to which he opposes the "miseros tumultus mentis, et curas laqueata circum tecta volantes." What else was in his mind when he says

"Navibus atque

Quadrigis petimus bene vivere; quod petis hic est, Est Ulubris, animus si te non deficit æquus?"2 The only question was, how the "animus æquus was to be come at. This, too, was what he talked of at his country house, with his friends :

"Quod magis ad nos

Pertinet, et nescire malum est, agitamus: utrumne
Divitiis homines, an sint virtute beati;

Quidve ad amicitias, usus rectumne, trahat nos;
Et quæ sit natura boni, summumque quid ejus."3

And still more strongly in this most beautiful passage:

-

"Inter cuncta leges, et percunctabere doctos

Ne

Quâ ratione queas traducere leniter ævum;
Ne te semper inops agitet vexetque Cupido,
pavor et rerum mediocriter utilium spes:
Quid minuat curas; quid te tibi reddat amicum;
Quid purè tranquillet, honos, an dulce lucellum,
An secretum iter, et fallentis semita vitæ." 4

1

"The mind's tumultuous strife,

And cares, that dark ascend in turbid wreaths,
Sullying joy's gilded ceilings."

2 "We crowd the sail, we urge the chariot's speed

To gladden life, to find the joy we need :
Here, or in Ulubræ, that joy we find,
Deep in the centre of a balanced mind."

3 "Here we discuss (what most for weal or woe
Concerns ourselves, and shames us not to know) :
If most delight in wealth or virtue lies;
Which forms our friendships' ordinary ties,
The sense of interest, or the love of right;

What is true good, and where its utmost height."

4" Here shalt thou read, and learn in wisdom's school
The purest knowledge, by what happy rule

What was this, but a vague longing for, and a cloudy apprehension of, "the peace of God which passeth all understanding"?

Perhaps no idea in the Greek mythology had a greater tendency to raise the mind of a poet, to some visionary anticipation of this chief object of the human heart, than that of the Muses. They are regarded as the calmers of wrong passions, the inspirers of moral wisdom:

"Vos lene consilium et datis, et dato
Gaudetis almæ.”1

And Horace, accordingly, addresses them with something more like devotion, than we find in any other part of his poetry and looks to their presence with him as an unfailing source of happiness and safety:

"Vester, Camœnæ, vester in arduos
Tollor Sabinos; seu mihi frigidum
Præneste, seu Tibur supinum,

Life may be taught to steal in peace away,
No more to restless, vain desires a prey;
By vexing cares and fears no more oppress'd,
By hopes of objects little worth at best;
What best may soothe thy sorrows; where to find
Calm self-contentment, and the approving mind.”

1 "Wisdom you gently breathe, and peace inspire;
And joy yourselves in hearts that catch your fire."

That moral feeling entered strongly into this noble rhapsody, appears from the words quoted just before, which immediately follow; and from this impression arises that picture of the supreme Ruler, which is wonderfully just, as well as truly sublime:"Qui terram inertem, qui mare temperat, Ventosque et urbes, regnaque tristia, Divosque mortalesque turmas Imperio regit unus æquo."2

The concluding stanza shows, still farther, in what frame he wrote:

"Vis consilî expers mole ruit suâ;
Vim temperatam Dî quoque provehunt
In majus; îdem odere vires

Omne nefas animo moventes." 3

1 "Yours, ever yours, ye nine, where'er I rove,
O'er Sabine hills, through cool Præneste's grove,
On Tibur's slope, by Baia's pleasant bay,
Your votary still, through every clime I stray.

"Me, of your sacred founts and choral rite

Enamour'd, not the dread Philippian flight,
Not that fell tree, not waves have leave to harm,
Beneath the safeguard of your powerful charm.
"Where'er ye deign to lead my wandering way,
Your presence soothes me, and your smiles repay;
Ye bid the angry ocean roar in vain,

And shed a grace o'er parch'd Assyria's plain."

2 "The sluggish earth, the seas, his bidding know,
The winds, the haunts of men, the realms below;
And gods above, and mortals here, obey

The sole dominion of his equal sway."

"Brute force alone by its own weight breaks down ;
But heaven delights with ampler means to crown
That power which mind and reason regulate;
Just heaven, which visits with avenging hate
That selfsame power, how high soe'er it climb,
By bold abuse subservient made to crime."

I have quoted this thus largely, because it shows, most strikingly, to what quarter the human mind points, in its pantings after happiness; how deeply it feels its need of something, beside itself, to rest upon; and how instinctively it fixes on Deity, omnipresent; sublimely, yet gently, influential; averting evil; making even dreariness delightful. How much in the very spirit of Addison! —

"How are thy servants blest, O Lord,
How sure is their defence;
Eternal Wisdom is their Guide,

Their help, Omnipotence.

"In distant lands, and realms remote,
Supported by thy care,

66

Through burning climes I pass'd unhurt,
And breathed in tainted air.

Thy mercy sweeten'd ev'ry toil,

Made every region please;
The hoary Alpine hills it warmed,

And smoothed the Tyrrhene seas."

Such, then, on the whole, were the cravings of the human mind, in the most enlightened and improved state it could be in, short of Revelation. And are not all of them, even those seemingly fanciful ones in the ode last quoted, significant of its greatness, and worthy of an immortal creature? Might it not be fairly expected, then, that, when God should actually reveal himself to man, He should do it in such a manner as to meet these cravings, and effectually lead the human heart to the peace and happiness which it longed for? The low, unenergetic view of Christianity, presents no such correspondence; but the spiritualising, renovating, efficient view, which I

have been endeavouring to describe from the New Testament, meets every one of those cravings with consummate congruity. What could be more in point, to all these ideas of moral self-government and selfenjoyment, than our Saviour's invitation, -"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest," &c.? And that other exquisite passage, -"He that drinketh of this water

shall thirst again; but he that drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." Another passage is strictly applicable to this, as the explanation of it: "This spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive." St. John, vii. 38.

"Felix, qui potuit boni

Fontem visere lucidum,"1

said Boethius, expressing, by this, the chief wish of all true philosophy. He was a Christian; but his book, "De Consolatione Philosophiæ," is Platonic, not evangelic. This coincidence of expression with our Saviour's, is strictly, therefore, the agreement of sound philosophy with it; i. e. of human nature, sufficiently enlightened to know its own wishes. If, then, Horace's "otium" be that inward tranquillity, which a man can enjoy only by, in effect, flying from himself, Patriæ quis exul se quoque fugit ?"2 Is not this, most strictly, what is described in the New Testament, as a putting off the old man, and putting on the new, which is "renewed in knowledge, after the image of Him that created him?" and,

"Happy the gifted soul, whose inward sense

Can pierce the fount of Good's bright effluence." 2" What wanderer ever left himself behind?"