Even as the world its life,

So have I lived my own Power seen with Love at strife,

That sure, this dimly shown, - Good rare and evil rife.

Whereof the effect be- faith

That, some far day, were found

Ripeness in things now rathe,

Wrong righted, each chain unbound,

Renewal born out of scathe.

Why faith - but to lift the load,

To leaven the lump, where lies
Mind prostrate through knowledge owed
To the loveless Power it tries
To withstand, how vain! In flowed

Ever resistless fact:

No more than the passive clay

Disputes the potter's act,

Could the whelmed mind disobey Knowledge the cataract.

But, perfect in every part,

Has the potter's moulded shape, Leap of man's quickened heart, Throe of his thought's escape, Stings of his soul which dart

Through the barrier of flesh, till keen

She climbs from the calm and clear,

Through turbidity all between,

From the known to the unknown here,

Heaven's "Shall be," from Earth's "Has been"?

Rise and not rest, but press
From earth's level where blindly creep
Things perfected, more or less,

To the heaven's height, far and steep,

Where, amid what strifes and storms
May wait the adventurous quest,
Power is Love-transports, transforms
Who aspired from worst to best,
Sought the soul's world, spurned the worms'.

I have faith such end shall be:

From the first, Power was

Life has made clear to me

I knew.

That, strive but for closer view,

Love were as plain to see.

When see? When there dawns a day,

If not on the homely earth,

Then yonder, worlds away,

Where the strange and new have birth,

And Power comes full in play.

CHAPTER VI

ART CRITICISM INSPIRED BY THE ENGLISH

IN

MUSICIAN, AVISON

N the "Parleying With Charles Avison," Browning plunges into a discussion of the problem of the ephemeralness of musical expression. He hits upon Avison to have his colloquy with because a march by this musician came into his head, and the march came into his head for no better reason than that it was the month of March. Some interest would attach to Avison if it were only for the reason that he was organist of the Church of St. Nicholas in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In the earliest accounts St. Nicholas was styled simply, "The Church of Newcastle-upon-Tyne," but in 1785 it became a Cathedral. This was after Avison's death in 1770. All we know about the organ upon which Avison performed is found in a curious old history of Newcastle by Brand. "I have found," he writes, "no account of any organ in this church during the times of popery though it is very probable there has been one. "About the year 1676,

420

the corporation of Newcastle contributed £300 towards the erection of the present organ. They added a trumpet stop to it June 22d, 1699."

The year that Avison was born, 1710, it is recorded further that "the back front of this organ was finished which cost the said corporation £200 together with the expense of cleaning and repairing the whole instrument."

June 26, 1749, the common council of Newcastle ordered a sweet stop to be added to the organ. This was after Avison became organist, his appointment to that post having been in 1736. So we know that he at least had a "trumpet stop" and a "sweet stop," with which to embellish his organ playing.

The church is especially distinguished for the number and beauty of its chantries, and any who have a taste for examining armorial bearings will find two good-sized volumes devoted to a description of those in this church, by Richardson. Equal distinction attaches to the church owing to the beauty of its steeple, which has been called the pride and glory of the Northern Hemisphere. According to the enthusiastic Richardson it is justly esteemed on account of its peculiar excellency of design and delicacy of execution one of the finest specimens of architectural beauty in Europe.

This steeple is as conspicuous a feature of Newcastle as the State House Dome is of Boston, situated, as it is, almost in the center of the town. Richardson gives the following minute description of this marvel. “It consists of a square tower forty feet in width, having great and small turrets with pinnacles at the angles and center of each front tower. From the four turrets at the angles spring two arches, which meet in an intersecting direction, and bear on their center an efficient perforated lanthorne, surmounted by a tall and beautiful spire: the angles of the lanthorne have pinnacles similar to those on the turrets, and the whole of the pinnacles, being twelve in number, and the spire, are ornamented with crockets and vanes."

There is a stirring tradition in regard to this structure related by Bourne to the effect that in the time of the Civil Wars, when the Scots had besieged the town for several weeks, and were still as far as at first from taking it, the general sent a messenger to the mayor of the town, and demanded the keys, and the delivering up of the town, or he would immediately demolish the steeple of St. Nicholas. The mayor and aldermen upon hearing this, immediately ordered a certain number of the chiefest of the Scottish prisoners to be carried