stanza,

charge. There was, for example, a poor cripple, from the "Paraphrases," but from the deaf and dumb, whom he constantly found time to visit, because the man thought he could understand the motion of his lips; and he would hold conversations with him besides, by writing on a slate; then to amuse him in his solitary life,

he would set him sums on the slate when he

went away, and look them over at his next visit,

and correct them.

“He ‘made friends,' one may say, with the inmates of the workhouse, especially the old men, and was frequent in his visits there. He got them to the daily services, and, seating them on the front benches, addressed himself specially to them, as he read the Second Lesson, reading slowly, and with pauses, almost as if he were alone with them, and were speaking to them.

"His manner of reading the Scriptures was remarkable: so simple, that your first impression of it was that it was the reading of a very intelligent and reverent child, yet so good, that he made you understand them more, I think, than any one else. At the same time he conveyed to you in some measure his own feeling of

reverence.

"His hand would in prayer be raised so as to overshadow his eyes, or his voice would sink. Once a friend was about to read to him the daily prayers used by a poor Italian woman; he raised his hand to his forehead in the way I speak of, caught a low chair, and knelt on it, as if that were the only proper position for him while the prayers were read."

II. Immediately springing out of this homely work, and soaring into quite other regions, is his career as a poet. We do not propose to review the whole texture and substance of those remarkable books, of which one at least has become, it may be truly affirmed, a formulary of the Church of England. The "Christian Year" has taken its place - certainly for this generation next to the Authorized Version and the Prayer-Book, far above the Homilies and the Articles. For one who would enforce an argument or defend a text by quoting the Eleventh Article or the Homily on Charity, there are a hundred who would appeal to the " Christian Year." And it has reached far beyond the limits of the Established Church. Wherever English religion spreads, there is also found this little volume. It is within the memory of the present writer, that, on a Sunday in the desert of Mount Sinai, where books were naturally of the fewest, of four British travellers, two of them were Scotsmen it was found that three had in their small travelling library brought out the "Christian Year." In the sermon of a distinguished Presbyterian preacher, on the "Religion of Common Life," the chief illustration was borrowed not from the " Westminster Confession" or

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"The trivial round, the daily task," &c.

In the Crimean war some fanatical chaplain had opposed the introduction of the Christian Year" into the hospitals; but by the next arrival from England was a whole cargo of "Christian Years" brought by the daughter of the greatest of Scottish divines - Dr. Chalmers.

It has attained this recognized place without synodical authority, without enforced subscription: simply by its own intrinsic beauty. What were the special peculiarities* wherein that force and beauty lay have been described so fully elsewhere, that it may be sufficient here to dwell on some of the more general characteristics of Keble's poetical career which have not been adequately noticed.

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Keble was not merely, like Isaac Watts or First, it was a volume of genuine poetry. Charles Wesley, a writer of hymns. He was a real poet. Their hymns, no doubt, have occasional flashes of poetry, but their main object is didactic, devotional, theological. Not so the Christian Year," the Lyra Innocentium," or the "Psalter." Very few of his verses can be used in public worship. His hymns are the exception. His originality lies in the fact that whilst the subjects which he touches are for the most part consecrated by religious usage or Biblical allusion, yet he grasps them not chiefly or exclusively as a theologian, or a Churchman, but as a poet. This at once carried him into a higher sphere. Whatever there is of the universal element in poetry, as distinct from prose, that is found throughout these volumes. Of the "Lyra Innocentium," we agree with Sir John Coleridge, that whilst its more limited range of subjects, and perhaps its more subtle turn of thought, will always exclude it from the rank occupied by the Christian Year," it has more of the true fire of genius, more of the true rush of poetic diction. The "Psalter" again differs essentially from Sternhold and Hopkins, Tate and Brady, not merely in execution, but in design. It is the only English example of a rendering of Hebrew poetry by one who was himself a poet, with the full appreciation of the poetical thought as well as of the spiritual life which lies enshrined in the deep places of the 93d Psalm. The general subject of that

These more special characteristics of Keble's poetry have been so admirably and fully described by Professor Shairp in his delightful little volume, Keble and the Christian Year," that it is needless to go over them again.

Psalm must be obvious to every one in any translation, however meagre. But it required magic touch of a kindred spirit to bring out of the rugged Hebrew sentences the splendour and beauty of the dashing and breaking waves, which doubtless was intended, though shrouded in that archaic tongue from less keen observers.

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Keble, in the best sense of the word, was not a sacred but a secular poet. It is not David only, but the Sibyl whose accents we catch in his inspirations. The "sword in myrtle drest" of Harmodius and Aristogiton, "the many-twinkling smile of ocean" from Eschylus, are images as familiar to him as "Bethlehem's glade," or "Carmel's haunted strand." Not George Herbert, or Cowper, but Wordsworth, Scott, and perhaps more than all, Southey,* are the English poets that kindled his flame, and coloured his diction. The beautiful stanza, Why so stately, maiden fair?" and the whole poem on "May Garlands," might have been written by the least theological of men. The allusions to nature are even superabundantly inwoven with the most sacred subjects. Occasionally a thought of much force and sublimity is lost by its entanglement in some merely passing phase of cloud and shadow. The descriptions of natural scenery display a depth of poetical intuition very rarely vouchsafed to any man. The exactness of the descriptions of Palestine have been noted and verified on the spot, as very few such descriptions ever have been. There are not above two or three failures, even in turns of expression. One example of this minute accuracy is so striking as to deserve special record. Amongst the features of the Lake of Gennesareth, one which most arrests the attention is the belt of oleanders which surrounds its shores. But this remarkable characteristic had, as far as we know, entirely escaped the observation of all travellers before the beginning of this century; and, if we are not mistaken, the first published notice of it was in that line of the Christian Year"

"All through the summer night,

⚫ Those blossoms † red and bright—” by one who had never seen them, and who must have derived his knowledge of them

eller from the Holy Land. It was an instance of his curious shyness that, when complimented on this singular accuracy of description of the Holy Land, he replied, "It is by a happy accident." Not less precise, if we knew exactly where to look for the original spots which suggested them, are his descriptions of the scenery of England. With the single exception of the allusion to the rocky isthmus at the Land's End said to be found in the lines,

"Lo, on a narrow neck of land,

"Twixt two unbounded seas I stand,"

there is probably no local touch through the whole of the poems of the two Wesleys. But Oxford, Bagley Wood, and the neighbourhood of Hursley, might, we are sure, be traced through hundreds of lines, both in the "Christian Year" and the "Lyra Innocentium;" and we trust that, before it be too late, those of this generation who alone have it in their power to preserve the tradition, will duly record it in each particular case where it can be discovered.

It will be remembered that the only purely secular function which he was called to perform was that of Professor of Poetry at Oxford. His lectures, as Sir John Coleridge feelingly remarks, are buried in the tomb. of the dead language which it was reserved for his distinguished godson, Matthew Arnold, to break through. But there are still living those with whom his discharge of one of his duties left a far livelier recollection than his Latin lectures. It was part of his office to correct the poems which during his tenure of it obtained the Newdigate Prize. One of those young authors still retains so fresh and so characteristic a remembrance of his intercourse with the Professor, even then venerable in his eyes, that it may be worth recording. He recalls, after the lapse of more than thirty years, the quiet kindness of manner, the bright twinkling eye illuminating that otherwise inexpressive countenance, which greeted the bashfal student on his entrance into the Professor's presence. One touch after another was given to the juvenile verses, substituting for this or that awkward phrase graceful turns of expression all his own:

from careful cross-examination of some trav-« Is there a spot where earth's dim daylight

falls,"

How familiar Southey's poetry was to Keble's eircle appears from the recognized name of the has the delicate "Simorg," given to their friend Dyson. Alas! how few of the present generation will appreciate that Year" all over. exquisite recollection of the " Bird of Ages."

In all the early editions these were in a note erroneously called “rhododendron." It was not till after his attention had been called to it, that, we think in the 72d edition, it was altered to "oleander."

colour of the " Christian In adding the expression, "Where shade, air, waters

he dwelt with all the ardour of the keenest critic on the curious subtlety of language,

how thoroughly here is Southey's language "The vaulted cells where martyr'd seers of old, caught; how thoroughly, too, the Judaic as Far in the rocky walls of Sion sleep." contrasted with the Christian Advent! And These are the touches which prepared the it may be added, though not directly bear-way for "Essays and Reviews," for Ewal, ing on the present topic, how delighted was and for Ewal's admirers. The Biblical his youthful hearer to perceive the sympa- scenery is treated graphically as real scenthetic warmth with which, at a certain point ery, the Biblical history and poetry as real in the poem, he said, Ah, surely this was history and poetry: the wall of partition suggested by Dr. Arnold's sermon on the between things sacred and things secular Egyptians whom ye have seen to-day, ye is broken down; the dogmatist, the allegorshall see no more again for ever.'"* This ist, have disappeared; the critic and the allusion was the more felt as showing his poet have stepped into their place. recollection of the friend from whom at that time he was so strangely alienated. "O for a sculptor's hand,

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This leads to a further remark on this

poetical phase of Keble's character. How retired was his pastoral life we have seen; how narrow his ecclesiastical life will be seen hereafter. But as a poet he not only touched the great world of literature, but he also was a free-minded, free-speaking thinker. It may not be without interest to give a few instances of this broad and philosophic vein in the poet, the more striking from their contrast with his opposite tendencies in connexion with his ecclesiastical party.

Even in mere form, it has been elsewhere remarked that his poems afford one of the most signal instances of "freely handling" the subjects of the sacred history "in a becoming spirit," and speaking of them in the same terms as he would have used in describing any other remarkable course of events. The offence which was given by Dean Milman venturing to call Abraham a sheikh, or by another theologian venturing to speak of Joshua's war as "the Conquest of Palestine," was in fact repeated again and again in the "Christian Year" and the 'Lyra Innocentium."

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That thou might'st take thy stand, Thy wild hair floating on the Eastern breeze.” This is the true poetic fire of Gray's Bard," not the conventional language which approached the Biblical seers with bated breath and vague surmises a hundred years ago.

Look at the spirited song of the manna gatherers:

«The moist pearls now bestrewing

Thymy slope and rushy vale;
Comrades-what our sires have told us,
Watch and wait, for it will come;
Not by manna showers at morning
Shall our wants be then supplied;
But a strange pale gold adorning

Many a tufted mountain side."

This is the tone, not of the mystical commentators, but of Macaulay's "Lays." This is not the rigid line of demarcation between the natural and supernatural; it is the recognition of the common element in both, which, however much acknowledged in Germany, English theology has been so slow to allow.

Take again the questions of doctrine. There is nothing which the high ecclesiastical party has guarded so jealously as the hypothesis that our Lord's nature excluded all imperfections of human knowledge; that He was made unlike to us, not only in sinlessness, but in all respects. No hypothesis has caused such scruples and alarms in timid minds at the advance of

It is the very opposite of the spirit of those | show how far nobler, purer, and loftier was

who have made not moral excellence but technical forms of belief the one test of safety.

Again, the doubts and difficulties which in the rude conflict of theological controversy are usually ascribed to corrupt motives and the like, are treated in his " Ode on St. Thomas's Day" with a tenderness worthy of Arnold and of Professor Jowett.

"Never so blest, as when in Jesus' roll

They write some hero-soul,

More pleased upon his brightening road To wait, than if their own with all his radiance glow'd."

Such a keen discrimination of the gifts and relations of the Apostles belongs to the true modern element of theology, not to the conventional theories of former days.

what may be called the natural element of the poet's mind, than the artificial distinctions in which he became involved as a partisan and as a controversialist. This is no rare phenomenon. Who has not felt it hard to recognize the author of the "Paradise Lost" and of the "Penseroso" in the polemical treatises on Divorce and on the Execution of Charles I.? Who does not know the immeasurable contrast between Wordsworth the poet of nature and of the human heart, and Wordsworth the narrow Tory and High Churchman of his later days? Let us hope that in all these cases it is the poet who is the real man - the theologian and politician only the temporary mask and phase.

III. To this phase, however, we must for a few moments turn. Not that even

think that the "

And the beautiful analysis of the charac-here he was a mere polemic. It is pleasant to ter and position of Barnabas, which is one quietness of confidence of the masterpieces of Renan's work on the which was the strength of his personal and Apostles, is all but anticipated in the lines pastoral life, also moderated the exclusiveon that saint in the "Christian Year: ness of his theological career; and that the soaring genius of the poet raised him, more than any other ecclesiastical writer of his school, above the paltry conflicts of party. He never took active steps in the prosecutions and personal attacks by which the High Church school has distinguished itself in later years. It should always be remembered that the compromise which most nearly succeeded in healing the long and fierce controversy in the University of Oxford concerning the salary of the Greek Professor, was brought about by him. The wild spirits that had been roused by that controversy were indeed beyond his power to control; but it is not less to be borne in mind that the counsel which they refused proceeded from the gentle oracle of Hursley. Amongst his prose works must be also recorded as belonging to no party his laborious and on the whole impartial edition of Hooker. The Catholic and philosophic, or, as his enemies would call them, the latitudinarian and Erastian leanings of the greatest of English divines, distasteful as they must in every respect have been to the editor, were not concealed; and the whole work is one of patient scholarlike care. The same exact labour appears in his 'Life of Bishop Wilson." Every date, every name, every locality is verified to the utmost. And there also is the same candid statement of facts, which must have been as unwelcome to the mere Oxford ecclesiologist, as they are welcome to the student of religious history on a larger scale. Not only are the good bishop's slight irregularities at college, and his en

And with regard to the more special peculiarities of the High Church school, it is remarkable how at every turn he broke away from them in his poetry. It is enough to refer to the justification of marriage as against celibacy in the Ode on the Wednesday in Passion Week; the glorification of the religion of common against conventual life in his Morning Hymn, and in his Ode on St. Matthew's day. The contending polemic schools have themselves called attention to the well-known lines on the Eucharist in the poem on Gunpowder Treason. It is clear that, whatever may have been the subtle theological dogma which he may have held on the subject, the whole drift of that passage, which no verbal alteration can obliterate, is to exalt the moral and spiritual elements of that ordinance above those physical and local attributes on which later developments of his school have so exclusively dwelt.

These instances might be multiplied to any extent. It would, of course, be preposterous to press each line of poetry into an argument. But the whole result is to