upon British Ethnology. 
223 
It should not be forgotten that the Angles, Saxons, and 
Jutes, on the one hand, and the Scandinavians on the other, 
who are commonly classed together as Teutonic, differed 
from each other in many important respects. Mr. Matthew 
Arnold, whose book on the ‘ Study of Celtic Literature ’ was 
written shortly after the Schleswig-Holstein war, seems to 
have been amused at the long catalogues of the many points 
of unlikeness between the genius and disposition of German 
and Dane, brought forward by Germans about that time. 
This induces him to remark that “ there is a fire, a sense of 
style, a distinction in Icelandic poetry which German poetry 
has not.” He adds that the fatal humdrum and want of 
style of the Germans have marred the A ibelungen, while every¬ 
where in the poetry of the Scandinavian Edda “there is a 
force of style and a distinction as unlike as possible to the 
want of both in the German Nibelungen ” This sense for 
style, he says, the Celts have in a wonderful measure, and he 
is inclined to think the possession of it by the Scandinavians 
may perhaps be due to an early Celtic influence or inter¬ 
mixture. Speaking of English poetry Mr. Arnold remarks : 
“ If I were asked where English poetry got these three things 
—its turn for style, its turn for melancholy, and its- turn for 
natural magic, for catching and rendering the charm of 
nature in a wonderfully near and vivid way, I should answer, 
with some doubt, that it got much of its turn for style from 
a Celtic source; with less doubt, that it got much of its 
melancholy from a Celtic source ; with no doubt at all, that 
from a Celtic source it got all its natural magic.” And again, 
“ The Celt’s quick feeling for what is noble and distinguished 
gave his poetry style, his indomitable personality gave it pride 
and passion, his sensibility and nervous exaltation gave it 
a better gift still, the gift of rendering with wonderful felicity 
the magical charm of nature.” And with regard to the Celtic 
love of nature, Professor Veitcli remarks in his ‘ History and 
Poetry of the Scottish Border’:—“The Cymri, who were 
first in the district, must have had a singularly fine musical 
sense; and although we are not able always to trace the 
inner significance of their names of hill and stream and glen, 
