TALBOYS.
Amen. May the Chairman of Quarter Sessions live a thousand years! The indigent man may, I suppose, be a poor learned or a poor unlearned man. Relatively to the latter we may think, for Scotland, of Burns' Poems lying in Scottish cottages; and beginning from Scotland, of the traditional ballads and songs that sound in every hut throughout Europe:—for Italy, of what they say of the Venetian Gondoliers singing a Venetianised Gerusalemme Liberata.
NORTH.
So far, my children, for the "parvis rebus." Something on a more extended scale, and of a loftier reach! We are commenting Horace. From the earliest times of civilisation, a principal office of verse was to adorn and solemnise the services of Religion. The cultivation of Verse was early in the Temples. A moment's recollection recalls to us the immense influence on the Hellenic Poetry of this ritual dedication. This theme closes the Praise of the Poet. But faithful to the strain which he has undertaken, and so far adhered to, the discreet Eulogist still, in the loftiest matter, diminishes the pomp, rejects ostentation, confines the sensible dimensions. And still faithful, he dwells on that which, of less show, is the more touching. He has to array a religious procession that drawing, as it moves along, all gaze—thrilling—as it slowly passes door after door, and winds through street after street, with solemn and sweet chaunt lifted from the sorrowing Earth to the listening Heavens—the universal heart of the Eternal Queen-City—Look! Who are they that, as the crowds divide, draw into sight? Chaste boys, and girls yet afar from the marriage-bond. The sanctity of natural innocence heightening to the heart, and rendering more gracious, the sanctity of the altar!—winning favour—alluring the worshipper to the worship!
SEWARD.
The only expanded movement of the short passage—a third of it—seven verses out of the twenty-one.
NORTH.
The religious topics are, generally, the propitiating of the Divinities—then the particular benefits: Rain supplicated in seasons of Drought—the visitation of Pestilential Sickness averted—National dangers repelled—Peace, the wished-for, obtained—and the perpetual desire of earth's dwellers and tillers, the fruitful Year. He has risen gradually, and has reached the summit. Unexpectedly—you know not how—the Poet, though it is not so said, is far greater than the Emperor. Yes, my friends, for the dominion of the Imperial Throne is over the Kings of the Earth; but the sway of the well-strung Lyre is over the throned Gods who inhabit above or underneath the Earth. With Song are the celestial Deities soothed and made favourable—with Song the dark dominators of Hell.
"Carmine Dî Superi placantur, carmine Manes!"