which characterise the best Greek art are also present in the best Greek literature. The other agency was a reaction against that conventional classicism, wearing a Latin garb, which had so long been dominant. Minds insurgent against that tyranny turned with joyous relief to the elastic freedom of the Greek intellect, to the living charm of Greek poetry and art. Goethe and Schiller are representatives of the new impulse. The great gain of the movement which thus began was that, for the first time since the Revival of Letters, the Greek originals stood out distinct from the Latin copies. Men acquired a truer sense of the Hellenic genius, and the current of Hellenic influence upon modern life began to flow in a clear channel of its own, no longer confused with the somewhat turbid stream of Renaissance classicism.
Meanwhile, however, modern literature and art had experienced the influence of other forces, acting in very different ways: and with these forces the Hellenic influence had to reckon. One of these was the product of mediæval Catholicism, which had given art a new genius. A new world of beauty had arisen, even more different from the pagan world than the Empire of the twelfth century was different from that of the first. Greek art had sprung from a free, cheerful life, open to all the bright impressions of external nature, a life warmed by frank human sympathies, and lit up with fancy controlled by reason. The lawgivers of mediæval art were men withdrawn from communion with the outward
