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towards them, is that which first separates the Homeric from and above all other Poetry, is its proper element of grandeur, in which we never bathe without coming out aggrandised.

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We instruct each other. For this the heroes are all Demigods-that is, the son of a God, or Goddess, or the Descendant at a few Generations. Sarpedon is the Son of Jupiter, and his death by Patroclus is perhaps the passage of the whole Iliad that most specially and energetically, and most profoundly and pathetically, makes the Gods intimate to the life and being of men-presents the conduct of divinity and humanity with condescension there, and for elevation here. I do not mean that there is not more pomp of glorification about Achilles, for whom Jupiter comes from Olympus to Ida, and Vulcan forges arms-whose Mother-Goddess is Messenger to and from Jupiter, and into whose lips, when he is faint with toil and want of nourishment-abstaining in his passion of sorrow and vengeance-Minerva, descending, instils Nectar. But I doubt if there be anything so touching-under this relation—and so intimately aggrandising as that other whole place the hesitation of Jupiter whether he shall VIOLATE FATE, in order to save his own flesh and blood from its decreed stroke the consolatory device of Juno (in remonstrating and dissuading) that he shall send Apollo to call Death and Sleep-a God-Messenger to God-Ministers-to bear the dead body from the battle-field to his own land and kin for due obsequies. And, lastly, those drops of blood which fall from the sky to the earth, as if the heart-tears of the Sire of all the worlds and their inhabitants.

BULLER.

You are always great, sir, on Homer. But, pray, have you any intention of returning to the αυτάρκεια ?

NORTH.

Ha! Buller-do you speak? I have not wandered from it. But since you seem to think I have, think of Patroclus lighting a fire under a tripod with his own hands, to boil meat for Achilles' guests-of Achilles himself helping to lay the ransomed body of Hector on the car that was to take it away. This last is honorific and pathetic. Ministrations of all degrees for themselves, in their own affairs, characterise them all. From the least of these to Achilles fighting the River-God-which is an excess-all holds together-is of one meaning-and here, as everywhere, the least, and the familiar, and most homely, attests, vouches, makes evident, probable, and facile to credence, the highest, most uncouth, remote, and difficult otherwise of acceptation. Pitching the speculation lower, plenitude of the most robust, ardent, vigorous life overflows the Iliad-up from the animal to the divine-from the beautiful tall poplar by the river-side, which the wheelwright or wainwright fells. Eating, drinking, sleeping, thrusting through with spears, and hacking the live flesh off the bone -all go together and help one another-and make the "Majesty and Dignity" -or what not-of the Homeric Epos. But I see, Buller, that you are timeing me-and I am ashamed to confess that I have exceeded the assigned limit. Gentlemen, I ask all your pardons.

BULLER.

Timeing you-my dear sir! Look-'tis only my snuff-box-your own giftwith your own haunted Head on the lid-inspired work of Laurence Macdonald.

NORTH.

Give it me-why there-there-by your own unhappy awkwardness—it has gone-gone-to the bottom of the deepest part of the Loch!

BULLER.

I don't care. It was my chronometer! The Box is safe.

NORTH.

And so is the Chronometer. Here it is-I was laughing at you-in my sleeve.

BULLER.

Another Herman Boaz!-Bless my eyes, there is Kilchurn! It must be-there is no other such huge Castle, surely, at the head of the Loch-and no other such mountains

NORTH.

You promised solemnly, sir, not to say a single word about Loch Awe or its appurtenance, this Evening-so did every mother's son of us at your order -and t'was well-for we have seen them and felt them all--at times not the less profoundly-as the visionary pomp keeps all the while gliding slowly by -perpetual accompaniment of our discourse, not uninspired, perhaps, by the beauty or the grandeur, as our imagination was among the ideal creations of genius with the far-off in place and in time-with generations and empires. "When dark oblivion swallows cities up,

And mighty States, characterless, are grated
To dusty nothing."

SEWARD.

In the declining light I wonder your eyes can see to read print.

NORTH.

My eyes are at a loss with Sinall Pica--but veritable Pica I can master, yet, after sunset. Indeed, I am sharpest-sighted by twilight, like a cat or an owl.

BULLER.

Have you any more annotations on Alison?

NORTH.

Many. The flaws are few. I verily believe these are all. To elucidate his Truths-in Taste and in Morals-would require from us Four a far longer Dialogue. Alison's Essays should be reprinted in one Pocket Volume-Wisdom and Goodness are in that family hereditary-the editing would be a Work of Love-and in Bohn's Standard Library they would confer benefit on thousands who now know but their name.

SEWARD.

My dear sir, last time we voyaged the Loch, you said a few words--perhaps you may remember it-about those philosophers-Alison-the "Man of Taste," as Thomas Campbell loved to call him--assuredly is not of the number-who have insisted on the natural Beauty of Virtue, and natural Deformity of Vice, and have appeared to place our capacity of distinguishing Right from Wrong chiefly, if not solely, on the sense of this Beauty and of this Deformity

NORTH.

I remember saying, my dear Seward, that they have drawn their views too much from the consideration of the state of these feelings in men who had been long exercised in the pure speculative contemplation of moral Goodness and Truth, as well as in the calmness and purity of a tranquil, virtuous life. Was it so?

It was.

SEWARD.

NORTH.

In such minds, when all the calm faculties of the soul are wedded in happy union to the image of Virtue, there is, I have no doubt, that habitual feeling for which the term Beauty furnishes a natural and just expression. But I apprehend that this is not the true expression of that serious and solemn feeling which accompanies the understanding of the qualities of Moral Action in the minds of the generality of men. They who in the midst of their own unhappy perversions, are visited with knowledge of those immutable distinctions, and they who in the ordinary struggles and trials incident to our condition, maintain their conduct in unison with their strongly grounded principles and better aspirations, would seldom, I apprehend, employ this language for the description of feelings which can hardly be separated from the ideas of an awful responsibility involving the happiness and misery of the accountable subjects of a moral order of Government.

SEWARD.

You think, sir, that to assign this perception of Beauty and Deformity, as the groundwork of our Moral Nature, is to rest on too slight a foundation that part of man's constitution which is first in importance to his welfare?

NORTH.

Assuredly, my dear friend, I do. Nay, I do not fear to say that the Emotion, which may properly be termed a Feeling of Beauty in Virtue, takes place at those times when the deepest affection of our souls towards Good and Evil acts less strongly, and when the Emotion we feel is derived more from Imagination-and

SEWARD.

And may I venture to suggest, sir, that as Imagination, which is so strong a principle in our minds, will take its temper from any prevalent feelings, and even from any fixed and permanent habits of mind, so our Feeling of Beauty and Deformity shall be different to different men, either according to the predominant strength of natural principles, or according to their course of life?

NORTH.

Even so. And therefore this general disposition of Imagination to receive its character will apply, no doubt, where the prevailing feelings and habits are of a Moral cast; and hence in minds engaged in calm intellectual speculation, and maintaining their own moral nature rather in innocence and simplicity of life than in the midst of difficult and trying situations and in conflict with passions, there can be no doubt that the Imagination will give itself up to this general Moral Cast of Mind, and feel Beauty and Deformity vividly and uniformly in the contemplation of the moral quality of actions and moral states of character.

SEWARD.

But your words imply-do they not, sir? that such is the temper of their calmer minds, and not the emotion which is known when, from any great act of Virtue or Crime, which comes suddenly upon them, their Moral Spirit rises in its native strength, to declare its own Affection and its own Judgment?

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NORTH.

Just so. Besides, my excellent friend, if you consider well the feeling which takes possession of us, on contemplating some splendid act of heroic and self-devoting Virtue, we shall find that the sort of enthusiastic transport which may kindle towards him who has performed it, is not perfectly a moral transport at all; but it is a burst of love and admiration. Take out, then, from any such emotion, what Imagination, and Love, and Sympathy have supplied, and leave only what the Moral Spirit recognises of Moral Will in the act, and you will find that much of that dazzling and splendid Beauty which produced the transport of loving admiration is removed.

SEWARD.

And if so, sir, then must it be very important that we should not deceive ourselves, and rely upon the warmth of emotion we may feel towards generous and heroic actions as evidence of the force of Moral Principle in our own breasts, which requires to be ascertained by a very different test

NORTH.

Ay, Seward; and it is important also, that we should learn to acknowledge and to respect, in those who, without the capacity of such vivid feelings, are yet conscientiously faithful to the known Moral Law, the merit and dignity of their Moral Obedience. We must allow to Virtue, my dearest Seward, all that is her due-her countenance beautiful in its sweet serenity-her voice gentle and mild--her demeanour graceful-and a simple majesty in the flowing folds of her stainless raiment. So may we picture her to our imagination, and to our hearts. But we must beware of making such abstractions fantastic and visionary, lest we come at last to think of emotions of Virtue and Taste as one and the same-a fatal error indeed-and that would rob human life of much of its melancholy grandeur. The beauty of Virtue is but the smile on her celestial countenance and may be admired--loved-by those who hold but little com

munion with her inner heart-and it may be overlooked by those who pay to her the most devout worship.

TALBOYS.

Methinks, sir, that the moral emotion with which we regard actions greatly right or greatly wrong, is no transport; it is an earnest, solemn feeling of a mind knowing there is no peace for living souls, except in their Moral Obedience, and therefore receiving a deep and grateful assurance of the peace of one soul more, in witnessing its adherence to its virtue; and the pain which is suffered from crime is much more allied to sorrow, in contemplating the wilful departure of a spirit from its only possible Good, than to those feelings of repugnance and hate which characterize the temper of our common human emotion towards crimes offering violence and outrage to humanity.

NORTH.

I believe that, though darkness lies round and about us seeking to solve such questions, a feeling of deep satisfaction in witnessing the adherence to Moral Rectitude, and of deep pain in witnessing the departure from it, are the necessary results of a moral sensibility; but taken in their elementary simplicity, they have, I think, a character distinct from those many other emotions which will necessarily blend with them, in the heart of one human being looking upon the actions of another-" because that we have all one human heart."

TALBOYS.

Who can doubt that Religion infuses power and exaltation into the Arts? The bare History teaches this. In Greece Poetry sang of Gods, and of Heroes, in whose transactions Gods moved. Sculpture moulded forms which were attempted expressions of Divine Attributes. . Architecture constructed Temples. De facto the Grecian Arts rose out of Religion. And were not the same Arts, of revived Italy, religious?

BULLER.

They all require for their foundation and support a great pervading sympathy-some Feeling that holds a whole national breast. This is needed to munificently defraying the Costlier Arts-no base consideration at bottom. For it is a life-bond of this life, that is freely dropped, when men freely and generously contribute their means to the honour of Religion. There is a sentiment in opening your purse.

SEWARD.

Yes, Buller-without that sentiment no man can love noble Art. The true, deep, grand support of Genius is the confidence of universal sympathy. Homer sings because Greece listens. Phidias pours out his soul over marble, gold, and ivory, because he knows that at Olympia united Greece will wonder and will worship. Think how Poet is dumb and Sculptor lame, who foreknows that what he would sing, what he would carve, will neither be felt nor understood.

BULLER.

The Religion of a people furnishes the sympathy which both pays and applauds.

TALBOYS.

And Religion affords to the Artist in Words or Forms the highest Norms of Thought-sublime, beautiful, solemn-withal the sense of Aspiration— possibly of Inspiration.

NORTH.

And it guards Philosophy-and preserves it, by spiritual influence, from degradation worse than death. The mind is first excited into activity through the impressions made by external objects on the senses. The French metaphysians-pretending to follow Locke-proceeded to discover in the mind a mere compound of Sensations, and of Ideas drawn from Sensations. Sensations, and Ideas that were the Relics of Sensations--nothing more.

TALBOYS.

And thus, sir, by degrees, the Mind appeared to them to be nothing else than a product of the body--say rather a state of the body.

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NORTH.

A self-degradation, my friend, which to the utmost removes the mind from God. And this Creed was welcome to those to whom the belief in Him was irksome. That which we see and touch became to such Philosophers the whole of Reality. Deity-the Relation of the Creation to the Creator-the hope of a Futurity beyond the grave-vanished from the Belief of Materialists living in, and by, and to--Sensation.

SEWARD.

And with what a horrid sympathy was the creed welcomed!

NORTH.

Ay, Seward, I who lived nearer the time-perhaps better than you can— know the evil. Not in the schools alone, or in the solitude of philosophical thought, the doctrine of an arid speculation circulated, like a thin and unwholesome blood, through the veins of polite literature; not in the schools alone, but in the gorgeous and gay saloons, where the highly-born, the courtly, and the wealthy, winged the lazy hours with light or dissolute pleasuresthere the Philosophy which fettered the soul in the pleasing bands of the Senses, which plucked it back from a feared immortality, which opened a gulf of infinite separation between it and its Maker, was cordially entertainedthere it pointed the jest and the jibe. Scepticism a study-the zeal of Unbelief! Principles of false thought appeared suddenly and widely as principles of false passion and of false action. Doubts, difficulties, guesses, fine spinnings of the perverse brain, seized upon the temper of the times-became the springs of public and popular movements-engines of political change. The Venerations of Time were changed into Abominations. A Will strong to overthrow --hostile to Order—anarchical—“ intended siege and defiance to Heaven." The irreligious Philosophy of the calmer time now bore its fruits. The Century had prepared the explosion that signalized its close-Impiety was the name of the Giant whom these throes of the convulsed earth had borne into the day, and down together went Throne and Altar. But where are we?

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Your arm, Talboys-till I disembark. Up to the Mount I shall then climb, unassisted but by the Crutch.

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