The article on “The Barrier Kingdoms” was in type before the news arrived of a near prospect of peace. The new aspect of the question will be discussed in our next number.—Ed.

The most important fact developed during the present war unquestionably is the recent treaty which has been entered into between the Western Powers and Sweden. Until this event, it seemed as though the most unscrupulous and open aggression on the part of Russia, and all the assurances of the West, were alike insufficient to arouse into action and life the nationalities most immediately in contact with the gigantic power of the North,—the nations whom, as well as Turkey, the contest most nearly concerns. The brave example of Sardinia was unfollowed; no danger, no encouragement, as it seemed, was capable of rekindling the extinct spirit of patriotism in the races of Europe. This is the less to be wondered at when we recollect the humiliating concessions made by England herself, during the two latest generations of her statesmen, to the power against which she now stands in arms. If England herself, with revenue, resources, and all the essentials of national well-being as ten to one, when compared with Russia,



was unable to resist Russian intrigue, cautious of incurring Russian hostility, and timorously eager at explanation and retractation in every case of actual collision, great allowance is to be made for the hesitation of the weaker nations which lie directly within the grasp and design of the Russian system. This Russian system, which has for its object simply the idea of foreign conquest irrespective of any other consideration, without regard to advantaging the subjugated, or any of the other pretexts under which aggression is usually veiled, and which certainly can introduce no element towards the advancement of human happiness, has hitherto worked its way without molestation or opposition. From the time of Peter it (the sacred idea) has descended as an inheritance from Czar to Czar, from Cabinet to Cabinet, from generation to generation. There has been no system of policy to counteract it, no league, no confederation of Europe, as there should have been, with the express object of antagonizing it. Sweden has been deprived of Finland; Poland has been reduced to a province; Germany has been deprived of the command of the Danube; the Russian eagles have planted themselves within a short march of Vienna and Berlin; while the whole vast German population has become hopelessly Russianized; Georgia has been wrested from the Caucasian district, and the influence of Russia has been suffered to become paramount in the East. We have stood by apathetically watching, where we have not been actively abetting, the interference of Russia in the affairs of Hungary, Greece, Italy, and Armenia and Persia. Yet, notwithstanding these errors, which now stand confessed by the general consent of the nation, it has become evident that Russia has all along marked and prepared against the nations of the West as her ultimate and implacable opposers. The skilful diplomatists who guide the councils of Russia have seen in the active vitality of England and France something beyond the reach of their appliances. All their efforts have been directed to the great end of dividing against one another, of embroiling in foreign quarrel, and so weakening the two nations which they were conscious possessed alone in the earth that national existence unpolluted and perennial, which could serve as a counteracting force to their one idea of conquest and spoliation. England and France have been during the years of peace knitting close the bonds which make them one—bonds which have been felt to exist, and have been acknowledged as interrupted during the years of bitterest hostility. During the forty years of peace, the two nations have been undergoing the same modifying revolutions, even where the process has been most different. Each has been striving after the highest form of social good, each has had a circulation and system independent and its own; the power of revolution, whether revolution has been armed or unarmed, has been to each a renovating power, preventing the necessity of renovation from without. With this integrity



defying the efforts of Russian intrigue, and invulnerable in reality, even when most vacillating and uncertain in foreign policy, it has caused profound astonishment to the Western nations to witness the wilful lethargy or active subserviency of the rest of Europe, Sardinia excepted, since the time when the proclamation of war, so long and studiously avoided, declared the imminent danger of the world from the encroachments of Russia. It is only very slowly and unwillingly that France and England are becoming conscious that they alone are the real champions of law and order against the Autocratic doer of wrong, inasmuch as they alone have been zealous and successful in their endeavours to attain to law and order among themselves.* We must learn as the great fact to regulate our present conduct that we have no one to depend upon but ourselves; that this mighty contest must be conducted on our part without external aid; that we have to create nationalities, and must not expect to find any material of public spirit or patriotism ready to our hands, and that our great triumph will be at the end of the war to present to the nations of Europe the liberty which we shall have won for them.

But in the meantime it is encouraging to find that the exertions which we have already made are beginning to produce good fruits. We shall have something to say on all the nations above mentioned, which are mostly conterminous with Russia, and without exception peculiarly exposed to her menaces and overpowering pressure. It will rejoice the heart of every Englishman that of these nations the first to assert its right to independent national action has been Sweden. Since the time of the establishment of St. Petersburgh on the Neva, the growth of Russia and the decay of Sweden have been almost fabulous. At that time Sweden, “heroic Sweden,” was one of the greatest of European powers. Her population was that most heroic Norseman race which spread itself with irresistible valour over Europe, and from which it is our pride to have descended. Her armies were the most efficient in Europe, and boasted a long succession of unparalleled achievement. She had the entire command of the Baltic Sea, and her hardy Finns were among the best seamen in the world. From the battle of Pultowa down to 1809, when she was compelled by the treaty of Fredericksham to cede the whole of Finland, East Bothnia, and Aland, Sweden has been constantly diminishing, while Russia has been as constantly increasing at her expense. And from the commencement of the present war we have seen with deep grief that it appeared as though the ancient Scandinavian spirit was extinct, had succumbed to the Sclavonic despotism which was oppressing it. Finland, once the nurse of a race of heroes, was known to be alienated from its mother state, and it was feared that the hardy and daring patriotism of the Swede had finally yielded to the corrupting influences brought lavishly to bear upon it. The Swedish treaty has made it appear that these suspicions were ill-founded; Sweden only awaited due encouragement and assurance of the sincerity of the Western Powers, to declare herself in a decisive manner. There cannot be the smallest doubt but that this treaty is the prelude to an open rupture with Russia on the part of Sweden. The conduct of Sweden, we are informed, is looked upon by the Russians with scornful astonishment, so entirely had they come to regard this noble and mighty nation as their subservient tool and vassal. There is every expectation that this accession of Sweden will be the foundation of a union of the Scandinavian nations against Russia. It would be impossible for the latter power to make head against such a union, and its



most probable consequence would be the recovery of the Baltic. The idea is said to be viewed with greater favour in Denmark than even in Sweden and Norway, if indeed it did not originate in that country. To realize such an alliance would be consistent with the soundest policy which the Western Powers can adopt, and herein France and England would have the glory of rekindling the life and greatness which they themselves once received from the North.

The Scandinavian Union, again, is of paramount importance as regards the great question of the Danish Succession. On this point we quote the letter of “A Norwegian,” written to “The Times,” Dec. 31, 1855.

“In the treaty that was concluded in 1852, under the auspices of England, France, and Russia, a relation of the Czar was made successor to the throne of Denmark, and thus the Russian Emperor has not only paved the way for exercising a powerful influence on the government of Denmark, but may by a no means impossible concurrence of events become himself the heir to a portion of the territory. This treaty, which was the last but most dangerous in which the Western statesmen allowed themselves to be circumvented by Russian diplomacy, has already been deeply deplored, and not the least by its originators. The Danish people received it with disgust, and it was only acknowledged by the Diet because they did not feel themselves strong enough to oppose the determination of Europe. Let Europe now avail herself of the opportunity that offers of correcting an error into which it was led by Russian cunning, by a free union of the three kingdoms of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, under the flourishing dynasty of Bernadotte. With the possession of the Sound, and the Belts thus secured, the work will be complete. On the decease of King Frederick VII. and his aged uncle, Prince Ferdinand, the male line of the royal house of Denmark will be extinct. It has been rumoured that the King once offered to sacrifice his crown for the welfare of his people, and it is not impossible or inconsistent with the character of this noble and patriotic Prince to anticipate that if he believed that the fitting time had arrived, he would now carry his resolution into effect. Such a step is however by no means necessary to the object proposed.”

This extract will show the form and consistence to which the Scandinavian idea has attained. It is no novelty, and requires no coercion in order to its realization; but is deeply seated in the imagination and associations of the Northern people themselves.

It would be well if there were any prospect of Germany following the noble example of Sweden; but such a contingency can have no place in the reckoning of the allies. The most melancholy fact of the war is the entire prostration of public spirit in Germany. In that king-ridden and priest-ridden land, the finesse and chicanery of diplomacy have been exalted into a perfect science, so that it seems impossible for any one to move except in a well-worn groove of idle ceremony and refinement. All clear and sound views of policy are lost, and anything like real statesmanship is looked for in vain. We regard the keen and subtle diplomatists of Germany as exquisitely skilful manœuvrers at a game, only anxious that the existing mesh of complication may last as long as possible, intent, if possible, upon duping the rest of the world, and regarding the present great struggle as a kind of delicious element, in which they may display their mazy evolutions and disport themselves in strenuous idleness. If any real sense of the danger of their position has been awakened in them by the serious warnings which have been given them, it is in vain to expect any vigour or action whatever from them. The partition of Poland has joined the frontiers of Austria and Prussia with the frontier of Russia, and the two German kingdoms are menaced through the whole line of boundary by a cordon of formidable fortresses. This is alone sufficient to deter these timid powers from adventuring a contest with Russia. But, moreover, there can be little inclination for such a contest from the



nature of the case. If Russia is an arbitrary power, despotic, and given to foreign aggression, Austria is no less so, though on a minor scale. To say nothing of her Italian and Hungarian conquests, or of her growth from a duchy to an empire, attained by unprincipled spoliation of her neighbours, she is deeply implicated in the affair of Poland, she has aided to destroy the barrier which separated her from Russia, and is a sharer in the questionable gains of the transaction. The same thing is true of Prussia; the two are inextricably blended with Russia in the lust and guilt of conquest. Their forms of government are substantially the same, the principles of their foreign policy are identical. The reigning houses, moreover, of Germany, which supply alliances to the royal families of the whole earth, have not, we may be sure, failed to connect themselves most closely by intermarriage with the so-called house of Romanoff, and, as in policy, so in consanguinity, the rulers of Germany are nearly related to Russia. Under these circumstances, and having already had a fair taste of German spirit and policy, it is much to be regretted that the Western powers are permitting themselves to be again made the subjects of a display of German statescraft. What is to be expected from the humble petition of Count Esterhazy at St. Petersburgh? No one in France or England expects anything; it is understood to be a mere farcical exhibition of diplomatic gymnastics, originating, if in nothing worse, at any rate in the timid desire of Austria to appear to be doing something; and it is to be backed by a similar mission from Prussia. Of the value of German mediation we have just had a lesson from our enemy. Russia has declared to us, through Count Buol, that she is no longer averse to the neutralization of the Black Sea, meaning by the term, the withdrawal of our fleets, and the maintenance of a number of Turkish and Russian vessels in those waters, the conditions to be settled between Turkey and Russia herself, without the intervention of any other power. This, which is a deliberate insult, and a fresh provocation to us, is not devoid of a satirical reflection upon German diplomacy. Russia can scarcely be serious in her proposal. Is this the sort of answer which she makes to the timid importunities and proffered good offices of her German cousins?

There is at present no likelihood of a Prussian or Austrian alliance. If in either of those countries there should arise a philosopher statesman, such as Plato has described, one fully acquainted with the particulars of the case, and skilful in the management of business, but at the same time one who has been much in contact with the immutably and eternally true, and is able constantly to refer to the paradigm of truth and righteousness in his own soul as the standard of his actions—if such a man were to arise as administrator of the German powers, then the alliance with Austria and Prussia would be the complement of the great Anti-Russian confederation. The foreign policy of those powers would be altered in principle; and they would consent to the restoration of Poland as a return to a normal state of things. But, as at present constituted, they cannot join us without making war upon their own species, and we must be content to maintain our position unaided by them. This is deeply to be regretted, inasmuch as their co-operation would be a material aid; and, if they could be induced to act, the change in policy to which we have alluded would necessitate itself. Great national changes do not take place at once and suddenly. We ourselves have drifted gradually into the war with Russia, and are perhaps scarcely yet aware of our real position. We represent the principle of restitution, in opposition to the Russian principle of aggression. These are the



two leading antagonistic principles, and this is what is meant in reality, when we call ourselves the champions of civilization. Now, if Austria and Prussia finally proclaim themselves on the side of Russia, they will do no more than openly assert the principle which history declares to have been throughout their spring of action. If, on the contrary, they range themselves with us, they cannot fail to become, by degrees, and in the course of events, assimilated in policy to the other extreme, that is, to what we have called the principle of restitution.

But France and England are not to surrender or abate the idea which animates them in order to secure the evident strategical advantages which the accession of the German states would confer. The question has been asked, querulously, “What are we at war for?” and it has been thought difficult to find an answer. The answer is easy. We are at war for the express purpose of undoing whatever Russia has been doing in Europe and Asia for the last fifty years; and we are at war because we, the allies, are the only powers of Europe free from the scandal of despoiling our neighbours; and in this are evidently fulfilling our destiny. England has always been employed by Providence as the means of overthrowing whatever power has become predominant in Europe, so as to threaten the liberties of other nations. The Spanish Armada, the domination of the grand Monarque, the legions of the first Napoleon, alike found defeat and annihilation at the hands of Englishmen. It will be seen, if we are faithful to our work, that Russian despotism will share the fate of the tyrannies which have perished before. Meanwhile, we may well congratulate ourselves on the noble and worthy allies who are found fighting by our side. France has at length attained, to all appearance, the true and normal position for which she has been struggling ever since her first revolution. The first Napoleon, to whom she then confided her hard-won freedom, betrayed his trust. The revolutionary ardour of France compelled him to launch himself against the ancient despotisms of Europe; but he did so as a conqueror, not as a redresser. Thus it was that he found the power of England arrayed against him, and fell in the shock which ensued. The present Emperor, on the other hand, is found fighting in alliance with England for the protection of the nationalities oppressed by Russia. The method of performing most efficiently the task allotted to the allies indisputably will be to reverse, as far as possible, the process which Russia has observed in her aggressions. A definitive barrier must be erected on every point towards which she has directed her approaches. Finland, and the Gulf of Bothnia must be restored to Sweden, and the Scandinavian nations joined together in a permanent attitude of watchfulness against Russia. Poland, if we are to carry out the principle which we profess to have adopted, must be reconstituted on a lasting basis. The Danubian principalities must be assigned to a sufficient government; Turkey must be reorganized; Georgia must be restored to Circassia, and Circassia secured. Of the difficulties connected with some of these proposed changes, we hope to speak more fully upon a future occasion; but at present, we observe, that less than these would be incomplete work, and a compromise. The world ought to have learnt a sufficient lesson already from the insidious advances of Russia towards any object exciting her cupidity. Give Russia a footing anywhere, and you give her everything. Give Russia Finland, and you give her Sweden; give Russia Poland, and you give her Germany; give Russia Georgia, and you give her Persia. The soundest policy is that which excites the most universal opposition to Russia, and leads to the establishment



of the most decisive checks upon her.

The claims of Circassia upon the protection of the West are not less valid and imperative than the claims of the oppressed nations of Europe, and as a campaign for the ensuing year in the regions of the Caucasus and Asia Minor is contemplated as the possible direction of the allied armies, a word or two on this important point will be pardoned. If ever a people earned a right to freedom by heroic exploits, it is the mountain tribes of the Caucasus. For two generations these tribes, under the chieftain and prophet, Mansour, and under his successor, the chieftain and prophet, Schamyl, have combated successfully the undivided military force of the Russian empire. The Georgian Caucasus has been included in the frontier of Russia, but has never been subdued. Year after year has the Russian army gone up to the attack of the strongholds of the mountaineers, and year after year has it returned to its forts baffled, defeated, and diminished. The amount of blood and treasure which the stubborn resistance of these petty tribes, clinging with invincible tenacity to their native rocks, has cost Russia, is incalculable, and will never be guessed at. The Russians themselves own that the Caucasus war has consumed annually twenty thousand of their best soldiers. But they have latterly adopted another system. Instead of marching in force into the interior, they have been content to cut off the Circassians from the sea by a chain of forts, and at the same time to attempt to seduce the fidelity of the tribes, by establishing depôts, at which salt, a necessary of life which is scarce in the Caucasus, and other things, can be conditionally obtained. All this has been of no avail in breaking the morale or the organization of the resistance. The Russians may have succeeded in alluring some of the outlying tribes, and have doubtless caused distress to the rest, but the Anti-Muscovite enthusiasm continues to burn as fiercely as before. In the summer of the year before last Schamyl descended in great strength from his fastnesses, threatened Tiflis, the Russian base of operations, and compelled the Russians to abandon their expedition into Armenia. Here then, in this resistance of the Caucasus, is a fact worthy of the notice of the world. Secluded from the observation of other nations, with no one to witness and chronicle the struggle, without sympathy, encouragement, or assistance, the sea that washes their shores traversed by no keels except those of their enemy; in want of the necessaries of life, without ammunition, exposed to the terrible artillery of Russia, these tribes have for thirty years defied the utmost efforts of the Czar, flung themselves, armed only with the sabre, upon the serried bayonets and devastating grapeshot of the Muscovite infantry; and in this condition have again and again routed, in open fight, the overwhelming numbers brought against them. The whole history of these campaigns will, in all probability, never be known; the few details which have reached us in the narratives of such travellers as Mr. Bell, equal in marvellous and successful heroism whatever has been attributed by romance to the choicest Paladins and Princes of chivalry. For thirty years the struggle of Russia for the Caucasus has been watched with placid ignorance and indifference, without an effort to relieve these unaided heroes. We have left the battle of the world to be fought by the tribes of Circassia, and have not so much as supplied them with powder and shot! Here then is an important point of defence to be secured against Russia, as is instantly proved by the desperate nature of the efforts of Russia to gain it. If Russia were once seated upon the Caucasus, the whole of the East would lie at her feet. Persia would, in no long time, be added to the territory



of the Czar, and thus at one point the Russian frontier would touch India. The safety of our Indian empire, from at least the attempts of Russia, is by no means so certain as we are willing to believe. The reduction of Georgia, which was perhaps in the process of accomplishment under the masterly plans of Woronzoff, when the war broke out, would bring Russia really, as she is nominally, nearly a thousand miles nearer India than she was at the beginning of the century; and the history of the Russian empire proves that no undertaking is so vast or so remote as to be impossible to her. India is the tendency of her progress southward in this direction, and would it not be as well to stop that progress whilst we can do so cheaply, and before it become troublesome to our Eastern dominions, by rendering the natural barrier of the Caucasus, which has been impassable, even when guarded by its handful of heroes, absolutely and for ever impassable to Russia?

We venture on these grounds to advocate the idea of a campaign, in 1856, in Asia Minor, Mingrelia, and Georgia. There are other considerations, moreover, which favour immediate action in this area of country. On this point, at any rate, we can work effectually and uncompromisingly at our great task of restoring the ravages caused by Russia, without fear of offending anybody. Here are no Austria and Prussia to embarrass us with mediation, which is nothing more than a baffling attempt to hide from us the real object at which we ought to aim. Georgia is, in one respect, unlike Poland. Georgia is the destined prey of Russia alone, and we can wrest the prey from the spoiler without fear of involving ourselves with any confederates. Let us then go to work zealously, and with the sternest purpose of leaving no incomplete result behind us, on the field which lies open to us. If we succeed in expelling the Russians from Georgia, and permanently securing the independence of the whole Caucasian district, one great object of the war will have been accomplished, and we might make peace with the satisfaction of knowing that, even if nothing else had been done, yet all the blood and treasure expended by the allies would not have been wasted. The fall of Kars, however great the misfortune in itself, has occurred opportunely to direct the serious attention of the allies to this quarter; and it is trusted that such a catastrophe will have the effect of arousing the energies of the English nation by that sort of teaching by which it seems to be the fate of England to learn.

Of the other great points, at which it is plain that we must aim in this war, the formation of a Scandinavian union, above alluded to, is the most immediately feasible. The Polish question may perhaps better be in abeyance at present; perhaps we have enough in the more immediate objects indicated by the course of events, to occupy our power for some time to come; and certainly, we shall, at all events, by the Scandinavian union, and the restoration of the Caucasus, sufficiently indicate that we are not contending blindly, but for understood principles. But it is certain, and the certainty is acknowledged by the present manœuvrers of Austria and Prussia, that if the war is to continue, it will assume proportions more and more gigantic, and the question of the restoration of Poland will ultimately be forced upon the world. Upon no other basis can the security of central Europe against Russia be ensured, than upon the principle of restitution. The first Napoleon attacked Russia, and signally failed, because he attacked Russia as a conqueror, not as a restorer and preserver of other nations. He had no principle to oppose to the Russian principle of conquest. The



struggle between Napoleon and Alexander was no more than a struggle between two schemes of universal domination, and was decided by the strength of the combatants. If, then, Napoleon failed against Russia, it is beyond expectation that any other mere conqueror should succeed. If Russia is to be subdued, it must be by the operation of a principle directly antagonistic to the Russian principle; and this, we repeat, can be no other than the principle of restitution, put into operation by the allied powers.

These considerations tend to simplify the true course of Austria and Prussia. So long as the allies are engaged in vindicating their principle elsewhere, Austria and Prussia may be allowed to dabble in negotiation and mediation, fondly persuading themselves that they are throwing dust in our eyes; but when the time arrives, supposing the war to continue, when the principle of the allies is to be applied to the case of Poland, these powers will be necessitated to declare themselves on the one side or the other. We have this hope for them, that they will not be so suicidal as to declare against us, but will secure their own future safety against Russia by the noble method of surrendering their share of the ill-gotten gains of the partition of Poland. Something of the kind seems to be expected in Russia, if we are to trust to the expressions of hatred and malice towards Austria, attributed to the Russian statesmen. Austria has made conquests in Italy and Hungary, with which, whilst she is our ally and Russia our enemy, we can have no concern. But should Austria unite with Russia against us, significant hints have already been thrown out as to what would be the course of the Western Powers with these acquisitions.

To review In Memoriam adequately in a single short article is an impossibility; for nothing less would satisfy me than going carefully and minutely over chapter by chapter and line by line; nothing less could in any degree do justice to it. Indeed I have been advised to analyze the more difficult chapters, as I have analyzed The Vision of Sin; but, in the present case, having once begun, I should not know where to stop; and, besides, that is the part, not of a reviewer, but of a commentator. In this critique, then, there cannot but be faults of omission, and I must all the more diligently endeavour that the reader may find none, or very few, of commission. And if I lightly touch upon questions that require to be discussed at great length, and sometimes indeed give conclusions only without premisses, let him indulgently consider my confined limits, and believe me when I say that I have been forced by them upon a practice which none can condemn more strongly than myself.

I have already stated that I rank philosophical poetry the highest of all. I now place In Memoriam in this highest class, if not the first in it. But let it be distinctly understood what I mean when I call In Memoriam a philosophical poem. I am far from desiring to set it up in any way as a text-book of philosophy,—an attempt deprecated also by its author.

• “If these brief lays, of Sorrow born,
• Were taken to be such as closed
• Grave doubts and answers here proposed,
• Then these were such as men might scorn.”

All the technical acquisition of philosophy that can be gained from it will



be very small; and a very slight previous acquaintance with philosophical systems, in some cases merely historical, is all that is required to understand it. But every man, in the deep of his heart, is and must be more or less a philosopher; every man must have asked himself the questions,—What am I? What are those things I see and hear, those things I think? Why am I here, why am I at all? What am I to do, what am I to look forward to, what to hope or fear? Such questions arise of necessity in every mind that thinks at all, and receive answers, more or less definite and true, elsewhere than in metaphysical treatises. And answers they receive from In Memoriam, uttered with a clearness and force and beauty not to be surpassed. To make plain what I mean,—when Tennyson in the Introduction writes,

• “Our wills are ours, we know not how,
• Our wills are ours, to make them Thine,”

he cannot be said to have philosophically discussed the Freedom of the Will. Such an assertion would be a simple absurdity. But this he has done; he has stated exactly what common men feel, and what I believe philosophers have been compelled to own, that we have free wills, though we cannot define the nature and the extent of that freedom, while the voice of conscience proclaims to all who are not wilfully deaf, that there is yet One Will with which the wills of all men must be brought into accordance, even the will of Him whose service is perfect freedom. Again, many readers may be ignorant of the doctrine alluded to in the lines,

• “That each who seems a separate whole
• Should move his rounds, and fusing all
page: 74  
• The skirts of self again, should fall
• Re-merging in the general Soul,”

but all must have speculated whether they shall meet and know their friends in the next world, and every heart must have returned the answer so definitely and beautifully enunciated in the next stanza,

• “Eternal form shall still divide
• The eternal soul from all beside,
• And I shall know him when we meet.”

To take one more example. Doubtless to many, if not most, readers, the line “He, They, One, All; within, without,” is obscure, merely from want of historical knowledge of systems of philosophy; but the mind of every observant and thinking man must have been struck by the multiplicity of the phænomena of nature, beneath which, nevertheless, there seems to lie one pervading power; every such mind must have recognized something divine, something at least like God, both within itself and without; for man was made in the image of his Maker, and external nature is, as it were, the counterpart of the spirit of man. Yes, Tennyson is, not a philosopher, however philosophical he may be, but a poet, embracing in his sympathies the learned and the ignorant, and interpreting between them; for Interpreter is the truest explanation of poet,—interpreting too between men and God; making known to men those wonders which are unveiled to him by that Inspiration which is vouchsafed to modern English poets, not less in kind, however less in degree, than to Job and David and Isaiah. I have been particular in showing that In Memoriam treats philosophical subjects not in a scientific, but in what may be called a popular, manner, in the hope that I may thereby induce some to study it, who might otherwise have been deterred by the supposition that it is a book of philosophy, intended only for such as lay claim to the name of philosophers. But not only this; but a very large portion of it is intelligible



at once to every mind, and of universal interest. I will at present enumerate some of the chapters which are the most striking instances of this, begging such of my readers as are still inclined to call Tennyson obscure, to read them, and point out what difficulty there is in them. They are Chapters vi. viii. x. xi. xiv. xviii. xx. xxviii. xxx.; but I will stop here, for I have surely mentioned enough to prove my point. And beside In Memoriam, there are scarcely any poems of Tennyson which ought to have any difficulty to a man of ordinary education, who will bring to them that attention which all knowledge desires, if not requires. But in truth this complaint of obscurity is founded on that contemptible misconception that poetry is a branch of light literature, together with that impatience of thought and presumptuous self-conceit which are not unmarked characteristics of the present generation. The fault is wholly in the reader, and the only remedy is that he should at once confess and amend.

I have treated this first point at some length, because there is a prejudice against philosophical poetry,—a prepossession not wholly unmerited; for much that is called by that noble name is altogether unworthy of it, lacking two essentials of poetry, that it should come not from the intellect alone, but also from the heart, and that it should be song flowing in spontaneous and free musical numbers.

I cannot pass over the famous opinion of one so qualified to judge as Plato, that philosophy and poetry are irreconcileable enemies. His chief arguments against poetry are that it does not attain to truth, or at best only to phænomenal truth, and that it excites the feelings, thus disturbing the mind from that calm which is necessary for philosophical contemplation. The second argument I do not think it requisite to reply to, as it is one which can never have much weight with any large portion of mankind, and as little as any with so genial-minded a people as the English. But the first, however often answered, has still great influence, and not least among us English, who, loving truth dearly, are also for the most part no less matter-of-fact. Now this grave charge that poetry does not deal with truth, is altogether to be denied. The grand creative faculty, Imagination, common to Art and Poetry, as distinctly and forcibly set forth by Ruskin, seeks after truth, after truth no less than Reason, in however different a method. Of this no better example can be taken than the poem before us, in which there is not a line which has not been written with all the heart and all the mind. Indeed, its whole value depends upon its truthfulness. If these are not the actual hopes and griefs of a human soul, throw them aside as elaborate wailings of a sentimental fancy. But of a certainty real grief alone could have taught such sorrowful utterances,—real resignation alone could have prompted those expressions of the very spirit of resignation, at length triumphing

• “In conclusive bliss,
• And that serene result of all.”

To bring forward isolated or ill-connected examples of that which I maintain pervades the whole, and which is indeed the foundation of all its excellencies, is altogether unsatisfactory; each must read and judge for himself; yet I hope that this point will be made plain, if the sort of analysis of the poem which I shall presently give be attended to.

There may be some who fancy that In Memoriam is little else than a mere collection of short poems, “like orient pearls at random strung,” with little connection and sequence. And indeed every one of the chapters is so perfect that it might well stand by itself; but a mere collection of short poems would not be a great poem. But the connection of the chapters is not the least admirable part of the book; there is not one that could be spared; the dependence



of each upon the rest is I think very easily to be traced, and between many the relation is very close. I can only give the reader a clue, if such he need; I have not space myself to be his guide.

There is a strife still raging, though it ought long ago to have been settled, whether poetry has to do with common or with uncommon things, a question which again may be stated thus, whether the beautiful is the ordinary or the extraordinary. That which is frequently ranked as the highest kind of poetry, epic, undoubtedly acts on the second principle; the Iliad, the Æneid, the Paradise Lost, are about heroes and heroic exploits, angels, and wars in heaven; though the first at least of these treats also of common things, giving minute accounts of sacrificing and feasting. And on this principle, too, proceeds that which many would claim to be the highest, which is acknowledged by all to be a very high form of poetry, pure tragedy. In the Greek tragedies the demigods and heroes of Greece, especially the Homeric heroes—in the great English tragedies, a King of Scotland, a Prince of Denmark, a King of Britain, a General of Venice, are the foremost and best-known characters. And on the whole, even in Shakespeare’s tragedies, so much less purely tragic than the Greek, the action, sentiment, and language, are on a level with the high rank of the principal characters. But side by side with these is a vast mass of poetry which has dealt with the ordinary feelings and actions of ordinary men; such as, among our own countrymen, the greater part of the poems of Cowper and Burns. This was carried so far by Wordsworth and others as to provoke a storm of ridicule, which would now be universally acknowledged to be deserved. Yet the existence of these two kinds, springing up so abundantly side by side, points to a ready answer to the question; an answer which we find emphatically given in Tennyson. Lady Clara Vere de Vere, The May Queen, Lord Burleigh, Lady Clare, The Brook—these are simplicity itself. But The Lady of Shalott, St. Simeon, Stylites, The Princess—still more The Palace of Art, The Two Voices,The Vision of Sin—these are far removed from common appreciation, and are at least in their full meaning and beauty for comparatively few readers. So it is; the ordinary and the extraordinary are alike subjects for poetry, that girdle of beauty which encircles the universe; and poets may not confine themselves to this or that class of men—to kings, heroes, and philosophers, nor yet to merchants, mechanics, and peasants, but must range through all mankind, the spokesmen of the human race; though true it is that to many has been given only a tongue for common men and common things, while, on the other hand, many can far more easily and eloquently sing heroic deeds, far more readily analyze philosophic thought, than describe the events and emotions of every-day life. The question here considered is no difficult one; it can be answered by a mere attention to facts; but it is a most important one, indeed full of the deepest significance; for it shows us how earth is indissolubly bound to heaven; how men in their most ordinary occupations, in their daily working and playing, are still spiritual creatures; not mere machines, to labour with the hand; nor yet mere brains, machines still, to think; but in one comprehensive, awful, inexplicable word, souls, into which God has breathed the breath of life. And this inseparable union between the high and the low, the far off and the near, the strange and the familiar, no poem sets forth more clearly and strikingly than In Memoriam. To the memory of a college friend, who died a few years ago in Vienna,—the son of a well-known living historian,— that is the groundwork of the story, or occasion of the poem. The illustrations are,

• “A happy lover, who has come
• To look on her that loves him well,”

a mother praying God will save her sailor son; a girl waiting for her lover, taking a riband or a rose, that she may look well in his eyes, turning to her glass once more to set a ringlet right, while at that very moment he is

• “Kill’d in falling from his horse,
• Or drown’d in passing through the ford.”

In one chapter the poet contrasts the marriage of a girl by which she leaves home, but often from time to time returns, with the death of his friend, gone never to come again. The removal of the poet’s family from one house to another is told. The poem is concluded by a minute account of the wedding of his sister. Yes, verily, if In Memoriam is poetry, poetry dwells by the firesides of men, sharing their household joys and griefs and labours;—treats of the common; stoops to the humblest. But behold a marvellous change. The Introduction is a sublime address to God the Son; the final stanzas are of the consummation of all things, when God the Father shall be all in all. The highest object of the poem, I believe, is to show how “the truths that never can be proved” can yet be believed, through love, love of God grounded on love of man.

• “I found Him not in world or sun,
• Or eagle’s wing, or insect’s eye;
• Nor through the questions men may try,
• The petty cobwebs we have spun:

• “If e’er when faith had fallen asleep,
• I heard a voice, ‘believe no more,’
• And heard an ever-breaking shore,
• That tumbled in the Godless deep,

• “A warmth within the breast would melt
• 10The freezing reason’s colder part,
• And like a man in wrath, the heart
• Stood up and answer’d, ‘I have felt.’ ”

I say advisedly the highest object; for a great poem may have many great ends; and accordingly the commemoration of Arthur Hallam I would rather say is closely inwoven with, or merged in, this first and greatest end, than subordinated to it.—Turn now to the chapters,

• “That each who seems a separate whole,”

• “If sleep and death be truly one,”

• “So careful of the type, but no,”

• “That which we dare invoke to bless,”

and we are in the highest region of thought; here poetry no longer sits by the household fire, but walks on the high places of the earth, with Death and Morning on the mountains; yea, through the valley of the shadow of death passes to the Land of the Departed, where the dead on earth are alive for evermore.—Of these two kinds I do not hesitate a moment in placing first the higher, more heroic, more philosophical: the opinion that the poetry which speaks most plainly and readily to the greatest number is the best, I hold to be an error, founded on a confusion between a great and a popular poet, which I would endeavour to expose here, but that I hope to examine it at greater length in a future article.

The doctrine that poetry cannot flourish in a civilized age being so manifestly disproved by the existence of such a poet as Tennyson, (to say nothing of others now living,) and seeming to depend chiefly on the presumed hostility of poetry and philosophy,—an hypothesis which I have already been at pains to prove fallacious,—I may be allowed to pass over with this bare mention.

The truthfulness I have claimed for In Memoriam is the foundation of one of its greatest excellencies—tenderness, so striking a characteristic, that it has been called its distinguishing quality. This is certainly a mistake, for several other qualities are quite as prominent, though greater tenderness could not possibly be displayed.

Tenderness and pathos are quite distinct, yet so nearly related that this will be a fit place to make a few observations on the nature of Tennyson’s pathos. There is one kind—the simplest of all—which goes straight to the heart, without the intervention of the intellect, and speaks to all, and whose natural expression is tears. Of this kind one of the greatest masters is



Dickens, as illustrated in the deaths of Little Nell and Dora, and the conversation between Nell and Mrs. Quilp, in the sixth chapter of The Old Curiosity Shop. In music, I would select Handel, and instance the solos in the Messiah, “Thy rebuke hath broken his heart,” and “He was despised and rejected of men;” the pathos of which, whether greater or less, is of an entirely different nature from that of the Dies Iræ, of Mozart’s Requiem. Many, perhaps most, would hold this to be the highest kind of all, and that it most exactly answers to the name may perhaps be granted. Of this sort there is comparatively little in Tennyson, though it is by no means wholly wanting in him,—as the Lord of Burleigh, passages in the second and third parts of the May Queen, the concluding lines of The Gardener’s Daughter, and, perhaps, some chapters of In Memoriam. But, in general, his pathos is much more fused with the intellect, and consequently addresses itself more particularly to the educated, and expresses rather melancholy, as “Break, break, break,” or desolation of heart, as Oriana, or vehement, passionate woe, as Locksley Hall, than simple grief and pity, of which tears would be the natural sign. I cannot explain my conception of his pathos better than by quoting his own words;

• “And for a while the knowledge of his art
• Held me above the subject.”

Whether this is or is not the highest kind, I will not now enquire; but it may perhaps be of some service merely to point it out. Of this nature I think is most of the pathos of In Memoriam, as in Chapters iii., xvi., xxiii., xxvi., xxxv., xl., xliii., &c, the delineation of the grief of a strong man, strong as his grief—strong in will and strong in mind; a grief which, though recalled by

• “Summer on the steaming floods,
• And Spring, that swells the narrow brooks,
• And Autumn, with a noise of rooks,
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• That gather in the waning woods
• And every pulse of wind and wave;”

yet, by that very mingling with, and embodiment in, all things, is modified and lightened; for

• “The imaginative woe
• That loved to handle spiritual strife,
• Diffused the shock through all his life,
• But in the present broke the blow.”

How great a beauty is pathos surely I need not urge. Perhaps it is that quality in a composition which most of all wins our love; which, as its very name might seem to imply, comes home most to our hearts. For, of all the intelligent beings of which we know, pathos is peculiar to man—the sweet, sad music of humanity—that nature which was made in the likeness of God, and which has now to regain that likeness through long suffering, drinking of the brook by the way, that thereby its head may be lifted up. I quote a single example of Tennyson’s tenderness, the 128th chapter of In Memoriam:

• “Dear friend, far off, my lost desire,
• So far, so near in woe and weal,
• O loved the most when most I feel
• There is a lower and a higher;

• Known and unknown, human, divine!
• Sweet human hand, and lips, and eye,
• Dear heavenly friend that canst not die!
• Mine, mine for ever, ever mine!

• Strange friend, past, present, and to be,
• 10Loved deeplier, darklier understood,
• Behold I dream a dream of good,
• And mingle all the world with thee.”

But, however tender In Memoriam is, no greater misconception could be formed than that it is a mournful poem. The misconception is so thorough that it is strange, almost unaccountable, how any who has read it through, could have fallen into it. I say, read it through; for the first chapters, indeed nearly half the poem, might lead to it quite naturally. But, of all poems, the least sorrowful is In Memoriam. True, the sorrow of the commencement is very deep and dark, almost despair. Of twain, who loved each other with



more than the love of brothers, one has been taken away, leaving the other, “to wander on a darkened earth,” till “the Shadow, cloaked from head to foot,” shall wrap him in his formless mantle of forgetfulness. Sick at heart, he cannot see the end and know the good; to him the dead is dead indeed, and with that one death all life has ceased to him:

• “From out waste places comes a cry,
• And murmurs from the dying sun;
• And all the phantom, Nature, stands
• A hollow form, with empty hands.”

But the days roll on, and “the wild unrest and calm despair,” are cheered by a ray of hope, very faint at first, but gradually it grows brighter, and the sorrow is changed to less, and the love, which, more than all other elements, is the essence of happiness, grows stronger and stronger, till, at the last, it is made perfect,

• “No longer caring to embalm
• In dying songs a dead regret,
• But, like a statue, solid-set,
• And moulded in colossal calm.”

In Memoriam a mournful poem! Nay, but, on the contrary, its pervading spirit is that calm happiness which we believe to be the bliss of heaven; for it is the record of the endurance of grief by a noble mind, that in its utter woe, was still stayed at peace with God and man; brave and patient, however painful, endurance, till suffering had perfected, and love saw the dead still living, and won the victory over the intellectual doubts that yielded only to it—to love of mankind, firmly rooted in love of one man, and, grounded on love of mankind, love of Him whose name is Love, and who also is a Man like ourselves.

O happy dead, who had such a poet to raise over him this grandest mausoleum! O happy poet, who had a friend worthy to be so commemorated! And, beyond even this, O happy friends, whose love, not even death could divide, but which has already risen again to live for ever, there, where there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor any more pain.

Again, to test Tennyson’s truthfulness, let us see how he speaks of external nature. Perhaps the most remarkable thing in his description, is, that so much of it is of ordinary, level English scenery—of common flowers, both wild and cultivated, of trees that grow in our own parks, and fields and hedges. Not that he cannot describe grander scenery. The Palace of Art or Morte d’Arthur alone would refute that; but, brought up in the east of England, he has chosen chiefly to describe what he has seen with his own eyes; thereby once more recalling to us that oft-told, but as oft-forgotten, truth, that nature is beautiful everywhere, not only on mountains and on seas, and in forests, but also in meadows, in fens, in gardens, in wayside hedges. His descriptions are minute, and bear unmistakeably the signs of coming from direct sight. Also, they are never merely external, for that would be to describe as a naturalist, a worse fault than analyzing as a philosopher; but the landscape is drawn as it looks to a human eye and affects a human heart; in the phraseology of Ruskin, not by fancy, but by the nobler faculty, imagination. They are short too, and strictly subordinated to, and connected with, the human interest of the poem; which I hold to be the true method, at least that which most powerfully affects the largest class. Not that they need necessarily be short; some of Ruskin’s, and of Kingsley’s too, are of great length; but this rule must be observed, that they should never obstruct the action, or keep out of sight the actors, since every landscape will, at the very least, have an additional charm, if associated with a human being.

And still more to enforce and illustrate this truthfulness, which I have, to a great extent, made the central point of the critique, a few remarks



upon Tennyson’s style (to use for the present a phrase, to which I shall by and bye object,) will be necessary, in which it may happen that I shall say again some things which I have already said in the first part of the Essay, though I will endeavour to repeat myself as little as possible. The great peculiarity of it, displayed nowhere more strikingly than in the poem under review, is the rejection of all inversion of words, and the employment of the common language of every-day life, but without anything that is mean and vulgar.

There have been times in the history of English literature when it was thought that there was a poetical grammar and vocabulary, distinct from those of common life, not only of the ignorant and vulgar, but also of the educated and polite. It was considered a merit, or at least a very allowable license, to put objective cases before the verbs or prepositions that governed them, to place adjectives after their substantives, to make adjectives do the work of adverbs. Far be it from me to wish to lessen the poetic liberties; but a poet who writes the grammar which the educated classes of his countrymen ordinarily use, will naturally be more acceptable than one who twists his sentences either to suit his verses or in imitation of a foreign language. But far worse than this was the use of unfamiliar words, the disdain of familiar ones. That there are many words almost entirely appropriated to poetry, and very seldom employed in the conversation even of the best educated and most refined, cannot be denied; but this happens because conversation seldom rises into the poetical, not because there is in such words any essential unfitness for conversation; while to disuse familiar words is to forego one of the most powerful instruments for affecting the heart. Rhene, Danaw, and Sabrina must sound strangely, to our ears at least, and cannot come home to us with the same force as their popular and well-known names, with their manifold associations, Rhine, Danube, Severn. What should we say now of a poet who thought the words Sebastopol and Crimea too mean for his verse, and edified us by their classical names, and called us Angli, and our brothers in arms Gauls?

And closely connected with this use of common constructions and everyday words, is the fitness and precision of the language of Tennyson. He has himself exactly described this characteristic in the poem reviewed.

• “What practice, howsoe’er expert,
• In fitting aptest words to things.”

Throughout the whole of his poems runs the doctrine, not that truth is beauty, as the phrase often goes, for that is needlessly to confound two things essentially different, but that the beautiful is among the true. This doctrine, happily is now ever more and more gaining ground, but we must never rest till it is established beyond all dispute. We, the countrymen of Bacon, have long ago acknowledged with him, that in Physics, Truth and Utility are coincident, (“in idem coincidunt”) and behold the marvellous results that have rewarded the acknowledgment. Let us also say, with one no less able to pronounce upon another question, than Bacon upon that,

• “Truest truth is fairest beauty.”

The ideas of the divine mind are to be found not only by physical observations and experiments and the inductive method, but by the creations or interpretations of imagination also; for poetry, not less than natural science, is an interpretation of nature, and the poet, as well also the painter and the sculptor, must faithfully render what they find within and without themselves, fully believing that the things which God has created by His word are altogether nobler and more beautiful than any that man may seem to create by his fancy. Of this we



have before us an admirable example in the Pre-Raphaelites, between whom and the poets who, like them, follow nature, I would recommend a comparison to any who are competent to institute it.

To make selections of that which runs throughout the whole of Tennyson’s poems, which, in fact, is the only peculiarity in them which can be fairly said to constitute a style, is idle; but a few remarks on that common but as usually employed, unmeaning phrase, Tennyson’s style, may not be uncalled for. For people talk as if one mode of expression pervaded all his writings, which mode many are bold enough to stigmatize as affected and obscure. Now, it is surely unnecessary to dwell upon the absurdity of applying such epithets to The Lord of Burleigh and Lady Clare, and the very large proportion of his poems, which are as simple as these two. Those to which they can be more speciously applied, I have attempted, I trust not unsuccessfully, to defend. Therefore, it is not with these epithets that I have to do now, but with the phrase, “Tennyson’s style” itself, to which I entirely object, unless by it is meant the use of the exact words required adequately to express the thought. For compare poems not more dissimilar than Locksley Hall and In Memoriam. The expression in the former is abrupt and impetuous; in the latter equally powerful, but calm and measured; that is to say, precisely suitable to the speaker in each case—in the one the eager-hearted youth, maddened by unreturned love, and excited by the contemplation, alternately of the scientific greatness and the moral weaknesses of the present age; in the other the deep feeling, deep thinking man, remembering his friend faithfully for years, and in the course of gaining the victory over scepticism. True, the one style, as the one character, is easily reconcileable with the other; but distinct, and different with a wide difference, they certainly are. And if, with these two and The Two Voices, and the Vision of Sin, we compare The May Queen, Dora, Edward Gray, the difference becomes more evident, and the only similarity to be found in them is that adaptation of language to thought, which I have already claimed to be the only peculiarity which can rightly be said to form a style in Tennyson.

I seem to myself barely to have grazed the surface of the great poem which I have undertaken to review; but here my remarks must end, for the present at least. It only remains, dear reader, by way of summing up, to consider what decision, however rude and uncritical, we shall pass upon it. I have endeavoured to write about it quite impartially, and, so far, with as much temperance and absence of enthusiasm as I could command. But in truth, many times my heart has been hot within me, and I have longed to speak out plainly what intense love and reverence I feel for it; no hasty and ill-considered liking and admiration, but strong love and deep reverence, which I am sure will last my life through, founded on knowledge, and



by greater knowledge continually made greater. And right well shall I be rewarded for that, which indeed being a labour of love, has been its own reward, if this review shall cause any better to understand and appreciate this greatest poem of this great poet; for thus I shall have the consciousness that I have helped to discover to them a treasure that can never be exhausted, a treasure the most precious; even an El Dorado of Love and Wisdom and Beauty. Every time it is read it will be found more beautiful, more tender, more significant, more sublime; a calm retreat of pure happiness from the tumult of the world, but as widely as heaven from hell removed from selfish and misanthropic isolation; a Paradise of high and holy thoughts, which shall refine and elevate them above the meanness of their vulgar thinking, and that not least by showing the spiritual value and dignity of common things. Especially is such a poem needful and a blessing in these days of commerce and science, when men are too busy to think, too wise to learn, too intent on self-advancement to love, too restless for that tranquillity which is the highest, if not the only true, happiness.

[ To be continued.]

I walked upon the coast of Denmark that faced the north, all one winter morning, looking at the passing of the ships to and fro upon the deep green sea, as they carried freight of precious merchandise between one land and another; and there was something in the deep purple margin of the sea, and the long white line of breakers, and



the flashing of the sunlight upon distant sails, that gleamed for a moment and were gone, and something in the mournful wailing of the old sea-winds as they sung an ancient song among the rocks, that brought up a vision of that sea as it looked many hundred years ago on such a morning to brave and loving eyes that trust and look no more. And I thanked Our Father and blessed Him for the sympathy of sea and wind and cloud that day. “These,” said I, “abide for ever, watching the work of human life upon the land: all the earth is changed, and different in every generation, for where the pleasant valley was is the tumultuous city, and where the city, is the barren waste; but the sea and clouds looked even thus a thousand years ago, and some such music made the sea-winds in the ears of men.” On that day, moreover, I was filled with sadness and unquietness of heart, thinking upon the days that are past, and because so much majesty and glory had clean gone out of sight without a record. “Alas!” I said, “for I could weep and weep to think of it, so many noble deeds accomplished, so many deeds of love and holy sacrifice, so many, many gentle hearts broken in far-off times, there in the North, whereof no memory nor record comes to us, no answer from the invisible winds that have seen all and will not speak.” Therefore my heart was very heavy for love of all the silent great ones that are not named among men; “yet,” I thought, “surely when the day comes at last, after long tarrying, for the great sea to give up its dead, it will happen that the Past also shall render up the keys of its mystery-room, and as it were with stars, whereof Astronomers tell us that their light has not reached the earth, though they shine somewhere gloriously evermore, all the heaven will be a-light with new constellations, brighter, it may be, some of them than any seen before, than all we have honoured heretofore; new heroes, greater than the old ones, or all as great.” With this I comforted my heart: “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?“ Fitfully there came along the wind a broken carol of the bells in the valley just below. “Ah!” I thought, “for the bitter life of all who lived before Christ and



hope were born together, and those bells rang out such happy tunes. What to them seemed Life and Death and Hereafter?” Then I remembered what holy words the poet of my own land—dear country I shall never see again until I dwell there after death—had sung about Yule-time; and I said aloud those hopeful words of his about God’s hidden purposes in man, in the hearing of the sea-birds saying,

• “And he, shall he,
• Man, her last work, who seem’d so fair,
• Such splendid purpose in his eyes,
• Who roll’d the psalm to wintry skies,
• Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,

• “Who trusted God was love indeed,
• And love Creation’s final law,—
• Though Nature, red in tooth and claw
• With ravine, shriek’d against his creed,—

• 10“Who loved, who suffer’d countless ills,
• Who battled for the True, the Just,
• Be blown about the desert dust,
• Or seal’d within the iron hills?”

After this, I sat upon the beach, at the foot of a cliff, white as the cliffs of my own country, and took a volume of illuminated writing, and opened at the first page; dark green and purple and melancholy gold lay upon the page and round about the writing; very sad and pensive was the colouring; and in among the flowers and interlacings of delicate branches, long-leaved branches, showed a castle tower grey against a sky of windy blue, and a lady leaned therefrom in the tower-window, resting her white forehead on her right hand, and playing dreamily with her left among the leaves, and an agony of long expectation sealed itself upon her face.

Then so did that pale anguish, that had gnawed upon her bloom of life, hold me tranced, that I read as if in a charmed book, and the mournful colour of the page and the sadness of the lady wrought a vision of the past to this effect.

I saw it now, clear as in a picture, that castle on the far-off coast of Norway, as it stood up fair and manfully against the breakers of the Northern Sea; and the sea-winds and mountain-winds met above its towers, and contended there, flouting the ancient banners of the kingly house of Elstein. Travellers in that distant land, going through the mountain-pass and valley where the town lay once, walk down to the beach-line, looking at the furious beating of the sea-waves that have not ceased to flow, are blown upon by the same old winds that sang through the pine-forest ages long ago; for those winds, visiting all lands within the upper zone, returning, finding all things changed from when they left the mountain-gorge years before, are still the same. No man now, passing through the valley, thinks ever of the people that dwelt there, happy and brave; thinks ever of their sorrows and their love, nor their broken lives, nor noble deaths.

And this castle faced the sea westwards and northwards, but behind it and to south of it lay a fair valley, sheltered by the rock on which the castle stood from all the north winds, and by the mountains from the east wind; and in the valley below the castle-hill stood the little town, busy and full of traffic; for though hunters on the mountains, who had pierced the dark pine-forest, brought tidings only of the ranges stretching on every side, like a great frozen sea petrified, with all its waves in act of tossing, yet seawards came traders to the town, with news of other lands and the rise of cities in the South; at times also came a message or a gift from one who had left them long before in quest of adventures,



and to whom the memory of his birth-land had not ceased to be beautiful, though he should never return. It was pleasant to talk together at the door of the old armourer’s in the morning, while the red fire burned merrily in the furnace, and listen to the ringing of the metal plates, as he fashioned armour for heroes, and proved the good sword-blades for battle; for never morning came but some fresh thing had happened to serve for telling. But it was even pleasanter at night-time, hearing fire-light stories, fit for those large shadows on the ceiling and the walls—tales of generations passed long ago. And this was the custom of Hakon the armourer, to have a gathering of the neighbours every night to hear his stories and drink with him. And there at the feet of Gertha his foster-mother, grew the little Engeltram in fear and wonder, listening to those weird legends that fell from Hakon’s mouth with such a stately flow, and learning much about heaven and earth and gods and men. And as he grew up to greater understanding, he loved still to hear those legends, and to think that whether true or not, they yet were true in this, that there lies in life, concealed somewhere, more than can be seen by all men; some better and more excellent thing than drinking in the mead-cup and singing loud wassail-songs in festival. Very loving and tender was he in his life, and Hakon and Gertha loved him as their own child, suffered him in all things, hoped and plotted for his welfare, till he grew to manhood. Now Engeltram was pale and hazel-eyed, and his hair fell about his shoulders long and brown and dark; his eyes, moreover, had the seeming of one who ever looks at some fair and far-off object, and cannot yet be satisfied with gazing; for both by day and night there stood before him in his vision the Lady Irminhilda, daughter of King Eric, who lived in Elstein. Through long years they had grown together, as a passion-flower and lily in a desolate wind-swept garden; in the spring-time of their years playing on the hills at the game of king and queen, while the sun passed overhead to warm them, laughed and mocked their little royalty with lengthened shadows on the grass. There he made a crown for her of ash-berries and hedge-flowers, and crowned her in the morning of their life; but Vorsimund her kinsman, cruel Vorsimund, he who chased all gentle harmless creatures for his pastime, came between them like a shadow, broke the little crown of ash-tree, and waited ever to torment them with his cruelty and malice. But those years went over, and brought the summer-time of life, warmer suns, and quicker thoughts, and livelier hopes; for Vorsimund had gone for ever and left them, therefore



it could not be but long companionship should bring reliance and dependence, and from this a continual want in separation and completeness in communion, till last of all, they seemed divided halves of one same life, that must be joined together lest both should perish. And this was the love that was between them, fast-enduring, and sanctified by many memories, and prepared for suffering and trial in evil days.

But Eric the king, her father, purposed, in his quiet scheming, to add kingdom to kingdom through his daughter, for she was his only child, and to leave behind him a name to be praised and had in honour as the founder of a nation; and this was the sin of Eric, that he had respect to long futurity and what might be said of him in days to come, and counted not the present time as anything, nor the happiness of living men to be compared with this poor fame of his; wherefore all wise men would judge that evil was already threatening, and would not fail to overtake him presently.

There was high festival in the castle of Elstein, among lords and elders and strangers, who had come from distant lands to be guests with Eric while the feasting lasted. Now he had proclaimed this festivity in honour of his daughter upon her twentieth birthday; and he looked that some fortunate issue to his proud hopes would follow, and that the fame of her great beauty might be spread abroad wherever the strangers travelled. All his scheming and ambition was known to the lovers, for Engeltram had found but little favour or forbearance from him lately, and judged that this was the reason; but herein he thought wrongly, for Eric, because he was over-reaching, was short-sighted also, and suspected nothing of all that passed so near him; but he hated Engeltram for his strange



resemblance to one you shall hear of presently, who had destroyed his plans in other days, and whom he had hated with a very deadly hatred. So upon this night of the festival, before all the lords and chiefs among the people, King Eric made a royal oath, that no man who was not kingly born and dowered with wide dominions, should wed the Lady Irminhilda. And Engeltram when he heard the words, left the banquet straightway, burning with indignation, for he thought they had respect to him chiefly, and that the eyes of all who knew him were set stedfastly upon him.

Now within the castle that stood four-sided, facing the four chief winds, was a court-yard, and upon the eastern side a covered balcony of woodwork looking into it and open towards it. Many a time had royal children played there in wild weather, and kings walked there looking how it fared at sea, for the balcony was high above the ground, and overlooked the west walls to the sea beyond. There leaned Engeltram when the moon was high. The Lady Irminhilda passed him going to her chamber from the banquet, for the revel and the drinking had begun: pale was she and faltered in her footsteps, only the sight of him forlorn and leaning there, sent the life blood to her cheeks again. He saw her come and stand beside him, looking unchanged, unutterable love from deep blue eyes. “I knew that you would come,” he said; “at that moment I was bending all my soul to this one desire that you would come, and it prevailed to draw you here; nevermore shall I have doubt that we are one together for life and death.” She looked upwards gently, wonderingly, sad to think how grief had made his musical sweet voice so hoarse and hollow, yet she spoke no word. “Oh! I have seen it, seen it clearly in deep sleep, the beautiful garden westwards and the fourfold river through it, and the tree with crimson fruit; and last night I dreamt of it again, and saw moreover her whom I never saw before, my mother, standing in deep grass and calling; at first I thought that it was you, but it could not be, for you were beside me, looking also. Ah! she was so strangely like you.” In the recollection of his dream he stopped awhile to linger; she spoke no word nor interrupted, only looked stedfastly and sadly. “It will be a dark and fearful night, and no man will leave the fireside nor the festival till morning; come, and I will carry you to the home that I have seen in dreams.” She saw the moonlight for a moment lying on the water, making a great highway to the west, then a flash of regal disdain lighted up her quiet eyes, but died again at sight of those worn cheeks and sound of that hoarse voice. “I may not so leave my father’s house,” she



answered coldly; “the night is dark, but treacherous heart knows greater darkness; I may not leave him so: could you rob the old man at such an hour, when he cannot follow nor pursue? it would be a brave thing truly.” He fretted at the swordless baldric that was slung about him, coldness had no charm to quiet him, and her words fell with a dull and muffled sound upon his ears. She was so grieved that she had spoken so, when the words were past recalling; what was all her queenly right, and a line of ancient kings at such an hour, in such a presence! She would have died with him there, gladly. “Oh! Engeltram, be Engeltram once more before I leave you! Such a one I knew, gentle and good, wearing truest armour of nobility, and I thought him a hidden king, but just now he passed out somewhere, and I shall go and look for him;” poor heart! making merry in its