the flying of birds, and the flitting of butterflies among the flowers. But correspondence forbids them to rest in these meanings, and they immediately pass on to the denomination of events belonging to the spiritual world. Hence the beautiful language of the prophecy in Micah, concerning the heavenly Jerusalem,' In the last days it shall come to pass that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and people shall flow unto it.' Hence, too, it is said in the Proverbs, The wicked man fleeth when no man pursueth;" and in familiar colloquy, that in adversity, false friends flee away;" and that thoughts of old times 'flit across the memory.' 6 101. The interior meaning of the word flow is made no less beautifully evident by Virgil, when he says of the Greeks, disheartened by the long resistance of Troy, 'fluere spes,' literally their hope began to flow away.' (Eneid ii. 169.) In English we continually use such phrases. Thus 'flow of feeling,' flow of spirits,' flow of fancy,' flow of ideas,' 'flow of language,' 'flow of sentiment,' all of which secretly present to the mind, and in the most agreeable manner, the idea of a running stream. There are also many compound words involving this idea. Thus, affluence is a state where wealth is continually flowing to' the person spoken of; while influence denotes that species of action of one person or thing upon another by which some of its own properties and virtues are caused to pass over or flow in' to them. Adam, for instance, says to Eve, in Paradise Lost, 'I, from the influence of thy looks, receive Access in every virtue; in thy sight, More wise, more watchful; stronger if need were, In outward strength;'→ a most beautiful picture of the sunny blessings which those whom we dearly love, unceasingly yet unknowingly shed upon our hearts; not so much by what they say or do, as through the medium of the heavenly sphere which flows from them like the fragrance from some scented tree. Let any one think for a moment of the face of her whom in his soul he loves best in the world, with a generous and manly love founded on harmony of nature, and he will become sensible that in her beautiful, though unconscious and secret influence, or inflowing for good, lies her most powerful and enduring charm. 102. Influx, which is the same word in another shape, appropriately describes the benevolent activity of God with regard to his creation, it being solely by the constant 'inflowing' of life from Himself that it is sustained in health and beauty. People are apt, however, to think of I God merely as a Creator who acted, not as a Creator who acts. As if it were possible that the world could subsist for a single moment if its Maker did not constantly act into it, and thus preserve it in the order of its creation. Confluence, again, is the point where two rivers unite or flow together.' Hence it is applied to the harmonious union of men's opinions. Reflux is a 'flowing back.' Superfluous is literally 'flowing over;' figuratively, more than is needed. A wave is in Latin called fluctus; thence our figurative verb to fluctuate. Fluency is that quality of speech which makes it resemble the easy flowing of a smooth river, in Latin flumen. An inundation we call a flood; and as the incursion of moral evil is like the terrible, overwhelming, and devastating effect of such a torrent, the Psalms and other Scriptures repeatedly speak of the ungodly and of the powers of darkness, as floods.' Thus: 'I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing; I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.' 'Let not the water flood overflow me, Neither let the deep swallow me up.'—Psalm lxix. 15. 'If the Lord had not been on our side, When men rose up against us; Then they had swallowed us up alive, Then the waters had overwhelmed us, The stream had gone over our soul.'-Psalm cxxiv. 2-4. In 2 Sam. xxii. 5, (Psalm xviii.) David uses similar language,— 'The waves of death compassed me, The floods of ungodly men made me afraid.' There is a fine passage, founded on the same correspondence, in the 'Suppliants' of Eschylus (469–471.)— Κακῶν δὲ πλῆθος ποταμὸς ὡς ἐπέρχεται. κ.τ.λ. Horace, too, says of Ulysses, that in spite of all his perils and hardships, he was never overwhelmed in the waves of adversity,' (adversis rerum immersabilis undis. Epistles i. 2, 22.) 103. The pl form of the original word, furnished the Greeks with Tλew to sail.' Thence a ship was called πλοῖον, and a sailor πλωτὴρ. The voyage was designated λóos, and wealth acquired by commerce, or sailing, πλουτος. Thence the word was extended, on the same great principle, to riches in general; and also used to designate the mythological god of riches, Plutus. It was on the same ground that the Anglo-Saxons called a ship flota (whence our fleet), and sailors flotan. With the Teutonic 'fleet' agrees the Pelasgic 'navy,' which is through navis, vaûs, vaw, (by the insertion of the digamma) from the Sanscrit s-nau, to bathe or swim. 104. Naturally associated with the moving of water, is the idea of filling, as caused by its continued flow. Hence the Greeks beautifully called the rising of the tide λnun,' the filling,' just as in English we speak of its ebbing and flowing.' Hence the origin likewise of the Latin words plus, more; plenus, full; and eventually of the English complete, plenitude, plenty, plenteous, ample, replete, complement, plethoric, supplement, supply, surplus, accomplish, replenish, &c., all of which convey the idea of filling' or 'filling full,' and place before the mind, in the same pleasing, though secret manner as before, the physical correspondence on which they proceed, namely, high water. The English word full is itself derived from the same source. Hence when we that we fully understand a thing, or that we are fully aware of it, it is saying that it has flowed into and filled our minds, just as the high tide fills the basin of the sea. say 105. Nothing could be more natural than to use a modification of the same root to designate weeping. To weep,' accordingly, is in Latin flere. But weeping is only an outbirth, the material or physical manifestation of a feeling. Hence the word fleo and its derivatives pass on to the designation of the sorrow itself, and to other forms of its expression, such as are called in English grieving, bewailing, mourning, and lamenting. A most beautiful instance of this occurs in Virgil's celebrated description of the bird mourning over the loss of her young, imitated from the fourth Idyl of Moschus, and allowed to be one of the most touching passages in the whole range of poetry, ancient or modern. 'Qualis populeâ morens philomela sub umbrâ Amissos queritur fetus, quos durus arator Observans, nido implumes detraxit: at illa Flet noctem, ramoque sedens miserabile carmen (Georgic iv. 511-515.) 'As mourning philomel under a poplar shade, bemoans her lost young, which the hard-hearted clown observing in the nest, has stolen away unfledged. But she sorrows throughout the night; and seated on a branch, still renews her mournful song, and fills all places round with piteous wailings.' The masterly way in which the words flet and implet are introduced, greatly adds to the effect of this justly-admired passage. Not that we mean by masterly' that the poet deliberately selected them, for such words are impersonal utterances. It was the genius that was masterly. Virgil, like Shakspere and all other great poets, wrote multitudes of things which he never designed, and of whose interior beauty he knew little. Great poets, and all true ones, do this continually. It is their peculiar characteristic, and in it lies their inexhaustible and ever-increasing charm. For the conceptions of such are not only complete and beautiful as to their synthetical expression, but complete in every detail of it. What, however, is alone present to their minds, and aimed to be expressed, is the general conception; the picture, thought, or sentiment, whatever it may be. The details, or constituent elements, lie in the words spontaneously and uncarefully made use of to embody it, appearing to the poet merely as the medium of its exhibition, but to his readers as consisting of so many perfect and distinct ideas. And this, as already hinted, is their actual quality. Every beautiful or subtle thought that the poet lays before us is a little landscape. His object in displaying it is to exhibit the picturesque of that landscape, and he presents this to us through the medium of an infinite variety of charming objects and particulars, thrown together not with a view to their individual values, but with reference simply to their use in the collective; and these stand like the trees, and hills, and waterfalls of the material landscapes (every one of which is a picture-poem), spread out before us by the Divine Пonτns of all things. The full appreciation of poetry consists, accordingly, in the recognition not only of the general or surface ideas, but of the accessory or component ones enveloped in the words, in every one of which there is an individual and peculiar beauty and meaningful symbolism, just as there is in the separate hills, and trees, and waterfalls of the material counterpart to which they owe their being. That beauty is discernible, however, only and entirely in proportion to our knowledge of the aesthetics* of nature and of language. Hence, no man understands the whole of a great poet, because, to do so, he must be acquainted with the particulars of all nature and all philosophy. Every man understands a portion of him, and this portion is ample or circumscribed in the precise ratio of his information, literary and scientific, his knowledge of the human heart, and the vividness and activity of his perceptions of correspondence. This is why all true readers and thinkers feel that old Homer himself is even now only beginning to be understood in the profusion of his * Esthetics. This word (derived from dodávoμai 'to perceive") denotes those inner or spiritual qualities of beauty in things, which the mind can alone take cognizance of. Esthetics form a distinct and highly attractive and delightful form of knowledge, investigating in turn the nature of all kinds of beauty, whether in Nature, Art, Music, Literature, or the Drama. The term may be paraphrased as 'The Philosophy of the Beautiful. It was first adopted, about eighty years since, by the Germans, in whose language there is an excellent work on the subject:-'Asthetik Von Friedrich Bouterwek,' 2 vols. 12mo. Gottingen, 1815. beauty; while for the same reason, it is equally certain that Shakspere and Milton, Shelley and P. J. Bailey,* are full of stores that it will take generations thoroughly to unfold. A great poem,' says Shelley, is a fountain for ever overflowing with the waters of wisdom and delight, and after one person and one age have exhausted it of such of the Divine effluence as their peculiar relations enabled them to share, another, and yet another, succeeds, and new relations are ever developed, the source of an unseen and unconceived delight' Let any one reflect on the feelings with which he has read a particular passage of genuine poetry before and after bringing æsthetical considerations to bear upon it, and he will immediately perceive that this is no less inevitable than true. 'Poetry is itself a thing of God; He made His prophets poets; and the more We feel of Poësy do we become Like God in love and power,-under-makers. And song is of the supernatural Natural utterance; and solely can Speak the unbounded beauty of the world, And the premortal concords of pure minds.'-Festus. The man who, by studying external nature, and cultivating the eupathies of his being, qualifies himself to enter into the sanctities of poetic sentiment and expression, and thence draw bright, and noble, and elevating enjoyments, is himself a true poet, though he may never have written a single verse. As the chemist, by means of his magic tests, detects curious and varied substances where other men see nothing but dull earth and stone, so does the former learn to distinguish beauties where the unprepared cry All is barren!' Where other men see only one thing or one idea, he discerns and enjoys a multitude; and by virtue of this, he inhabits many worlds at once, and lives a score of common lives. It is with poetry, indeed, as with pure botany,— The well-directed sight Brings in each flower a universe to light. And as with the wild flowers in their abundance, so is it still with poetry, for God has sown its elements everywhere, over all the earth, plentiful as hope.' 106. If these things be true as regards human or secular compositions, how infinitely more so must they be as regards God's own great poem,— the Bible, the type and pattern of them all? For that glorious * Author of 'Festus,' the finest poem (its blemishes aside) since 'Paradise Lost," and the greatest wonder of modern literature, overflowing as it does with lines that 'philosophy may esteem as texts, and the world as oracles.' |