Who would outlive their kind

Except the base and blind?

There is not one who hath not left a throne

Vacant in heaven, to dwell in darkness here,
Rather than see his mates endure alone.

Go, wretch, and give

A life like thine to other wretches-live!
And when the annihilating waters roar
Above what they have done,

Envy the giant patriarchs then no more,
And scorn thy sire, as the surviving one,
Thyself for being his son.'

In justice to Dr. Newman, however, I must admit that the passage wherein the guardian angel explains to Gerontius why the hellish outcries by which they are assailed are now ineffective and contemptible, is finely conceived and vigorously expressed :

'In thy trial-state

Thou hadst a traitor nestling close at home,
Connatural, who with the powers of hell
Was leagued, and of thy senses kept the keys,
And to that deadliest foe unlock'd thy heart.
And therefore is it, in respect of man,
Those fallen ones show so majestical.

But, when some child of grace, Angel or Saint,
Pure and upright in his integrity

Of nature, meets the demons on their raid,

They scud away as cowards from the fight.

Nay, oft hath holy hermit in his cell,

Not yet disburden'd of mortality,

Mock'd at their threats and warlike overtures;

Or, dying, when they swarm'd, like flies, around,
Defied them, and departed to his Judge.'

The two rhymed pieces which stand out from all the others as deserving of high commendation are, first, the final utterance of Gerontius after his momentary interview with the hidden power of God: it is full of a sad and yearning melody, well calculated to infuse into our hearts the lesson which Dr. Newman designed it to convey. The other lines to which I referred are those which contain the farewell of the guardian angel, who, in a strain of solemn and tender pensiveness, fitly closes the drama. It may suffice, perhaps, if I read the former of these two, which, upon the whole, I prefer :

'Take me away, and in the lowest deep
There let me be,

And there in hope the lone night-watches keep,
Told out for me.

There, motionless and happy in my pain,

Lone, not forlorn,—

There will I sing my sad perpetual strain,

Until the morn.

There will I sing, and soothe my stricken breast,
Which ne'er can cease

To throb, and pine, and languish, till possest
Of its Sole Peace.

There will I sing my absent Lord and Love :—

Take me away,

That sooner I may rise, and go above,

And see Him in the truth of everlasting day.'

I think I have now said all that I had to say about the 'Dream of Gerontius;' but perhaps I may venture to add, in conclusion, that little as I sympathise with the actual opinions, or even with the methods of reasoning which characterise Dr. Newman, it has nevertheless been a real pleasure to me to recall the days of my youth, and to feel that he deserved then, and has ever since continued to deserve, the admiring reverence with which he filled the men of my generation. He has bared his heart before the crowd, and all who will may see how true, and pure, and tender a heart it is.

There may be others whom we looked up to likewise, who have surrendered their souls to a bitterer antagonism and a more hostile zeal; who pain us, now and then, by assuming a somewhat unsympathetic demeanour-by seeming to undervalue the memories that lie behind them, and the ties which they compelled themselves to break. If such there are, it is not for us to blame them; we know too well how keen the edge of these disputes, how envenomed the spirit of these religious differences, is and ever must be; but though we blame nobody, it is still lawful for us to rejoice, that one the most eminent of his class, should not, in spite of an unwavering devotion to his new

creed, even wish to forget the years when he worked and flourished at Oxford; that by him, at any rate, the old influences are yet spoken of with genuine respect, the old friends with undiminished affection; that of him, at any rate, we may yet fairly say, in words which are hacknied no doubt, but hacknied only because they cannot be improved upon

'Cum talis sis, utinam noster esses.'

THE
UNIVERCITY

CALIFORNIA