in opinion with Goethe as to the merits of Spinoza,
though he was a man excommunicated by the Jews, to whom he belonged, and
denounced by the Christians as a man little better than an atheist. "The
Great Spirit of the world," says Schleiermacher, in his REDE UBER DIE
RELIGION, "penetrated the holy but repudiated Spinoza; the Infinite was
his beginning and his end; the universe his only and eternal love. He
was filled with religion and religious feeling: and therefore is it
that he stands alone unapproachable, the master in his art, but
elevated above the profane world, without adherents, and without even
citizenship."]

Cousin also says of Spinoza:--"The author whom this pretended atheist
most resembles is the unknown author of 'The Imitation of Jesus
Christ.'"]

[Footnote 1913: Preface to Southeys 'Life of Wesley' [191864].]

[Footnote 1914: Napoleon also read Milton carefully, and it has been related of
him by Sir Colin Campbell, who resided with Napoleon at Elba, that
when speaking of the Battle of Austerlitz, he said that a particular
disposition of his artillery, which, in its results, had a decisive
effect in winning the battle, was suggested to his mind by the
recollection of four lines in Milton. The lines occur in the sixth book,
and are descriptive of Satan's artifice during the war with Heaven.

"In hollow cube
Training his devilish engin'ry, impal'd
On every side WITH SHADOWING SQUADRONS DEEP
TO HIDE THE FRAUD."

"The indubitable fact," says Mr. Edwards, in his book 'On Libraries,'
"that these lines have a certain appositeness to an important manoeuvre
at Austerlitz, gives an independent interest to the story; but it is
highly imaginative to ascribe the victory to that manoeuvre. And for
the other preliminaries of the tale, it is unfortunate that Napoleon had
learned a good deal about war long before he had learned anything about
Milton."]

[Footnote 1915: 'Biographia Literaria,' chap. i.]

[Footnote 1916: Sir John Bowring's 'Memoirs of Bentham,' p. 10.]

[Footnote 1917: Notwithstanding recent censures of classical studies as a useless
waste of time, there can be no doubt that they give the highest
finish to intellectual culture. The ancient classics contain the most
consummate models of literary art; and the greatest writers have been
their most diligent students. Classical culture was the instrument with
which Erasmus and the Reformers purified Europe. It dist