wise, brings down on himself the reproof uttered in the Gospel :

'Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.""

"I think the perfection of the critical temper," said Mrs. Beauchamp, "is the blending of the power of critical insight with sympathy and with tenderness."

"Yes," said her husband, "and these are not incompatible. Just because men are competent

critics-competent judges-they are lenient and merciful. Their view is too wide and generous to be concentrated on a blot here and a blot there. They view the whole, and, just because they can do this, they take account of all that makes the whole. They know the difficulties that have had to be surmounted, and they catch the vision of the far-off ideal towards which the painful steps are tending. It is the superficial, short-sighted critic who sneers and censures constantly. And Goethe was right when he said that it is safe, in all cases, to place ourselves before the tribunal of those who know. This is the doctrine of the masters of art and literature; it is also the doctrine of One who

'Knows all, yet loves us better than He knows.'"

LILY WATSON.

GEORGE HERBERT. (See p. 468.)

ISAAC WALTON has made the name of "holy' George Herbert classic as an example of the finest type of "priest" (accepting the term) of our national Church. Later biographers (including myself in my complete collective edition of his works in verse and prose in the "Fuller Worthies' Library," 3 vols., and with Christopher Harvey, 1 vol., and in the two "Aldine Poets'" editions) have brought out the miracle of the grace of God that drew him out of the court and the world, and consecrated him servant of Jesus Christ, and not mere servant of his sovereign. It has been proven that the change wrought in the erewhile fiery and passionate St. John (witness the fierce request against the inhospitable Samaritan village!), whereby he became the apostle of love after the very image of Incarnate Love, was

repeated in the "sweet singer" of Bemerton: so much so that even like to Joshua the high-priest we are constrained to recognise in him a "brand plucked from the burning."

All this must make the story of George Herbert a permanent source of deepest and tenderest instruction. Nor is it mere imagination that, interpenetrating his poems and his sacred prose alike as the veining of marble-the thoughtful reader will discover lifelong recollections of the conflict and anguish through which the singer and preacher had passed before the overcoming life led him captive to his Divine Lord. His experiences give a pathos, a thrill, an edge, a wistfulness to many places, of priceless value and interest.

The surviving MSS. of George Herbert are tantalisingly scanty. By far the most precious is the Dr. Williams' мs. copy of his poems, from whence it was our privilege to fetch a series of poems by him previously unknown, viz., Passio Discerpta and Lucus, being no fewer than twenty one and thirty-five respectively, of surpassing interest and cunningest workmanship. It is from the Williams MS. our present facsimiles are taken : a. From Lucus, wholly in Herbert's hand

Th. Church. perfortion The Elixir

Lord feark mit to rifer
All things Fidor to this
That I not onily may not ture
But allso pleasing bee

Aman that looks on glass In it may stay biboy: Or if he pleaseth through it pass And then the Erauen espe

So that does ought fox ffity, Markithy deeds for shine. And when the djbel shaft y trie. Thau saiss, this fruit es m

A servantw. this &lause; Makis drudgery, dis me

De Rosweeps a ter for the Law M Makes that, and th'antion fine.

But thisisari h

Happy writhey that dan

Lett in the light to all their actions And 5 ufw shendall they ari.

Cedito barbaries: Helicon jam litibus instat,
Squaloremque toga candida Musa fugat.
Λογικὴ θυσία.

Ararumque hominumque artum si mente pererres,
Cespes vivus, Homo: mortuus, Ara fuit.
Quæ divisa nocent, Christi per fœdus in unum
Conveniunt; et Homo viva fit Ara Dei.

IN THOMAM DIDYMUM.

Dum te vel digitis minister urget,
Et hoc judicium jubes, Redemptor;
Nempe es totus amor, medulla amoris,
Qui spissæ fidei brevique menti
Paras hospitium torumque dulcem,
Quo se condat, et implicet volutans
Ceu fida statione et arce certa,
Ne perdat Leo rugiens vagantem.
IN SOLARIUM.

Conjugium Cæli Terræque hæc machina præstat;
Debetur cælo lumen, et umbra solo.
Sic Hominis moles animaque et corpore constat,
Cujus ab oppositis fluxit origo locis.
Contemplare, miser, quantum terraris haberet,
Vel sine luce solum, vel sine mente caro.

In the last, the pun on cælo and solo may be compared with Ausonius, Epig. xxxiii. :

Orta salo, suscepta solo, patre edita Cælo,

Eneadûm genitrix, hic habito alma Venus. With reference to the latter of our facsimiles, be it noted that Herbert's own title of his little book of poems was not "The Temple," but "The Church." The present poem forms No 154 of the poems as published, and the reader will find it rewarding to compare the text and the corrections of the мs. with that printed.

The Church.

Perfection. The Elixir.

Lord teach mee to referr
All things I doe to Thee,
That I not onely may not erre
But allso pleasing bee.

A man that lookes on glass
On it may stay his eye:
Or if he pleaseth, through it pass
And then the Heaven espy.

He that does ought for Thee
Marketh yt deed fro thine;

And when the Divel shakes ye tree
Thou saist, this fruit is mine.

All may of Thee partake

Nothing can be is meane

Weh with his tincture (for thy sake)
Will not grow bright & cleane.

A servant wth this clause

Makes drudgery divine.

Who sweeps a roome as for thy lawes
Makes that, and th' action fine.

But these are high perfections
Happy are they that dare

erased.

erased.

Lett in the light to all their actions

And shew the [illegible] they are.

Thus is y famous stone

That turneth all to gold

Fro y weh God doth touch & owne

Cannot fro less be told = counted.

Archbishop Leighton seems specially to have admired this quaint little poem. Dr. George Macdonald (cf. " Antiphon," p. 175) thus explains Herbert's above use of the word "tincture": "The Elixir was an imagined liquid sought by the old physical investigators in order that, by its means, they might turn every common metal into gold, a pursuit not quite so absurd as it has since appeared. They cailed this something, when regarded as a solid, The Philosopher's Stone. In it is also called a tincture." poem He says elsewhere: "As an individual specimen of the grotesque form holding a fine sense, regard for a moment the words [of Dr. John Donne]

the

"He was all gold when He lay down, but rose All tincture."

Which means that, entirely good when He died, He was something yet greater when He rose, for He had gained the power of making others good. The tincture intended here was a substance whose touch would turn the basest metal into gold (ibid. p. 124). Speaking under correction, I rather think Dr. Macdonald is in error in making the Philosopher's stone, Elixir and Tincture synonyms. The stone is the transmuting stone as in Herbert's last stanza. The Elixir is the elixir vitæ, that which refreshed and prolonged life. A tincture again, is neither one nor the other, but an admixture in painting, dyeing, chemistry, etc., when one part, the vehicle, receives the colour, or the properties or virtues of the other part, forming such a compound as is fitted for the use intended, or such as possesses or appears to possess the power and subtler parts of the substance whose virtues are extracted. Hence, first, in general usage it came to mean the effects of such admixture and was equivalent to straining or colouring; secondly, it was used sometimes in a low sense, as when it is said a man has a tincture of learning, meaning or an outward colouring staining; thirdly, a tincture in the arts, medicine, or alchemy represented something more refined than the original substance; and in this view what was called the tinctures to the metals were employed in the processes for obtaining transmutations and the philosopher's stone and elixir. Here in Herbert it appears to be used in the sense of purifying the baser material to which it was applied or with which it was incorporated.

No one who has mastered the sacred prose of George Herbert will gainsay that he has full right to be represented in these facsimiles of the Handwriting of Famous Divines. If his "Priest " falls short of the searching power and the yearning wistfulness and unearthly importunity of Richard Baxter's Gildas Salvianus it nevertheless condenses much admirable teaching and helpful experience. Our portrait is a faithful reproduction of R. White's ad vivum (1674)-the only adequate and truthful likeness known.

ALEXANDER B. GROSART, D.D., LL.D.

"Oh," he said, impatiently "can't you understand? It just means that whatever happens to you, even if you are ill and can't even keep on polishing up your shield and your sword, and that's a thing knights were always very particular about, you could always keep your honour bright, don't you see? You could always choose to tell the truth, and not do mean things, even though they shut you up in a dungeon." "Yes, I see," said Johnnie.

"Don't you wish you lived in those days!" said Davie enthusiastically as he rose to his feet to execute a skilful walk along the rounded coping of the wall to the foot of the garden and back. "To have a charger and wear armour, and go to all sorts of fights and adventures."

"You couldn't go to the academy games if you lived then," said the literal Johnnie. "So you'd better not wish to change to-day."

"Academy games!" was the scornful reply as Davie reaching the end of wall, wheeled round to return; "don't you know they had far better things; jousts and tournaments, and all thathullo!" he broke off, "they're ready, good-bye Johnny, I'm awfully sorry you aren't coming too;" he dropped from the wall as he spoke, and before his sister who had appeared at the window could open it to speak to him, he

had dashed into the house, and upstairs.

Left alone, Johnnie Ross dropped down on his side of the wall, and began in a dilatory fashion common to him to clean his rabbit-hutch. He let White Eyes, the old grey doe, and her four little ones, out for a run, keeping out of their reach the cabbage leaves he meant to use to entice them in again with.

Johnnie was not easi'y impressed or excited by ideas as Davie was, and no visions of knights or chargers kept him from watching his rabbits, or carefully spreading a deep carpet of fresh sawdust in their box. Saturday was always a whole holiday, and he had promised his mother, when he was allowed to keep rabbits, to let them have a run every Saturday, while he cleaned out the hutch.

He was sitting on the top of it, watching White Eyes sniffing over an old mousetrap that lay rusting in a corner of the small, untidy green, when he heard Davie's