the cause of a literary age, but only its correlative? That when the
old Greeks lost the power of being free, of being anything but the
slaves of oriental despots, as the Ptolemies in reality were, they lost
also the power of producing true works of art; because they had lost
that youthful vigour of mind from which both art and freedom sprang?
Let the case be as it will, Alexandrian literature need not detain us
long--though, alas! it has detained every boy who ever trembled over his
Greek grammar, for many a weary year; and, I cannot help suspecting, has
been the main cause that so many young men who have spent seven years in
learning Greek, know nothing about it at the end of the seven. For I
must say, that as far as we can see, these Alexandrian pedants were
thorough pedants; very polished and learned gentlemen, no doubt, and,
like Callimachus, the pets of princes: but after all, men who thought
that they could make up for not writing great works themselves, by
showing, with careful analysis and commentation, how men used to write
them of old, or rather how they fancied men used to write them; for,
consider, if they had really known how the thing was done, they must
needs have been able to do it themselves. Thus Callimachus, the
favourite of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and librarian of his Museum, is the
most distinguished grammarian, critic, and poet of his day, and has for
pupils Eratosthenes, Apollonius Rhodius, Aristophanes of Byzantium, and
a goodly list more. He is an encyclopaedia in himself. There is
nothing the man does not know, or probably, if we spoke more correctly,
nothing he does not know about. He writes on history, on the Museum, on
barbarous names, on the wonders of the world, on public games, on
colonisation, on winds, on birds, on the rivers of the world, and--
ominous subject--a sort of comprehensive history of Greek literature,
with a careful classification of all authors, each under his own
heading. Greek literature was rather in the sere and yellow leaf, be
sure, when men thought of writing that sort of thing about it. But