those who compare the age in which their lot has fallen with a golden age which exists only in imagination, may talk of degeneracy and decay but no man who is correctly informed as to the past, will be disposed to take a morose or desponding view of the present.

Thomas B. Macaulay

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Thomas B. Macaulay
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To sum up the whole, we should say that the aim of the Platonic philosophy was to exalt man into a god.
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Byron owed the vast influence which he exercised over his contemporaries at least as much to his gloomy egotism as to the real power of his poetry.
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Mere negation, mere Epicurean infidelity, as Lord Bacon most justly observes, has never disturbed the peace of the world. It furnishes no motive for action it inspires no enthusiasm it has no missionaries, no crusades, no martyrs.
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At present, the novels which we owe to English ladies form no small part of the literary glory of our country. No class of works is more honorably distinguished for fine observation, by grace, by delicate wit, by pure moral feeling.
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