virtual affirmative," and with these "interstices between the reticulations" there was indeed no hope.

And so it came about that we abandoned the struggle, confident that since neither real logic, precedent, nor authority supported the enemy there must be some sinister reason reserved. In fact, as Anna Katherine Green would say, from the very first our suspicions were aroused, and we had resolved in the leisure of old age to pierce the reason that laid the ban on this brother of expression who has come down the highroad of speech in company with Greek and early Anglo-Saxon but who now finds a grammarian "no trespassing" swung across his path. But we need no longer wait-the fell secret is at last revealed. Dr. Bostwick, with all the candor of the good librarian, has settled the question with an audacity that almost takes away the breath of knowledge. Concerning our old friend, he boldly declares in a recent treatise on the neglected subject of good literature that the double negative is neither illogical nor improper, and that it is banished from our verbal realm solely because its use by the illiterate makes it the sign of a lack of education. Shades of Murray! So it was another one of those "Victorian hypocrisies" that was in truth the foundation of the whole matter. This was the real logic of pride that made our erstwhile maidenly teacher shrink from the rough, rude touch of the double negative. This was why Greek meeting Early English could not prevail. Oh, Logic, Logic, what crimes are committed in thy name! But on this ground why should we use speech at all?

Now that the good Doctor has let the secret out of the scholastic bag, what on earth are we going to do with it? If we still insist on the ban, the militant press that for years has made the use of the split infinitive a standing use will rise up and crusade for equality of speech; if we remove it the conservative press that still retains the distinction between a verb and a noun will cry aloud to the editorial heavens for a return to the old landmarks, or rather speech marks. From the press the question will spread to the public, and from the public it might in time succeed in piercing the seclusion of the university. Then picture the calamity. Professor will array himself against pro

fessor, teacher against teacher, pamphlet against pamphlet. Unhappy grammar! then will be our revenge- you will appear at last in the illustrated Sunday special. Mankind will be distracted by such articles as "Double Negatives that I Have Met," by a well-known negative-hunter; or "The Use of the Double Negative and Crime," by a popular psychologist. Happily the War of Words may be lost in the greater War of the Nations, and while we are more than busy discussing the respective merits of the gentle "dumdum" bullet and the murmuring Zeppelin bomb, we may succeed in losing the question of the double negative in the ample measure of the war dispatches. But if not even a magazine article by Brander Matthews could not

save us.

But, on the other hand, why should we be saved? We have post-impressionism in Art - why not mob-impressionism in language? Grammar, we admit, is a sacred thing, a very sacred thing, but why should an age that has succeeded in depopulating Heaven and reducing God to a mere figure of speech have any special regard to the sacredness of a thing? The very idea is antiquated. We have brought down Art from her chaste pedestal until as she departs in the distance she looks like a veritable Prude Descending the Staircase; we have made Literature the fairy godmother of breakfast-food advertisements and a whole family of similar necessities rather than the companion of the gods; we have revised morals to square, or should we say circle, with the maxixe, and we have even managed to banish modesty to make room for the changing but ever diaphanous fashions. Coming to the more serious things of life, we have broached a simplified spelling, advocated the abandonment of the "dead languages," and in place of dry academic studies are introducing sex hygiene and moving pictures. Having made this glorious advance there is no reason why we should halt before the last refuge of conservatism - grammar and the double negative. Having reached the safe and sane age of the noiseless Fourth, the horseless wagon, the smokeless powder, and the joyless life, let us press on to the higher goal of a grammarless language. In these days of the high cost of living let us show our sympathetic appreciation by sharing with the poor, the needy, and the

illiterate and of such is the Kingdom of Earth-not the bounty of our purse, but the forbidden fruits of their language, the real mark of fellowship in an age that knows its grammar better than it knows its God. Let us one and all firmly resolve that when occasion offers, come what may, we will never use anything else than the double negative.

Washington, D. C.

JOHN LAURENCE MCMASTER

THE GOLDEN AGE IDEA IN EIGHTEENTH

CENTURY POETRY

The characterization of Romanticism as a revolt against Classicism, without any attempt to define the latter term, is misleading. The Romantic movement of the eighteenth century, far from being a revolt against Classicism, was in many respects a return to true Classicism. It was a revolt against certain strictures and absurdities which were parading under the name of Classicism, but the true Classicism was closely akin to the ideals of the Romanticists. One proof of this contention is the readiness with which the writers of the new school went back to the ancients for inspiration. To be sure, the so-called Classicists of the eighteenth century copied the ancients, but they imitated only the form while the poets of the new school entered into the spirit of their masters. All this is discernible in the treatment of nature, and of this one of the most interesting phases is that concerning the Golden Age. Clearly originating among the ancients, and just as clearly a prominent factor in the new poetry of the eighteenth century, its treatment is characteristic of the Romantic movement.

In this paper an attempt is made to trace the Golden Age idea though the poetry of the century, especially that of the early part. Extended quotations have been tabooed, although they would frequently be illuminating, because the mention of the poets handling the material, together with a statement of their attitude toward it, is sufficient to show the development of the idea. No emphasis is placed upon the part played by the Golden Age in the growing Romantic movement. The connection would seem to be obvious from the fact that the poets who have been designated by students of the century as the leaders in the Romantic movement are the ones who treat most largely of Golden Age material. A review of the treatment of the Golden Age among the ancients is the best preparation for a study of its development in the eighteenth century.

I.

Hesiod is given credit for first putting into poetic form the ancient mythology of the Five Ages. They were the Golden, Silver, Brazen, Heroic, and Iron. During the Golden Age Saturn reigned upon the earth, men lived together without toil, pain, care, or old age. The earth, untilled, yielded its fruits in abundance. When this wonderful age passed away the race began to degenerate, and its fall is traced successively through the Silver Age, when the altars were neglected and the gods ignored, the Brazen Age, when the people slaughtered each other with their weapons of brass, and the Heroic Age, down to the Iron Age. This is the age in which Hesiod thought himself to be living. The race was sinful, irreverent, and disobedient. Pain, sorrow, and ceaseless toil were the lot of mortal man. Modesty and justice had forsaken the earth and only woe, evil, hatred, and violence remained. A dreary prospect indeed, and an absolute contrast to the conditions of the Golden Age.

Homer is connected with the Golden Age mythology through his treatment of the Elysian Fields and the Isles of the Blest. In these abodes of mortal man ruled over by the gods, conditions of life are identical with those in Hesiod's Golden Age.

Theocritus idealized the life of the shepherds of his own day and endowed it with the characteristics of the mythical Golden Age. His pastorals, with their wonderful treatment of nature, were much copied by English poets.

Along with the general diffusion of Hellenic culture the conception of the mythical Golden Age filtered into Latin literature. It found a receptive soil and soon was quite generally diffused. Lucretius is one of the first poets to express the sentiment among the Latins. He looked back to the beginning of the world and drew a picture of that ideal time, giving to it all the characteristics of the Grecian Golden Age. This was the "state of nature" which came to be so prominent in the eighteenth century.

In the elegies of Propertius there is the same idealization of the early condition of man, the same application of Golden Age attributes, and the same exaltation of this natural state.