viii INTRODUCTION. 



Had Greek literature perished, its renown would have left 

 abundant traces in the literature of Rome. If Latin literature 

 had disappeared, we should hardly have been aware of the loss. 

 How infinitely would our knowledge be extended if Greece had 

 played the part of an active and busy critic, if we had 

 known what a Greek Quintilian thought of a Latin Homer or 

 Thucydides, and been able to read a Caesar with the eyes of 

 an Arrian ! 



This strange insensibility is at this day a thing of the past. 

 Every civilised nation now takes a warm interest in the 

 literature of its sister peoples, and each is more or less able to 

 see itself in its literary aspect as it is seen by others. The rapid 

 conquest which Russian and Norwegian novels have recently 

 made of the circulating libraries of all nations is one of the 

 phenomena of the age, and an Italian critic has just awarded 

 the palm of contemporary love poetry to a Portuguese. Differ 

 ences of national taste and habit form, of course, serious 

 obstacles to adequate recognition. We English necessarily 

 suffer from our insularity, the cheap price of our independence. 

 Some of our great writers have indeed beaten down all 

 opposition, and made good their place in universal literature. 

 But we have still to deplore that the Continent which has 

 accepted Shakespeare, Scott, and Byron, and is slowly 

 familiarising itself with Wordsworth and Shelley, which has 

 adopted Dickens and Thackerary and tries to digest George 

 Eliot, remains as a whole deaf and blind to Keats, Browning, 

 and Landor ; to Borrow and De Quincey and Patmore ; accords 

 no welcome to the young genius of a Shorthouse or a Jefferies, 

 and adds the last sensational tales of the day to its cheap 

 reprints with as much satisfaction as it includes a Bronte or a 

 Meredith. This scarcely seems the case with any other country. 

 Elsewhere the success of the national author among foreigners 

 appears fairly proportioned to the recognition he has obtained at 

 home. We alone complain that the fame of much of our best 

 authorship is local, or at least should have to make that com 

 plaint, but for a circumstance which turns the balance in our 

 favour. 



