Literary and General Lectures and Essays Part 17

Staunch to his own opinion only when it seemed to involve some moral principle, he was almost too ready to yield it, in all practical matters, to anyone whom he supposed to possess more practical knowledge than he. To distrust himself, to accuse himself, to confess his p.r.o.neness to hard judgments, while, to the eye of those who knew him and the facts, he was exercising a splendid charity and magnanimity; to hold himself up as a warning of "wasted time," while he was, but too literally, working himself to death--this was the childlike temper which made some lower spirits now and then glad to escape from their consciousness of his superiority by patronising and pitying him; causing in him--for he was, as all such great men are like to be, instinct with genial humour--a certain quiet good-natured amus.e.m.e.nt, but nothing more.

But it was that very humility, that very self-distrust, combined so strangely with manful strength and sternness, which drew to him humble souls, self-distrustful souls, who, like him, were full of the "Divine discontent;" who lived--as perhaps all men should live--angry with themselves, ashamed of themselves, and more and more angry and ashamed as their own ideal grew, and with it their consciousness of defection from that ideal. To him, as to David in the wilderness, gathered those who were spiritually discontented and spiritually in debt; and he was a captain over them, because, like David, he talked to them, not of his own genius or his own doctrines, but of the Living G.o.d, who had helped their forefathers, and would help them likewise. How great his influence was; what an amount of teaching, consolation, reproof, instruction in righteousness, that man found time to pour into heart after heart, with a fit word for man and for woman; how wide his sympathies, how deep his understanding of the human heart; how many sorrows he has lightened; how many wandering feet set right, will never be known till the day when the secrets of all hearts are disclosed. His forthcoming biography, if, as is hoped, it contains a selection from his vast correspondence, will tell something of all this: but how little! The most valuable of his letters will be those which were meant for no eye but the recipient's, and which no recipient would give to the world--hardly to an ideal Church; and what he has done will have to be estimated by wise men hereafter, when (as in the case of most great geniuses) a hundred indirect influences, subtle, various, often seemingly contradictory, will be found to have had their origin in Frederick Maurice.

And thus I end what little I have dared to say. There is much behind, even more worth saying, which must not be said. Perhaps some far wiser men than I will think that I have said too much already, and be inclined to answer me as Elisha of old answered the over- meddling sons of the prophets:

"Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head to-day?"

"Yea, I know it: hold ye your peace."

Footnotes:

{0} The edition of "Literary and General Essays" that this transcription was taken from also contained "Phaethon; or, Loose Thoughts for Loose Thinkers" as the final part. This has been released separately by Project Gutenberg and is not, therefore, duplicated here.--DP.

{1} This Lecture was given at Harrow in 1873, and in America in 1874.

{35} Fraser's Magazine, November, 1853.

{61} "Poems," by Alexander Smith. London: Bogue. 1853. Fraser's Magazine, October, 1853.

{103} Fraser's Magazine, September, 1850.--"In Memoriam." Moxon, Dover Street. 1850.--"The Princess, a Medley:" by Alfred Tennyson.

Third Edition. 1850.--"Poems:" by Alfred Tennyson. 1852.

{127} North British Review, No. x.x.xI.--1.--"Elliott's Poems."

London, 1833.--2. "Poems of Robert Nicoll." Third Edition.

Edinburgh, 1843.--3. "Life and Poems of John Bethune." London, 1841.--4. "Memoirs of Alexander Bethune." By W. M'Combie.

Aberdeen, 1845.--5. "Rhymes and Recollections of a Handloom Weaver."

By William Thorn, of Inverury. Second Edition, London, 1845.--6.

"The Purgatory of Suicides." By Thomas Cooper. London, 1845.--7.

"The Book of Scottish Song." By Alexander Whitelaw. Edinburgh, 1848.

{187} Fraser's Magazine, March, 1849.--"Sacred and Legendary Art."

By Mrs. Jameson. 2 vols. London. 1848, Longman and Co.

{199} Since this was written, Mrs. Jameson's volume on the Legends of the Madonna has succeeded excellently in giving us, if not a complete, yet still a readable and modest picture of medieval Mariolatry.

{210} We are sorry to see, however, that Mrs. Jameson has been so far untrue to her own faculty as to join in the common mistake of naming Raphael's well-known cartoon at Hampton Court, "Elymas the Sorcerer struck Blind." On the supposition that this is its subject, its method of arrangement is quite unworthy of the rest, as the action would be split into the opposite corners of the picture, and the post of honour in the centre occupied by a figure of secondary importance; besides, the picture would lose its significance as one of this great series on "Religious Conviction and Conversion." But, strange to say, Raphael has all the while especially guarded against this very error, by labelling the picture with a description of its subject. Directly under the central figure is written, "Sergius Paulus, Proconsul, embraces the Christian faith at the preaching of Paul." Taking which simple hint, and looking at the face of the proconsul (himself a miracle of psychology) as the centre to which all is to be referred, the whole composition, down to the minutest details, arranges itself at once in that marvellous unity which is Raphael's especial glory.

{269} This Lecture was given at Chester in 1871.

{278} An arcade in the King's School, Chester.

{299} Fraser's Magazine, September, 1856.--"Hours with the Mystics."

By Robert Alfred Vaughan, B.A. Two Volumes. London: John W. Parker and Son. 1856.

{309} Why has Mr. Vaughan omitted to give us a few racy lines on Sir Matthew Hale's "Divine Contemplations of the Magnet," Sir Kenelm Digby's "Weapon-Salve," and Valentine Greatrake's "Magnetic Cures"?

He should have told the world a little, too, about the strange phenomenon of the Jesuit Kircher, in whom Popery attempted to recover the very ground which Behmen and the Protestant Nature-mystics were conquering from them.

{337} Macmillan's Magazine, May 1872.