to prolong its reminders. The presence of the
corpse was pollution. No Greek could have conceived such a book as the
"Hydriotaphia" or the "Anatomy of Melancholy."

It is observable that Dr. Hedge is at one with Pater, in desiring some
more philosophical statement of the difference between classic and
romantic than the common one which makes it simply the difference between
the antique and the medieval. He says: "It must not be supposed that
ancient and classic, on one side, and modern and romantic, on the other,
are inseparably one; so that nothing approaching to romantic shall be
found in any Greek or Roman author, nor any classic page in the
literature of modern Europe. . . The literary line of demarcation is not
identical with the chronological one." And just as Pater says that the
Odyssey is more romantic than the Iliad, so Dr. Hedge says that "the
story of Cupid and Psyche,[15] in the 'Golden Ass' of Apuleius, is as
much a romance as any composition of the seventeenth or eighteenth
century." Medievalism he regards as merely an accident of romance:
Scott, as most romantic in his themes, but Byron, in his mood.

So, too, Mr. Sidney Colvin[16] denies that "a predilection for classic
subjects . . . can make a writer that which we understand by the word
classical as distinguished from that which we understand by the word
romantic. The distinction lies deeper, and is a distinction much less of
subject than of treatment. . . In classical writing every idea is called
up to the mind as nakedly as possible, and at the same time as
distinctly; it is exhibited in white light, and left to produce its
effect by its own unaided power.[17] In romantic writing, on the other
hand, all objects are exhibited, as it were, through a colored and
iridescent atmosphere. Round about every central idea the romantic
writer summons up a cloud of accessory and subordinate ideas for the sake
of enhancing its effect, if at the risk of confusing its outlines. The
temper, again, of the romantic writer is one of excitement, while the
temper of the classical writer is one of self-possession. . . On the one
hand there is calm, on the other hand enthusiasm. The virtues of the one
style are strength of grasp, with clearness and justice of presentment;
the virtues of the other style are glow of the spirit, with magic and
richness of suggestion." Mr. Colvin then goes on to enforce and
illustrate this contrast between the "accurate and firm