years old, had been preserved at Bivar, was for the first time printed. Then it was found that every interesting circumstance of the story of the heirs of Carrion was derived by the eloquent Jesuit from a song of which he had never heard, and which was composed by a minstrel whose very name had long been forgotten.* Such, or nearly such, appears to have been the process by which the lost ballad-poetry of Rome was transformed into history. To reverse that process, to transform some portions of early Roman history back into the poetry out of which they were made, is the object of this work. In the following poems the author speaks, not in his own person, but in the persons of ancient minstrels who know only what a Roman citizen, born three or four hundred years before the Christian era, may be supposed to have known, and who are in no wise above the passions and prejudices of their age and country. To these imaginary poets must be ascribed some blunders which are so obvious that it is unnecessary to point them out. The real blunder would have been to represent these old poets as deeply versed in general history, and studious of chronological accuracy. To them must also be attributed the illiberal sneers at the Greeks, the furious party spirit, the contempt for the arts of peace, the love of war for its own sake, the ungenerous exultation *See the account which Sanchez gives of the Bivar manuscript in the first volume of the Coleccion de Poesias Castellanas anteriores al Siglo XV. Part of the story of the lords of Carrion, in the poem of the Cid, has been translated by Mr. Frere in a manner above all praise. over the vanquished, which the reader will sometimes observe. To portray a Roman of the age of Camillus or Curius as superior to national antipathies, as mourning over the devastation and slaughter by which empire and triumphs were to be won, as looking on human suffering with the sympathy of Howard, or as treating conquered enemies with the delicacy of the Black Prince, would be to violate all dramatic propriety. The old Romans had some great virtues,-fortitude, temperance, veracity, spirit to resist oppression, respect for legitimate authority, fidelity in the observing of contracts, disinterestedness, ardent public spirit; but Christian charity and chivalrous generosity were alike unknown to them. It would have been obviously improper to mimic the manner of any particular age or country. Something has been borrowed, however, from our own old ballads, and more from Sir Walter Scott, the great restorer of our ballad-poetry. To the Iliad still greater obligations are due; and those obligations have been contracted with the less hesitation because there is reason to believe that some of the old Latin minstrels really had recourse to that inexhaustible store of poetical images. It would have been easy to swell this little volume to a very considerable bulk, by appending notes filled with quotations; but to a learned reader such notes are not necessary; for an unlearned reader they would have little interest; and the judgment passed both by the learned and by the unlearned on a work of the imagination will always depend much more on the general character and spirit of such a work than on minute details. HORATIUS. THERE can be little doubt that among those parts of early Roman history which had a poetical origin was the legend of Horatius Cocles. We have several versions of the story, and these versions differ from each other in points of no small importance. Polybius, there is reason to believe, heard the tale recited over the remains of some Consul or Prætor descended from the old Horatian patricians; for he evidently introduces it as a specimen of the narratives with which the Romans were in the habit of embellishing their funeral oratory. It is remarkable that, according to his description, Horatius defended the bridge alone, and perished in the waters. According to the chronicles which Livy and Dionysius followed, Horatius had two companions, swam safe to shore, and was loaded with honours and rewards. two old Roman lays about the defence of the bridge; and that, while the story which Livy has transmitted to us was preferred by the multitude, the other, which ascribed the whole glory to Horatius alone, may have been the favourite with the Horatian house. The following ballad is supposed to have been made about a hundred and twenty years after the war which it celebrates, and just before the taking of Rome by the Gauls. The author seems to have been an honest citizen, proud of the military glory of his country, sick of the disputes of factions, and much given to pining after good old times which had never really existed. The allusion, however, to the partial manner in which the public lands were allotted could proceed only from a plebeian; and the allusion to the fraudulent sale of spoils marks the date of the poem, and shows that the poet shared in the general discontent with which the proceedings of Camillus, after the taking of Veii, were regarded. These discrepancies are easily explained. Our own literature, indeed, will furnish an exact parallel to what may have taken place at Rome. It is highly probable that the memory of the war of Porsena was preserved by compositions much resembling the two ballads which stand first in the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. In both those ballads the English, commanded by the Percy fight with the Scots, "Hanc spectare manum Porsena non potuit.” commanded by the Douglas. In one of the ballads, the Douglas is killed by a nameless It is not easy to understand how any modern English archer, and the Percy by a Scottish scholar, whatever his attainments may be,— spearman: in the other, the Percy slays the and those of Niebuhr were undoubtedly imDouglas in single combat, and is himself made mense,-can venture to pronounce that Marprisoner. In the former, Sir Hugh Montgomery tial did not know the quantity of a word which is shot through the heart by a Northumbrian he must have uttered and heard uttered a bowman: in the latter, he is taken, and ex-hundred times before he left school. Niebuhr changed for the Percy. Yet both the ballads seems also to have forgotten that Martial has relate to the same event, and that an event fellow culprits to keep him in countenance. Horace has committed the same decided blunwhich probably took place within the memory of persons who were alive when both the bal-der; for he gives us, as a pure iambic line, lads were made. One of the minstrels says: The penultimate syllable of the name Porse│na has been shortened in spite of the authority of Niebuhr, who pronounces, without assigning any ground for his opinion, that Martial was guilty of a decided blunder in the line, Minacis aut Etrusca Porsenæ manus.” same way, as when he says, "Cernitur effugiens ardentem Porsena dextram ;" and again, "Clusinum vulgus, cum, Porsena magne, jubebas.” The other poet sums up the event in the fol- A modern writer may be content to err in such owing lines: company. Niebuhr's supposition that each of the three defenders of the bridge was the representative of one of the three patrician tribes is both ingenious and probable, and has been adopted It is by no means unlikely ha there were in the following poem. HORATIUS. A LAY MADE About THE YEAR OF THE CITY CCCLX. 1. LARS PORSENA of Clusium By the Nine Gods he swore That the great house of Tarquin Should suffer wrong no more. By the Nine Gods he swore it, And named a trysting day, And bade his messengers ride forth, East and west and south and north, To summon his array. 2. East and west and south and north Who lingers in his home, Is on the march for Rome. 3. The horsemen and the footmen Are pouring in amain From many a stately market-place, From many a lonely hamlet, Which, hid by beech and pine, Like an eagle's nest hangs on the crest Of purple Apennine; 4. From lordly Volaterræ, Where scowls the far-famed hold Piled by the hands of giants For god-like kings of old; 5. From the proud mart of Pisæ, 6. Tall are the oaks whose acorns Drop in dark Auser's rill; Fat are the stags that champ the boughs Of the Ciminian hill; Beyond all streams Clitumnus Is to the herdsman dear; Best of all pools the fowler loves 7. But now no stroke of woodman Is heard by Auser's rill, No hunter tracks the stag's green path Up the Ciminian hill; Unwatched along Clitumnus. Grazes the milk-white steer; Unharmed the water-fowl may dip In the Volsinian mere. 8. The harvests of Arretium This year old men shall reap; This year young boys in Umbro Shall plunge the struggling sheep; And in the vats of Luna, This year, the must shall foam Round the white feet of laughing girls Whose sires have marched to Rome. 9. There be thirty chosen prophets, Both morn and evening stand: Have turned the verses o'er, Traced from the right on linen white By mighty seers of yore. 10. And with one voice the Thirty Have their glad answer given: "Go forth, go forth, Lars Porsena Go forth, beloved of Heaven; Go, and return in glory To Clusium's royal dome, And hang round Nurscia's altars The golden shields of Rome." 11. And now hath every city Sent up her tale of men: The foot are fourscore thousand, The horse are thousands ten. Before the gates of Sutrium Is met the great array, A proud man was Lars Porsena Upon the trysting day. 12. For all the Etruscan armies Prince of the Latian name. 13. But by the yellow Tiber Was tumult and affright: From all the spacious champaign To Rome men took their flight. A mile around the city, The throng stopped up the ways; "To every man upon this earth 28. "And for the tender mother Who feed the eternal flame, 29. "Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul, With all the speed ye may; I, with two more to help me, Will hold the foe in play. In yon strait path a thousand May well be stopped by three. Now, who will stand on either hand, Then out spake Spurius Lartius, 31. "Horatius," quoth the Consul, "As thou sayest, so let it be." And straight against that great array Forth went the dauntless Three. For Romans in Rome's quarrel Spared neither land nor gold, Nor son nor wife, nor limb nor life, In the brave days of old. 32. Then none was for a party; Then all were for the state; Then the great man helped the poor, And the poor man loved the great: Then lands were fairly portioned; Then spoils were fairly sold: The Romans were like brothers In the brave days of old. 33. Now Roman is to Roman More hateful than a foe, And the Tribunes beard the high, And the Fathers grind the low. As we wax hot in faction, In battle we wax cold; Wherefore inen fight not as they fought In the brave days of old. 34. Now, while the Three were tightening |