With Traherne poetry was no elegant recreation, no medium for the display of a lively fancy, no means of exhibiting his skill as a master of metrical effects, but the vehicle through which he expressed his deepest convictions and his profoundest thoughts. He used it as a gift which it was his duty to employ only for the highest purposes and the most sacred ends. All that he saw, felt, and apprehended was transmuted by the alchemy of his mind into that mysterious union of thought, imagination, and expression, which we half praise and half disparage when we term it poetic inspiration. He possessed--or rather was possessed by--that "fine madness" without which no poet, painter, or musician ever yet created a work which deserved to outlive its author. He saw in the universe no "foul and pestilent congregation of vapours," but a majestic dwelling-place for gods, angels, and men. All nature to him was lovely and perfect; and if the existence of evil, injustice, and sin disquieted him for a moment he had little difficulty in persuading himself that these things were owing not to defect or imperfection in nature, but to the folly or perverseness of men in departing from it. It may indeed be said of him, as Matthew Arnold said of Wordsworth, that his eyes refused to dwell upon the darker aspects of life and nature; but that, in his case, as in Wordsworth's, was in a great degree the source of his greatness, and is the reason why he interests us. It is only those that possess an undoubting faith who can inspire it in others. It is given only to a Shakespeare or a Goethe to "see life steadily and see it whole." Almost all other authors see it, as their nature prompts them, in colours which are either too glowing or too sombre. It has been said of the author of "The City of Dreadful Night" that he was born that we might have things stated at their worst, once for all:[D] may we not likewise say of Traherne that he was born that things might be stated, once for all, at their best? Perhaps the reader may think that his poems do not justify so strong a claim; but when they are taken in conjunction with his "Christian Ethicks" and "Centuries of Meditations" I do not think it can be considered as an overstatement. Whether his moral and theological views were right or wrong, Traherne at least was warranted in holding them, because they were exactly suited to his peculiar temperament, if indeed they were not the outcome of it. Were all men blessed with so happy a disposition as his, then indeed might the world become the Eden which to him it appeared to be. He believed that all men might be as happy as he was if they would only firmly resolve to follow the path which had led him to felicity. Like all enthusiasts and most reformers of human nature or human institutions, he made the mistake of supposing that others were, or might be made, like-minded with himself, and did not take into account the infinite varieties of character and temperament