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of the same kind, the peculiar merits of his " Centuries of Meditations."

In the character of Traherne the qualities of the poet, the mystic, and the saint are all to be found in a very high degree, if not indeed in their highest manifestations. And these qualities were all so happily combined in him that they make up together a perfect unity. He was not more a poet than a mystic, nor more a mystic than a saint; but each at all times, and never one rather than the other. To set out to prove this is not perhaps very necessary, since few or none who study attentively this and the former volume will be likely to question it; but I cannot resist the temptation of making some relative quotations from an author who, though utterly different as it may seem at first, from Traherne, had yet not a few qualities in common with him. The writer of " The City of Dreadful Night," though he did not and could not know anything of Traherne, has yet, in his essay called " Open Secret Societies," in describing the typical characteristics of the Poet, the Mystic, and the Saint, produced a living picture of our " splendid alien," as he has been called.

Let me quote first Thomson's description of the Poet :—

"There is the Open Secret Society of -the Poets.

These are they who feel that the universe is one mighty

harmony of beauty and joy ; and who are continually

listening to the rhythms and cadences of the eternal

music whose orchestra comprises all things from the

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