The Project Gutenberg eBook, Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August,
1858, by Various

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Title: Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858

Author: Various

Release Date: January 7, 2004 [eBook #10626]
[Date last updated: June 12, 2005]

Language: English

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***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOLUME 2, ISSUE
10, AUGUST, 1858***

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THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

VOL. II.--AUGUST, 1858.--NO. X.

DAPHNAIDES:

OR THE ENGLISH LAUREL, FROM CHAUCER TO TENNYSON.

They in thir time did many a noble dede,
And for their worthines full oft have bore
The crown of laurer leaves on the hede,
As ye may in your olde bookes rede:
And how that he that was a conquerour
Had by laurer alway his most honour.
DAN CHAUCER: _The Flowre and the Leaf_.

It is to be lamented that antiquarian zeal is so often diverted from
subjects of real to those of merely fanciful interest. The mercurial
young gentlemen who addict themselves to that exciting department of
letters are open to censure as being too fitful, too prone to flit,
bee-like, from flower to flower, now lighting momentarily upon an
indecipherable tombstone, now perching upon a rusty morion, here
dipping into crumbling palimpsests, there turning up a tattered
reputation from heaps of musty biography, or discovering that the
brightest names have had sad blots and blemishes scoured off by the
attrition of Time's ceaseless current. We can expect little from
investigators so volatile and capricious; else should we expect the
topic we approach in this paper to have been long ago flooded with
light as of Maedler's sun, its dust dissipated, and sundry curves and
angles which still baffle scrutiny and provoke curiosity exposed even
to Gallio-llke wayfarers. It is, in fact, a neglected topic. Its
derivatives are obscure, its facts doubtful. Questions spring from
it, sucker-like, numberless, which none may answer. Why, for
instance, in apportioning his gifts among his po