erated by us.

I am not persuading you to despise linguistic study. _All_ learning is
venerable.

I am not persuading you to behave like Ascham, and turn English prose
into pedantic Latin; nor would I have you doubt that in the set quarrel
between Campion, who wished to divert English verse into strict classical
channels, and Daniel, who vindicated our free English way (derived from
Latin through the Provencal), Daniel was on the whole, right, Campion on
the whole, wrong: though I believe that both ways yet lie open, and we
may learn, if we study them intelligently, a hundred things from the old
classical metres.

I do not ask you to forget what there is of the Northmen in your blood.
If I desired this, I could not worship William Morris as I do, among the
later poets.

I do not ask you to doubt that the barbarian invaders from the north,
with their myths and legends, brought new and most necessary blood of
imagination into the literary material--for the time almost exhausted--of
Greece and Rome.

Nevertheless, I do contend that when Britain (or, if you prefer it,
Sleswick)

When Sleswick first at Heaven's command
Arose from out the azure main,

she differed from Aphrodite, that other foam-born, in sundry important
features of ear, of lip, of eye.

Lastly, if vehement assertions on the one side have driven me into too
vehement dissent on the other, I crave pardon; not for the dissent but
for the vehemence, as sinning against the very principle I would hold up
to your admiration--the old Greek principle of avoiding excess.

But I _do_ commend the patient study of Greek and Latin authors--in the
original or in translation--to all of you who would write English; and
for three reasons.

(1) In the first place they will correct your insularity of mind; or,
rather, will teach you to forget it. The Anglo-Saxon, it has been noted,
ever left an empty space around his houses; and that, no doubt, is good
for a house. It is not so good for the mind.

(2) Secondly, we have a tribal habit, confirmed by Protestant meditation
upon a Hebraic religion, of confining our literary enjoyment to the
written word and frowning down the drama, the song, the dance. A fairly
attentive study of modern lyrical verse has persuaded me that this
exclusiveness may be carried too far, and threatens to be deadening. 'I
will sing and give praise,' says the Scripture, 'with the best member
that I have'--meaning the tongue. But t