This last great revival by means of the Greeks is, I think, peculiarly instructive to us to-day. For nothing can show more clearly, or in a larger example, how different is the effect of second-hand or traditional knowledge from that of direct contact with the originals. It was no doubt held in the later Roman Empire, and in the early Middle Ages, that all the value of Hellenic culture had passed into Roman life, that Roman law, Roman architecture, Roman organisation were far more perfect than those of their teachers. Even the latest bloom of Greek architecture, that Byzantine style which is still living in the unapproachable St. Sophia of Constantinople, had been carried into Italy, France, Germany, and England, where, under the name of decorated Norman, it holds its place of honour in our church architecture. St. Mark’s at Venice is the richest because it is a decadent example of that Greek style, and so other Latin adaptations of Greek were supposed to afford all the benefits of the originals; nay, in one case--that of the Latin Vulgate--Saint Jerome went so far as to compare his version, with the Greek and Hebrew originals written on each side of it, to Christ crucified between the two thieves. There were Greek statues and Greek temples in plenty to copy. Aristotle, confessedly the greatest and most encyclopedic of Greek philosophers, could be had in a Latin translation and narrowly escaped being canonised as a Latin saint. Was not Virgil far deeper and more artistic than Homer? Was not the _Dies iræ_ far grander in sound, as well as in sense, than the trivialities of Horace or Ovid? So the Western world became Latin, and men were content with the echoes of Greek in their Roman culture. But when the real thing came to them again, as it were by accident, mark the sudden and astonishing change. It was at once discovered that the Romanised culture of previous centuries had degenerated from the nobler types, that new influences from the north had in architecture and in art altered its purity; that the gloomy splendour of Dante, the mightiest outcome of the Middle Ages, had put out the cheerfulness and light of Greek life, even as Virgil understood them, with a cruel and relentless creed. With the return of Hellenic serenity, there was no doubt much irreligion and paganism associated, but even to that point a revolt against the spiritual tyranny of the Roman Church cannot be regretted by those who refuse to believe that men can only be kept from crime by threatening them with greater crime--I mean the infliction of eternal torture upon any sentient being. The Gothic fane was no doubt the ideal gloom wherein to worship a relentless God and his tortured Christ; the Renaissance palace was a place of light and gladness, wherein men could read with amazement the epic of Homer, the tragedy of Æschylus, the comedy of Aristophanes, and learn from them what human culture had once attained.