66 perhaps unconsciously, with the notion that men are to 'laugh by precept only, and shed tears by rule"; a sort of laughter and tears from which I shall beg to be excused. On this point, my first, second, and third counsel is, the live current quaff, And let the groveller sip his stagnant pool, Have killed him, Scorn should write his epitaph. Against the course I have been marking out, the objection is sometimes urged that it would cut pupils off from contemporary authors. It would do so indeed, and I like it the better for that. I have already implied that no literary workmanship, short of the best there is to be had, ought to be drawn upon for use in school. For the natural alliance of taste and morals is much closer than most people suppose. In fact, taste is, in my account, a kind of intellectual conscience: downright, perfect honesty is the first principal of it; solidity is its prime law; and all sorts of pretence, affectation, and sham are its aversion: so that it amounts to about the same thing as the perfect manliness which I find in Webster's style. Now, for the due approval of excellence in literary art, a longer time than the individual life is commonly required. Of the popular writers now living, probably not one in five hundred will be heard of thirty years hence. I have myself outlived two generations of just such immortal writers, whole regiments of them. Of course there are These are apt to be bad enough at the best,- bad enough anywhere; but the school is just the last place, except the church, where they ought to be encouraged. Be assured that, in the long run, it will not pay to have our children in school making acquaintance with the fashionable writers of the day. For, fashions in literature, as in other things. long before the pupils now in school reach maturity, another set of writers will be in popular vogue; their tenure to be equally transient in turn. Unquestionably the right way in this matter is, to start the young with such authors as have been tested and approved by a large collective judgment. For it is not what pleases at first, but what pleases permanently, that the human mind cares to keep alive. What has thus withstood the wear of time carries solid proof of having strength and virtue in it. For example, poetry that has no holiness in it may be, for it often has been, vastly popular in its day; but it has and can have no lasting hold on the heart of man. True, there may be good books written in our day; I think there are: but there needs a longer trial than one generation to certify us of the fact, so as to warrant us in adopting an author for standard use. And that a new book seems to us good, may be in virtue of some superficial prepossession which a larger trial will utterly explode. We need better assurance than that. It is indeed sometimes urged that, if the young be thus trained up with old authors, they will be in danger of falling behind the age. But it is not so. The surest way of coming at such a result is by pre-engaging them with the literary freaks and fashions and popularities of the day. To hold them aloof from such flitting popularities, to steep their minds in the efficacy of such books as have always been, and are likely to be, above the fashion of the day,- this is the true course for setting them in advance of the time; and, unless they be set in advance of it, they will certainly fail to keep abreast with it. For the wisdom that has had the long and strong approval of the past, is most likely to be the wisdom of the future; and the way to keep pace with the age is by dwelling with its wisdom, not with its folly. In fact, a taste for the shifting literary fashions and popularities of the hour springs from shallowness and leads to shallowness. And to knit your pupils up close with old standards, is the best thing you can do for them, both mentally and morally. And I confess I like to see the young growing enthusiastic over the treasured wisdom and eloquence of their forefathers. This is a natural and wholesome inspiration, and such as the soul can hardly drink-in or catch without being lifted and expanded by it. Worth much for the knowledge it furthers, it is worth far more for the manhood it quickens. And I think none the worse of it, that it may do somewhat towards chastising down the miserable conceit now so rife amongst us, that light never really dawned on the world till about that glorious time when our eyes were first opened, and we began to shed our wisdom abroad. To be sure, the atmosphere of the past now stands impeached as being a very dull and sleepy atmosphere: nevertheless I rather like it, and think I have often found much health and comfort in breathing it. Some old writer tells us that "no man having drunk old wine straightway desireth the new; for he saith the old is better." I am much of the same opinion. In short, old wine, old books, old friends, old songs, "the precious music of the heart," are the wine, the books, the friends, the songs for me! Besides, we have quite enough of the present outside of the school; and one of our greatest needs at this very time is more of inspiration from the past. Living too much in the present is not good either for the mind or for the heart: its tendency is to steep the soul in the transient popularities of the hour, and to vulgarize the whole man. Not that the present age is worse than former ages; it may even be better as a whole but what is bad or worthless in an age generally dies with the age: so that only the great and good of the past touches us; while of the present we are most touched by that which is little and mean. The shriekings and jabberings of an age's folly almost always drown, for the time being, the eloquence of its wisdom: but the eloquence lives and speaks after the jabberings have gone silent, God's air refusing to propagate them. So let our youth now and then breathe and listen an hour or two in the old intellectual fatherland, where all the foul noises have long since died away, leaving the pure music to sound up full and clear. THE POET'S LIFE. WT VILLIAM SHAKESPEARE the greatest, wisest, sweetest of men was baptized in the parish church of Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire, April 26th, 1564. The day of his birth is not positively known, but the general custom then was to baptize infants at three days old, and the custom is justly presumed to have been followed in this instance. Accordingly the 23d of April is agreed upon everywhere throughout the English-speaking world as the Poet's birthday, and is often celebrated as such with appropriate festivities. His father was John Shakespeare, a well-reputed citizen of Stratford, who held, successively, various local offices, closing with those of Mayor of the town and Head-Alderman. His mother was Mary, youngest daughter of Robert Arden, a man of good landed estate, who lived at Wilmecote, some three miles from Stratford. Nothing further is directly known of Shakespeare till his marriage, which took place in November, 1582, when he was in his nineteenth year. The bride was Anne, daughter of Richard Hathaway, a yeoman living at Shottery, which was a village near Stratford, and belonging to the same parish. The date of her baptism is not known; but the baptismal register of Stratford did not begin till 1558. She |