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he bear to stand up; and when he had lifted himself up, consistently with his principle, he dismissed the woman, as having no commission to interfere with the office of the civil judge. But the mighty power of living purity had done its work. He had refused to judge a woman, but he had judged a whole crowd. He had awakened the slumbering conscience in many hardened hearts, given them a new delicacy, a new ideal, a new view and reading of the Mosaic law.'

This strikes us not only as very fine criticism, but as criticism which catches the true secret of Christ's charity towards sinners. It was not 'the relative spirit,' 'the modern spirit,' but the absolute spirit, the spirit of revelation, which enabled Him to feel how much of God there was, how much more there might be, in those who had violated His most sacred laws. Where is there a man possessed of enough of the relative spirit' to have calmly warned his most trusted follower, as Christ warned Peter, that he would be the first to desert and disown his master, and this without a touch of bitterness or contempt, adding, in the same breath, and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren?' Communion with the absolute God, rest in the absolute God, is alone equal to producing so perfect an equanimity as this in dealing with the weakness and frailty of man without any loss of love. No doubt such communion and such rest does give a firmness of touch in laying down what is righteousness and what is evil, which the relative spirit' may disown. But that is only saying that the knowledge of God brings with it insight into what is nearer to or farther from God,-phrases which have no meaning to those who think that the fugitive elements in human morality are the only important elements.

The speciousness of the fallacy that the 'relative spirit,' the 'modern spirit,' is more charitable, more capable of a 'tender justness' than the faith in the Absolute, consists in this, that we are accustomed to confound 'absolute' moral rules with literal rules-rules incapable of exception, like those of the Decalogue, for instance, and to regard the hard old Jewish spirit which carried them into effect with a Draconic severity, as the natural illustration of the absolute spirit. But this is really to speak of the absolute' in its application to God, in the same sense in which we speak of absolute despotism, and to use the word not to convey moral power and insight, but moral weakness and ignorance. In this sense the prophets reveal a far less absolute God than Moses, and Christ a far less absolute God than the prophets. In fact, however, that which made the Jewish moralists so external and literal, was, as our Lord pointed out, the hardness of their hearts, the want of knowledge of the

absolute God, and not the knowledge of Him. He who came from eternal communion with God, softened every rigid judgment of the Jewish law, while raising its spiritual demand up to the 'absolute' point. It was the very fulness of His knowledge of the absolute life which enabled Him to see at once how much of compliance with God's verbal law was really rebellion against its inward meaning, and how much of infraction of the verbal law was really compatible with its inward meaning. Absolute morality too often means, no doubt with man, formal morality, morality by formula, morality which has no lifestandard by which to judge. But if the author of Ecce Homo has done one thing more effectively than another, it is to show how infinitely superior is the spiritual morality which lays down no iron verbal rules, but simply requires the heart to open itself to the fulness of the beauty of one perfect spirit and life, to morality of the abstract kind. Indeed, it is all but self-evident that the only true knowledge of the absolute Father, which we may be permitted without irreverence to call intimate-the knowledge of Him shown by the Son of God and Man,--must imply, as it did imply, insight into shades of human character infinitely more various and delicate, related in infinitely more subtle ways with the Divine nature, betraying sympathy with or alienation from God, or here sympathy, and there alienation, at points infinitely more numerous, than any knowledge which the divinest Decalogues could give. We see the signs of this pervading everywhere even our imperfect Gospel histories. The rich young man,' though he cannot rise to our Lord's standard, is loved by Him even in the very act of disobedience. The woman who is a sinner is forgiven because she has loved much.' When John the Baptist begins to doubt, the moment is seized by Christ to delineate his true greatness. Peter's threefold denial was made the opportunity, not for reproach, but for a threefold confession, followed by a special prediction of a glorious death. When it is necessary to indicate the traitor, it is done silently, by an act of kindness which might even then have touched his heart. The moment of ambitious strife is seized to teach the lesson of childlike humility; the moment after transfiguration to teach a lesson of coming humiliation. Nothing, in short, is more remarkable than the exquisite feeling for the delicate shades of moral and spiritual life which pervades the teaching of Him who communed most with the Absolute God. Our Lord's most special war was, we may truly say, waged against the legal and formal spirit; His most special teaching was the sweetness of the spiritual liberty conferred by the yoke which was easy, and the burden which was light.

We have not pretended in these few pages to follow the

author of Ecce Homo through his striking, but, we venture to think, in some respects defective argument, because we thought we could avail ourselves better of his fine criticisms and noble thoughts in another way. But we cannot conclude without expressing our hearty delight at the appearance of an essay evidently so thoroughly independent of all special ecclesiastical influence and so thoroughly imbued with the true historic spirit, which is yet entirely free from the irrational assumptions by which the method falsely called 'historic' has recently been marked. We shall look for the completion of the work, begun by this thoughtful and delicate criticism, with the deepest interest. Indeed, sincerely as we admire this preliminary essay, we imagine that the theological inferences which the author has yet to give us must be as full of new historical criticism, and fuller of moral power for the majority of readers, than the introductory investigation itself.

ART. VI.-The Poems and Fables of Robert Henryson, now first Collected, with Notes, and a Memoir of his Life. By DAVID LAING. Edinburgh, 1865.

WE are again indebted to Mr. Laing for an elegant and accurate edition of one of our early Scottish poets, whose compositions have never hitherto been collected, and have not consequently been known so widely or appreciated so well as they deserve to be. The volume of Henryson's poems lately published is a fitting companion to those on which the same editor formerly bestowed so much care and diligence, in the hope, which has not been frustrated, that they might form the best monument that could be erected to the genius of Dunbar. The works of these two poets, illustrated with all the antiquarian learning, patriotic zeal, and sound judgment for which Mr. Laing is distinguished, must be allowed to present a vivid as well as faithful picture of Scottish manners and character during an eventful period, and to afford proofs of intellectual and poetical power of which any nation might well be proud. We are glad to see it announced that Mr. Laing has in preparation an edition of the Poems of Sir David Lindsay, with Notes and a biographical Memoir. If we could hope, after that, for an edition of Gawin Douglas, our satisfaction would be complete. But we must not be unreasonable.

However much, like others of our countrymen, we may be disposed to prefer Scotland to truth, we cannot venture to compare any of our Scottish poets to Chaucer. Dunbar is the greatest name that we can boast; yet even he, whatever he might have done--and no one that knows him can dispute his mastery over all the chords of the human heart-has achieved nothing that can be put in competition with the Canterbury Tales.' But, laying Chaucer aside, as one of those exceptional men who surpass the ordinary limits of human genius, we think it can scarcely be denied that, in the short space of two centuries, during which her national literature could be expected to flourish, that is, between her victory at Bannockburn and her defeat at Flodden, Scotland produced a series of poets who display greater vigour and versatility, both of thought and language, than any which England has to show for the whole period between the Norman Conquest and the Reformation.

The accession of James I. to the Scottish throne must have given, by his example as well as by his influence, a strong impulse to learning and literature; and the tastes, and even the failings, of his immediate successors, or at least of James III., would tend to encourage some of those pursuits which are alien to the

passions and habits of a rude and violent race. But the culminating point in the history of Scottish poetry is the reign of James IV., the first of the Stuarts who lived on amicable terms with his nobles, and who was thus enabled, though for too short a period, to maintain a splendid Court and to rule over a united people, with a magnificence and authority highly favourable to the cultivation of the refined arts. In certain stages of society, the best or only patronage of literature has been found at the Courts of kings. The poet must always have a patron of some kind: the singer must have an audience, to inspire, to applaud, and to reward him. The requisite encouragement may come from the many or from the few. The patron may be an Augustus, or a Mæcenas, or it may be Demus himself. It may be even a religious sect or a political faction. Sometimes the highest genius must look for its admirers in an unknown future, or in those whom it slowly trains to understand its productions by its own efforts; while in other cases the powers of the poet may be in such happy accordance with the universal sympathies of mankind, that his works find an instant admittance to the hearts and homes of both high and low. It is pleasant as well as profitable to have a rich and admiring public who will buy so many thousand copies of a volume in a week. It is better, perhaps, for the author's genius or fame that he should have a smaller and more select, though still a remunerative body of supporters. But such mines of wealth are unknown in ruder times, and the poet who then desires to excel and to find a living in his art, must seek his sphere of exertion either in the halls of nobles, or in the fuller union which a Court presents of wealth and splendour with leisure and refinement.

The brilliant reign of Edward III. had been the means of developing in England the powers of Chaucer and Gower; and the position and influence of James IV. in Scotland was in many respects similar. The Scottish Augustan age, thus interposed between the times of Chaucer and of Spenser, served in a great degree to keep alive the lustre of Anglican literature during the deep gloom which was cast upon it in England by the evils of a disputed succession, and the horrors of civil war.

In the interesting Supplement which Mr. Laing has just added to his edition of Dunbar, we have extracts from Mr. Bergenroth's Calendar of Spanish Letters, recently published, which afford a fuller and even more favourable view of the character of James IV. than any which we have hitherto had. The information is supplied by a report or despatch addressed to the King and Queen of Castille, in the year 1498, by Don Pedro de Ayala, who had been ambassador to Scotland, and knew the country well, and who was then living in London on account of bad health.

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