not with a full combination of the arts of eulogy. The difficulties are great. As an intellectual giant, he cannot be represented in the form suited to a great orator like Chatham. It is the results of his work that best admit of delineation; more especially the bearings of his discovery of gravitation. The gorgeous rhetoric of Chalmers proceeds as follows:

"There are perhaps no two sets of human beings who comprehend less the movements, and enter less into the cares and concerns, of each other, than the wide and busy public on the one hand, and, on the other, those men of close and studious retirement, whom the world never hears of, save when, from their thoughtful solitude, there issues forth some splendid discovery, to set the world on a gaze of admiration. Then will the brilliancy of a superior genius draw every eye towards it—and the homage paid to intellectual superiority will place its idol on a loftier eminence than all wealth or than all titles can bestow-and the name of the successful philosopher will circulate, in his own age, over the whole extent of civilized society, and be borne down to posterity in the characters of ever-during remembrance-and thus it is, that, when we look back on the days of Newton, we annex a kind of mysterious greatness to him, who, by the pure force of his understanding, rose to such a gigantic elevation above the level of ordinary men--and the kings and warriors of other days sink into insignificance around him----and he, at this moment, stands forth to the public eye, in a prouder array of glory than circles the memory of all the men of former generations—and, while all the vulgar grandeur of other days is now mouldering in forgetfulness, the achievements of our great astronomer are still fresh in the veneration of his countrymen, and they carry him forward on the stream of time, with a reputation ever gathering, and the triumphs of a distinction that will never die."

This comparison with other modes of greatness, of a more palpable kind, is the best available means of getting over the difficulty of describing a scientific intellect.

It is the beneficent sublime that Goldsmith has caught so well in his picture of the Preacher, in the 'Deserted Village' :

A man he was to all the country dear,

And passing rich with forty pounds a year;
Remote from towns, he ran his godly race,

Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change his place;
Unskilful he to fawn, or seek for power,

By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learned to prize,
More bent to raise the wretched than to rise.

GOLDSMITH'S PREACHER.

His house was known to all the vagrant train;
He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain.
The long-remembered beggar was his guest,
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast;
The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud,
Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allowed;
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay,

Sat by his fire, and talked the night away;

Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done,

Shouldered his crutch, and showed how fields were won.
Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow,
And quite forgot their vices in their woe;

Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.

Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride,
And e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side;
But, in his duty prompt at every call,

He watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all;
And, as a bird each fond endearment tries
To tempt her new-fledged offspring to the skies,
He tried each art, reproved each dull delay,
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.

Beside the bed where parting life was laid,
And sorrow, guilt and pain, by turns dismayed,
The reverend champion stood. At his control
Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul;
Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise,
And his last faltering accents whispered praise.

At church, with meek and unaffected grace,
His looks adorned the venerable place;
Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway;
And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray.
The service past, around the pious man,

With ready zeal, each honest rustic ran;
E'en children followed with endearing wile,

And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile;
His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed,

Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed;
To them, his heart, his love, his griefs were given,
But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven.

As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form,

Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm;
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.

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In this vivid picture nothing is introduced that would mar the beneficence of the situation; while the function of the clergyman naturally lends itself to the portraiture of kindly offices and good-will. The points to be noted are

mainly these: First, the intense regard for duty, which is always of the nature of the sublime, but which, when (as here) it is accompanied with love and zest, has a particularly tender and attractive side. Next, the absence of secular ambition ('Passing rich with forty pounds a year'); which, considering the strong hold that the passion for riches has on men in general, betrays elevation of character in the matter of restraint. There is next the sublimity of high-toned morality; as seen in the preacher's unbending integrity and refusal to court favour by flattery and temporizing: Unskilful he to fawn, or seek for power, By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour'. Next comes deep and broad sympathy with men, extending both to their joys and to their woes, and manifesting itself in practical forms —such as hospitality, relieving suffering, tendering advice. Lastly comes the elevating and winning quality of charity : 'Careless their merits or their faults to scan,' 'And e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side'. The picture is also brightened by two adventitious circumstances-viz., the preacher's success in his mission, and the high estimation wherein he was held by his people: 'At his control Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul'; 'A man he was to all the country dear'; ' E'en children followed with endearing wile, And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile'.

NEUTRAL STRENGTH.

Neutral Strength appeals more exclusively to our sense of what is vast and majestic, aided, it may be, by the mysterious and illimitable.

We now encounter Sublimity in its purest form, detached alike from good and from evil consequences. The objects best suited to exemplify it are the mightiest aspects of Nature, terrestrial and celestial, and the infinities of Space and Time.

From its very essence, this is the kind of strength most difficult to sustain, and most liable to degenerate into Turgidity. Deprived of the assistance of our leading human emotions, it has to rest upon a consummate handling of the strength vocabulary, together with the associations of majesty, dignity and grandeur.

When we name the attributes of Majesty, Dignity, Grandeur, as not immediately connected with the funda

PURE GREATNESS OF CHARACTER.

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mental emotions so often appealed to, we must add that, in their origin in the human mind, they cannot be altogether detached from these great emotions. Majesty and Dignity are nothing without a basis of Power, and Power supposes efficiency for good or for evil. Yet, by a process of mental growth, we attain to a species of emotion of the inspiring and elevating kind, which seems to throw a veil over its primary sources, and to constitute a pleasure apart.

As regards the human character, instances may be furnished that have little or no direct or obvious suggestion of either maleficent or beneficent qualities, but such neutrality is rarely maintained through a composition of any length.

In extolling the greatness of human character, the direct production of good and evil is often kept out of view for a time, and the stress laid upon the element of neutral strength, as grandeur or magnificence; although, in the first instance, efficiency for practical ends is what raises a man upon a pedestal of imposing majesty.

The splendid eulogy of Milton by Wordsworth is a specimen of greatness of character, depicted apart from the consideration of Milton's work :

Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart:

Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

It is interesting to note the imagery invoked for this lofty description. The poet's instinct led him to the celestial sphere, as the type of intrinsic grandeur without reference to the emotions of love or hate. In the end, he recurs to the virtues of ordinary life, and draws a picture of moral greatness with the inevitable suggestion of goodness to fellow beings.

Compare the same poet's lines on Chatterton:

I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous boy,
The sleepless soul that perished in his pride.

The operative circumstances here are, first, the epithet
'marvellous,' indicating superiority and distinction without
saying how, where, or in what respect; next, the energy
denoted by sleepless'; then the pride,' a fine human.
quality when untarnished by vile accompaniments. The

poet, however, sees fit to awaken our tender sentiment by the tragic pathos of the 'perished'; showing how rare it is. to dispense with our greatest fountains of emotion. The effect of the passage is thus increased, although at the expense of its purity as an example under our present head. Still the compression of four such epithets, in two lines, with nothing to impair the harmony, has been universally accounted one of the choice products of the poet's genius.

Again, with reference to Burns :—

Of him who walked in glory, and in joy,

Following his plough, along the mountain side.

We are touched at once by the lofty bearing and the humble vocation of the subject, everything else being in the background.

Hamlet's picture of his father is made up of Shakespearian strokes of invention, which at first appeal to our acquired emotion of grandeur, but at last kindle the purely malignant flame, by the disparaging comparison with his murderer.

It is to Nature that we must turn for the chief exemplification of this form of Sublimity. Greatness in Force, in Space and in Time, rendered in such a way as to combine an intelligible picture, with a vista of the unexpressed, will impart the elevation of Strength. Each of these great elements can be handled for the purpose; and each in turn can come to the aid of the others.

Force is seldom separated from effects for good or evil; Space and Time are much more of the nature of abstractions, while also partaking most of the Infinite.

The Celestial Universe is by pre-eminence the region of neutral might. Many attempts have been made to revel in the impenetrable depths of the starry spaces. The genius of Dante was impelled to it in the Paradiso, but his Ptolemaic Astronomy was not well suited to the attempt. Moreover, it is not his way to expatiate on Nature's grandeurs, except with immediate reference to the interests of personality.

The successive locations of the Blessed in Dante's Paradise begin at the Moon, and proceed through the Planets in order to Saturn. The Eighth Heaven is the Fixed Stars. Here we have such glimpses as these: