CLASSICAL STUDIES IN ENGLAND 73 



much duller reading than it used to be, be- 

 cause the historian's object is now merely to 

 arrive at the truth, while it used to be to 

 annoy his political opponents. Poetry has 

 great difficulties with that problem, and paint- 

 ing too. And I do not say that as the century 

 progressed to its end this meritorious attempt 

 has not produced some remarkable and not 

 wholly pleasing results; but it is not to be de- 

 nied that the development of "realism" in 

 fiction coincided roughly in time with the 

 endeavour to read newer and truer meanings 

 into a classical literature which was accepted 

 as a matter of course from its very familiarity. 

 People began to suspect a real humanity — 

 something nearer to ourselves, and naturally 

 explainable — in what was before regarded as a 

 direct and somewhat inhuman emanation from 

 Parnassus. What our rude forefathers easily 

 accepted began to bristle with problems. 

 Homer, of course, became a mere playground 

 for critics and theorists in England, as he had 

 long been on the continent of Europe. Thucy- 

 dides had been the model historian, and 

 Herodotus the father of lies. Now, I under- 



