praise. To the sound of the trumpet the harp returns its own vibrating
response--alike, but how different! The religious song of the country, I
say again, is a growth, rooted deep in all its story.

Besides the fact that the lyric chiefly will rouse the devotional
feeling, there is another reason why I should principally use it: I wish
to make my book valuable in its parts as in itself. The value of a thing
depends in large measure upon its unity, its wholeness. In a work of
these limits, that form of verse alone can be available for its unity
which is like the song of the bird--a warble and then a stillness.
However valuable an extract may be--and I shall not quite eschew such--an
entire lyric, I had almost said _however inferior_, if worthy of a place
at all, is of greater value, especially if regarded in relation to the
form of setting with which I hope to surround it.

There is a sense in which I may, without presumption, adopt the name of
Choragus, or leader of the chorus, in relation to these singers: I must
take upon me to order who shall sing, when he shall sing, and which of
his songs he shall sing. But I would rather assume the office of master
of the hearing, for my aim shall be to cause the song to be truly heard;
to set forth worthy points in form, in matter, and in relation; to say
with regard to the singer himself, his time, its modes, its beliefs, such
things as may help to set the song in its true light--its relation,
namely, to the source whence it sprung, which alone can secure its right
reception by the heart of the hearer. For my chief aim will be the heart;
seeing that, although there is no dividing of the one from the other, the
heart can do far more for the intellect than the intellect can do for the
heart.

We must not now attempt to hear the singers of times so old that their