ll knowledge to be my province." With any of his friends
who strayed into eccentric by-paths of inquiry he was sarcastic--almost
intolerant, in denouncing their selection. Why abandon the great
literature--the great sciences and the great arts--which the noblest and
strongest intellects in all ages have combined to enrich and bring to
perfection? Master all that has been done in these, in the first place,
and then you may be permitted to take your devious course. In all the
departments of study he seemed to pass over the intermediate agencies,
to contemplate with something like worship the great leading spirits
whose intellectual stature raised them far above the mob. So in
literature, it was in Homer and Shakspeare that he delighted. In the
sciences connected with the analysis and the uses of intellect, he
looked to Aristotle, Hume, and Kant. In the exact sciences, to Galileo,
Tycho Brache and Newton, and so on. In art, he could admit the merits of
a Teniers, an Ostade, or a Morland, in accurately rendering nature, as
he would admit the merit of an ingenious toy. He could not but wonder at
the turbulent power of Rubens, but he was bitter on the purpose these
gifts were put to, in developing unsightly masses of flesh, and motions
and attitudes wanting alike in beauty and dignity. It was in Michel
Angelo, Raphael, and Thorwaldsen, with a select group from those
approaching near to these in their characteristic qualities, that the
young student selected the gods of his idolatry.

This love of art was something new in Spalding's native district. There
all forms of learning were revered, and many a striving rustic devoted
the whole energies of his life to acquire the means of teaching his
fellow-men from the pulpit or the printing press. But art was nought
among them. Spalding was thoroughly attached to his native district, and
could well have said, "I love my fathers' northern land, where the dark
pine trees grow;" but when his thoughts ran on art, he would sometimes
bitterly call the north of Scotland a modern Boeo