ease us. And in the classical literature of Greece and Rome, as in
the classics of the last century, the essentially classical element is
that quality of order in beauty which they possess, indeed, in a
pre-eminent degree."[6] "The charm, then, of what is classical in art or
literature is that of the well-known tale, to which we can nevertheless
listen over and over again, because it is told so well. To the absolute
beauty of its form is added the accidental, tranquil charm of
familiarity."

On the other hand, he defines the romantic characteristics in art as
consisting in "the addition of strangeness to beauty"--a definition which
recalls Bacon's saying, "There is no excellent beauty that hath not some
strangeness in the proportion." "The desire of beauty," continues Pater,
"being a fixed element in every artistic organization, it is the addition
of curiosity to this desire of beauty that constitutes the romantic
temper." This critic, then, would not confine the terms _classic_ and
_classicism_ to the literature of Greece and Rome and to modern works
conceived in the same spirit, although he acknowledges that there are
certain ages of the world in which the classical tradition predominates,
_i.e._, in which the respect for authority, the love of order and
decorum, the disposition to follow rules and models, the acceptance of
academic and conventional standards overbalance the desire for
strangeness and novelty. Such epochs are, _e.g._, the Augustan age of
Rome, the _Siecle de Louis XIV_, in France, the times of Pope and Johnson
in England--indeed, the whole of the eighteenth century in all parts of
Europe.

Neither would he limit the word _romantic_ to work conceived in the
spirit of the Middle Ages. "The essential elements," he says, "of the
romantic spirit are curiosity and the love of beauty; and it is as the
accidental effect of these qualities only, that it seeks the Middle Ages;
because in the overcharged atmosphere of the Middle Age there are
unworked sources of romantic effect, of a strange beauty to be won by
strong imagination out of things unlikely or remote." "The sense in
which Scott is to be called a romantic writer is chiefly that, in
opposition to the literary tradition of the last century, he loved
strange adventure and sought it in the Middle Age."

Here again the essayist is careful to explain that there are certain
epochs which are predominately romantic. "Outbreaks of this spirit come
n