powers of science, the comets given into his hand, or the planets and their moons, and should draw them from their orbits to glare with the municipal fireworks on a holiday night, and advertise in all towns, “very superior pyrotechny this evening!” Are the agents of nature, and the power to understand them, worth no more than a street serenade, or the breath of a cigar?  One remembers again the trumpet-text in the Koran,[649]—­“The heavens and the earth, and all that is between them, think ye we have created them in jest?” As long as the question is of talent and mental power, the world of men has not his equal to show.  But when the question is to life, and its materials, and its auxiliaries, how does he profit me?  What does it signify?  It is but a Twelfth Night,[650] or Midsummer Night’s Dream, or a Winter Evening’s Tale:  what signifies another picture more or less?  The Egyptian verdict[651] of the Shakspeare Societies comes to mind, that he was a jovial actor and manager.  I cannot marry this fact to his verse.  Other admirable men have led lives in some sort of keeping with their thought; but this man, in wide contrast.  Had he been less, had he reached only the common measure of great authors, of Bacon, Milton, Tasso,[652] Cervantes,[653] we might leave the fact in the twilight of human fate:  but, that this man of men, he who gave to the science of mind a new and larger subject than had ever existed, and planted the standard of humanity some furlongs forward into Chaos,—­that he should not be wise for himself,—­it must even go into the world’s history, that the best poet led an obscure and profane life, using his genius for the public amusement.

28.  Well, other men, priest and prophet, Israelite,[654] German,[655] and Swede,[656] beheld the same objects:  they also saw through them that which was contained.  And to what purpose?  The beauty straightway vanished; they read commandments, all-excluding mountainous duty; an obligation, a sadness, as of piled mountains, fell on them, and life became ghastly, joyless, a pilgrim’s progress,[657] a probation, beleaguered round with doleful histories, of Adam’s fall[658] and curse, behind us; with doomsdays and purgatorial[659] and penal fires before us; and the heart of the seer and the heart of the listener sank in them.

29.  It must be conceded that these are half-views of half-men.  The world still wants its poet-priest, a reconciler, who shall not trifle with Shakspeare the player, nor shall grope in graves with Swedenborg the mourner; but who shall see, speak, and act, with equal inspiration.  For knowledge will brighten the sunshine; right is more beautiful than private affection; and love is compatible with universal wisdom.

PRUDENCE.[660]