Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 34, August, 1860

d chivalry had no such dignity in their task. The solemnities of thought and life were cared for and hedged about by the Church as its own peculiar treasure, and to them there remained only the lighter office of amusing. The age was eminently religious, but the poet could not aid in erecting and adorning its temples. Every fair work of art must have a central idea; but the proper principle of unity for all grand artistic efforts not being within the reach of authors, it followed that their productions were not symmetrical, did not have an even outline nor cosmical meaning, did not consist of balanced parts, were poorly framed and articulated, and were charming only by their flavor, and not by their form. The cultured intellect will not seriously work short of a final principle; and if a materialized religion, an ecclesiastical structure, be firmly planted on the earth by the same hand that established the universe and tapestried it with morning and evening, and if its gates and archways, its altar, columns, a