NOTE. The space left here tempts to a word on the line about Apollo the snake-slayer, which my friend Professor Colvin condemns, believing that the God of the Belvedere grasps no bow, but the Ægis, as described in the 15th Iliad. Surely the text represents that portentous object (oûpiv, deivǹv, àμpiδάσειαν, ἀριπρεπές — μαρμαρέην).as " shaken violently or "held immovably " by both hands, not a single one and that the left hand:
ἀλλὰ σύ γ' ἐν χείρεσσι λάβ ̓ αἰγίδα θυσανόεσσαν τὴν μάλ ̓ ἐπισσείων φοβέειν ἥρωας Αχαιούς,
and so on, τὴν ἄρ ̓ ὅ γ ̓ ἐν χείρεσσιν ἔχων— χερσὶν ἔχ ̓ ἀτρέμα κ.τ.λ. Moreover, while he shook it he shouted enormously,” σεῖσ', ἐπὶ δ ̓ αὐτὸς ἄϋσε μάλα μéya, which the statue does not. Presently when Teukros, on the other side, plies the bow, it is τόξον ἔχων ἐν χειρὶ παλίντονον. Besides, by the act of
discharging an arrow, the right arm and hand are thrown back as we see: a quite gratuitous and theatrical display in the case supposed. The conjecture of Flaxman that the statue was suggested by the bronze Apollon Alexikakos of Kalamis, mentioned by Pausanias, remains probable, -though the "hardness" which Cicero considers to distinguish the artist's workmanship from that of Muron is not by any means apparent in our marble copy, if it be one. — Feb. 16, 1880.
BISHOP BLOUGRAM'S APOLOGY.
more wine? then we'll push back chairs and talk. A final glass for me, tho': cool, i' faith!
We ought to have our Abbey back, you see.
It's different, preaching in basilicas,
And doing duty in some masterpiece.
Like this of brother Pugin's, bless his heart!
I doubt if they're half baked, those chalk rosettes, Ciphers and stucco-twiddlings everywhere; It's just like breathing in a lime-kiln: eh? These hot long ceremonies of our Church Cost us a little - oh, they pay the price, You take me amply pay it! Now, we'll talk!
So, you despise me, Mr. Gigadibs. No deprecation,- nay, I beg you, sir! Beside 't is our engagement: don't you know I promised, if you 'd watch a dinner out,
We'd see truth dawn together?- truth that peeps Over the glasses' edge when dinner 's done, And body gets its sop and holds its noise And leaves soul free a little. Now's the time: Truth's break of day! You do despise me then. And if I say, "despise me," -
I know you do not in a certain sense Not in my arm-chair, for example: here, I well imagine you respect my place (Status, entourage, worldly circumstance) Quite to its value- very much indeed: Are up to the protesting eyes of you In pride at being seated here for once You'll turn it to such capital account! When somebody, thro' years and years to come, Hints of the bishop,- names me that's enough: "Blougram? I knew him " - (into it you slide) Dined with him once, a Corpus Christi Day, All alone, we two; he's a clever man :
And after dinner,- why, the wine you know,
Oh, there was wine, and good! — what with the wine . . . 'Faith, we began upon all sorts of talk!
He's no bad fellow, Blougram; he had seen Something of mine he relished, some review: He's quite above their humbug in his heart,
Half-said as much, indeed — the thing's his trade. I warrant, Blougram 's sceptical at times: How otherwise? I liked him, I confess!" Che, che, my dear sir, as we say at Rome,
You have had your turn and spoken your home-truths:
Don't you protest now! It's fair give and take;
The hand's mine now, and here you follow suit.
Thus much conceded, still the first fact stays
You do despise me; your ideal of life
Is not the bishop's: you would not be I. You would like better to be Goethe, now, Or Buonaparte, or, bless me, lower still,
Count D'Orsay, - so you did what you preferred,
Spoke as you thought, and, as you can not help, Believed or disbelieved, no matter what,
So long as on that point, whate’er it was,
You loosed your mind, were whole and sole yourself. That, my ideal never can include,
Upon that element of truth and worth
Never be based! for say they make me Pope· (They can't suppose it for our argument!) Why, there I'm at my tether's end, I 've reached
My height, and not a height which pleases you : An unbelieving Pope won't do, you say.
It's like those eerie stories nurses tell,
Of how some actor on a stage played Death,
With pasteboard crown, sham orb and tinselled dart, And called himself the monarch of the world;
Then, going in the tire-room afterward, Because the play was done, to shift himself, Got touched upon the sleeve familiarly, The moment he had shut the closet door,
By Death himself. Thus God might touch a Pope At unawares, ask what his baubles mean, And whose part he presumed to play just now Best be yourself, imperial, plain and true!
So, drawing comfortable breath again, You weigh and find, whatever more or less I boast of my ideal realized,
Is nothing in the balance when opposed To your ideal, your grand simple life, Of which you will not realize one jot.
I am much, you are nothing; you would be all,
I would be merely much: you beat me there.
No, friend, you do not beat me: harken why!
The common problem, yours, mine, every one's, Is not to fancy what were fair in life Provided it could be, but, finding first What may be, then find how to make it fair Up to our means: a very different thing! No abstract intellectual plan of life Quite irrespective of life's plainest laws,
But one, a man, who is man and nothing more, May lead within a world which (by your leave) Is Rome or London, not Fool's-paradise. Embellish Rome, idealize away, Make paradise of London if you can, You're welcome, nay, you 're wise.
We mortals cross the ocean of this world Each in his average cabin of a life; The best 's not big, the worst yields elbow-room. Now for our six months' voyage - how prepare? You come on shipboard with a landsman's list Of things he calls convenient: so they are! An India screen is pretty furniture,
A piano-forte is a fine resource, All Balzac's novels occupy one shelf, The new edition fifty volumes long;
And little Greek books, with the funny type They get up well at Leipsic, fill the next:
Go on! slabbed marble, what a bath it makes!
And Parma's pride, the Jerome, let us add! 'T were pleasant could Correggio's fleeting glow Hang full in face of one where'er one roams, Since he more than the others brings with him Italy's self, the marvellous Modenese! Yet was not on your list before, perhaps.
Alas, friend, here's the agent . . . is 't the name?
The captain, or whoever's master here
You see him screw his face up; what's his cry Ere you set foot on shipboard? "Six feet square!" If you won't understand what six feet mean, Compute and purchase stores accordingly - And if, in pique because he overhauls Your Jerome, piano, bath, you come on board Bare- why, you cut a figure at the first While sympathetic landsmen see you off; Not afterward, when long ere half seas over, You peep up from your utterly naked boards Into some snug and well-appointed berth, Like mine for instance (try the cooler jug Put back the other, but don't jog the ice!) And mortified you mutter "Well and good; He sits enjoying his sea-furniture;
'T is stout and proper, and there's store of it: Tho' I've the better notion, all agree,
Of fitting rooms up. Hang the carpenter, Neat ship-shape fixings and contrivances
I would have brought my Jerome, frame and all !” And meantime you bring nothing: never mind You've proved your artist-nature: what you don't You might bring, so despise me, as I say.
Now come, let's backward to the starting-place. See my way: we're two college friends, suppose. Prepare together for our voyage, then;
Each note and check the other in his work, — Here's mine, a bishop's outfit; criticize!
What's wrong? why won't you be a bishop too?
Why first, you don't believe, you don't and can't, (Not statedly, that is, and fixedly
And absolutely and exclusively)
In any revelation called divine.
No dogmas nail your faith; and what remains But say so, like the honest man you are? First, therefore, overhaul theology!
Nay, I too, not a fool, you please to think, Must find believing every whit as hard:
And if I do not frankly say as much,
The ugly consequence is clear enough.
Now wait, my friend: well, I do not believe- If you'll accept no faith that is not fixed, Absolute and exclusive, as you say.
You're wrong-I mean to prove it in due time. Meanwhile, I know where difficulties lie
I could not, can not solve, nor ever shall, So give up hope accordingly to solve —
(To you, and over the wine). Our dogmas then With both of us, tho' in unlike degree, Missing full credence — overboard with them! I mean to meet you on your own premise: Good, there go mine in company with yours!
And now what are we? unbelievers both, Calm and complete, determinately fixed To-day, to-morrow and for ever, pray? You'll guarantee me that? Not so, I think! In no wise! all we 've gained is, that belief, As unbelief before, shakes us by fits, Confounds us like its predecessor. Where's The gain? how can we guard our unbelief, Make it bear fruit to us?—the problem here. Just when we are safest, there's a sunset-touch, A fancy from a flower-bell, some one's death, A chorus-ending from Euripides, - And that's enough for fifty hopes and fears As old and new at once as nature's self, To rap and knock and enter in our soul, Take hands and dance there, a fantastic ring, Round the ancient idol, on his base again, The grand Perhaps! We look on helplessly. There the old misgivings, crooked questions are — This good God, what he could do, if he would, Would, if he could- then must have done long since: If so, when, where and how? some way must be, Once feel about, and soon or late you hit Some sense, in which it might be, after all. Why not "The Way, the Truth, the Life?"
Over the mountain, which who stands upon Is apt to doubt if it be meant for a road; While, if he views it from the waste itself, Up goes the line there, plain from base to brow, Not vague, mistakeable! what 's a break or two
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