and it ends thus :

Who sings Thy praise? onely a skarf or glove Doth warm our hands, and make them write of love.

Crashaw and Vaughan had probably read this poem. In any case they acted on the injunction which it contains. They both sang of the Divine Love, and of Divine Things; and it was not with a "Sunday" voice, so to speak. They lived, and moved, and had their being in the world of spirit; they really did understand the Practice of the Presence of God.

All three singers were much influenced by Marino, an Italian poet who flourished a little before their time (1569-1625). Marino and his school delighted in florid hyperbole and overstrained imagery, and we certainly find traces of this straining after effect, this piling of image upon image, in our own poets, but we also come upon quiet spaces, and we meet with most lovely and lovable phrases, with beautiful and musical lines.

People differ in their likes and dislikes. The Editor of a well-known Encyclopaedia of English

Literature nearly weeps with horror when he quotes Herbert's lines,

God gave thy soul brave wings; put not those feathers

Into a bed to sleep out ill weathers.

while George Macdonald says that it is the sign of a great poet to use "the homeliest imagery for the highest thought."

Herbert constantly does this. Take these two lines from The Dawning

Christ left His grave-clothes, that we might when grief

Draws tears, or bloud, not want a handkerchief.

May I conclude by quoting another poem of Herbert's? I do so, because though it may seem inconsistent to say that it breathes the spirit of Crashaw and Vaughan-after having distinctly stated that Herbert was not a mysticyet it is capable of a certain mystical interpretation, which seems to me to sum up the attitude of our two poets to God and to the Universe.

Love.

Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back
Guilty of dust and sin.

But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning

If I lacked anything.

A guest,' I answered,' worthy to be here.'
Love said, 'You shall be he.'

́I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
I cannot look on Thee.'

Love took my hand and smiling did reply,

Truth Lord; but I have marr'd them: let my shame

Go where it doth deserve.'

And know you not,' says Love, who bore the blame?'

My dear, then I will serve.'

• You must sit down,' says Love, and taste my meat.'

So I did sit and eat.

Here, in words which recall the reverent familiarity of Mother Julian of Norwich, we have set forth the Communion of the soul of man with

the Divine. It is the old figure of the feast, and the old mystery, met with in nearly all the religions of mankind, that God feeds the worldthe great world of the Universe and the little world of Man-with His Own Life. And in this truth-with its corollary that, in spite of the sin of man, in spite of the infinite transcendence of God, owing to the tremendous Fact of the Incarnation, all is one in the Divine-in this, I think, we find both the inspiration and the message of our two Mystic Poets.