hair by an amorous
young English nobleman--these were enough, in point of fact, to set whole
communities by the ears, and these are the events celebrated in _The Rape
of the Bucket_, _The Rape of the Lectern_, _The Rape of the Lock_. How
foolish it is to suppose that nature and truth are to be found in one
school of poetry to the exclusion of another! The eternal virtues of
literature are sincerity, clarity, breadth, force, and subtlety. They
are to be found, in diverse combinations, now here and now there. While
the late Latin Christian poets were bound over to Latin models--to
elegant reminiscences of a faded mythology and the tricks of a
professional rhetoric--there arose a new school, intent on making
literature real and modern. These were the Romance poets. If they
pictured Theseus as a duke, and Jason as a wandering knight, it was
because they thought of them as live men, and took means to make them
live for the reader or listener. The realism of the early literature of
the Middle Ages is perhaps best seen in old Irish. The monk bewails the
lawlessness of his wandering thoughts, which run after dreams of beauty
and pleasure during the hour of divine service. The hermit in the wood
describes, with loving minuteness, the contents of his larder. Never was
there a fresher or more spontaneous poetry than the poetry of this early
Christian people. But it is not in the direct line of descent, for it
was written in the Celtic speech of a people who did not achieve the
government of Europe. The French romances inherited the throne, and
passed through all the stages of elaboration and decadence. They too, in
their turn, became a professional rhetoric, false and tedious. When they
ceased to be a true picture of life, they continued in esteem as a school
of manners and deportment for the fantastic gallantry of a court. Yet
through them all their Christian origin shines. Their very themes bear
witness to the teaching of Christian asceticism and Christian idealism.
The quest of a lady never seen; the temptations that present themselves
to a wandering knight under the disguise of beauty and ease;--these, and
many other familiar romantic plots borrow their inspiration from the same
source. Not a few of the old fairy stories, preserved in folk-lore, are
full of religious meaning--they are the Christian literature of the Dark
Ages. Nor is it hard to discern the Christian origins of later Romantic
poetry. Pope's mo