Here first, here eminently, and here just at the time when we should expect it, do we see that strange faculty for exhibiting a blend, a union, a cross of characteristics diverse in themselves, and giving when blended a result different from any of the parts, which is more than anything else the characteristic of the English language, of English literature, of English politics, of everything that is English. Classical rhetoric, French gallantry, Saxon religiosity and intense realisation of the other world, Oriental extravagance to some extent, the "Celtic vague"--all these things are there. But they are all co-ordinated, dominated, fashioned anew by some thing which is none of them, but which is the English genius, that curious, anomalous, many-sided genius, which to those who look at only one side of it seems insular, provincial, limited, and which yet has given us Shakespeare, the one writer of the world to whom the world allows an absolute universality. CHAPTER IV. ANTIQUITY IN ROMANCE. ODDITY OF THE CLASSICAL ROMANCE. ITS IMPORTANCE. THE TROY STORY. THE ALEXANDREID. CALLISTHENES. LATIN VERSIONS. THEIR STORY. ITS DEVELOPMENTS. ALBERIC OF BESANCON. THE DECASYLLABIC POEM. THE GREAT "ROMAN D'ALIXANDRE." FORM, ETC. CONTINUATIONS. "KING ALEXANDER." CHARACTERISTICS. THE TALE OF TROY. DICTYS AND DARES. THE DARES STORY. ITS ABSURDITY. ITS CAPABILITIES. TROILUS AND BRISEIDA. THE 'ROMAN DE TROIE.' THE PHASES OF CRESSID. THE 'HISTORIA TROJANA.' MEANING OF THE CLASSICAL ROMANCE. [Sidenote: _Oddity of the Classical Romance._]