1870.] ^'^ [Stilie. 



sway. He was fond of the study of history, but its chief interest to 

 him, was as a record of the dealings of God with his creatures, and 

 of the influence of the Church as a divinely organized institution in 

 the world. His familiarity with ancient literature and ancient his- 

 tory never tempted him as it has done so many scholars in our day, to 

 make it the basis of a destructive criticism which would leave us no 

 Divine revelation, and no personal God. If he abstained, it was not 

 from indifference, nor from a fear of the consequences, but because 

 no man ever had a clearer intellectual perception than himself, of 

 the boundaries between the domain of faith and that of reason. 



The classical spirit with which Mr. Binney was imbued, formed 

 the basis of all his canons of taste and criticism. He had learned 

 at least one thing from the Greeks which so many are apt to forget, 

 and that was the value of simplicity and truth in style. He had 

 a great dislike for everything that was exaggerated, abnormal, or 

 simply pretentious. Like Plato, he sought the beautiful by striving 

 to find the true, and any picture in which truth and reality were sac- 

 rificed to effect failed to make the intended impression upon him. 

 He tliought that the ancient Poets and Dramatists pourtrayed most 

 truly human emotions and passions, because their descriptions were 

 at least consistent and natural, and because they did not present to 

 us as real human beings, those literary monsters of modern times, — 

 " the names linked with one virtue and a thousand crimes. " He had 

 the keenest perception of what was of real value, either in the form 

 or in the substance of the writings of others. He especially disliked 

 that mode of presenting or discussing a subject which was simply 

 rhetorical, passionate, or sensational. Such a style offended equally 

 his moral, and his aesthetic principles. It was not true because it was 

 one-sided, and there was no beauty to him in anything which was 

 not true. I have always regarded Mr. Binney as one of the best illus- 

 trations I have ever met with, of the practical value of classical stud- 

 ies, and I may mention here that during his long service as a Trustee 

 of the Protestant Episcopal Academy, — extending over a period of 

 nearly forty years, — and as a Trustee of the University, he was un- 

 ceasing in his efforts to uphold their dignity, and in insisting upon 

 their value in every scheme of liberal culture. ' 



' The following anecdote will illustrate Mr. Binney's familiarity with Greek style. 



Mr. Richard Henry Wilde, once a member of Congress from Georgia, and an accomplished scho- 

 lar, had written some beautiful verses beginning, "My life is lilje the summer rose, &c.," which 

 being published in the newspapers, became widely known- Some time after, Mr. Wilde was sur- 

 prised to find in a Georgia newspaper, a Greek Ode purporting to have been written by Alc^us, an 

 early Eolian poet of somewhat obscure fame, and It was claimed that Mr. Wilde's verses were simply 

 a translation of this Ode, the ideas in both being almost Identical. As Mr. Wilde had never heard 

 of Alcffius, he was much puzzled to account for this resemblance of the two poems. At the sug- 

 gestion of a friend, the Greek Ode was sent to Mr. Binney for examination and criticism. He at 

 once, much to the relief of Mr. Wilde, pronounced it a forgery, pointing out wherein its style dif- 

 fered from that of classical Greek. It turned out afterwards that the Ode in question had been 

 written by an Oxford scholar on a wager that no one in that University was sufficiently familiar 

 with the style of the early Greek poets, to detect the counterfeit. To carry out this scheme, he had 

 translated Mr. Wilde's verses into Greek. 



