t the root of
Christian civilization. Even Hellenic genius might here have been at
fault, for it was a far harder task to give harmonious and complete
expression to the tendencies of a new religion and the germs of new
systems, than to frame into beauty the pagan clear-cut conceptions. The
Christian mind awoke under a fascination, and, for a time, could
only ejaculate its meanings in fragments, or hint them in vast
disproportions, could only sing snatches of new tunes. Its first signs
were gasps, rather than clear-toned notes, after the long perturbations
and preparations of history. The North and the South, the East and the
West had been mingled together; the heated and heaving mass had been
tempered by the leaven of Christianity:--and had all this been done
only to produce an octo-syllabic metre in praise of fantastic and semi-
barbaric sentiments and exploits? Had there been such commotions of the
universe only for a song? Surely these first creations of art, these
first attempts at literature, these first carvings of a rude spiritual
intensity, were only such as the Greeks may have forgotten any quantity
of before Homer came, their first glory and their oldest reminiscence.

One reason, perhaps, why mediaeval literature assumed so light and
unartistic a form was, that by necessity it could not be full-orbed.
Religion could not enter into it as a plastic element, but was fixed, a
veiled, external figure, radiating indeed color and fragrance, but
not making one of the struggling, independent vitals of the heart.
Literature could play about this figure, but could not grasp it, and
take it in among the materials to be fashioned. The Church, through
its clergy, held jealous command of divine knowledge, beneath divine
guidance, and left no developments of it possible to the lay mind, which
culminated in minstrels and romancers. The Greeks, on the contrary,
whose religion was an apotheosis of the earth, framed upwards and only
by fiction of fancy handed downwards, derived all their theology from
the poets. Prophecy and taste were combined in Homer,--Isaiah and the
king's jester in Pindar. The care of the highest, not less than the
lowest departments of thought, fell upon the creative author, and
a happy suggestion became a new article in the Hellenic creed. His
composition thus bore the burden and was hallowed by the sanctity
of piety, the key to every human perfect thing. But the Provencal
celebrators of love and chivalry