emotional life becomes, the more he demands effects produced by the organization of manifold elements elements fused by the alchemy of the imagination into a new and living whole, whose synthesis calls forth that harmonious energizing of the soul, which constitutes its highest life and delight.

But let it not be supposed that the pleasure derived from the productions of Poetry or of any other of the fine arts, is due to a conscious energizing to compre hend them. The pleasure derived from a work of the imagination is in proportion to the degree of unconsciousness with which all its appeals are responded to. Works which strictly belong to Literature,—that is, works which speak to the understanding through the emotions, should not be read, of course, as those which address the insulated understanding. We must come to the reading of the former, for the first time, in the least self-conscious state possible; we must avoid analysis as much as we can, and place ourselves passively under the influence of our author.

"We get no good,"

says Mrs. Browning, in her "Aurora Leigh,"

"By being ungenerous, even to a book,
And calculating profits. . . so much help
By so much reading. It is rather when
We gloriously forget ourselves, and plunge
Soul-forward, headlong, into a book's profound,
Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth-
'Tis then we get the right good from a book."

The sensibilities are the peculiar domain of the Fine Arts, and by a transcendent preeminence of the greatest of the Fine Arts - Poetry; and if, by a premature analysis, the sensibilities are not allowed their requisite play, the leading purpose of a work of the Imagination is defeated. We should not attempt analysis until we have received an emotional impression from the whole; in some cases, many emotional impressions, according to the extent of a work, and the degree of its sensuousness. We may then seek to discover the various elements of this impression, and by a more conscious and intimate knowledge of the respective functions of these elements, attain to a higher impression from the whole. This higher impression will lead to a still more minute analysis by which we shall discover subtler elements of effect which the first analysis did not reveal. This more minute analysis will be followed by a still higher impression from the whole; and thus the process will continue of an alternation of general impression and analysis until we have grown up to the work, as it were: we fully respond to the emotional appeal made by the artist; we grasp his work in its entireness; that which was at first consciously and with effort, received, reaches in time higher and subtler organs of discernment, where is breathed the purer air of unconsciousness and spontaneity.

Take, for example, the "Locksley Hall" of TennyOn the first reading of this "grand hymn of

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human progress," the magnificent swell of the rhythm, and the richness of the melody, will be likely to produce the most decided impression. In other words, the first impression will be, what it should be to a great extent in every true poem, a sensuous one companied, of course, by a general understanding of the poem. With this impression, we may be content for a number of readings, and not be disposed to look further into the poem, especially if we happen to take in a passive mood. At another time, when we are more disposed to be analytical, we may fix our attention upon the picturesqueness and passion of the language, the imagery, the lights and shades of the thoughts, and the suggestiveness of the vowel sounds, for in Poetry, words are not merely representatives of ideas, but are ivied over with emotional associations. The syntactical construction, even, will claim some attention, for this latter feature presents a number of difficulties in "Locksley Hall."

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When the results of all these observations and the several impressions derived therefrom, shall have been absorbed in the general impression, we shall be disposed to penetrate still further-we shall endeavour to supply all the connecting links of the thought and feeling and in the poem in question they are remarkably subtle-to discover how the poet, in the intensity of his inspiration, passed from one thought or one feeling to another thought or another feeling. A great poet, giving expression to a subtle and com

plex sentiment, must necessarily be obscure to the ordinary reader, in whom such sentiment exists only potentially, and with its elements uncombined. It is not in the simple elements that one individual mind differs from another, but in their degree, and in the nature of their combination. The emotions which the great poet, or painter, or musician, experiences, are more complex than those experienced by men in general; and when they are expressed in words, in marble, in colours, or in sounds, it requires at first, an effort, and frequently, a long-continued effort, to go over the process of their combination, and clearly to apprehend the leading sentiment which was the controlling principle of the association

Imagination does not differ essentially from ordinary thinking-it follows the same laws, but those laws are more actively and harmoniously in force. It is ordinary thinking intensified. Imagination, to be sure, is always impassioned, which ordinary thinking is not⚫ but that is the natural consequence of its intensity • the depths of the whole nature are stirred by it.

Every true poem is a piece of articulate music, which an ordinary Imagination must long practice upon before it can play it with a sufficient degree of spontaneousness and unconsciousness, to derive from it all the pleasure it is capable of imparting. The same process goes on in the contemplation of a picture or a statue at first view the impression it produces may be quite an indifferent one; but repeated impres

sions, each deepened by an analysis of previous ones, will finally fuse, if the work possesses a consistent, congruous unity, into one compound and harmonious feeling. As in the case of the poem, we grow up to the work. We grasp it as a whole and spontaneously. We are fully informed in regard to the work. Our feelings have been gradually tuned to respond to its emotional appeal.

Art owes its power chiefly to the magic garment of form, and not to what it explicitly teaches. The principle which underlies true art, and which the artist must consciously or unconsciously recognize, is that which Mrs. Browning has so happily expressed:

"paint a body well,

You paint a soul by implication, like
The grand first Master."

Art educates, but it does not aim directly to instruct or indoctrinate. Its great function is to keep alive man's sensibilities and instincts, and thus to fit him for the perception of high spiritual truths. It is thus that Poetry and all the Fine Arts work moral results. The true Artist is an implicit, not an explicit teacher and moralist.

"The only real instructor of the human race," says Orestes Brownson, "is the artist; and it is as artists, as men wrought up to the intensest life, and therefore acting from the full force of their being, that all the great and universally admitted philosophers have been able to quicken the race and set it forward to higher