nd; she has no lessons in form to give,
which, like some of Italy's, have not been improved upon to this day;
she cannot, like Germany, boast a great quantity of work of equal
accomplishment and inspiration; least of all has she the astonishing
fertility and the unceasing _maestria_ of France. But she has practice
and promise, she is doing something more than "going to begin," and
her one great achievement has (it cannot well be too often repeated)
the inestimable and unmistakable quality of being itself and not
something else, in spirit if not in scheme, in character if not quite
in form. It would be no consolation for the loss of the _Cid_ that we
have _Beowulf_ and _Roland_ and the _Nibelungen_--they would not fill
its place, they do not speak with its voice. The much-abused and
nearly meaningless adjective "Homeric" is here, in so far as it has
any meaning, once more appropriate. Of the form of Homer there is
little: of the vigour, the freshness, the poetry, there is much.

CHAPTER X.

CONCLUSION.

It is now time to sum up, as may best be done, the results of this
attempt to survey the Literature of Europe during one, if not of its
most accomplished, most enlightened, or most generally admired
periods, yet assuredly one of the most momentous, the most
interesting, the fullest of problem and of promise. Audacious as the
attempt itself may seem to some, inadequate as the performance may be
pronounced by others, it is needless to spend much more argument in
urging its claim to be at least tried on the merits. All varieties of
literary history have drawbacks almost inseparable from their schemes.
The elaborate monograph, which is somewhat in favour just now, is
exposed to the criticism, not quite carping, that it is practically
useless without independent study of its subject, and practically
superfluous with it. The history of separate literatures, whether in
portion or in whole, is always liable to be charged with omissions or
with disproportionate treatment within its subject, with want of
perspective, with "blinking," as regards matters without. And so such
a survey as this is liable to the charge of being superficial, or of
attempting more than it can possibly cover, or of not keeping the due
balance between its various provinces and compartments.

It must be for others to say how such a charge, in the present case,
is helped by _laches_ or incompetence on the part of the surveyor. But
enough has, I ho