notonous stars and apparently following its own free will. Yet, while the genesis of comets is obscure, their paths are all marked out beforehand; and from them they cannot swerve save in obedience to law. Genius is no less wonderful for being modified by circumstances; only when these are favorable does it attain its highest development. A man must have hearers before he will say his best. When we are talking to ourselves we speak below our breath; only when we are addressing some one else do we use our full voice. The man who is sure of an audience derives from that feeling the delight that a speaker knows when he stands before an eager multitude. Without that he is dumb. Doubtless the orations that Demosthenes uttered on the sea-shore were inferior to those with which he fired the Athenians against Philip. The man who bows to his time may waste his strength in uncongenial and inferior work, as did Addison when he ceased to be natural and wrote his "Cato." The writer who defies his time is fortunate if he is merely eccentric : it cannot be simply a coincidence that Collins and Blake, the most rarely poetical minds of the last century, were mad. Gray gave up trying to reach deaf ears, and consoled himself with study.

Yet the opposition to regarding the laws by which genius is limited lies deep. We cannot bear to think that the intellect is subject to law, like the dull stone. We cannot endure the thought that while our bodies are limited in power, as in size, our minds are not superior to restraints and shackles; yet all history goes to show the existence of the control of the mind by heredity and circumstances, whether these inspire assent or contradiction. In time, doubtless, the extent of these influences will be settled with greater definiteness than is now possible when even their existence is widely doubted.

Genius is no less dæmonic than it ever was. Science does not destroy the inexplicable-it merely pushes it back a little; it widens the horizon, but it cannot widen it infinitely. We discover some of the things that control genius, but not its whole secret. We see that great writers are distinguished from madmen by the coherence of what they say with what has been said before. This they may contradict, but yet their words are inspired by it. Briefly, literature is a vast conversation; it strays over a large number of subjects, discussing, affirming or denying, pointing out an unsuspected application or an unanswerable argument, always affected by what has gone before, just as in talk a witticism, a profound or pathetic remark springs from something already said or done. This fact, that there is no parthenogenesis in intellectual life, should not be looked upon as degrading the man who utters the witty, profound, or pathetic remark, for it certainly does not.

In the fine arts we see the same laws. We discover the beginning of painting, we trace its early growth in Italy, and its swift rise. We see the influence of a master on his pupil, as of Perugino on Raphael. We notice its decay, as in the artificial painting of the last century, the sentimental painting coinciding with the sentimental novel and play, and pre-Raphaelitism in this century contemporaneous with the neo-romantic movement and realism nowadays in pictures and novels. Yet we do not feel that we are unjust to painters when we point out their dependence on their predecessors and contemporaries, either by way of agreement or divergence; to some, however, this way of looking at writers savors of irreverence.

One main reason of this is doubtless the feeling-derived, with some justification, from the time when literature was the artificial creation of scholars-that literature is something apart from human life. The diver

gence, if it exists, is fatal to literature, which is nothing but the utterance of the human race on the subjects that attract its attention. Every generation comes face to face with the old problems of life, with grief, joy, death, as well as with the new ones that every century brings; and it says its say, it puts on record what impresses it, what fills its thoughts, what it hopes, and what it fears, and whether it prefers to stand up against fate or to yield without a struggle, whether to do its duty or to hide its face in the sand. This utterance is what is called literature, just as art is an expression of the same emotions by other means.

Looked at in this way, the study of literature becomes something more than a means of gratifying æsthetic tastes; it throws light on history, which records men's actions; indeed, it becomes a part of history.

INDEX.

"Absalom and Achitophel," 51-55. | Ballads, Addison's admiration of,

Aubignac, l'abbé d' (Hédelin), on Browning, Robert, his treatment of

Bürger, G. A., inspired by Percy's | Corneille, Pierre, on the unities, 190–
"Reliques," 423; his "Lenore"
translated, 423 and n.
Bunyan, John, the growth of the
fame of, 35 n., 57 n., 284 n.
Burnet, Gilbert, Bishop, his opinion
of Gothic architecture, 140.
Burns, Robert, his predecessors, 431;