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time at which the distinctive qualities of the old Greek genius began to be truly appreciated by moderns: this was due chiefly to such men as Lessing and Winckelmann in the province of art, to Goethe and Schiller in literature. Meanwhile the Romantic school had arisen, seeking an ideal, but recoiling from the Latin classicism hitherto prevalent, and seeking refuge in the middle ages. The Romanticists had little sympathy with the Greek desire for light and clearness; they were more inclined to be mystical; mediaeval art as inspired by Catholicism, and national legend with its chivalrous or magical lore, gave them their favourite material. With us in England, at the beginning of the century, the Romantic school was dominant. Walter Scott's mighty genius showed from the first its native affinity with romance: when he was a youth at the University of Edinburgh, he could not be induced to learn Greek; but he learned Italian, and maintained that Ariosto was better than Homer. Towards the end of his life, when he went to Italy, he showed no interest in the classical antiquities; but delighted in Malta as associated with the Knights of St John. Scott remains the most signal embodiment in our literature of the romantic, as contrasted with the classical, tendency. Then came Byron, a force too individual and too volcanic to be described under the name of a school, but making, on the whole, for romanticism; identified, in his last years, with Greece, and masterly in his description of its natural beauties,