Second Romantic Period of English Literature. 149 



born again. It was a struggle against tiie prim traditions of the 

 18th century, when to be "correct " was to be great, and to be 

 "elegant " was to be god-like. But it was more than this. It 

 was the expression of the soul that the sanctions which had made 

 and moulded society are not absolute and unchangeable, but 

 relative and mundane, and ephemeral and subject to higher sanc- 

 tion, the sanctions of unseen powers that work beneath and 

 behind the things which are seen and temporal. This is the true 

 Romance, whereof it is written 



Time hath no tide but must abide 



The servant of thy Will ; 

 Tide hath no time, for to thy rhyme 



The ranging stars stand still. 



Much of what pa.sses for Literary Criticism thinks it has 

 exhausted a poem when it has discussed the form and traversed 

 the record of the subject-matter. There is a tertium quid, how- 

 ever, of which more anon. The average critic is content to con- 

 fine himself to such details as diction, metre rhythm, and so 

 forth. Now I do not wish here to raise the question whether 

 there be a canon of Literary Criticism, or whether Moliere's 

 housekeeper is, after all, the final court of appeal. That, as 

 Kipling would say, is another story. 



To resume: Form, the manner in which a poet handles 

 metre, is the outward distinction between the Classic and the 

 Romantic poem. In 1667 the old blind schoolmaster, John 

 Milton, published a tedious poem on the Fall of Man. Thus 

 Waller. This " tedious poem " was written in blank verse, char- 

 acterised thus by an eminent critic : — " The most sonorous 

 passages commence and terminate with interrupted lines, includ- 

 ing in one organic structure, periods, parentheses, and para- 

 graphs of fluent melody ; the harmonies are wrought by subtle 

 and most complex alliterative systems, by delicate changes in the 

 length and volume of syllables, and by the choice of names 

 magnificent for their mere gorgeousness of sound. In these 

 structures there are many pauses which enable the ear and voice 

 to rest themselves, but none is perfect, none satisfies the want 

 created by the opening hemistich until the final and deliberate 

 close is reached." 



All through the 18th century was waged a fierce contro- 



