The dreadful battle of Cannae bears a close resemblance in many important particulars to two of the most important which have been fought in modern times—those of Agincourt and Aspern. The close agglomeration of legionary soldiers in the Roman centre, the tempest of stones which fell on their ranks from the slings of the Balearic marksmen, and the laying bare of the huge unwieldy mass by the defeat of the cavalry on their flanks was precisely the counterpart of what occurred in the army of Philippe of Valois in the first of these memorable fields, when the French men-at-arms, thirty-two deep, were thrown into confusion by the incessant discharges of the English archers, their flanks laid open by the repulse of the vehement charge of their horse by Henry V., and their dense columns slaughtered where they stood, unable alike to fight or to fly, by the general advance of the English billmen. Still closer, perhaps, is the resemblance to the defeat of the French centre under Lannes, which penetrated in a solid column into the centre of the Austrian army at Aspern. Its weight, and the gallantry of the leading files, brought the huge mass even to the reserves of the Archduke; but that gallant prince at length stopped their advance by six regiments of Hungarian grenadiers; the German artillery and musketry tore their flanks by an incessant discharge on either side; and at length the formidable column was forced back like an immense wild beast bleeding at every pore, but still combating and unsubdued, to the banks of the Danube. The repulse of the formidable English column, fourteen thousand strong, which defeated in succession every regiment in the French army except the last reserve of two regiments of guards at Fontenoy, and the still more momentous defeat of the last attack of the Imperial Guard at Waterloo, also bear a striking and interesting resemblance to the rout of the Roman centre after it had penetrated the Carthaginian line at the battle of Cannae. In truth, the attack in column, formidable beyond measure if not met by valour and combated with skill, is exposed to the most serious dangers if the line in its front is strong and resolute enough to withstand the impulse, till its flanks are overlapped and enveloped by a cross fire from the enemies' lines, converging inwards, as Colborne and Maitland did at Waterloo on the flank of the Old Guard; and thence it is that the French attack in column, so often victorious over the other troops in Europe, has never succeeded against the close and destructive fire of the English infantry; guided by the admirable dispositions with which Wellington first repelled that formidable onset.

Arnold, whose account of Hannibal's campaigns in Italy is by much the best which has been given in modern times to the world, and more scientific and discriminating than either of the immortal narratives of the ancient historians, has clearly brought out two important truths from their examination. The first is, that it was Hannibal's superiority in cavalry, and, above all, the incomparable skill and hardihood of his Numidian horse, which gave him what erelong proved an undisputed superiority in the field; the second, that it was the strength of the towns in the Roman alliance in the south of Italy, and the want of siege artillery on the side of the Carthaginian general, which proved their salvation. So undisputed did the superiority of the invading army become, that, after the battle of Cannae, it was a fixed principle with the Roman generals, during the thirteen subsequent campaigns that ensued in Italy, never on any occasion, or with any superority of force whatever, to hazard a general battle. Such was their terror of the African horse, that the sight of a few Numidian uniforms in the fields was sufficient to make a whole consular army stand to its arms. So paralysed was the strength of Rome by the slaughter of Cannae, that Capua soon after revolted and became the headquarters of Hannibal's army; and, out of the thirty Roman colonies, no less than twelve sent in answer to the requisitions of the consuls, that they had not a man or a penny more to send, and that Rome must depend on its own resources. Never, not even when the disasters of Thrasymene and Cannae were first heard, was such consternation apparent in Rome, as when that mournful resolution was communicated in the Forum.

In truth, such was the prostration of the strength of Rome by these terrible defeats, that the republic was gone but for the jealousy of the Carthaginian government, which hindered them from sending any efficient succours to Hannibal, and the unconquerable spirit of the Roman aristocracy, which rose with every disaster which ensued, and led them to make efforts in behalf of their country which appear almost superhuman, and never have been equalled by any subsequent people on earth. Republican as he is in his ideas, Arnold, with his usual candour as to facts, admits, in the strongest manner, those prodigious efforts made by the patricians of Rome on this memorable occasion; and that the issue of the contest, and with it the fate of the civilized world, depended on their exertions. Out of 270,000 men, of whom the citizens of Rome consisted before the war, no less than seventy thousand were in arms in its fourth year. No such proportion, has ever since been heard of in the world. One in a hundred of the whole population is the utmost which experience has shown a state is capable of bearing, for any length of time, in her regular army. "As Hannibal," says he, "utterly eclipses Carthage, so, on the contrary, Fabius, Marcellus, Claudius Nero, even Scipio himself, are as nothing when compared to the spirit, and wisdom, and power of Rome. The senate, which voted its thanks to its political enemy Varro, 'because he had not despaired of the commonwealth,' and which disdained either to solicit, or to reprove, or to threaten, or in any way to notice the twelve colonies which had refused to send their accustomed supplies of men for the army, is far more to be honoured than the conqueror of Zama. Never was the wisdom of God's providence more manifest than in the issue of the struggle between Rome and Carthage. It was clearly for the good of mankind that Hannibal should be conquered; his triumph would have stopped the progress of the world. For great men can only act permanently by forming great nations, and no one man, even though it were Hannibal himself, can, in one generation, effect such a work. But where the nation has been merely enkindled for a while by a great man's spirit, the light passes away with him who communicated it; and the nation, when he is gone, is like a dead body to which magic power had for a moment given an unnatural life; when the charm has ceased, the body is cold and stiff as before. He who grieves over the battle of Zama, should carry on his thoughts to a period thirty years later, when Hannibal must, in the course of nature, have been dead; and consider how the isolated Phoenician city of Carthage was fitted to receive and to consolidate the civilization of Greece, or by its laws and institutions to bind together barbarians of every race and language into an organized empire, and prepare them for becoming, when that empire was dissolved, the free members of the commonwealth of Christian Europe."[30]

Such was Hannibal; a man capable by his single capacity of arresting and all but overturning a nation, destined by Providence for such mighty achievements, such lasting services to the human race. His combat with Rome was not that of a general with a general, of an army with an army; it was like the subsequent contest between Napoleon and England, the contest of a man with a nation; and in both cases, the nation, after being reduced to the most grievous straits, proved victorious over the man. But Hannibal was not supported as the French emperor was during the great part of his splendid career; no nation with forty millions of souls laid its youth at his feet; no obsequious senate voted him two millions of men in fifteen years; he did not march with the military strength of the half of Europe at his back. Alone, unaided, unbefriended, with the Roman legions in front, and the jealous Carthaginian senate in rear, without succour, reinforcements, or assistance from home, he maintained the contest for fifteen years in Italy, against the might, the energy, and the patriotism of Rome. Such was the terror inspired by his name and exploits, that it rendered even the fierce plebeians of Rome, usually so jealous of patrician interference with their rights, obsequious even in the comitia to their commands. "Go back," said Fabius, when the first centuries had returned consuls of their own choice, whom he knew to be unfit for the command, "and bid them recollect that the consuls must head the armies, and that Hannibal is in Italy." The people succumbed, the votes were taken anew, and the consuls whom he desired were returned.

After the battle of Cannae had rendered hopeless any further contest in the field, the war in Italy degenerated into a mere succession of attempts to gain possession of fortified towns. Hannibal's total want of siege artillery left him no resource for this but stratagem or internal assistance, and in gaining both his great capacity was eminently conspicuous. Capua, Beneventum, Tarentum, and a great many others, were successively wrested or won from the Romans; and it at one period seemed exceedingly doubtful whether, in this war of posts and stratagems, the Carthaginian would not prevail over them, as he had done in the field. This war, and from the influence of the same necessity in both cases, much resembled the wars of the League and Henry IV. in France; and the military conduct of Hannibal bore alternately a striking resemblance to the skill and resources of the chivalrous king of Navarre, and the bold daring of the emperor Napoleon. The gallant irruption, in particular, of the Carthaginian general, by which he relieved Capua when closely besieged by the Roman forces, bears, as Arnold has observed, the most remarkable resemblance to the similar march of Napoleon from Silesia to relieve Dresden, when beset by the Allied armies under the command of Schwartzenberg in 1813. Nor did the admirable skill of the consul Nero—who took advantage of his interior line of communication, and brought a decisive superiority of force from the frontiers of Apulia to bear on the army which Hamilcar had led across the Pyrenees and the Alps, to aid his brother in the south of Italy, and thus decide the war in Italy—bear a less striking analogy to Napoleon's cross marches from Rivoli to the neighbourhood of Mantua in 1796, to the able movement of the Archduke Charles on the Bavarian plains to the banks of the Maine, which proved the salvation of Germany in 1796, or to the gallant irruption of Napoleon, first into the midst of Blucher's scattered columns on the plains of Champagne, and then against the heads of Schwartzenberg's weighty columns at the bridge of Montereau in 1814, during his immortal campaign in France.

Eight years have now elapsed since we had the gratification of reviewing, on its publication, the first volume of Arnold's Rome; and we then foretold the celebrity which that admirable writer was qualified to attain.[31] The publication since that period of two additional volumes has amply verified that prediction; and augmented the bitterness of the regret which, in common with all his countrymen, we felt at his untimely death. It is clear that he was qualified beyond any modern writer who has yet undertaken the glorious task, to write a history of the Rise and Progress of the Roman Republic. What a work would eight volumes such as that before us on Hannibal have formed, in conjunction with Gibbon's immortal Decline and Fall! His ardent love of truth, his warm aspiration after the happiness of the human race, his profound and yet liberal religious feeling, as much gave him the spirit requisite for such an undertaking, as his extensive scholarship, his graphic power, his geographical eye, and brilliant talents for description, fitted him for carrying it into execution. It is one of the most melancholy events of our times, which has reft one of the brightest jewels from the literary crown of England, that such a man should have been cut off at the zenith of his power, and the opening of his fame. Arnold was a liberal writer; but what then? We love and respect an honest opponent. He was candid, ingenuous, and truth-loving; and if a historian is such, it matters not what his political opinions are, for he cannot avoid stating facts that support the conservative side. His errors, as we deem them, in politics, arose from the usual causes which mislead men on human affairs, generosity of heart and inexperience of mankind. He could not conceive, with an imagination warmed by the heroes of antiquity, what a race of selfish pigmies the generality of men really are. No man of such an elevated cast can do so, till he is painfully taught it by experience. Arnold died of a disease of the heart, which physicians have named by the expressive words "angina pectoris." They were right: it was anxiety of the heart which brought him to an untimely grave. He died of disappointed hope, of chilled religious aspirations, of mortified political expectations of social felicity. Who can estimate the influence, on so sensitive and enthusiastic a disposition, of the heart-rending anguish which his correspondence proves he felt at the failure of his long-cherished hopes and visions of bliss in the Reform Bill, and all the long catalogue of political and social evils, now apparent to all, it has brought in its train?

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 20: History of Rome. By THOMAS ARNOLD, D.D. London: 1843. Vol. 3.]

[Footnote 21: Hannibal was born in the year 247 before Christ, or 2092 before this time.]

[Footnote 22: Virtus from vir—exercitus from exerceo.]

[Footnote 23: Arnold, iii. 89.]

[Footnote 24: Ibid. iii. 486, note.]

[Footnote 25: Livy, xxi. 33.]

[Footnote 26: Polybius, iii. 52.]

[Footnote 27: Ibid. iii. 54.]

[Footnote 28: "The way on every side was utterly impassable, through an accident of a peculiar kind, which is peculiar to the Alps. The snows of the former years having remained unmelted upon the mountains, were now covered over by that which had fallen in the present autumn, and when the soldiers feet went through the latter they fell, and slid down with great violence."—POLYBIUS, iii. 54. This shows the place was within the circle of perpetual snow; whereas that on the Little St Bernard is much below it, and far beneath any avalanches.]

[Footnote 29: Polybius, iii. 54.]

[Footnote 30: Arnold, iii. 64, 65]

[Footnote 31: See Arnold's Rome, Blackwood's Magazine, July 1837.]



STANZAS WRITTEN AFTER THE FUNERAL OF ADMIRAL SIR DAVID MILNE, G.C.B.

BY DELTA.

Another, yet another! year by year, As time progresses with resistless sweep, Sever'd from life, the patriots disappear, Who bore St George's standards o'er the deep;—

Heroic men, whose decks were Britain's trust, When banded Europe scowl'd around in gloom; Nor least, though latest Thou, whose honour'd dust Our steps this day live follow'd to the tomb.

Yet, gallant Milne, what more could'st thou desire, Replete in fame, in years, and honours, save To wrap thy sea-cloak round thee, and expire, Where thou had'st lived in glory, on the wave?

From boyhood to thy death-day, 'mid the scenes Where love is garner'd, or the brave have striven, With scarce a breathing-time that intervenes, Thy life was to our country's service given.

A British sailor! 'twas thy proud delight Up glory's rugged pathway to aspire; Ready in council, resolute in fight, And Spartan coolness temper'd Roman fire!

Yes; sixty years have pass'd, since, in thy prime, Plunging from off the shatter'd Blanche, o'erboard Amid the moonlight waves, twas thine to climb La Pique's torn side, and take the Frenchman's sword.

And scarcely less remote that midnight dread, Or venturous less that daring, when La Seine Dismay'd, dismasted, cumber'd with her dead, Struck to the ship she fled—and fought in vain.

And veterans now are all, who, young in heart, Burn'd as they heard, how o'er the watery way, Compell'd to fight, yet eager to depart, The Vengeance battled through the livelong day—

Battled with thee, who, steadfast, on her track, Not to be shaken off, untiring bent; And how awhile the fire from each grew slack, The shatter'd masts to splice, and riggings rent,—

And how, at dawn, the conflict was renew'd, Muzzle to muzzle, almost hand to hand, Till useless on the wave, and carnage-strew'd, The foe lay wreck'd on St Domingo's strand,—

And how huzza'd his brave triumphant crew! And how the hero burn'd within his eye, When Milne beheld upon the staff, where flew The Tricolor, the flag of Britain fly!!

And yet once more thy country calls!—beneath The towers and demi-lune of dark Algiers The Impregnable is anchor'd, in the teeth Of bomb-proof batteries, frowning, tiers on tiers.

Another day of triumph for the right,— Of laurels fresh for Exmouth and for thee,— When Afric's Demon, palsied at the sight Of Europe's Angel, bade the slave go free!

But when away War's fiery storms had burn'd, And Peace re-gladden'd Earth with skies of blue, Thy sword into the pruning-hook was turn'd, And Caesar into Cincinnatus grew.

The poor's protector, the unbiass'd judge, 'Twas thine with warm unwearied zeal to lend Time to each duty's call, without a grudge; The Christian, and the Patriot, and the Friend.

Farewell! 'tis dust to dust within the grave; But while one heart beats high to Scotland's fame, Best of the good, and bravest of the brave, The name of Milne shall be an honour'd name.



STANZAS TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS HOOD.

BY B. SIMMONS.

I. Take back into thy bosom, Earth, This joyous, May-eyed morrow, The gentlest child that ever Mirth Gave to be rear'd by Sorrow. 'Tis hard—while rays half green, half gold, Through vernal bowers are burning, And streams their diamond-mirrors hold To Summer's face returning— To say, We're thankful that His sleep Shall never more be lighter, In whose sweet-tongued companionship Stream, bower, and beam grew brighter!

II. But all the more intensely true His soul gave out each feature Of elemental Love—each hue And grace of golden Nature, The deeper still beneath it all Lurk'd the keen jags of Anguish; The more the laurels clasp'd his brow, Their poison made it languish. Seem'd it that like the Nightingale Of his own mournful singing[32], The tenderer would his song prevail While most the thorn was stinging.

III. So never to the Desert-worn Did fount bring freshness deeper, Than that his placid rest this morn Has brought the shrouded sleeper. That rest may lap his weary head Where charnels choke the city, Or where, mid woodlands, by his bed The wren shall wake its ditty: But near or far, while evening's star Is dear to hearts regretting, Around that spot admiring Thought Shall hover unforgetting.

IV. And if this sentient, seething world Is, after all ideal, Or in the Immaterial furl'd Alone resides the Real, FREED ONE! there's wail for thee this hour Through thy loved Elves' dominions[33]; Hush'd is each tiny trumpet-flower, And droopeth Ariel's pinions; Even Puck, dejected, leaves his swing[34], To plan, with fond endeavour, What pretty buds and dews shall keep Thy pillow bright for ever.

V. And higher, if less happy, tribes— The race of earthly Childhood, Shall miss thy Whims of frolic wit, That in the summer wild-wood, Or by the Christmas hearth, were hail'd And hoarded as a treasure Of undecaying merriment And ever-changing pleasure. Things from thy lavish humour flung, Profuse as scents are flying This kindling morn, when blooms are born As fast as blooms are dying.

VI. Sublimer Art own'd thy control, The minstrel's mightiest magic, With sadness to subdue the soul, Or thrill it with the Tragic. How, listening Aram's fearful dream, We see beneath the willow, That dreadful THING,[35] or watch him steal, Guilt-lighted, to his pillow.[36] Now with thee roaming ancient groves, We watch the woodman felling The funeral Elm, while through its boughs The ghostly wind comes knelling.[37]

VII. Dead Worshipper of Dian's face, In solitary places Shalt thou no more steal, as of yore, To meet her white embraces?[38] Is there no purple in the rose Henceforward to thy senses? For thee has dawn, and daylight's close Lost their sweet influences? No!—by the mental might untamed Thou took'st to Death's dark portal, The joy of the wide universe Is now to thee immortal!

VIII. How fierce contrasts the city's roar With thy new-conquer'd Quiet! This stunning hell of wheels that pour With princes to their riot,— Loud clash the crowds—the very clouds With thunder-noise are shaken, While pale, and mute, and cold, afar Thou liest, men-forsaken. Hot Life reeks on, nor recks that One —The playful, human-hearted— Who lent its clay less earthiness Is just from earth departed.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 32: In his beautiful Ode to Melancholy; originally published in Blackwood's Magazine.]

[Footnote 33: See his Plea of the Midsummer Fairies, a poem perfectly unrivalled for the intimate sense of nature, tender fancy, and pathetic playfulness displayed in it.]

[Footnote 34:

"Pity it was to hear the Elfins' wail Rise up in concert from their mingled dread, Pity it was to see them all so pale Gaze on the grass as for a dying bed. But Puck was seated on a spider's thread That hung between two branches of a brier, And 'gan to swing and gambol, heels o'er head, Like any Southwark tumbler on a wire, For him no present grief could long inspire."

Plea of the Midsummer Fairies.]

[Footnote 35: Witness the terror of Aram after his victim lies dead before him—(we quote from memory.)

"Nothing but lifeless flesh and bone That could not do me ill! And yet I fear'd him all the more For lying there so still; There was a manhood in his look That murder could not kill."

Dream of Eugene Aram.]

[Footnote 36:

"For Guilt was my grim chamberlain Who lighted me to bed, And drew my midnight curtains round With fingers bloody red."

Dream of Eugene Aram.]

[Footnote 37: See his impressive poem on The Elm-Tree. It appeared, a couple of years back, in The New Monthly Magazine.]

[Footnote 38:

"Before I lived to sigh, Thou wert in Avon, and a thousand rills, Beautiful Orb! and so, whene'er I lie Trodden, thou wilt be gazing from thy hills. Blest be thy loving light, where'er it spills, And blessed be thy face, O Mother Mild!"

Ode to the Moon, published likewise in Blackwood, 1829.]



NORTH'S SPECIMENS OF THE BRITISH CRITICS.

NO. V.

DRYDEN ON CHAUCER.—Concluded.

Dryden's poetical power appears most of all, perhaps, in his translations; and his translation of the most vulgar renown is that which unites his name to that of the great Roman epopeist; but it is not his greatest achievement. The tales modernized and paraphrased from Chaucer, and those filled up into poetical telling from Boccacio, as they are the works of Dryden's which the most fasten themselves with interest upon a mind open to poetry and free from preconceived literary opinion, so do they seem to us to be, after all, those which a versed critic must distinguish as stamped, beyond the others, with the skilled ease, the flow as of original composition, the sustained spirit, and force, and fervour—in short, by the mastery, and by the keen zest of Writing. They are the works of his more than matured mind—of his waning life; and they show a rare instance of a talent so steadfastly and perseveringly self-improved, as that, in life's seventh decennium, the growth of Art overweighed the detriment of Time. But, in good truth, no detriment of time is here perceptible; youthful fire and accomplished skill have the air of being met in these remarkable pieces. Chaucer, in his last and greatest labour, the Canterbury Tales, first effectually creating his own style, and his translator, Dryden, at about the same years, excelling himself to infuse renovated life into the Canterbury Tales—are brought singularly together.

The age of Chaucer was widely and variously different from that of Dryden. Knowledge, taste, art, had advanced with strides between the two dates; and the bleak and stormy English political atmosphere of the fourteenth century had changed, notwithstanding the commotion of the later civil war, into a far milder and more settled element when the seventeenth drew towards close. Genius, likewise, in the two poets, was distinguished by marked differences. Strength, simplicity, earnestness, human affection, characterize Chaucer. Dryden has plenty of strength, too, but it shows itself differently. The strength of Chaucer is called out by the requisition of the subject, and is measured to the call. Dryden bounds and exults in his nervous vigour, like a strong steed broke loose. Exuberant power and rejoicing freedom mark Dryden versifying—a smooth flow, a prompt fertility, a prodigal splendour of words and images. Old Chaucer, therefore, having passed through the hands of Dryden, is no longer old Chaucer—no longer Chaucer. But the well-chosen, and well-disposed, and well-told tale, full of masculine sense, lively with humour, made present with painting—for all this Chaucer brings to Dryden—becomes, by nothing more than the disantiquating and the different hand, a new poem.

Place the two side by side, and whilst you feel that a total change has been effected, you shall not always easily assign the secret of the change wrought. There then comes into view, it must be owned, something like an unpractised awkwardness in the gait of the great elder bard, which you less willingly believe, or to which you shut your eyes, when you have him by himself to yourself. The step of Dryden is rapid, and has perfect decision. He knows, with every spring he takes, where he shall alight. Now Chaucer, you would often say, is retarded by looking where he shall next set down his foot. The old poetry details the whole series of thinking. The modern supposes more. That is the consequence of practice. Writer and reader are in better intelligence. A hint goes further—that which is known to be meant needs not be explicitly said. Style, as the art advances, gains in dispatch. There is better keeping, too, in some respects. The dignity of the style—the purpose of the Beautiful—is more considerately maintained. And perhaps one would be justified in saying, that if the earnestness of the heart, which was in the old time the virtue of virtues, is less—the glow of the fancy, the tone of inspiration, is proportionally more. And if any where the thought is made to give way to the straits of the verse, the modern art more artfully hides the commission.

In our preceding paper, in which we spoke at large of the genius of Chaucer, we gave some very noble extracts from Dryden's version of the Knight's Tale. But we did not then venture to quote any long passages from the original, unassured how they might look on our page to the eyes of Young Britain. Having good reason to know that Young Britain desires some veritable Chaucer from the hands of Maga, we shall now indulge her with some specimens; and as we have been given to understand that Dryden's versions of the same passages will be acceptable for comparison, they shall be now produced, while the wishes of Young Britain shall be further gratified with an occasional running commentary from our popular pen on both poets. We shall confine ourselves to the Knight's Tale, with which all who love us are by this time familiar.

Let us lead off with one or two short specimens, and be not frightened, Fair-eyes, with the seemingly strange, mayhap obsolete-looking, words of the ancient bard. Con them over a few times, and they will turn into letters of light.

CHAUCER.

Thus passeth yere by yere, and day by day, Till it felle ones in a morwe of May, That Emelie, that fayrer was to sene Than is the lilie upon the stalke grene, And fressher than the May with floures newe (For with the rose colour strof hire hewe; I n'ot which was the finer of hem two) Er it was day, as she was wont to do, She was arisen, and all redy dight, For May wol have no slogardie a-night. The seson priketh every gentil herte, And maketh him out of his slepe to sterte, And sayth 'arise, and do thin observance.'

This maketh Emelie have remembrance To don honour to May, and for to rise. Yclothed was she fresshe for to devise. Hire yelwe here was broided in a tresse, Behind hire back, a yerde long I guess. And in the garden at the sonne uprist She walketh up and down where as hire list. She gathereth floures, partie white and red, To make a sotel gerlond for hire hed, And as an angel hevenlich she sang, &c.

DRYDEN.

Thus year by year they pass, and day by day, Till once—'twas on the morn of cheerful May— The young Emilia, fairer to be seen Than the fair lily on the flowery green, More fresh than May herself in blossoms new, For with the rosy colour strove her hue, Waked, as her custom was, before the day, To do the observance due to sprightly May; For sprightly May commands our youth to keep The vigils of her night, and breaks their sluggard sleep; Each gentle breast with kindly warmth she moves, Inspires new flames, revives extinguish'd loves.

In this remembrance, Emily, ere day, Arose, and dress'd herself in rich array; Fresh as the month, and as the morning fair, Adown her shoulders fell her length of hair; A ribband did the braided tresses bind, The rest was loose, and wanton'd in the wind: Aurora had but newly chased the night, And purpled o'er the sky with blushing light, When to the garden-walk she took her way, To sport and trip along in cool of day, And offer maiden vows in honour of the May.

At every turn she made a little stand, And thrust among the thorns her lily hand To draw the rose; and every rose she drew, She shook the stalk, and brush'd away the dew; Then party-colour'd flowers of white and red She wove, to make a garland to her head. This done, she sung and caroll'd out so clear, That men and angels might rejoice to hear. Even wondering Philomel forgot to sing, And learn'd from her to welcome in the spring.

What can you wish more innocently beautiful than Chaucer's—what more graceful than Dryden's Emelie? And now look at Arcite—how he, too, does his observance of the May.

CHAUCER.

The besy lark, the messenger of day, Saleweth in hire song the morwe gray; And firy Phoebus riseth up so bright That all the orient laugheth of the sight, And with his stremes drieth in the greves The silver dropes hanging on the leves, And Arcite that is in the court real With Theseus the squier principal, Is risen, and loketh on the mery day. And for to don his observance to May, Remembring on the point of his desire He on his courser, sterting as the fire, Is ridden to the feldes him to play, Out of the court, were it a mile or tway. And to the grove of which that I you told, By aventure his way he 'gan to hold, To maken him a gerlond of the greves, Were it of woodbind or of hawthorn leves, And loud he song agen the sonne shene.

O May, with all thy floures and thy grene, Right welcome be thou faire freshe May, I hope that I some grene here getten may.

DRYDEN.

The morning lark, the messenger of day, Saluted, in her song, the morning gray; And soon the sun arose with beams so bright, That all the horizon laugh'd to see the joyous sight. He, with his tepid rays, the rose renews, And licks the drooping leaves, and dries the dews; When Arcite left his bed, resolved to pay Observance to the month of merry May: Forth, on his fiery steed, betimes he rode, That scarcely prints the turf on which he trode:

At ease he seem'd, and prancing o'er the plains, Turn'd only to the grove his horse's reins, The grove I named before, and lighting there A woodbine garland sought to crown his hair; Then turn'd his face against the rising day, And raised his voice to welcome in the May:— For thee, sweet month, the groves green liveries wear, If not the first, the fairest of the year: For thee the Graces lead the dancing hours, And Nature's ready pencil paints the flowers: When thy short reign is past, the feverish sun The sultry tropic fears, and moves more slowly on. So may thy tender blossoms fear no blight, Nor goats, with venom'd teeth, thy tendrils bite. As thou shalt guide my wandering feet to find The fragrant greens I seek my brows to bind.

In Chaucer, Arcite's address to the "mery May" is but of three plain lines, and they suffice; in Dryden, of ten ornate, and they suffice too—"alike, but oh! how different!" The plain three are more in character, for Arcite was thinking of Emelie all the while—but the ornate ten are in season now, for summer has come at last, and recite them to yourself and Amaryllis in the shade.

But now for a loftier strain. Palamon and Arcite are about to fight for Emelie—and lo and behold their auxiliar kings!

Ther maist thou se coming with Palamon Licurge himself, the grete king of Trace: Blake was his berd, and manly was his face. The cercles of his eyen in his head They gloweden betwixen yelwe and red, And like a griffon loked he about, With kemped heres on his browes stout; His limmes gret, his brawnes hard and stronge, His shouldres brode, his armes round and longe. And as the guise was in his countree, Full high upon a char of gold stood he, With foure white bolles in the trais. Instead of cote-armure on his harnais, With nayles yelwe, and bright as any gold, He had a beres-skin, cole-blake for old. His longe here was kempt behind his bak, As any ravenes fether it shone for blake. A wreth of gold arm-gret, of huge weight, Upon his hed sate ful of stones bright, Of fine rubins and of diamants. About his char ther wenten white alauns Twenty and mo, as great as any stere, To hunten at the leon or the dere, And folwed him, with mosel fast ybound, Colered with gold, and torettes filed round. A hundred lordes had he in his route, Armed full wel with hertes sterne and stoute.

With Arcite, in stories as men find, The gret Emetrius, the King of Inde, Upon a stede bay, trapped in stele, Covered with cloth of gold diapered well, Came riding like the god of armes, Mars. His cote-armure was of a cloth of Tars, Couched with perles, white, and round, and grete. His sadel was of brent gold new ybete: A mantelet upon his shouldres hanging, Bret-ful of rubies red, as fire sparkling. His crispe here like ringes was yronne, And that was yelwe, and glittered as the sonne. His nose was high, his eyen bright eitrin, His lippes round, his colour was sanguin, A fewe fraknes in his face yspreint, Betwixen yelwe and blake somdel ymeint, And as a leon he his loking caste. Of five-and-twenty yere his age I caste. His berd was wel begonnen for to spring; His vois was as a trompe thondering. Upon his hed he wered of laurer grene A gerlond fresshe, and lusty for to sene. Upon his hond he bare for his deduit An egle tame, as any lily whit. An hundred lordes had he with him there All armed save hir hedes in all hir gere, Full richely in alle manere thinges. For trusteth wel, that erles, dukes, kinges, Were gathered in this noble compagnie, For love, and for encrease of chevalrie. About this king ther ran on every part Full many a tame leon and leopart.

What a plenitude of brilliant and powerful description! Every verse, every half verse, adds a characterizing circumstance, a vivifying image. And what an integrity and self-completeness has the daring and large conception of either martial king! And how distinguishably the two stand apart from each other! But above all, what a sudden and rich addition to our stock of heroic poetical portraitures! Here is no imitation. Neither Lycurge nor Emetrius is any where in poetry but here. Not in the Iliad-not in the AEneid. You cannot compose either of them from the heroes of antiquity. Each is original—new—self-subsisting. The monarch of Thrace is invested with more of uncouth and savage terror. He is bigger, broader. Might for destroying is in his bulk of bone and muscle. Bulls draw him, and he looks taurine. A bear-skin mantles him; and you would think him of ursine consanguinity. The huge lump of gold upon his raven-black head, and the monster hounds, bigger than the dog-kind can be imagined to produce, that gambol about his chariot, all betoken the grosser character of power—the power that is in size—material. The impression of the portentous is made without going avowedly out of the real. His looking is resembled to that of a griffin, because in that monster imagined at or beyond the verge of nature, the ferocity of a devouring, destroying creature can be conceived as more wild, and grim, and fearful than in nature's known offspring, in all of whom some kindlier sparkles from the heart of the great mother, some beneficently-implanted instincts are thought of as tempering and qualifying the pure animal fierceness and rage.

The opposed King of Inde has also of the prodigious, within the limits of the apparently natural. He is also a tremendous champion; but he has more fire, and less of mere thewes, in the furnishing of his warlike sufficiency. There is more of mind and fancy about him. His fair complexion at once places him in a more gracious category of death-doers. Compare to the car drawn by four white bulls, the gallant bay charger barded with steel, and caparisoned with cloth of gold. Compare to that yellow-nailed, swart bear-skin, the coat-armour made with cloth of Tars, the mantelet thick-sown with rubies; for the locks like the raven's plumage, the curls like Apollo's tresses. He is in the dazzling prime of youth. Black Lycurge, without question, has more than twice his years. The beard that yet springs, joined close to the voice that is like a trumpet, is well found for raising the expression of native power in that thundering voice. The laurel wreath for the ponderous golden diadem—the white eagle on the wrist for the snowy alauns, are all studied to carry through the same opposition. Emetrius is a son of chivalry; Lycurge might be kin or kith, with a difference for the better, of that renowned tyrant Diomedes, who put men's limbs for hay into his manger, and of whom Hercules had, not so long ago, ridded the world. His looking, too, is paralleled away from humanity, but it is by the kingly and generous lion. Observe that the companions of the two kings are described, whether through chance or choice, in terms correspondingly opposite. The Thracian leads a hundred lords, with hearts stern and stout. The Indian's following, earls, dukes, kings, have thronged to him, for the love and increment of chivalry. The lions and leopards, too, that run about him have been tamed. They finish the Indian picture.

How does Dryden acquit himself here? Grandly.

DRYDEN.

With Palamon, above the rest in place, Lycurgus came, the surly king of Thrace; Black was his beard, and manly was his face: The balls of his broad eyes roll'd in his head, And glared bewixt a yellow and a red; He look'd a lion with a gloomy stare, And o'er his eye-brows hung his matted hair; Big-boned, and large of limbs, with sinews strong, Broad-shoulder'd, and his arms were round and long. Four milk-white bulls (the Thracian use of old,) Were yoked to draw his car of burnish'd gold. Upright he stood, and bore aloft his shield, Conspicuous from afar, and overlook'd the field. His surcoat was a bear-skin on his back; His hair hung long behind, and glossy raven-black. His ample forehead bore a coronet With sparkling diamonds, and with rubies set; Ten brace, and more, of greyhounds, snowy fair, And tall as stags, ran loose, and coursed around his chair, A match for pards in flight, in grappling for the bear. With golden muzzles all their mouths were bound, And collars of the same their necks surround. Thus through the field Lycurgus took his way; His hundred knights attend in pomp and proud array.

To match this monarch, with strong Arcite came Emetrius, king of Inde, a mighty name! On a bay courser, goodly to behold, The trappings of his horse emboss'd with barbarous gold. Not Mars bestrode a steed with greater grace; His surcoat o'er his arms was cloth of Thrace, Adorn'd with pearls, all orient, round, and great; His saddle was of gold, with emeralds set; His shoulders large a mantle did attire, With rubies thick, and sparkling as the fire; His amber-coloured locks in ringlets run, With graceful negligence, and shone against the sun. His nose was aquiline, his eyes were blue, Ruddy his lips, and fresh and fair his hue; Some sprinkled freckles on his face were seen, Whose dusk set off the whiteness of the skin. His awful presence did the crowd surprise, Nor durst the rash spectator meet his eyes, Eyes that confess'd him born for kingly sway, So fierce, they flash'd intolerable day. His age in nature's youthful prime appear'd, And just began to bloom his yellow beard. Whene'er he spoke, his voice was heard around, Loud as a trumpet, with a silver sound; A laurel wreath'd his temples, fresh and green, And myrtle sprigs, the marks of love, were mix'd between. Upon his fist he bore, for his delight, An eagle well reclaim'd, and lily white.

His hundred knights attend him to the war, All arm'd for battle, save their heads were bare. Words and devices blazed on every shield, And pleasing was the terror of the field. For kings, and dukes, and barons you might see, Like sparkling stars, though different in degree, All for the increase of arms, and love of chivalry. Before the king tame leopards led the way, And troops of lions innocently play. So Bacchus through the conquer'd Indies rode, And beasts in gambols frisk'd before the honest god.

Dryden, you will have noticed, smooths down, in some places, a little the savagery of the Thracian. He has let go the fell gryphon, borrowing instead the lion's glances of Emetrius. For the more refined poetical invention of the advanced world, the opposition of the two animals for contrasting the two heroes, had possibly something of the burlesque. To Chaucer it was simply energetic. Or Dryden perhaps had not taken up a right view of the gryphon's looking, or he thought that his readers would not. He compensates Emetrius with plainly describing his eyes, in four very animated verses. Lycurge's combed eye-brows are a little mitigated, as is his ferocious bear-skin; and the ring of gold, as thick as a man's arm, has become merely a well-jewelled coronet. The spirit of the figure is, notwithstanding, caught and given. Dryden intends and conveys the impression purposed and effected by Chaucer.

If the black and sullen portrait loses a little grimness under the rich and harmonious pencil of Dryden, the needful contradistinction of the two royal auxiliars is maintained by heightening the favour of the more pleasing one. Throughout, Dryden with pains insists upon the more attractive features which we have claimed for the King of Inde. Grace is twice attributed to his appearance. He has gained blue eyes. His complexion is carefully and delicately handled, as may be especially seen in the management of the freckles. The blooming of his yellow beard, the thundering of the trumpet changed into a silvery sound, the myrtle sprigs mixed amongst the warlike laurel—all unequivocally display the gracious intentions of Dryden towards Emetrius—all aid in rendering effective the opposition which Chaucer has deliberately represented betwixt the two kings. Why the surly Thracian should be rather allied to the knight who serves Venus, and the more gallant Emetrius to the fierce Arcite, the favourite of the War-god, is left for the meditation of readers in all time to come.

The two opposed pictures are perhaps as highly finished as any part of the version. The words fall into their own places, painting their objects. The verse marches with freedom, fervour, and power. Translation has then reached its highest perfection when the suspicion of an original vanishes. The translator makes the matter his own, and writes as if from his own unassisted conception. The allusion to Bacchus is Dryden's own happy addition.

Now read with us—perhaps for the first time—the famous recital of the death of Arcite.

CHAUCER.

Nought may the woful spirit in myn herte Declare o point of all my sorwes smerte To you, my lady, that I love most; But I bequethe the service of my gost To you aboven every creature, Sin that my lif ne may no longer dure. Alas the wo! alas the peines stronge That I for you have suffered, and so longe! Alas the deth! Alas min Emilie! Alas departing of our compagnie! Alas min hertes quene! alas my wif! My hertes ladie, ender of my lif! What is this world? what axen men to have? Now with his love, now in his colde grave Alone withouten any compagnie. Farewel my swete, farewel min Emilie, And softe take me in your armes twey, For love of God, and herkeneth what I sey.

I have here with my cosin Palamon Had strif and rancour many a day agon For love of you, and for my jealousie. And Jupiter so wis my soule gie, To speken of a servant proprely, With alle circumstance trewely, That is to sayn, trouth, honour, and knighthede, Wisdom, humblesse, estat, and high kinrede, Fredom, and all that longeth to that art, So Jupiter have of my soule part, As in this world right now ne know I non So worthy to be loved as Palamon, That serveth you, and wol don all his lif. And if that ever ye shal ben a wif, Foryete not Palamon, the gentil man.

And with that word his speech faille began. For from his feet up to his brest was come The cold of death, which had him overnome. And yet moreover in his armes two, The vital strength is lost, and all ago. Only the intellect, withouten more, That dwelled in his herte sike and sore, Gan faillen, whan the herte felte deth; Dusked his eyen two, and failled his breth. But on his ladie yet cast he his eye; His laste word was: Mercy, Emilie! His spirit changed hous, and wente ther, As I came never I cannot tellen wher. Therefore I stent, I am no divinistre; Of soules find I not in this registre. Ne me lust not th' opinions to telle Of hem, though that they writen wher they dwelle. Arcite is cold, ther Mars his soule gie. Now wol I speken forth of Emilie.

Shright Emilie, and houleth Palamon, And Theseus his sister toke anon Swouning, and bare hire from the corps away. What helpeth it to tarien forth the day, To tellen how she wep both even and morwe? For in swiche cas wimmen haven swiche sorwe, Whan that hir housbondes ben fro hem ago, That for the more part they sorwen so, Or elles fallen in swiche maladie, That atte laste certainly they die.

Infinite ben the sorwes and the teres Of olde folk, and folk of tendre years In all the toun for deth of this Theban: For him, ther wepeth bothe child and man: So gret a weping was there non certain, When Hector was ybrought, all fresh yslain To Troy: alas! the pitee that was there, Cratching of chekes, rending eke of here. Why woldest thou be ded? the women crie, And haddest gold enough, and Emilie.

The death of Arcite is one of the scenes for which the admirers of Chaucer feel themselves entitled to claim, that it shall be judged in comparison with analogous passages of the poets that stand highest in the renown of natural and pathetic delineation. The dying words of the hero are as proper as if either great classical master of epic propriety—the Chian or the Mantuan—had left them to us. They are thoroughly sad, thoroughly loving, and supremely magnanimous. They have a perfect simplicity of purpose. They take the last leave of his Emelie; and they find for her, if ever she shall choose to put off her approaching estate of unwedded widowhood, a fit husband. They have answerable simplicity of sentiment and of language. He is unable to utter any particle of the pain which he feels in quitting her; but since the service which living he pays her, draws to an end, he pledges to her in the world whither he is going, the constant love-fealty of his disembodied spirit. He recalls to her, with a word only, the long love-torments he has endured for her, exchanged, in the hour when they should have been crowned with possession, for the pains of death. He heaps endearing names upon her. He glances at the vanity of human wishes imaged in himself, and he bids her farewell. That is his first heart-offering towards herself. Can a death-severed heart's elocution be imitated more aptly, more touchingly? He then turns to praising his rival. The jealousy, which had so long been the madness of both, filling the two kindred, brotherly, once-affectionate bosoms with hate, has, in his, melted away with life, thence melting away; and Arcite, with his last intelligible breath, describes Palamon briefly, point by point, as he knew him when he best loved him. He does not implore Emelie to remain for his sake single. He does not pretend, if she shall marry, to govern her choice; but he simply requests her, if the season shall ever arrive of such a choice, that she will not "forget Palamon." But the death-frost creeps on—his eyes darken—and the suspiration which finally wafts the soul from the body, beseeches the favour of her, only to earn whose favour he lived, and with earning whose favour he dies. Her name leaves his lips last. Could Shakspeare have helped Chaucer? The whole speech is admirably direct and short. We shall presently have to deal with one from the same poem, which wants that virtue.

The clamorous outbreak that follows, first of the private, and, supervening upon that, of the public grief, if not altogether couched in Homeric phraseology or numbers, has an air, however, of the Homeric painting. But, indeed, neither is the language deficient in fanciful significancy, nor the measure in good old melody.

DRYDEN.

No language can express the smallest part Of what I feel, and suffer in my heart, For you, whom best I love and value most: But to your service I bequeath my ghost; Which, from this mortal body when untied, Unseen, unheard, shall hover at your side; Nor fright you waking, nor your sleep offend, But wait officious, and your steps attend. How I have loved—excuse my faltering tongue! My spirit's feeble and my pains are strong: This I may say I only grieve to die, Because I lose my charming Emily. To die when heaven had put you in my power! Fate could not choose a more malicious hour. What greater curse could envious fortune give, Than just to die when I began to live? Vain men, how vanishing a bliss we crave, Now warm in love, now withering in the grave! Never, O never more to see the sun! Still dark, in a damp vault, and still alone! This fate is common; but I lose my breath Near bliss, and yet not bless'd, before my death. Farewell! but take me dying in your arms, 'Tis all I can enjoy of all your charms: This hand I cannot but in death resign; Ah, could I live! but while I live 'tis mine. I feel my end approach, and thus embraced, Am pleased to die; but hear me speak my last. Ah, my sweet foe! for you, and you alone, I broke my faith with injured Palamon: But love the sense of right and wrong confounds; Strong love and proud ambition have no bounds. And much I doubt, should Heaven my life prolong, I should return to justify my wrong; For, while my former flames remain within, Repentance is but want of power to sin. With mortal hatred I pursued his life, Nor he, nor you, were guilty of the strife; Nor I, but as I loved; yet all combined, Your beauty, and my impotence of mind; And his concurrent flame that blew my fire; For still our kindred souls had one desire. He had a moment's right, in point of time; Had I seen first, then his had been the crime. Fate made it mine, and justified his right; Nor holds this earth a more deserving knight, For virtue, valour, and for noble blood, Truth, honour, all that is comprised in good; So help me Heaven, in all the world is none So worthy to be loved as Palamon. He loves you, too, with such a holy fire, As will not, cannot, but with life expire; Our vow'd affections both have often tried, Nor any love but yours could ours divide. Then, by my love's inviolable band, By my long-suffering, and my short command, If e'er you plight your vows when I am gone, Have pity on the faithful Palamon.

This was his last; for Death came on amain, And exercised below his iron reign. Then upward to the seat of life he goes; Sense fled before him, what he touch'd he froze: Yet could he not his closing eyes withdraw, Though less and less of Emily he saw; So, speechless for a little space he lay; Then grasp'd the hand he held, and sigh'd his soul away. But whither went his soul, let such relate Who search the secrets of the future state: Divines can say but what themselves believe; Strong proofs they have, but not demonstrative; For, were all plain, then all sides must agree, And faith itself be lost in certainty. To live uprightly, then, is sure the best; To save ourselves, and not to damn the rest. The soul of Arcite went where heathens go, Who better live than we, though less they know.

In Palamon a manly grief appears; Silent he wept, ashamed to show his tears. Emilia shriek'd but once; and then, oppress'd With sorrow, sunk upon her lover's breast: Till Theseus in his arms convey'd, with care, Far from so sad a sight the swooning fair. 'Twere loss of time her sorrow to relate; Ill bears the sex a youthful lover's fate, When just approaching to the nuptial state: But, like a low-hung cloud, it rains so fast, That all at once it falls, and cannot last. The face of things is changed, and Athens now, That laugh'd so late, becomes the scene of woe: Matrons and maids, both sexes, every state, With tears lament the knight's untimely fate. Nor greater grief in falling Troy was seen For Hector's death, but Hector was not then. Old men with dust deform'd their hoary hair; The women beat their breasts, their cheeks they tear: Why wouldst thou go, (with one consent they cry,) When thou hadst gold enough, and Emily?

Dryden, you observe, exhibits various changes. Are they for the better or the worse? In the first place, he introduces a new motive into the conduct of Arcite—remorse of conscience. When fate has declared against him, and he finds that he cannot enjoy the possession of the prize which he has wrongfully won, his eyes open upon his own injustice, and he acknowledges the prior right of Palamon, who first had seen Emilie.

Does this innovation make good an ethical want in the rough and unschooled original? Or does it perplex the old heroic simplicity with a modern and needless refinement? By right of arms, by gift of the king, with her own gentle consent, Emelie was Arcite's. Death unsinews the hand that held her against the world. Let a few winged moments fleet, and she is his no more. He bows, conquered by all-conquering, alone unconquerable necessity. His love, which had victoriously expelled his cousin's from the field of debate, he carries with him to the melancholy Plutonic kingdom, and leaves the field of debate still—Palamon victor, and Emelie free. Really there seems to be something not only simpler in art, but more pathetic, and even morally greater, in the humble submission of the fierce and giant-like spirit to inevitable decree—in the spontaneous return of the pristine fraternal appreciation when death withdraws the disturbing force of rivalry—and in his voluntarily appointing, so far as he ventures to appoint, his brother in arms and his bride to each other's happiness—than in the inventive display of a compunction for which, as the world goes, there appears to be positively no use, and hardly clear room. Loftily viewing the case, a wrong has been intended by Arcite to Palamon, but no wrong done. He has been twice hacked and hewed a little—that is all; and it cannot be said that he has been robbed of her who would not have been his. Indeed, the current of destiny has so run, that the quarrel of the two noble kinsmen has brought, as apparently it alone could bring, the survivor to wedlock with his beloved. We suspect, then, that the attribution of the motive is equally modern with the style of the not ill-contrived witticism which accompanies the first mention of it—

"Conscience, that of all physick works the last, Caused him to send for Emily in haste."

But that which, upon the general comparison of the two speeches, principally strikes us, is the great expansion, by the multiplying of the thoughts to which expression is given, by Dryden. With old Geoffrey, the weight of death seems actually to lie upon the tongue that speaks in few interrupted accents. Dryden's Moribund runs on, quite at his ease, in eloquent disquisition. Another unsatisfactory difference is the disappearing of that distinct, commanding purpose or plan, and the due proportion observed upon in the original. That mere cleaving desire to Emelie, felt through the first half in word after word gushing up from a heart in which life, but not love, ebbs, gets bewildered in the modern version among explications of the befallen unhappiness, and lost in a sort of argumentative lamentation. And do but just look how that "in his colde grave," the only word, one may say, in the whole allocution which does not expressly appertain to Emelie, and yet half belongs to her by contrast—is extended, in Dryden, as if upon recollection of Claudio's complaint in "Measure for Measure," until, like that complaint, it becomes selfish.

But there is small pleasure in picking out the poetical misses of John Dryden. It was to be foreseen that he would be worsted in this place of the competition; for the pathetic was not his forte, and was Chaucer's. So, too, instead of the summary and concise commendation of his happier cousin to the future regard of the bereaved bride, so touching in Chaucer, there comes in, provoked by that unlucky repentance, an expatiating and arguing review of the now extinct quarrel, showing a liberty and vigour of thought that agree ill with the threatening cloud of dissolution, and somewhat overlay and encumber the proper business to which the dying man has now turned himself—made imperative by the occasion—the formal and energetic eulogy on Palamon. The praise, however, is bestowed at last, and handsomely.

Have we, think ye, gentle lovers of Chaucer, rightly understood the possibly somewhat obscure intention of the two verses at the beginning of our extract—

"But I bequethe the service of my gost To you?"

We have accepted "service" in the sense which, agreeably to our erudition, it eminently holds the old love-vocabulary—homage, devotion, LOVE; the pure and entire dedication by the lover of his whole being to his lady. In this meaning, the heart continually serves, if there should be no opportunity of rendering any useful offices. You will see that Dryden has taken the word in what strikes us as an inferior sense—namely, available service; but then his verses are exquisite. And why, gentle lovers of Chaucer, why think ye does the expiring Arcite, at that particular juncture of his address, crave of his heart's queen softly to take him in her arms? Is it not that he is then about pouring out into her ear his dying design for her happiness? Received so, the movement has great originality and an infinite beauty. His heart yearns the more towards her as he is on the point of giving utterance to his generous proposal. He will, by that act of love upon her part, and that mutual attitude of love, deepen the solemnity, truth, power, impression of his unexpected request. Will he perchance, too, approach her ear to his voice, that grows weaker and weaker?

The two verses appear by their wording to intimate something like all this.

"And softe take me in your armes twey, For love of God, and herkeneth what I sey."

If Chaucer had any such meaning, it vanishes wholly in Dryden's version.

On re-surveying the matter at last, we feel the more that the passing over of Emelie from the dead Arcite to the living Palamon, in Chaucer, is by much more poetical when viewed as the voluntary concession and gift of the now fully heroic Arcite, than as, in Dryden, the recovered right of the fortunate survivor. However, the speech, as Dryden has it, is vigorous, numerous, spirited, eloquent, touched with poetry, and might please you very well, did you not compare it with the singular truth, feeling, fitness of Chaucer's—that unparalleled picture of a manly, sorely-wrung, lovingly-provident spirit upon its bed of untimely death.

The process of dying has been considerately delineated by Chaucer. Death creeps from the feet upwards to the breast—it creeps up and possesses the arms. But the intellect which dwelled in the heart 'gan fail only when the very heart felt death. Then dimness fell upon the eyes, and the breath faltered. One more look—one more word—and the spirit has forsaken its tenement. Dryden generalizes all this particularity—and therein greatly errs. But the last four flowing verses of the death-scene are in his more inspired manner, and must be held good for redeeming a multitude of peccadilloes and some graver transgressions. Read them over again—

"Yet could he not his closing eyes withdraw, Though less and less of Emily he saw; So, speechless for a little space he lay; Then grasp'd the hand he held, and sigh'd his soul away."

When years rolling have in a manner exhausted the tears due to the remembrance of the heroic Arcite, a parliament, held upon matters of public interest, gives occasion to Theseus of requiring the attendance of Palamon from Thebes to Athens. The benign monarch, however, is revolving affairs of nearer and more private concern. The national council is assembled; Palamon is in his place, and Emelie has been called into presence. His majesty puts on a very serious countenance, fixes his eyes, heaves a sigh, and begins unburthening his bosom of its concealed purposes. He "begins from the beginning" in this fashion:—

"When the First Mover established the great chain of love, in which he bound the four elements, the mighty ordering proceeded of high wisdom. The same author, himself inaccessible to alteration, has appointed to all natural things the law of transiency and succession. The kinds endure; the individuals pass away. Nature examples us with decay. Trees, rivers, mighty towns, wax and wane—much more we. All must die—the great and the small: and the wish to live is an impiety. Better it is to fall in the pride of strength and in the splendour of renown, than to droop through long years into the grave; and the friend who survives should rejoice in his friend's happy and honourable departure. Wherefore, then, shall we longer mourn for Arcite?" This is the copious preamble. The conclusion is more briefly dispatched. Emelie must accept the hand of her faithful servant Palamon. He wants no persuasion; and the knot of matrimony happily ties up at last their destinies, wishes, and expectations, which the Tale in its progress has spun.

The royal harangue is long; and marked, doubtless, with a sort of artificial solemnity. However, it has a deliberative stateliness and a certain monarchal tone. We do not now, in the Speeches from the Throne, begin regularly from the Creation—but that is a refinement. There has been eloquence of which Chaucer's deep display of philosophy and high deduction of argument is no ill-conceived representation. There is a grandeur in the earthly king's grounding his counsels in those of the heavenly King; and in his blending his own particular act of exerted kingly sway into the general system of things in the universe. The turn from the somewhat magniloquent dissertation to the parties immediately interested—the gentle disposing, between injunction and persuasion, of Emelie's will, and the frank call upon Palamon to come forward and take possession of his happiness, are natural, princely, and full of dramatic grace. Thus,—

CHAUCER.

Lo the oke that hath so long a norishing Fro the time that it ginneth first to spring, And hath so long a lif, as ye may see, Yet at the laste wasted is the tree. Considereth eke, how that the harde stone Under our feet, on which we trede and gon, It wasteth as it lieth by the way; The brode river some time waxeth dry; The grete tounes see we wane and wende; Then may ye see that all things hath an end. Of man and woman see we wel also, That nedes in on of the termes two, That is to sayn, in youth or elles age, He mote be ded, the king as shall a page; Som on his bed, some on the depe see, Som in the large field, as ye may see; Ther helpeth nought, all goth that ilke wey; Than may I say that alle things mote dey. What maketh this but Jupiter the king? The which is prince, and cause of alle thing, Converting alle unto his propre will, From which it is derived, soth to telle. And here againes no creature on live Of no degree availeth for to strive. Then is it wisdom, as it thinketh me, To maken virtue of necessite, And take it wel, that we may not eschewe, And namely that to us all is dewe. And who so grutcheth ought, he doth folie, And rebel is to him that all may gie. And certainly a man hath most honour To dien in his excellence and flour, Whan he is siker of his goode name. Than hath he don his friend, ne him, no shame; And glader ought his friend been of his deth Whan with honour is yelden up his breath, Than whan his name appalled is for age; For all foryetten is his vassalage Than is it best, as for a worthy fame, To dien when a man is best of name. The contrary of all this is wilfulnesse. Why grutchen we? Why have we heavinesse, That good Arcite, of chivalry the flour, Departed is, with dutee and honour, Out of this foule prison of this lif? Why grutchen here his cosin and his wif Of his welfare, that loven him so wel? Can he hem thank? Nay, God wot, never a del, That both his soule, and eke himself offend, And yet they mow hir lustres not amend.

What may I conclude of this longe serie, But after sorwe I rede us to be merie, And thanken Jupiter of all his grace, And er that we departen from this place, I rede that we make of sorwes two O parfit joye lasting evermo; And loketh now wher most sorwe is herein, Ther wol I firste amenden and begin.

Sister (quod he) this is my full assent, With all the avis here of my parlement, That gentil Palamon, your owen knight, That serveth you with will, and herte and might, And ever hath done, sin ye first him knew, That ye shall of your grace upon him vew, And taken him for husbond and for lord: Lene me your hand, for this is oure accord.

Let see now of your womanly pitee. He is a kinge's brother's sone pardee, And though he were a poure bachelere, Sin he hath served you so many a yere, And had for you so gret adversitie, It moste ben considered, leveth me. For gentil mercy oweth to passen right.

Then sayd he thus to Palamon the knight: I trow ther nedeth little sermoning To maken you assenten to this thing. Cometh ner, and take your lady by the hond.

Betwixen hem was maked anon the bond, That highte matrimoine or mariage, By all the conseil of the baronage. And thus with alle blisse and melodie Hath Palamon ywedded Emilie. And God, that all this wide world hath wrought, Send him his love, that hath it dere ybought. For now is Palamon in alle wele, Living in blisse, in richisse, and in hele, And Emelie him loveth so tendrely, And he hire serveth all so gentilly, That never was ther no word hem betwene Of jalousie, ne of non other tene.

Thus endeth Palamon and Emilie And God save all this fayre compagnie.

The whole oration is rendered by Dryden with zealous diligence in bringing out the sense into further effect, and with a magnificent sweep of composition. If there is in the fine original any thing felt as a little too stiffly formal, this impression is wholly obliterated or lost in the streaming poetry of the translator. Dryden may not, on his own score, have been much of a philosopher; but he handles a philosophical thought in verse with a dexterity that is entirely his own. The sharpness and swiftness of intellectual power concurring in him, join so much ease with so much brevity, that the poetical vein flows on unhindered, even when involved with metaphysical notions and with scholastic recollections. The comparison of the following noble strain with the original now quoted, decisively and successfully shows the character of an embellishing transformation, which we have all along attributed to Dryden's treatment of Chaucer. The full thought of the original is often but as the seed of thought to the version, or at least the ungrown plant of the one throws out the luxuriance and majesty of leaves, blossoms, and branches in the other. The growth and decay of the oak in the two, and still more of the human being, are marked instances. Dryden does not himself acknowledge the bold license which he has used in regenerating; he does himself less than justice. The worth of his work is not the giving to modern England her ancient poet, without the trouble of acquiring his language, or of learning to sympathize with his manner. It would almost seem as if that were an enterprise which there is no accomplishing. Rightly to speak, it was not Dryden's. He really undertook, from a great old poem lying before him, to write a great modern poem, which he has done; and in the new Knight's Tale, we see Dryden, the great poet—we do not see Chaucer, the greater poet. But we see in it presumptive proof that the old poem worked from was great and interesting; and we must be lazy and unprofitable students if we do not, from the proud and splendid modernization, derive a yearning and a craving towards the unknown simple antique. Unknown to us, in our first studies, as we read upward from our own day into the past glories of our vernacular literature; but which, when, with gradually mounting courage, endeavour, and acquirement, we have made our way up so far, we find

"Worthy to have not remain'd so long unknown."

So, Dryden has done honour and rendered service to his mighty predecessor—truer honour and better service—not by superseding, but by guiding and impelling towards the knowledge of the old Knight's Tale.

DRYDEN.

The monarch oak, the patriarch of the trees, Shoots rising up, and spreads by slow degrees; Three centuries he grows, and three he stays, Supreme in state, and in three more decays: So wears the paving pebble in the street, And towns and towers their fatal periods meet: So rivers, rapid once, now naked lie, Forsaken of their springs and leave their channels dry: So man, at first a drop, dilates with heat; Then form'd the little heart begins to beat; Secret he feeds, unknowing in the cell; At length, for hatching ripe, he breaks the shell, And struggles into breath, and cries for aid; Then helpless in his mother's lap is laid. He creeps, he walks, and, issuing into man, Grudges their life, from whence his own began; Retchless of laws, affects to rule alone, Anxious to reign, and restless on the throne; First vegetive, then feels, and reasons last; Rich of three souls, and lives all three to waste. Some thus, but thousands more, in flower of age, For few arrive to run the latter stage. Sunk in the first, in battle some are slain, And others whelm'd beneath the stormy main. What makes all this but Jupiter the king, At whose command we perish, and we spring? Then 'tis our best, since thus ordain'd to die, To make a virtue of necessity; Take what he gives, since to rebel is vain; The bad grows better, which we well sustain; And could we choose the time, and choose aright, 'Tis best to die, our honour at the height. When we have done our ancestors no shame, But served our friends, and well secured our fame, Then should we wish our happy life to close, And leave no more for fortune to dispose. So should we make our death a glad relief From future shame, from sickness, and from grief; Enjoying, while we live, the present hour, And dying in our excellence and flower. Then round our death-bed every friend should run, And joyous of our conquest early won; While the malicious world, with envious tears, Should grudge our happy end, and wish it theirs. Since then our Arcite is with honour dead, Why should we mourn that he so soon is freed, Or call untimely what the gods decreed? With grief as just, a friend may be deplored, From a foul prison to free air restored, Ought he to thank his kinsman or his wife, Could tears recal him into wretched life? Their sorrow hurts themselves; on him is lost; And worse than both, offends his happy ghost. What then remains, but after past annoy, To take the good vicissitude of joy; To thank the gracious gods for what they give, Possess our souls, and while we live, to live? Ordain we then two sorrows to combine, And in one point the extremes of grief to join; That thence resulting joy may be renew'd, As jarring notes in harmony conclude. Then I propose, that Palamon shall be In marriage join'd with beauteous Emily; For which already I have gain'd the assent Of my free people in full parliament. Long love to her has borne the faithful knight, And well deserved, had fortune done him right; 'Tis time to mend her fault, since Emily, By Arcite's death, from former vows is free.— If you, fair sister, ratify the accord, And take him for your husband and your lord, 'Tis no dishonour to confer your grace On one descended from a royal race; And were he less, yet years of service past, From grateful souls, exact reward at last. Pity is heaven's and your's; nor can she find A throne so soft as in a woman's mind—

He said: she blush'd; and, as o'erawed by might, Seem'd to give Theseus what she gave the knight. Then, turning to the Theban, thus he said:— Small arguments are needful to persuade Your temper to comply with my command: And, speaking thus, he gave Emilia's hand. Smiled Venus to behold her own true knight Obtain the conquest, though he lost the fight; And bless'd, with nuptial bliss, the sweet laborious night. Eros and Anteros, on either side, One fired the bridegroom, and one warm'd the bride; And long-attending Hymen, from above, Shower'd on the bed the whole Idalian grove. All of a tenor was their after-life, No day discolour'd with domestic strife; No jealousy, but mutual truth believed Secure repose, and kindness undeceived. Thus Heaven, beyond the compass of his thought, Sent him the blessing he so dearly bought.

So may the Queen of Love long duty bless, And all true lovers find the same success.

The time is come in which a curious and instructive chapter in English criticism—a long one too, possibly—might be written on the Versification of Chaucer, and upon the history of opinions respecting it. Tyrwhitt laid the basis, in his edition of the Canterbury Tales—the only work of the ancestral poet that can yet fairly be said to have found an editor—by a text, of which the admirable diligence, fidelity, skill, and sound discretion, wrung energetic and unqualified praise from the illaudatory pen of Ritson. But the Grammar of Chaucer has yet to be fully drawn out. The profound labours of the continental scholars, late or living, on the language that was immediate mother to our own, the Anglo-Saxon, makes that which was in Tyrwhitt's day a thing impossible to be done, now almost an easy adventure. Accomplished, it would at once considerably rectify even Tyrwhitt's text. The Rules of the Verse, which are many, and evince a systematic and cautious framing, no less than a sensitive musical ear in the patriarch, would follow of themselves. In the mean time, a few observations, for which the materials lie at hand, are called for in this place, by the collision of the two great names, Chaucer and Dryden. Dryden says—

"The verse of Chaucer, I confess, is not harmonious to us, but it is like the eloquence of one whom Tacitus commends, it was auribus istius temporis accommodata. They who lived with him, and some time after him, thought it musical; and it continues so, even in our judgment, if compared with the numbers of Lidgate and Gower, his contemporaries:—there is the rude sweetness of a Scotch tune in it, which is natural and pleasing, though not perfect. It is true, I cannot go so far as he who published the last edition of him; for he would make us believe the fault is in our ears, and that there were really ten syllables in a verse where we find but nine; but this opinion is not worth confuting; it is so gross and obvious an error, that common sense (which is a rule in every thing but matters of faith and revelation) must convince the reader that equality of numbers, in every verse which we call heroic, was either not known, or not always practised in Chaucer's age. It were an easy matter to produce some thousands of his verses which are lame for want of half a foot, and sometimes a whole one, and which no pronunciation can make otherwise. We can only say, that he lived in the infancy of our poetry, and that nothing is brought to perfection at first. We must be children before we grow men. There was an Ennius, and in process of time a Lucilius and a Lucretius, before Virgil and Horace; even after Chaucer there was a Spenser, a Harrington, a Fairfax, before Waller and Denham were in being; and our numbers were in their nonage till these last appeared."

Strange to say, by the changing pronunciation of the language, there grew with time upon the minds of men a doubt, whether or no the Father of our Poetry wrote verse! The tone of Dryden, in the above passage, when animadverting upon Speght, shows that that editor, in standing up for ten syllables, put forth an unusual opinion; whilst the poet, in alleging the deficiency, manifestly agrees with the opinion of the antique versification that had become current in the world. He taxes Chaucer, it will be observed, with going wrong on the side of deficiency, not of excess; nor does he blame the interchange even of deficiency and excess, as if the syllables were often nine and often eleven. His words leave no room for misconception of their meaning. They are as definite as language can supply. "Thousands of the verses are lame for want of half a foot, or of a whole one." In this sense, then, he intends: "That equality of numbers, in every verse which we call heroic, was either not known, or not always practised in Chaucer's age."

But as Dryden has been severely taken to task by some insignificant writers of our day for the above passage, let us, not for his vindication, but excuse, take a moment's glance at Speght's edition (1602,) which, in Dryden's day, was in high esteem, and had been at first published on the recommendation of Speght's "assured and ever-loving friend," the illustrious Francis Beaumout. In his preface, Speght says—"and his verses, although in divers places they may seem to us to stand of unequal measures, yet a skilful reader that can scan them in their nature, shall find it otherwise. And if a verse here and there fal out a sillable shorter or longer than another, I rather aret it to the negligence and rape of Adam Scrivener, that I may speak as Chaucer doth, than to any unconning or oversight in the Author. For how fearful he was to have his works miswritten, or his verse mismeasured, may appear in the end of his fifth book of Troilus and Cresside, where he writeth thus:—

'And for there is so great diversitie, In English and in writing of our tongue, So pray I God, that none miswrite thee, Ne thee mismetre for defaut of tongue'" &c.

How Speght made up the measure to his own satisfaction does not appear; nor what those methods of pronunciation may have been which Dryden tried, and which left some thousand verses deficient by half a foot, or a foot.

But believing Speght's text to be accurate, Dryden could not but believe in the artlessness and irregularity of Chaucer's versification. Speght's text is most inaccurate, and altogether undeserving of his own very high opinion, thus expressed in the Dedication to Sir Robert Cecil—"Now, therefore, that both by old written copies, and by Master William Thynn's praiseworthy labours, I have reformed the whole worke, whereby Chaucer for the most part is restored to his owne antiquitie." In his Chaucer, Dryden met every where such lines as these—

"When that April with his shours sote."

"And small foules maken melodie That slepen all night with open eie."

"It befell that season on a day."

"Ready to wend in my pilgrimage."

"That toward Canterbury would ride— The chambres and stables weren wide."

"To tell you all the condition."

"Full worthy was he in his lords warre."

"Aboven all nations in Pruce."

"For to tell you of his array."

We suspect that there was all along a lingering tradition amongst the learned about the virtue of the Mute E's. Vestiges of the use occur in the poets of Elizabeth's time. Wallis, the celebrated grammarian, says, that "with our early poets it is found that that (final) E did or did not constitute an additional syllable, just as the stricture of the verse required it." Urry, whose edition of Chaucer was published, not long after his death, in 1721, knows for vocal the termination in ES, of genitive singular and of the plural—also the past tense and participle in ED, which, however, can hardly be thought much of, as it is a power over one mute E that we retain in use to this day. The final E, too, he marks for a syllable where he finds one wanted, but evidently without any grammatical reason. Urry was an unfortunate editor. Truly does Tyrwhitt say of him, that "his design of restoring the metre of Chaucer by a collation of MSS., was as laudable as his execution of it has certainly been unsuccessful." The natural causes of this ill success are thus severely and distinctly stated, "The strange license in which he appears to have indulged himself, of lengthening and shortening Chaucer's words according to his own fancy, and of even adding words of his own, without giving his readers the least notice, has made the text of Chaucer in his edition by far the worst that was ever published." One is not surprised when Tyrwhitt, the model of gentlemanly and scholarly editor, a very pattern of temperate, equitable, and merciful criticism, cannot refrain from closing his preface with this extinguishing censure of his wilful predecessor—"Mr Urry's edition should never be opened by any one for the purpose of reading Chaucer."

Morell, a scholar, published in 1737 the Prologue and the Knight's Tale—and he, too, marked at need the Mute E's in his text, but by what rule Tyrwhitt does not intimate, nor do we now distinctly recollect. He courageously holds that the numbers of Chaucer "are always musical, whether they want or exceed the complement." But that cannot well be; for except in very peculiar cases—such, for example, as the happy line, "Gingling in the whistling wind full clear"—if the MS. have it so—a line of nine syllables only must be a lame one—and their frequent recurrence would be the destruction of all music.

Tyrwhitt urges the reason of pronouncing the final E; namely, that it remains to us from a language in which it formed a syllable. So from the Norman French we have fac-E, host-E, chang-E, &c. This is basing the matter on its true ground. It must, however, be acknowledged with some sorrow, that this well-schooled, clear-minded, and most laborious editor did not feel himself bound, for the behoof of his author, to master, as far as the philology of the day might have enabled him, the Saxon tongue itself, and learn from the fountain what might, and what could not be—the language of Chaucer. Imperfect as the study of the Anglo-Saxon then was, he would thus have possessed a needful mastery over the manuscripts, upon which, as it was, he wholly depended; and he would have been saved from some unguarded philological assertions and whimsical speculations. Wanting this guidance, the work, so well executed as it is, is a monument only the more to be wondered at of his indefatigable industry and extraordinary good sense.