ve a period
principally of imitation, sometimes good, sometimes indifferent. Next,
with the Reformation and the revival of literature together, come more of
art and more of philosophy, to the detriment of the lyrical expression.
People cannot think and sing: they can only feel and sing. But the
philosophy goes farther in this direction, even to the putting in
abeyance of that from which song takes its rise,--namely, feeling itself.
As to the former, amongst the verse of the period I have given, there is
hardly anything to be called song but Sir Philip Sidney's Psalms, and for
them we are more indebted to King David than to Sir Philip. As to the
latter, even in the case of that most mournful poem of the Countess of
Pembroke, it is, to quite an unhealthy degree, occupied with the attempt
to work upon her own feelings by the contemplation of them, instead of
with the utterance of those aroused by the contemplation of truth. In her
case the metaphysics have begun to prey upon and consume the emotions.
Besides, that age was essentially a dramatic age, as even its command of
language, especially as shown in the pranks it plays with it, would
almost indicate; and the dramatic impulse is less favourable, though not
at all opposed, to lyrical utterance. In the cases of Sir Fulk Grevill
and Sir John Davies, the feeling is assuredly profound; but in form and
expression the philosophy has quite the upper hand.

We must not therefore suppose, however, that the cause of religious
poetry has been a losing one. The last wave must sink that the next may
rise, and the whole tide flow shorewards. The man must awake through all
his soul, all his strength, all his mind, that he may worship God in
unity, in the one harmonious utterance of his being: his heart must be
united to fear his name. And for this final perfection of the individual
the race must awake. At this season and that season, this power or that
power must be chiefly developed in her elect; and for its sake the growth
of others must for a season be delayed. But the next generation will
inherit all that has gone before; and its elect, if they be themselves
pure in heart, and individual, that is original, in mind, will, more or
less thoroughly, embody the result, in subservience to some new
development, essential in its turn to further progress. Even the fallow
times, which we are so ready to call barren, must have their share in
working the one needful work. They may be to the na