to give pleasure that men make speeches, but to produce persuasion. The first and indispensable merit of a good speech, therefore, is that it produce persuasion, that is, as much persuasion as is possible in the circumstances. If a speech does not do this, if it does not, when spoken, attract and hold the attention of the audience, it is of no sort of importance how well it reads. All its merits are out of place, and therefore out of taste. The performance is essentially a failure, and to praise it because, in a different audience, or in the minds of readers some time afterwards, it produces persuasion, is like saying of a general's tactics that they were admirable, only not adapted to overcome the particular enemy with whom he had to contend. I am thinking particularly, as you will guess, of Burke, whose speeches are so full of good thinking and fine writing, but who is said to have "thought of convincing while his hearers thought of dining," and so got the name of the Dinner Bell. If he really did think of convincing, and was so totally unable to do it, all we can say is, that he must have been a thoroughly incapable orator. But I fancy he did not really think of convincing, at least not of convincing that particular audience. I suppose he fancied himself speaking to Johnson and Reynolds, or perhaps to future times, and it may be happy for us that he did so.

But, criti

cally, a speech which is not listened to can never be anything but a bad speech, and the speaker who makes it, who, as they say, is above his audience, commits the capital fault in Art, for as the capital fault in war is cowardice, and the capital fault in common life is dishonesty, so in Art the capital fault is inappropriateness.

As in architecture, so in oratory, directly utility is satisfied, Art takes her turn. Speech, when it is already clear and strong, is all the better for being also agreeable; sentences that have been so arranged as to be perspicuous may as well be further so arranged as to be musical. But in oratory, as in architecture and everything else, all

true ornament is a shy and diffident thing. It cannot bear to appear out of place; it hates to be intrusive and impertinent. When men are intensely occupied or anxious, it slips out of view, and therefore architectural ornament is displeasing in a counting-house or shop, and oratorical ornament is insufferable in a scientific demonstration, and must be introduced with caution in a budgetspeech. But when men have leisure, when the work that occupies them does not absorb all their minds, or press for instant decision, when, however earnest or solemn, it allows of being considered in the way of brooding contemplation rather than of close calculation reasoning, then, again, Art is in place; and so, for example, architectural ornament is appropriate in a Church, and rhetorical ornament in a sermon. And there are cases where both architecture and oratory become almost purely artistic, and the element of utility is nearly eliminated from both. Such are, in architecture, memorial buildings and mausoleums; in oratory, panegyrical speeches.

Now all that I have said hitherto has been deduced from one simple principle. Knowing nothing more of Art, than that it is enjoyment, I can deduce with confidence that what does not produce enjoyment on the whole is not truly artistic. I can deduce that what assumes the form and outward appearance of Art, but really has in view, not enjoyment, but the spreading of some doctrine, the detecting of some abuse, or the recommending of some virtue, is again not truly artistic, however useful it may sometimes be; further I can deduce that Art is not always independent; but, in some cases, as architecture and oratory, parasitic, and accordingly, that, in judg ing of particular performances in these departments, it is necessary to apply two standards in succession, the practical standard and the artistic standard, and that the great and decisive test of merit in this case is what I may call the free play of Art in subordination.

But let us now come somewhat nearer to Art, and inquire more closely into its

nature. I have said that it is activity for its own sake; in short, that it is sport. It may occur to you as an objection that it would be absurd to call cricket or whist Art, or to class them with painting and poetry. Certainly, but what I said was that Art is sport, not that sport is always Art. The two propositions are perfectly different. Art, I affirm, is sport, that is, activity for its own sake; but then it is sport of a particular kind. Now how do the games that I have mentioned differ from Art? They differ in this respect, that though their object is pleasure, their laws are the same as those of men's serious activities. What makes the serious business of life serious is the cares, the dangers, the anxieties, attending it. Remove these, and it becomes a game. This is the theory of games. They are, for the most part, imitations of one of the most serious activities of life-war, with the element of danger and pain removed. Cricket, chess, cards, are only different forms of mimic war; they call into play precisely the same faculties and in the same way as real war, only the object being trifling, danger removed, and the time given to them short, the play has some of the excitement and bustle of real conflict with none of its fatigues and pains. Now Art is like these games in respect of its sole object being pleasure, but it is unlike them in this respect, that it does not merely repeat the activities of serious life, but has laws and modes of activity of its own.

Let us try and discover some of these laws, confining ourselves to the simplest and most elementary.

The different kinds of Art answer to different faculties; let us pass them in review and see if we cannot discover a likeness running through them. Such a likeness strikes us at once. There is an obvious correspondence between the art of music and the art of dancing; there is another correspondence equally plain between music and poetry. Dancing is the way or mode in which we express delight in bodily movement; music is the mode in which we express delight in the power of producing sound,

whether by voice or instrument; poetry is the way in which we express delight in speech. But the mode of expressing delight is in all three cases the same: it is by rhythm. What is dancing but rhythmical movement? What is music but rhythmical sound? What is poetry but rhythmical speech? We may say then that rhythm is one of the primary modes of Art.

Rhythm is nothing but proportion, and to say that it is a primary mode of Art is merely to say that human beings delight in regularity, in pattern, in proportion. In the commonest actions, even where the question is entirely of utility, and not of gratification, we use as much regularity, or what we call neatness, as we can. The commonest objects which surround us in daily life must have arrangement and pattern, or they offend our eyes. What we seek even when we are principally concerned with utility, we affect much more earnestly when pleasure is our object. Rhythm runs through our whole existence subdued and little perceived, and of a simple kind, it is present everywhere as a kind of seasoning; without it life would be slovenly, disgusting, comfortless. But in Art, instead of an accessory, it becomes a principal thing; it is cultivated for its own sake; the more elaborate and intricate forms of it are employed, which are capable of affecting the mind with a far stronger feeling than a quiet soothing satisfaction, and which possess the secret of rapture and of inspiration.

But am I justified in speaking of rhythm as common to all arts when I have only shown it to exist in some? I have shown it in music and poetry, but not in painting, sculpture, and architecture. No doubt in this latter kind of Art it assumes a somewhat different shape, but it is not the less present. Music and poetry are arts which deal with time, painting and sculpture deal with space. A picture is at rest, always the same, and occupying a certain portion of space; a song begins and ends, and occupies a certain portion of time. Now if the principle of regularity or

proportion enters into both these kinds of Art, it is evident that it must conform to these varying conditions. Regularity in time is what is called rhythm, and therefore rhythm appears in all the arts that deal with time. Now what is regularity in space? Regularity in space is what we call form, and accordingly form takes the place of rhythm in all the arts which deal with space. Form and rhythm differ from each other as the sense of sight from the sense of hearing; and the pleasure which the ear receives from a Spenserian stanza, from the regular beat of the iambic cadence, the ordered recurrence of the rhymes, and the swelling Alexandrine at the close, is precisely analogous to the pleasure which the eye receives from the spire of Salisbury or the dome of St. Paul's.

But though regularity, as rhythm or form, pervades all Art, yet it does not by itself constitute that which is highest in Art. It fills a very important place in music and in architecture; but when we examine the arts of painting and the literary arts, that is, poetry and artistic prose, we see another principle taking precedence of it. What is the chief source of the pleasure which we derive from a picture? It is not certainly regularity or beauty of form. A party of Dutch boors by Teniers do not exhibit much of this characteristic. What, then, is it which pleases in the Teniers? It is the likeness of the painted Dutchmen to real Dutchmen. And if we pass at once from a low style of Art to the highest, and consider what pleases us in a Raphael, we shall find that, though form is distinctly present here, and though the eye is charmed by a multitude of subtly-contrived proportions, yet still the principal charm is the resemblance of the painted figures to real human beings, the faithful imitation of reality. We have found, then, the second of what I call the primary modes of art, imitation. To recur to my former language, the human faculties, when they sport, amuse themselves first, with introducing regularity or rhythm into their movements, secondly, with imitating all kinds of objects.

You must see plainly that, though I am near the end of my time, I am still at the beginning of my subject. But my purpose was merely to furnish a few hints; if any one of you to whom these questions are new has been interested, he will pursue for himself the analysis from the point where I leave it. I will bring this lecture to a close by a few inferences from the principles just stated.

It is this principle of imitation which gives to Art its boundless range. Without it painting would not rise beyond arabesque, and poetry beyond metrical rhetoric. With it painting acquires a field as large as the visible universe, and poetry a field even more unlimited, comprehending the world of thought and the world of sense together. And as Art extends its range, so does the character of the artist become more important and dignified. I have described the artist as being a person superior to others in freshness and joyfulness of spirit. But this freshness implies much more than could at first sight appear. It is not merely that he is still mirthful or rapturous when others become sedate, not merely that where others speak he sings, where others step he dances. It is besides that he has an imitative faculty that others want, an observant eye, a penetrating insight, a retentive memory for forms and images, a power of sympathy which carries with it a power of divination. Now we can imitate only what interests us strongly; he, therefore, who can imitate many things, is he who is interested in many things; and the artist, whose mind mirrors and reflects everything, has this power simply because he lives more intensely than others. This explains to us how it is that the great artists of the world stand out so prominently. It is true that they did but undertake to find amusement, sport, recreation for their fellow-men; but because true joy is true insight, and intense life is profound knowledge, therefore we rank Shakespeare, Dante, Goethe with great philosophers, the men who have truly

and clearly mirrored the universe with those who have rightly analysed it.

But among all the arts it is only poetry that can confer this supreme kind of fame, because speech is the only mirror in which the whole universe can be reflected. With colours or in marble we can express only what we see, but there is nothing that the mind can think which cannot be uttered in speech. And, therefore, in the poetry of all ages we possess, as it were, a shifting view of the universe as it has appeared to successive generations of

men.

According to the predominant inclination of the human mind in each age is the poetry of that age. At one time it is busy with the brave deeds of the hero, the contest and the laurel wreath, at another time with mere enjoyment, with wine and love.

Then

it describes the struggle of man against destiny, heroic fortitude and endurance in the midst of little hope; at another time it pictures man as in probation, purified in adversity, and having a hope beyond the grave. At one time it becomes idyllic, delights in country life, simple pleasures, simple loves, a wholesome and peaceful existence; at another time it loves cities, and deals in refinements, courtesies, gallantries, gaieties. And sometimes it takes a philosophical tone, delights in the grandeur of eternal laws, aspires to communion with the soul of the world, or endeavours to discover, in the construction of things, the traces of a beneficent plan.

So far the mind of the artist is passive. Its function so far is to receive impressions from without and to reflect them faithfully. But then comes in that other principle, which we may call the active principle of Art, the principle of regularity or rhythm. The mass of impressions received from without is reduced to shape and unity by the artist. And in this shaping, arrangement, and unification he may show as much mastery as in the correctness of his imitation of Nature. But now it is to be noticed that the taste for imitation and the taste for regularity or rhythm are very distinct things. Often no doubt the same man has both, perhaps

oftener than not, but it sometimes happens that an artist has one but not the other, and very often that he has the two faculties in very unequal degrees. Hence there are in Art, and have been ever since Art began, two styles, two schools, styles, two schools, two tendencies, which are always at war, by turns almost victorious, but never quite destroying their foe. The watchword of the one school is nature; with them Art is nothing but careful observation and exact representation; they deify nature, and almost think it a sin to exercise any choice among the materials she presents to them. The other school think more of what the artist gives than of what he finds; to them Nature is the quarry out of which Art draws shapeless blocks, and informs them with beauty, Nature is the chaos out of which Art makes a Cosmos. The besetting sin of the first school is ugliness; the besetting sin of the last is falseness and feebleness.

All through history these schools have contended, and indeed you have little else in the history of Art but the perpetual veering of fashion and opinion between these two extremes. There is but one other question, which has been so much debated between artists, and this is the question with which I began, whether Art exists for pleasure or for moral improvement. I said that the confusion which generally seems to the lay-world to reign in Art criticism was not so great as it appeared, and that great judges do not differ in Art so irreconcilably as they themselves love to declare. I have now put before you the two great points of difference to which almost all disagreements in Art may be traced. It is a clue through the maze of Art-criticism to know that its intricacies are caused mainly by two fundamental disagreements. Let me repeat the two great questions of debate. The first is the question whether Art exists for pleasure, or for instruction and moral improvement. The second is the question how much Art derives from Nature, and how much Art adds to Nature.

In conclusion let me say that this

latter controversy does not much affect the greatest artists. They are for the most part practically above it. It is the second class of artists who run into mere imitation, like the Dutch school of painting, or to false prettiness, like the pastoral poets. And so with critics, it is generally an immature taste that excludes and condemns either the Realist or the Idealistic school. Young readers of poetry who have a strong sense of rhythm, and a strong appreciation of what is formed, finished, and regular in conception, delight in Milton, and for a time find Shakespeare slovenly, loose, irregular. On the other hand, those who have strong feelings and a strong sense of reality delight in Shakspeare, and find Milton cold and unreal. At the present day it is the lovers of rhythm, form, and harmony that stand firm by Tennyson, the lovers of reality and variety desert him for Browning. Of course of these two factions one or the

other must be right,-Tennyson must be greater than Browning, or he must be less. But assuredly both these artists, and all really great artists, are Realists and Idealists at once. Milton did not know Nature nearly so well as Shakespeare, but assuredly he had a keen eye for reality, as well as a powerful imagination to form new combinations above Nature and greater than Nature; Shakespeare had not Milton's stateliness nor his elaborate and complex rhythms, but assuredly he too had Art as well as Nature, form as well as matter, unity as well as variety. All the great artists both draw from Nature and add to Nature. If Tennyson is exquisite in form and composition, he is also faithful in imitation and rich in knowledge; if Browning is inexhaustible in knowledge and variety, there are rhythms in him too, if quaint ones, methods, if difficult to follow, unity, or a powerful struggle for it.

CHAPTER XLII.

THE CONFERENCE ON THE RAMPARTS IS INTERRUPTED BY AN OLD FRIEND.

WITH the cool breeze blowing from Aspern on her face, the Princess turned towards Kriegsthurm. She felt that in some way her silly scheming if it might be called scheming-so obstinately carried out, was unsuccessful; and that Kriegsthurm, the well-paid minister of her follies, the agent in all her silly schemes, was face to face with her.

She had come to Vienna, believing that Kriegsthurm was so deeply committed to the revolutionary party, to Frangipanni the Italian Constitutionalist on the one hand, and to Boginsky the outrageous Mazzinist on the other, that he

dare not follow her into the lion's paws. She was quite deceived. His was a knight move against a castle; to go to whist, she had played the last trump out, and he had come in with an overpowering suit. Kriegsthurm was not inclined to let such an exceedingly wellyielding head of cattle stray out of his pasture; and so, on the strength of his being known to the Austrian police as the most clever, unscrupulous, and bestinformed spy in Europe, he had made his peace with the Austrian Government, and followed his dear Princess to Vienna, with a view of "working" the Princess and receiving pay from the Austrian police at one and the same time. So much about him for the present.

"Madame has not served me well," he began, when the Princess turned to him. "I only say so much at present.