to the question of a revelation in the abstract or general, regarded as a sine qua non of any sympathetic or rational intercourse which may be considered as possible between God and man. We should not be so presumptuous as to invite our readers' attention to the discussion of so grave a philosophic topic as the one here referred to, in the limited space at our command; but surely it may be said, without any danger of misunderstanding from the most cursory reader, that if creation were the absolute or unconditioned verity which thoughtless people deem it, there could be no ratio between Creator and creature, hence no intercourse or intimacy, inasmuch as the one is being itself, and the other does not even exist or seem to be but by him. In order that creation should be a rational product of Divine power, in order that the creature should be a being of reason, endowed with the responsibility of his own actions, it is imperative that the Creator disown his essential infinitude and diminish himself to the creature's dimensions; that he hide or obscure his own perfection in the creature's imperfection, to the extent even of rendering it fairly problematic whether or not an infinite being really exist, so putting man, as it were, upon the spontaneous search and demand for such a being, and in that measure developing his rational possibilities. And if this be so,—if creation philosophically involve a descending movement on the Creator's part proportionate to the ascending one contemplated on the creature's part,—then it follows that creation is not a simple, but a complex process, involving equally a Divine action and a human reaction, or the due adjustment of means and ends; and that no writer, consequently, can long satisfy the intellect in the sphere of religious thought, who either jauntily or ignorantly overlooks this philosophic necessity. This, however, is what Messrs. Strauss and Renan and the author of Ecce Homo agree to do; and this is what makes their several books, whatever subjective differences characterize them to a literary regard, alike objectively unprofitable as instruments of intellectual progress.
It was remarked lately by an ingenious writer, that "it never seems to occur to some people, who deliver upon the books they read very unhesitating judgments, that they may be wanting, either by congenital defect, or defect of experience, or defect of reproductive memory, in the qualifications which are necessary for judging fairly of any particular book." To poetry this remark applies with especial force.
By poetry we do not understand mere verse, but any form of literary composition which reproduces in the mind certain emotions which, in the absence of an epithet less vague, we shall call poetical. These emotions may be a compound of the sensuous and the purely intellectual, or they may partake much more of the one than of the other. (The rigorous metaphysician will please not begin to carp at our definition.) These emotions may be excited by an odor, the state of the atmosphere, a strain of music, a form of words, or by a single word; and, as they result largely from association, it is obvious that what may be poetry to some minds may not be poetry to others,—may not be poetry to the same mind at different periods of life or in different moods. The most sympathetic, most catholic, most receptive mind will always be the best qualified to detect and appreciate poetry under all its various forms, and would as soon think of denying the devotional faculty to a man of differing creed, as of denying the poetical to one whose theory or habit of expression may chance to differ from its own. Goethe was so apt to discover something good in poems which others dismissed as wholly worthless, that it was said of him, "his commendation is a brevet of mediocrity." Perhaps it was his "many-sidedness" that made him so accurate a "detective" in criticism.
According to Wordsworth, "poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity." A good definition so far as it goes. But Wordsworth could see only one side of the shield. He was notoriously so deficient in the faculty of humor, that even Sydney Smith was unintelligible to him. Few specimens of what can be called wit can be found in his writings. He could not see that there is a poetry of wit as well as of sentiment,—of the intellect as well as of the emotions. No wonder he could not enjoy Pope, and had little relish for Horace. And yet how grand is Wordsworth in his own peculiar sphere!
Those narrow views of the province of poetry, which roused the indignation of By-
