re delicately classical.

With regard to the indirect, and, perhaps, more effective, species of
sacred poetry, we fear it must be acknowledged, to the shame of the
last century, that there is hardly a single specimen of it (excepting,
perhaps, Gray's Elegy, and possibly some of the most perfect of
Collins's poems) which has obtained any celebrity. We except the
writers of our own times, who do not fall within the scope of this
inquiry.

To Spenser, therefore, upon the whole, the English reader must revert,
as being, pre-eminently, the sacred poet of his country: as most
likely, in every way, to answer the purposes of his art; especially in
an age of excitation and refinement, in which the gentler and more
homely beauties, both of character and of scenery, are too apt to be
despised: with passion and interest enough to attract the most ardent,
and grace enough to win the most polished; yet by a silent preference
everywhere inculcating the love of better and more enduring things;
and so most exactly fulfilling what he has himself declared to be 'the
general end of all his book'--'to fashion a gentleman, or noble
person, in virtuous and gentle discipline': and going the straight way
to the accomplishment of his own high-minded prayer:

That with the glory of so goodly sight,
The hearts of men, which fondly here admire
Fair-seeming shows, and feed on vain delight,
Transported with celestial desire
Of those fair forms, may lift themselves up higher,
And learn to love, with zealous humble duty,
Th' eternal fountain of that heavenly beauty.

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN

1801-1890

POETRY

WITH REFERENCE TO ARISTOTLE'S POETICS (1829).

_The Theatre of the Greeks; or the History, Literature, and Criticism
of the Grecian Drama. With an original Treatise on the Principal
Tragic and Comic Metres._ Second Edition. Cambridge. 1827.

This work is well adapted for the purpose it has in view--the
illustration of the Greek drama. It has been usual for the young
student to engage in a perusal of this difficult branch of classical
literature, with none of that previous preparation or collateral
assistance which it pre-eminently requires. Not to mention his
ordinary want of information as regards the history of the drama,
which, though necessary to the full understanding the nature of that
kind of poetry, may still seem too remotely connected with the
existing Greek plays to be an actual deficiency; n