64 JOURNAL»~AND PROCEEDINGS. 
full of fire. The young poets are somewhat weakly ; he is strong. 
The young poets are rather ignorant ; his knowledge is great. The 
young poets mumble books; he devours them. The young poets 
dally with their subject ; he strikes its heart. The young poets are 
still their own heroes; he sees but the chiefs he celebrates. The 
young poets weave dreams with shadows transitory as clouds without 
substance ; he builds realities lasting as rocks. The young poets 
steal from all and sundry, and deny their thefts ; he robs inthe face 
of dav. Whom? Homer. Sir Walter would have rejoiced in 
Horatius as if he had been a doughty Douglas. 
“Now by our sire Quirinus 
It was a goodly sight 
To see the thirty standards 
Swept down the tide of flight.’ 
That is the way of doing business; a cut and a thrust style, 
without any flourish. Scott’s style when his blood was up, and the first 
words came like a vanguard impatient for battle.” Those were 
hearty words from an opponent, the.amende honorable for prior 
disparagement. Such praise was high ; but it has been sustained by 
two generations of readers. Sir G. ©. Trevelyan, nephew and 
biographer of Macaulay, says, in his uncle’s life, that to June 1875 
upwards of a hundred thousand copies of the ballads had passed 
into the hands of readers. That indicates the existence of a 
healthier public taste than moaning pessimists would willingly admit 
can be found. Many a schoolboy knows by heart the response of 
Horatius to the Consul’s appeal to hold the bridge and save the 
town, when he spake out : 
* To every man upon this earth, 
Death cometh soon or late, 
And how can man die better _ 
Than facing fearful odds, 
For the ashes of his fathers 
And the temples of his gods. 
And for the tender mother, 
Who dandled him to rest, 
And for the wife who nurses 
His baby at her breast.” 
* %* * * He and two comrades kept the foe in play : 
‘‘ For Romans in Rome’s quarrel 
Spared neither land nor gold, 
Nor son, nor wife, nor limb nor life, 
In the brave days of old. 
