ntic colouring
of a softer moralising age; he never wastes himself on vain
lamentations, never suggests that virtue will save you from bitter
unmerited calamity: he gives the true situation. There is one short
passage in the _Odyssey_ where the poet, merely by the way, and to
illustrate something else, lets us have a glimpse of an incident that
was probably familiar to him and his audience. He wishes to show what
he means by a burst of grief, and this he does, not by a string of
epithets, but by a picture.[19]

From the historic books of the Old Testament, particularly from the
books of Samuel and the Kings, one might take some fine specimens of
the peculiar quality distinguishing the heroic style, in prose that is
very near poetry. Nothing can be more simple than the narrative, it is
cool and quiet: there are whole chapters without an unnecessary
adjective; and yet it is most impressive, both in the drawing of such
characters as Saul, David, and Joab, who stand out dramatically, like
Homeric heroes, and in the stories of their deeds and death.

Professor Ker's essays contain a masterly and luminous survey of the
vicissitudes undergone by the songs and legends of Western and
Northern nations in the course of transmutation from the primitive
heroic stage into deliberate literary composition. The original
material never attained the grand epical form; the process was
interrupted by the advancement of learning, by ecclesiastical
influences, and by vast social changes.

'Even before the people had fairly escaped from barbarism, before
they had made a fair beginning of civilisation and of reflective
literature on their own account, they were drawn within the Empire,
within Christendom.'

A similar fate, it may here be noticed, has overtaken, or awaits, the
heroic songs of the Afghans; for Darmesteter tells us that as the oral
tradition becomes written it falls into the net of translation and
paraphrase, it is absorbed into the elegant literature of Persia,
Arabia, and Hindustan, it becomes theological and romanesque. And
another dangerous enemy has now appeared in the shape of the
Anglo-Indian schools which follow and fix the English dominion; for
the primitive folklore has no more chance against systematic education
than the wild fighting men have against drilled and disciplined
soldiers. In Europe the Sagas of Iceland, which lay furthest from the
civilising influences, had the luck of preserving th