natures, the Divine and the human, to preserve their proper attributes; each, as occasion called for it, was to speak and act in its appropriate character; and how could this be without apparent contradictions? When the Divinity speaks, its fitting language is, "I and my Father are one;" but what is the humanity to say other than "My Father is greater than I?" At Cana's bridal banquet the Son of the Highest sits a guest, and at his creative word the water reddens into wine; but when faint and foot-sore with travel Mary's son arrives at Jacob's well, he is fain to ask a cup of water from a stranger woman. In yonder ship, tossed on the storm-waves of Genesareth's lake, lies one asleep— doubtless overcome by fatigue, for many were his journeyings and frequent his night vigils; it is Jesus the man, who sleeps so deep a slumber in his weariness that even the howlings of the tempest fail to awake him; but now awoke by the cry of his disciples, where is he whom slumber lately held fast bound in its drowsy chain? The God looks out upon the storm, and at his imperial glance the hurricane-winds hold their breath, and the wild waves droop their surgy crests. These are seeming contradictions, and we pray the reader specially to mark that the sacred biographers never attempt to reconcile or even to explain them. Now we venture to assert that no impostor ever possessed the moral qualities necessary for such a task. We much question whether he would have ventured to pen such

apparent contradictions, or if he had, certain we are he would have attempted to reconcile them. No, not to the fabulist belongs that bold reliance in the majesty of truth, which sustained the Evangelists in their task while writing the life of the God-man.

In the Davidic Psalms we have one of the most remarkable pieces of autobiography ever penned. The whole man is there, not only his outer, but also his inner life. As the eye glances over these autobiographic hymns, a series of self-pictures, struck off as it were by a process of mental photography, seems to pass before us. Or shall we rather call them a series of dissected views, for the painter or the photographer give only the outward forms, but David, like the anatomist, has laid bare what lies beneath. On reading the autobiography of a great modern poet, we felt very much as if we had been standing at the threshold of some large temple, whose dim lamps reflected phantasms along the walls, the shadows but scarce the shapes of objects. The reason of this we took to be that Goethe did not know himself. We found ourselves admitted only to so many of the poet's inner musings, while a curtain seemed ever and anon to drop, concealing from our eye, as mayhap it had done from his own, the inmost secrets of the man. But with David there is no disguise; his whole soul is laid open; so that his hymns furnish what we venture to say is not to be found in any other literature-a specimen of perfect autobiography.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE TWO STANDARDS OF LITERARY MERIT.

THERE are two tribunals at which every work of literature or art must abide judgment; the one the erudite criticism of the few, the other the opinion of the many. With regard to the former, we shall admit it to be the severer ordeal; but we have our doubts whether the latter is not the more decisive. Those who best understand the philosophy of criticism are the readiest to confess that the verdict of the "communis sensus" does, in the long run, rule the question of merit. It is not that the many have studied the principles of taste, or the theory of beauty, or the rules of criticism. And hence it often happens that they can give no other reason why a great picture, or a great poem, or a great oration, pleases them, than simply that it does so. Yet, in the end, their judgment is generally found to be correct. Nor do we think the reason of this is far to seek. Nature, the same which guided the painter's pencil, filled the poet's eye, and touched the lips of the orator, is also the instructress of the multitude; so that it is her own responsive voice which, through them, acknowledges the merits of her own works. True art is a copyist of Nature,

and the closer the imitation the more likely the artist shall achieve two triumphs; on the one hand, his fidelity to Nature will impart a measure of her elevation and grandeur to his works; while, on the other hand, they will reach downward among the root-feelings, which are very much the same in all. Hence, we believe, the reason why it happens that in the main the verdict of the multitude on works of real genius is correct. Nor may any author expect his fame to be lasting who can not make his appeal to this tribunal—that is, to the judgment of unsophisticated Nature.

We shall probably hear it said that the attention of the multitude is apt to be seduced by tinsel and glitter, and that their understandings may be confounded by indefinite and mysterious terms, while a show of learning, of which they themselves are consciously deficient, may impose upon their ignorance. But, notwithstanding, I am inclined to believe that in all countries the people are the best judges of genuine eloquence. A frothy bombast may please them more than one would wish; but let a true orator in plain and simple language address them, and they will be moved to the depths of their nature. When he has so studied art as to appear artless, and what may have cost him much labor is poured forth with seeming spontaneousness, the common people will hear him gladly, will sway to his eloquence as the branches of the forest to the rush of winds, and be infinitely more pleased with

his natural ornaments than with any amount of vitiated decoration.

It must surely have been in a fit of spleen the great Roman lyrist allowed himself to pen the line:

"Odi profanum vulgus, et arceo."

A better insight into human nature was shown by the celebrated French comedian, of whom it is recorded that he was accustomed to read his comedies before performance to a favorite servant or housekeeper, and when he perceived that the passages which he intended to be humorous and laughable had no effect upon her he altered them. The same kind of principle may be observed in another recorded habit of his, that of requesting the actors to bring their children to the rehearsal of a new piece, that he might judge of the effect of particular passages by the natural emotions they raised in their minds. In this Molière showed a profound knowledge of human nature, and of the philosophy of criticism.

Now, what we have to say of the Bible, in view of the two tribunals of opinion, is, that it has stood before both with approbation.

It has abidden the ordeal of erudite criticism. Our greatest scholars, who have given the grounds of their judgment, which they have justified by proof-specimens, have pronounced the very highest eulogiums on the literary merits of the Bible. To give even a tithe of the encomiums which our men