(Hence called lotophagi); which, whoso tastes,
Insatiate riots in the sweet repasts,

Nor other home, nor other care intends,

But quits his house, his country and his friends.

Od., ix. 104-110.

(Pope's Translation.)

To drink of the cup of Comus, or to take the lotus fruit, brings the fatal penalty of forgetfulness of all the higher aims of life; it is to drop lower in the scale of being, and not to know that we have fallen: it is to be, in Scriptural language, no longer "alive" to the true meaning and value of life. This fall does not come at once. With plausibility and subtlety it comes. The cup which degrades is in the hand of the enchanter. It looks innocent enough at the beginning. There can be no harm in pleasure. Were we not made for joy? Do not these gifts of nature bring joy? Let us take what comes with easy heart and be glad!

But at the last or worse still a

there comes the serpent bite; slow paralysis of the moral sense creeps over us; conscience does not respond to the appeals of right or goodness. Those who live in pleasure are dead, though they may seem to live. It is against the fatal seductiveness of a life divorced from all moral considerations and high spiritual ambitions that Milton protests in his "Comus."

He could feel the seductiveness of the fatal charm. He could give vigorous utterance to the enchanter's persuasion. Sour old age is out of the way, why should not youth enjoy itself?

Rigour now is gone to bed;

And Advice with scrupulous head,
Strict Age, and sour Severity,

With their grave saws, in slumber lie.
We that are of purer fire

Imitate the starry quire.

Or listen to the reasonings of Comus when he tries to persuade the lady to drink the fatal draught:

COMUS: Why should you be so cruel to yourself,

And to those dainty limbs, which Nature lent

For gentle usage and soft delicacy?

Scorning the unexempt condition

By which all mortal frailty must subsist,
Refreshment after toil, ease after pain,
That have been tired all day without repast,
And timely rest have wanted.

O, foolishness of men! that lend their ears
To those budge doctors of the Stoic fur,
And fetch their precepts from the Cynic tub,
Praising the lean and sallow Abstinence!
Wherefore did Nature pour her bounties forth
With such a full and unwithdrawing hand,
Covering the earth with odours, fruits and flocks,
Thronging the seas with spawn innumerable,
But all to please and sate the curious taste?

But all these arguments are vain to the mind strong in truth and constant in virtue.

LADY: Impostor! do not charge most innocent Nature,
As if she would her children should be riotous

With her abundance. She, good cateress,

Means her provision only to the good,

That live according to her sober laws.

The tempter however is, so the lady tells him, beyond the range of serious argument.

Thou hast nor ear, nor soul, to apprehend

The sublime notion and high mystery

That must be uttered to unfold the sage

And serious doctrine of Virginity;

And thou art worthy that thou shouldst not know
More happiness than this thy present lot.

So truly and earnestly does she speak, that even the tempter recognises the power of her words.

She fables not. I feel that I do fear

Her words set off by some superior power.

Thus, strong in her simple and virtuous innocence, she keeps her soul free, though her body is the prisoner of enchantments. And virtue has her strength in heaven. The attendant spirit brings the lady aid, and by the intervention of Sabrina the spell is broken and the captive set free to move. The moral of the masque is declared to

:

be the victory of virtue. The three actors, the lady and her two brothers, are presented as those who have been tried and have conquered.

Heaven hath timely tried their youth,

Their faith, their patience, and their truth,
And sent them here through hard assays
With a crown of deathless praise,

To triumph in victorious dance

O'er sensual folly and intemperance.

The epilogue spoken by the guardian spirit proclaims the principle that true virtue will never be left strengthless and unaided against the power and stratagems of reckless vice. Heaven claims virtue as her own offspring, and the Lord of heaven is mindful of His own. Those who would pursue the highest ideal, the true angel of life, must first be enamoured of true goodness.

Mortals, cries the guardian spirit, the good angel,

Mortals, that would follow me,
Love Virtue; she alone is free.
She can teach ye how to climb
Higher than the sphery chime;
Or, if Virtue feeble were,
Heaven itself would stoop to her.

FEW men have more profoundly influenced the thoughts of Englishmen than the poet Coleridge. It is curious to notice the acknowledgments of his influence made by men of very different minds and dispositions. The late Principal Shairp gathered together some of these acknowledgments in his admirable "Essay on Coleridge." He tells us how men so diverse as Wordsworth, Dr. Arnold, Newman, Julius Hare, F. D. Maurice, and Mill spoke with warm admiration of the stimulating influence of Coleridge's teaching or personality. It is a strange group of divergently illustrious men; the poet whose philosophy was Nature, and the philosopher who worshipped at the shrine of cold utilitarianism; the devout liberal who recognised no authority as having a right to blind man in his search for truth; the subtle doubter who welcomed