xternal history of poetical forms: and it would be great
presumption in me to attempt a review of his work. But it is so
eminently suggestive, and to my mind so valuable as a study for verse
writers of the present day, that I have ventured to place this book in
the foreground of an attempt to sketch rapidly some clear outline of
the conditions and the essential qualities of heroic poetry, which is
too commonly regarded as an easy off-hand kind of versification,
largely made up of dash, glowing words, and warlike clatter; although
in reality nothing is more rare or difficult than success in it.

We may say, then, that the first heroic poets and tale-tellers were
those who related the deeds and sufferings, the life and death of the
mighty men of earlier times; and that their verse was the embodiment
of the living traditions of men and manners. They were bards and
chroniclers who lived close enough to the age of which they wrote to
understand and keep touch with it--an age when battles and adventures
were ordinary incidents in the annals of a tribe, a city, or a
country--when valour, skill at arms, and a stout heart were supremely
important, being almost the only virtues that led to high distinction
and a great career. Heroic poetry of the higher kind could not exist
in a period of mere barbarism, for among barbarous folk there is no
art of poetic form. It could not have arisen before the people were so
far civilised as to have among them artistic singers or story-tellers
who gave fine and forcible expression to the acts they celebrated or
the scenes they described.

The old heroic poets were neither too near to the time of which they
sung or wrote, nor too far from it; and this gave them another special
advantage, they had a good audience. The song, or the story, must have
often been recited before listeners to whom the whole subject was more
or less familiar, who knew the facts and ways of war, the true aspect
and usages of a rough and perilous existence. They were too well
acquainted, at any rate, with such things to be captivated by vague
imaginative descriptions of fighting and refined chivalrous methods of
dealing with a mortal foe, such as are found in the later Romance.
Among primitive folk there would have been no taste for fantastic,
allegoric, and extravagant though highly poetical accounts of
valorous exploits by noble knights, with their tournaments and their
adventures with giants, dwarfs, or enchanters. The