And here I am reminded of one amongst us, hoary but still strong, whose prophet-voice some thirty years ago, far more than any other of his age, unlocked whatever of life and nobleness lay latent in its most gifted minds; one fit to stand beside Socrates or the Maccabean Eleazar, and to dare and suffer all that they suffered and dared,-fit, as he once said of Fichte, "to have been the teacher of the Stoa, and to have discoursed of beauty and virtue in the grove of Academe." With a capacity to grasp physical principles which his friend Goethe did not possess, and which even total lack of exercise has not been able to reduce to atrophy, it is the world's loss that he, in the vigor of his years, did not open his mind and sympathies to science, and make its conclusions a portion of his message to mankind. Marvelously endowed as he was, equally equipped on the side of the heart and of the understanding, he might have done much towards teaching us how to reconcile the claims of both, and to enable them in coming times to dwell together in unity of spirit, and in the bond of peace.

And now the end is come. With more time or greater strength and knowledge, what has been here said might have been better said, while worthy matters here omitted might have received fit expression. But there would have been no material deviation from the views set forth. As regards myself, they are not the growth of a day; and as regards you, I thought you ought to know the environment which, with or without your consent, is rapidly surrounding you, and in relation to which some adjustment on your part may be necessary. A hint of Hamlet's, however, teaches us all how the troubles of common life may be ended; and it is perfectly possible for you and me to purchase intellectual peace at the price of intellectual death. The world is not without refuges of this description; nor is it wanting in persons who seek their shelter, and try to persuade others to do the same. The unstable and the weak will yield to this persuasion, and they to whom repose is sweeter than the truth. But I would exhort you to refuse the offered shelter, and to scorn the base repose; to accept, if the choice be forced upon you, commotion before stagnation, the leap of the torrent before the stillness of the swamp.

In the course of this address I have touched on debatable questions, and led you over what will be deemed dangerous ground; and this partly with the view of telling you that as regards

these questions, science claims unrestricted right of search. It is not to the point to say that the views of Lucretius and Bruno, of Darwin and Spencer, may be wrong. Here I should agree with you, deeming it indeed certain that these views will undergo modification. But the point is, that whether right or wrong, we ask the freedom to discuss them. For science, however, no exclusive claim is here made; you are not urged to erect it into an idol. The inexorable advance of man's understanding in the path of knowledge, and those unquenchable claims of his moral and emotional nature which the understanding can never satisfy, are here equally set forth. The world embraces not only a Newton, but a Shakespeare; not only a Boyle, but a Raphael; not only a Kant, but a Beethoven; not only a Darwin, but a Carlyle. Not in each of these, but in all, is human nature whole. They are not opposed, but supplementary; not mutually exclusive, but reconcilable. And if, unsatisfied with them all, the human mind, with the yearning of a pilgrim for his distant home, will turn to the Mystery from which it emerged, seeking so to fashion it as to give unity to thought and faith; - so long as this is done not only without intolerance or bigotry of any kind, but with the enlightened recognition that ultimate fixity of conception is here unattainable, and that each succeeding age must be held free to fashion the Mystery in accordance with its own needs,— then, casting aside all the restrictions of materialism, I would affirm this to be a field for the noblest exercise of what, in contrast with the knowing faculties, may be called the creative faculties of man.

"Fill thy heart with it," said Goethe, "and then name it as thou wilt." Goethe himself did this in untranslatable language. Wordsworth did it in words known to all Englishmen, and which may be regarded as a forecast and religious vitalization of the latest and deepest scientific truth:

"For I have learned

To look on nature, not as in the hour

Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,—

Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power

To chasten and subdue. And I have felt

A presence that disturbs me with the joy

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thoughts.
And rolls through all things."

TYRTEUS, ARCHILOCHUS,

AND THEIR SUCCESSORS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF
GREEK LYRIC INCLUSIVE OF BACCHYLIDES

(700-450 B. C.)

BY H. RUSHTON FAIRCLOUGH

"Their songs divine

Who mixed for Grecian mouths heaven's lyric wine."

SWINBURNE, On the Cliffs.'

T IS hardly necessary, I imagine, to insist upon the intrinsic and permanent value of Greek poetry. As a body of literature, Greek poetry is the richest legacy that the modern world has received from ancient times. The epic poems of Greece, the Iliad and Odyssey, whether we regard them as the work of one mind or the still more wonderful result of a school of bards, are in their freshness, strength, and artistic beauty without a rival in the early literature of nations. Greek tragedy under the masters, Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, comprises works of consummate genius, which take rank with the highest tragic art of all times. Greek comedy, at least that of Aristophanes, is unique in the history of literature; and in later times the pastoral Muse of Theocritus sings with a delicacy and sweetness that have never been surpassed.

In the sphere of lyric poetry Greece was no less great; but of the ancient lyric writers the modern world is for certain reasons comparatively ignorant.

The Iliad and Odyssey have come down to us in their entirety. In the case of the dramatists, though only a tithe of what they wrote has survived, still so prolific were these masters, that that tithe is very considerable. But the lyric writers have met misfortune at the hands of time. In the case of many, their works are completely lost; and as for the rest, mere scraps and fragments of their songs are all that we can pick up. Almost the only lyric poet of whom we know much, because much of him is preserved, is Pindar; and Pindar's grand triumphal odes, written as they were to celebrate the glories of victors in a chariot or foot race, a boxing or wrestling match, are so elaborate and difficult of construction, and so alien in

spirit to modern literary taste, that it is no easy matter to appre ciate his grandeur.

It may be asked why the great bulk of Greek lyric verse has disappeared. The main answer is to be found in the essential character of that poetry. It was song-poetry; i. e., poetry composed for singing, the soul of which vanished when the music passed away. After the loss of Greek independence, Greek music rapidly degenerated. The music composed by the poets of the classical period was too severe and noble for the Greeks of later days. The older songs, therefore, were no longer sung; and the poetry, minus its music, giving way to shallow and sensational compositions, passed into oblivion.

Scanty however as are the fragments of Greek lyric poetry, these scanty fragments are of priceless value. The little we possess makes every lover of literature pray that among the rediscovered treasures of antiquity, to which every year of late has made valuable contributions, many more of these lost lyrics may come to light.

In one sense or another, singing was characteristic of nearly all forms of Greek poetry. The earliest conditions of epic recitation may be realized from certain scenes in the Odyssey. In one passage (viii. 62 ff.) the shipwrecked Odysseus is a guest in the palace of King Alcinous. The feast is spread, and the great hall is thronged with Phæacians, when in the midst appears the blind Demodocus, led by the King's herald, who sets the minstrel on a high chair inlaid with silver, hangs up his lyre, and brings him a basket of bread and a goblet of wine. After the feast the minstrel is stirred by the Muse to sing the deeds of famous men, and his theme is a quarrel between Odysseus and Achilles, "whereof the fame had reached the wide heaven." At another feast (i. 325 ff.) the suitors of Penelope compel Phemius the minstrel to take his lyre and sing to them. His lay deals with the return of the Achæans from Troy; and as he sings, Penelope in an upper room, with tears in her eyes, listens to the strain.

Thus epic poetry, at least in the earliest times, was sung to the lyre; but this singing was probably unlike the later recitations by the rhapsodists, for the verse of Homer is unsuited for melodies, and Greek writers uniformly distinguish epic from lyric,- the former being narrative poetry, the latter song poetry.

Even elegiac poetry was not regarded by the Greeks as lyric; and yet elegiac verse was originally sung to the music of the flute, an instrument used both on mournful occasions and also at festive social gatherings. But as melodies were found to be inappropriate with the hexameter of epic verse, so their use was not long continued with the elegiac couplet, which in its metrical form is so closely allied to the hexameter.