Yet this higher idea of love _did_ exist among the ancients—only we must not seek it in their poetry, but in their philosophy. Thus we find it in Plato, set forth as a beautiful philosophical theory; not as a passion, to influence life, nor as a poetic feeling, to adorn and exalt it. Nor do we moderns owe this idea of a mystic, elevated, and elevating love to the Greek philosophy. I rather agree with those who trace it to the mingling of Christianity with the manners of the old Germans, and their (almost) superstitious reverence for womanhood. In the Middle Ages, where morals were most depraved, and women most helpless and oppressed, there still survived the theory formed out of the combination of the Christian spirit, and the Germanic customs; and when in the 15th century Plato became the fashion, then the theory became a science, and what had been religion became again philosophy. This sort of speculative love became to real love what theology became to religion; it was a thesis to be talked about and argued in universities, sung in sonnets, set forth in art; and so being kept as far as possible from all bearings on our moral life, it ceased to find consideration either as a primæval law of God, or as a moral motive influencing the duties and habits of our existence; and thus we find the social code in regard to it diverging into all the vagaries of celibacy on one hand, and all the vilenesses of profligacy on the other. [Illustration] 130. Wilkie’s “Life and Letters” have not helped me much. His opinions and criticisms on his own art are sensible, not suggestive. I find, however, one or two passages strongly illustrative of the value of _truth_ as a principle in art, and the sort of _vitality_ it gives to scenery and objects. He writes, when travelling in Holland, to his friend, Sir George Beaumont;— “One of the first circumstances that struck me wherever I went was what you had prepared me for; the resemblance that everything bore to the Dutch and Flemish pictures. On leaving Ostend, not only the people, houses, trees, but whole tracks of country reminded me of Teniers, and on getting further into the country this was only relieved by the pictures of Rubens and Wouvermans, or some other masters taking his place. “I thought I could trace the particular districts in Holland where Ostade, Cuyp, and Rembrandt had studied, and could almost fancy the spot where the pictures of other masters had been painted. Indeed nothing seemed new to me in the whole country; and what one could not help wondering at, was, that these old masters should have been able to draw the materials of so beautiful a variety of art, from so contracted and monotonous a theme.”