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every form of composition had here its accurate model.

The epic, in the book of Job.

The dramatic, in Esther, and Joseph, and Ruth. The historical, in the writings of Moses, Samuel, and Ezra.

The lyric, in the divine odes of David.

The didactic and pastoral, in the writings of Solomon.

The philosophic and argumentative, in the orations and letters of Paul.

The tender and simple, in the words and lessons of Him who "spake as never man spake."

To say nothing of the grand prophetic utterances that cannot be classified; the "wild seraphic fire" that brought down to earth the light and glow of heaven. The influence of this book of books upon the mind (apart from the soul) is manifest in the fact, that from the time the Bible began to be tolerably well known we have had a rich and copious national literature. And while too often it has happened that the gifted have been content with the mere literary and poetic beauty of the one marvellous book; and have fulfilled the inspired words, that the real meaning of "these things were hid from the wise and prudent;" still it is interesting and instructive to trace the mental benefits it conferred.

The greatest divines that England has pro

duced appeared either during the period when the Bible was obtaining its freedom of the realm, or very soon after. Hooker, Bishop Hall, Jewel, Jeremy Taylor, Bishop Beveridge, Fuller-what an influence their works must have had in elucidating Scripture! Hooker, by his "Ecclesiastical Polity;" Hall, by his admirable "Contemplations; " Taylor, by his rich, eloquent, and poetic disquisitions; Beveridge, by his "Private Thoughts upon Religion and a Christian Life;" Fuller by his quaint yet admirable "Church History."

That age also gave us in the writings of Isaac Walton some biographies that for graphic power and elegant simplicity have never been surpassed. The lives of Hooker, of Dr. Donne, of George Herbert, and others, will remain monuments of the cheerful piety and the tender reverence of Walton himself, as much as a worthy testimony of departed excellence.

The maxim of St. Paul, "Prove all things," was applied by a philosopher of that age to secular studies and it would be difficult to exaggerate the benefit England has derived from the carrying out of that maxim. The great Lord Bacon taught that physical science should test and demonstrate all it asserts; and that could only be done by experiment. Before his time scholars had not used their own senses to investigate the laws and properties of matter, but had taken the

testimony of ancient philosophers (particularly Aristotle), and repeated them from age to age. Lord Bacon was the first to show the fallacy of such a plan. He held the sayings and teachings of the ancients at their true value; as stimulants, not sedatives. What they knew was to be suggestive of greater progress to their descendants. The laws of morals, he knew, were revealed in Scripture, and might be capable of an infinite variety of elucidation and application, but of no addition. The laws of matter were hidden in the great volume of nature, and required that man should be a patient reader for himself, trusting his own eyes and not another's. No man more admirably showed that the strength and affection with which people cleave to precedent merit the strong term Idolatry.

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"Before laying down the rules to be followed in his new, or inductive process, Bacon enumerated the causes of error which he divided into four sets, and distinguished, according to the fashion of the times, by the following fanciful but expressive names:—

Idols of the Tribe.
Idols of the Den.

Idols of the Forum.

Idols of the Theatre.

The idols of the tribe, are the causes of error founded on human nature in general. Thus all men have a propensity to find in nature a greater degree of order, simplicity, and regularity, than is actually indicated by observation. This propensity, usually distinguished by the title spirit of system, is

one of the greatest enemies to its progress that science has to struggle with.

"The idols of the den, are those that sprung from the peculiar character of the individual. Each individual, according to Bacon, has his own dark cave or den, into which the light is imperfectly admitted, and in the obscurity of which an idol lurks, at whose shrine the truth is often sacrificed. Some minds are best adapted to catch the differences, others the resemblances of things, some proceed too rapidly, others too slowly. Almost every person has acquired a partiality for some branch of science, to which he is prone to fashion and force every other.

"The idols of the forum, are those which arise out of the intercourse of society, and especially from language, by means of which men communicate with each other. It is well known that words in some measure govern thought, and that we cannot think accurately unless we are able to express ourselves accurately. The same word does not convey the same idea to different persons. Hence many disputes are merely verbal, though the disputants may not be aware of the circumstance.

"The idols of the theatre, are the deceptions which have taken their rise from the systems of different schools of philosophy. These errors affected the philosophy of the ancients more than that of the moderns. But they are not yet without their effect, and often act powerfully upon individuals without their being aware of the effect." *

The poets of this period might be said to emulate the divines in grandeur, copiousness, and variety. Never have there been so many great

* Sketch of the Progress of Physical Science by Dr. Thomas Thomson.

names-never has the splendour of the greatest so dimmed the brilliancy of contemporaries. There is one man among poets whom we call our national bard. The greatness of Shakspeare's name causes the general reader to think of him as the sole poet of the time. But it was an age of great poets, and it increases, if any thing can increase, the splendour of Shakspeare's triumph, that he wrote in an age when genius of every kind was most prolific.

Shakspeare had, as his immediate predecessors and contemporaries, thirty-eight dramatic poets.

The literary influence of the Bible is to be traced in the writings (though its spiritual influence is little seen in the lives) of nearly all the dramatic poets of the time.

It is characteristic of the manners and mental circumstances of the age that most of the poets were dramatic writers. Books, though much multiplied comparatively with preceding times, were, however, the luxury of the cultivated few rather than the food of the uneducated many. A reading public did not exist. Oral communication was the only means of influencing the people; so that the stage for the poet was long thought as appropriate as the pulpit for the divine. The monks of the middle ages had first given the people a taste for theatrical amusements. They represented what they called mysteries and moralities,

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