the urgent desire of men that he shall furnish them with a guide to life, a clue through the tangled maze of earthly vicissitude, he is reduced to the presentation of cold analyses, or the bare enunciation of a moral dictum, a categorical imperative. Not so the poet. He also affirms, but he likewise stirs the feelings. He also affirms, but the form of his affirmation, in its exquisite blending of truth with symbol, in its representation of the hidden verity by a cunning arrangement of the lovely shows of things, delights every sense and faculty of the whole being. Poetry thus actualizes what in philosophy is only potential. Philosophy is a Merlin, but a Merlin shut away from the world in a hollow oak, through some charm "of woven paces and of waving hands" which effectually debars it from exercising its natural prerogative, the ordering of human lives according to the eternal idea of the good, the necessary, and the true. But poetry is a Prospero whom the lightest airs of heaven obey, and whose empire is absolute over the hearts and consciences of men. The ugly and the vicious may grumble at its dominion, but are powerless, are even halfwon to reverence for the viewless might by which they are fettered; while all gentle spirits rejoice in being so sweetly attuned to the central harmonies of Order and Law, and in finding their heedless courses wrought, through a constraining magic, into patterns of an endless and most felicitous beauty.

We can thus understand how Sidney the Puritan was also Sidney the poet, and how religion and creative poetry were to him almost as sisters. Both assume this function of guidance, both exercise it to the noblest ends, and both achieve their purpose through the kindling of the imagination and an appeal to the emotional nature. The one, it is true, lays direct claim to a divine mission; the other, though conscious of its divine origin, is often content to be regarded merely as the efflux of the exalted and enraptured

human soul. But is there not a point where the two coalesce? Who, were he to encounter for the first time the following passage from the Phædrus of Plato, dissociated from its context, could tell whether the author was speaking of poetry or religion—or perchance of philosophy tinged with emotion? "And he who employs aright these memories is ever being initiated into perfect mysteries and alone becomes truly perfect. But, as he forgets earthly interests and is rapt in the divine, the vulgar deem him mad, and rebuke him; they do not see that he is inspired. Thus far I have been speaking of the fourth and last kind of madness, which is imputed to him who, when he sees the beauty of earth, is transported with the recollection of the true beauty; he would like to fly away, but he cannot; he is like a bird fluttering and looking upward and careless of the world below; and he is therefore esteemed mad. And I have shown this of all inspirations to be the noblest and highest and the offspring of the highest" (Jowett's tr., 2. 126). Or, suppose the word 'religion' to be substituted for 'poetry' in these sentences from Schiller's Essay on Pathos (Hempel's tr., 2. 486), and note whether any susceptibility is shocked, or any convictions antagonized, by the affirmations thus made: "In the case of man poetry never executes a special business, and no instrument is less fitted to perform some special service. Her sphere of action is the totality of human nature; she can only affect single traits or acts by affecting human character generally. Poetry may be to man what love is to the hero. She can neither advise him, nor fight his battles, nor perform any other work for him; but she may educate him to become a hero, she may call him to perform deeds, she may arm him with strength."

Sidney's theory might be illustrated by the practice of the more illustrious of Dante's contemporaries and thirteenth century predecessors, especially by that of such poets as Wolfram von Eschenbach and Guido Guinicelli. The tech

nic invented or perfected by the troubadours, and which they had employed in amatory, satirical, or martial compositions, had become, in the course of time, the instrument of philosophy. A definite meaning was now embodied by the poet in his verse, and this meaning comprehended much more than the incidents of a tale, or the longing for a beloved one. It was not exhausted when considered as an attack upon a personal enemy, or as an exhortation to deeds of physical valor. Dante himself, alike in his theory and his practice, furnishes the most convenient exponent of this conception of poetry as the teacher and guide of men, full of significance when apparently most sensuous, intending the spiritual and transcendent when most occupied with colors, and odors, and sweet sounds. In both the New Life and the Banquet (Convito) Dante gives lengthy expositions of a few poems, revealing by analysis the fundamental truths which determined the structure and even the ornament of each. In the New Life (Rossetti's tr., p. 81) he protests against meaningless poetry: "Neither did these ancient poets speak thus without consideration, nor should they who are makers of rime in our day write after the same fashion, having no reason in what they write; for it it were a shameful thing if one should rime under the semblance of metaphor or rhetorical similitude, and afterwards, being questioned thereof, should be able to rid his words of such semblance, unto their right understanding. Of whom (to wit, of such as rime thus foolishly) myself and the first among my friends do know many." And in his Letter to Can Grande, in which he explains the scope and purport of the Divine Comedy, he says (Hillard's tr., pp. 393, 396): "There are six things, therefore, that must be sought out in beginning any instructive work; that is to say, the subject, the agent, the form, the end, the title of the book, and the nature of its philosophy. . . Setting aside all subtlety of investigation, we may say briefly that the end of both (the

whole and the part) is to rescue those who live in this life from their state of misery, and to guide them to the state of blessedness. The nature of the philosophy governing both the whole and the part is moral action, or ethics, because the object of the whole work is not speculative, but practical. Therefore, even if certain places or passages are treated in a speculative manner, this is not for the sake of speculation, but of operation." The substantial identity of Dante's theory of poetry with that of Sidney, will, in the light of these and similar passages, scarcely be questioned (cf. 54 2 ff., 13 1 ff.).

But it is perhaps more obvious to compare Sidney, the Puritan and poet, with Milton, the Puritan and poet. Does not Milton seem to be reviving the memory of Sidney, as well as tracing an ideal for himself, in the well-known passage from the Apology for Smectymnuus: "I was confirmed in this opinion, that he who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things ought himself to be a true poem, that is, a composition of the best and honorablest things; not presuming to sing high praises of heroic men or famous cities, unless he have in himself. the experience and the practice of all that which is praiseworthy." When Sidney says of the poet, "For he doth not only show the way, but giveth so sweet a prospect into the way as will entice any man to enter into it" (see 23 15 ff.), are we not reminded of Milton's words in the Reason of Church Government: "Teaching over the whole book of sanctity and virtue through all the instances of example, with such delight-to those especially of soft and delicious temper, who will not so much as look upon truth herself unless they see her elegantly dressed that, whereas the paths of honesty and good life appear now rugged and difficult though they be indeed easy and pleasant, they will then appear to all men both easy and pleasant though they were rugged and difficult indeed." Milton, like Sidney,

had a keen æsthetic appreciation of the poetical parts of the Bible, as appears from his estimate of the Song of Solomon and the Book of Revelation, concluding with the following words (Reason of Church Government): “But those frequent songs throughout the law and prophets beyond all these, not in their divine argument alone, but in the very critical art of composition, may be easily made appear over all the kinds of lyric poesy to be incomparable" (see 6 3 ff., 9 19 ff.). And Milton, like Sidney, inveighs against those who persist in writing verse while still ignorant of the first principles of poetry conceived as an ethical force, or rather while deliberately inculcating the negation of all principle, and abandonment to the seductions of vice. Thus again in the Reason of Church Government, Milton denounces "the writings and interludes of libidinous and ignorant poetasters, who, having scarce ever heard of that which is the main consistence of a true poem, the choice of such persons as they ought to introduce, and what is moral and decent to each one, do for the most part lay up vicious principles in sweet pills to be swallowed down, and make the taste of virtuous documents harsh and sour (cf. 45 20 ff., 23 29 ff.).

These comparisons illustrate the consensus of opinion among men of different centuries, but substantially equal endowments, with respect to the ethical function of the highest creative poetry, and its kinship with religion. It can hardly be necessary to provide further proof that Sidney's position is not only defensible, but inexpugnable. As he himself says, poetry may be perverted and turned from its rightful use; but this being true of every most excellent thing, we should not allow ourselves to be prejudiced by the fact of such abuse, otherwise, if we are logical, we shall approve of nothing, however blameless and salutary in its unpolluted state.