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النشر الإلكتروني

Unspeakable! Who sitt'st above these heavens
To us invisible, or dimly seen,

In these Thy lowest works; yet these declare
Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine.
Speak, ye who best can tell, ye sons of light,
Angels: for ye behold Him, and with songs
And choral symphonies, day without night,
Circle His throne rejoicing; ye, in heaven:
On earth, join, all ye creatures, to extol
Him first, Him last, Him midst, and without end.
Fairest of stars, last in the train of night,
If better thou belong not to the dawn,

Sure pledge of day, that crown'st the smiling morn
With thy bright circlet, praise Him in thy sphere,
While day arises, that sweet hour of prime.
Thou sun, of this great world both eye and soul,
Acknowledge Him thy greater; sound His praise
In thy eternal course, both when thou climb'st,
And when high noon hast gain'd, and when thou fall'st.
Moon, that now meet'st the orient sun, now fly'st,
With the fix'd stars, fix'd in their orb that flies;
And ye five other wandering fires, that move
In mystic dance not without song, resound
His praise, who out of darkness call'd up light.
Air, and ye elements, the eldest birth
Of Nature's womb, that in quaternion run
Perpetual circle, multiform; and mix

And nourish all things; let your ceaseless change
Vary to our great Maker still new praise.
Ye mists and exhalations, that now rise
From hill or steaming lake, dusky or gray,
Till the sun paint your fleecy skirts with gold,
In honour to the world's great Author rise;
Whether to deck with clouds the uncolour'd sky,
Or wet the thirsty earth with falling showers,
Rising or falling, still advance His praise.
His praise, ye winds that from four quarters blow,
Breathe soft or loud; and wave your tops, ye pines,
With every plant, in sign of worship wave.

Fountains, and ye that warble as ye flow,
Melodious murmurs, warbling tune His praise.
Join voices, all ye living souls: ye birds,
That, singing, up to heaven-gate ascend,
Bear on your wings and in your notes His praise.
Ye that in waters glide, and ye that walk
The earth, and stately tread, or lowly creep;
Witness if I be silent, morn or even,

To hill or valley, fountain or fresh shade,
Made vocal by my song, and taught His praise.
Hail, universal Lord! be bounteous still
To give us only good; and if the night
Have gather'd aught of evil, or conceal'd,
Disperse it, as now light dispels the dark."

-Milton (1608–1674).

THE ASSOCIATION OF BEAUTY WITH UTILITY.

1. We may consider the products of industry with reference to their utility; or to their cheapness; or with regard to their influence upon the condition of those who produce them; or, lastly, to their beauty; to the degree in which they associate the presentation of forms and colours agreeable to the cultivated eye, with the attainment of the highest aptitude for those purposes of common life for which they are properly designed.

2. Now, as to their utility and convenience considered alone, we may leave that to the consumer, who will not buy what does not suit him. As to their cheapness, when once security has been taken that an entire society shall not be forced to pay an artificial price to some of its members for their productions, we may safely leave the question to the action of competition among manufacturers, and of what we term the laws of supply and demand. As to the condition of the workpeople, experience has shown, especially in the case of the factory acts, that we should do wrong in laying down any abstract maxim as an invariable rule. Generally it may be said that the pre

sumption is always against legislative interference; but that upon special grounds, and most of all where children are employed, it may sometimes not only be warranted but required. We come, then, to the last of the heads which I have named: the association of beauty with utility, each of them taken according to the largest sense in the business of industrial production.

3. Now do not let us suppose that, when we speak of this association of beauty with convenience, we speak either of a matter which is light and fanciful, or of one which may be left to take care of itself.

4. Beauty is not an accident of things; it pertains to their essence; it pervades the wide range of creation; and wherever it is impaired or banished, we have in this fact the proof of the moral disorder which disturbs the world. Reject, therefore, the false philosophy of those who will ask what does it matter, provided a thing be useful, whether it be beautiful or not: and say in reply that we will take one lesson from Almighty God, who in his works hath shown us, and in his word hath also told us, that "He hath made everything," not one thing, or another thing, but everything "beautiful in its time. Among all the devices of creation there is not one more wonderful, whether it be the movement of the heavenly bodies or the succession of the seasons and the years, or the adaptation of the world and its phenomena to the conditions of human life, or the structure of the eye or hand, or any other part of the frame of man;-not one of all these is more wonderful than the profuseness with which the mighty Maker has been pleased to shed over the works of his hands an endless and boundless beauty. And to this constitution of things outward, the constitution and mind of man, deranged although they be, still answer from within. Down to the humblest condition of life, down to the lowest and most backward grade of civilization, the nature of man craves, and seems as it were even to cry aloud for something, some sign or token at the least, of what is beautiful, in some of the many spheres of mind

or sense.

5. It is, in short, difficult for human beings to harden themselves at all points against the impressions and the charm of beauty. Every form of life that can be called in any sense natural will admit them. I do not believe it is extravagant to say, that the pursuit of the element of beauty in the business of production will be found to act with a genial, chastening, and refining influence on the commercial spirit; that up to a certain point it is in the nature of a preservative against some of the moral dangers that beset trading and manufacturing enterprise; and that we are justified in regarding it not merely as an economical benefit; not merely as contributing to our works an element of value; not merely as supplying a particular faculty of human nature with its proper food; but as a liberalizing and civilizing power, and an instrument in its own sphere of moral and social improvement. Indeed it would be strange if a deliberate departure from what we see to be the law of nature in its outward sphere, were the road to a close conformity with its innermost and highest laws.

6. But now let us not conceive that, because the love of beauty finds for itself a place in the general heart of mankind, therefore we need never make it the object of a special attention, or put in action special means to promote and to uphold it. For, after all, our attachment to it is a matter of degree, and of degree which experience has shown to be, in different places, and at different times, indefinitely variable. We may not be able to reproduce the time of Pericles,1 or the Cinque-cento,2 but yet it depends upon our own choice, whether we shall or shall not have a title to claim kindred, however remotely, with them. What we are bound to do is this: to take care that everything we make shall, in its kind and class, be as good as we can make it. When Dr. Johnson was asked by Mr. Boswell how he had attained to his extraordinary excellence in conversation, he replied, he had no other rule or system than this: that, whenever he had anything to The great Athenian statesman; died B. C. 429. He adorned Athens with splendid buildings. 2 The perfection of Italian art in the sixteenth century is so termed.

say, he tried to say it in the best manner he was able. It is this perpetual striving after excellence on the one hand, or the want of such effort on the other, which, more than the original difference of gifts, contributes to bring about the differences we see in the works and characters of men. -Extracted from Mr. W. E. Gladstone's Speech-Burslem, October, 1863.

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1. Constantine, the founder of Constantinople, the eldest son of the Roman Emperor Constantius Chlorus, was born 272 A.D. His father died at York, 306 A.D., and in that city Constantine was declared Emperor. There were other claimants to the empire, but for a time Con

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