ROMANTIC is a term which, with its antithesis Classical, has been borrowed by music from literature. But so delicate and incorporeal are the qualities of composition which both words describe in their application to music, and so arbitrary has been their use by different writers, that neither word is susceptible of very precise definition. The best guide, however, to the meaning of romantic is supplied by its etymology. The poetic tales of the middle ages, written in the old Romance dialects, were called Romances. In them mythological fables and Christian legends, stories of fairyland,...