nouses. Beowulf, the great warrior, | land, the refuge of the wolf, near the offers to grapple with the fiend, and foe to foe contend for life, without the bearing of either sword or ample shield, for he has "learned also that the wretch for his cursed hide recketh not of weapons," asking only that if death takes him, they will bear forth his oloody corpse and bury it; mark his fen-dwelling, and send to Hygelác, his chief, the best of war-shrouds that guards his breast. windy promontories, where a mountain stream rusheth downwards under the darkness of the hills, a flood beneath the earth; the wood fast by its roots overshadoweth the water; there may one by night behold a marvel, fire upor the flood: the stepper over the heath, when wearied out by the hounds, sooner will give up his soul, his life upon the brink, than plunge therein to hide his head. Strange dragons and serpents swam there; "from time to time the horn sang a dirge, a terrible song." Beowulf plunged into the wave, de He is lying in the nall, "trusting in his proud strength; and when the mists of night arose, lo, Grendel comes, tears open the door," seized a sleeping war-scended, passed monsters who tore his tior: "he tore him unawares, he bit his body, he drank the blood from the veins, he swallowed him with continual tearings." But Beowulf seized him in turn, and “raised himself upon his elbow." coat of mail, to the ogress, the hateful manslayer, who, seizing him in her grasp, bore him off to her dwelling. A pale gleam shone brightly, and there, face to face, the good champion perceived "The lordly hall thundered, the ale was "the she-wolf of the aoyss, the mighty sea spilled both were enraged; savage and woman; he gave the war-onset with his battle strong warders; the house resounded; then bill; he held not back the swing of the sword, was it a great wonder that the wine-hall with- so that on her head the ring-mail sang aloud a stood the beasts of war, that it fell not upon greedy war-song. . . . The beam of war would the earth, the fair palace; but it was thus fast. not bite. Then caught the prince of the War... The noise arose, new enough; a fearful Geáts Grendel's mother by the shoulder. terror fell on the North Danes, on each of twisted the homicide, so that she bent upon the those who from the wall heard the outcry, the floor. She drew her knife broad, God's denier sing his dreadful lay, his song of brown-edged (and tried to pierce), the twisted defeat, lament his wound.* The foul breast-net which protected his life. Then wretch awaited the mortal wound; a mighty saw he among the weapons a bill fortunate in gash was evident upon his shoulder; the sinews victory, an old gigantic sword, doughty of edge, sprung asunder, the junctures of the bones ready for use, the work of giants. He seized burst; success in war was given to Beowulf. the belted hilt; the warrior of the Scyldings, Thence must Grendel fly sick unto death, fierce and savage whirled the ring-mail; de among the refuges of the fens, to seek his joy-spairing of life, he struck furiously, so that it less dwelling. He all the better knew that the end of his life, the number of his days was gone by."t For he had left on the ground, "hand, arm, and shoulder;" and "in the lake or Nicors, where he was driven, the rough wave was boiling with blood, the foul spring of waves all mingled, hot with poison; the dye, discolored with death, bubbled with warlike gore." There remained a female monster, his mother, who like him "was doomed to inhabit the terror of waters, the cold streams," who came by night, and amidst drawn swords tore and devoured another man, Eschere, the king's best friend. A lamentation arose in the palace, and Beowulf offered himself again. They went to the den, a hidden * Kemb's's Beowulf, xi. p. 3a. 2 [bid xii. p. 34. grappled hard with her about her neck; it broke the bone-rings, the bill passed through all the doomed body; she sank upon the floor; the sword was bloody, the man rejoiced in his deed; the beam shone, light stood within, even as from heaven mildly shines the lamp of the firmament." * Then he saw Grendel dead in a corner of the hall; and four of his companions, having with difficulty raised the mon strous head, bore it by the hair to the palace of the king. That was his first labor; and the rest of his life was similar. When he had reigned fifty years on earth, a dragon, who had been robbed of his treasure, came from the hill and burn ed men and houses "with waves of fire." "Then did the refuge of earls command to make for him a variegated shield, all of iron: he knew well enough * Beowulf, xxii. xxiii. p. 6a et passim. that a shield of wood could not help ments and wires. . . . Then the king, farewell to his household comrades. This is thorough and real gener sity, not exaggerated and pretended, is it will be later on in the romantic i aginations of babbling clerics, mere posers of adventure. Fiction as yet is not far removed from fact: the mar breathes manifest beneath the aero. Rude as the poetry is, its hero is g and; he is so, simply by his deeds. Fai hful, first to his prince, then to his people, he went alone, in a strange lar 1, to venture himself for the delivery of his fellow-men; he forgets himself in ‹eath, while thinking only that it profits o' hers, "Each one of us," he says in one place, I, the old guardian of my people, life." Let, therefore, each do ju tice, "must abide the end of his present seek a feud." He "let words proceed from his breast," the dragon came, if he can, before his death. Con pare vomiting fire; the blade it not his with him the monsters who he body, and the king "suffered painfully, destroys, the last traditions of the involved in fire." His comrades had ancient wars against inferior races and "turned to the wood, to save their of the primitive religion; think of his lives," all save Wiglaf, who "went life of danger, nights upon the w..ves through the fatal smoke," knowing man grappling with the brute creation well that it was not the old custom" man's indomitable will crushing the to abandon relation and prince, "that breasts of beasts; man's powerful he alone... shall suffer distress, muscles which, when exerted, tea the shall sink in battle." "The worm came flesh of the monsters: you will see furious, the foul insidious stranger, va- reappear through the mist of legends, riegated with waves of fire, hot and under the light of poetry, the valand warlike fierce, he clutched the iant men who, amid the madness of war whole neck with bitter banes; he was and the raging of their own mood, bebloodied with life-gore, the blood boil-gan to settle a people and to found a ed in waves."* They, with their swords, carved the worm in the midst. Yet the wound of the king became burning and swelled; "he soon discovered that poison boiled in his breast within, and sat by the wall upon a stone; "he looked upon the work of giants, how the eternal cavern held within stone arches fast upon pillars." Then he said state. V. One poem nearly whole and two or this lay-poetry of England. The rest three fragments are all that remain of of the pagan current, German and barbarian, was arrested or overwhelmed, first by the influx of the Christian religion, then by the conquest of the But what remains Norman-French. more than suffices to show the strange and powerful poetic genius of the race, and to exhibit beforehand the flower in the bud. If there has ever been anywhere a deep and serious poetic sentiment, it is here. They do not speak, they sing, * Beowulf, xxxvii. xxxviii. p. 110 et passim. I have throughout always used the very words of Kemble's translation.-TR. or rather they shout. Each little verse hind; the raven to joy, the dismal kite, and the black raven wh horned beak, and the the white flesh; the greedy battle-hawk, and hoarse toad; the eagle, afterwards to feast on the grey beast, the wolf in the wood."✦ excitement. Here all is imagery. In their impassioned minds events are not bad, with the dry propriety of an exact desound, shape, coloring; it is almost a scription; each fits in with its pomp of vision which is raised, complete, with its accompanying emotions, joy, fury, In their speech, arrows bows of horn;" ships are are the serpents of Hel, shot from great seasteeds," the sea is "a chalice of waves," the helmet is "the castle of the head: " they need an extraordinary speech to express their vehement sensations, so that after a time, in Iceland, where this kind of poetry was carried on to excess, the earlier inspiration failed, art replaced nature, the Skalds were reduced to a distorted and obscure jargon. But whatever be the imagery, here as in Iceland, though unique, it is fied their inner emotion if it is only extoo feeble. The poets have not satispressed by a single word Time after time they return to and repeat their idea. "The sun on high, the great star, God's brilliant candle, the noble creature!" Four times successively they employ the same thought, and each time under a new aspect. All its different aspects rise simultaneously before the barbarian's eyes, and each word was like a fit of the semi-hallucina This is the song on Athelstan's vic- tion which possessed him. Verily, in tory at Brunanburh: "The army goes forth: the birds sing, the cricket chirps, the war-weapons sound, the lance clangs against the shield. Now shineth the moon, wandering under the sky. Now arise deeds of woe, which the enmity of this people prepares to do. . . . Then in the court came the tumult of war-carnage. They seized with their hands the hollow wood of the shield. They smote through the bones of the head. The roofs of the castle resounded, until Garulf fell in battle, the first of earth-dwelling men, son of Guthlaf. Aorund him lay many brave men dying. The raven whirled about, dark and sombre, like a willow leaf. There was a sparkling of blades, as if all Finsburg were on fire. Never have I heard of a more worthy battle in war.” * such a condition, the regularity of speech and of ideas is disturbed at "Here Athelstan king, of ears the lord, the giver of the bracelets of the nobles, and his in the visionary is not the same as in a The succession of thought every turn. brother also, Edmund the ætheling, the Elder a lasting glory won by slaughter in battle, with reasoning mind. One color induces the edges of swords, at Brunanburh. The wall another; from sound he passes to of shields they cleave, they hewed the noble sound; his imagination is like a diorama banners: with the rest of the family, the children of Edward. Pursuing, they destroyed of unexplained pictures. His phrases the Scottish people and the ship-fleet... The recur and change: he emits the word field was colored with the warrior's blood! that comes to his lips without hesita After that the sun on high, ..the greatest tion; he leaps over wide intervals from star! glided over the earth, God's candle bright! till the noble creature hastened to her idea to idea. The more his mind is setting. There lay soldiers many with darts transported, the quicker and wider the struck down, Northern men over their shields intervals traversed. With one spring shot. So were the Scots; weary of ruddy he visits the poles of his horizon, and touches in one moment objects which seemed to have the world betwear battle.... The screamers of war they left be * Conybeare's Illustrations of Anglo-Saxon Poetry, 1826, Battle of Finsborough, p. 175. The complete collection of Anglo-Saxon poetry has been ablished by M. Grein. *Turner, Hist. of Anglo-Saxons, iii, boa 9, ch. i. p. 345 VI. them. His ideas are entangled with- | exhibit it intact and original, in spite of out order; without notice, abruptly, and at the expense of all order and the poet will return to the idea he has beauty,-such are the characteristics quitted, and insert it in the thought to of their poetry, and these also will be which he is giving expression. It is the characteristics of the poetry which impossible to translate these incon- is to follow. gruous ideas, which quite disconcert our modern style. At times they are unintelligible.* Articles, particles, every thing capable of illuminating thought, of marking the connection of terms, of producing regularity of ideas, all rational and logical artifices, are aeglected. Passion bellows forth like a great shapeless beast; and that is all. It rises and starts in little abrupt lines; it is the acme of barbarism. Homer's happy poetry is copiously developed, in full narrative, with rich and extended imagery. All the details of a complete picture are not too much for him; he loves to look at things, he lingers over them, rejoices in their beauty, dresses them in splendid words; he is like the Greek girls, who thought themselves ugly if they did not bedeck arms and shoulders with all the gold coins from their purse, and all the treasures from their caskets; his long verses flow by with their cadences, and spread out like a purple robe under an Ionian sun. Here the clumsy-fingered poet crowds and clashes his ideas in a narrow measure; if measure there be, he barely observes it; all his ornament is three words beginning with the same letter. His chief care is to abridge, to imprison thought in a kind of mutilated cry. The force of the internal impression, which, not knowing how to unfold itself, becomes condensed and doubled by accumulation; the harshness of the outward expression, which, subservient to the energy and shocks of the inner sentiment, seeks only to The cleverest Anglo-Saxoa scholars, Turaer, Cybeare, Thorpe, recognize this diffizalby. Turner, iii. 231, et passim. The translations in French, however literal, do injustice to the text; that language is too clear, too logical. No Frenchman can understand this extraordinary phase of intellect, except by taking a dictionary, and deciphering some pages of AngloSaxon for a fortnight. Turner remarks that the same idea expressed by King Alfred, in prose and then in verse, takes in the first case seven words, in the second five.-History of the Anglo-Saxons, Hi. 235. A race so constituted was predisposed to Christianity, by its gloom, its aver sion to sensual and reckless living, its inclination for the serious and sublime When their sedentary habits had reconciled their souls to a long period of ease, and weakened the fury which fed their sanguinary religion, they readily inclined to a new faith. The vague adoration of the great powers of nature, which eternally fight for mutual destruction, and, when destroyed, rise up again to the combat, had long since disappeared in the dim distance. Society, on its formation, introduced the idea of peace and the need for justice, and the war-gods faded from the minds of men, with the passions which had created them. A century and a half after the invasion by the Saxons,* Roman missionaries, bearing a silver cross with a picture of Christ, came in procession chanting a litany. Presently the high priest of the Northumbrians declared in presence of the nobles that the old gods were powerless, and confessed that formerly "he knew nothing of that which he adored; and he among the first, lance in hand, assisted to demolish their temple. chief rose in the assembly, and said: Then a Then "You remember, it may be, O king, that which sometimes happens in winter when you are seated at table with your earls and thanes. Your fire is lighted, and you all warmed, and without is rain and snow and storm. comes a swallow flying across the hall; he enters by one door, and leaves by another. The brief moment while he is within is pleasant to him; he feels not rain nor cheerless winter weather; but the moment is brief-the bird flies away in the twinkling of an eye, and he passes from winter to winter. Such, methinks, is the life of man on earth, compared with the uncertain time beyond. It appears for awhile, but what is the time which comes after-the time which was before? We know not. If, then, this new doctrine may teach us somewhat of greater certainty, it were well that we should regard it." *596-625. Aug. Thierry, i. 81; Beda, xii. a. came into his head: "Now we ough to praise the Lord of heaven, the powe. of the Creator, and His skill, the deeds of the Father of glory; how He, being eternal God, is the author of all marvels; who, almighty guardian of the human race, created first for the sons of men the heavens as the roof of their dwelling, and then the earth." Re This restlessness, this feeling of the infinite and dark beyond, this sober, melancholy eloquence, were the harbingers of spiritual life.* We find nothing like it amongst the nations of the south, naturally pagan, and preoccupied with the present life. These utter barbarians embrace Christianity straightway, through sheer force of mood and clime. To no purpose aremembering this when he woke,* he they brutal, heavy, shackled by infanine superstitions, capable, like King Canute, of buying for a hundred golden talents the arm of Augustine. They possess the idea of God. This grand God of the Bible, omnipotent and unique, who disappears almost entirely in the middle ages,t obscured by His court and His family, endures amongst them in spite of absurd or grotesque legends. They do not blot Him out under pious romances, by the elevation of the saints, or under femirine caresses, to benefit the infant Jesus and the Virgin. Their grandeur and their severity raise them to His high level; they are not tempted, like artistic and talkative nations, to replace religion by a fair and agreeable narrative. More than any race in Europe, they approach, by the simplicity and energy of their conceptions, the old Hebraic spirit. Enthusiasm is their natural condition; and their new Deity fills them with admiration, as their ancient deities inspired them with fury. They have hymns, genuine odes, which are but a concrete of exclamations. They have no development; they are incapable of restraining or explaining their passion; it bursts forth, in raptures, at the vision of the Almighty The heart alone speaks here-a strong, bart arous heart. Cædmon, their old poet, says Bede, was a more ignorant man than the others, who knew no poetry; so that in the hall, when they handed him the harp, he was obliged to withdraw, being unable to sing like his companions. Once, keeping nightwatch over the stable, he fell asleep. A stranger appeared to him, and asked him to sing something, and these words Jouffroy, Problem of Human Destiny. Didron, Histoire de Dieu. About 630. See Codex Exoniensis, Thorps. came to the town, and they brought He |