Second Romantic Period of English Literature. 153 



pleasure, and the Abyssinian maid whose song is of Mount Abora. 

 All these are strange, all are touched with the mystery of the 

 Spiritual. 



The knight of Romance has 



" His lance tipped o' the hammered flame, 

 His shield is beat o' the moonlight oold, 

 And his spurs are won in the middle world 

 A thousand fathom beneath the mould. 



And when the Classicist demurs, " But this is not the real world 

 you sing of," the Romanticist replies, "Ah! yes, the real world! 

 Now what is the real world. Don't you think that is a question 

 for the metaphysicians?" Dear me! says the metaphysician in 

 turn : Dear me ! the real world ! To be sure ! The Real world ! 

 Now do you know this is very interesting. That is just what we 

 metaphysicians have been trying to find out for the past few 

 thousand years. But we are getting on: we confidently promise 

 you a pronouncement by not later than, say, the Greek Kalends. 

 The case is closed, my classic brother, says the Romantic poet : 

 the case is closed — Sanctus Petrus dixit. From now to, well, 

 say the Greek Kalends you may, if you care, 



" Sway about upon a rocking-horse, and think it Pegasus." 



We shall continue to write poetry. 



In the world of letters as in the world of life the problem of 

 origins is puzzling. The problem of the origin of the Second 

 Romantic Movement is no exception to the rule. The doctrine 

 of the Hour and the Man carries you but a little way, if indeed 

 at all. It is perhaps not quite unsound, and it is admittedly 

 prudent, but that is the most one can say for it. One school of' 

 critics views it as an English version of a great European move- 

 ment — a mo/ement due to a curious and indefinable feeling of 

 dissatisfaction, comparable perhaps to the feeling of unrest 

 \Vhich, in the fourth and fifth centuries gave rise to what has 

 become known as The Wandering of the Nations. As such, 

 these critics contend, English Romanticism had its peculiar 

 strength and its peculiar limitations, and they labour these points 

 to establish the thesis. Gosse, on the other hand, is one of a 

 school which maintains that the movements were parallel but not 

 correlated. "The wind of revolt" — I quote Gosse — "passing 



