My sweetest parte, wherein do cheifly stande
Those secrett joyes which heaven to me imparte,
Unite in one, my state thus still to save,

You have my thanckes, let me thy cumfort have.'

In the course of the same conversation between the friends, Musidorus sings another song expressive of his delight in his good fortune:

'The Mearchauntman whom gaine doth teache the sea, Where rocks do waite for them, the windes do chase, Beaten with waves no sooner kennes the baye

Where he was bound to make his marting place,
But feare forgott and paines all overpaste
Makes present ease receave the better taste.

The Laborer which cursed earth upp teares

With sweaty browes, sometymes with watred eies,
Ofte scortching sonne, ofte cloudye darknes feares,
While uppon chance his fruites of labor lyes;
But harvest come and corne in fertill store
More in his owne he toild he glads the more.

Thus in my Pilgrimage of weried mynde,

Seeking the Sainte in whome all graces dwell,
What stormes found me, what torments I did fynde
Who seeks to know acquaints himself with hell:
But now successe hath gott above anoies

That sorrowes waight doth balance upp these joies.'

The prose passage which follows this is curious: "Trulie, said Cleophila, among so so many qualities as all ages have attributed to Cupid, I did never thinke him so good a minstrall that in such shorte space cold make his scoller so musicall as you be, but although for my parte the starres have not heald wholly an angrie aspecte unto me, yet lest envious fortune shewe spite att the to[o] much boasting of your blessednes, [I] will mingle your comicall tunes with my long used tragicall neatts [sic], and will staye a lyttle the fullnes of your hopes with the hanging on of my tedious feares. Therewith lyeing down with hir face upward toward heaven with her eye so settled as one might well perceave yt was nothing her eye could then see which busied her common sense, with a fainting kind of voice she thus sange: The Mearchauntman whom many seas have taught What horror breeds where winde domynion beares, Yet never rock nor race such terror brought

As nere his home, when storme or shelfe he feares,

For nature hath that never-failing scope,
Most loath to leav the most approching hope.

The Laborer whom tyred bodye maks

Hold deare his worke, with sighes ech chaunge attends,
But at no chaunge such pinching care he taks

As happie shewes of corne when harvest sends,

For reason will greate sighte of hoped blisse

Make greate the losse, so greate the feare to misse.

Thus tossed in my shipp of huge desyer,

Thus toiled in my worke of raging love,

Now that I spie the heavens my thoughts require,
Now that some flower of fruite my paines do prove,
lydreades augment the more in pasions might,
Since love with care, and feare with hope do fight.'

I have now quoted all the hitherto unknown poems in
the Arcadia' which are found in the newly discovered
manuscripts. The variations of text, however, in the
known poems, between the manuscript and printed
versions, are very numerous; and in some few instances
there are passages in the manuscripts which are not in
the printed copies. These will have to be taken into
consideration by any future editor of the 'Arcadia,' but
need not now be discussed. But still another unknown
and unprinted poem is to be found among the 'Sondry
Songes and Sonets' which appear at the end of the
Clifford manuscript. In this the poet laments the
absence of his mistress; but as it is not a very happy
specimen of the author's genius I will not print it here.
There is one singular passage which is to be found in
the manuscripts, but does not appear in any of the
printed copies. The reader will remember that when
Vidorus persuaded Pamela to elope with him, he
Towed to respect the lady's chastity until the marriage
remony could be performed. In the course of their
fight the lady, being tired, lies down to sleep. While
she reposes, her lover, gazing admiringly upon her, is so
Overcome by the force of his passions that the lady's
honour is in imminent peril;

When to the just punishment of his broken promise and
almost atchieved desyerr, there came a dozen of clownishe
fellowes armed with dyverse sortes of weapons, and for the
rest so farr wasted that they seemed to beare a greate

1

conformytie with the savadges who miserable in themselves taught [thought?] to increase their miseries mischeife in another bodies harmes, came with such cryes as they waked Pamela, whose sleepe had bin sett uppon with two dangers, thone of which had saved her from thother, and made Musidorus turne unto them full of a most violent rage, with the looke of a shee tyger when her whealpes are stolen awaie.'

It is no wonder that a passage so curiously at variance with the general tone of the story, full as it is of highflown sentiments and of professions of heroic love, should have been suppressed by the Countess of Pembroke. It is a characteristic touch, however, which no modern editor would be justified in omitting. Musidorus is consistently drawn throughout the story as being of a warmly amorous temperament, with his passions not so well under control as those of a very gentle parfitt knight' ought to be. It can hardly be denied that there was in Sidney's mind a somewhat undue predominance of the sexual element; and, in delineating the love-affairs of his many heroes and heroines, it is clear that he was not hindered by any want of personal experience from setting them forth in the liveliest colours. The Arcadia' is, in the main, as Milton called it, 'a vain and amatorious work,' though it possesses other and better qualities. It is not, indeed, a masterpiece in either of its forms; but it is much nearer to being one in its first form than in its second. It must ever remain a landmark in our literature, and will hold its place, not only because, with all its faults, it is yet a very considerable achievement for its time, but also because through it, taken in conjunction with Sidney's poems, we get an insight, not otherwise attainable, into the mind and heart of one of the greatest and noblest Englishmen who ever lived.

BERTRAM DOBELL.

es

inste

BELL

Art. 5.-THE MYSTICAL ELEMENT OF RELIGION.

1. The Mystical Element of Religion, as studied in Catherine
of Genoa and her friends. By Baron F. von Hügel.
Two vols. London: Dent, 1908.

2. Light Arising: Thoughts on Central Radiance. By
Caroline Stephen. Cambridge: Heffer, 1908.

3. Authority and the Light Within. By Edward Grubb.
London: Clarke, 1908.

War distinguishes religion from ethics is the belief in
another world and the endeavour to hold intercourse
with it. The identification of morality with the will of
God is a late discovery on the part of religion which has
made it possible to talk of an ethical religion'; that is,
of a substitution of ethics for religion. But, if morality
ceases to be viewed as an adjustment of our conduct to
the divine will, it loses all religious character. This
conscious adjustment therefore is the very essence of
religion. It necessarily implies some picture or concep-
tion of the other world by which man's conduct in
relation to it is shaped; and such a system of conceptions
and precepts is what we mean by a religion. The systems
are variable and contingent; the facts which they
interpret, the needs to which they minister, are per-
manent and universal. It is a fact that man is and feels
himself to be a fraction of a whole that lies beyond the
realm of his clear knowledge. It is a fact that, as his
racial instinct interferes with his individual interest in
behalf of an interest that is comparatively absolute, so
moral and spiritual instincts try to subject and
rifice him to ends that are simply absolute. Hence,
when religious systems break down, the need of a
System remains.

In periods of theological dissolution like the present,
the starved religious temperament invariably tries to set
religion on a basis unassailable by criticism and indifferent
to theological vicissitudes; and this in two ways-by
rational mysticism and by pseudo-mysticism, according
to the seeker's level of religious development. On the
one side, we have an endeavour to find God at first hand,
experimentally, in the soul herself independently of all

historical and philosophical presuppositions; on the other, an attempt to establish relations with the invisible, experimentally, by means of divination, sorcery, and other superstitious practices. The output of publications in both these interests is at present very abundant, and its abundance is characteristic of a period when religion, dispossessed of one habitation, is seeking for another.*

·

Leaving pseudo-mysticism aside, and confining our attention to rational mysticism, we find in Light Arising,' by Miss Caroline Stephen, a very admirable example of the endeavour to cut religion free of all entanglements with the contingent and make it the creation and property of the individual soul. Although it is a defence of Quakerism, of which the author has become an adherent, it is also a modification and restatement-one might say, a modernising-of that position. It was inevitable that, in taking over and grounding themselves on the Christian Scriptures, the original Friends should have taken over some unperceived seeds of that very ecclesiasticism whose repudiation was their ruling characteristic, and that those seeds should have fructified in certain minor inconsistencies. The inner light' which they substituted for the authority of the Church was still, in the old dogmatic sense of the term, a supernatural' light, not the light that enlightens every man coming into this world.' Now that biblical criticism has destroyed the literal and mechanical view of inspiration, and that philosophical criticism has blurred the dividing line between the natural and the supernatural, even Quakerism cannot escape some faint vibration from the shock that threatens ecclesiastical Christianity with disaster. In 'Light Arising' this modern situation is faced, and is shown to be all in favour of what is really and alone essential to Quakerism. The last cords are cut, and religion floats free of the contingent in any shape or form. The position is frankly indi

* Since this article was in type, two important works have come into my hands, both of which support the Quaker conception of mysticism, and, subject to that reservation, are deserving of high praise. They are, 'Studies in Mystical Religion,' by Rufus Jones (Macmillan), and the recent Swarthmore Lecture' on 'Spiritual Guidance,' by W. C. Braithwaite, of which the conclusion is full of acute observations. Both show how Quakerism very naturally recognises an opportunity in the embarrassments of institutionalism to come to terms with rationalism and suit itself to the needs of the day.