"Thorow earth and waters deepe,
The pen by skill doth passe:
And featly nyps the worldes abuse,
And shoes us in a glasse,
The vertu and the vice
Of every wight alyve;
The honey comb that bee doth make
Is not so sweet in hyve,
As are the golden leves
That drop from poet’s head!
Which doth surmount our common talke
As farre as dross doth lead."
—Churchyard.
[5] From the Atlantic Monthly, January, 1869.
[6] One of Mr. Lincoln’s neatest strokes of humor was his treatment of this gentleman when a laudable curiosity induced him to be presented to the President of the Broken Bubble. Mr. Lincoln persisted in calling him Mr. Partington. Surely the refinement of good-breeding could go no further. Giving the young man his real name (already notorious in the newspapers) would have made his visit an insult. Had Henri IV. done this, it would have been famous.
[7] June 30, 1895.
[8] 1876.
[9] This essay appeared originally in the Atlantic Monthly for May, 1883. During the thirty years which have elapsed since it was written the manifestations of the colonial spirit then apparent in the United States have not only altered in character but, I am glad to say, have weakened, diminished, and become less noticeable. Since 1883, also, there has been much achieved by Americans in Art and Literature, in painting, in sculpture, in music, and particularly in architecture. Success in all these fields has, with few exceptions, been won by men working in the spirit which is not colonial, but which it was the purpose of this essay to inculcate as the true one to which alone we could look for fine and enduring achievement. I have called attention to the date at which the essay was written in order that those who read it may remember that it applies in certain points to the conditions of thirty years ago and not to those of the present day.
[10] Just as I am revising these comments, the two volumes of the Earl of Lytton’s admirable biography of his grandfather find themselves on my table. As was to be expected, they contain several interesting references to Horace. "He is the model for popular lyrics, and certainly the greatest lyrist extant." Again—"Observe how wonderfully he compresses and studies terseness, as if afraid to bore an impatient, idle audience; secondly, when he selects his picture, how it stands out—Cleopatra’s flight, the speech of Regulus, the vision of Hades in the ode on his escape from the tree, &c."
