'What is the end of study?' cried the setter forth of this new doctrine, as long before as when lore and love were debating it together in that 'little Academe' that was yet, indeed, to be 'the wonder of the world, still and contemplative in _living_ art.' 'What is the end of study?' cries already the voice of one pacing under these new olives. _That_ was the word of the new school; that was the word of new ages, and these new minds taught of nature--her priests and prophets knew it then, already, 'Let fame that all hunt after _in their lives_,' _they_ cry--
_Live_ registered upon our brazen _tombs_, And then _grace us in the disgrace of death_; When spite of cormorant devouring time, The endeavour of _this present breath_ may buy _That honour_ which shall bate his scythe's keen edge, And make us HEIRS of _all eternity_--[of ALL]. * * * * * _Navarre_ shall be the wonder of the world, Our Court shall be _a little Academe_, _Still and contemplative in_--LIVING _art_.
This is the Poet of the Woods who is beginning his 'recreations' for us here--the poet who loves so well to take his court gallants in their silks and velvets, and perfumes, and fine court ladies with all their courtly airs and graces, and all the stale conventionalitites that he is sick of, out from under the low roofs of princes into that great palace in which the Queen, whose service he is sworn to, keeps the State. This is the school-master who takes his school all out on holiday excursions into green fields, and woods, and treats them to country merry-makings, and not in sport merely. This is the one that breaks open the cloister, and the close walls that learning had dwelt in till then, and shuts up the musty books, and bids that old droning cease. This is the one that stretches the long drawn aisle and lifts the fretted vault into a grander temple. The Court with all its pomp and retinue, the school with all its pedantries and brazen ignorance, 'High Art' with its new graces, divinity, Mar-texts and all, must 'come hither, come hither,' and 'under the green-wood tree lie with me,' the ding-dong of this philosopher's new learning says, calling his new school together. This is the linguist that will find '_tongues_ in trees,' and crowd out from the halls of learning the lore of ancient parchments with their verdant classics, their 'truth in beauty dyed.' This is the teacher with whose new alphabet you can find 'sermons in stones, _books_ in the running brooks,' and good,--good--his '_good_' the good of the New School, that broader '_good_' in every _thing_. 'The roof of _this_ court is too high to be _yours_,' says the princess of this out-door scene to the sovereignty that claimed it then.