PREFACE. THE Author has been induced to revise and collect in the following pages some Lectures and Papers now published for the first time, and some Essays and Reviews contributed by him to the various periodicals in which they have appeared; and he has only to express his hope that these essays may be as favourably received by the Public as they have been estimated by his indulgent friends. Tynemouth, February, 1858. life of which memories occasionally came vividly before the spirit; and seeing how it was ever stirred by the representation of ideal beauty," as by a breath that reached it from the borders of Paradise," how responsive the mind was ever found to the Muses' voice, it was believed that the arts were divinely given to companion the soul from its lost heaven, and were but arts of memory. Apollo and the Muses were accounted of divine origin, and the fountains of poetry were traced to a celestial source-and well might they be so derived, for poetry has proved a divine gift to human genius, and the poetic muse has been a priestess of religion, whether her inspirations are traced in Palestine, beneath B POETRY AND THE FINE ARTS: THEIR AFFINITIES AND POWERS. A LECTURE. [Read to the Members of the Durham Athenæum; the Alnwick Mechanics' Institute; the Sunderland Literary Institution; the Tynemouth Literary Society; and the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastleupon-Tyne.] THE kindred arts of Poetry and Music, Painting and Sculpture, are thought to have their foundation in that affinity for the beautiful which is innate in the human mind, and to derive their power from a concord between the perceptions of harmony that belong to the human soul, and the divine harmonies of creation; from subtle relations between ideal beauty and those instincts of the mind-ever true to the image of its Maker-which welcome with delight the objects that bear His signet mark. It was a favourite idea in those classic lands which were the birth-place of Art, that the soul had enjoyed a blissful pre-existence-a former life of which memories occasionally came vividly before the spirit; and seeing how it was ever stirred by the representation of ideal beauty," as by a breath that reached it from the borders of Paradise,"-how responsive the mind was ever found to the Muses' voice, it was believed that the arts were divinely given to companion the soul from its lost heaven, and were but arts of memory. Apollo and the Muses were accounted of divine origin, and the fountains of poetry were traced to a celestial source-and well might they be so derived, for poetry has proved a divine gift to human genius, and the poetic muse has been a priestess of religion, whether her inspirations are traced in Palestine, beneath B |