I don’t know why talking of Macaulay always makes me think of Scott, whose books in a faded, olive-backed line, have a shelf, you see, of their own.  Perhaps it is that they both had so great an influence, and woke such admiration in me.  Or perhaps it is the real similarity in the minds and characters of the two men.  You don’t see it, you say?  Well, just think of Scott’s “Border Ballads,” and then of Macaulay’s “Lays.”  The machines must be alike, when the products are so similar.  Each was the only man who could possibly have written the poems of the other.  What swing and dash in both of them!  What a love of all that is and noble and martial!  So simple, and yet so strong.  But there are minds on which strength and simplicity are thrown away.  They think that unless a thing is obscure it must be superficial, whereas it is often the shallow stream which is turbid, and the deep which is clear.  Do you remember the fatuous criticism of Matthew Arnold upon the glorious “Lays,” where he calls out “is this poetry?” after quoting—­

   “And how can man die better
      Than facing fearful odds
    For the ashes of his fathers
      And the Temples of his Gods?”

In trying to show that Macaulay had not the poetic sense he was really showing that he himself had not the dramatic sense.  The baldness of the idea and of the language had evidently offended him.  But this is exactly where the true merit lies.  Macaulay is giving the rough, blunt words with which a simple-minded soldier appeals to two comrades to help him in a deed of valour.  Any high-flown sentiment would have been absolutely out of character.  The lines are, I think, taken with their context, admirable ballad poetry, and have just the dramatic quality and sense which a ballad poet must have.  That opinion of Arnold’s shook my faith in his judgment, and yet I would forgive a good deal to the man who wrote—­

   “One more charge and then be dumb,
      When the forts of Folly fall,
    May the victors when they come
      Find my body near the wall.”

Not a bad verse that for one’s life aspiration.

This is one of the things which human society has not yet understood—­the value of a noble, inspiriting text.  When it does we shall meet them everywhere engraved on appropriate places, and our progress through the streets will be brightened and ennobled by one continual series of beautiful mental impulses and images, reflected into our souls from the printed thoughts which meet our eyes.  To think that we should walk with empty, listless minds while all this splendid material is running to waste.  I do not mean mere Scriptural texts, for they do not bear the same meaning to all, though what human creature can fail to be spurred onwards by “Work while it is day, for the night cometh when no man can work.”  But I mean those beautiful thoughts—­who can say that they are uninspired thoughts?—­which may be gathered from a hundred authors to match a hundred uses.  A fine thought in fine language is a most precious jewel, and should not be hid away, but be exposed for use and ornament.  To take the nearest example, there is a horse-trough across the road from my house, a plain stone trough, and no man could pass it with any feelings save vague discontent at its ugliness.  But suppose that on its front slab you print the verse of Coleridge—­