frowning mediaeval castles in
the midst of the city, are all thrown into the background by the
greatness, the individuality, the living power and vigour of the men who
are their originators, and at the same time their inspiring soul. But
when we turn to Venice the effect is very different. We do not think of
the makers of that marvellous city, but rather of what they made. The
idealized image of Venice herself meets us everywhere. The mother is not
overshadowed by the too great glory of any of her sons. In her records
the city is everything--the republic, the worshipped ideal of a community
in which every man for the common glory seems to have been willing to
sink his own. We know that Dante stood within the red walls of the
arsenal, and saw the galleys making and mending, and the pitch flaming up
to heaven; Petrarch came to visit the great Mistress of the Sea, taking
refuge there, 'in this city, true home of the human race,' from trouble,
war and pestilence outside; and Byron, with his facile enthusiasms and
fervent eloquence, made his home for a time in one of the stately,
decaying palaces; but with these exceptions no great poet has ever
associated himself with the life of Venice. She had architects,
sculptors and painters, but no singer of her own.

To realize the popularity of the great poets one should turn to the minor
poets and see whom they follow, what master they select, whose music they
echo.

Ordinary theology has long since converted its gold into lead, and words
and phrases that once touched the heart of the world have become
wearisome and meaningless through repetition. If Theology desires to
move us, she must re-write her formulas.

It takes a great artist to be thoroughly modern. Nature is always a
little behind the age.

Mr. Nash, who styles himself 'a humble soldier in the army of Faith,'
expresses a hope that his book may 'invigorate devotional feeling,
especially among the young, to whom verse is perhaps more attractive than
to their elders,' but we should be sorry to think that people of any age
could admire such a paraphrase as the following:

Foxes have holes in which to slink for rest,
The birds of air find shelter in the nest;
But He, the Son of Man and Lord of all,
Has no abiding place His own to call.

It is a curious fact that the worst work is always done with the best
intentions, and that people are never so trivial as when they take
themselves very serio