FOOTNOTES:
Fortnightly Review, August, 1868.
Donaldson's "History of Christian Literature and Doctrine," Vol. I., p. 277.
Intensity of passion stands confessed in the self-delineations of men of imaginative genius. We forbear to quote the familiar instances of Wordsworth, Shelley, or Burns, but may refer to a remarkable chapter in the life of the famous Scotch preacher, Dr. Thomas Chalmers. The mere title of the chapter is enough for our purpose. It related to his early youth, and ran thus, in his own words:—"A year of mental elysium". It is while living at a white-heat that all the thoughts and conceptions take a lofty, hyperbolical character; and the outpouring of these at the time, or afterwards, is the imagination of the orator or the poet.