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Feby. 16, 1814.

HERBERT' called me back this morning on Castrigg, near Tom's old lodging, to look at "something very curious." It was merely an icicle formed by the dripping of the water through a hollow bank, and reaching the road, so that it became a little pillar. The thing was not above three or four inches long, but I was repaid for the trouble of turning back, for it shaped itself presently into an allegorical vision:-a splendid hall, supported (chapterhouse like) by one central pillar, glittering like cut glass, and rendered

1 His wonderful boy, of whom he wrote to Neville White," The severest of all afflictions has fallen upon me. I have lost my dear son Herbert my beautiful boy. beautiful in intellect and disposition: he who was everything which my heart desired. God's will be done! -MS. Letter, 17th April, 1816.

J. W. W.

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brilliant by a light within it, like Abdaldar's ring; but upon nearer inspection the pillar was of ice, and the light which gave its brilliance was all the while consuming it.

Now as, væ mihi! the expected marriage of the princess must operate as a tax upon my poor brain, may I not thank Herbert and his icicle for a feasible and striking plan. Begin with such a vision ;-then answer the reproach for obtruding thoughts of mortality and death on such an occasion, and proceed in a high strain of religious philosophy, to show in what manner death, as it must be the last thing of life, becomes also the best. In this way William I. may best be introduced, and those of the ancestors of those whose names bear a fair report in history, or seem likely to be written in the book of life.

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Buonaparte's partizans. His sole excuse the specific madness which is produced by the possession of uncontrolled power. Causes of the Revolution. The sins of the fathers, &c. Henry IV.'s conformity perhaps a mortal blow to religion in France. Moral, political, and military profligacy. Practical reforms make men happier, better, and wiser. In the church abolish vows of celibacy, and confession.

April 13. Begin with the Duke. "Quem virûm," &c. Alexander, Frederic, Blucher, Platoff, and so end with the prince.

COLLECTIONS FOR HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

Astrea,1

AND POETRY.

IR Philip Sidney tacked together the pastoral and the epic romance. D'Urfé has united them. He has done this with

great skill, and involved the fates of his shepherds and his heroes, so as to form a well-constructed whole.

This romance has one wearying and insupportable fault. Love questions after the Provençal fashion are continually arising; and set speeches are made pro and con, like the Plaidoyen Historiques of Tristan. It has also too much dialogue, which was thought very spiritual in its day, but which is very dull and very worthless.

I have read Astrea in a detestable translation, in which there is not a single beauty of expression. These "persons of quality" never by any accident stumble upon one; every where you meet vulgarisms and barbarisms, French idioms and their own idiotisms. Here are some instances of a strange

use of words.

A lover has stabbed himself mortally! "he was at the last gasp, yet hearing the lamentation of his shepherdess, and knowing her voice, did call unto her. She, hearing a faint hollow voice, went towards him. Oh! heavens, how the sight of him did amuse her." Part i. p. 185.

Southey read over the Astrea again in his latter days, with great delight. It was on his procuring an early edition of the original.

J. W. W.

"Mandragne the witch, finding them both dead, cursed her art, hated all her demons, death of these two faithful lovers, and her tore her hair, and extremely grieved at the own contentment," &c.

A lover has resolved upon suicide: "and but for Olimborn, perhaps I had served my own turn; for he was so careful of me, that I could not do any thing to myself, but gave me so many diverting reasons to the conPart i. trary, that he kept me alive," &c.

p. 417.

An instance of extraordinary ignorance seems to mark this "person of quality" for throughout which he is spoken of in the fea woman. P. i. p. 12, is a picture of Saturn, minine gender, and called a hag. No man

could be so uneducated as to have made these blunders. It appears too that she began to translate the book before she had read it, for p. 12, mention is made of the den of an old Mandrake. I marked this

place with a note of astonishment and a Quid diabolus? but after a while it appeared that Mandragne is the name of a

sorceress.

This is probably the book in which Sterne found the tomb of the two lovers.

What magic there is, is good; it is the central point to which every thing tends. All the strangers come to the fountain, or are sent by the oracle, and the whole is well managed, I scarcely ever read a work of fiction in which the events could so little be foreseen.

La Fontaine valued this book above all others. except Marot and Rabelais; and

here it was that he studied his rural de- | Frenchifying the manners of all ages, espe

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WHOEVER was the inventor of the French heroic romance, Calprenade is the writer who carried it to its greatest perfection.

(Les Trois Siècles, tom. i. p. 230. Le seul nom,―le même genre.)1

It is the fault of the romances of chivalry that they contain so many adventures of the same character, one succeeding the other, which have no necessary connection with the main story, and which might be left out without affecting it; in fact they are in the main made up of these useless episodes. The fault of Calprenade is of an opposite character: he ran into the other extreme, and his three romances for variety of adventures and character, and for extent and intricacy of plot, are perhaps the most extraordinary works that have ever appeared. There is not one of them which would not furnish the plots for fifty tragedies, perhaps for twice the number, and yet all these are made into one whole. For this kind of invention, certainly he never has been equalled.

The old romances gave true manners, though they applied them to wrong times; but the anachronism was of little import. Every thing in them was fiction. A double sin was committed by the French romancers in chusing historical groundwork, and in

cially in the abominable fashion of fine letter writing. Story is involved within story, like a nest of boxes; or they come one after another, so that you have always to go back to learn what has happened, and the main business seldom goes on; this was inevitable from the prodigious number of characters which were introduced.

Pharamond was the romance which he composed with most care; but he did not live to finish it. Seven parts of the twelve he printed; the remainder were added by M. de Vaumoriere. The story is by no means so ably conducted as in the former part. I perceived the great inferiority before I knew the cause of it.

Gyron le Courtoys.

THE utter want of method in this book makes it appear as if it consisted of several metrical romances transposed.

It begins with an adventure of Branor le Brun, an old knight above 120 years of age, who, though he had not borne arms for forty years, comes to Kamelot to try whether the knights of the present time were as good as those of his days. He stands quintain against Palamedes, Gavaine, and many others; but honours Tristan, Sir Lancelot, and King Arthur enough to take a spear against them, and overthrows them all like so many children.

Then follows an adventure of Tristan and Palamedes, which is in Mort Arthur.

Gyron now appears. He goes (wherefrom does not appear) to Maloane, the castle of his friend Danayn le Roux. The lady of Maloane twice tempts him, but in vain. They go to a tournament. Sir Lac, the friend of K. Meliadus, falls in love with the lady, and waylays her after the tournament, and wins her from her guard of twenty-five knights. Gyron (who is all this while unknown, and indeed supposed to be dead,) wins her then

This evidently is the beginning and the from him; but Sir Lac's love for her has end of an intended extract.-J. W. W.

now inflamed him, his heart gives way to

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lated saying no farther." And the romance ends with a chapter in which Galinans le Blanc, son of Gyron and the damsel, who is born the chapter before, defeats the best

other; but he is a wicked knight, having been brought up by the false traitor who imprisoned his father.

the temptation, and he leads her to a foun- | the "Latin book from which this is transtain in the forest. As he is disarming himself to commit the sin, his sword drops into the water, and in taking it out he is struck by the motto," Loyaulte passe tout y faulsete si honnit tout et decoit tous hommes de-knights of the Round Table one after andans quels elle se herberge." Upon this, his remorse for having sinned even in thought is such, that he stabs himself; the lady prevents him from repeating the blow. After sundry adventures, Danayn finds them in this situation, learns the whole truth, and loving Gyron better than ever for this his courtesy, as it is termed, takes him home to Maloane, where he is soon healed. A great deal by way of episode is related of Hector le Brun to K. Meliadus.

There are no other divisions than of chapters, but what may be called the second part is upon this story. Gyron sends Danayn to bring him his damsel; he carries her off for himself; is pursued; overtaken at last, and defeated after a desperate battle. Gyron, though he had resolved to kill him, spares him for courtesy, and then rescues him from a giant immediately after. The incidental parts are a story of Galahalt le Brun, with whom in his youth Gyron had been companion, and a curious adventure which befals Breus sans pitie, in which he finds the bodies of Febus and the damsel of Northumberland in a house cut in the rock, and learns their history from the son of Febus, a very old man, who dwells there, leading a life of penance with his son, the father of Gyron, but Gyron knows not his birth.

Then comes a good adventure of the knight sans paour, in the valley of Serfage, where Naban le Noir makes serfs of every body who enters. This is an excellent adventure. For the sequel we are referred to the romance of Meliadus.

Danayn delivers Gyron and his damsel, who had been betrayed, and was tied to a tree, to suffer from the severity of the weather in the cold country of Sorolois. They are reconciled, separate each on adventure, and are both made prisoners. Here too, we are referred to Meliadus for their release; |

Everywhere the knights are represented as children to those of Uterpendragon's days. The prowess of these worthies exceeds in hyperbole any thing in Esplandian. They make nothing of singly attacking large armies, and killing giants with a blow of the fist.

I think I can perceive that oftentimes he who began one of these adventures planned it as he went on; and often ended with a different feeling of character from that which he began with.

I never read a romance so completely free from all impurity of thought or word. Yet what morals does it indicate! Gyron acts from no other principle than that of courtesy; and his damsel, whom he married, Danayn carries off as his concubine.

Monnon de la Selve, or, Hennor de la Selve, as the name is sometimes printed, the son of a forester, seems to be the original of Braggadochio.

Meliadus de Leonnoys.

THIS book professed to have been written by the author of the Brut, at the request of King Henry of England, and recompiled from the Latin, in which it had been rudely and confusedly written by Maistre Rusticien de Pise, at the desire of King Edward of England. What is curious, is, that it was to have been about Palamedes, and in the name of Palamedes the author says he begins it. He brings Esclabor, the father of the knight, from Babylon to Rome, and from Rome to Northumberland; and having thus got to King Arthur, nothing more is said about him. A few desultory adventures of K. Pha

ramond by the Morhoult d'Irland, brings on the stage K. Meliadus, and the Bon Chevalier sans paour, the two heroes of the book. Many tales of their heroism and of their rivalry are related, just in the manner of the episodes in Gyron, so much so indeed, as to identify the author, and the business of the first half of the book ends in a tournament, where they take different sides, and in which, on the whole, the Chevalier is most fortunate. The manner in which each speaks of his rival is always very fine, in the noblest spirit of chivalry.

Meliadus falls in love with the Queen of Scotland, and forcibly carries her off, out of King Arthur's dominions; for which, he is attacked in his own kingdom, conquered by the prowess of the Bon Chevalier sans paour, and taken. Arthur imprisons him. His confinement is more rigorous than the king either intended or knew. Meantime Arthur falls sick his vassals go to war with each other, and Arichan, a terrible Saxon, at the suggestion of some of them invades Logres. The king recovers, and sends to all his liege men. The Chevalier sans paour refuses to come, saying, Arthur has disgraced and injured all chivalry by his imprisonment of the best knight living. In consequence of this Meliadus is delivered. He accepts the defiance of Andhar, and concludes the war by defeating him. When the author had got thus far, he filled up the rest of his book with any stories which came into his head about the round table. Galchad le Brun, Segurades, Gyron, Tristan, &c. are introduced without the slightest connection of time, place, or any thing else, and the whole ends with the death of Meliadus, in the words wherein it is related in Tristan.

Tristan.

THIS Romance has disappointed me, it is very inferior to Meliadus. The characters are in many instances so discordant, and the leading circumstances of the story so little consonant not merely with our ordinary

morals, but our ordinary feelings, that the general effect of the book is far from being pleasant. There is something vile in producing that love on which the whole history turns-by a philtre,-in making both the heroes live in adultery,-and in the unworthy usage of the second Yseult. That everlasting fault of the romancers in sacrificing the character of one hero to enhance the fame of another, is carried to a great degree here. With the creatures of his own creation an author may do what he will, but it is a literary crime to take up the hero whom others have represented as a knight of prowess and of worth, and to engraft vices upon him and stain him with dishonour. Palamedes is better conceived than any other personage in the book.

Sainct Greaal.1

JOSEPH of Arimathea ung gentilhomme chevalier. He was shut in prison and forgotten there for forty-two years without food. But Vespasian, the son of Titus, being cured of leprosy by the S. Veronice, went against Jerusalem to revenge the death of our Lord, and he opened the prison, which was a great pillar, and there found Joseph alive and well, for our Lord had visited him, and he thought he had slept from Good Friday till the Sunday following.

P. 14. Joseph prays "nudz coutes et nudz genoulx."

14. The prophet David taken prisoner by Nebuchadnezzar.

18. Christ consecrates Joseph the son a bishop, and the mystery of transubstantiation is shown in a miracle as hideous as the doctrine; for he is made, very much

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