A study of antiquity conducted in such a fashion could hardly have coloured mediaeval thought with any real classicism, even if it had been devoted to much more genuine specimens of antiquity than the semi-Oriental medley of the Pseudo-Callisthenes and the bit of bald euhemerism which had better have been devoted to Hephaestus than ascribed to his priest. But, by another very curious fact, the two great and commanding examples of the Romance of Antiquity were executed each under the influence of the flourishing of one of the two mightiest branches of mediaeval poetry proper. When Alberic and the decasyllabist (whoever he was) wrote, the _chanson de geste_ was in the very prime of its most vigorous manhood, and the _Roman d'Alixandre_ accordingly took not merely the outward form, but the whole spirit of the _chanson de geste_ itself. And when Benoit de Sainte-More gave the first shapings of the great story of Troilus and Cressida out of the lifeless rubbish-heap of Dares, it was at the precise minute when also, in hands known or unknown, the greater story of Arthur and Gawain, of Lancelot and Guinevere, was shaping itself from materials probably even scantier. Even Guido of the Columns, much more Boccaccio, had this story fully before them; and Cressida, when at last she becomes herself, has, if nothing of the majesty of Guinevere, a good deal of Iseult--an Iseult more faithless to love, but equally indifferent to anything except love. As Candace in _Alexander_ has the crude though not unamiable naturalism of a _chanson_ heroine, so Cressid--so even Briseida to some extent--has the characteristic of the frail angels of Arthurian legend. The cup would have spilled wofully in her husband's hand, the mantle would scarcely have covered an inch of her; but though of coarser make, she is of the same mould with the ladies of the Round Table,--she is of the first creation of the order of romantic womanhood. CHAPTER V. THE MAKING OF ENGLISH AND THE SETTLEMENT OF EUROPEAN PROSODY. SPECIAL INTEREST OF EARLY MIDDLE ENGLISH. DECAY OF ANGLO-SAXON. EARLY MIDDLE ENGLISH LITERATURE. SCANTINESS OF ITS CONSTITUENTS. LAYAMON. THE FORM OF THE 'BRUT.' ITS SUBSTANCE. THE 'ORMULUM': ITS METRE, ITS SPELLING. THE 'ANCREN RIWLE.' THE 'OWL AND THE NIGHTINGALE.' PROVERBS. ROBERT OF GLOUCESTER. ROMANCES. 'HAVELOK THE DANE.' 'KING HORN.' THE PROSODY OF THE MODERN LANGUAGES. HISTORICAL RETROSPECT. ANGLO-SAXON PROSODY. ROMANCE PROSODY. ENGLISH PROSODY. THE LATER ALLITERATION. THE NEW VERSE. RHYME AND SYLLABIC EQUIVALENCE. ACCENT AND QUANTITY. THE GAIN OF FORM. THE "ACCENT" THEORY. INITIAL FALLACIES, AND FINAL PERVERSITIES THEREOF. [Sidenote: _Special interest of Early Middle English._]