in totally different senses. If it is thought of as formal analytic handling, as logical manipulation, cross-examination and scrutiny, Mr. Arnold's maxim may be an extreme, if not an erroneous one. But if it is construed as divining tact or intuitive instinct, the maxim is indubitably true. That the divining tact, or instinct of the poet, pierces to the very heart of problems addressed to the intellect, and which the intellect merely manipulates, is self-evident. It cuts through layers of formal criticism, and annihilates the barriers which these erect, at a single stroke, by a flash of inspiration. Doubtless it is criticism sublimated, criticism glowing and impassioned, but it is at the same time adequate, penetrative, and true. It is not prosaic analysis, or calculating scrutiny; it is critical vision; and, as the judgment of the seer, it may be quite unerring in its verdict, as to the substantive meaning of life, and the underlying spirit of the universe. In fact the poet, just because he is a poet, is at the same time a critic. He is a critic in being a poet; although he does not construct his estimates of men and things by the aid of logical formula; and it is in this sense that he often sees deeper or further than the philosopher. Another question of great interest discussed in this volume is the distinction between Poetry and Prose. Professor Shairp thinks that in modern English literature, at least, the distinction has been gradually abolished, while the distinction between Verse and Prose has been gradually intensified. Surely it would be more correct to say that the margins of the two spheres of Poetry and Prose have increasingly overlapped; that there is (as there has always been) a poetical prose and a prosaic poetry, while the distinction between a poem (however prosaic) and a prose writing (however poetical), remains clearly, and even sharply, defined. A poem is a unity. It produces its most distinctive effect by its self-inclusion, by its rhythmical completeness, and by the singleness of the impressions it evokes. Like a statue by Phidias, or a Madonna by Raphael, or a sonata by Beethoven, it must be gathered up into an imaginative whole, and it must return to its keynote. It must stand out to the eye and to the imagination, as a great mountain or a simple flower, as a sunset or as a constellation in the heavens-varied indefinitely in content, but with clear outlines, and recognisable boundary lines, with a definite framework, and a completed purpose. There is no reason why any passage of poetical prose, on the other hand, should end where it does end.. It might go on indefinitely far on the same lines, or in the same strain, without ceasing to be poetical prose. Take, as an illustration of the fundamental difference, one of Coleridge's exquisite prose marginalia to his 'Ancient Mariner,' and any of the single stanzas of the poem itself. "In his loneliness and fixedness he yearneth towards the journeying moon, and the stars that still sojourn, yet still move onward; and everywhere the blue sky belongs to them, and is their appointed rest, and their native country, and their own natural homes, which they enter unannounced, as lords that are certainly ex pected; and yet there is a silent joy at their arrival." Compare this specimen of prose poetry with the verse, or, with the verse, Still as a slave before his Lord, The ocean hath no blast; His great bright eye most silently It ceased; yet still the sails made on A noise like of a hidden brook In the leafy month of June, That to the sleeping woods all night and the difference between the unity of effect, the imaginative whole, that is in all poetry, and the indefiniteness of structure, the diffuseness of form that characterises the most poetical prose, is obvious. There are some deep questions raised in these lectures (such as the relations of morality to art) which are touched rather than discussed. They are most suggestively dealt with, but they are handled rather than wrought out; appreciatively and dexterously written about, rather than philosophically treated, or explained to their farthest recesses. And so we find that while the philosopher is thrown out, and philosophy cast aside, the critic has to fall back on a philosophy of his own after all. Once, at least, Professor Shairp falls back into idealism, pure and simple; while, throughout the book, his polemic against any system of phenomenalism is keen, and constant, and very able. But how, if speculative philosophy as a pursuit is slighted, or as a body of knowledge disparaged, can the literary critic turn validly round against that particular "philosophy which had been dominant for the last thirty years"? In the essay on 'The Spiritual Side of Poetry' four gradations of feeling and insight excited by Nature are acutely characterised; the first, that of mere physical exhilaration; the second, the enjoyment of form and colour; the third, that stage in which physical beauty adumbrates moral truth; and the fourth, when it leads to the rapture of religious feeling. It may be a mistake to arrange these in a necessarily ascending scale; and it may be equally erroneous to affirm that without a belief in a future life, and in our personal relations to the Divinity in whom we live and move and have our being, poetry is shorn of its highest power. Doubtless these "twin convictions" have added immeasurable wealth to the poetic products evoked by them; but in point of mere intensity and power, those poems which have kept to the mundane side of things, and dealt with the elemental relations of man to man, and man to nature, have probably been as effective as those which have dealt with the transcendental and the divine. One of the most characteristic essays is on 'The Poet as a Revealer.' Most true, and deep, and noble are the teachings of this lecture, because there is a whole side of Nature and of human life which the poet interprets for us, while the philosopher is dumb; and, whether he is dealing with Homer, or Eschylus and Sophocles, with Virgil, or Wordsworth, or Walter Scott, the author is equally felicitous and successful. It is, however, in what (without disparagement of the others) we may call his minor essays, that Professor Shairp's chief insight is shown. We have a delightful study of Virgil; one that will be new to the majority of English readers on 'The Poetry of the Scottish Highlands;' and another on Modern Gaelic Bards and Duncan Macintyre.' But in the two lectures devoted explicitly to Wordsworth-the former on "The White Doe of Rylstone,' and the latter on The Three Yarrows'-Professor Shairp is at his best. These essays recall the wisdom and the vision of the paper on Wordsworth, published many years since in the North British Review, and are only the latest proof of the inexhaustibility of the theme discussed. The whole volume is full of varied interest and helpfulness. It is a book which will instruct, where it does not convince; and while its judgments on individual poets and poems, and on special problems, will not satisfy every reader (they would have little merit if they did), they will assist many a student to new and fruitful views of the nature of poetry in general, and of the characteristics of our English poets in particular. If a perusal of the book leads to a full and enthusiastic study of the poets themselves, its main end will have been accomplished, and the aim of its author thoroughly fulfilled. No more notable book of its kind has issued from the British press within recent years. W. K. THE 66 ONESIMUS. THE Epistle to Philemon purports to be sent by the hands of one Onesimus; and the reader gathers that Onesimus was the escaped slave of Philemon, that Philemon himself was an old friend and disciple of Paul, that Paul had even now won over the fugitive also to confess the name of Christ, and that the Apostle desired to restore Onesimus to his master, no longer as a servant, but more than a servant, a brother beloved." The Revised Version brings out the tenderness of Paul with fresh simplicity and pathos; and fills us with renewed surprise that any Christian minister should ever have found in this touching letter an apostolic precedent for the infamous Fugitive Slave law of the United States. The balance of critical opinion assigns the Epistle rather to the Roman than the Cæsarean imprisonment of St. Paul, and the Epistle to the Colossians contains a reference to Philemon, which has led the commentators to place his establishment in the City of Colossa, at the foot of the Laodicean hills. If the radical question of Pauline authorship be raised, it must be said that the document is so slight as to afford no decisive indications either way; but even Baur places it in the second rank, next to the great Epistles themselves in probability of authenticity. The Epistle implies that Onesimus had robbed Philemon, not only of his own services but of something further, and makes mention of a Church meeting in Philemon's own house. On these and one or two other slight indications, the distinguished writer, who prefers, in this connection, to be known simply as "the author of Philochristus," has constructed the imaginary autobiography of the bondsman, Onesimus.* Onesimus lacks the absorbing interest which many readers found in Philochristus. The bright central person of the Nazarene no longer radiates from the page, and Paul does not play so prominent a part in this volume as his Master did in its predecessor. Nor when Paul does appear, is his the speech or the countenance or the thrilling presence of the Christ himself. Yet the figure of the Apostle is suffi ciently striking when it first passes across the scene. The child Onesimus sees a band of merchants coming along the Iconian road. Somewhat in the face of one of the travellers held me fast, I know not how, so that I fixed my gaze on him perforce, even as a bird fascinated by a serpent; and indeed I thought myself to be bewitched and spat thrice; but yet I stood still gazing upon him. At that time he was not yet bald, he had a clear complexion, a nose hooked and somewhat large; he was short of stature, and as he walked he bent his head a little forward, as if not able to discern things clearly; his eyebrows were shaggy and met together; but what most moved me was the glance of his eyes which were of a penetrating brightness, as though they would pierce through the outside of things even to the innermost substance (p. 3). This is the first acquaintance of Onesimus with his future spiritual father, and they do not meet again for many years. There is great power in the narrative of the young man's conversion. Despairing of truth, stung to the quick by the false suspicions instilled into the heart of Philemon by one Pistus, a false-hearted professor of Christianity, above all mad with grief at the death of Eucharis, his betrothed, Onesimus, once a philosopher and a lover of the right, has abandoned himself to the most reckless life. For a time a minister of Cybele, with her gross and sensual worship, he has now become a diner-out at Rome. Falling in by chance with Paul, he feels the power of the man, and is bent with his whole mind upon escaping from an extorted engagement to meet him in a Christian household where the saints are to hear him preach the word. He has been playing the buffoon at some rich patron's board with a wilder and more wanton wit than was his wont, and is staggering along the streets after the feast, when a hand is laid upon his shoulder from behind, and the voice of Paulus says, "My son, thou art not in the right way." Fain would I have made some excuse, or have fled at once without excuse; but neither could my tongue avail for words, nor my feet for flight. So I went on with Paulus even as a captive, and he took me by the hand and led me unresisting into a house where was a large congregation of the Christians already assembled and expecting his presence; through the midst of whom *Onesimus: Memoirs of a Disciple of St. Paul. By the AUTHOR OF PHILOCHRISTUS. London: Macmillan and Co. 1882. I walked, crowned as I was with roses, and dripping with unguents and staggering in my gait (p. 201). The mighty force of the speech of Paul slowly penetrates his mind, and clears the fumes of debauch from before his soul, till the great words "I am persuaded that neither death nor life" (Rom. viii. 38, 39) thunder at his heart, and the brightness of the Lord Jesus bursts in a flood upon his spirit. While the personal narrative in these 'Memoirs' is most skilfully woven, and the resources of a rich scholarship are brought with a light and graceful hand to illustrate the life and surroundings of the young Gentile in many varied scenes, there is no doubt that the most important interest of the book centres in its philosophical and critical discussions. These become very real and living in the minds and mouths of Onesimus and his friends. With some boldness of anachronism, Epictetus, Maximus of Tyre, Elius Aristides, Celsus, and even Justin Martyr and Irenæus, are made to contribute to the conversations and correspondence in which Onesimus takes part only Epictetus, however, proprio nomine. But the editor pleads that in germ the thoughts of these men already floated in the air in A.D. 60, and that the mind of the inquirer would have to reckon with them long before they found overt and formal expression. The reader will probably be impressed with the profundity of the scepticism which affected the world of thought in that momentous age, compared to the shallowness of the shoals in which the modern doubter flounders. No pole-star shone over that ocean; and however hard it be for the mariner to pilot his boat to-day, few drift so helplessly on the chartless waves as poor Onesimus. But much more than the philosophical, the critical disquisitions of the volume will attract attention and stimulate reflection. As the geologist exploring the tufa-beds of Derbyshire may behold rocks in the making, so our editor has conceived the bold idea of placing us at the spot where we can see the oral Tradition of the first generation of disciples swelling and radiating and crystallising towards the elaborated form of the completed Synoptics. To do this with full effect it has, indeed, been necessary to endow Onesimus with all the shrewdness of the contributor of the article, "Gospels," to the new edition of the "Encyclopædia Britannica; " and we should find it almost as hard to persuade ourselves that Onesimus really foresaw the maturer shape of the Tradition, and predicted "the end from the beginning," as that Isaiah or Micah actually prophesied the manner or the place of the birth of the Messiah. But we must not quarrel with the accomplished resuscitator of the Colossian bondsman for this. We can conceive no method of presenting the problem of Synoptic criticism more likely to convince the reader that the Gospel narratives have indeed gathered together, cohered, and grown after strict laws of mental evolution, than that so skilfully elaborated in the Third Book of these ingenious Memoirs. We have Onesimus, for example, listening to a discourse in which Hebrew prophecy is freely applied to the circumstances of the death of Christ, |