CHAPTER XVII.

THE ODD MAN HUMBLY ADVANCETH A NEW DEFINITION OF POETRY.

If I were called upon to define Poetry in a single sentence, I think I should describe it as THE FEELING OF IMMORTALITY AND THE PERCEPTION OF THE DEITY Suggested to tHE SOUL BY CREATION.

Into this definition all true Poetry may be resolved-whether it be the Poetry of Nature, of Life, of the Heart, of the Mind, or of the Soul.

The Poetry of Nature-what is it? The perception of the Beautiful, the Harmonious, and the Sublime. And what is the sense of the Beautiful, the Harmonious, or the Sublime, but the feeling of a Great Presence, a Spiritual Presence, a Deity? We see a sweet grace in the world; in its flowers, its smooth waters, its bright and laughing summer-sky; whence arises this sense of loveliness? It comes from our perception of an eternal principle of Beauty. We hear delicious sounds, and we are dumb with inexpressible delight— why do we experience this high joy? Because we feel that we are listening to undying music-to the harmony of Infinity. We feel a thrill of awe when we behold the ocean, or witness the bursting of a storm. Whence comes the thrill but from the sense of Divinity and Eternity that the scenes suggest? As we stand on the sea-shore, and see before us the mighty illimitable waste of waters rolling proudly on, as it rolled when the world rose out of Chaos, it is INFINITY We feel. As we trace the progress of the storm, there comes over us a sense of Almighty presence and Almighty action. When the clouds heaped mass on mass, gather sternly over the earth, and fight their fearful battles in our sight; when they shoot forth their lightnings, and roll their heavy thunders, and pour out their furious rains, we see the Fountain of Sublimity revealed, and we feel the presence of a mighty and Eternal Power.

With the Poetry of Life it is the same. Universal Being lifts its myriad tongues and shouts ETERNITY and GOD. From the little insect that hums its delight in the summer atmosphere, up through the thousand links of animation, to the noblest and most completeimmortal man,-each-all speak loudly of a world to come of an Almighty and Pure Intelligence.

Beautifully is this definition confirmed by the Poetry of the Heart. Our affections and sympathies-from whence do they flow but from the eternal fount of Love? and what is Love but a perception of-a grasping at the undying principle of the Beautiful? Trace the idealisms of a soul that loves. What perfection it imagines-what spotless purity-what faultless beauty! True, the imagined perfection is merely ideal;-but are not such dreams glimpses of the Future, revelations of Eternal Truth? By attaching itself so fondly to such pure conceptions, does not the soul assert what it can love for ever, and what only it can fully love? And how thrillingly Love gives us the idea of God. It suggests Truth-Truth suggests Divinity: It supposes Happiness-the idea of happiness is nothing without Eternity and GOD: It reveals the Beautiful-the Beautiful reflects God.

Or shall we survey the Poetry of mind? What are the longings of Hope but the glimpses of immortal happiness? What is Memory

but the presence of past events to the Mind, showing that Time has no power over it, but that it is formed for endless life? What is Imagination but the spirit's perception of its proper sphere of its glorious destiny? What is Ambition but the Spirit's recognition of its Great Prize-its effort to grasp its immortality? What are moral courage, constancy, resolution, kindness, and endurance of evil, but attributes, evidences, blossoms of Infinity?

Poetry is the language of the conscious soul, as it speaks to the Living Spirit of Creation. Between the Soul and the visible Spirit of Beauty there is a mysterious friendship-a holy assimilation. They are both essences-parts-of DEITY. The same breath that made man a living Soul, quickened the material world, and clothed it in loveliness. The light that burns in the human eye comes from the same altar that kindled the sun and all the host of heaven. The same principle of life that animates Man, calls up the flower and the tree from the bosom of the earth. When, therefore, man beholds the beautiful scenes of the world-when he looks upon the living, beaming, lovely face of Nature, the Spirit in his breast answers to the Spirit enshrined in the Universe. They recognize each other-they embrace-they hold converse together-they speak of HIM who called them into being, and their words are of Eternity and Happiness.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE ODD MAN SAYS A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE EFFECTS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

AMONGST the remarkable results of the great French Revolution was a change in the world's theory of religion. For a considerable period previous to the era referred to, implicitness was the principle of the Christian world's creed. Men were taught to rely rather than to inquire, and their religion was founded more upon their faith than upon their judgment. And this principle was admirably adapted to the times in which it prevailed. Reason was not strong enough to be built upon; the judgment was not sufficiently cleared from the clouds of ignorance to be a fit arbiter in matters of religious duty. It was, therefore, advisable that Religion should be left to the Heart rather than to the Understanding.

But as the mists of ignorance dispersed, and the mind of the world became stronger and better informed, men began to desire some other principle than Veneration on which to base their Religion. They sought to bring Faith to the test of Reason, and to employ their Judgment instead of their feelings-or rather as well as their feelings-in deciding of their duty to their God. And this is a necessary consequence of enlightenment. Reason is the noblest gift of God to man; and as the reason becomes cultivated, it seeks more and more to employ itself. The mind becomes aware that the reasoning faculty is given for the purpose of enabling it to distinguish Truth from Error, and therefore it naturally brings to the bar of its judgment all things that concern it. Philosophy longs to have a share in man's redemption, and offers her proofs to the rest in favour of the Revelation that is held out to him. She has too long been treated as the

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foe of Christianity, when she ought to have been regarded as its ally; and even now she is looked suspiciously upon, when she ought to be welcomed with thankfulness and smiles.

At the time of the French Revolution, things and events had so worked as to render a change in the principle of Religion unavoidable and the change to be desired was just that to which I have alluded—namely, a change in favour of the judgment;—not in place of the conscience, but in addition to it. The Religion that depends upon the feelings, and is not guided by the judgment, will naturally tend to bigotry and superstitious credence; and unless controlled by those somewhat rare virtues, Benevolence and Goodwill, will excite some of our worst passions, dignify rancour with the name of zeal, and sanctify fratricide by deeming it to be a duty. Now, the reason will clear the mind, and cause its effervescence to subside; and this without any injury to the cause of real Religion. At the time of which I have spoken, men had become somewhat tired of the bickerings, animosities, and ill will which had been brought into life by what had been miscalled Religion; and they began to desire that peace on earth and that goodwill to men which they had been led to expect Religion would have brought them. The period was come, therefore, when the change became necessary; all things were fitting; the agents ready; and the event referred to was the circumstance that set the chords of this change in motion.

The immediate results of sudden changes are always of a violent and tumultuous character. While the fire of revolution is working, it scorches and destroys, and produces effects greater than was anticipated; but when the flame subsides, the warmth that follows is genial and prevading. When the Almighty Fiat called the earth out of chaos, the commixing elements produced immense unwieldy monsters; but when the workings of the elemental mass subsided, life was distributed into orderly classes and races of beings, such as now enjoy it.

So it was with the revolution of which I have spoken. The sudden change in the religious principle produced religious monsters and deformities. The old system struggled against the new, and many men's minds became unsettled and wavering. The two powers ranged themselves under extreme banners-Faith leant towards Credulity, and Philosophy inclined towards Scepticism.

This was to be expected whenever the change began. So great an alteration could not, in the nature of things, be accomplished in a moment, or without a struggle; and we ought to rejoice that the struggle came at a time when men's minds were so much exercised upon other matters that they had no leisure to collect the bitterness and acrimony which, unfortunately, usually attend a religious change. The seeds of the change were therefore quietly sown, and we are now beginning to reap the fruits in the more enlightened, more liberal, and, I would fain hope, more real Religion that characterizes our times.

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THE FORGET-ME-NOT.

Two sisters sat upon a mossy bank,
Under an oak's green shade that grew alone
On a soft swelling hill; the morning sun,
That round about and o'er the pleasant plains
Poured golden light, pierced not their verdant bower;
The summer breeze but stirred with gentlest motion
The whispering leaves; up from the valley came
The sound of bleating flocks with tinkling bells,
And the low murmur of a running stream;
Beyond, the hills were rich with golden grain,
Slow waving to and fro; villa and farm,

Gardens with gayest flowers, green smooth-mown lawns,
And cottages with happy childish forms

Sporting before them, in whose porches sate
Old men with silver hair o'er sun-brown brows
Thinly besprinkled, and young mothers, pleased
To watch their childrens' play with careful eyes
Of happy tenderness,―around them lay;
And thro' a leafy screen of ancient trees,
Gleamed the white village spire. With eyes intent
And silent lips they sate in bliss profound,-
Most exquisite in thought that took no shape,-
In a delicious calm of happiness.

Up, up into the very heart of heaven
Arose the merry lark; with eyes withdrawn
Unconsciously from earth, his mounting flight
The silent sisters watched till in the glare
Of day he disappeared;-then, with a sigh,
The elder spake,-"Oh! that I too, like thee,
Bold happy bird, to the blue heaven might soar,
And at the very source of day pour forth
Like thee, my soul in song; on steady wing
Hang poised between the glorious vault of heaven
And this inglorious earth. How vain were these
To one who from yon upper air might view

All the world's grandeur,-her most lofty pomps,-
Her fancied majesties, her haughtiest realms,-

Her proudest monuments; to eye so plac'd

Earth's self were mean; her mountains, whose proud boast It is to rise above the clouds of heaven,

Shrunk into hillocks,-her wide-spreading seas,

The highways of the nations, but, like pools,

Left when the clouds yield rain,-her rivers, threads

Of silver, and proud Man, who calls himself

Lord of created nature, who, with head

Erect, and swelling heart, amid her works

Walks clothed in pride, and crowned with haughtiness,
Quite lost in littleness."

But to her words

The younger answered, while a rosy blush
Suffused her modest features,-"Not for me
Such wish, for earth is fair, and in the smile
Of God it blooms and is most beautiful;

Oh! not for me the lot that midway lies

Too proud to dwell with earth,-too low for heaven;
For I do love this bright and glorious world,

And am content to gather, as I may,

Its sweets, and cull its flowers ere they fade;
To look upon the verdure of its fields,
To listen to the music of its woods,

To sleep beside the murmur of its streams;
And if within its narrow compass, words
Of pride o'erpass right reason, and dark deeds
Mar oft its beauties, and rash violence wastes
Its loveliness, or stains with kindred blood
Its verdant plains, and want, and pain, and crime,
Mingle their fearful shapes with loveliest things,
It is a glorious world-a happy world,—
The abode of happy creatures; there fair hopes
And peaceful joys and prayers and praise abound,—
And in its million homes love smiling dwells,
While heaven, well pleased, looks down.

There were a wish

Sister, dear sister, to thy faithful ear

I may confide it.-Look upon this flower,
So lovely, yet so modest; let me place it
Upon thy breast, my sister. Happy flower!
So would I in some loving bosom rest
Like thee-Forget-me-not!"

THETA.

A DISCOVERED FRAGMENT.

MR. EDITOR,-The following Ode has been lately discovered in a secret recess of the butteries of St. John's College, Cambridge, and has excited much interest among the learned. The first line of Gray's Bard is evidently a direct plagiarism from the first line of this inimitable composition. Gray was a Cambridgeman, and doubtless had seen the piece in the hands of some of his Johnian friends. In the second line " apt alliteration's artful aid" is employed in a very striking manner. It is, doubtless, intended to take the attention at starting. A modern classical author has commenced one of his sublime and spirit-stirring Odes in the same alliterative style: "In a box of the stone-jug I was born." See Jack Shep. in loc. See also another well-known English Lyric, "Billy Taylor was a nice young fellow." Notice in the third line, "Snuffing thy way"-this is no doubt an allusion to the practice of old gents. taking snuff so incessantly while walking. The fourth line has called forth the remark from the learned Muddibrane, “that this animal was calculated to adorn a tail." The whole of the second verse is a splendid outburst of all the enthusiasm and poetry of gormandizing. "Crisp crackling" is one of the most suggestive and expressive passages in the whole range of English Poetry. In the fourth verse, the butcher is represented as coming "adown the close, with slaughter in his eye, and black patch on his nose." Without stopping to notice the beautiful grouping together of "eye" and "nose," "slaughter" and "black patch," in this magnificent line, it may be remarked that Moliere has a similar expression to "slaughter in his eye," in his Comedy Tartuffe," where a tutor is made to say that "he has a pupil in his eye." As to the "black patch on his nose," you know very well,

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