omenclature, is not an independent, but a referential
word. It implies its opposite, the classic; and the ingenuity of critics
has been taxed to its uttermost to explain and develop the numerous
points of contrast. To form a thorough conception of the romantic,
therefore, we must also form some conception of the classic. Now there
is an obvious unlikeness between the thought and art of the nations of
pagan antiquity and the thought and art of the peoples of Christian,
feudal Europe. Everyone will agree to call the Parthenon, the "Diana" of
the Louvre, the "Oedipus" of Sophocles, the orations of Demosthenes
classical; and to call the cathedral of Chartres, the walls of
Nuremberg--_die Perle des Mittelalters_--the "Legenda Aurea" of Jacobus
de Voragine, the "Tristan und Isolde" of Gottfried of Strasburg, and the
illuminations in a Catholic missal of the thirteenth century romantic.

The same unlikeness is found between modern works conceived in the
spirit, or executed in direct imitation, of ancient and medieval art
respectively. It is easy to decide that Flaxman's outline drawings in
illustration of Homer are classic; that Alfieri's tragedies, Goethe's
"Iphigenie auf Tauris" Landor's "Hellenics," Gibson's statues, David's
paintings, and the church of the Madeleine in Paris are classical, at
least in intentions and in the models which they follow; while Victor
Hugo's "Notre Dame de Paris," Scott's "Ivanhoe," Fouque's "Der
Zauberring," and Rossetti's painting, "The Girlhood of Mary," are no less
certainly romantic in their inspiration.

But critics have given a wider extension than this to the terms classic
and romantic. They have discerned, or imagined, certain qualities,
attitudes of mind, ways of thinking and feeling, traits of style which
distinguish classic from romantic art; and they have applied the words
accordingly to work which is not necessarily either antique or medieval
in subject. Thus it is assumed, for example, that the productions of
Greek and Roman genius were characterized by clearness, simplicity,
restraint, unity of design, subordination of the part to the whole; and
therefore modern works which make this impression of noble plainness and
severity, of harmony in construction, economy of means and clear,
definite outline, are often spoken of as classical, quite irrespective of
the historical period which they have to do with. In this sense, it is
usual to say that Wordsworth's "Michael" is class