quences that follow in its train. Not that those peoples beheld sin in these lights alone, but chiefly in these lights. Again: the Supreme Being, the same to-day as yesterday and for ever, is the perfection at once of Beauty, of Truth and of Goodness; or, to use the language of Scripture as applied to God manifest in the flesh, He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life; words identical in meaning with the former, only that perhaps the first is rather a Jewish than a world-wide name. Jewish indeed, but still true; for Beauty, being a thing of the present, may be regarded as an isthmus between. the eternal past and the everlasting future, a passage from cause to effect, the link between Truth and Good, a transition state, a Way. Now those faculties in man which answer to the ideas thus variously expressed, the subjective fittings of those objective realities, are—once more to employ the words of Scripture-Hope, Faith and Love; the first of which is again and for a like reason Jewish. Hope answers to the idea of the Beautiful as a Way, but it is not the word to express fully the mingled feelings awakened by the beautiful, unless, indeed, by implication; for it implies fear, and fear, as in old English, is closely connected with wonder; for which fearful, hopeful admiration we have no single term, although, perhaps, the word nearest to it is worship. We worship the beautiful, believe the true, love the good. Is not this worship the feeling of Christendom towards the Deity? as the Greek was full of faith,

and the Hebrew full of love. The Greek had both awe and love, but the most striking feature of his piety was its faith, often running into credulity, as St Paul remarks when speaking of the altar raised to the unknown god. In like manner, amongst the Hebrews and amongst Christians, we trace the joint working of the three emotions; but the first and the last are always in the inverse ratio. The Hebrew was taught to fear, to admire God, but in addressing God it is not fear, it is not adoration that he expresses, it is love-I love the Lord. On Christians there is no duty so often enforced as that of love to God, but it is not love that they express in their prayers and praises, they give glory. This may be seen in every prayer-book, in every hymn-book, that is not Puritanic. The Puritan was a Hebrew in thought, in feeling, in taste, almost in language: his Christian name was Hebrew; and in those warm, frank, outspoken declarations of love to which he is so fond of giving a loose, he is still Hebrew to the life. The Hebrew or Puritanic sentiment may be reduced to the formula-I love Thee; the Christian feeling comes to this -Thou art worthy. According to Scripture symbolism, the uppermost feeling of the daughter of Sion towards God was the unreflecting love of a child towards a father; and the prominent feeling of the Christian Church towards God is represented as that of a bride towards the bridegroom, a love that is conscious, that knows why it loves, in other words, admiration, worship.

While such are the main features of modern, of antique and of primitive piety, and while they show that without an oversight of the other points, the Christian chiefly regards what is beautiful, the Greek what is true, and the Hebrew what is good in the Divine character; the same thing may be seen by a view from the very opposite quarter, namely, from the region of impiety. The antichristian form of impiety appears in "a mouth speaking blasphemy," the dishonour of God; Greek irreligion was infidel, denying the very existence of God, for to a Greek source can be traced all our modern atheism; the impious Hebrew was a hater of God. The first sees nothing adorable in the idea of God, therefore scorns; the second finds no truth, therefore denies; the third is dead to all goodness, therefore hates.

*

One thing more remains, before proceeding to examine the different kinds of poesy in detail. Let us count our gains; let us make our keys into a bunch, that they may be always at hand, in case we should need them in the following discussions. See this on the next page.

CHAPTER II.

THE DRAMA.

WHAT is dramatic? To this query Augustus William von Schlegel has vouchsafed two answers; first, the answer which he thinks would be most commonly' given, and which, as things common are unclean to a German, he dismisses with very little ceremony; next, the answer which to him seems best. In this latter it is very forcibly pointed out, what has been pointed out again and again, that action is an essential of the drama. It is the essential spirit of the drama; the matter of the beautiful. But herein is the question still unanswered, inasmuch as in its present place at the head of this chapter, and in the beginning of Schlegel's discourses, it is clearly an inquiry into the form, not into the spirit, of the drama. The common herd acknowledge this in the reply which Augustus William, besides wording it in a very slovenly manner, has, like a true German critic, ever lusting after the show, were it only the show, of originality, treated so cavalierly. And there is another objection to his statement. For, al