Excerpt from The Great English Masters However, it is true, that each epoch of history of any of the civilized nations, has seen a certain amount of art, but an art only, which was created by the art of the time the new art, which in universal history, alone can be considered. Each nation is limited in its character and in its creative powers. As soon as everybody, living in its midst, has brought out everything in his ability, something new must take the vacated place, something, which may possess peculiarities with new possibilities, with enough saved-up force, to realize them too. Other nationalities will perhaps follow, because this novel art will satisfy their longing, or because it lies so much in the line of that general developement, which, so mysteriously ties together mankind of a certain period. This principle may be expressed also in the Following manner: The demands of an era are felt irrespective of nationality, but one nation only is always predestined to fulfil these demands. The English nation was the predestined one in the eighteenth century. It was a period of universal revolutions, not simply changes, such as are demanded by each generation, but revolutions, demanding a new standard of humanity, the modern humanity and all forms of life and art, had to be revised from the beginning. The civilisation upon the Continent, presided over by France, was beautiful and rich, but sterile. A finish, such as was demanded by the future could be obtained only, from England. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.