What dark depths fathomless beneath her keel ! From the wild wave shall rise-how many dead! Her graves too vast for any stone to mark, And disappear into unfathomed gloom. Through day and night, 'neath tropic stars and suns, The great ship carried 'neath her towering sail. Bravely for years and years, through strife sublime, Dæmonic strength, transcending human force, Among the noblest shows on all the earth A fairer sight, indeed, there scarce could be In splendor her proud flags triumphant fly, Day after day, week after week, they roam, Her tall trucks reel against the sky of noon, In tropic calms the high black gleaming side Till ship and ocean blend into a dream. Then, tall sails stretching to her topmost spires, Round the dark hull flash phosphorescent fires, 44 High on the swaying yards the sailors swing, And rising billows with wild rage are curled. The warrior ship awakens for the strife; While plunging seas remorseless strike her bow, Her quivering frame becomes instinct with life, And scatters the wild waves that beat her prow. The proud bark welters on the lifting swell, And plunges madly through each watery crest; The roaring hurricane fills all the night, While the mad sea leaps upward to low clouds ; Green rushing waters on lined decks alight, And hoarse winds whistle thro' the reeling shrouds. And human drama plays its living part Beneath the soaring of the triple mast; Pale cheek and wistful eye are wanly there, Strange constellations gleam in stranger skies, Taught by the sea to look for all things strange. Land ho! and faintly, a low bar of purple cloud, They see the shore at which they fain would be. Welcome is land unto that weary crowd, Pent for so long upon the climbing sea. Wave-wearied passengers, with gladsome breast, She has retraced it-and for the last time; To this pathetic end she comes at last. Her life of strife, of joy and pride, is o'er, Never again the ocean shall she see. Her timbers strained, her worn sides wan and dim, But showing yet the beauty of her lines. Never did statelier ship on ocean swim, And still her record bright in memory shines. Her glory and her dangers both are past, Pathetic is our sad, our proud-farewell! -Gentleman's Magazine. ERNEST RENAN.: BY W. H. GLEADELL. gence, discipline, devotion, tenacity of purpose, those evidences of force and individuality which, as by a sort of natural selection, mark out the successful men as the strong spirits destined to take the lead among their fellow-men. In studying the comedy of human life, what we want is to see men as they are, not as they appear to be; not so much to busy ourselves with what they do as with the thought which inspires them; in a word, to penetrate into their minds quite as much, if not more, than to observe their actions and their attitudes-even should we sometimes be forced to acknowl dge that all great men are not heroes any more than are all beautiful women angels-not to allow ourselves to be led away by that old toothless gossip which sullies the men the most worthy of respect, and finds evil in the most laudable actions; but rather to remember that those who live by thought, so to speak, will always be and remain the élite of a nation; for the spiritual and intellectual ideals of a day are always functions of the actual conditions of life; and life is not all composed of paltry ambitions, rivalries, malice, and spite. "IT is easy to criticise an author," says the French philosopher Vanvergues, "but hard to estimate him ;" and the literary critics of all ages bear witness to the shrewdness of this dictum. It is this shirking of the most important and most difficult part of a critic's work which induced the late Matthew Arnold to raise his voice in condemnation of the spirit of literary criticism of the day, and he was not far wrong when he declared that the chief need of our time, and especially of our own country, was that of a truer and more enlightened criticism. Nearly a generation has passed away since this distinguished son of literature first threw down the gauge of battle to Philistia, yet who will venture to say that we are not almost as much in need to-day as ever of a fresh current of ideas about life in its various phases. But the new era for which the apostle of culture and lucidity sighed is now close upon us. We are already beginning to recognize that quality, rare and precious above all others, the respect of opinions, the right of other men to think differently from ourselves. In an age of unrest such as ours, when natural evolution marches with such haste as sometimes al- Among the planets which have adorned most to take step with revolution, it is not the intellectual firmament of the nineteenth to be expected that in all things we shall century, few names are more familiar find all men thinking as we do, and it is than that of Ernest Renan, yet there indeed but a narrow eclecticism that wil! probably have lived few writers who have deny honor to all talent which is not of been more misunderstood, few whose our way of thinking. But what a desert works have been assailed with more unof insular narrowness, of provinciality of wavering British prejudice, than the authought, of British inaccessibility to ideas, thor of the Vie de Jésus—a prejudice, I of Philistine prejudice yet lies before us, think we may safely say, arising rather ere we can hope to attain the true critical from ignorance than a too intimate knowl balance, the real critical disinterestedness. edge of either the man, his life, or his Nevertheless, we who call ourselves" Ec- works. lectic" cannot but remember that in the toilsome process by which distinction is attained the more toilsome when, as in the case before us, unaided-there must be displayed, besides a cultivated intelli To most of us Renan is but a very shadowy substance. We know him mainly by reputation as "the great destructive critic," the man who has devoted his life and his wonderful talents to the overthrow as The A recent writer has said that the two greatest intellectual forces in France at this moment are M. Renan and M. Taine, but I think that the influence of both, and especially of the former, reaches far beyond the confines of their native land. As a potent factor in the intellectual and spiritual history of the nineteenth century, Ernest Renan at least cannot be ignored. Indeed, it would be difficult to name any living man of letters whose influence in the civilized world is more diffused, more penetrating, and more effective. It is now nearly twenty-eight years since Ernest Renan attained at one bound a world-wide reputation by the publication of his Vie de Jésus. The magic melody of his incomparable style enlisted in the service of ideas which cause the inmost fibres of the conscience of mankind to vibrate took the world by storm. delightful phrases, the flowing and harmonious periods, and artistic perfection of its word painting, added to the exquisite grace of its perfect dilettanteism and the seductive sweetness of its sceptical piety, appealed to even the most indifferent. None could help being touched by the tinge of sadness and melancholy, of mingled veneration and analytical criticism, which flowed from the author's pen as he followed the Crucified One through his pilgrimages and sufferings to death. One almost fancies one catches him weeping himself at his unbelief in the divinity of the noblest victim who ever shed his blood in the vindication of a cause. There was here none of the polished but mocking cynicism of Voltaire, or the coarse infidelity of Jean Jacques Rousseau, and the reader found himself unwittingly taken captive by the breadth of erudition and the abundance of ideas as well as by the charm of style. of the one hope which alone supports I have sought hard; but I have been able many and many a weary mortal through to find nothing better than the Faith of a loveless and colorless life in which all is Christ." darkness, misery, and suffering a hope and aspiration certainly the most important factors which the history of civilization has bequeathed to our meditations, and upon which human society must rest if it is not to crumble into chaos and barbaric night. He is pointed out as the man who, with an unwonted eloquence, preaches doctrines entirely subversive of moral obligations, and, recognizing no higher standard than human inclinations, seeks to destroy society and to lead men backward instead of forward in the path of progress, bidding them be content with a coarse and vulgar earth to earth philosophy and live on the swinish husks which alone Materialism and Sensualism have to offer. But no one acquainted with the true Renan or his writings could long hold to this prejudiced view. One cannot fail to feel, on coming in contact with the real man, the almost primitive sincerity which, with Newman, pervades his every action; to appreciate in his works the evidently real searchings of heart and probings to the quick of those actual feelings the critical mind alone can fully realize which meet us at every turn, and cause us to ponder with sympathetic interest over the strong intellect and sensitive heart gone astray in the all-absorbing and inspiring task of uniting a universe of matter and a world of mind. We see before us a man believing by instinct and doubting by reason, for the faith of his childhood still dwells with Renan as a sentiment and as such is distinctly traceable through out his writings. Its poetry survives side by side with the criticism which has been fatal to it as a creed, and from his works could be culled a portly volume of passages breathing the purest spirit of piety and pervaded throughout with that abnegation, that idealism, that elevation. of sentiIment which are the essence of the truest religion. And as one becomes better acquainted with this man, and follows him in his never-wearying search after the ideal, a search which transfigures his very scepticism and renders even his dilettanteism noble, one cannot help feeling that away down in the depths of that poetic soul there may still be found a distant echo of the words of Brücker: "I have traversed every sect; I have travelled well, A book reprobated by one half of the community will of a surety for that very reason be carefully read by the other half. Since the date of the publication of the Vie de Jésus, 300,000 copies of the work have been sold in France alone, that country which has always loved great enthusiasms and great glories, while so furious was the tempest of polemics which its appearance aroused that no less than 1500 books or pamphlets relating to it were 66 published within twelve months of its issue. The authors who have influence," says Joubert," are merely those who express perfectly what other men are thinking; who reveal in people's minds ideas or sentiments which were tending to the birth." And herein lies to a great extent the secret of Renan's success. He has used his incomparable literary skill and indefatigable powers of research to interpret the mind of a goodly portion of his generation to itself. He has above all addressed himself to that large class of readers who belong neither to the classes nor to the masses; the people to whom the problems of life are everything, and who are drawn to him by his erudition and penetrating power in handling these problems. There are hundreds who brood over the mysteries Renan brooded over, and it was a surprise to them to find that here was one who dared say in print and without reserve what they hardly dare think in the secrecy of their closets, while the evident sincerity-that feature which gives to such men as Newman their greatest power-which pervaded all his writings, lent them an additional charm and influence. I have spoken of the author of the History of the Origins of Christianity and the English Cardinal as being both actuated by the same spirit of sincerity of purpose, but the mental resemblance between these two goes much farther than that. One cannot help but notice the same frankness, the same self-sacrifice, the same devotion to the ideal which distinguishes them both. It is simply a case of the one having left off where the other began. The Epicurean turned Stoic, and the Stoic turned Epicurean. Had. Renan but received Newman's early training, I doubt if the world had ever seen the Vie de Jésus. There are three principal influences which go to shape human character that of heredity, that of locality, and that of every-day associations. It would take more time than the limits of this paper would allow minutely to trace the progress of Ernest Renan along the pathway of life, but a general glance at the influences which have moulded his career cannot fail to be of interest to every one of us to whom the problems of life in any way appeal. The town of Tréguier, on the sombre Brittany coast, is famous for nothing if not for its monastic appearance and surroundings, and which, despite numerous social upheavals, have never deserted it since it was first founded by St. Tudwal in the later years of the fifth century. The first care of the ancient pioneers of Christianity on arriving on a hospitable shore was, with a keen eye to their temporal as well as their spiritual welfare, to build a monastery and take possession of the land for a considerable distance around. In no way had they departed from their usual custom on arriving at Tréguier and by degrees a small town had as usual sprung up around their monastic abode ; but the monastery being the only raison d'ètre of the lay town, the latter did not develop very fast. As the population slowly increased the number of convents and monasteries increased likewise, and by the end of the thirteenth century a fine cathedral also adorned the place. Thus, even though Tréguier grew, it still remained purely an ecclesiastical town, a stranger to all commerce and trade, a vast monastery where no noise from the outside world penetrated, where other men's pursuits were called vanity, and what laymen call illusion passed for the only reality, while a general tranquillity pervaded all. Here it was that, in 1821, Ernest Renan was born, and his childhood was passed; and the local influence of those early days has never been effaced from his mind-the broadest scientific and modern education has not been able to more than modify it. Even now, when he refers to sombre old Tréguier-whose very beauty is of the grave and sad order-it is in a tone of reverent affection, and with a sparkle in his blue Celtic eyes difficult for a stranger to appreciate who knows only the melancholic solitude of Brittany without being acquainted with that fidelity which is the ground motive of the Breton character, or knowing anything of the lively imagination and strong feeling concealed under that dull and indifferent exterior, that tenacity with which the Breton clings to the habits and beliefs of his forefathers. The gray, pensive old churches and convents, with their own characteristic beauties and local peculiarities, their faded mural paintings and ancient tombs, have ever been for him a centre of practical affection. Those stately Romanesque edifices, which one sees scattered in so many strongly characterized varieties over the |