Christianity, which seems at the same time to have sprung from the blackest depths of the Edda. The brief metre sounds abruptly, with measured stroke, like the passing bell. It is as if we hear the duli resounding responses which roll through the church, while the rain beats on the dim glass, and the broken clouds sail mournfully in the sky; and our eyes, glued to the pale face of a dead man, feel beforehand the norror of the damp grave into which the living are about to cast him. "For thee was a house built ere thou wert born; for thee was a mould shapen ere thou of thy mother camest. Its height is not determined, nor its depth measured; nor is it closed ap (however long it may be) until I thee bring where thou shalt remain; until I shall measure thee and the sod of the earth. Thy house is not highly built; it is unhigh and low. When thou art in it, the heel-ways are low, the sideways unhigh. The roof is built thy breast full aigh; so thou shalt in earth dwell full cold, dim, and dark. Doorless is that house, and dark it is within. There thou art fast detained, and Death holds the key. Loathly is that earth-house, and grim to dwell in. There thou shalt dwell, and worms shall share thee. Thus hou art laid, and leavest thy friends. Thou hast no friend that will come to thee, who will ever inquire how that house liketh thee, who shall ever open for thee the door, and seek thee, for soon thou becomest loathly and hateful to look upon."* Has Jeremy Taylor a more gloomy picture? The two religious poetries, Christian and pagan, are so like, that one might mingle their incongruities, images, and legends. In Beowulf, altogether pagan, the Deity appears as Odin, more mighty and serene, and differs from the other only as a peaceful Bretwalda † differs from an adventurous and heroic bandit-chief. The Scandinavian monsters, Jötuns, enemies of the Æsir,t have not vanished; but they descend from Cain, and the giants drowned by the flood. Their new hel is nearly the ancient Nastrand, Conybeare's Illustrations, p. 271. ↑ Bretwalda was a species of war-king, or temporary and elective chief of all the Saxons. --T'R. The Æsir (sing. As) are the gods of the Scandinavian nations, of whom Odin was the chief.-TR. § Kemble, i. i. xii. In this chapter he has collected many features which show the endurance of the ancient mythology. Nástrand is the strand or shore of the a dwelling deadly cold, full of bloody eagles and pale adders;' " and the dreadful last day of judgment, when all will crumble into dust, and make way for a purer world, resembles the final destruction of Edda, that “twilight of the gods," which will end in a victorious regeneration, an everlasting joy "under a fairer sun." By this natural conformity they were able to make their religious poems indeed poems. Power in spiritual productions arises only from the sincerity of personal and original sentiment. If they can relate religious tragedies, it is because their soul was tragic, and in a degree biblical. They introduce into their verses, like the old prophets of Israel, their fierce vehe mence, their murderous hatreds, their fanaticism, all the shudderings of their flesh and blood.) One of them, whose poem is mutilated, has related the history of Judith-with what inspiration we shall see. It needed a barbarian to display in such strong light excesses, tumult, murder, vengeance and combat. "Then was Holofernes exhilarated with shouted, he roared and dinned. Then might wine; in the halls of his guests he laughed and the children of men afar off hear how the stern one stormed and clamored, animated and elated with wine. He admonished amply that they should bear it well to those sitting on the bench. So was the wicked one over all the day, the lord and his men, drunk with wine, the stern dispenser of wealth; till that they swimming lay over drunk, all his nobility, as they were death-slain."* "She took the heathen man fast by his hair; she drew him by his limbs towards her disgracefully; and the mischief-ful odious man at her pleasure laid; so as the wretch she might the easiest well command. She with the twisted locks struck the hateful enemy, meditating hate, with the red sword, till she had half cut off his neck; so that he lay in a swoon, drunk and mortally wounded. He was not then dead, not entirely lifeless. She struck then earnest the woman illustrious in strength, another time the heathen hound, till that his head rolled forth upon the floor. The foul one lay withou a coffer; backwand is spirit turned under the *Turner, Hist. of Anglo-Saxons, iii. book a, ch. 3, p. 271. abyss, and there was plunged below, with sulphur fastened; forever afterwards wounded by worms. Bound in torments, hard imprisoned, in hell he burns. After his course he need not hope, with darkness overwhelmed, that he may escape from that mansion of worms; but there he shall remain; ever and ever, without end, henceforth in that cavern-house, void of the joys of hope."* Has any one ever heard a sterner accent of satisfied hate? When Clovis listened to the Passion play, he cried, "Why was I not there with my Franks!" So here the old warrior instinct swelled into flame over the Hebrew wars. turned, waves, between two ridges foam now casting over the water its enor mous shadow, black and high like castle, " now enclosing in its cavernous sides" the endless swarm of caged beasts. Like the others, he wrestles with god in his heart; triumphs like a warrior over destruction and victory and in relating the death of Pharaoh, can hardly speak from anger, or see because the blood mounts to his eyes : "The folk was affrighted, the flood-dred seized on their sad souls; ocean wailed with death, the mountain heights were with blood As soon as Judith re-besteamed, the sea foamed gore, crying was in "Men under helms (went out) from the holy city at the dawn itself. They dinned shields; men roared loudly. At this rejoiced the lank wolf in the wood, and the wan raven, the fowl greedy of slaughter, both from the west, that the sons of men for them should have thought to prepare their fill on corpses. And to them flew in their paths the active devourer, the eagle, hoary in his feathers. The willowed kite, with his horned beak, sang the song of Hilda. The noble warriors proceeded, they in mail, to the battle, furnished with shields, with swelling banners.... They then speedily let fly forth showers of arrows, the serpents of Hilda, from their horn bows; the spears on the ground hard stormed. Loud raged the plunderers of battle; they sent their darts into the throng of the chiefs.... They that awhile before the reproach of the foreigners, the taunts of the heathen endured." t Amongst all these unknown poets there is one whose name we know, Cadmon, perhaps the old Cædmon who wrote the first hymn; like him, at all events, who, paraphrasing the Bible with a barbarian's vigor and sublimity, has shown the grandeur and fury of the sentiment with which the men of these times entered into their new religion. He also sings when he speaks; when he mentions the ark, it is with a profusion of poetic the floating house, the greatest of floating chambers, the wooden forress, the moving roof, the cavern the great sea chest," and many more. Every time he thinks of it, he sees it with his mind, like a quick luminous vision, and each time under a new aspect, now undulating on the muddy names, *Turner, Hist. of Anglo-Saxons, iii. book , ch. 3, p. 272. + Id. p. 274. the waves, the water full of weapons, a deathmist rose; the Egyptians were turned back; trembling they fled, they felt fear; would that host gladly find their homes; their vaunt grew sadder: against them, as a cloud, rose the fell rolling of the waves; there came not any of that host to home, but from behind inclosed them fate with the wave. Where ways ere lay sea raged. Their might was merged, the streams stood, the storm rose high to heaven; the loudest army-cry the hostile uttered; the air above was thickened with dying voices. Ocean raged, drew itself up on high, the storm. rose, the corpses rolled."* Is the song of the Exodus more abrupt, more vehement, or more Savage? These men can speak of the creation like the Bible, because they speak of destruction like the Bible. They have only to look into their own hearts, in order to discover an emotion sufficiently strong to raise their souls to the height of their Creator. This emotion existed already in their pagan legends; and Cædmon, in order to recount the origin things, has only to turn to the ancient dreams. such as have been preserved in the prophecies of the Edda. "There had not here as yet, save cavernshade, aught been; but this wide abyss stood deep and dim, strange to its Lord, idle and use firm of mind, and beheld those places void of less; on which looked with his eyes the King joys; saw the dark cloud lower in eternal night, swart under heaven, dark and waste, until this worldly creation through the word existed o the Glory-King.. The earth as yet was not green with grass; ocean cover'd, swart in eter nal night, far and wide the dusky ways.' ."t ... In this manner will Milton hereafter speak, the descendant of the Hebrew *Thorpe, Cadmon, 1832, xlvii. p. 206. 1 Grein, Bibliothek der Angelsæchsischen | iṣts be ween this song and corresponding or poesic. tions of the Edda. seers, iast of the Scandinavian seers, but assisted in the development of his thought by all the resources of Latin culture and civilization. And vet he will add nothing to the primtive sentiment. Religious instinct is not acquired; it belongs to the blood, and is inherited with it. So it is with other instincts; pride in the first place. .ndomitable self-conscious energy, which sets man in opposition to all domination, and inures him against all pain. Milton's Satan exists already in Cadmon's, as the picture exists in the sketch; because both have their model in the race; and Cædmon found his originals in the northern warriors, as Milton did in the Puritans: every thing, vengeance is eft; and if the conquered can enjoy this, he will find himself happy he will sleep softly, even under his chains." VII Here the foreign culture ceased. Be yond Christianity it could not graft upon this barbarous stock any fruitful of living branch. All the circumstances which elsewhere mellowed the wild sip failed here. The Saxons found Britain abandoned by the Romans they had not yielded, like their brothers on the Continent, to the ascendency of a superior civilization; they had not become mingled with the inhabitants of the land; they had always treated them like enemies or slaves, pursuing like "Why shall I for his favor serve, bend to him in such vassalage? I may be a god as he. Wolves those who escaped to the mounStand by me, strong associates, who will not tains of the west, treating like beasts of fail me in the strife. Heroes stern of mood, burden those whom they had conquerhey have chosen me for chief, renowned war-ed with the land. While the Germans riors! with such may one devise counsel, with such capture his adherents; they are my zealous friends, faithful in their thoughts; I may be their chieftain, sway in this realm; thus to me it seemeth not right that I in aught need cringe to God for any good; I will no longer He is overcome: shall he be sub-years after the Saxon invasion, the in dued? He is cast into the place "where torment they suffer, burning heat intense, in midst of hell, fire and broad flames: so also the bitter seeks smoke and darkness; " will he repent? At first he is astonished, despairs; but it is a hero's despair. be his vassal."✶ Oh, "This narrow place is most unlike that other that we ere knew, high in heaven's kingdom, which my master bestow'd on me. . . . had I power of my hands, and might one season be without, be one winter's space, then with this host I-But around me lie iron bonds, presseth this cord of chain: I am powerless! me have so hard the claps of hell, so firmly grasped! Here is a vast fire above and underneath, never did I see a loathlier landskip; the flame abateth not, hot over hell. Me hath the clasping of these rings, this hard-polish'd band, impeded in my course, debarr'd me from my way; my feet are bound, my hands manacled, so that with aught I cannot from these amb-bonds escape." + As there is nothing to be done against God, it is IIis new creature, man, whom he must attack. To him who has lost Thorpe, Cadmon, iv. p. 18. †This is Milton's opening also. (See Paradise Lost, Book i. verse 242, etc.) One would think that he must have had some knowledge of Cadmon from the translation of Junius. 1 Thorpe, Cadmon, iv. p. 23. of Gaul, Italy, and Spain became Romans, the Saxons retained their language, their genius and manners, and created in Britain a Germany out side of Germany. A hundred and fifty of security attained by a society inclintroduction of Christianity and the dawr. ing to peace, gave birth to a kind of literature; and we meet with the vener able Bede, and later on, Alcuin, John Scotus Erigena, and some others, commentators, translators, teachers of barbarians, who tried not to originate but to compile, to pick out and explain from the great Greek and Latin encythe men of their time. But the wars clopædia something which might suit with the Danes came and crushed this humble plant, which, if left to itself, would have come to nothing. When Alfred † the Deliverer became king, "there were very few ecclesiastics," he on this side of the Humber, who could understand in English their own says, Latin prayers, or translate any Lativ writing into English. On the other side 66 * They themselves feel their impotence and decrepitude. Bede, dividing the history of the stretches from the return out of Babylon to the world into six periods, says that the fifth, which birth of Christ, is the senile period; the sixth is the present, ætas decrepita, totius morta saculi consummanda. + Died in go; Adhelm died 709, Bede died 735, Alcuin lived under Charlemagne, Erigens under Charles the Bald (843-877). pretentious, laored, elegant, crowded with classical allusions of a refined and compact style worthy of Seneca, become an artless, long drawn out and yet desultory prose, like a nurse's fairy tale, explaining every thing, recommencing and breaking off its phrases, making ten turns about a single detail; so low was it necessar to stoop to the level of this new intelii gence, which had never thought or known any thing. Here follows the latin of Boethius, so affected, so pretty, with the English translation affixed: of the Humber I think there were | what Book 111. Metre 2. "It happened formerly that there was a harper in the country called Thrace, which was in Greece. The harper was inconceivably good. His name was Orpheus. He had a very excellent wife, called Eurydice. Ther began men to say concerning the harper, that he could harp so that the wood moved and the stones stirred themselves at the sound, and wild beasts would run thereto, and stand as if they were tame; so still, that though men or hounds pursued them, they shunned them not. Then said they, that the harper's wife should die, and her soul should be led to hell. Then should the harper become so sorrowful that he could not remair. ong the men, but frequented the wood, and sat on the mountains, both day and night, weaping and harping, so that the woods shock, and the rivers stood still, and no hart shunned any lion, nor hare any hound; nor did cattle know any hatred, or any fear of others, for the pleasure of the sound. Then it seemed to the harper that nothing in this world pleased him. Then thought he that he would seek the gods of hell, and endeavor to allure them with his harp, and pray that they would give him back his wife. When he came thither, then should there come towards him the dog of hell, whose name was Cerberus,he should have three heads,-and began to wag his tail, and play with him for his harping. Then was there also a very horrible gatekeeper, whose name should be Charon. He had also three heads, and he was very old. Then began the harper to beseech him that he would protect him while he was there, and bring him thence again safe. Then did he promise tha to him, because he was desirous of the unac customed sound. Then went he farther until he met the fierce goddesses, whom the common people call Parcæ, of whom they say, that they know no respect for any man, but punish every man according to his deeds; and of whom they say, that they control every man's fortune. Then began he to implore their mercy. Then Degan they to weep with him. Then went he farther, and all the inhabitants of hell ran to wards him, and led him to their king: and ali began to speak with him, and to pray that which he prayed. And the restless wheel which Ixion the king of the Lapithæ, was bound to for his guilt, that stood still for his harping. And Tantalus the king, who in this world was im moderately greedy, and whom that same vice of greediness followed there, he became quiet. And the vulture should cease, so that he tore woman. not the liver of Tityus the king, which before therewith tormented him. And all the punishments of the inhabitants of hell were suspended, whilst he harped before the king. When he long and long had harped, then spoke the king of the inhabitants of hell, and said, Let us give the man his wife, for he has earned her by his harping. He then commanded him that he should well observe that he never looked back uards after he departed thence; and said, if he looked backwards, that he should lose the But men can with great difficulty, if at all, restrain love! Wellaway! What! Orpheus then led his wife with him till he came to the boundary of light and darkness. Then ver his wife after him. When he came forth In the light, then looked he behind his back towards the woman. Then was she immediately lost to him. This fable teaches every man who desires to fly the darkness of hell, and to come to the light of the true good, that he look not about him to his old vices, so that he practice them again as fully as he did before. For whosoever with full will turns his mind to the vices which he had before forsaken, and practices them, and they then fully please him, and he never thinks of forsaking them; then loses he all his former good unless he again amend it."* A man speaks thus when he wishes to impress upon the mind of his hear wide their big stupid eyes and faller asleep. For the whole talent of an uncultivated mind lies in the force and one ness of its sensations. Beyond that it is powerless. The art of thinking ana reasoning lies above it. These men lost all genius when they lost their fever-heat. They lisped awkwardly and heavily dry chronicles, a sort of histor. ical almanacs. You might think them peasants, who, returning from the toil, came and scribbled with chalk or a smoky table the date of a year of scarcity, the price of corn, the changes in the weather, a death. Even so, side by side with the meagre Bible chron. icles, which set down the successions of kings, and of Jewish massacres, are exhibited the exaltation of the psalms and the transports of prophecy. The same lyric poet can be alternately a brute and a genius, because his genius comes and goes like a disease, and instead of having it he simply is ruled by it. "614. This year Cynegils and Cnichelm fought at Bampton, and slew two thousand and forty-six of the Welsh. August, and shone every morning during three "678. This year appeared the comet-star in months like a sunbeam. Bishop Wilfrid being driven from his bishopric by King Everth, two bishops were consecrated in his stead. Ethelwulf, six nights before the mass of All 901. This year died Alfred, the son of Saints. He was king over all the English nation, except that part that was under the power of the Danes. He held the government one year and a half less than thirty winters; and then Edward his son took to the government. 902. This year there was the great fight at the Holme, between the men of Kent and the Danes. ers an idea which is not clear to them. Boethius had for his audience senators, "A. D. 611. This year Cynegils succeeded men of culture, who understood as well to the government in Wessex, and held it oneas we the slightest mythological allu-and-thirty winters. Cynegils was the son of sion. Alfred is obliged to take them Ceol, Ceol of Cutha, Cutha of Cynric. up and develop them, like a father or a master, who draws his little boy between his knees, and relates to him names, qualities, crimes and their punishments, which the Latin only hints at. But the ignorance is such that the teacher himself needs correction. He takes the Parcæ for the Erinyes, and gives Charon three heads like Cerberus. There is no adornment in his version; no delicacy as in the original. Alfred has hard work to make himself understood. What, for instance, becomes of the noble Platonic moral, the apt interpretation after the style of Iamblichus and Porphyry? It is altogether dulled. He has to call every thing by its name, and turn the eyes of his people to tangible and visible things. It is a sermon suited to his audience of Thanes; the Danes whom he had converted by the sword needed a clear moral. If he had translated for them exactly the last words of Boethius, they would have opened Fox's Alfred's Boethius, chap. 35, § 6, 1864. 66 66 of the Franks, and William, King of England. 1077. This year were reconciled the King But it continued only a little while. This year was London burned, one night before the As sumption of St. Mary, so terribly as it never was before since it was built."* It is thus the poor monks speak, with monotonous dryness, who after Alfred's time gather up and take note of great visible events; sparsely scattered we find a few moral reflections, a passionate emotion, nothing more. In * All these extracts are taken from Ingram's Saxon Chronicle, 1823. |
