The case of Shakespeare is an eminent example to us of what the Goth is able to accomplish, when he breaks the Roman chains. His works are not an imitation of Seneca or Æschylus, nor are they the fruit of a careful study of the _Ars Poetica_ or _Gradus ad Parnassum_. No, he knew but little Latin and less Greek, but what made him the undisputed Hercules in English literature was the heroic spirit of Gothdom which flowed in his veins, and which drove him away from the Latin school before his emotional nature had been flogged and tortured out of him. Shakespeare, and not Roman literature and scholasticism, is the lever that has raised English literature and given it the first rank among all the Teutons. It is not, we repeat, the deluge of Latin words that flood it, that has given this preëminence to English, but it is the genuine Gothic strength that everywhere has tried to break down the Roman walls. The slaves of Latin will find it difficult enough to explain how Shakespeare, who was not for an age, but for all time,—he whose Latin was small and whose Greek was less,—how he, the star of poets, the sweet swan of Avon, was _made_ as well as born. Ay, he was made. _He_ was also one of those who, to cast a living line had to sweat, and strike the second heat upon the Muses’ anvil. It is true that Shakespeare did not arrive at a full appreciation of the Gothic spirit, for he did not have an opportunity to acquaint himself thoroughly with the Gothic myths; but then they ever haunted him like the ghost of Hamlet, accusing their murderer, without finding any avenger. We therefore count Shakespeare on our side of this great question. May the time speedily come, nay, the time must come, when Greek and Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse and Gothic and German will shake hands over the bloody chasm of Roman vandalism! We fancy we see more than one who reads this chapter, and does not remember that he is a son of Thor, stretch out his hand for Mjolner, that huge and mighty hammer of Thor, to swing it at us for what we have said and have not said about Rome, Roman mythology, and the Latin language and literature; but, alas! for him, and fortunately for us, the Roman school-master took Thor’s hammer away from him and whipped the strength wherewith to wield it out of him. We only repeat that we know nothing of Roman mythology, but the Greek and Norse are twin sisters, and with the assistance of the Mosaic-Christian religion they have a grand mission in the Gothic-Greek development of the world. Footnote 5: Author of _English of the Fourteenth Century_ and of _An Introduction to the Study of the Anglo-Saxon Language_. CHAPTER V. INTERPRETATION OF NORSE MYTHOLOGY.