dences of perfect spontaneity, transparent good faith, right passion for his work. Give me an acknowledged great work of an acknowledged great Author, and I will take in hand to find such passages in that work as burn and shine and glow in the white heat of their sincerity. 43. Withal they are but human.-But let there be no mistake. I do not for a moment mean to say that the great writer or thinker has emancipated himself from all earthly considerations and lower affections.1 That were absurd. In opposition to theologians, most of whom seem to assume that Mankind have an easy time of it, and proclaim human worthlessness as part of their creed, I hold that man at present occupies a terrible position, and that he is not wholly worthless. Notwithstanding the Divine potentialities of his nature, he is severely interested in mundane markets and in mundane matters generally. The pressure of the temporal upon him is enormous. Let your enterprising earthly provision merchant advertise in his shop window (as he sometimes does) a "Great Downfall in the price of Bacon," and if you are of an observant turn of mind and occasionally take an inquiring walk through the poorer streets, you may easily see some poor brother eyeing the announcement with pathetic intensity, even the "Great Downfall," perhaps, not having brought the Bacon within his reach; wherein is call for pity, one of the elements of tragedy. Indeed "the wide and universal theatre Presents more woeful pageants than the scenes presented to us on stages. The theologian who comfortably tries to suppose that Man is the indulged Child of Providence, and that he has 1 An affection, according to Plato, is "an irrational movement of the Soul as regards either an ill or a good."— Intro. of Alcinous to the Doctrines of Plato,' chap. 31. nothing to do but sit for Salvation in the "Just as I am, without one plea " attitude, is living in a Fool's Paradise, the apples whereof may one day afflict him with bad dyspepsia. 66 44. No Army can fight without a commissariat of some kind: no man can operate without one.-So even our noble friends, our Dantes, Shakespeares, and Miltons, our Burnses and Carlyles, as long as they have to trudge about on this rascaltrodden Globe, need, like ordinary mortals, a certain irreducible minimum of terrestrial goods to keep them afoot and in the fighting line-for which goods it becomes them to take honest forethought. Enormous and pathetic difficulties frequently occur in the effort to make an honest penny." No army can fight without a commissariat of some kind; no man can operate without one.1 Even John the Baptist needed some quantum of locusts and wild honey, a raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins. If Archangels lived on cabbages, it would be a matter of vital necessity with them that the supply should be kept up. Also in the Shakespeare and Burns families there may be infants to provide for with something more than Hesperian Pippins and Pierian Waters-however excellent this Banquet be. 45. But there is no great work done unless the heart be in it. Further, even in the great moments of great men it is possible that pettiness may intrude. Worldly ambition, for instance, that "last infirmity of noble minds," will sometimes force its sinuous way into a great man's thoughts. The very Apostles of Christ could scarcely keep it out. But this I will say, and I believe that everybody with any discernment and sense of 1 As Mr Saintsbury says: "One of the most disagreeable penances of the working man of letters, (is) the necessity of stepping out of his proper sphere in order to keep himself within it."History of Criticism,' Vol. iii. p. 318. responsibility will agree with me, that when our great men were doing their greatest work, it is probable that the earthly interests of life had, if any, only a small share in their thoughts. Their affections, their hearts, were engaged in the work. It was moulded, as it were, in the heart of a seraphic burning. 46. Instances from Dante.-Test this doctrine by a few instances. When Dante (to take a familiar passage) conjured into poetic vision the Cavern leading down into Hell with the appalling words inscribed over the entrance : "Through me you pass into the City of Woe; All hope abandon, ye who enter here." The Theology and the Eschatology of the passage must be taken as subject to serious criticism, yet when he wrote these lines, can we imagine that he was moved by any spurious thoughts, or interests, or affections whatever? I think not. I think it most highly probable that for the time being he had forgotten even his fiercest enmities, and that his whole soul was brooding with profoundest concern on Human Life and its dread issues. 47. His commentary upon earthly dignities.-Or take the commentary upon the vanity of earthly dignities which he expresses through the lips of Pope Adrian the Fifth in 'Purgatory' : 66 A month and little more, by proof I learned Rested not there, and yet no prouder height I was a soul in misery, alienate From God, and covetous of all earthly things: Who, reading these lines, can doubt the intensity of Dante's convictions as to the emptiness of the highest of earthly dignities in themselves-their utter insufficiency to minister to the wants of the Human Soul? He thinks that no prouder height than the Papal Chair could lure on the climber; but that height attained, it was found vanity. Man is a Spirit, and can only find satisfying good in the spiritual. The Body should be taken as the Vehicle of the Soul. 48. His apostrophe to Avarice.-Or listen to his outburst against Avarice :— "Accurst be thou Inveterate wolf! whose gorge engluts more prey, From such lines one cannot fail to be convinced of Dante's heart abhorrence of avarice. It is impossible to take them for the mere mouthing of a professional person. 49. Archdeacon Barbour on Freedom and Thraldom.-The better to illustrate the principle that the poet's heart must be manifested in his work, take a passage from an old Scottish poet, Archdeacon Barbour, who is much less known than he ought to be. Listen to him on the subject of Freedom and Thraldom : 66 1 'Purgatory,' canto xix. U a Ib., canto xx. A noble hart may haiff nane ess, Indeed, he concludes that Thraldom is far worse than death : "For quhill a thryll his lyff may leid, (mars) All Who can doubt the perfect good faith of the poet in these lines? Who can doubt for a moment that he perfectly understood, appreciated, and loved true freedom and all its blessings? Who can doubt that he saw the evils of thraldom, and entertained a perfect heart-hatred of it? As certainly as Barbour's heart glowed with spiritual fervour when he dwelt in the flesh, so certainly do these lines glow with spiritual fervour. poetry written in such a tone of mind will probably bear the sound of it, and be worth our attention. The lines quoted may be taken as a classic utterance on the grand subject of freedom. They will lose nothing by use. A thousand years hence they will express the best feelings of the noble human heart as well as they express them to-day, or when they were written five hundred years ago. 1 'The Bruce,' i. 225-274. |