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many phases. No period has been without it, though the esteem in which
it is held has varied a good deal from age to age. English literature is
strong in romance; there is something in the English temper which makes
scepticism ungrateful to it, and disposes it to treat even dreams
seriously. Chaucer, who laughed at the romantic writers of his day, yet
gave a new lease of life to Romance in _Troilus and Cressida_ and _The
Knightes Tale_. Many of the poets of the seventeenth century chose
romantic themes for their most serious work; if Davenant and Chamberlayne
and others had been as successful as they were ambitious, they would have
anticipated the Revival of Romance. Even in the age of Pope, the old
romance subjects were still popular, though they were celebrated in books
which have long been forgotten. Everyone who has studied the Troy legend
of the Middle Ages knows how great a share in the popularization of the
legend belongs to the Sicilian lawyer, Guido delle Colonne, who
summarized, in the dull style of a Latin chronicle, and without
acknowledgment, the brilliant _Roman de Troie_ which the French poet,
Benoit de Sainte-More had written for Queen Eleanor of England. Guide's
matter-of-fact compilation had an enormous vogue; Chaucer, Lydgate, and
Shakespeare treated it as an authority; and Caxton translated it into
English prose. Through all the changes of fashion Caxton's version
continued in esteem; it was repeatedly revised and reissued; and, in the
very age of Pope, found what was doubtless a large public under the title
_The Destruction of Troy_, _In Three Books . . . With many Admirable Acts
of Chivalry and Martial Prowess_, _effected by Valiant Knights_, _in the
Defence and Love of distressed Ladies. The Thirteenth Edition_,
_Corrected and much Amended_. London, _Printed for Eben. Tracey_, _at
the Three Bibles on London-Bridge_. _1708_. In the underworld of
literature Romance never died out. The Revival of Romance took its
special character from a gradual and powerful reaction against Dryden and
Pope and all those masters of Classical method who, during half a
century, had legislated for English poetry. It began very early in the
eighteenth century, long before the death of Pope. No sooner did a
dynasty of moralists and satirists claim possession of the high places,
and speak in the name of English literature, than all the other interests
and kinds, which survived among the people, began to ran