This fact in general, and the capital and interesting phenomenon of the _Poema del Cid_ in particular, are the noticeable points in this division of our subject. It will be observed that Spain is at this time content, like Goethe's scholar, _sich ueben_. Her one great literary achievement--admirable in some respects, incomparable in itself--is not a novelty in kind; she has no lessons in form to give, which, like some of Italy's, have not been improved upon to this day; she cannot, like Germany, boast a great quantity of work of equal accomplishment and inspiration; least of all has she the astonishing fertility and the unceasing _maestria_ of France. But she has practice and promise, she is doing something more than "going to begin," and her one great achievement has (it cannot well be too often repeated) the inestimable and unmistakable quality of being itself and not something else, in spirit if not in scheme, in character if not quite in form. It would be no consolation for the loss of the _Cid_ that we have _Beowulf_ and _Roland_ and the _Nibelungen_--they would not fill its place, they do not speak with its voice. The much-abused and nearly meaningless adjective "Homeric" is here, in so far as it has any meaning, once more appropriate. Of the form of Homer there is little: of the vigour, the freshness, the poetry, there is much. CHAPTER X. CONCLUSION. It is now time to sum up, as may best be done, the results of this attempt to survey the Literature of Europe during one, if not of its most accomplished, most enlightened, or most generally admired periods, yet assuredly one of the most momentous, the most interesting, the fullest of problem and of promise. Audacious as the attempt itself may seem to some, inadequate as the performance may be pronounced by others, it is needless to spend much more argument in urging its claim to be at least tried on the merits. All varieties of literary history have drawbacks almost inseparable from their schemes. The elaborate monograph, which is somewhat in favour just now, is exposed to the criticism, not quite carping, that it is practically useless without independent study of its subject, and practically superfluous with it. The history of separate literatures, whether in portion or in whole, is always liable to be charged with omissions or with disproportionate treatment within its subject, with want of perspective, with "blinking," as regards matters without. And so such a survey as this is liable to the charge of being superficial, or of attempting more than it can possibly cover, or of not keeping the due balance between its various provinces and compartments.