romance, with some of its harsher features softened and modified, and that its heroes and its incidents are constructed rather on the plan of Ariosto than of Homer; "not," he says, "because the desultory wildness of the one is preferred to the correct fancy of the other-but because the old Gothic fables exhibit a peculiarity of manners and situation, which, if not from their intrinsic excellence, may, from their being less hackneyed, afford more materials for the writer's imagination, and contribute more to the reader's entertainment."

There can be no doubt that in forming his poem on this basis, our author has shown a very correct judgment; for we may, in truth, go a step further than he has done, and affirm that not only are the Gothic fictions less hackneyed, but they are intrinsically superior, for all the purposes of poetry, to the mythology of Greece and Rome. There is a wild

ness and gloomy grandeur in the religious faith of ancient Scandinavia which, mixed up as it is with a firm belief in, and bold display of, the rites of magic and enchantment, appals and harrows up the soul in a degree greatly beyond what classical superstition can effect. When we consider, moreover, as we are entitled to do from the best autho

VOL. II.

L

rities, that chivalry sprang up and was nursed in the very bosom of this tremendous creed; that it gradually blended, or contrasted with its terrific features, what was tender, courteous, and gallant, and at length united to all these the fantastic wonders of the East; we cannot be surprised that from such a combination should have arisen a system of fabling better calculated perhaps than any other which the world has yet seen, to excite the imagination of the poet.

Of the era which our author has fixed upon for his poem, when the Saxons and the Britons were contending for the sovereignty of this island, it may justly be said that he has exhibited a very profound knowledge; and not only has he shown a perfect intimacy with Northern antiquities, both in his text and notes, but he has, at the same time, very ably and correctly discriminated and opposed to each other the Gothic and Celtic costume, manners, and superstitions.

In fact, the very business and action of the poem, and its whole machinery, are founded on the enmity with which the Northern Parca, or Weird Sisters, are inflamed against Arthur, in consequence of his opposition to the designs of their

favoured hero, Hengist, king of the Saxons; whilst, on the other side, Merlin, the great prophet of the Celts, aids the British prince in defeating the machinations of the demons of Scandinavia.

With such materials, and with the avowed intention of taking the old metrical romance for his model, it might have been expected that the poet of Arthur would adopt, to a certain extent at least, the style as well as the mode of fabling of his prototypes. In this respect, however, he has deviated entirely, and perhaps somewhat injudiciously, from his originals; for whilst he has preserved the body and spirit of their fiction, he has clothed both in a classical garb, in the dress indeed of Homer and of Virgil, and has, consequently, given to his work a very anomalous aspect, being neither entitled, from the desultory nature of its fabric, to be considered as a classical epic, nor from the polish, concatenation, and uniform dignity of its style and versification, a gothic

romance.

It is, however, notwithstanding this incongruity, a most valuable and interesting production, both in substance and in form; and it has moreover the merit of being the first attempt, in modern times, to re-open that rich vein of wild narrative and fiction,

which constituted the delight and the wealth of Ariosto and Spenser.

I know few poems, ancient or modern, that can boast a more beautiful exordium than that which decorates the first book of Arthur. After invocating praise on the warrior who aspires to immortality by virtuous acts and brave exploits, the bard

assures us

Such Arthur was: the song preserved his fame;
And oft our fathers kindled at the name:
When wand'ring minstrels to the feeling heart,
The strains of nature, undepraved by art,
Addrest, and crowded halls were taught to ring
With the bold acts of Britain's matchless king.

Those days are past: the vocal strain no more
Is heard, that charm'd our fathers' hearts of yore.
Now, sole memorial of their echoing halls,
Clasp'd by rude ivy, nod the mould'ring walls:
In cumb'rous heaps are stretch'd the stately towers,
While noxious weeds usurp the roseate bowers ;
And, long enfolded in death's cold embrace,
Silent have slept the minstrel's gentle race.

Yet still his name survives; nor deem it vain,
That one, the meanest of the tuneful train,
Caught by the lofty theme, with feebler lays
Presumes t' unfold a tale of other days.
Such, as of old to Fancy's ear addrest,

Perchance had struck the sympathising breast;
When lovely were our maids, and brave our youth,

When virtue valour crown'd, and beauty truth.-B.i. p. 3.

The fable then commences by describing Ivar, the son of Melaschlen, chief of the Ebudæ, or Western Isles, as walking towards night by the sea-shore, and who, whilst watching the appearance of a fleet at a distance, is alarmed by the sound of horrible voices from the mountain Conagra.

This circumstance introduces to us the Weird Sisters, who are beheld by Ivar performing their magic rites on the summit. With these With these personages, however, the Urda, Valdandi, and Skulda of the Northern mythology, and who were supposed to preside over the past, the present, and the future, Mr. Hole has confessedly taken considerable liberties; for he has neither delineated them as in the Edda, where they are drawn as beautiful virgins inhabiting Asgard, the city of the gods, nor painted them as Shakspeare has done in his Macbeth, where, potent ministers though they be of evil, they are, in conformity with the system of witchcraft of his royal master, represented as deformed and mischievous hags. But he has taken a middle path between these two descriptions, and has thereby rendered his personification of the Fatal Sisters more, perhaps, in consonancy with the nature and epic genius of his poem.