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The name of yon town with its Roman or Saxon suffix to British root hints at much. Many a strong man, wanting his vates sacer, passed silently to Hades for that suffix to obtain.
But I could not do this if I did not sometimes throw out a spark or two myself. Not only would Agamemnon be nothing without the vates sacer but there are always at least ten good heroes to one good chronicler, just as there are ten good authors to one good publisher. Bravery, wit and poetry abound in every village. Look at Mrs. Quickly and its Tom Jones.
But now, I say, whoever may forget this divine mystery, the Vates, whether Prophet or Poet, has penetrated into it; is a man sent hither to make it more impressively known to us. That always is his message; he is to reveal that to us, that sacred mystery which he more than others lives ever present with.
It shows how, by firmness of principle and a high respect of the public and himself, a man of undoubted genius has been enabled to raise himself to a position in the English-speaking worlds to which few men of letters have ever attained a position which may be compared to that of a vates amongst the Romans, of a prophet in Israel.
Turning over his papers he came across the old monk's song to David: "Surge meo domno dulces fac, fistula versus: David amat versus, surge fac fistula versus, David amat vates vatorum est gloria David...."
Was the sole difference between them, that the vates sacer who had sung the exploits of Reineke loved the wicked rascal, and entangled us in loving him? It was a question to be asked. And yet we had faith enough in the straight-forwardness of our own sympathies to feel sure that it must admit of some sort of answer.
He is still reckoned a grand hero of the North, though his vates now is only Snorro Sturleson of Iceland. Tryggveson had indeed many adventures in the world. His poor mother, Astrid, was obliged to fly, on murder of her husband by Gunhild, to fly for life, three months before he, her little Olaf, was born.
I have told elsewhere the whimsical story of Hake and Rossetti, of Rossetti’s delightful account of his reading as a boy, in a coffee-house in Chancery Lane, Hake’s remarkable romance ‘Vates,’ afterwards called ‘Valdarno,’ in a magazine; his writing a letter about it to the unknown author, and getting no reply until many years had passed.
Some disparaging thoughts upon our own generation could hardly fail to present themselves; but it is perhaps only the SACER VATES who is wanting; and we also, painted by such a man as Carolus Duran, may look in holiday immortality upon our children and grandchildren. Raeburn's young women, to be frank, are by no means of the same order of merit.
See deep enough, and you see musically; the heart of Nature being everywhere music, if you can only reach it. The Vates Poet, with his melodious Apocalypse of Nature, seems to hold a poor rank among us, in comparison with the Vates Prophet; his function, and our esteem of him for his function, alike slight.
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