eligion said: "The celestial woman whom you may lovingly adore is here,
with me. All you have to do is to call her by the name I have given her,
and the kingdom of Heaven will be yours."

But on the other hand Mary represents to-day, and doubtless will do for
a long time to come, a dogmatically acknowledged deity, recognised by
the spirit of Protestantism as a remnant of Paganism, and duly detested;
the masses in Italy and Spain pray to-day to her image, as in bygone
days the masses prayed to the images in Greek and Roman temples. This
goddess is unchanging, and from the point of view of the psychologist
uninteresting.

It is not difficult to understand why the two conceptions of Mary (more
especially in the souls of the monks) were so often inextricably
intermingled; circumstances frequently demanded a complete fusion. As
late as in the nineteenth century, a romantic poet, Zacharias Werner,
said:

Oh, sov'reign lady, mistress of my fortune,
And thou, the Queen and ruler of the heavens,
(I cannot keep you sundered and apart.)

I shall endeavour to keep them sundered and apart as far as possible,
for I am only concerned with man's metaphysical emotion of love and its
creation, womanhood deified, and not with Catholic dogmas. With this
object in view, I will return to the poets previously quoted, and
continue the unfolding of the process of deification. As a rule the
metaphysical lovers were content with immortalising their feelings in,
very often, excellent verses, raising the beloved mistress above the
earth and worshipping her as the culmination of beauty and perfection.
The quite unusual craving to give her a place in the eternal structure
of the cosmos animated only one poet, Dante, who, combining the Catholic
striving for unity with spontaneous, magnificent woman-worship, created
a masterpiece which is unique in literature.

Typical among the later Provencals was Guirot Riquier. Several of his
poems which have been preserved to us make it impossible to say whether
they are addressed to an earthly woman or to the Queen of Heaven; these
poems mark, in a sense, a period of transition. They are exceedingly
vague, and it is not worth while to translate them; but as they are
dated it is interesting to watch the poet's love growing more and more
spiritual and religious, to see him gradually deserting his earthly love
for the Lady of Heaven. In one poem he prays to his lady "who is
worshipped by all tru