soul sinks into the infinite and is lost, yet lives in the life and light of heaven.

"The emulous heaven yearned down, made effort to reach the earth, As the earth had done her best, in my passion to scale the sky : For earth had attained to heaven, there was no more near nor far." All is then seen not as it is to sense, but as it exists truly in the Divine idea, one day to come forth from the region of being to the region of consciousness. All the possibilities, which to us are not, but which truly are, the Divine ideas, one day to become existent in the visible.

"Nay more; for there wanted not who walked in the glare and glow,
Presences plain in the place; or fresh from the Protoplast,

Furnished for ages to come, when a kindlier wind should blow,

Lured now to begin and live."

All that too is seen as existing, which to us was, and is not, but which truly is.

"Or else the wonderful dead who have passed through the body and gone, But were back once more to breathe in an old world worth their new." And as the vision of the Infinite opens around, it becomes clear that no energy is lost, no true effort vain, for all life and energy are Divine, "evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound."

The music of a holy life may die out on earth, but it exists for ever in the Eternal, the Unchanging, because it is the Divine idea.

"All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist;
Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power
Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist,
When eternity affirms the conception of an hour;

The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard,
The passion that left the ground, to lose itself in the sky,
Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard;

Enough that he heard it once: we shall hear it by and by."

But is it true, as some say, that the teaching of these earlier poems is superseded by that of the later, and so the poet has destroyed his own work? To me it seems that in the later poems there is a more restful faith than in the earlier; a belief less vehement, and therefore less struggling. Is there not a deep significance in the beautiful story of Alcestis (Balaustion's Adventure); a real consciousness which needs. not proof in Prospice, in some passages of the Ring and the Book, in A Wall, and in the beautiful prologue and epilogue of Fifine. The vehement questionings of La Saisiaz, what are they but the cries of a present grief, which we all utter, as we see some loved friend pass out of sight. We cry to the whirlwind, "Wherefore? whereto?" answer comes, but the heart replies.

"Traversed heart must tell its story uncommented on: no less
Mine results in Only grant a second life, I acquiesce

No

In this present life as failure, count misfortune's worst assaults
Triumph, not defeat; assured that loss so much the more exalts
Gain about to be. For at that moment did I so advance
Near to knowledge, as when frustrate of escape from ignorance?
Did not beauty prove most precious when its opposite obtained
Rule, and truth seem more than ever potent because falsehood reigned?
While for love-Oh how but. losing love, does whoso loves succeed
By the death-pang to the birth-throe-learning what is love indeed?
Only grant my soul may carry high through death her cup unspilled,
Brimming though it be with knowledge, life's loss drop by drop distilled,
I shall boast it mine-the balsam, bless each kindly wrench that wrung
From life's tree its inmost virtue, tapped the root whence pleasure sprung,
Barked the bole, and broke the bough, and bruised the berry, left all grace
Ashes in death's stern alembic, loosed elixir in its place!"

I grant that in the later poems he cares less to formulate. As we climb higher and our vision widens, that which once seemed the whole truth now takes its place as part only of a larger, more embracing unity. In our individual lives, as in the world's history, we follow the sun in his course; but horizons change, and we never reach the land of light; truth recedes, but it is to tempt us onward; the crystal spheres of the world's childhood are broken, and if for a moment the soul Autters down and stands panting upon some solid cliff, she rises thence having plumed her pinions for a longer flight; she returns again and again only to renew her strength, and at last, in all the might of a great trust in the All-good, she wings her flight into the infinite unknown. This utter trust is proved only when we can go forth, as the faithful of old, not knowing whither we go.

"truth is truth in each degree;

Thunderpealed by God to nature, whispered by my soul to me.

Nay, the weakness turns to strength and triumphs in a strength beyond:
Mine is but man's truest answer-how were it did God respond?'

I shall no more dare to mimic such response in futile speech,

Pass off human lisp as echo of the sphere-song out of reach."

66

Only a learner,

Quick one or slow one,

Just a discerner,

I would teach no one." (Pisgah Sights.)

The lesson taught in the earlier poem of Saul is repeated in the latest, that the Divine love shed abroad in our hearts is the witness for a Divine love which we can trust for ever and ever; and it is the strength of this inner consciousness, the witness of the Spirit, that has enabled the poet-seers of all ages to sing loud above the storm-waves their Gloria in excelsis.

"Soul that canst soar!

Body may slumber,

Body shall cumber

Soul-flight no more.

"Waft of soul's wing!

What lies above?
Sunshine and love."

(Pisgah Sights.)

XVII.

AN ACCOUNT OF ABBÉ VOGLER.

(FROM FÉTIS & NISARD.)

BY MISS ELEANOR MARX.

THE Abbé George Joseph Vogler was born at Würzburg (Bavaria) on the 15th June, 1749. His father, a musical instrument maker, had the boy taught the clavecin, but George soon surpassed his master. Alone, and without any instruction, he learnt to play upon several instruments, and also invented a new system of fingering, which he subsequently taught in his schools. Abt Vogler began his humanities in the Jesuit College of his native town, and concluded his studies at the Jesuit Seminary of Bamberg. In 1771 he went to Mannheim, where he obtained permission to compose a ballet for the Court Theatre. Charles Theodore, the Elector Palatine, now became his patron, and at his own expense sent Vogler to study counterpoint under the direction of Father Martini at Bologna. Vogler, however, soon wearied of the old teacher's slow method, and with characteristic impatience left him after six weeks. He now proceeded to Padua, and while studying theology there, also took lessons in harmony and musical composition with Father Valotti. This time the pupil proved more persevering, and remained with his instructor for five months. Valotti's system of harmony delighted Vogler, who founded his own system upon it. His theological studies ended, Vogler set out for Rome, where he was ordained priest. In spite of his youth, the Abbé seems to have already enjoyed a certain reputation, for he met with a most sympathetic reception in the Eternal City. He was even made "apostolic protonotary, chamberlain to the Pope, chevalier of the Golden Spur, and member of the Academy of 'Arcades' (?)." In 1775 he returned to Mannheim, where his first act was to open a School of Music. He now published several works:1 an exposition of his Theory of Music and Composition (Tonwissenschaft und

Faith has passed into sight, and the human will is effaced in the Divine.

"Indeed the special marking of the man,

Is prone submission to the heavenly will—
Seeing it, what it is, and why it is."

But therefore is the moral discipline of life over for him; he can will only God's will. But in the order of God's education it is necessary we should walk first by faith, afterwards by sight; should work out the moral law ere we recognize it as Divine, else we could not know God as good, and there could be no personal life, only the absorption of the human will in the infinite. Virtue can take root only in the darkness; we need to live in a world opaque for us. If, whilst enduring the agony, we could see the joy set before us, how could our spiritual nature attain its full growth! No; we must utter the sabachthani" ere we can say, "It is finished." must be round about Him," that we may learn that "righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His seat." We must do right not only because we know God wills it, but we must know that God wills it because it is right. We are to yield not a "prone submission," a satisfied assent, but the gladness of a full consent. There may be submission to the Almighty, but there can be concord only with the All-good.

"lama cry "Clouds and darkness

And it seems that Lazarus has lost his characteristics as a man, because for him the work of this life is over; he has anticipated the next stage of existence ere he has entered on it, and so there is discord.

"The law of that is known to him as this,

His heart and brain move there, his feet stay here,
So is the man perplext.

This life, too, has lost with its educative power its interest; for to enjoy we must ever be seeking the unattained, ever advancing.

Sayeth he will wait patient to the last

For that same death, which must restore his being

To equilibrium, body loosening soul,

Divorced even now by premature full growth."

And he is no longer able to help others. We must feel their difficulties ere we can meet them; there must be a measure of stupidity in

us; one may be too clever to be a teacher. He despairs of unfolding spiritual realities, as we of explaining sight to the blind.

"How can he give his neighbour the real ground,

His own conviction."

"Hence I perceive not he affects to preach

The doctrine of his sect."

In conclusion the poet leads us to feel that we must learn by degrees to use the heavenly treasure, not demand our inheritance ere we have attained our majority; that the all-sufficient gospel is this-to know that the heart of God beats in sympathy with the heart of man. "So All-great were the All-loving too

So, through the thunder comes a human voice,
Saying, 'O heart I made, a heart beats here!
Face My hands fashioned, see it in Myself!
Thou hast no power, nor may'st conceive of Mine:
But love I gave thee, with Myself to love,

And thou must love Me who have died for thee!'"

We have said that Browning deals especially with the problems which force themselves most upon our age, and answers them as a poet, by appealing to our deepest consciousness, to our sense of what must be, to our moral intuitions.

Perhaps in none are we made more conscious of his deep spiritual sympathies than in the companion poems, Easter Day and Christmas Eve. Browning knows people better than they know themselves. Which of us has not at some time professed to hold a creed, and thought perhaps we did believe, what in the depths of our hearts we abhorred? So he faces the superficial thinker, and makes him know himself. Does the agnostic approach with a smiling countenance, saying, “I am content with this world's beauty, with science and art and law;" Browning leads him to an earthly paradise, where no voice of God is heard among the trees of the garden; he casts at his feet all the gifts of beauty, but they are gifts from no one; he places him in a tabernacle vast and glorious, and it becomes to him a prison-house, because there is no escape from it into a larger life; and as for human love, this too dies in the desert, it has no root, it is cut off from all that can feed its life; and at last the soul is made to feel the utter desolation of a life without God, to know what is eternal death, to understand that deepest utterance of man's heart, "This is life eternal, to know Thee;" to understand that the resurrection for man is this-to come into the full consciousness of union with God. Without it we pine and die amidst all the earth has to give; but, if we know it, streams water the desert, it rejoices and blossoms as the rose, the mountains and hills break forth into singing, and everything that hath breath praises God. And Christmas Eve is complementary to Easter Day. That has dealt