people were too busy with each hour of life, as it came, to question the usefulness or desirability of the whole.
There is one more point to consider. Mr. Saintsbury appears to think it strange that battles, when they occur, and especially when they chance to be victories, should not immediately inspire good war songs. But this is seldom or never the case, "The Charge of the Light Brigade" being an honorable exception to the rule. Drayton's heroic ballad was written nearly two hundred years after the battle of Agincourt; Flodden is a tale of defeat; and Campbell, whose songs are so intoxicatingly warlike, belonged, I am sorry to say, to the "Peace at all price" party. The fact is that a battle fought five hundred years ago is just as inspiring to the poet as a battle fought yesterday; and a brave deed, the memory of which comes down to us through centuries, stirs our hearts as profoundly as though we witnessed it in our own time. Sarpedon, leaping lightly from his chariot to dare an unequal combat; the wounded knight, Schönburg, dragging himself painfully from amid the dead and dying to offer his silver shield to
