Putting aside then such phrases as “course of events,” and the like, let us look to men. And whom shall we look to first but the Masters of Thought? Surely the true poet will do something to lift the burden of his own age. What is the use of wondrous gifts of language, if they are employed to enervate, and not to ennoble, their hearers? What avails it to trim the lights of history, if they are made to throw no brightness on the present, or open no track into the future? And to employ Imagination only in the service of Vanity, or Gain, is as if an astronomer were to use his telescope to magnify the potherbs in his kitchen garden. Think what a glorious power is that of expression: and what responsibility follows the man who possesses it. That grace of language which can make even commonplace things beautiful, throwing robes of the poorest texture into forms of all-attractive loveliness: why does it not expend its genius on materials that would be worthy of the artist? The great interests of Man are before it, are crying for it, can absorb all its endeavour, are, indeed, the noblest field for it. Think of this—then think what a waste of high intellectual endowments there has been in all ages from the meanest of motives. But what wise man would not rather have the harmless fame, which youths, on a holiday, scratch for themselves upon the leaden roof of some cathedral tower, than enjoy the undeniable renown of those who, with whatever power, have written from slight or unworthy motives what may prove a hindrance, rather than an aid, to the well-being of their fellow-men? * * * * *