Romance, so modern criticism proclaims, is in no wise incompatible with the temper of the heroic epic. As in tragedy moments of poignant emotion are at once heightened and relieved by the introduction of comedy, so in epic a classic clearness of outline and tranquillity of mood are rendered doubly effective when contrasted with the mystery and magic of romance. Nowhere is this more clearly illustrated than in the second adventure of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf, in which the hero does battle with a supernatural monster far away from the haunts of men. The scene shifts suddenly from the realistic setting at the Danish court, and the very air grows heavy with baleful suggestion,—just as when the lights and feasting of the Wartburg are left behind and the mountain in which Venus holds her revels looms up at twilight. “That,” says the Anglo-Saxon poet, “is an uncanny place.” The situation grows tense with a new horror, not felt even in the earlier scene when the demon Grendel, creeping through the mists of evening, invades once too often the hall of the Danes. The element of strangeness is added to beauty, with marvellous effect.

In an essay on Sophocles and Shakespeare, the late Professor John Churton Collins makes, about the latter's use of the motive of suicide, some striking remarks which have hitherto, I believe, been allowed to pass unchallenged. The attitude of the two dramatists toward the crime is, he says, exactly similar:

In the Publications of the Modern Language Association for June, 1911, Miss Mabel M. Keiller points out an interesting case of parallelism between the ground-tilling episode in the Macro play of Mankind and the “half-acre” episode in Piers Plowman, A Text, Passus VII (B Text, Passus VIII). After citing parallel incidents and passages Miss Keiller concludes: “Whatever may be thought of the significance of some of these instances, there seems to be no escape from the conclusion that the plot of Mankind depended for its central situation, its characters, its surroundings and general trend of thought on the greatest of English allegories.”

In an attempt to discuss the influence of Greene on Shakspere, there are two points to be determined: first, what were the distinct characteristics of Greene's romantic comedy, and second, which of these appear in Shakspere's work in such a way as to suggest indebtedness to Greene? To ascertain either of these, preceding and contemporaneous comedy and the sources of the works of both dramatists must, of course, be taken into consideration.

The comment made by the exemplary Clerk of Oxenford upon those ribald tales of the Miller and the Reeve, is eloquent silence. Out of the fund of his ‘moral vertu’ he might, of course, have drawn a sharp rebuke or at least a grave remonstrance, ‘full of hy sentence’; but unless he were at that time studying ‘aboute som sophyme,‘ he contented himself with silent meditation upon our old sins, so light-heartedly exploited for the entertainment of those whose road led to the shrine of the martyred saint. He knew that often silence is golden and words but sounding brass. As clearly appears in that conversation with Harry Bailey which precedes the tale of Griselda, he himself possessed much of that gracious forbearance, which he very nobly celebrated:

‘Hoste,’ quod he, ‘I am under your yerde
Ye han of us, as now, the governance.’

The liberal use that historians of the French language have made in recent years of the Académie de l'Art poëtique of Pierre de Deimier, arouses interest in the work itself. M. Brunot, in his admirable Histoire de la Langue française, resumes his criticism of the Académie with the words: “Bref, ce livre fait un contraste complet avec ceux qui l'ont précédé.” A study of the sources of Deimier shows, however, that the contrast is far from complete. Whatever contrast exists, lies largely, not in the principles of the doctrine, but in the interpretation and application of these principles.

Among the many forms of poetic composition cultivated by the troubadours of Provence during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, one of the most distinctive is that listed in the Leys d'Amors under the name enueg. This word, a Provençal form of the Latin inodium, means literally ‘vexation,’ or ‘that which is vexing;’ and technically it designates a poem which treats the annoyances of life from mere trifles to serious insults, from improprieties at the table to serious misdemeanors. This kind of poem, differing essentially in subject matter from the conventional erotic poetry of the time, belongs rather to that class known as sirventés; poetry which treats public or private affairs with either praise or censure. Like many of the sirventés, the enueg has now and then a didactic purpose; but in most cases the poet voices his own likes or dislikes without any ulterior motive.

In my former paper, I have shown that the languages of our family commonly studied in our schools and colleges possess a mood that has the power of expressing volition on the one hand, and mere anticipation on the other; and that, in Latin, Romance, and Germanic, this double power was inherited from the distinct mood, called subjunctive, of the parent speech. In the course of the demonstration, I gave illustrations of some of the volitive and anticipatory uses which may clearly be recognized.