erature, and probably
will always remain so--partly because it is so easy of achievement;
partly because it is not less easy of comprehension; and also, perhaps,
because humanity has ever been inclined to chasten that which it loves.
It rails against marriage, but it marries all the same. Or is it that it
recognises the wedded life as a necessity, which cannot be put away, but
which it is a pleasure to ridicule? Perhaps that is the best explanation
one can offer. All this satire may be mankind's way of revenging itself
upon one of the laws of nature.

PARSON POETS.

The publication of a memoir of Archbishop Trench has sufficed to recall
prominently to the public mind the virtues, endowments, and achievements
of one of the most notable of latter-day divines. Richard Chenevix
Trench was one of the most versatile of writers. He discoursed with
equal knowledge and effect on Biblical and philological topics, and his
prose work will always be respectfully regarded by the students alike of
divinity and of language. But though, on these subjects, his
pronouncements may in time grow stale or require correction, he will
ever hold an honourable place in English literature as one of the most
thoughtful and vigorous of those parson poets of whom this country has
always had so large and valuable a supply.

There is, indeed, a natural connection between parsons and poetry. It is
precisely in the ranks of the clerical body in all civilized countries
that one would look for successful cultivators of the art of verse. For
what is, above all things, necessary for such cultivation? In the first
place, polite learning; in the second, sufficient leisure. It is in the
atmosphere of culture that good verse, as apart from high poetry, takes
its rise. There are probably few educated men who have not at one time
or another essayed to pen a stanza. The busy city clergyman may nowadays
have no time for such elegant diversions, but at all periods the
lettered country parson has been inclined to occupy some of his spare
moments in wooing the Muse of Song. There are other things than learning
and leisure which impel him to the task. There is the nature of his
profession, with the experience it brings him and the reflections it
induces. The most unliterary pastor cannot but be a meditative man. The
literary pastor cannot but be disposed to turn his meditations into
verse, often finding in that 'mechanic exercise' the means of 'numbing
pain