The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1878-10-17
Ingerson on the Poets Of the Past.
n New York Graphic. 4

Colonel lngers0ll is very brilliant
talker. He is certain to be interesting
on any topic and to obtain and retain
the attention of any audience he may
address. And yet the Coloneps Sc
lection of topics is limited. On Hall
and the Democratic party he is sure to
be amusing, even if he is irreverent.
On some subjects the Colonel is not
only amusing but instructive, as in his
recent brilliant conversation on Stat
money" and prosperity by act of Con-
gress. But, when he leaves his beaten
path and walks field into the domain
OF literature and art, he continues to
make himself ridiculous, aud make the
more instructed of his audience laugh at
him when he imagines that they are
laughing with him. -
In his lecture on Burns, delivered in
this city last evening, IngersolI con-
trived to astonish his auditors by run
ming a. muck against all the poets and
artists Of the past, against all that time
and the general comment of the most
civilized members of the human family
have declared to be worthy Of ven
Grafton. The old painters were no true
artists, according to the eulogist of
Burns. The old poets-Horace and the
rest-amount, to nothing. If "Bob"
would only descend to it, he could
throw off such pretended poem as the
/" lliad or Odyssey" at sitting.
Virgil, too, is a mere pretender. These
ancient poets did not mean what they
said, and the orator gave up his own
measure in this declaration: "Such
poetry saever did, and never will, touch
the hearts of men," Let all men be
liars that Bob" may be true. Petrach
is no poet, only a hollow sentimentalist.
Ingersol has yard stick to measure
human nature, and all that is longer or
shorter than it is neatly disposed of as
!" unnatural" He does not believe in
the supernatural, and men who did and
do are hypocrits and liars. Dante is no
poet. He deserves credit for having
put Pope in hell, but otherwise, the
poets corner of any of the prairie week
lies contains in single issue more real
poetry than the whole of the Divine
Comedy Milton, too, is mere word
Eslinger. He had the misfortune to be-
lieve in God and collect the militia of
heaven together, and these are offenses
that Ingersoll cannot forgive. He read
Milton once, but it never occurred to
him that there was anything in "Para-
disc Lost he could not appreciate the
true value of at first perusal. Inger-
soil cracked jokes and made his con-
fession Of his intellectual shortcomings
and ignorance amusing. But that is
all. As a joke it is pardonable, as q Sc
rious criticism, the Colonel's diatribe is
the shallowest which has been pub
Eshed since Nahum Tate proposed to
reform Shakspeare's "King7 Lear"
which he declared to be full of pearls
but unstrung. The abuse of Milton is
all the more reprehensible, because Col
onel Ingersoll is now enjoying under his
own vine and fig tree the liberty of
printing and talking without the inter-
yention of a censor, which John Milton
toiled hard to win. Burns is deserving
of all praise, but what he did for free
dom is small indeed when compared
| with what the poet of Paradise Lost did.
Milton never drew sword, but he was
a real her6-a fghter-a man who, in
tolerant in some respects, did as much
to place English liberty on an enduring
basis as any other one man. That man
must be completely given over TO anti
theological intolerance, who would ig.
| more Milton's claims on our veneration
as one of the apostles of liberty, merely
because he does not like his creed. In
fact, all IngersolPs opinions On rtand
antiquity are but the reflections of his
atheism and materialism. The poets Of
the world-Homer, Dante, -Milton-be-
lieved in the supernatural. hence they
were not great.