résident dans l'action. Pour faire admirer Shakespeare, il faut montrer la vie, le nombre et la diversité des personnages qu'il a créés, l'intérêt et la variété des situations qu'il a imaginées, la vérité des caractères qu'il a peints, et c'est ce que Châteaubriand n'a point fait; pour faire admirer Racine, il suffit de réciter quelquesuns de ses vers, à moins qu'on ne les récite devant des Huns, des Hottentots ou des Hurons.

26 Novembre.

LETTRES

ÉCRITES À L'OCCASION DE LA

DEUXIÈME CAUSERIE.

MONSIEUR,

In your second lecture you quoted from Plato a remark that "tous les poëtes sont inventeurs, et qu'en conséquence, si un homme n'est pas inventeur, il n'est pas poëte," and you applied it to prove, that as many Protestant writings are rather paraphrases of, deductions from, or copies of the Holy Scriptures, than purely original compositions, their authors have no claims to the title of poets. The remark is very striking, but is it well founded? Height of presumption as I know it is, to dispute such an authority as Plato, I will thus presume, for having read somewhere that every one is born either a Platonist or an Aristotelian, I may consider myself as not born a disciple of Plato, and therefore at liberty to wage war against him, in this one particular at all events.

"To see what others cannot see, makes a poet," is a definition which seems to me nearer the truth than that of Plato, when we remember that "there is no new thing under the sun," and I think, Monsieur, that you rather warranted my view of the matter when you suggested,

that in the six thousand years during which men have thought, a new idea runs the risk of being a folly. What are the works of the greatest painters? We call them wonderful creations, but are we strictly correct in saying so? Are they not rather glorious representations of the facts of the past, whether sacred or secular, so that we see starting from the canvass, vivid with a present reality, the stories and scenes of long ago? Are they not exquisite images of the myriad changes of nature, silently recalling on dull November days, the azure sky, the brilliant sunshine, the balmy airs of summer; or portraying to one stifling in the heat and dust of a crowded city, the sea breaking in tiny wavelets upon the pebbly shore, and "ringing like service bells a long way off?"

I believe, Monsieur, that there is more poetry in truth than in fiction, in reality than in fancy, and that therefore, Protestants have the advantage of Roman Catholics, because to them " 'tis first the true and then the beantiful, not first the beautiful and then the true." Legends of Saints and mystic imagery may interest the fancy in the days of happiness and health, but when the mind, subdued by sickness or by sorrow, would seek for some soothing thought in poetry, it turns from the fancies which have no foundation, from the misty labyrinth which even to those who have the clue seems to lead nowhere, to take refuge in the simple truths on which Milton founded his immortal verse, which drew from Cowper's tortured heart his "deathless singing," which inspired Kirke White and Bishop Heber, and which have unloosed the tongues and pens of many, in words that, according to your own eloquent definition, Monsieur, are certainly poems, although not in verse.

H. T.

MONSIEUR,

In your lecture a fortnight ago, to which we listened with much interest, there was one assertion which, though defended by the ablest authorities, I cannot suffer to pass altogether unchallenged; and availing myself of your permission of freedom of discussion (of course looking at the matter in no wise in a controversial light) I must confess I find it difficult to agree with those critics, who hold that the spirit of Protestantism is unfavourable to the developement of the highest class of poets.

I could have entered into this opinion, if painters, not poets, had been the class to which exception was made: for doubtless there is much in the gorgeous ceremonial of the Roman Catholic Church, and in the splendour of its services, which tends to educate the eye, excite the imagination, materialize the ideal; and from this school have sprung most of those wonderful works of art which, as it has been said, seem born less of genius than of inspiration.

But of poetry it is far otherwise: truly it is wordpainting, but this is surely not checked, but fostered by the spirit of a system which makes use of preaching as one of its most powerful agents. The humble walls of a "conventicle" have often resounded with words far more stirring to the souls of the worshippers, than the most exquisite picture or chiselled symbol; and the more fervid the protesting spirit, so much the more vivid do we find the colouring of these word-paintings, pourtraying the awfulness of doom on the one hand, or on the other, seeking to allure by hopes of bliss and beauty immortal, beyond what eye can see or hand may trace. "Look! we cry exultingly (nous autres Protestants)

H

to our critics, as we point to Milton, our's is not a vain boasting, here is the son and champion of our cause!" "Truly," they reply, "he is a king among poets, but he is presque Catholique.""

On what grounds, we ask with surprise, do you thus adopt him? Milton was from his earliest years educated in the Protestant faith; his father was disinherited for professing it, and was likely not only to screen his son from Catholic influences, but also to teach him a reason for the hope that was in him.

But his writings are unorthodox, his flights of fancy too bold, he treats of sacred things in words far too familiar for these simple believers!

We answer: "His pictures indeed are vivid, his images startling, but they are not graven images. It is these the Protestant faith forbids; but she does not assume to herself entire control of interpretation, or shackle her sons with boundaries beyond which, even in imagination, they may not pass. Milton's greatest work "Paradise Lost" bears upon it traces of the times in which he lived-troublous times-full of wars and rumours of wars; but it is not easy to discover in what way he has earned for himself in it the accusation "bad Protestant." In his description of the Prince of Darkness, that grand soliloquy beginning "O Thou that with surpassing glory crowned," he doubtless soars beyond the limit revelation has assigned, and involuntarily extorts from us a kind of admiring pity for one who, though now "the enemy and the accuser of mankind," was once among the angels, and for whom there is "no place left for repentance, none for pardon left."

This feeling of pity, however, though certainly heterodox, might be forgiven in either Protestant or Catho