My sweetest parte, wherein do cheifly stande 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, The Laborer which cursed earth upp teares With sweaty browes, sometymes with watred eies, Thus in my Pilgrimage of weried mynde, Seeking the Sainte in whome all graces dwell, 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, The Laborer whom tyred bodye maks Hold deare his worke, with sighes ech chaunge attends, 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, I have now quoted all the hitherto unknown poems in When to the just punishment of his broken promise and 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 2. Light Arising: Thoughts on Central Radiance. By 3. Authority and the Light Within. By Edward Grubb. War distinguishes religion from ethics is the belief in In periods of theological dissolution like the present, 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. |