not on one occasion remark on seeing a chapel close an oatfield: 'Oats and Methodism! What better sym of poverty and meanness!' One remembers likewise persecuted Anglican cat at Llangollen and many of incidents. Even in Wild Wales,' however, Borrow p tribute to Methodism in the person of John Jones weaver, his trusty companion. But for a full exp tion of Borrow's views we must turn to 'Celtic Ba Chiefs and Kings.' He paints a vivid picture of decay of religion in England and Wales before appearance of Whitfield, Wesley, Howel Harris, & Daniel Rowlands. There was a general lack of vital too many dull sermons from the pulpit, and too m snoring in the pews. Borrow condemns the sho sightedness which drove pious men out of the fold, contrasts the superior wisdom of Rome in dealing w men like Francis Xavier and Loyola. He points the beneficial reaction of Methodism on the Church England and shows how it paved the way for such ins tutions as the Bible Society. But then he criticises it

'It is possible for well-intentioned people to go too and to be over-zealous. It is a capital thing to put do Sabbath-breaking, but it is not a capital thing to turn it in a day of gloom, of sighing and groaning and sour-face-maki It is a capital thing to check profane and obscene langua and barbarous exhibitions such as bull-baiting, cock-fighti and the like, but it is not a capital thing to persuade peop that a merry and jocund laugh is sinful, and that raci wrestling, cudgel-playing and using one's fists occasional will hurl people down to the nethermost pit. It is a capi thing to teach people to read the Bible, but it is not a capi thing to make them believe that all reading but Bible-readi is to be avoided.'

Like Ellis Wynn, Borrow was firmly attached to th Church of England. He loved it because it was equ distant from Rome and Geneva, and he claimed th of all Churches it was the best adapted to promote t glory of God. Borrow shook his head over the laxne of the clergy and the coarseness of the laity in th 18th century; but in some ways he thought more the Church then than in his own time. It seemed t him to possess more of the true Christian spirit an less of what was anathema to Borrow-snobbishnes

ronwy Owen, the curate of Oswestry, was not ashamed
welcome his poor brother Owen when he arrived hot
1 dusty after tramping it all the way from Anglesey ;
did not hesitate to obtain for him the post of parish
rk, anything but a dignified employment, and was not
barrassed by Owen's presence in this capacity when
himself was officiating. What is more, the congre-
tion saw no cause for scandal in such an arrange-
int. One can well understand how repugnant all false
ntility was to Borrow the vagabond, friend of the
psies, and lover of the open road, and how the con-
et of Goronwy would appeal to him. For similar
asons he praises Lewis Morris, who in his youth was
prenticed to a cooper and rose to be a landed pro-
ietor and inspector of the royal domains and mines
Wales. Yet Morris never denied his humble origin,
id only a few years before his death made a puncheon
commemorate his apprenticeship.

We have earlier remarked on similarities between
Drrow and Dr Johnson, and may add one more—the
Ossession of a robust common sense.
Borrow tells how

be

lorfudd eloped with Dafydd ap Gwilym, because she
und life dull with her old husband, and remarks
lagisterially that she could have found plenty to occupy
er, 'had she done her duty by endeavouring to make
poor man comfortable, and by visiting the sick and
eedy around her.' Beside this we may place another
phorism, A man is never thoroughly well off till he
as a good wife; never thoroughly ruined till he has a
ad one.' Borrow relates a story about Lord Whitney,
who being sent with a royal commission to arrest
riffith ap
Nicholas, had his commission stolen, and was
ompelled to don Griffith's livery and justify him in
ondon. However, Borrow refuses to believe it.

"That a gentleman, to say nothing of a nobleman, would, or the sake of life have consented to do anything of the ind is impossible. What would life have been worth after ubmitting to such ignominy? O, no! Had Griffith said “I'll ang you, unless you put on my coat and justify me," his ordship would have assuredly answered "Hang me and and had the Welshman ordered him to be executed rould have calmly submitted to his fate.'

He is equally sceptical about the superb festivals

given by Ryce of Tywyn, and laughs to scorn the inn merable hosts of guests equal to those of Asia, th twice twenty thousand beeves and deer, the world bread and the ocean of wine with which, according the bard Dafydd Nanmor, they were regaled. B Borrow goes on:

'We have no doubt that he entertained now and ther thousand people, in a mighty booth, with a superabunda of roasted beef, mutton and seethed kid, a tolerable quant of barley bread and griddled oat-cake, with cyder a metheglyn ad libitum, and that whatever wine or wh bread was at table he kept in his own immediate neighbo hood for his own use and that of a few select friends, amon whom was perhaps the bard.'

Another shrewd remark occurs in the account Borrow's conversation with the descendant of Goron Owen, the sexton at Oswestry. On hearing that t sexton's son had emigrated to America in the hope making his fortune, but, having been unsuccessful, w hunting after Goronwy Owen's estates, Borrow say 'He who can't make a fortune by a trade in Ameri will hardly make one by a pedigree.'

From what has been said it will be seen that thou in Celtic Bards, Chiefs and Kings,' Borrow, the lov of the open road, is less to the fore than in many of 1 other works, there are ample compensations. We ha admirable illustrations of his powers as a writer, ma passages being as graphic, vivid, and vigorous as t best of his writings; we see, perhaps more clearly th anywhere else, his erudition and his indefatigability the quest of curious information, and, lastly, the wo adds much to our knowledge of that singular agglo eration of imagination, sympathy, generous impul violent prejudice, and shrewd mother-wit-Geor Borrow.

HERBERT WRIGHT

(41)

Nietzsche's early essay 'The Birth of Tragedy' there some interesting remarks on the relationship ween the Greek experience of life and their epic a dramatic art.

'The Greeks,' he says, 'recognised and felt the horrors and elties of existence, and to make life endurable presented fore themselves the bright vision of the Olympian gods. . . . this way the Olympian gods justify human life, by living themselves. Existence under the bright sunshine of such ities was felt to be worth the effort, and the peculiar grief the Homeric hero is felt about the departure from life, pecially early departure.'

Though modern research may not accept entirely jetzsche's theory of the origin and development of e Olympian gods, we owe him an immense debt r having dispelled the beautiful mist, which for a ng time hid from us the real life of the Greeks, and rough which we imagined we saw them, filled with e love of beauty, admiring themselves and their surundings during a glorious and untroubled existence. he preface of Nietzsche's work is dated 1871, and in 91 8. H. Butcher's delightful essay on 'The Melancholy the Greeks' appeared in 'Some Aspects of the reek Genius,' tracing throughout the principal classical thors the recurrence of a melancholy note in their iticism of life. It is very probable that the author as acquainted with Nietzsche's Essay, but with the irit of moderation and love of harmony which his meration believed to be characteristic of the Greeks, he frained from treating this feeling as anything more assionate than melancholy. For Nietzsche it was the eret of the Greek genius: for Prof. Butcher it invested here calm forms of Greek art and life with a wistful arm. And quite recently a great German scholar, ermann Diels, has discussed the same material in an say on Der antike Pessimismus,' as a real and aportant factor in the Greek struggle for existence. Perhaps neither melancholy nor pessimism is a suitable ord to describe this peculiar attitude of the Greeks wards life. Such words suggest to us something

ineffectual in the conduct of practical life, and no who has any knowledge of Greek history or literat between 600-400 B.C. would dream of applying word 'ineffectual' to them. The small Oxford Diction defines pessimism as a tendency to look at the w aspect of things; doctrine that this world is the wo possible, or that all things tend to evil.' No tende or doctrine of this kind can be ascribed to such writ as Theognis or Pindar or Herodotus, who have gi the clearest expression in the most vigorous period Greek history to the bitterness of life. The words Theognis are well known; they were repeated by E pides and elaborated in a famous chorus of Sophoc last play.

'Not to be born is, past all prizing, best; but when a hath seen the light, this is next best by far, that with speed he should go thither whence he hath come. For w he hath seen youth go by, with its light follies, what suf ing is not therein ?-envy, factions, strife, battles, & slaughters; and, last of all, age claims him for her owndispraised, infirm, unsociable, unfriended, with whom all of woes abides' (Jebb).

It is a remorseless presentation of the sorrowful s of life. We cannot say that it is looking at the wo aspect of things; it is looking at one side of things a does not countenance the view that the Greeks saw o that side; it does not suggest that all things tend evil. It is rather a consideration of life as it actua appeared, with judgment passed on it after due reflexi The same dramatist has sung no less sincerely the and vigour of man's life in a chorus in the Antigo 'Wonders are many, and none is more wonderful th man... speech and wind-swift thought, and all moods that mould a state, hath he taught himse (Jebb). There is no thought here of admitting that t world is the worst possible; it is rather one which m has been able to improve immensely.

For the earlier period-the transition from the six to the fifth century-Theognis or the poems collect under his name is an invaluable aid in estimating t general Greek view of life on the mainland as oppos to the society of the Homeric age. He writes as a m