upon British Ethnology, 223
It should not be forgotten that the Angles, Saxons, and
Jutes, on the one hand, and the Scandinavians on the other,
who are commonly classed together as Teutonic, differed
from each other in many important respects. Mr. Matthew
Arnold, whoso book on the 'Study of Celtic Literature' was
written shortly after the Schleswig-Holstein war, seems to
have been amused at the long catalogues of the many points
of unlikeness between the genius and disposition of German
and Dane, brought forward by Germans about that time.
This induces him to remark that "there is a fire, a sense of
style, a distinction in Icelandic poetry which German poetry
has not." He adds that the fatal humdrum and want of
style of the Germans have marred the Nibelungen, while every-
where in the poetry of the Scandinavian Edda "there is a
force of style and a distinction as unlike as possible to the
want of both in tho German Nibelungen." This sense for
style, ho says, the Celts have in a wonderful measure, and he
is inclined to think the possession of it by the Scandinavians
may perhaps be due to an early Celtic influence or inter-
mixture. Speaking of English poetry Mr. Arnold remarks :
"If I were asked where English poetry got these three things
—its turn for style, its turn for melancholy, and its turn for
natural magic, for catching and rendering the charm of
nature in a wonderfully near and vivid way, I should answer,
with some doubt, that it got much of its turn for style from
a Celtic source; with less doubt, that it got much of its
melancholy from a Celtic source ; with no doubt at all, that
from a Celtic source it got all its natural magic." And again,
"The Celt's quick feeling for what is noble and distinguished
gave his poetry style, his indomitable personality gave it pride
and passion, his sensibility and nervous exaltation gave it
a better gift still, the gift of rendering with wonderful felicity
the magical charm of nature." And with regard to the Celtic
love of nature, Professor Veitch remarks in his 'History and
Poetry of the Scottish Border':—"The Cymri, who were
first in the district, must have had a singularly fine musical
sense; and although we are not able always to trace the
inner significance of their names of hill and stream and glen,