sion; but no poet ever appears to have subjected the creations of an enthusiastic imagination more strictly to the ordeal of a severer and critical taste, or to have imparted to the language of rapture so deep an air of truth and reality. While he had thoroughly imbued himself with the lofty idealism of the Platonic philosophy, he exhibits in his style all the clearness and precision of Horace; and, with the exception of Testi among the Italians, is certainly the only modern who has caught the true spirit of the Epicurean poet. In the sententious gravity of his style he resembles him very closeİy. But the Moral Odes of Luis de Leon "have a spell beyond" the Lyrics of Horace. That philosophy of indolence which the Roman professed, which looks on life only as a visionary pageant, and death as the deeper and sounder sleep that succeeds the dream, which places the idea of happiness in passive existence, and parts with indifference from love and friendship-from liberty-from life itself, whenever it costs an effort to retain them, is allied to a principle of universal mediocrity, which is destructive of all lofty views, and, when minutely examined, is even inconsistent with those qualified principles of morality which it nominally professes and prescribes. But in the odes of Luis de Leon, we recognise the influence of a more animating and ennobling feeling. He looked upon the world,

esta lisongera

Vida con cuanto teme, y cuanto espera,"

with calmness, but not with apathy or selfishness. The shortness of life, the flight of time, the fading of flowers, the silent swiftness of the river, the decay of happiness, the mutability of fortune,-the ideas and images, which to the Epicurean poet only afford inducements to devote the present hour to enjoyment, are those which the Spanish moralist holds out as incitements to the cultivation of that enthusiasm, which alone appeared to him capable of fully exercising the powers of the soul, or disengaging it from the influence of worldly feelings, and elevating it to that heaven, from which it had its birth.+

*

Such are some of the great men who, during the age of Charles, effected a revolution in Spanish taste; and such the character of that period, which is still considered by the Spanish critics as the golden age of their poetry. We confess we are inclined to question whether this epithet ought to be taken in the same extended sense in which it is used by Spanish writers. That the lyrical compositions of Garcilaso and some of his contemporaries were superior to any single production that had preceded them, with the exception, perhaps, of Manrique's poem on the death of his father, is no doubt true; but that the poetry of the age, taken as a whole, is to be considered superior to that of any which preceded it, appears to us a more questionable proposition. To appreciate properly the spirit of the romantic poetry, we must peruse its numerous collections of legendary ballads, and

* We think it is evident that Testi was largely indebted to the Spanish poet. The resemblances between Luis de Leon's ode addressed to Felipe Ruiz, "Cuando será que pueda," and Testi's canzone to Virginio Cesarini, "Armai d'arco sonoro," and between Leon's "No siempre es poderosa," addressed to Carrera, and Testi's ode to Montecuculli, Ruscelletto orgoglioso," are too close to be accidental. The allusion to Typheus is expressed by both nearly in the same terms, in these latter poems.

66

Two splendid odes of Luis de Leon, which the critic has translated, will be found in pages 470-472.

take into view the general diffusion of poetical and exalted feeling. The more extensive our acquaintance is with these productions, the higher will be our estimate of Spanish character and genius at that period. On the contrary, he will entertain the highest opinion of the poetry of the age of Charles, who confines himself to a few specimens selected from Anthologies and Floreste. That mellifluous softness of expression which is at first so agreeable, palls on the mind; that limited range of imagery and thought which pastoral poetry admits of, becomes monotonous; and above all, that extreme delicacy, which, when it is systematically attempted, is perhaps the most trying test of poetical tact, becomes intolerable when produced at second hand by a host of imitated imitators. If we consult our general impressions, the poets of this period leave no strong traces on the mind; they fill our memories with no splendid passages; they animate us by no spiritstirring appeals; they present us with little that speaks to the heart, or comes home to the business of life;-but they soothe us into an intoxicating Sybaritic softness; they give dignity to indolence; and they please by a gentleness and melancholy, which, without questioning too minutely their reality, we love to contrast with the stormy agitation of the period which gave them birth.

But the real defects of this style of poetry are most visible when we extend our views a little beyond the reign of Charles V. When, instead of a world purely ideal, nature itself, as displayed in the actual passions, and feelings, and interests of men, forms the general subject of the labours of the poet, however much the public taste may for a short time be led astray by the influence of any one individual, it seldom fails to be led back into the path of good taste and natural feeling. But when moral and political errors have led men to abandon entirely the realities of life as a source of inspiration—to create a world of their own-to invent imaginary characters, incidents, sentiments, and language, this rectifying standard of Nature can no longer be resorted to; and when, in the natural and almost inevitable progress of things, that peculiar style of poetry begins to be tainted with exaggeration and bad taste, it generally "falls like Lucifer-never to rise again." The natural tone which Garcilaso and his contemporaries contrived to blend even with the most ideal of their conceptions, as it depended solely on their own good taste, was soon forgotten, when their school of poetry began, like every other, to be corrupted by ambitious improvers. Succeeding poets carried the principle, which they had confined to the choice of their subjects, into all the minutiae of imagery and expression; till at last every sentence became an enigma, and every epithet was distorted as much as possible from the purposes to which it was commonly applied. Hence, the corruption of taste which soon after followed was no unnatural sequence of the style of poetry of this period, pure and classical as it ap

pears.

The military and literary glory of Charles V. is, after all, but a specious illusion. The victories of Pavia, of Tunis and Lepanto, were the precursors of the defeat of the Armada, and the mortifying reverses in the Netherlands; and Garcilaso was but the herald of Gongora and Quevedo. The reign of Charles had fostered a system of cruelty and treachery abroad—an indifference to liberty and principle at home-and gradually undermined those sound principles of thought and action, with which, by some mysterious connection, the sources of good taste seem to be allied. If, for a time, the evil principles, which it had engendered or increased, were concealed by the

VOL. I.

15

imposing brilliancy of undeserved success, their real effects became visible in the next century, when we see Spain experiencing the most mortifying re verses, acknowledging, when it was too late, the value of those carly principles which she had been labouring too successfully to destroy,contemplating at once the decline of her literary and political ascendancy, -and sitting, like Marius in Carthage, a ruin among the ruins she had made.

ANCIENT GERMAN AND NORTHERN POETRY.*

The study of the ancient poetry of the North has now become a favourite pursuit in Germany. Whilst the Germans were groaning under their foreign taskmasters, their laws, their customs, and their very language, were threatened with extinction. Their common sufferings, as well as their late unexampled successes, have roused the dormant spirit of German patriotism. They have become conscious of the innate worth and might of their nation, and have begun to prize whatever is peculiar to it with enthusiastic fondness. This effervescent nationality is, perhaps, at present a too little impetuous; but it has had the good effect of restoring their longforgotten bards, as well as the romantic legends of the olden day, to their former popularity and a kind of poetical accomplishment has thus been given to the old prophecy, that Ariovistus and Wittekind, and the invulnerable Siegfried would issue once more from the ruins of Geroldseck, at the time when Germany was in its utmost need, and again bring triumph and glory to their countrymen.

All nations have had their mythological age, in which the destroyers of mankind have generally found no difficulty in soaring up to the thrones of the celestial regions. The last Odin, in this way, became the rightful monarch of Valhalla; and the statue of the king of the Cherusci was exalted on the pillar of the god of battles. We doubt not but that the bards of Arminius found the defeat of Varus and his legions announced with all due clearness and precision in the dread oracles of the Oak, and, making allowance for change of circumstances, we may safely boast that the hierophantic race is not wholly extinct, even in the present day. Every body knows how skilfully Mr. Granville Penn contrived to discover, within a very few months after the end of the last Russian campaign, that all Bonapartes bulletins and bivouacks-Moscow, Smolensko, and Kutosoff, and Tchi chagoff, were all lying snugly enough wrapped up in the 38th and 39

1. Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, from the earlier Teutonic and Scandinavian Romanc being an Abstract of the Book of Heroes and Nibelungen Lay; with Translations of Metric Tales from the old German, Danish, Swedish, and Icelandic Languages, with Notes and sertations. By Mr. Weber and Mr. Jamieson. 2. Altdeutsche Wälder, durch der Bru Grimm. 3. Lieder der Alten Edda, aus der Handschrift herausgegeben und erklärt durch Brüder Grimm. 4. Nordische Helden Romane, uebersetzt durch F. H. von der Hagen Altnordische Sagen und Lieder, &c. herausgegeben durch F. H. von der Hagen. 6. Der be Aeltesten deutschen Gedichte aus dem achten Jahrhundert. Das Lied von Hildebrand und Ha brand und das Weissenbrunner, Gebet zum erstenmal in ihrem Metrum, dargestellt und hera gegeben durch der Brüder Grimm. 7. Literarischer Grundriss zur Geschichte der deustch Poesie, durch F. H. von der Hagen und J. G. Büsching. 8. Das Heldenbuch, herausgege durch F. H. von der Hagen. 9. Ueber der altdeuschen Meister-Gesang, von Jacob Grimm Der Lied der Nibelungen in der Ursprache, mit der Lesarten der verschiedenen Handschri herausgegeben durch F. H. von der Hagen. 11. Sammlung deutschen Volks-Lieder, herauss geben durch Büsching und von der Hagen.-Vol. xxvi. p. 181. February, 1816,

chapters of Ezekiel; and if affairs had not fortunately taken another turn, there was a time when their majesties of Austria, Wirtemberg, Prussia, etc. etc., and certain other of their cashiered compeers, would have had a fair chance of ranking amongst the seven heads and the ten horns, at least in the opinion of more than one acute and learned expounder of the book of Revelation.

There has been as rapid a transition from military fame to 'romantic fabling in less obscure periods. By ascribing to the successful warrior somewhat of supernatural prowess, the vanquished have been willing to extenuate their shame, and the victors to enhance their glory. When Alexander buried the armour fitted for limbs of more than mortal mould, he had a latent foreboding of the light in which he was to be considered by future generations in Persia and India, who would picture him now mounted on his griffin, and darting through the clouds, and now sunk beneath the billows in his house of glass, and compelling the inhabitants of every element to own him as their sovereign. The pride of the Franks bestowed more crowns upon Charlemagne than that doughty and orthodox emperor ever claimed. And the prowess of Roland must be gathered from the song of the minstrel, and not from the dry historical brevity of Eginhart, where we shall seek in vain for the terrific imagery of the battle of Roncesvalles, in the ambush of the Gascons, and the death of the prefect Rotlandus. The investigations of the historians of chivalrous fiction have been hitherto confined to the romances of the French and their numerous imitators; and the subject, although by no means exhausted, has yet become tolerably familiar. The errant knights whom we have usually encountered, either aspire to a seat at the Round Table, or owe allegiance to the lilied 'banner and with these most of us are now very tolerably acquainted. Amadis of Gaul and Palmerin of England are almost as well known to us as Wellington and Bonaparte; while their outlandish antagonists, the bearded Soldans and recreant Saracens, are about as familiar as the Imperial Mamelukes or the Polish Lancers. The very giants of any note are of our own kith and kin; and, upon a nearer acquaintance, the fierce Morholt dwindles into a tall Irishman, hardly half a foot above the regulation standard of a widow hunter.

We gaze

It is far otherwise in the national romances of the Germans. there on strange countenances, and listen to stranger names and it is with some difficulty that we are at length enabled to recognise the Gothic and Hunnish subverters of the Roman empire, in the throng of frowning warriors, who gradually recede from our view, until they lose themselves amidst the remote and visionary forms of Scandinavian mythology. When Europe was overwhelmed by the Teutonic nations, the distinctions between these kindred tribes were not so sharply defined as at later periods. The Christianity of the Germans afterwards contributed still more to separate them from such of the same stock as adhered to their old religion. But whilst the early conquests were going on, they were constantly intermingling. And there is, therefore, less reason to be surprised at the wide diffusion of the fables whose historical groundwork is to be found in the achievements of that eventful age, than at the various disguises which they assume.

The earlist vestiges of the Teutonic story are preserved in the poems of the older Edda, collected by Sæmund Sigufson, who lived between the years 1051 and 1121, which have been published at large, for the first

time, both by Grimm and Hagen (Nos. 3. and 5.) From these the Volsunga Saga was compiled, in the same manner as the prose romances of chivalry were afterwards formed out of the metrical originals. The hero Sigurd slays the dragon Fofner, and wins the fatal treasure which he guards. He awakens Brynhilld, the wise, the warlike, and the fair, from the magic slumber into which she has been cast by Odin, and plights his faith to her but the charmed drink prepared by Grimhilld causes him to lose all remembrance of his vows, and to become the husband of Gudrun, the daughter of the sorceress. The subsequent adventures of the Volsunga Saga, as far as the assassination of Sigurd, and the voluntary death of Brynhilld, may be seen in Mr. Herbert's translations, to which it must be added, that Swanhilde, the daughter of Sigurd, becomes the wife of King Jormunrett, who, deceived by the traitor Bikke, causes her to be trampled to death by wild horses. Agreeing in substance, but with the usual variations of traditionary poetry, the story of the German "Lay of the Nibelungen" is found in the ancient Danish ballads-the "Kiempe and Elskoos viser," the most important of which have been admirably translated by Mr. Jamieson.

The latest of the Scandinavian works, relating to the German heroes of the first race, is the "Welkina and Niflunga Saga," which was compiled, in the 13th century, from the "songs of the Danes and Swedes, the poetry of the Northmen, and the ancient romances and traditions of the North of Germany." In the very curious ancient preface, the author apologises for the poetical exaggerations of the Scalds, and magnifies the importance of his Saga, "which begins in Apulia, and travels northward to Lombardy and Venice, and Thuringia and Hungary and Sweden, and also into Valland (either Italy or France) and Spain. And of all these kingdoms does this Saga treat, and describes the deeds which were performed therein."

:

The Jormunreck of the Edda, the Ermenrich of the German romances, is undoubtedly the Great Ermanaric, whom Jornandes compares to another Alexander and as the same historian notices the fate of Swanhilld, under the name of Saniel or Senilda, an undeniable proof is thus afforded of the antiquity of the Scaldic rhapsodies. The Arthur of Teutonic romance, however, is the hero Dieterich of Bern; and he and his companions appear more or less prominently in all the poems which compose the cycle. It is thought that their deeds of high emprize were sung in the "ancient and barbarous verses," which, according to Eginhart, were collected by Charlemagne. His partiality for these national legends may have given rise to the traditionary fable contained in the annals of Snorro, according to which he carried his curiosity still farther; for, as he wished to see the very persons of these renowned champions, the Earl Widforull evoked their spectres, who arose obedient to the spell, mounted on their war steeds, and clothed in full armour. The ghostly squadron advanced in four divisions, and when Dieterich came before the emperor, they sprung from their chargers, and seated themselves in his presence. Dieterich was known by his towering stature, and by his shield, upon which, as in his lifetime, was emblazoned a crowned lion. His right, however, to bear this ancient device of the Gothic kings becomes somewhat questionable, from the induction to the "Heldenbuch," from which it may be inferred, that the "evil spirit Machmet," whom the mother of Dieterich found lying by her side, when King Dietmar, his reputed father, was on a journey, had some reason to take more than usual interest in the fate of the unborn hero, who, as he