tradition, Teutonic feeling, and Teutonic thought had
the first claim on English and German poets. And
those among them will deserve best of the modern
world, and will receive the warmest welcome from it,
who will follow Shakespeare in modelling into forms of
beauty the inheritance which has come down to them
of the actions of their own race. So most faithfully,
if least directly, they will be treading in the steps
of those great poets of Greece whom they desire to
imitate. Homer and Sophocles did not look beyond
their own traditions and their own beliefs; they
found in these and these only their exclusive and
abundant material. Have the Gothic annals suddenly
become poor, and our own quarries become exhausted
and worthless?

____


WORDS ABOUT OXFORD

Many long years had passed since I visited Oxford,--
some twenty-eight or more. I had friends among the
resident members of that venerable domicile of learning.
Pleasant had been the time that I had spent there, of
which intervening years had not diminished the remembrance
--perhaps heightened the tone of its colouring.
On many accounts I regarded that beautiful city with
affectionate veneration. There were more than local
attractions to render it interesting. There were the