versality and freedom of life, by virtue of which all three were poets. Spenser shackled the freedom of his poetic life by striving to expound a system of ethical philosophy, and Milton became a theologian in blank verse. Both sang in numbers and soared in beautiful imagery, and were moved by poetic elevation of thought; but the ethical framework of the one and the religious dogma of the other forced them to stand in the outer court of life, where they may only speak indirectly and about life, instead of being inner oracles voicing the constitution of life itself.

Literature sank again under the weight of historical conditions which bore a peculiar product in Dryden, Pope, Swift, and Addison. These formed the critical school of writers, for they were the censors of the times. Dryden prostituted his powers to the whims of a capricious and vulgar public. Pope was the critic of style and of the foibles of society; while Swift lashed the school, the church, and the state. Addison and Steele took the opposite mode, and tried to inculcate a positive morality. But all of these addressed themselves to the local and the temporal. They grew out of an historical condition which they helped to regenerate; but when the regeneration came, their literature lost its point and chief value. There is, of course, something of literary merit in these writers; but they are to be read chiefly from an historical interest and not for the content embodied, with some exceptions in favor of Addison. They missed the universality of life, and are now sustained only by external literary workmanship. This does not mean Swift struck a

that such writings are not valuable. rugged blow in a good cause, and the gentle influence of Addison must be felt even to our own time;

but they fall short of pure literature, as measured by the highest standard. Later there may be occasion to point out the literary element in these writings; it is the purpose now to discount them only on the side of their aim and content; and this by way of further illustrating the true nature of literature.

Suppose we now hasten on to a more favorable historical period, until we arrive at Wordsworth. We hear him say, "My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky." Now we have risen to mountain air, and the heart beats freely. This sentiment does not depend on peculiar local conditions. It is everywhere in place, and can never get out of date. "The sunshine is a glorious birth," and must ever be so, for the very law of one's being is to seek a new and a glorious birth. And so we might pass on and illustrate the fact that Tennyson and Browning, and our household American literary writers, ring true to the test of universality. They voice the humanity of man, his nature and inner constitution. Paraphrasing Emerson, they speak that in their own private heart which they believe to be true for all men.

This standard of universality and humanity not only sets the boundary line to the field of literature, but it suggests the scale by which literature is to be graded within the limits set. Life has depth as well as breadth; and what is universal in the truest sense is also fundamental. Each individual has superficial interests, a surface play of thought and sentiment; but under this the deeper current which moves life as a whole. Each man has an innermost core of life out of which spring all the issues of his life. In respect to all the superficial sentiments and external manifestations of the man, this inner constructive principle

of his life is his fundamental and universal self. That deeper energy in the soul which constructs life itself is the same energy which constructs the deeper and truer literature.

While all enjoy the balmy air, the bright sunshine, the social pleasantries of wit and humor, and the like, these are not the fundamental impulses of life; and while such sentiments are fit experiences for literature they cannot form the substance of the highest grade of literature. A poem of Hood's, in which the chief merit is in the pun, appeals to a proper and rational experience of human life; but the experience involved does not have controlling power in life, as does the faith in the guiding power of Divine Providence, which is the experience Bryant awakens in "To a Waterfowl." "The Chambered Nautilus stirs within the soul a feeling of its ideal worth, and stimulates to a striving for a fuller and a freer spiritual life. Remove from the soul such impulses and man is at once robbed of his manhood. The superficial details of life are ordered by this central impulse. Holmes could well say, "Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings."

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Thus the highest grade of literature has its source through the deep caves of thought," and appeals to the most fundamental sentiments of life.

Having collected within the field of literature all those productions which appeal to universal experience, the next step is to set them in the order of degree in which they appeal to the innermost life of the soul. In this we have a closer standard than before for testing writers and historical movements in literature, as well as the value of particular selections. It is said that Shakespeare is a great poet. If true, he

must be such through the profundity of his theme. He is a master of expression, and of the dramatic art in general; but not by such things alone, nor chiefly by such, could he have achieved greatness. He must be tested by the depth to which he searches human life. For instance, in "The Merchant of Venice" we find two great spiritual forces contending for the mastery one, that which binds and cements mankind together; the other, that which separates and disperses them. Just as in the physical world there is a centripetal and a centrifugal force, so in the spiritual world there are the binding forces of kindness, sympathy, friendship, and love; and the dissipating forces of selfishness, avarice, and revenge. These are not only the antagonizing forces in society at large, but are the contending forces in each individual life, -ever present and pervasive in every character and in all conduct. The reader, living through the stress and storm of the play, finds himself exercised to the innermost, and feels that he has enthroned himself in the beauty of sympathy and love above his own selfishness, avarice, and hate. It misses the point to identify these opposing principles in the Christian and the Jewish races. This was only a convenient and an effective scheme of the poet by which he brought home to every individual the contradiction in his own nature, with a realizing sense that the greatest of allis charity.

Returning again to the critical school, of which Pope was the chief exponent, we find no song that searches the heart; no depth of passion; no regenerative truth. The men of this school keep on the outskirts of life, giving prudential advice to a wayward age, working reforms through the power of pungent

humor, or venting personal spite in biting sarcasm. "The arc which he (Addison) and his friend Steele traversed was not the entire arc of human passion. It usually excluded profound emotion, whether of awe, pathos, terror, anger, or indignation. They swept around from satire to reflection, and from reflection back to satire, through a luminous curve of whimsicality, caricature, story, portrait, description, allegory, criticism, and speculation."1

Dropping down now upon "Intimations of Immortality," or "In Memoriam," a higher order of literature is at once recognized in discerning that life is brought face to face with its deepest interests. Such a standard is the fundamental test of literary selection. The author may be complimented as to his style, the purity of his language, the neatness and compactness of his expression, the music of his verse, his picturesque and suggestive imagery, but unless his work bear the fundamental life test his writing can have but superficial value. In all critical estimates, then, the foregoing test must first be made ; and if there be not found a worthy theme and genuine substance of life further estimate of the selection is useless.

Such a standard is of service, not only for the liter ary critic, but for the general reader and the teacher. Shall I read this or that? is a question of life and death. If I read this I cannot read that. I must read the one which has the more of spiritual sustenance in it, or miss some good of life. Shall I read Trilby" or or "Les Misérables"? That ought not to depend upon a craze, or upon anything strange,

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1 Bascom, Philosophy of Literature.