type which is to reflect to the imagination of future ages the splendours of chivalrous heroism. The trial of his strength has really been in progress from the very commencement of the poem. Immersed in sportive and luxurious enjoyment, he has sprung up to action on the first summons of duty. The rencontre with the Aleman assassin has exhibited him as benevolent and forgiving. The idyll of the Alpine valley has opened his warm and loving heart. The sympathy thus excited for him will not be effaced. It will add to our admiration for this noble mind, if, already felt to be gentle and loving, it shall be proved by harsher trials to be heroically firm.

But there is yet another truth implied in the tragical close of the Etruscan tale. Grief is the teacher of Faith. The bitter thoughts which spring up from the grave of the beloved, call us away from life, and time, and earth, to dwell in meditation among worlds to which the lost have gone, and to see through the evanescent darkness of human suffering the solemn and ineffable glories of immortality. Arthur, thus purified and enlightened by sorrow, is ready to seek, in solitary passage through the fairy-land of thought, the Sword which the patriot wields, and the wearer of which is worthy of poetic fame through ages. But the gift is to be won, not by the valour of the knight, but by the moral greatness cf the man; not by warlike deeds, but by resistance to strong temptation, and by clear perception of the relative importance of conflicting duties.

Very probably this ethical reading of ours may appear to the author, or to more intelligent readers, an unfaithful or imperfect exposition of the text. But a work like this, -a work designed in so lofty a spirit, and executed with so fine a sense of the noblest functions of poetry,-is assuredly not worthily appreciated, unless by those who have in some measure apprehended that world of suggestive thought which the poet aims at embodying in his imaginative scenes and figures; and, if a series of poetic images suggest, to diverse minds, diversified trains of reflection and emotion, this is perhaps the clearest evidence of their poetical intensity and truth.

It is not until after the author has sought to relieve the romantic sadness of the preceding parts of the narrative, by a long interlude of comic misadventure and satirical innuendo, that he allows us to sink, with Arthur and the Lady of the Lake, to the enchanted region beneath the waves, which is very fancifully described. The wealth of gems which glitters on the trees of the Magic Forest is first offered, and frowningly rejected. Then, the phantom-lady disappearing, Arthur passes alone into the Hall

of Time. In it he sees the charmed sword, sheathed to the hilt in a rock (a figure, by the way, from the romances). On three thrones beside it sit three gigantic kings: the rigid and deathlike Genius of the Past; the haughty and triumphant Genius of the Present; and the Genius of the Future, with his face halfveiled, in a sleep about to give way.

Arthur is invited, by the Spirit of the Present, to choose between three forms of happiness, emblemed by visions rising in arches of the shrine.

The thoughtless Pleasure of Youth is briefly shown, and hastily rejected. Royal Pomp is rejected likewise for behind the throne are poverty, and hunger, and labour breeding disease and death and discontent, vengeance and despair; a scene which is bitterly described as the quintessence of modern civilisation, the perfect sway of merchant kings.' Last comes the pageant of Death,—death glorified by the immortality of Poetic Fame.

'So turned, with generous tears in manly eyes,
The hardy Lord of heav'n-taught Chivalry.
Lo, the third arch and last! In moonlight, rise
The Cymrian rocks dark-shining from the sea;
And all those rocks some patriot war, foregone,
Hallows with grassy mound and starlit stone.
'And, where the softest falls the loving light,

He sees himself, stretch'd lifeless on the sward!
And, by the corpse, with sacred robes of white,
Leans on his ivory harp a lonely Bard;
Yea, to the Dead the sole still watchers given
Are the Fame-singer and the Hosts of Heaven!

'But on the kingly front the kingly crown

Rests; the pale right hand grasps the diamond glaive;
The brow, on which ev'n strife hath left no frown,
Calm in the halo Glory gives the Brave.

"Mortal! is this thy choice?" the Genius cried:

"Here Death; there Pleasure; and there Pomp!-Decide!" "Death," answer'd Arthur, "is nor good nor ill,

Save in the ends for which men die; and Death

Can oft achieve what Life may not fulfil,

And kindle earth with Valour's dying breath:
But oh! one answer to one terror deign!

My land- my people! - Is that death in vain ?"
'Mute droop'd the Genius: but the unquiet form,

Dreaming beside its brother king, arose,
Tho' dreaming still: As leaps the sudden storm
On sands Arabian,—as with spasms and throes
Bursts the Fire-mount by soft Parthenopé,
Rose the veil'd Genius of the Things To Be!

'The Genius rose; and through the phantom arch
Glided the Shadows of His own pale dreams.'

(Book vii.)

And now there pass, in homage, before the dead'sire of 'chivalry,' the shapes of his royal successors-from the knightly Plantagenet to the discrowned Stuart. Round these are grouped the brave, and wise, and imaginative, who have made England glorious and great, with other figures representing the character of the successive ages. The procession is closed by a scene imaging our own times in faint outline-a scene of gentle daylight, with one cloud in the distant sky. All is calm here, amidst the crash of falling dynasties.

'Mild, like all strength, sits Crowned Liberty,
Wearing the aspect of a youthful Queen:
And far outstretched along the unmeasured sea
Rests the vast shadow of her throne.
From the dumb icebergs to the fiery zone

Serene

Rests the vast shadow of that guardian throne.

And round her group the Cymrian's changeless race
Blent with the Saxon, brother-like; and both
Saxon and Cymrian, from that sovereign trace

Their hero-line ;-sweet flower of age-long growth;
The single blossom on the twofold stem;
Arthur's white plume crests Cerdie's diadem.

"Behold the close of thirteen hundred years:

Lo! Cymri's Daughter on the Saxon's throne!
Free as their air thy Cymrian mountaineers;

And in the heavens one rainbow cloud alone,
Which shall not pass, until, the cycle o'er,
The soul of Arthur comes to earth once more!

""Dost thou choose Death?" the giant Dreamer said.
Ay! for in death I seize the life of fame,

And link the eternal millions with the dead!"

Replied the King. And to the sword he came,
Large-striding-grasped the hilt ;-the charmed brand
Clove to the rock, and stirr'd not to his hand.'

(Book vii.)

On a ruby

A last temptation has yet to be withstood. pedestal in the hall stands the statue of a crowned Child, smiling, though its wreath was of thorns, and though vipers twined round its limbs, and a hungry vulture watched it from a rock above. The Dove flies forth from the king's bosom, and perches on the statue's wreath. The vulture rises to seize it, and the vipers coil upwards. But they pause as the statue is stirred with life.

"Mortal!" the Image murmured, "I am He,

Whose voice alone the enchanted sword unsheathes;
Mightier than yonder Shapes eternally,

Throned upon light, tho' crowned with thorny wreaths;
Changeless amid the Halls of Time; my name

In heaven is YOUTH, and on the earth is FAME.

"All altars need their sacrifice; and mine

Asks every bloom in which thy heart delighted;
Thorns are my garlands: would'st thou serve the shrine,
Drear is the faith to which thy vows are plighted.
The Asp shall twine, the Vulture watch the prey,
And Horror rend thee, if but Hope give way.

< "Wilt thou the falchion with the thorns it brings?"
"Yea-for the thorn-wreath hath not dimm'd thy smile!"
"Lo! thy first offering to the Vulture's wing,

And the Asp's fangs!" the cold lips answered; while
Nearer, and nearer, the devourers came,

Where the Dove resting hid the thorns of Fame.' (Book vii.) But there rushes on Arthur's heart the memory of sweet companionship, and confiding tenderness, and mysterious love seeking to console grief. For fame and country he will sacrifice life; but even for them he will not betray trust reposed by affection. He springs to snatch the victim, and places it again in the shelter of his breast!

"Let then the rock the Sword for ever sheathe!

All blades are charmed in the Patriot's grasp!"
-He spoke: and, lo! the Statue's thorny wreath
Bloomed into roses; and each baffled asp
Fell down and died of its own poison-sting:
Back to the crag dull-sailed the death-bird's wing.
And from the Statue's smile, as when the morn
Unlocks the Eastern gates of Paradise,

Ineffable joy, in light and beauty borne,

Flowed; and the azure of the distant skies
Stole through the crimson hues the ruby gave,
And slept, like Happiness, on Glory's wave.'

(Book vii.)

He now draws the sword easily from the rock; a gratulatory hymn resounds through the vaults; and an unspeakable vision, opening on his eyes, casts him into a swoon. He awakes to find himself lying on the sea-beach, the falchion in his hand, and the Dove pruning her wings in the sunshine. Now, in a dream, the dead Egle appears to him: she commands him not to grieve for her whom he had led to heaven, and tenderly encourages him to admit a new affection which was about, to spring up in his heart.

Lancelot, meanwhile, watching by the lake, has met with an

adventure which not only influences his own fate, but is intimately connected with the whole progress of the story.

The Mercian earl, Harold, whom we have encountered already, had a daughter named Genevra, who, brought up in Saxon heathenism, has been secretly taught Christianity by a Cymric captive. Her father, betrothing her to a fierce Scandinavian chief, has sent her to her bridegroom in a ship manned by Norse warriors. Her pious serenity in a tempest has softened and converted her rude conductors: and, on her petition to be saved from her heathen husband, they sail with her towards the south. After a voyage, whose geography is easily adjusted according to romantic precedents, they reach a shore adjoining the Alpine lake where Ægle lay buried. Straying to its banks, she meets Lancelot, is loved by him, and loves him in return.

In telling him her story, she makes us, as well as him, aware of the existence of a mysteriously concealed personage, whom we seem to encounter here for the first time, but who will stand in the foreground hereafter. Along with Genevra had been converted her friend Genevieve, the young daughter of the Mercian king Crida. There is carefully indicated the musing and sensitive character of Genevieve; and also the delight with which she was wont to think of Arthur, the pure and dauntless champion of the creed she had learned to love. We are told likewise that, some months before, going out to meditate in the woodland, she had suddenly disappeared; and that the magic of demon-compelling runes had revealed only a mysterious relation borne by her fate to Arthur's life and the glory of the Cymrians a relation which could not be broken but by the death of Arthur and the destruction of Carduel. It is this prophecy which has impelled Crida to his invasion of Wales. Travelling, as we are, through the marvels and metamorphoses of Fable-land, most of us, perhaps, are tempted by these hints to suspect, that we and Merlin could tell where the dove-like Genevieve had found shelter.

Arthur soon encounters Lancelot and his Saxon lady. These he despatches to England. He himself, embarking in the Scandinavian ship with its crew, follows the leading of the Dove, which carries them northward till they reach the Arctic seas. They are there shipwrecked among the icebergs; and pass, on the uninhabited coast, a winter of dreary suffering. The shipwreck, and the scenery and animal life of the polar deserts, are described with much accuracy as well as vigour. Yet we are not sure that the poetical effect is adequate to the author's labour, or correspondent to the partiality with which he seems to regard this part of his

work.

The next occurrences of the northern sojourn oblige us to