more naturally loyalty than patriotism. In history, they are even more inclined than men to dwell exclusively upon biographical incidents or characteristics as distinguished from the march of general causes. In benevolence, they excel in charity, which alleviates individual suffering, rather than in philanthropy, which deals with large masses, and is more frequently employed in preventing than in allaying calamity. It was a remark of Winckelmann, that "the supreme beauty of Greek art is rather male than female;" and the justice of this remark has been amply corroborated by the greater knowledge we have of late years attained of the works of the Phidian period, in which art achieved its highest perfection, and in which, at the same time, force and freedom, and masculine grandeur, were its pre-eminent characteristics. A similar observation may be made of the moral ideal of which ancient art was simply the expression. In antiquity the virtues that were most admired were almost exclusively those which are distinctively masculine. Courage, self-assertion, magnanimity, and, above all, patriotism, were the leading features of the ideal type; and chastity, modesty, and charity, the gentler and the domestic virtues, which are especially feminine, were greatly undervalued. With the single exception of conjugal fidelity, none of the virtues that were very highly prized were virtues distinctively or preeminently feminine. With this exception, nearly all the illustrious women of antiquity were illustrious chiefly because they overcame the natural conditions of their sex. It is a characteristic fact that the favorite female ideal of the artists appears to have been the Amazon. We may admire the Spartan mother, or the mother of the Gracchi, repressing every sign of grief when their children were sacrificed upon the altar of their country, we may wonder at the majestic courage of a Porcia, or an Arria, but we extol them chiefly because, being women, they emancipated themselves from the frailty of their sex, and displayed an heroic fortitude worthy of the strongest and the bravest of men. We may bestow an equal admiration upon the noble devotion and charity of a St. Elizabeth of Hungary, or of a Mrs. Fry, but we do not admire them because they displayed these virtues, although they were women, for we feel that their virtues were of the kind which the female nature is most fitted to produce. The change from the heroic to the saintly ideal, from the ideal of Paganism to the ideal of Christianity, was a change from a type which was essentially male to one which was essentially feminine. Of all the great schools of philosophy no other reflected so faithfully the Roman conception of moral excellence as Stoicism, and the greatest Roman exponent of Stoicism summed up its character in a single sentence when he pronounced it to be beyond all other sects the most emphatically masculine. On the other hand, an ideal type in which meekness, gentleness, patience, humility, faith, and love are the most prominent features, is not naturally male, but female. A reason probably deeper than the historical ones which are commonly alleged, why sculpture has always been peculiarly Pagan and painting peculiarly Christian, may be found in the fact, that sculpture is especially suited to represent male beauty, or the beauty of strength, and painting female beauty, or the beauty of softness; and that Pagan sentiment was chiefly a glorification of the masculine qualities of strength, and courage, and conscious virtue, while Christian sentiment is chiefly a glorification of the feminine qualities of gentleness, humility, and love. The painters whom the religious feeling of Christendom has recognized as the most faithful exponents of Christian sentiment have always been those who infused a large measure of feminine beauty even into their male characters; and we never, or scarcely ever, find that the same artist has been conspicuously successful in delineating both Christian and Pagan types. Michael Angelo, whose genius loved to expatiate on the sublimity of strength and defiance, failed signally in his representations of the Christian ideal; and Perugino was equally unsuccessful when he sought to portray the features of the heroes of antiquity. The position that was gradually assigned to the Virgin as the female ideal in the belief and the devotion of Christendom, was a consecration or an expression of the new value that was attached to the feminine virtues. The general superiority of women to men in the strength of their religious emotions, and their natural attraction to a religion which made personal attachment to its Founder its central duty, and which imparted an unprecedented dignity and afforded an unprecedented scope to their characteristic virtues, account for the very conspicuous position they assumed in the great work of the conversion of the Roman Empire. JEAN INGELOW. Jean Ingelow, daughter of William Ingelow, Esq., late of Ipswich, Suffolk, was born about 1830. She has written a volume of short stories entitled Tales of Orris, published in 1860 in the Round of Days - a volume of poems which has gone through several editions both in England and America. This authoress contributed several poems to an exquisitely illustrated collection of original poetical pieces entitled Home Sights and Home Scenes, published in 1864 Messrs. Roberts Brothers have issued a new edition of her poems, in three volumes, 1870. The touching ballad that follows gives a sufficient proof of her poetic power, although her Songs of Seven are more widely known and admired. THE HIGH TIDE ON THE COAST OF LINCOLNSHIRE (1571). THE old mayor climbed the belfry tower, Good ringers, pull your best," quoth he. Men say it was a stolen tyde The Lord that sent it, He knows all; But in myne ears doth still abide The message that the bells let fall: By millions crouched on the old sea-wall. I sat and spun within the doore, My thread brake off, I raised myne eyes ; Lay sinking in the barren skies; "Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!" calling, Farre Where the reedy Lindis floweth, From the meads where melick groweth "Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!" calling, Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow; Come uppe, Whitefoot, come uppe, Lightfoot, Quit the stalks of parsley hollow, Hollow, hollow; Come uppe, Jetty, rise and follow, From the clovers lift your head; Come uppe, Whitefoot, come uppe, Lightfoot, Come uppe, Jetty, rise and follow, Jetty, to the milking-shed." If it be long, aye, long ago, When I beginne to think howe long, Againe I hear the Lindis flow, Swift as an arrowe, sharpe and strong; And all the aire it seemeth mee Bin full of floating bells (sayth shee), Alle fresh the level pasture lay, And not a shadowe mote be seene, Save where full fyve good miles away The steeple towered from out the greene: The swannerds where their sedges are Then some looked uppe into the sky, And where the lordly steeple shows. They sayde, "And why should this thing be, "For evil news from Mabelthorpe, I looked without, and, lo! my sonne (A sweeter woman ne'er drew breath "The olde sea-wall (he cried) is downe, Go sailing uppe the market-place." He shook as one that looks on death: "God save you, mother!" straight he saith; "Where is my wife, Elizabeth?” "Good sonne, where Lindis winds away With her two bairns I marked her long; And ere yon bells beganne to play Afar I heard her milking-song." With that he cried and beat his breast; |