Why do we let all those grand old authors-kings of thoughtlie slumbering on our shelves? What is liberty but scope for our growth in all that is good, for enlargement of energy, intellect, sentiment, virtue ? And what is the use of this constant boasting that we have scope for our growth, if we never grow? What is the use of liberty of the press, if we never enter into the thoughts and sentiments to which there is such free access? If education be, as the old Greek master affirmed, 'learning to like and to dislike the right things,' we have need of literature to help us to that. Are the things we most like always worthy of our liking? Are the things we dislike always deserving of dislike? Have we overcome prejudice? With our 'glorious constitution,' and with all our educational institutions, we are yet far from that higher education which was understood by the old Greek. By the discipline of life, of 'losses and crosses,' by much earnest painstaking and self government, and much fellowship with high intellects and truth-loving souls, a few have been led in these last days to some dim idea of it. It is not the idea of those who seek education simply as a means of making a living. It is not the idea of the poor workman, who gets his son taught to read and write and cast accounts, that he may earn more with ease than his father could earn with difficulty. We must try to think of our education as something higher than that. It is a poor and shallow soul that can be satisfied with simply winning what are termed the comforts and luxuries of life. The immortal spirit may have wide connections, and when it awakes to fuller consciousness and knows itself the heir of all things, it will not stoop to be the body's drudge, or a mere professional machine. It glories in expansive sympathies, it longs for fuller disfranchisement, it sets up and contemplates a higher and an unselfish ideal; it therefore gives itself freely and often to books, to hold delightful fellowship with mighty and exalted minds, 'The dead but sceptred sovereigns who still rule If you would be among those who possess a higher than mere mercenary culture, you must allow the great actions of the past to strike and thrill your spirit; the life of the high thoughts of dead men must vibrate within you; and the beautiful creations of the gifted of all ages must rise on your inward sight as the fresh bright world rose at the Creator's fiat through the drowsy blankness of Chaos. Thus all the beauty and strength that slumber within you may be drawn into exercise as spiritual gifts; and while in this way some arrive at the bright possession of culture, to others there may be even a higher reward—not only the appreciating soul, but the cunning hand to make that which is seen in the mount.' Yes! Thrilled and illuminated by gazing on the great pictures of the masters, you may receive power to say with rapture, 'I, too, am a painter !' Some may think I have spoken dangerous words in the ears of young enthusiasts; let such listen to a few wise sentences from Principal Shairp. Not even the most ethereal being,' he remarks, 'can live wholly upon sunbeams, and most lives are far enough removed from sunbeams. Yet sunshine, light, is necessary for every man, and though most are immersed in business and battling all life through with tough conditions, yet if we are not to sink into mere selfish animality we must needs have some master light to guide us, something that may dwell upon the heart, though it be not named upon the tongue. For if there be sometimes a danger lest the young enthusiast, through too great devotion to an abstract ideal, should essay the impossible and break himself against the walls of destiny that hem him in, far more common is it for men to be so crushed under manhood's burdens, that they abandon all the high aims of their youth, and submit to be driven like ginhorses, "Round the daily scene Of sad subjection and of sick routine." It is possible, therefore, that our wise practical people may fear poetry too much. They have a good deal to say about their preference for 'plain facts and sober realities,' while hinting they are too severely busy in physical and mental labours to have any relish for 'ideal dreams.' But before we hastily dismiss the ideal, it is to be considered whether it is possible, without some ideal, rightly to attend to the real. Without something beyond the real, some 'master light' in the soul, men will flag in the commonest tasks. Certainly men may carry their practical wisdom too far, and pride themselves on their 'plain common sense' too exclusively. What you consider an act of practical reason may be caused by the want of a higher understanding. After all, what is poetry but (as one says) 'the most lively comprehension of things, their most intimate as well as their highest truth?' We do not need to justify God for making His works so beautiful, neither do we need to justify the human soul for admiring that beauty which He has made, or for expressing its admiration in the flowing and musical words which feeling or emotion naturally adopts. Poetry is not beauty, but our feeling of beauty expressed in such a vivid manner, that the expression has the power of producing a similar feeling in the mind of the reader or hearer. It is to be hoped that in our days only children make the mistake of fancying that the thing essential to poetry is that jingling of like sounds called rhyme. The chief value of poetry is quite independent of this. The thought, the sentiment, is the chief thing, yet we do not make of no account the form in which the thought or sentiment is put. There is also some power in the form. True, form endures only on a solid substance, but a powerful thought is made still more powerful by an appropriate form of expression. I do not deny that literature has its dangers to the young : it may excite false hopes, it may stir unworthy passions. Those who descend into the mine to find gems will find some soilure. Genius sometimes lends its charms to what is evil. Of this we have due notice, and this we shall disregard at our peril. You can always know, if you are faithful to yourself, what it is you are seeking in the book which you love whether it is higher thought, more light, or-something else which you dare not name. I should say, as a rule, the higher the genius of the writer, the less the danger to your morality. Shakespeare is too great a man to sneer at religion or undermine morality, as Byron does. We should constantly remember that life is short-art is long, and time is fleeting,'-and since none of us can give to all the first-class authors sufficient attention, there is no reason for wasting time with meaner lights. While despising prudery, you will not forget to cultivate a healthy and vigorous morality. Not even for the sake of genius will we forget our manhood or our womanhood, by which we are conscious of the utter worthlessness of all outward distinctions compared with what is treasured up in the soul.' Let your intellectual love be something great and noble, and you will disdain to feed on what one has well termed these modern' garbage fields of vulgar and brutal fiction.' It is said to be the fault of literary culture that it tends to make men exclusive and unsympathetic, fastidious, and easily repelled by the common herd. This must be in some measure the case with those who make their own highest improvement their chief end, and to whom religion and virtue are only branches of culture. The virtuous love virtue on its own account, and religion admits of no higher aim than itself. Any theory of culture that refuses to give to religion and to virtue this position, must be evil. But, religion being allowed its proper place, the egotism and self-consciousness of culture are kept in check; and certainly there is no better sign of true spiritual progress than your ability to forget yourself in One higher, to merge all mere self-interest in the cause of God. In that case, acquaintance with books only increases your admiration of The Book; and you find the image of Christ, beheld with ever increasing beauty, power, and blessing in the pages of the Four Gospels, to be incomparably superior to all other instruments of literary culture. CHAUCER. THE mighty stream of English literature has been flowing for five hundred years, growing broader from age to age. We go to the source of this great river; we observe the first living water gushing from the bosom of the earth; we call it CHAUCER -'pure well of English undefiled.' Of all the travellers who cross the river by bridges, or walk by the margin of its deep, quiet water, beholding its forest of masts and its little barques shooting to and fro, few ever care to think of its source. Yet it might prove something exhilarating, or even romantic, to go in search of it. Should you find less splendour and luxury amid those bleak, barren hills where the water rises, there at least you will be far from the flat commonplace, and your heart may be stirred by the austere simplicity of nature. That fourteenth century of which Chaucer lived his sixty or seventy years has many attractions for the student of the present day. Ere its close the three races-Britons, Saxons, Normans -were thoroughly blended in one-the English which we see. Wat Tyler's rebellion may be considered the last protest of the vanquished Saxons against their Norman lords. It was in the fourteenth century the House of Commons rose to power, and in it the three races long hostile rejoiced to recognise the palladium and representative of English union and English liberty. Then were those heroic days whose memory has so often evoked the martial spirit of England-of Crécy and Poitiers, battles of the Black Prince, 'that young Mars of men.' Then was felt by the nations the breath of spring after the dark, dead |