These truths are _admitted_ in
all ages; yet it is scarcely stretching language to say that they
are _known_ to but few men. Or at least, though in a great nation
there be many who will act on them instinctively, and approve them
by a self-surrendering faith, there are few who can so put them
forth in speech as to bring them home with a fresh conviction and an
added glow; who can sum up, like AEschylus, the contrast between
Hellenic freedom and barbarian despotism in "one trump's peal that
set all Greeks aflame;" can thrill, like Virgil, a world-wide empire
with the recital of the august simplicities of early Rome.
To those who would know these things with a vital knowledge--a
conviction which would remain unshaken were the whole world in arms
for wrong--it is before all things necessary to strengthen the inner
monitions by the companionship of these noble souls. And If a poet,
by strong concentration of thought, by striving in all things along
the upward way, can leave us in a few pages as it were a summary of
patriotism, a manual of national honour, he surely has his place
among his country's benefactors not only by that kind of courtesy
which the nation extends to men of letters of whom her masses take
little heed, but with a title as assured as any warrior or statesman,
and with no less direct a claim.
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