For which thy love, live with thy master here,
Not one, but all the seasons of the yeare.

Herrick is fully as sincere in other matters. He is very poor, he admits the fact; but he has his cates and beer, he thanks Heaven, and his life is easy. He is not good-looking; he is mope-eyed and ungainly. He has lost a finger. He hates Oliver Cromwell. Sooner than take the Covenant against his convictions he will be thrust out of his living. He is of opinion that a king can do no wrong; that Charles I. was a martyr, and Charles II. is the very incarnation of virtue. "Robert Herrick, Vickar," says the register,

was buried on the 15th day of October, 1674.” How many true singers of lyrics has England boasted since that date?

VI.

LITERARY MORALITY.

LITERARY MORALITY.

F by morality in literature, I imply merely the moral atmosphere to be inhaled from certain written thoughts

of men and women, I would not be understood as publicly pinning my faith on any particular code of society, although such and such. a code may form part of the standard of my private conduct; as confounding the cardinal virtues with the maxims of a cardiphonia"omnia dicta factaque," as Petronius says,

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quasi papavere et sesamo sparsa." The conduct of life is to a great extent a private affair, about which people will never quite agree. But books are public property, and their effect is a public question. It seems, at first sight, very difficult to decide what books may be justly styled

"immoral;" in other words, what books have a pernicious effect on readers fairly qualified to read them. Starting, however, agreed upon certain finalities as is essential in every and any discussion-readers may come to a common understanding as to certain works. Two points of agreement with the reader are necessary to my present purpose; and these are, briefly stated:(1) That no book is to be judged immoral by any other rule than its effects upon the moral mind, and (2) that the moral mind, temporarily defined, is one consistent with a certain standard accepted or established by itself, and situated at a decent height above prejudice. Bigotry is not morality.

Morality in literature is, I think, far more intimately connected with the principle of sincerity of sight than any writer has yet had the courage to point out. Courage, indeed, is necessary, since there is no subject on which a writer is so liable to be misconceived. The subject, however, is not a difficult one, if we take sincerity of sight into consideration. Wherever there is insincerity in a book there can be no morality;