Lectures on English Poets

Where is the Golden Age? It is fifty years ago to every man and woman of three-score and ten. I do not doubt that aged Adam babbled of the superiority of the good old times, and, forgetful in his enthusiasm of that fatal bite which set the teeth of all his descendants on edge, told, with a regretful sigh, how much larger and finer the apples of his youth were than that to which the great-grandson on his knee was giving a preliminary polish. Meanwhile the great-grandson sees the good times far in front, a galaxy of golden pippins whereof he shall pluck and eat as many as he likes without question. Thus it is that none of us knows when Time is with him, but the old man sees only his shoulders and that inexorable wallet in which youth and beauty and strength are borne away as alms for Oblivion; and the boy beholds but the glowing face and the hands stretched out full of gifts like those of a St. Nicholas. Thus there is never any present good; but the juggler, Life, smilingly baffles us all, making us believe that the vanished ring is under his left hand or his right, the past or the future, and shows us at last that it was in our own pocket all the while.

So we may always listen with composure when we hear of Golden Ages passed away. Burke pronounced the funeral oration of one -- of the age of Chivalry -- the period of Metrical Romances -- of which I propose to speak to-night. Mr. Ruskin -- himself as true a knight-errant as ever sat in a demipique saddle, ready to break a lance with all comers, and resolved that even the windmills and the drovers shall not go about their business till they have done homage to his Dulcinea -- for the time being joins in the lament. Nay, what do we learn from the old romances themselves, but that all the heroes were already dead and buried? Their song also is a threnody, if we listen rightly. For when did Oliver and Roland live? When Arthur and Tristem and Lancelot and Caradoc Break-arm? In that Golden Age of Chivalry which is always past.