aught),
nevertheless gave to the English world the opportunity to become
somewhat acquainted with the incomparable poet of antiquity.

Thomson's descriptive poetry of nature found many imitators in Germany
and France, and a taste for outdoor life and simplicity became the
rage, so that some years after the author of the "Castle of Indolence"
had passed away, Marie Antoinette in her rustic bower, "Little
Trianon," pretended to like to keep sheep and pose as a shepherdess, as
has been said elsewhere.

Percy's Reliques of ancient English poetry, in 1765 opened a storehouse
of the fine old English ballads, which speedily became popular through
the patronage of Scott, who made them his textbook for a variety of
subjects. These poems, with Macpherson's "Fingal" introduced a new
school of poetry into England. The originals of Scott were these
romances of chivalry, and even Byron has not disdained to follow the
same trend in the pilgrimage of his "Childe Harold." The nineteenth
century poets and novelists do not seem to have borrowed especially
from any foreign element; but in history Niebuhr's researches in
Germany have greatly influenced Arnold in his "Roman History." The
close of the nineteenth century and opening of the twentieth is chiefly
remarkable for the interdependence of literature through the magazines
and reviews. Translations of any striking or brilliant articles are
immediately made, and appear in the magazines of different countries
almost as soon as the originals, so that the literature of the future
bids fair to become more cosmopolitan, and perhaps less strongly
directed by racial and social influence than in the past.

And yet--in studying the literature of ancient and modern times--we are
struck by the unity in diversity of its history, just as a world-wide
traveller comes to see the similarity of nature everywhere. In
literature strange analogies occur in ages and races remote from each
other, as, when the mother in the old North country Scotch ballad sings
to her child, and says:

"The wild wind is ravin,' thy minnies heart's sair,
The wild wind is ravin,' but ye dinna care."

And we find nearly the same verse in the song of Danae to the infant
Perseus:

"The salt spume that is blown o'er thy locks,
Thou heedst not, nor the roar of the gale;
Sleep babe, sleep the sea,
And sleep my sea of trouble."

There is also the story of the Greek child who in ancient times sang
nearly the same