not on one occasion remark on seeing a chapel close an oatfield: 'Oats and Methodism! What better symbo of poverty and meanness!' One remembers likewise t persecuted Anglican cat at Llangollen and many oth incidents. Even in Wild Wales,' however, Borrow pa tribute to Methodism in the person of John Jones t weaver, his trusty companion. But for a full expo tion of Borrow's views we must turn to 'Celtic Bar Chiefs and Kings.' He paints a vivid picture of t decay of religion in England and Wales before t appearance of Whitfield, Wesley, Howel Harris, & Daniel Rowlands. There was a general lack of vitali too many dull sermons from the pulpit, and too mu snoring in the pews. Borrow condemns the sho sightedness which drove pious men out of the fold, a5: contrasts the superior wisdom of Rome in dealing wi men like Francis Xavier and Loyola. He points C the beneficial reaction of Methodism on the Church England and shows how it paved the way for such ins tutions as the Bible Society. But then he criticises it

'It is possible for well-intentioned people to go too and to be over-zealous. It is a capital thing to put do Sabbath-breaking, but it is not a capital thing to turn it in a day of gloom, of sighing and groaning and sour-face-makin It is a capital thing to check profane and obscene languażda and barbarous exhibitions such as bull-baiting, cock-fighti and the like, but it is not a capital thing to persuade peop that a merry and jocund laugh is sinful, and that racin wrestling, cudgel-playing and using one's fists occasional will hurl people down to the nethermost pit. It is a capit thing to teach people to read the Bible, but it is not a capit thing to make them believe that all reading but Bible-readi is to be avoided.'

Like Ellis Wynn, Borrow was firmly attached to th Church of England. He loved it because it was equ distant from Rome and Geneva, and he claimed thes of all Churches it was the best adapted to promote th glory of God. Borrow shook his head over the laxne of the clergy and the coarseness of the laity in th 18th century; but in some ways he thought more the Church then than in his own time. It seemed t him to possess more of the true Christian spirit an less of what was anathema to Borrow-snobbishnes

ronwy Owen, the curate of Oswestry, was not ashamed welcome his poor brother Owen when he arrived hot dusty after tramping it all the way from Anglesey; did not hesitate to obtain for him the post of parish tk, anything but a dignified employment, and was not barrassed by Owen's presence in this capacity when himself was officiating. What is more, the congretion saw no cause for scandal in such an arrangent. One can well understand how repugnant all false atility was to Borrow the vagabond, friend of the psies, and lover of the open road, and how the conet of Goronwy would appeal to him. For similar asons he praises Lewis Morris, who in his youth was prenticed to a cooper and rose to be a landed proetor and inspector of the royal domains and mines Wales. Yet Morris never denied his humble origin, d only a few years before his death made a puncheon commemorate his apprenticeship.

We have earlier remarked on similarities between orrow and Dr Johnson, and may add one more-the ssession of a robust common sense. Borrow tells how orfudd eloped with Dafydd ap Gwilym, because she and life dull with her old husband, and remarks agisterially that she could have found plenty to occupy er, had she done her duty by endeavouring to make he poor man comfortable, and by visiting the sick and edy around her.' Beside this we may place another phorism, A man is never thoroughly well off till he as a good wife; never thoroughly ruined till he has a ad one.' Borrow relates a story about Lord Whitney, ho being sent with a royal commission to arrest riffith ap Nicholas, had his commission stolen, and was ompelled to don Griffith's livery and justify him in ondon. However, Borrow refuses to believe it.

"That a gentleman, to say nothing of a nobleman, would, or the sake of life have consented to do anything of the and is impossible. What would life have been worth after abmitting to such ignominy? O, no! Had Griffith said "I'll ang you, unless you put on my coat and justify me," his ordship would have assuredly answered "Hang me and

," and had the Welshman ordered him to be executed ould have calmly submitted to his fate.'

He is equally sceptical about the superb festivals

given by Ryce of Tywyn, and laughs to scorn the inn merable hosts of guests equal to those of Asia, t twice twenty thousand beeves and deer, the world bread and the ocean of wine with which, according the bard Dafydd Nanmor, they were regaled. B Borrow goes on:

'We have no doubt that he entertained now and ther thousand people, in a mighty booth, with a superabunda of roasted beef, mutton and seethed kid, a tolerable quant of barley bread and griddled oat-cake, with cyder a metheglyn ad libitum, and that whatever wine or wh bread was at table he kept in his own immediate neighbo hood for his own use and that of a few select friends, amon whom was perhaps the bard.'

Another shrewd remark occurs in the account Borrow's conversation with the descendant of Goron Owen, the sexton at Oswestry. On hearing that t sexton's son had emigrated to America in the hope making his fortune, but, having been unsuccessful, wi hunting after Goronwy Owen's estates, Borrow saj 'He who can't make a fortune by a trade in Ameri will hardly make one by a pedigree.'

From what has been said it will be seen that thou in Celtic Bards, Chiefs and Kings,' Borrow, the lov of the open road, is less to the fore than in many of other works, there are ample compensations. We ha admirable illustrations of his powers as a writer, ma passages being as graphic, vivid, and vigorous as t best of his writings; we see, perhaps more clearly th anywhere else, his erudition and his indefatigability the quest of curious information, and, lastly, the wo adds much to our knowledge of that singular agglor eration of imagination, sympathy, generous impuls violent prejudice, and shrewd mother-wit-Geor Borrow.

HERBERT WRIGHT.

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t. 3.-THE GREEK FEAR OF LIFE.

Nietzsche's early essay 'The Birth of Tragedy' there some interesting remarks on the relationship ween the Greek experience of life and their epic à dramatic art.

ir The Greeks,' he says, 'recognised and felt the horrors and elties of existence, and to make life endurable presented wore themselves the bright vision of the Olympian gods. this way the Olympian gods justify human life, by living themselves. Existence under the bright sunshine of such ties was felt to be worth the effort, and the peculiar grief the Homeric hero is felt about the departure from life, pecially early departure.'

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Though modern research may not accept entirely etzsche's theory of the origin and development of e Olympian gods, we owe him an immense debt having dispelled the beautiful mist, which for a ng time hid from us the real life of the Greeks, and rough which we imagined we saw them, filled with tatese love of beauty, admiring themselves and their sur& rundings during a glorious and untroubled existence. e preface of Nietzsche's work is dated 1871, and in be se91 8. H. Butcher's delightful essay on 'The Melancholy Bo the Greeks' appeared in 'Some Aspects of the hanreek Genius,' tracing throughout the principal classical atthors the recurrence of a melancholy note in their 8iticism of life. It is very probable that the author das acquainted with Nietzsche's Essay, but with the moririt of moderation and love of harmony which his indneration believed to be characteristic of the Greeks, he frained from treating this feeling as anything more assionate than melancholy. For Nietzsche it was the ecret of the Greek genius: for Prof. Butcher it invested there calm forms of Greek art and life with a wistful arm. And quite recently a great German scholar, lermann Diels, has discussed the same material in an say on Der antike Pessimismus,' as a real and aportant factor in the Greek struggle for existence. Perhaps neither melancholy nor pessimism is a suitable ord to describe this peculiar attitude of the Greeks wards life. Such words suggest to us something

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ineffectual in the conduct of practical life, and no or who has any knowledge of Greek history or literatu between 600-400 B.C. would dream of applying t word 'ineffectual' to them. The small Oxford Dictions = defines pessimism as 'a tendency to look at the wo aspect of things; doctrine that this world is the wo possible, or that all things tend to evil.' No tender or doctrine of this kind can be ascribed to such writ as Theognis or Pindar or Herodotus, who have giv the clearest expression in the most vigorous period Greek history to the bitterness of life. The words Theognis are well known; they were repeated by Et pides and elaborated in a famous chorus of Sophoc last play.

'Not to be born is, past all prizing, best; but when a n hath seen the light, this is next best by far, that with speed he should go thither whence he hath come. For w he hath seen youth go by, with its light follies, what suff ing is not therein ?-envy, factions, strife, battles, a slaughters; and, last of all, age claims him for her owndispraised, infirm, unsociable, unfriended, with whom all y of woes abides' (Jebb).

It is a remorseless presentation of the sorrowful s of life. We cannot say that it is looking at the wo aspect of things; it is looking at one side of things a does not countenance the view that the Greeks saw of of that side; it does not suggest that all things tend evil. It is rather a consideration of life as it actual appeared, with judgment passed on it after due reflexic The same dramatist has sung no less sincerely the j and vigour of man's life in a chorus in the Antigo 'Wonders are many, and none is more wonderful th . . speech and wind-swift thought, and all t moods that mould a state, hath he taught himse (Jebb). There is no thought here of admitting that th world is the worst possible; it is rather one which m has been able to improve immensely.

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For the earlier period-the transition from the six to the fifth century-Theognis or the poems collect under his name is an invaluable aid in estimating th general Greek view of life on the mainland as oppose to the society of the Homeric age. He writes as a ma

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