Studies in the Literature of Northern Europe  

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Studies in the Literature of Northern Europe (1879) is a book by Edmund Gosse.

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STUDIES IN THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE

EDMUND W. GOSSE

AVTHOH OF 'ilN VIOI, AND FLUTE' A\D ' KIXG ERIK'

WITH A FRONTISPIECE DESIGNED AND ETCHED DY L. ALMA TADEMA, A.R.A.

LONDON C. KEGAN PAUL & CO., 1 PATERNOSTER SQUARE

1879

[The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved)

TO

D^ GEORG BRANDES

or BERLIN

THE MOST DISTINGUISHED OF SCANDINAVIAN CRITICS

I INSCRIBE THIS BOOK

WITH ADMIRATION AND AFFECTION

PREFACE.

In selecting subjects for this book, I have been led by two considerations, choosing first what has charmed my- self, and next what seems likely to amuse the reader. For in wandering unaccompanied through a new literature, the student is drawn by instinct to those epochs and those figures which are personally most attractive to him. He cannot assert that they have more general importance than others, but at least they have more individual im- portance to himself: he likes them better, they stimulate his imagination more than their compeers; and what has pleased him he is apt to conceive will please his friends. Tliis is my excuse for the inequalities of my method, for the accidental character of the selection.

A few studies of salient points, prominent peaks and chains upon the map of literature, are more likely to arrest attention than a general survey of the whole, which might be tedious. But if I am happy enough to have a reader who cares to follow the connecting links and to glance over the historical plan, I may be allowed to refer him to my sketch of the literature of Denmark in the new edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and to forthcoming articles in the same work on the literatures of Norway and of Sweden.

There would be little instruction to be found in the study of foreign poetry, if it did not throw side-lights upon our own poetic history. It is singular that this aspect has been very generally disregarded by literary historians, and that in treating the nations of the North of Europe, it has been entirely disregarded. I have striven always to remember this, and to view these foreign poets by a Em-opean and not a local light. We see Arrebo imitating Du Bartas and Eosenhane paraphrasing Konsard like veritable Elizabethans. We see Huyghens frankly borrowing from John Donne, and Milton, in return, deign- ing to become indebted to Vondel. We see Oehlenschlager and Steffens, in 1800, taking long walks, with Schelling in their pockets and the revival of Danish poetry in their minds, precisely as Coleridge and Wordsworth were doing at the very same time at Grrasmere. We gain by learning that the dew is not on the fleece for us alone, but that we form a part of a wide field of European culture over the whole expanse of which the rains descend in their season.

On the question of the formation of the mind by classic study I strongly hold the faith of our fathers. There is no road, I am sure, to poetic excellence in taste except through Greek, and what nature does not give us it is vain to seek else- where than in antiquity. I am inclined, indeed, to claim for the authors of the ancient sagas something of the intensity and catholicity of the best Greek and Roman writers, and something, too, of their bracing effect upon the mind. But in all the modern literatures with which I deal, no one can be more conscious than I am how rarely perfection is ap- proached, how cloudy and flickering is the light of imagi- nation, and how great a part affectation and barbarism take even in the brightest periods of national vitality. In the sagas, however, there is none of this oscillation between ex- cellence and bathos. If I should retain both health and leisure, it is my hope to follow Sir George Dasent and the translators of the Greitlssaga in their admirable labours. To write a history of Icelandic literature is a thing un- attempted yet in any tongue. I do not know that I have the audacity to essay such a work, but I have the greatest inclination to do so.

For the sake of those who may care to compare my versions with the originals, I have printed in an appendix the text of all the poems and portions of poems translated in the body of the book.

My very cordial thanks are due to all the friends in various countries who have so kindly volunteered to make these studies as free from errors of detail as possible. I cannot mention the names of all to whom I am indebted, but I must not fail to express special recognition of the kindness of the distinguished writer to whom this volume is inscribed, who has read through the proofs for me, and to thank Overlserer Lokke in Christiania, Professor C. R. Nyblom at Upsala, and Professor J. A. Alberdingk Thijm in Amsterdam for their very kind help.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

PREFACE - vii

NORWAY :

norwegfan poetey since 1814 1

Hexrik Ibsen 35

The Lofoden Islands 70

SWEDEN :

Runeberg 98

DENMARK :

The Danish National Theatre 134

EouR Danish Poets ■ • 157

GERMANY:

Walther von der Vogelweide . ... 197

HOLLAND :

A Dutch Poetess of the Seventeenth Century . . 230

VONDEL AND MiLTON 278

The Oera Linda Book 313

APPENDIX 335

2 THE LITERATUKE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

shall endeavour to show that such is the case among the Norwegians.

It would be hard to point out any country in Europe whose condition at the present moment presents a more satisfactory aspect than Norway. It is not perhaps univer- sally known that its constitution is the only one that survives out of all those created or adapted to suit the theories of democracy that prevailed in the beginning of the century. Though accepting the King of Sweden as titular monarch, Norway really rules itself, sends to Christi- ania a parliament (the Storthing), elected from all classes of society, and has not scrupled, on occasion, to overrule the King's especial commands, even at the risk of civil war. There is no hereditary nobility in Norway ; no political restriction on the press ; hardly any class distinction ; and yet, so conservative, so dignified, is the nation, that free- dom hardJy ever lapses into licence, and the excesses which larger republics permit themselves would be impossible here. It is necessary to preface my remarks on the poetry of Norway with this statement, because the poets there, where they have been poets worth considering, have been also politicians ; and I shall be obliged, on this account, to refer now and again to political developments, though I shall hope to make these references as short as possible. The pohtical life of Norway would be in itself a fertile subject to dwell upon.

It is no more than an arbitrary dictum that fixes the rise of Norwegian literature at the date of the Declaration of Independence of 1814. For two centuries past the country had been producing eminent writers, who had at- tained distinction both as poets and as men of science.

THE NORSKE SELSKAB. 3

The great naturalists of Norway require, and deserve, an abler pen than mine ; it is with the poets that I propose to deal. A few of these, such as Peder Dass and Dorthe Engelbrechtsdatter, had preserved in the old days their na- tional character, and sung to the Northmen only ; but for the most part the writers of Norway looked to Denmark for their audience, and are to this day enrolled among the Danish poets. Holberg, Wessel, Tullin, Frimann, and a score of others, were as truly Norwegians as Welhaven and Ibsen are, but Copenhagen was the scene of their labours, and Danes were their admirers and patrons, and it is in Danish, not Norwegian, literature that tliey find their place. Hence it has been the habit of the Scandinavian critics to commence their histories of Noi"wegian biblio- graphy with the demonstration at Eidsvold, when Norway asserted her independence, and finally separated from Denmark.

The Norske Selskab ('Norwegian Society '), that evil genius and yet, in a measure, protector of the literature it presumed to govern, had now for more than forty years scattered thunderbolts from its rooms at Copenhagen, and ruled the world of letters with a rod of iron. But this singular association, that had nourished Wessel, snubbed Edvard Storm, and hunted Ewald to the death, no longer possessed its ancient force. The glory was departing, and when the rupture with Denmark came about, the Norske Selskab began to feel that Copenhagen was no longer a fit field of action, and, gathering its robes about it, it fled across the sea to Christiania, where it dwindled to a mere club, and may, for aught I know, still so exist, a shadow ■of its former self. But though the Selskab, once dreaded

B 2 ■

4 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

as the French Academy was, no longer had fangs to poison its opponents, its traditions of taste still ruled the public. Accordingly the aspect of affairs in the literary world of Christiania in the proud year of 1814 is at this distance of time neither inspiriting nor inviting. Newspapers hurriedly started and ignorantly edited, a theatre where people went to see dull tragedies of Nordal Brun's, or, worse still, translations of tawdry dramas of the Voltaire school, a chaos of foolish political pamphlets : these meet us on every hand, and every sort of writing seems to abound, save that which is the result of fine criticism and good taste. The Selskab admitted but two kinds of poetry — the humorous and the elegiac. Everyone knows what elegies used to be, what a plague they had become, and how persistently ' elegant ' and ' ingenious ' writers poured them forth. And, indeed, according to the journals of that time in Christiania, every verse-writer was inge- nious and every tale-writer elegant. There was a total want of discrimination ; every man wrote what was pleasing in his own eyes, and had it printed too ; for the newspapers were open to all comers, and no poems were too stupid to be admitted. The whole country went wild with the new- found liberty ; like an overdose of exhilarating tonic, free- dom threw Norway into a sort of delirium, and all was joyous, confused, and irrational. Out of all this arose a new class of poetry that ran side by side with tlie elegiac, and after a while overwhelmed it. This has been called ' Syttendemai-Poesi,' or poesy of the 1 7th of May — the day on which Christian was proclaimed King of Norway, and the Storthing was finally instituted. This poesy, of course, was intensely patriotic, taking the form of odes to Eids-

THE TREFOIL. 5

void, hjmns to Old Norway, and defiance to the world at large. It is tedious, and sometimes laughable if read now ; but then it had its significance, and was the inar- ticulate cry of a young, unsatisfied nation.

Out of the froth and whirl of the ' Syttendemai-Poesi ' the works of three poets rise and take a definite shape. These claim particular notice, mainly because of their real worth, but they gained it at the time, perhaps, more by the extraordinary zeal with which they stood l)y and puffed one another. They have been called the Trefoil, so im- possible is it to consider them separately ; and in this triplicity of theirs they formed a considerable figure in their day. I speak of Schwach, Bjerregaard, and M. C. Hansen. The first-mentioned was the most admired then, and is the least regarded now. C. A. Schwach was born in a village by the shores of Lake Miosen in 1793, and, after holding a high official position at Trondhjem for a great many years, died at Skien in 1860. His jDoems, originally printed in stray newspapers, were collected in three great volumes. They are very dull, being for the most part occasional verses called forth by events which are now entirely forgotten. Schwach, once the idol of the clubs and the popular poet of the day, is now seldom read and never reprinted ; he exists mainly as the author of one or two popular songs that have not yet lost their charm. Bjerregaard was a man of far higher talent than Schwach ; there was more melody in his heart than on liis tongue ; his lyrics have still some music about them, and some dewiness and sparkle. His countrymen usually class him as a poet below Hansen, and if we include, as they do, novels and all sorts of aesthetic writing as part of a poet's

6 THE LITER ATUEE OF IsOETHEEX EUEOPE.

vocation, they are doubtless right, for Hansen won great fame as a writer of romances ; but in poetry proper I must, for my own part, set Bjerregaard far higher than his- friends as a master of the art. He had greater reticence than they, and a brighter touch ; he even had some desire for novelty in the matter of versification, and wrote in terza rima and other new metres. He produced a tragedy, too, ' Magnus Barfods Sonner '('Magnus Barefoot's Sons'),. which, I am bound to say, I have found wonderfully dreary. He was happiest in lyrical writing ; I may point in pass- ing to his pretty verses * Vinterscener ' (' Winter Scenes ')^ in the small collected edition of his works. He was born in the same village as Schwach was, but a year earlier, and died in 1842. M. C. Hansen, a prolific writer of novels, published exceedingly little verse, of an artificial and affected kind. Glancing down his pages, we notice such titles as ' The Pearl,' ' The Eainbow,' ' Nature in Ceylon,' and we easily gather the unreal and forced nature of the sentiment he deals in. His romances are said to be of a far better character, and he led the van of those happy innovators who turned to the real life of their humbler countrymen for a subject for their art. For thi& discovery, the beauty that lies hidden in a peasant's life^ we must thank Hansen, and forgive his poetical sins. He died a few days before his friend Bjerregaard, and Schwacb collected his works in eight huge volumes.

If there were nothing better in Norwegian poetry than the writings of these three friends, it would not be worth' while to catalogue their tedious productions, and the reader might wisely turn away to more inspiriting themes. But it is not so ; this early period of Syttendemai-Poesi is-

WEEGELAND. 7

but the ridge of light-blown sand over which the traveller has to toil from his boat till he reaches the meadows and the heathery moorlands beyond. We come now to a poet whose genius, slowly developing out of the chaotic ele- ments around it, took form, and colour, and majesty, till it lifted its possessor to a level with the noblest spirits of his time.

Henrik Arnold Thaulov Wergeland was born at Christianssand in 1808, and was the son of a political pamphleteer who attained some prominence in the ranks of the popular party. The father was one of the original members of the Storthing, and consequently the earliest years of the poet were spent at Eidsvold, in the very centre of all the turmoil of inexperienced statesmanship. Eidsvold was the vortex into which the bombast and false sentiment of the nation naturally descended, and it is impossible to doubt that the scenes of his boyhood dis- tinctly infused into Wergeland's nature that strong political bias that he never afterwards threw off. By-and- by the lad went up to the University of Christiania, and entered heart and soul into the caprices of student life ; his excesses, however, seem to have been those of eccen- tricity and mischievousness, for neither at this time nor ever after through his chequered life did he lose that blameless character, the sweetness of which won praise even from his enemies. It was about this time that he fell in love with a young lady, whom he had seen once only, and that in the street. He named her Stella, and, being unable to find her address, wrote daily a letter to her, tore it up and threw it out of window. His landlady remarked that the apple-blossom was falling early that

8 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

year. This ideal love for * Stella ' woke the seeds of poetry in him ; he began to versify, and soon, forgetting Stella, worshipped a still less tangible but more important mistress, the Muse Thalia herself.

The first work published by the afterwards eminent poet was ' Ah ! ' a farce. It is usual with his admirers to pass over this and his other boyish productions in silence, but it is undoubtedly a fact that after tlie appearance of

• Ah ! ' in 1827, he wrote a great number of farces in quick

succession. These farces were successful, too, and the boy dramatist began to be talked of and admired ; there were not wanting those even who called him ' The Holberg of Norway,' forgetting, it would seem, that Holberg himself, the inimitable, was a Norwegian. That Wergeland him- self did not prize these trifles very highly would seem from his publishing them under an Arabic pseudonym — ' Siful Sifadda.' Those who have read them speak of them as not altogether devoid of fun, but founded principally on passing events, that have lost all interest now. But in 1828 he wrote a tragedy — ' Sinclairs Dod' ('Sinclair's Death') — and in 1829 issued some lyrical poems that showed he had distinct and worthy aims in art. These poems had an immense success; they were brimful of tasteless affectations and outrages of rhythm as well as reason, but they were full, too, of Syttendemai enthu- siasm, and they spread through the country like wild-fire. Wergeland became the poet of the people ; his songs were set to music and sung in the theatres ; they were re- printed in all the newspapers, and sold in halfpenny leaf- lets in the streets. Every 17th of May the people gathered to the poet's house, and shouted, * Hurrah for

WEKGELA^^D. 9

"Wergeland and Liberty I ' His mild face, beaming behind great spectacles, his loose green hunting coat and shuffling gait, were hailed everywhere with applause. There are real and great merits about these early poems ; they show some true knowledge of nature, some lyrical loveliness ; but it was not for these, it was rather for the defiance of all laws of authorship, that the people of Christiania adored him. In 1 830 he published ' Skabelsen, Mennesket og Mesias ' (' The Creation, Man and the Messiah '), a drama of elephantine proportions. This portentous poem caused great diversion among the poet's enemies, and was the actual cause of an attack upon him, which ultimately divided the nation into two camps, and revolutionised the literature of Norway.

In 1831 there appeared in one of the papers a short anonymous poem, ' To H. Wergeland,' which was chiefly remarkable for the sharpness of its satire and the extreme polish of its style. It was not in the least degree bom- bastic or affected, and consequently was a novelty to Norwegian readers. It lashed the author of ' Skabelsen ' with a pitiless calmness and seeming candour that were almost insufferable.

For years past a section of society had been developing itself in Christiania whose interests and aims lay in a very different channel from those of the great bulk of the populace. These persons, of conservative natm'e, saw with regret the folly of much of the noisy mock-patriotism current ; they sighed for the old existence, when the cliques of Copenhagen quietly settled all questions of taste, and if there was little fervour there was at least no bathos. The leading spirit of this movement, which may

10 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

be called the Critical, was J. S. Welhaven, a young man who, born at Bergen in 1807, but early a student at the capital, liad watched the career of Wergeland and had conceived an intense disdain for his poetry and his friends. It was he who, at last, had let fly this lyric arrow in the dark, and who had raised such consternation among the outraged patriots. Wergeland replied by another poem, and a controversy insensibly sprang up. In 1832 Welhaven published a thin book — ' H. Wergeland's Poetry ' — which at once raised a howl from all the popu- lar journalists, and marks an era in literature. It consists of a calm and exasperating anatomy of the poet's then published writings, as withering and quite as amusing as Lord Macaulay's Essay on Eobert Montgomery. It is even more bitter than this, and far more unjust, since the subject of it was a real poet and not a mere charlatan in verse. Still, with all his absurdities extracted and put side by side, Wergeland does cut a pitiable figure indeed, and one is tempted to forgive the critic when, throwing all mercy to the winds, he pours forth a torrent of eloquent invective, beginning with the words, ' Stained with all the deadly sins of poesy,' and ending with a consignment of the author to the ' mad-house of Parnassus.' Among the numerous replies called forth by this attack, the most notable was one by the poet's father, N. Wergeland, but his pamphlet, though doubtless able in its way, has no- thing of the brilliant wit of Welhaven's little brochure. Meanwhile the outraged poet himself, who throughout the controversy seems to have behaved with great discretion,, continued to attend to his own affairs. In 1831 he published ' Opium,' a drama, and in 1833 ' Spaniolen, a

'NORGES DiEMRING.' 11

charming little poem, which shows a gTeat improvement in style, and proves the beneficial effect of the criticism brought to bear on him. Still the mild-eyed man sauntered dreamily about in his loose green coat, but now he was less often seen in the streets, for, having bought a small estate just out of Christiania, he gave himself up to a passion for flowers, and to a grotto of great size and ingenuity. Poetry was the business of his life, and his spare hours were given to his grotto and his flowers. The great controversy began to take a national character, and when, in 1834, Welhaven published his polemical poem of 'Norges Dsemring' ('Norway's Twilight') there was no longer any personal character in his attacks. In that exquisite cycle of sonnets he laid bare all the roots of evil and folly that were deadening the heart of the nation, and with a pitiless censure struck at the darling institu- tions of the national party. He called for a wider patriot- ism and a healthier enthusiasm than the frothy zeal of the Syttendemai demonstrations could show, and in verse that was as sublime as it was in the truest sense patriotic, he prophesied a glorious future for the nation, when it should be led by calmer statesmen, and no longer beaten about like an unsteady ship by every wind of faction. Then Norwegians would estimate their own dignity justly ; then poetry and painting, journalism and statesmanship, all the arts and sciences, would join to form one harmoni- ous whole, and the young nation grow up into a perfect man. Then, winding up his argument, he cries —

Thy dwelling, peasant, is on holy ground ; What Norway was, that she again may be, By land, by sea, and in the world of men !

12 THE LITERATUKE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

The publication of ' Norges iJsemring ' naturally enough called forth a still louder protestation from the popular leaders, and the battle raged more fiercely than ever. No longer was it the principal champions who led the fight ; these retired for a while, aud their friends took up the cause. Sylvester Sivertson, a poor imitator of Wergeland, frantically attacked ' Norges Dasmring,' and Hermann Foss, a new convert to the critical party, as stoutly defended it ; and so matters went on till about 1838.

From this time misfortunes fell upon Wergeland in ever increasing severity. One by one the lights all faded out of his life, and left it wan and bare. First of all he lost an official position which brought him in a consider- able income. The King, the unpopular John, in a moment of whim, deprived him of this office. Still the profits of his poems aud the sums brought in by his theatrical writings were enough to keep him in comfort. The loose green coat was seen wandering about his garden more than ever ; but in an unlucky moment King John re- pented of his haste, and ordered the poet a certain pen- sion from the State. Wergeland consented to take the money only on the express condition that he was to be allowed to spend it all in the formation of a library for the poor ; but, alas ! only half of this transaction was known to the public, and in the newspapers of the next week Wergeland found himself stigmatised by his own friends as ' the betrayer of the Fatherland.' So intensely unpopular was King John, that to receive money from him, was to receive money, it was considered, from an enemy of the nation, and by a sharp revolution of Fortune's wheel

EUIN OF WERGELAND. 13

the popular poet became the object of general distrust and disgrace. It is vain to argue against a sudden fancy of this kind ; the remonstrances of Wergeland were drowned in journalistic invective ; and the grief and humiliation acted so injuriously on the poet's irritable nerves, that he fell into confirmed ill-health, and from this time rapidly sank towards death. Other sorrows followed that made these inner troubles still less bearable. The poet be- came involved in a tedious law-suit, which drained his finances so completely that the pretty country house, the grotto, and the beloved flower-beds had to be relinquished, and lodgings in town received the already invalided Wergeland. Shattered in body and estate, forsaken and misjudged by his countrymen, it might have been ex- pected that the mind of the man would have been depressed and weakened, but it was not so. In a poem of this very time, he says: —

My house and ground, My horse and hound, Have passed away and are not found ! But something yet within me lies That law and lawyer's touch defies.

And it was just at this very time, when he was bowed down with adversity, that the singing faculty in him burst forth with unprecedented vigour, and found a purer and juster expression than ever before. The last five years of his life saw his genius scatter all the clouds and vapours that enwrapped it.

The first of these swan-songs was ' Jan van Huysums Blomsterstykke ' ('J. van Huysum's Flower-piece'), a series of lyrics with prose interjaculations. This is by far

14 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

the most beautiful of his political poems — for such it must be called, being thoroughly interpenetrated by his fiery re- publicanism. No poet save Shelley has decked the bare shell of politics with brighter wreaths than Wergeland ; and it must be remembered that while in the mouth of an English poet these principles are dreamy and Utopian, to a Nor- wegian of that time they were matter of practical hope ; and though Wergeland did not live to see it, there soon came a time when, King John having passed away, the high- minded Oscar permitted those very alterations in the Constitution which the popular party were sighing for. In ' Jan van Huysums Blomsterstykke ' the poet takes a flower-piece of that painter's cunning workmanship, and gazes at it till it seems to start into life, and the whole mass — flowers, insects, and the porcelain jar itself — becomes a symbol of passionate humanity to him. The blossoms are souls longing for a happier world ; here the poppies cry for vengeance like bubbles of Ijlood from the torn throat of some martyr for liberty ; here the tulips flame out of their pale-green sheaths like men who burst their bonds and would be free ; roses, columbines, narcissi, each suggest some brilliant human parallel to the poet, and all is moulded into verse that is melody itself. We rise from reading the poem as from studying some exquisite piece of majolica, or a page of elaborate arabesques ; we feel it never can be as true to our own faith as it was to the writer's, but we regard it as a lovely piece of art, shapely and well-proportioned. It was presented as a bouquet to Fredrika Bremer.

The next year saw the publication of ' Svalen ' ( ' The Swallow '), a poem suggested by the bereavement of the

'SVALEN,' 15

poet's excellent .sister Augusta. It was 'a midsummer morning story for mothers who have lost their children,' and was sent to cheer the downcast heart of his sister. It is one of the most ethereal poems ever written ; a lyrical rhapsody of faith in God and triumph over death. A short extract will indicate the profuse and ebullient ananner of its composition : —

Then I lifted

Up my soul, and saw the swallow

Sinking, floating, softly fly

Through the milk-white clouds on high,

And my heart rejoiced anew ;

How she drifted !

Through the blue I scarce could follow

Her sun-gilded body, though

Sol lay in a dai-k cloud-hollow :

How she sprang ; and turned, in flashing,

As if weaving in mid-air

With her wing-points through and through

Some strange web of gold and blue.

With my thoughts I followed, dashing

Thi'ough the light with little care,

While the balsam-drops afar

On her beak

Glittered like a double star.^

By this time the author was himself upon his death-bed, l)ut he lingered a few years yet, long enough to see his popularity slowly return, and to hear again tlie vivats of the people on the 17th of May. It was not his own troubles, but the grievances of a down-trodden people, that filled his last thoughts. By the laws of Norway no Jews "whatever, under heavy penalties, might settle in the realm, and the hearts of high-minded men were exercised to put

' Appendix A.

16 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN" EUROPE.

an end to this injustice. In 1842 Wergeland published

• Joden ' (' The Jew '), an idyllic poem ' in nine sprays of

blossoming thorn,' or cantos, in which the cause of the Hebrew outcasts was eloquently pleaded. The work created a great deal of excitement, and, to clinch the nail he had struck in, the poet produced in 1844 ' Jodinden (' The Jewess '), in ' eleven sprays of blossoming thorn. These powerful poems, accompanied by prose writings of a similar tendency, produced the desired effect, and the restriction was, in the course of a few years, re- moved.

But it was not for Wergeland to watch this consum- mation. Already the darkness of death was gathering round his bed, though the strong brain lost none of its power and the swift hand increased in cunning. A few months before the end his last and greatest poem appeared — 'Den engelske Lods' ('The English Pilot') — in which all his early life of travel and excitement seems to have passed before his eyes and to have been photographed in verse. There is no trace of depression or weakness ; it is not the sort of book a man writes upon his death-bed ; it is lively and full of incident, humorous and yet pathetic. The groundwork of the piece is a reminiscence of the poet's own visit to England many years before. Kent, Brighton, the Isle of Wight, and the 'Hampshire Fjord ' are drawn in rose-colour by an only too enthusiastic pen, and the idyllic story that gives title to the whole — namely the loves of Johnny Johnson and Mary Ann — is inter- woven skilfully enough. The final episode, the return to the Norwegian province of Hardanger, is particularly vivid, and the descriptions of landscape singularly true and

'THE ENGLISH PILOT.' 17

•charming. Here is a fragment from the close of the poem, describing the native scenes : —

Where in pale blue ranks arise

Alps that rim the mountain valley ; Where ahove the' crystal spring

Blooms the snow-white apple-tree,

And in tracks of snow you see WUd white roses blossoming ; Where a stream begins its song

Like a wind-harp low and muffled, Murmuring though the moss and stones ; Then among the alders moans,

Rushes out, involved and muffled, By a youthful impulse driven,

Foaming, till it reach the vale, And, like David with his harp,

From a shepherd made a king""

By the songs that it can sing, Triumphs through the listening dale.^

The only mistake is that the poet, whose English was -defectivej must needs preserve the local colouring by haul- ing bits of our language, or what he supposed it to be, bodily into his verse. Such a passage as this, coming in the middle of an excited address to Liberty in England, breaks down one's gravity altogether :

Ho ! Johnny, ho ! how do you do ?

Sing, Sailor, oh ! Well ! toddy is the sorrows' foe !

Sing, Sailor, oh !

It should be a solemn warning to those who travel and then write a book, not to quote in the language of the country.

He sank slowly but steadily. His death was in some

' Appendix B. C

18 THE LITEEATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

respects very singular. \11 through life he had enjoyed the presence and touch of flowers in a more intimate way than even most lovers of such sweet things can understand ; and as he became unconscious of the attentions of his friends, and inattentive even to his wife's voice, it was observed that he watched a wall-flower, blossoming in the window, with extraordinary intensity. The last verses which he composed, or at least dictated, were addressed to this plant, and form as remarkable a parting word of genius as any that has been recorded. These beautiful stanzas I have attempted to render as follows : —

Wall-flower, or ever thy brig-ht leaves fade, My limbs will be that of which all are made ; Before ever thou losest thy crown of gold

My flesh will be mould,

And yet open the casement ; till I am dead, Let mv last look rest on thy golden head ! My soul would kiss thee before it flies To the open skies.

Twice I am kissing thy fragrant mouth, And the first kiss wholly is thine, in truth ; But the second remember, dear love, to close On my fair white rose.

1 shall not be living its spring to see,

But bring it my greeting when that shall be, And say that I wished that upon my* grave It should bloom and wave.

Yes, say that I wished that against my breast The rose should lie that thy lips caressed, And, Wall-flower, do thou into Death's dark porch Be its bridal torch. ^

At last, on July 12, 1845, as his wife stood watching^

• Appendix C.

DEATH OF WERGELAND. 19

him, his eyes opened, and he said to her, ' I was dreaming so sweetly ; I dreamed I was lying in my mother's arms ; ' and so he sighed away his breath. His funeral was like that of a prince or a great general ; all shops were shut, the streets were draped with black flags, and a great mul- titude followed the bier to the grave. When the coffin was lowered a shower of laurel crowns was thrown in from all sides. So passed away the most popular of northern poets in the thirty-eighth year of his life.

Welhaven's poetical activity reached its climax during the ten years that followed the death of Wergeland. His poems were exclusively lyrical pieces of no great length ; ' Norges Dsemring ' being the only long poem he attempted. He is singular, too, among Norwegian writers for having never at any part of his life written for the stage. His prose is as carefully elaborated as his verse, and is pro bably the most brilliant and finished in the language, or at least in Norwegian literature. His great mission seems to have been, like that of Lessing in Grermany and Heiberg in Denmark, to revolutionise the world of taste, and to institute a great new school of letters, less by the produc- tion of fine works of art from himself than by the intro- duction of sound canons of criticism for the use of others. In 1840 Welhaven became professor of philosophy at the University, and between 1839 and 1859 published a series of volumes of poetry, chiefly romances and those small versified stories that are called ' epical ' poems in Scandi- navia. These verses are very polished and correct in form, and they move with dignity and a certain virile power characteristic of their author, but they are lacking in the highest forms of imaginative originality. His prose

• c2

20 THE LITEKATUKE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

writings were of a more positive excellence ; they have not been approached by any of his countrymen, and one of them, a study of the Dano-Norwegian poetry of the last century, ranks high in the critical literature of all Scan- dinavia.

Welhaven had the personal attractiveness that marks most great movers of men ; his grave and handsome figure, not unallied with a certain arrogance, usually retained a dignified reserve which melted into a geniality all the more charming by contrast, when he found himself in the circle of his intimate friends. He died October 21, 1873, after a long period of shattered health. In him the critical spirit comes to perfection, as in Wergeland the spontaneous ; the latter had much of the flabby mental texture of Coleridge — a soft woollen fabric shot through with gold threads — the former is all cloth of silver. Of the volu- minous writings of Wergeland, only his death-bed poems (forming the latter half of the third volume of his collected works) may be read in future times ; the sparse words of Welhaven will all be prized and enjoyed. The former will inspire the greatest enthusiasm and the latter the deepest admiration.

An individual who deserves a few moments' attention before we pass on is M. B. Landstad, who was born as long ago as 1802, in a remote cluster of houses just under the North Cape. We regard the little town of Hammerfest as the most hyperborean place in the world, but to young Landstad in his arctic home Hammerfest must have seemed a centre of southern luxury. One needs to have glided all day, as I have done, among the barren creeks and desolate fjords of Finmark, to appreciate the vast ex-

LANDSTAD. 21

panse of loneliness — a very Deadman's Land — that lay between the lad and civilisation. I wish his poems were better, for the sake of the romance ; but in fact he is a rather tame religious poet, and would in himself claim no notice at all, were it not that he has undertaken two great labours which have had a bearing on the poetical life of the country. From 1834 to 1848 Landstad was pastor of a parish in the heart of Thelemarken, the wildest of all the provinces of Norway, and he occupied his spare time in collecting as many as he could of the national songs (Folkeviser) which still float in the memories of the peasantry. He^published a very large collection, in rather a tasteless form, in 1853 ; but though the work is too clumsy for common use, it has proved of the greatest service as a storehouse for more critical students of the old Norse language. Too much praise, however, must not be accorded to him even on this score, for Asbjornsen and Moe were in the field ten years earlier, as we shall see farther on in our history. Another great labour of Land- stad's was the compilation of a psalm-book for general use in churches, to supersede the various old collections. Our arctic poet, whose fault ever is to be too diffuse, produced his psalm-book, at Government expense, on a scale so huge as to be quite unfit for the use for which it was intended. Still, like the ^Folkeviser, it forms a useful storehouse for others to collect what is valuable from, and still continues to be the standard edition of religious poetry.

In Cowley's comedy of ' The Guardian ' a poet is intro- duced, who is so miserable that everything he sees reminds him of Niobe in tears. ' That Niobe, Doggrell, you have used worse than Phoebus did. Not a dog looks melancholy

22 THE LITEKATUEE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

but he's compared to Niobe.' So it is with the person that meets us next upon our pilgrimage. Nothing ever cheers or enlivens him ; at the slightest excitement he falls into floods of genteel grief, and when other people are laughing he is thinking of Niobe. Andreas ]\Iunch, a son of the poet-bishop of Christianssand, was born in 1811, and through a long life has been the author of a great many lyrical and dramatic volumes. After the turmoil of Sytten- demai-Poesi and the rage of the great critical controversy, it was rather refreshing to meet with a poet who was never startling or exciting, whose song-life was pitched in a minor key, and whose personality seemed moist with dramatic tears. If he had no great depth of thought, he had at least con- siderable beauty of metrical form, and was always ' in good taste.' Andreas Munch basked for a while in imiversal popularity. He was called 'Norway's first skald,' but whether first in time or first in merit would seem to be doubtful. It was not till 1846 that he published any work of real importance, and in that year appeared ' Den Een- somme (' The Solitary '), a romance founded on the morbid but fascinating idea of a soul that, folding inward upon itself, ever increasingly shuns the fellowship of mankind, while the agonies of isolation rack it more and more. The scene of the story is laid in modern times, and an additional horror is by that means given to an idea which, though it would hardly have presented itself to any but a sickly mind, is carried out with skill and effect. Shortly upon this followed another prose work of consider- able merit — ' Billeder fra Nord og Syd (' Pictures from North and South') — which had a great success. In 18o0 he printed 'Nye Digte ' ('New Poems'), which are the

ANDEEAS MUNCH. 23

prettiest he has produced, and mark the climax of his literary life. The melancholy tone of these poems does not reach the maudlin, and goes no farther than the shadowy pensiveness of which Ingemann had set the example. All through life Munch has been strongly influenced by the works of Ingemann, whose most consistent scholar he is. Even here, however, we feel that there is want of power and importance; these are only verses of occasion. 'Miscel- lany Poems,' as our great-grandfathers called them, the ■world has seen enough of; it is a grave error for an eminent writer to add to their number.

With the year 1852 begins Munch's period of greatest volubility. It would be a weariness to enumerate his works, but there are two that we must linger over, because of their extreme popularity, and because they are the very first works a novice in Norwegian is likely to meet with; I mean the dramas ' Solomon de Caus ' and ' Lord William Russell.' The first of these was published in 1855, and caused a sensation not only in Scandinavia, but as far as Germany and Holland. De Caus was the man who discovered the power of steam, and who was shut up in a mad-house as a reward for his discovery. There is decidedly a good tragical idea involved in this story, and Munch deserves praise for noticing it. But his treatment of the plot leaves much to be desired, and a religious element is dragged in, which is incongruous and confusing. The poem is fairly good, but when so much has been written about it, praising it to the skies, one is surprised, on a closer inspection, to find it so tame and unreal. Of a better order of writing is

• Lord William Russell,' 1857 — on the whole, perhaps, the

best work of Andreas Munch's — well-considered, carefully

24 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

written, and graceful. But there is, even here, little pene- tration of character, and the worst fault is that the noble figure of Eachel Eussell is drawn so timidly and faintly, that the true tragical heart of the story is hardly brought before us at all. Lady Russell, it is true, constantly walks the stage, but she weeps and sentimentalises, describes the landscape, and cries, ' Fie, bad man ! ' — does everything, in fact, but show the noble heroism of Eussell's wonderful wife» The dialogue is without vigour, but it is purely and grace- fully written; and, to give the author his due, the play is a really creditable production, as modern tragedies go. But no one that could read Ibsen would linger over Munch;, we are about to introduce a dramatist indeed.

We have still a little way to go before we reach the real founder of the Norwegian drama. We must follow Niobe a little farther. Andreas Munch has continued to the present date to issue small volumes of lyrics in smart succession. Gradually he has lost even the charm of form and expression, and liis best admirers are getting weaiy of him. In truth, he belongs to the class of gracefvd senti- mentalists, that Hammond and L. E. L. successively re- presented with us, and but few of his writings can hope to- retain the popular ear. One of his latest labours has been to translate Tennyson's ' Enoch Arden ' very prettily. In- deed, in pretty writing he is unrivalled.

Andreas Munch fills up the interval of repose between the old political poetry and the new national school. For all their loud talk about patriotism, Wergeland and the rest had never thought of taking their inspiration from the deep well of national life around them, or from the wealth of old songs and sagas. But everything that was healthy

ASBJOENSEN. 25

and rich in promise was to come from the inner heart of the nation, and the real future of Norwegian art was to be heralded not by Munch's love-sick sonnets, but by the folk-songs of Moe, the historical dramas of Ibsen, and the peasant romances of Bjornsterne Bjornsen. The man that opened the eyes of students and poets, and heralded this revolution in art, was not a poet himself, but a zoologist — P. C. Asbjornsen.

This gifted man was born at Christiania in 1812; he early showed that bias for natural history which is so com- mon among his countrymen, and, being of a brisk tempera- ment, has spent most of his life in wandering over shallow seas, dredging and investigating. On this mission he sailed down the Mediterranean Sea, and has spent a long time in exploring the rich fields that lie before a zoo- logist on the coasts of Norway itself. But some part of every man's life has to be spent on shore, and these months Asbjornsen dedicated to investigations of a very different kind; he searched among the peasants for stories. Just about that time there was a wide-spread desire to save the remnants of popular legend before it was too late. The Finnish scholars were collecting the Kalewala ; the Eussians were hunting up those wild songs of which Mr. Ealston has lately given us an English selection; Magyar and Servian poetry was being carefully amassed. It occurred to Asbjornsen to do the same with the mythology of Norway, Starting from Bergen, he strolled through the magnificent passes of the Justedal and the Komsdal, drinking in the wild beauty of the scenery till it became part of his being, and gossiping with every peasant he could meet with. When a boatman ferried him across the dark fjord, he

26 THE LITERATUEE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

would coax a story from him about the spirits that haunt the waters ; the postboys had fantastic tales to tell about the trolls and the wood spirits; the old dames around the fire would murmur ancient rites and the horrors of bye-gone superstition. When the peasant was shy and would not speak, Asbjornsen would tell a story himself, and that never failed to break the ice. When he had wandered long enough in the west, he crossed the Dovrefjeld, and explored the valleys of Osterdal, lying along the border of Sweden. The results of his labours, and those of the poet Jorgen Moe, were piiblished jointly in 1841, as ' ^orske Folkeeventyr ' ('Norwegian Popular Tales'), a book that made little im- pression at the time, but which has grown to be one of the bulwarks of Norwegian literature, and which, besides win- ning for its principal author a European fame, has had a profound influence on the younger poets of our day.

Dr. Jorgen Moe. now Bishop of Christianssand, whom we have just seen helping Asbjornsen to collect folk- stories, is himself a poet of no mean order. His nature is not active and joyous like that of his associate ; he would seem to be one of those diffident and sensitive natures, whose very delicacy prevents their pushing their way successfully into public notice. Violets, for all their ethereal perfume, are easily overlooked, and Jorgen Moe's works are as small, as unassmning, as exquisite as violets. The book he is best known by is a thin volume of poems, brought out in 1851 ; they have nothing about them to attract particular notice till one falls into the spirit of them, and then one is con- scious of a wonderful melody, as of some Ariel out of sight — a sense of perfect, simple expression. The reader is transported to the pine-fringed valleys ; he sees the peasants

j(5egen moe. 27

at their daily work, he hears the cry of the waterfalls, and forgets all the humdrum existence that really lies about him. These verses have a power of quiet realism that is strangely refreshing; if anyone would know what Norway and its people really are, let them read Moe's little lyrical poems. The following is far from being the best, but it is one of the most imitable of the collection.

SUMMER EVENING.

Now softly, lightly tlie evening dies, —

Gold-red upon headlands and waves without number, And a soundless silence tenderly lies

And rocks all nature to dreamless slumber ; Meadow and dingle Reflected, mingle With waves that flash over sand and shingle In one dim light.

Ah ! slim is the fisherman's boat, and yet

High on the glittering wave it soars, The fisherman bends to his laden net.

While the girls are hushed at the silent oars. The soft emotion From vale and ocean Has quenched the noise of the day's commotion, And bound it still.

And there stands one girl in a dream and sighs, While up to the clear warm sky she glances, But full of longing her young thought flies

To the Christmas games and the whirling dances ; The deep red blaze Of the evening haze Has thrown sparks farther than we can gaze — She sees afar !

Thou rich and rose-coloured summer night,

Thou givest us more than the bright days bring ; O yield to Beauty the best delight, —

28 THE LITER ATUEE OF NOETHERN EUROPE.

Let her dream come to her on gentle wing ! While her hoat caresses The low green nesses, Lay the sUver crowu on her maiden tresses, As a happy bride ! '

In 1877 the Bishop of Christianssand issued his works- in prose and verse, in two important volumes.

We now reach the name which stands highest among the poets of the new school, a star that is still in the ascen- dant, and on whom high hopes are built by all who desire the intellectual prosperity of J^orway. Henrik Ibsen is a man who, through all difficulties from within and without, has slowly lifted himself higher and higher as an artist, and is now in the full swing of literary achievement. But I pass over the details of his career, since they form the entire subject of my next chapter.

Let us turn instead to his great rival and opponent. The name and fame of Bjornstern Bjornson have spread farther over the world's sm'face than that of any of his countrymen. Though he is still young, his works are admired and eagerly read all over the north of Europe, and are popular in America. It is as a romance writer that he has met with such unbounded distinction. Who has not read ' Ame,' and felt his heart beat faster with sympathy and delight ? Who has not been refreshed by the simple story of the ' Fisher Girl ' ? It seemed as though every kind of story-writing had been abundantly tried, and as though a new novel must fall upon somewhat jaded ears. But in Bjornson we discovered an author who was always simple and yet always enchanting; whose spirit was as masculine as a Viking's and as pure and tender as ' Appendix D.

bjOenson. 29

a maiden's. Through these little romances there blows a wind as fragrant and refreshing as the odour of the Trondhjem balsam-willows, blown out to sea to welcome the new-comer; and just as this rare scent is the first thing that tells the traveller of Norway, so the purity of Bjornson's novelettes is usually the first thing to attract a foreigner to Norwegian literature.

But it is only with his poems that we have here to do, and we must not be tempted aside into the analysis of his novels. They have, however, this claim on our attention, that they contain some of the loveliest songs in the language. ' Arne,' published in 1858, is particularly rich in these exquisite lyrics, full of a mountain melancholy, a delicate sadness native to the lives of solitary and sequestered persons. In almost all his early poems, Bjornson dwells on the vague longing of youth, the hope- less dream of a blue rose in life. Here is one of the lovely songs that Arne sings, rendered as closely as I find it possible : —

Tlirougti the forest the boy wends all day long, For there he has heard such a wonderful song.

He carved him a flute of the willow tree, And tried what the tune within it might be.

The tune came out of it sad and gay. But while he listened it passed away.

He fell asleep, and once more it sung. And over his forehead it lovingly hung.

He thought he would catch it, and wildly woke. And the tune in the pale night faded and broke.

• God, my God, take me up to Thee,

For the tmie Thou hast made is consuming me.'

30 THE LITERATUEE OF NOETHERN EUROPE.

And tlie Lord God said, ' Tis a friend divine, Though never one hour shalt thou hold it thine.

Yet all other music is poor and thin

By the side of this which thou never shalt win ! ' '

While in his stories he deals with peasant life, so in his dramas he draws his afflatus from the rich hoard of antique sagas. 'Mellem Slagene' (' Between the Battles ') was the first of these saga-plays. It is very fine. Two married folk — Halvard and Inga — once deeply in love with one another, begin mutually to tire, and to long, the man for the old wild, fighting life ; the woman for her pleasant maiden days with her father. They get entan- gled in misconceptions, and a reserve creeping in on both sides parts them more and more. * Silence slays more than sharp words do,' is the motto of the piece, a motto very suggestive to the undemonstrative people of the North. The two principal figures, and also that of King Sverre, are very keenly drawn. In 1858 there followed 'Halte Hulda ' ('Lame Hulda'), the story of a girl who has lived to be four-and-twenty, loveless and unloved, full of grief and physically incapacitated by her lameness, and who suddenly falls into passionate and hopeless affection for a man she meets. Here again we have a dramatic situation, subtly chosen, original, and carefully worked out. 'Kong Sverre,' 1861, was the next of these saga- dramas, wherein the King Sverre, who acted a secondary part in ' Mellem Slagene,' becomes chief and centre of interest. Much of the latter, however, gathers around the bishop, Nicolaus, one of Bjornson's most skilful pieces of figure-painting. 'Sigurd Slembe' (1862) closes the list of saga-dramas. The author turned nest to modern

' Appendix E.

BJORNSON. 31

history, and published in 1864 ' Maria Stuart i Skotland ' (* Mary Stuart in Scotland '), a piece which unfortunately suggests comparison with Vondel, Schiller and Swinburne ;, it is written in prose. It could be wished that Bjornson had chosen some less hackneyed subject. His next effort was in quite a different line ; 'De Nygifte ' (' The Newly-married Couple '), 1865, is a little prose comedy in high life. The hero, having fallen violently in love with a girl too young to understand his character, finds out too late that she has no notion of the responsibilities of married life, and still prefers her parents to himself. He tries to cure her by wrenching her suddenly from all old associations, and though she is very sullen for a while, he is victorious at last, and Avius her love. Bjornson has hardly allowed himself enough space in this little drama ; the evolution of character is hurried by the shortness of the scenes ; but it is nevertheless ably written. In 1869 he published a volume of Songs and Poems.

He now entered upon a second period, the end of which we have not yet seen, and the influence of which has, in my opinion, been extremely injurious to Bjornson's reputation and to the literature of his country. He began his violent and jejune experiments in 1870, with the epic poem of ' Arnljot Gelline,' written in a jargon so uncouth that it is sometimes almost impossible to comprehend it. In the midst of its eccentricity and barbarism, however, there are certainly fine passages to be found in this poem, which deals with the fall of Olaf the Saint at tlie battle of Stiklestad. The section, in particular, called ' Arnljot's Longing for the Sea ' is of the highest order of lyric poetry, and worthy of Byron at his best. In 1872 Bjornson

32 THE LITEEATUKE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

tantalised and perplexed his readers with his saga-drama of Sigurd Jorsalfar,' a mere hasty sketch, with one magnifi- cent scene in which Sigurd the Crusader, unannounced, presents himself, splendid and masculine, like a sea-eagle Ijathed in sunset colour, with the gold and silk of the East upon him, to Borghild, a noble woman long weary and ashamed with waiting for his love. The rest of the play is hurried and faulty ; this single scene is Shakspearian. After a long silence, and much deplorable interference with the political factions of his fatherland, Bjornson appeared in 1875 with two satirical comedies — ' A Bankruptcy,' a poor piece, in the Grerman taste, and ' The Editor,' a powerful but rabid and unjustifiable personal satire. Since then his ineptitudes have culminated in a democratic drama, ' The King,' a really monstrous fiasco, unworthy of a poet of high reputation as a work of art, and, politically speaking, Ijeneath discussion. In 1877 he produced a clever, but sickly and chaotic novel, ' Magnhild.' Each step he takes at present seems to land him farther into provinciality .^nd to betray fresh want'of artistic tact.

Jonas Lie, whose novels of Norse life at sea rival Bjomson's early mountain stories in popularity, has also written, but far less abundantly, in verse. He is indeed the author of a lyrical drama, 'Faustina Strozzi,' 1875, which contains, with certain unfortunate irregularities in form and design, some exquisite beauties of detail. He was born in 1833, and first came before the public with a volume of verses as late as 1867. His sea-stories take a very high rank, and his most successful novel, ' The Pilot and his Wife,' is perhaps the best sustained and the most accomplished romance that Norway has produced. In

THE PEASANT DIALECT. 33

1878 Lie published a curious and ingenious psychological study, ' Thomas Ross,' which has not quite the same charm as his simpler stories.

With this writer we will draw our survey of Norwegian poetry to a close. Nothing has been said here about the verse written in the dialect of the peasants, of which the great linguist Ivar Aasen (born in 1813), by moulding with the old Norse, has made a sort of new language. This peasant Norse has had a galvanic life imparted to it by the exertions of its inventor, and a good poet (K. Janson, born in 1841) has been found enthusiastic enough to wi'ite exclusively in it. The chief objection to the move- ment seems to be that it would make Norwegian literature more remote and undecipherable than ever ; on the other hand, it is no doubt an advantage that the peasant should understand when he is preached to and written for. The creator of this language of the future, Aasen, is a man of high and versatile genius, and has himself contributed several poems to the new literature. For the rest its principal cultivators have been Vinje (1818-1870), the author, among other things, of a rather truculent book on English life, and Janson, who is a young writer of con- siderable activity. But this fancy language lies out of our province ; if worth the consideration of Englishmen at all, it should be studied as a branch of philology.

We have now followed the literary life of this young nation for more than half a century. We liave seen how the sudden political wrench, that divided it from its neigh- bour, gave it power to throw off the Danish influence and strike out a new path for itself. We have seen, too, how bravely, in spite of much weakness, and folly, and extrava-

D

34 THE LITERATUEE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

gance, it succeeded in doing this, and in becoming self- reliant and healthily critical; how, when the age of criticism had sobered and moulded it, it ceased to look outwards for artistic impressions, but sought in its own heart and soul for high and touching themes. The reader who has followed the history of this development will hardly fail to allow that in the circumstances of this thinly peopled country of magnificent resources, whose youth is unexhausted by the effeminate life of towns and whose language is still fresh and im rifled, there lies a noble promise of intellectual vigour.

HENRIK IBSEN.

There is now living at Munich a middle-aged Norwegian gentleman, who walks in and out among the inhabitants of that gay city, observing all things, observed of few, retired, contemplative, unaggressive. Occasionally he sends a roll of MS. off to Copenhagen, and the Danish papers announce that a new poem of Ibsen's is about to appear. This announcement causes more stir than, perhaps, any other can, among literary circles in Scandinavia, and the elegant Swedish journalists point out how graceful an opportunity it would be for the illustrious poet to leave his voluntary exile, and return to be smothered in flowers and flowery speeches. Norwegian friends, expressing themselves more tersely, think that the greatest Norse writer ought to come home to live. Still, however, he remains in Germany, surrounded by the nationality least pleasing to his taste, within daily earshot of sentiments inexpressibly repugnant to him, watching, noting, digging deeper and deeper into the dark places of modern life, developing more and more a vast and sinister genius.

A land of dark forests, gloomy waters, barren peaks, inundated by cold sharp airs off Arctic icebergs, a land

D 2

36 THE LITEEATURE OF NOKTHERX EUROPE.

where Nature must be won with violence, not wooed by the siren-songs of dream-impulses ; Norway is the home of vigorous, ruddy lads and modest maidens, a healthy population, unexhausted and unrestrained. Here a man can open his chest, stride onward upright and sturdy, say out his honest word and be unabashed ; here, if anywhere, human nature may hope to find a just development. And out of this young and sturdy nation two writers have arisen who wear laurels on their brows and are smiled on by Apollo. Bjornson is well known, by this time, to many Englishmen : he represents the happy buoyant side of the life of his fatherland ; he is what one would naturally expect a Norwegian author to be — rough, manly, unpolished, a young Titan rejoicing in his animal spirits. Ibsen, on the other hand, is a quite unexpected product of the mountain-lands, a typical modern European, a soul full of doubt and sorrow and unfulfilled desire, piercing downward into the dark, profound. Promethean — a dramatic satirist.

Modern life is a thing too complex and too delicate to bear such satire as thrilled through the fierce old world. In Ezekiel we see the thunders and lightnings of the Lord blasting the beautiful evil body of Aholah ; in Juvenal, the iron clank of horse-hoofs is ringing on the marble pavement, till, in crushing some wretched debauchee, they mingle his blood with the spilt wine and the vine-wreaths. But neither divine nor human invective of this sort is possible now — it would not cm-e but kill. Modern satire laughs while it attacks, and takes care that the spear- shaft shall be covered up in roses. WTiether it be Ulrich von Hutten, or Pope, or Voltaire, the same new element of finesse is to be found ; and if a Marston rises up as a

IBSEN. 37

would-be Juvenal, the world just shrugs its shoulders and forgets him. As the ages bring in their advancements in civilisation and refinement, the rough old satire becomes increasingly .impossible, till a namby-pamby generation threatens to loathe it altogether as having ' no pity in it.' The writings of Ibsen form the last and most polished phase of this slow development, and exhibit a picture of life so perfect in its smiling sarcasm and deliberate anatomy, that one accepts it at once as the distinct portraiture of one of the foremost spirits of an age. Ibsen has many golden arrows in his quiver, and he stands, cold and serene, between the dawn and the darkness, shooting them one by one into the valley below, each truly aimed at some folly, some affectation, in the every-day life we lead.

Henrik Ibsen was born on March 20, 1828, at Skien, a small market town on the sea in the south-east of Nor- way. He began active life as an apothecary, with a joyous and fermenting brain, a small stock of knowledge and a still smaller stock of money. But poetry and scholarship were dearer to him than all things, and it is easy to conceive that the small world of Skien became intolerable to him. He wrote a tragedy, and met with a Maecenas who would publish it ; and, after some delay, there appeared at Christiania, in 1850, ' Catiline,' a drama in three acts, by Brynjolf Bjarme. Under this uncouth pseudonym a new poet concealed himself, but the public were none the wiser, and only thirty copies were sold. ' Catiline ' is the work of a boy ; it is marked by ail the erotic and revolutionary extravagances usual in the efforts of youths of twenty. The iambic verses are very bad ; the writer has evidently read little, and scarcely thouglit at all, but there is a certain

38 THE LITEEATUEE OF NOETHEEN EUEOPE.

vigour running through it which seduces one into reading it despite one's self. With this precious production under his arm, Ibsen came to the capital in 1851, and began to study at the University. He never attained to a very splendid career — there he began too late for that — but he did fairly well, being well-grounded in Latin. ' Catiline ' shows that he had read his Sallust well in the old days at Skien. At the University he fell in with a clique of lads of earnest mind and good intelligence, several of whom have made a name in literature ; Bjornson was there and Vinje, called the Peasant; Botten-Hansen, the biblio- grapher ; and Frithjof Foss, the novelist. These young contemporaries schemed nothing less than an entire revolution in literature. They began to set about it by founding a newspaper, called, I do not know why, ' And- hrimner,' which professed the same critical independence, and shared the same early fate, as the celebrated ' Grerm ' among ourselves. ' Andliiimuer ' was published by Botten- Hansen, Ibsen, and Vinje, and contained nothing but original poetry, criticism, and sesthetics. After a sickly existence of nine months, it went out. Among Ibsen's numerous contributions was a long drama, ' Norma, or a Politician's Love,' a most impertinent lampoon on the honourable members of his Majesty's Storthing, of which the first act is said to be in extremely witty and delicate verse. But ^Andhrimner' has become a great rarity, a bibliographical prize, and I have never seen it. When it ceased in 1851, Ibsen was so fortunate as to meet with a gifted man who at once perceived his genius, Ole Bull, the great violinist. At his intercession Ibsen became director of the theatre at Bergen, and held the post till 1857. In

IBSEN. 39

1852 he travelled in Denmark and Grermany, met Heiberg, the great poet-critie, at Copenhagen, and came back mightily dissatisfied with Norway and himself. The theatre was a source of constant vexation to him, and during the six years he spent at Bergen his genius seems to have been in some degree under a cloud. He wrote a great deal while he was there, but most of it has been destroyed, and what remains is unworthy of him ; he produced two or three plays on his own stage, but would not print or preserve them; one little piece which he did print as a feuilleton to a Bergen paper in 1854 was rather flimsy in texture. In 1857 the younger poet, Bjornson, took the direction of the Bergen house, and Ibsen came up to Christiania to direct the National Theatre there. He was now almost thirty years of age, and had not written one great work ; it is often the loftiest minds that attain man- hood most slowly. May-flies reach perfection in a day and another day sees their extinction, while great souls strengthen themselves in a long-drawn adolescence. But our poet had finished his chrysalis-life at last. P'or the next seven years he produced several historical dramas of great and increasing merit ; but I do not purpose at present to speak of these, nor of his political or mis- cellaneous poems, but only of his three great satires. And forthwith let us pass to them.

It was not till 1863 that Ibsen discovered the natural bent of his genius. Until that year no one could tell that he was born to be a satirist. Now, after reading his great latter poems, one can perceive traces of that lofty invective, which was to be his final culmination, even in the earlier and purely historical dramas. But when ' Kjoerlighedens

40 THE LITEEATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

Komedie ' (Love's Comedy,) a satirical play of our own gene- ration, first appeared in Norway, there were very few among the poet's admirers to whom it was not a great surprise to find him to be a master of so entirely new a style. The older pieces, being hewn out of an antique and lovely source, were fittingly robed in terse prose ; this, being concerned with the prosaic trivialities of to-day, needed and received all the delicate finish of epigrammatic verse. The original is written in rhyme, but I have translated into blank verse ; a rhymed play being a shocking thing to English readers since Dryden's day, whereas it is still a familiar phenomenon in the classic literature of Scandinavia. The scene of ' Love's Comedy ' is laid in a garden in the suburbs of Christiania, in the summer-time. A Mrs. Halm, a widow, having a large house, takes in lodgers, among whom are Hawk, the hero, and Lind, a theological student. Hawk, a young poet brimming over with revolutionary theories and revolting with his whole soul against the conventionality of the day with regard to amatory and sesthetic matters, has deter- mined to give his life to the destruction of what is false and sterile in modern society. As it happens, the present moment is opportune for commencing the attack. At Mrs. Halm's there is gathered a congregation of Philis- tines of all sorts, and love, so-called, is the order of the day. Unsuspicious of his intentions, the various pseudo-lovers sport and intrigue around him in what seems to him an orgy of hideous dulness and impotent conventionality. His scorn is lambent at first, a laughing flame of derision ; but it rises by degrees into a tongue of lashing, scathing fire that bursts all bonds of decorum. The scene opens in the evening, while the party sit about on the grass. Hawk

' LOVE'S COMEDY.' 41

has been asked to sing his last new song, and thus he pro- claims the cai^e diem that is his ideal : —

In the simny orchard-closes,

While the warblers sing and swing,

Oare not whether blustering Autumn Break the promises of Spring ;

Rose and white the apple-blossom Hides you from the sultry sky ;

Let it flutter, blown and scattered. On the meadows by-and-by.

Will you ask about the fruitage

In the season of the flowers ? Will you murmiu', will you question,

Count the run of weary hours ? Will you let the scarecrow clapping

Drown all happy sounds and words ? Brothers, there is better music

In the singing of the birds !

From your heavy laden garden Will you hunt the mellow thnish ?

He will pay you for protection

With his crown-song's liquid rush !

! but you will win the bargain. Though your fruit be spare and late,

For remember, Time is flying. And will shut your garden-gate.

With my living, with my singing,

I will tear the hedges down ! Sweep the grass and heap the blossom,

Let it shrivel, pale and brown ! Swing the wicket ! Sheep and cattle,

Let them graze among the best !

1 broke ofi" the flowers ; what matter

Who may revel with the rest ! ^

This song wakens a good deal of discussion. The ladies are against it on the score of economy ; the gentlemen

' Appendix F.

■42 THE LITERATUEE OF NORTHEEN EUROPE.

think the idea very good in theory. The first person who rubs against Hawk's susceptibilities is Stiver, a dull clerk, who is engaged in due form to a Miss Magpie, who is present. This Stiver confesses to have written verses.

Stiver. Not now, you know ! all that was long ago, —

Was when I was a lover. Hawk. Is that past ?

Is the wine-frenzy of your love slept off? Stiver. Oh ! now I am officially engaged,

And that is more than being in love, I think ! ^

Some one speaks about ' next ' Spring, and Hawk -expresses his hatred of ' that wretched word ': —

Hawk. It makes the shareholders of pleasure bankrupt ! If I were only Sultan for an hour, A running noose about its coward neck Should make it bid the joyous world good-bye !

Stiver. What is your quarrel with the'hopeful word ?

Haxck. This, — that it darkens for us God's fair world ! In ' our next love ' and ' when we marry next,' In ' OUT next mealtime ' and in our ' next life,' 'Tis the anticipation in the word, 'Tis that that beggars so the sons of Joy, That makes our modern life so hard and cold, That slays enjoyment in the living Present. You have no rest until your shallop strikes Against the shingle of the ' next ' design, And, that accomplisht, there is still a * next,' And so in toil and hurry, toU and pain, The years slip by and you slip out of life, — God only knows if there is rest beyond.

Miss Magpie. How can you talk in that way, Mr. Hawk ? My sweetheart must not hear a word you say ! He's only too eccentric now ! [to Stiver'] My love ! Come here a moment !

Stiver \langxddly and stoo^nng to clean hispipe"] I am coming, dear !^

From the prosaic Stiver, for whom engagement has ' Appendix G. - Appendix H.

'LOVE'S COMEDY.' 43

robbed love of its charm, we turn to Lind, who is in all the

delicious ecstasy of a passion returned but unproclaimed.

Keferring to Lind's temporary glamour of poetical feeling,

Hawk remarks that you can always ' stuff a prosing fool, —

As pitilessly as a Strasburg goose,

With rhyming nonsense and with rhythmic humbug,

Until his lights and liver, mind and soul

(But tui-n him inside out), are found quite full

Of lyric fat and crumbs of rhetoric.^

The company, becoming piqued, turn upon him, and

charge him with neglecting poetry ; they suggest that he

should shut himself up in an arbour of roses, and then he

is sure to be inspired. He replies that the enjoyment of

nature unrestrained prevents the creation of poetry ; that

the imaginative beauty thrives best in an imprisonedsoul.

Cover my eyeballs with the mould of blindness.

And I will celebrate the lustrous heavens ;

Or give me for a month, in some grim tower,

A pang, an anguish or a giant sorrow.

And I will sing the jubilee of life ;

Or else. Miss Magpie, give me just a bride !

They all cry out upon him. Love's blasphemer, for he

exclaims that he desires a bride, that — he may lose her.

For in the very Bacchic feast of fortune

She might be caught into eternity.

I need a Uttle spiritual athletics :

Who knows how such a loss might strengthen me ! ^

At this moment the two sensible people of the drama interpose — Svanhild, who is the only woman with a soul in the piece, and Guldstad, a sober merchant. Svanhild pro- poses a high spiritual aim for Hawk ; Gruldstad proposes to drive off his ' morbid fancies ' with a little manual labour. Hawk replies : —

' Appendix I. ^ Appendix J.

44 THE LITEKATUEE OF NOETHERN EUROPE.

I'm like a donkey bound between two stalls ; The left hand gives me flesh, the right hand spirit ; I wonder which 'twere wisest to choose first !

Then is introduced the third pair of pseudo-lovers — the

Eev. Mr. Strawman, an uxorious priest with an enormous

family, who exemplifies the worst type of the great parody

of love. The description of his early life, romantic wooing,

disappointed aims, are most amusingly given in brisk and

witty dialogue. Hawk sneering ever more bitterly as the

description proceeds. The wooing of Mr. Strawman was

most sentimental:

He loved her to the tones of his guitar, And she responded on the harpsichord, And first they lived on credit.

Among the troop of old and young gathered around him, it is in Lind's amour only that Hawk can take plea- sure. Lind and Anna love one another, and no one but themselves and Hawk have guessed it. Suddenly Hawk is horrified by a suspicion that it is Svanhild that Lind loves. He turns away angry, and sick at heart. True love, re- served, tender, genuine, is not to be found ; the whole world is old and sterile ; all good impulses and hopes are dead. This he says to Svanhild when they are alone, and she upbraids him with dreamy insincerity.

Svan. Last year the Faith in Syria was menaced ;

Did you go out, a warrior for the Cross ?

Oh ! no ; on paper you were warm enough.

And sent a dollar when the ' Church Times ' asked it ! [Hmvk walks up and doivn.^

Hawk, are you angry ? Hawk. No, but I am musing.

See, that is all ! Svan. You have two diflferent natui'es,

And each unlike —

'LOVE'S COMEDY.' 45

Haiolc. Oh yes ! I know it well !

Svan. What is the reason ?

Haiok. Reason ? That I hate

To go about with all my soul uncovered, And, like good people's love, a common thing, — To go about with all my heart's warmth bare, As women go about with naked arms ! You were the only one — you, Svanhild, you — I thought so, once — but ah ! all that is past —

\She. turns and gazes.'] You listen — ?

Svan, To another voice that speaks !

Hush ! every evening when the sun goes dovra A little bird comes flying — do you hear ? — Ah ! see, it flits out of the leafy shade — Now, can you guess what I believe and hold ? To every soul that lacks the singing gift God sends a little tender bird as friend, — For it created and for its own garden ! Ilaxvk \taTies up a ston(i\.

Then if the bird and soul can never meet, The song is never fluted out elsewhere ? Svan. No, that is true ! But I have found my bird. I have no gift of tongues, no singer's voice, But when my sweet bird warbles from its bough, A poem seems to well up in my heart, — But ah ! the poem fades away and dies !

\Ilawh throws the stone. Svanhild screunis.']

Oh God ! you struck it ! Oh ! what have you done !

Oh ! That was wicked, shameful ! Hawk, [^yassionatehj agitated'] Eye for eye,

And tooth for tooth, pure legal justice, Svanhild.

Now no one greets you longer from on hio-h.

And no more gifts come from the land of song.

See, that is my revenge for your ill deed ! Svan. For my ill deed ? Haxvlc. Yes, yours ! Until this hour

A singing-bird was warbling in my breast.

Ah ! now the bell may chime above them both.

For you have killed it ! Svan. Have I ?

46 THE LITERATUKE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

Hawk. Yes, you struck

My young and joyous conquering faitli to earth "SMien you betrothed yourself ! ^

Then she explains that Anna is really Lind's beloved. Hawk now is interested again in this affair, until Lind declares that he will publish the news, that they may be regularly engaged. Hawk shows this step to be suicidal ; but Lind persists. The new couple are received with acclamation by the pseudo-lovers, to Hawk's infinite disgust. He cries to the company : —

Hurrah ! Miss Magpie, like a tnuiipet, tells you, A brother has been born to you in Amor !

the result being that the new couple are smothered in and nauseated with congi-atulations. Here is the description, of Strawman and his wife : —

He also was a man of courage once,

And fought the world to win himself a woman ;

He sacked the chm-ches of society ;

His love bui'st into flower of passionate song !

Look at him now ! In long funereal robes

He acts the drama of the Fall of Man !

And look, that female of gauut petticoat,

And tAvisted shoes, down-trodden at the heel,

She was the winged maiden, who should lead

His spirit into fellowship with beauty !

And what is left of love's pure flame ? — The smoke ! —

Sic transit gloria amoris, Svanhild ! -

In utter desperation, Hawk proposes to throw every- thing to the winds, and leave modern society to rot into its grave. The only pure spirit he can find is Svanhild, and he tries to persuade her to revolt with liim. ' Appendix K. ^ Appendix L.

'LOVE'S COMEDY.' 47'

We will not, like this trivial congregation, Attend the cliui'ch of dulness any more. The aim and scope of individual laboui* Is just to stand consistent, true and free.'

But he expresses too much. Svanhild conceives the idea that he is wooing her only that she may be a means to the attainment of his ideal.

You look at me as children on a reed, A hollow thing to cut into a flute, And pipe upon awhile and throw away.

They part coldly, and the curtain goes down upon Hawk's boundless depression and dismay.

The second act is a day later in time. On Sunday afternoon a whole troop of friends, all intense Philistines, come down to Mrs. Halm's, and hold what Hawk calls ' a Bacchanalian feast of tea and prose.' Lind and Anna are beginning to be weary of their love ; now that all the world expects them to be ardent, the charm of the mys- terious passion is gone. All the three couples — the fat priest and his spouse, the clerk and Miss Magpie, and those most newly betrothed — become more and more ludicrously dull, and Hawk, waxing more and more angry, mutters, —

See how they Irill the poetry of Love !

But we must hurry to the close, giving only one out of the exquisite and sparkling scenes. Hawk has gathered everyone round him, and each person has mentioned some herb or flower that is like love, and at last it is his turn : —

Hmvk. As many heads as fancies ! Very good !

But all of you have blundered more or less ; ' Appendix M.

48 THE LITEEATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

Eacli simile is crooked ; now, liear mine, Then turn and twist it any way you wish ! Far in the dreamy East there grows a plant Whose native home is the Sun's Cousin's garden —

All the Ladies. Oh ! it is tea !

Hawk. It is !

The Ladies. To think of tea !

HaxcTi. Its home lies far in the Valley of Romance, A thousand miles beyond the wilderness ! Fill up my cup ! I thank you ! Let us have On tea and love a good tea-table talk.

{They gather round him.l It has its home away in Fablelaud, Alas ! and there, too, is the home of Love. Only the children of the Sun, we know, Can cultivate the herb or tend it well. And even so it is with Love, my friends : A drop of sun-blood needs must circulate Through our dull veins, before the passionate Love Can root itself, or shoot and blossom forth.

Miss Magpie. But love and love are everywhere the same ; Tea has vai-ieties and qualities.

Mrs. Straw7nan. Yes, tea is bad or good or pretty good.

Anna. The young green shoots are thought the best of all.

Svanhild. That kind is only for the Siui's bright Daughters.

A Young Lady. They say that it intoxicates like ether !

Another. Fragrant as lotus and as sweet as almond !

Guldstad. That kind of import never reaches us !

JIawk. I think that in his nature everyone

Has got a little ' Heavenly Empire ' in him

"Where, on the twigs, a thousand such sweet buds

Form under shadow of that falling Wall

Of China, bashfulness ; where, underneatli

The shelter of the quaint kiosk, there sigh

A troop of Fancy's little China dolls.

Who dream and dream, with damask round their loins,

And in their hands a golden tulip-flower.

The first-fruits of Love's harvest were for them,

And we just have the rubbish and the stalks.

And now the last point of similitude : —

'love's comedy.' 49

See how the hand of culture presses down

The ' Heavenly Empire ' out in the far East ;

Its great Wall moulders and its strength is gone,

The last of genuine mandarins is hanged,

And foreign devils gather in the crops.

Soon the whole thing will merely be a legend,

A wonder-story nobody believes :

The whole wide world is painted gray on gray,

And Wonderland for ever is gone past.

But have we Love ? Oh ! where, oh ! where is Love ?

Nay, Love is also banished out of sight.

But let us bow before the age we live in !

Drink, drink in tea to Love discrowned and dead ! ^

There is intense indignation among the pseudo-lovers, and Hawk is driven out of their society, scarcely saved from the fate of Orpheus. Svanhild comes out to him, and for a little while they enjoy the exquisite pleasure of true and honest love. But, to hasten to the end. Hawk discovers that marriage would destroy the bloom and beauty of this sweet passion. He dreads a time when Svanhild will no longer inspire and glorify him, and the poem ends in a most tragical manner by the separation for ever of the only two hearts strong enough to shake off the trammels of conventionality. The Age weighs too heavily upon even them, and, to spare them- selves future agony, they tear themselves apart while the bond is still fresh and tender between them.

The whole poem— its very title of ' Love's Comedy ' — is a piece of elaborate irony. We may believe that it is rather Svanhild than the extravagant Hawk who speaks the poet's mind. It is impossible to express in brief quotation the perfection of faultless verse, the epigram- matic lancet-thrusts of wit, the boundless riot of mirth ' Appendix N. E

50 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

that make a lyrical saturnalia in this astonishing drama. A complete translation alone could give a shadow of the force of the original.

In 1864 Ibsen left Norway, and, as far as I know, has only once re-entered it. For a long while he was domi- ciled in Eome, and while there he wrote the book which has popularised his name most thoroughly. It seemed as though the poetical genius in him expanded and de- veloped in the intellectual atmosphere of Eome. It is not that ' Brand ' is more harmonious in conception than the earlier works — for let it be distinctly stated, Ibsen never attains to repose or perfect harmony — but the scope was larger, the aim more Titanic, the moral and mental horizon wider than ever before. Brand, the hero of the book, is a priest in the Norwegian Church ; the temper of his mind is earnest to the point of fanaticism, consistent beyond the limits of tenderness and humanity. He will have all or nothing, no Sapphira-dividings or Ananias- equivocations — the whole heart must be given or all is void. He is sent for to attend a dying man, but in order to reach him he must cross the raging Fjord in a small boat. So high is the storm, that no one dares go with him : but just as he is pushing off alone, Agnes, a young girl of heroic temperament who has been conquered by his intensity, leaps in with him, and they safely row across. Brand becomes priest of the parish, and Agnes, in whose soul he iinds everything that his own demands, becomes his wife. In process of time a son is born to him. The physician declares that unless they move to some healthier spot — the parish is a noisome glen that does not see the sun for half the year — the babe must

BRAND. 51

•die. Brand, believing that duty obliges liim to stay at his post, will not leave it. His child dies, and the mother dies ; Brand is left alone. At last his mother comes to live with him, a worldly woman with a frivolous heart ; she will not submit to' his religious supremacy, and dies unblessed and unannealed. Her property now falls into Brand's hands, and he dedicates it all to the rebuild- ing of the church. The satire now turns on the life in the village ; the portraits of the various officers, school- master, bailiff, and the rest, are incisively and scathingly drawn. All society is reviled for its universal worldliness, laziness, and lukewarmness. At last the church is finished. Brand, with the keys in his hand, stands on the door- step and harangues the people. His sermon is a philippic of the bitterest sort ; all the wormwood of disappointed desire for good, all the burning sense of useless sacrifice, vain offerings of heart and breath to a thankless genera- tion, all is summed up in a splendid outburst of invective. In the end he throws the keys far out into the river, and flies up the mountain-side away into desolation and soli- tude.' As a piece of artistic work, ' Brand ' is most wonderful ; a drama of nearly three hundred pages, written in short rhymed lines, sometimes rhyming four or five times, and never flagging in energy or interest, is a wonder in itself. Eight large editions of this book have been sold — a greater success than any other work of the poet has attained. A very great number of copies were bought in Denmark, where, just now, religious writing is at the height of fashion, and doubtless the subject of

' The similarity of this plot to that of Sydney DobelFs ' Balder,' published twelve years earlier, is worthy of note.

B 2

52 THE LITERATUEE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

' Brand ' accounts in some measure for its extraordinary popularity in that country. The verse in which it is written is a finished and lovely work of a high lyrical order.

The following song has attained a special popularity throughout Scandinavia : —

Einar. Agnes, my exquisite butterfly,

I will catch you sporting and winging ; I am weaving a net with meshes small, And the meshes are my singing.

Agnes. If I am a butterfly, tender and small.

From the heather-bells do not snatch me ; But since you are a boy, and are fond of a game, You may hunt, though you must not catch me

Einar. A.gnes, my exquisite butterfly.

The meshes are all spun ready ; It will help you nothing to flutter andfla p : You are caught in the net already.

Agnes. That I am a butterfly, bright and young, A swinging butterfly, say you ? Then ah ! if you catch me under your net, Don't crush my wings, I pray you !

Ei7iar. No ! I will daintily lift you up, And shut you into my breast ; There you may shelter the whole of your life, Or play, as you love best.^

It was among the lemon-groves of Ischia, under the torrid glare of an Italian summer, that Ibsen began his next, and, as I believe, greatest work. There is no trace of the azure munificence of sea and sky in the luxurious and sultry South, about ' Peer Grynt ; ' it is the most ex- clusively Norwegian of his poems in scenery and feeling. Strange that in the ' pumice isle,' with the crystalline waves of the Mediterranean lapping around him, far ' A pendix O.

'PEER GYNT.' 53

removed from home faces and home influences, he could shape into such perfect form a picture of rough Norse life by fjord and fjeld. ' Peer Grynt ' takes its name from its hero, an idle fellow whose aim is to live his own life, and whose chief characteristics are a knack for story-telling and a dominant passion for lies. It is the converse of ' Brand ; ' for while that drama strove to wake the nation into earnestness by holding up before it an ideal of stain- less virtue, ' Peer Gynt ' idealises in the character of its hero the selfishness and mean cunning of the worst of ambitious men. In form, this poem, like the preceding, is written in a variety of lyrical measures, in short rhyming lines ; but there is a brilliant audacity, a splendour of tumultuous melody, that ' Brand ' seldom attained to. Ibsen has written nothing so sonorous as some of the passages in * Peer Gynt.'

The hero is first introduced to us as playing a rough practical joke on his mother ; he is a rude shaggy lad of violent instincts and utter lawlessness of mind. We find him attending a wedding, and, after dancing with the bride, snatching her up and running up the mountain-side with her. Then he leaves her to make her way down again ignominiously. For tliis ill deed he is outlawed, and lives in the caves of the Dovrefjeld, haunted by strange spirits, harassed by weird sensualities and fierce hallucina- tions. The atmosphere of this part of the drama is ghostly and wild ; the horrible dreams of the great lad are shown as incarnate but shadowy entities. He grows a man among the mountains, and is introduced to the King of the Trolds, who urges him to marry his daughter and settle among them. Under the figure of the Trolds, the

54 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

party in Norway which demands commercial isolation and monopoly for home products is most acutely satirised. At last Peer Gynt slips down to the sea-shore and embarks for America. These events, and many more, take up the first three acts, which almost form a complete poem in themselves ; these acts contain little satire, but a humor- ous and vivid picture of Norse manners and character. To a foreigner who knows a little of Norway and would fain know more, these acts of ' Peer Grynt ' are a delicious feast. Through them he is brought face to face with the honest merry peasants, and behind all is a magnificent landscape of mountain, forest, and waterfall.

With the fourth act there is a complete shifting of motive, time, place, and style. "We are transported, after a lapse of twenty years, to the coast of Morocco, where Peer Gynt, a most elegant middle-aged gentleman, enter- tains a select party of friends on the sea-shore. He has been heaping up fortune in America ; he has traded ' ia stockings. Bibles, rum and rice,' but most of all in negro- slaves to Carolina and heathen gods to China. In short,. he is a full-blown successful humbug, unscrupulous and selfish to the last degree. While he is asleep, his friends^ run off with his yacht, and are blown up by an explosion into thin air. He is left alone and penniless on the- African shore. He crosses the desert and meets with endless adventures : each adventure is a clear-cut jewel of satire. Here is a subtle lampoon on the way in which silly people hail each new boaster as the Man of the Future, and worship the idol themselves have built up. Peer — the bubble,|the humbug — appears in an Arab camp, and is received as a manifestation of the divine Muham-

'PEEE GYNT.' 55

mad himself. A chorus of girls do homage to him, led on by Anitra, the very type of a hero-hunting woman : —

Chorus. The Propliet is come !

The Prophet, the Master, the all-providing, To us, to us, is he come, Over the sand-sea riding ! The Prophet, the Master, the never-failing, To us, to us, is he come, Through the sand-sea sailing. Sound the flute and the drum ; The Prophet, the Prophet is come ! Anttra. His steed was the milk-white flood

That streams through the rivers of Paradise ; His hair is Are and stars are his eyes. So bend the knee ! Let your heads be bowed ! No child of earth can bear. His starry face and his flaming hair ! Over the desert he came. Out of his breast sprang gold like flame. Before him the land was light,

Behind him was night ; Behind him went drought and dearth. He, the majestic, is come ! Over the desert is come ! Bobed like a child of earth. Kaaba, Kaaba stands dumb, Forlorn of its lord and light. Chorus. Sound the flute and the drimi ;

The Prophet, the Prophet is come ! ^

Another episode introduces one of those ill-advised persons who strive to prevent the use of classical Danish in Norway, and substitute for it a barbarous language collected orally from among the peasants — a harsh, shape- less, and unnatural jargon. One of these writers is intro- duced to Peer in Egypt ; he is flying westwards, seeking for an asylum for his theories. He tries to win Peer Grynt's sympathy thus : —

' Appendix P.

56 THE LITEEATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

Listen ! In tlie East afar Stands tlie coast of Malabar. Europe like a hungry vulture Overpowers tlie land with culture, For the Dutch and Portuguese Hold the country at their ease. Where the natives once held sway, Now their chiefs are driven away ; And the new lords have combined In a language to their mind. In the olden days long fled, Th' Ourang-Outang was lord and head, He was chief by wood and flood. Snared and slaughtered as he would ; As the hand of nature shaped, So he grinned and so he gaped ; Unabashed he howled and yelled, For the reins of state he held. Out alas ! for Progress came, And destroyed his name and fame ; All the monkey-men with ears Vanished for four hundred years ; If we now would preach or teach, We must use the help of speech. I alone have striven hard To become a monkey-bard ; I have vivified the dream, Proved the people's right to scream, Screamed myself, and, by inditing, Showed its use in folk-song-writing. Oh ! that I could make men see The bliss of being apes like me ! ^

It is said that these lines have had a greater effect in stopping the movement tlian all denunciations of learned professors and the indignation of philologists.

Between the fourth and fifth acts twenty years more elapse. Peer wins a new fortune in California, and finally comes back to Norway to enjoy it. The opening scene ' Appendix Q.

SATIRIC COMEDIES. 57

carries us up one of the perilous passages on the Norse coast, a storm meanwliile rising and at last breaking on the ship. All hands are lost save Peer, who finds himself in his fatherland again, but penniless and friendless. Solvejg, a woman who has ' constantly and unweariedly loved him all his life, receives him into her cottage, and he dies in her arms as she sings a dream-song over him.

' Love's Comedy,' ' Brand,' and ' Peer Gynt,' despite their varied plots, form a great satiric trilogy — perhaps for sustained vigour of expression, for affluence of execu- tion, and for brilliance of dialogue, the greatest of modern times. They form at present Ibsen's principal and fore- most claim to immortality ; their influence over thought in the North has been boundless, and sooner or later they will win for their author the homage of Europe. He has also published two very successful satiric comedies, ' The Young Men's Union ' in 1869, and ' The Pillars of Society ' in 1877. The former is a comedy in prose, the scene of which is laid in a little country town, perhaps Skien being meant, to judge by certain hints ; the subject- matter is taken from the ordinary political life in the provinces, and a good deal of airy satire is expended on the frivolity and short-sightedness of embryo politicians. The interest centres around a young lawyer, gifted with some brains, no tact, and boundless impudence, who builds up for himself a dream of successful ambition, and has it tumbled about liis ears like a house of cards in the fifth act. This young man, Stensgaard, tries to win the sympathy of the lower classes, and especially of the turbulent youth, by denouncing the proprietary class. But by an accident he gets admitted himself

58 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE,

into the society of this local aristocracy, and might, if he had a grain of decision or a particle of sound sense, hew out a path from this higher elevation. But he must needs grasp all, and loses everything. He forms a Forhund or Union, a collection of young men that meet to drink a health to Freedom, sing odes to Old Norway, and celebrate the 17th of May, the day of the independence of Norway. These absurdities were once a serious weakness to the State, but now they are banished from rational society, and are only cultivated in such crude assemblies as those our poet satirises. But Stensgaard, with shallow cunning, tries to manoeuvre for the support of both classes, and as the election times are approaching, he determines to canvas for a place in the Storthing. At the same time he urges a love-suit on three ladies at once, or rather by turns. To the least experienced playgoer it will be obvious that this complicated intrigue gives opportunity for plenty of comical incident, and accordingly the young lawyer builds his castles in the air for awhile, till the political and amatory schemes are ripe, and then in a very amusing final scene all his tricks are exposed, and he himself vanishes into thin air. The dialogue is everywhere sprightly, and its limpid flow is seldom interrupted by those metaphysical subtleties which are the poet's too great delight. In the character of Stensgaard, Ibsen is more than half suspected of laughing at his rival Bjornson, whose political freaks were, about the time when this play was produced, exciting- remark for the first time.

Not a few of the critics of the great poet ventured to hope that he would select for his next work a subject less local than those purely Norwegian scenes which he was~

'EMPEKOR AND GALILEAN.' 59

accustomed to draw, and which, however brilliantly painted, were to the world at large of comparatively trivial impor- tance. In 1873 he appeared to respond to this hope in publishing a work of great ambition, the theme of which had certainly a European and a universal interest. This book, originally projected, according to report, as a trilogy, actually consists of two dramas of unusual length, and covering together the period intervening between a.d. 351 and a.d. 363, — -that is, from the adolescence to the death of Julian the Apostate.

The subject undoubtedly is a very momentous and tragical one. It concerns itself with the effort of a single brain to carry into effect a kind of religious Kenaissance, in opposition to that form of political Christianity which had just found a firm footing in the whole Koman Empire. All the great tragedies that art has known are engaged with the struggle of a gifted and noble nature against an invincible force to which it is wholly antipathetic. From Prometheus to Faust, the great tragical figures of poetry have rung the changes on this theme. Ibsen has rightly judged that Julian's struggle against Christ, seen in the light of his slight apparent success and final ruin, collects around it ideas fit for a high philosophical tragedy. In effect he has hardly hit as high as he aimed; 'Kejser og Galilseer ' (' Emperor and Galilean ') is a work full of power and interest, studded with lofty passages, but not a com- plete poem. But before discussing the causes of this partial failure, we will briefly analyse the method in which one of the finest minds in Europe has chosen to bring before us the story itself.

The first of the two dramas is entitled ' Julian's Apos-

-€0 THE LITEEATUEE OF NOETHEEN EUEOPE.

tasy.' The action opens at Constantinople. We are in- troduced to one of the picturesque, vivid scenes that Ibsen understands so well how to manipulate. It is Easter, and outside the church-doors a great throng of citizens is wait- ing to see the Emperor Constantius II. go in state to mass. Before he appears, the bystanders, who have in the begin- ning united in beating a few stray pagans, begin to quarrel among themselves, Manichasans against Donatists, with furious abuse. In this way, at the very opening, the rotten state of doctrine in professing Christendom is laid bare ; the chaos of raving schismatics and godless heretics that grouped themselves as Christians in the eyes of men like Julian is made patent to the reader. Constantius, timid, morbid, and moribund, makes his way through the crowd, accompanied by his courtiers, and amongst them Julian, the friendless kinsman whose parents he has murdered. Julian is rather suggested than sketched as a nervous, in- tellectual youth, of wavering temperament and almost hysterical excitement of brain. A lad of his own age, a healthy young Cappadocian whom Julian in earlier years has converted to Christianity, comes out of the crowd to greet him. They pass away together, and in their dia- logue the poet finds occasion to unveil to us the condition of Julian's mind and soul. He has become conscious that a kind of classic revival is being suggested around him, and he is angry at being kept out of the way of it. He hopes to secure his own tottering faith by arguing with the men who are trying to restore the old philosophy. He accidentally meets the most active of these new teachers, Libanios, who is starting to found a new school at Athens. Julian obtains leave to go to Pergamos, hoping from thence

' EMPEEOR AND GALILEAN.' 61

to steal off to Athens, and stand face to face with the dreaded Libanios. In this act Julian is still a Christian, but the self-consciousness of his assertions of faith reveals the totter- ing basis on which it rests. He is wavering ; circumstances and the age are against him, but as yet his difficulties are rather emotional and moral than intellectual.

The second act reveals Julian in the midst of the new school at Athens. He has made a melancholy discovery : ' The old beauty is no longer beautiful, and the new truth is no longer true.' The efforts of the young apostates to restore the insouciance of classic times has resulted in mere bestial excess ; Apln'odite and lacchus are gods no longer, and to Julian the Christ also is a god no longer. A new change has come over him. He finds no rest in the scepti- cal science ; the new philosophers are ambitious, greedy, impure persons, and yet he cannot return to the fold of Christianity. The old religion rots in its open grave, and the new religion seems to him to be false and cold and timid. Libanios disgusts him ; he hears of magical arts practised at Ephesus, very much as we now-a-days hear of spirit-rapping, and he starts off in the hope of a new reve- lation and a ncAv creed.

The next act is in the highest degree theatrical, but there is but little development of purpose. Julian is dis- covered at Ephesus, under the influence of a new teacher, Maximos the mystic. There is a great magic-scene, in which, to the sound of unseen instruments and under the flicker of resinous torches, a wild ceremony of incantation is gone through. Strange shadows cross the scene ; the figures of Cain and of Judas rise to the motions of the wizard's rod; the wliole affair is prolonged to an extreme

€2 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

length, and we do not see clearly the poet's purpose. The result, however, is distinct enough. Julian convinces him- self that spirits of the upper world have warned him to restore the old Greek Polytheism. At the moment of wildest cerebral excitement, the Emperor's messengers bm'st in upon him, with the news that Csesar Grallos, his brother, has been murdered, that Julian is nominated Cassar, and that the Emperor gives him his sister Helena in marriage. He reappears in Graul. After the celebrated victory at Argentoratum, he returns into Lutetia to Helena. A mes- sage from Constantius, accompanied by a present of fruit from Italy, reaches the camp at the same time. Helena, who bas received him with every display of conjugal affection, -eats some peaches which have been carefully poisoned, and rushes on to the scene raving. The passage which follows is as revolting as powerful. English views of propriety scarcely permit me to reproduce the peculiar tenor of the revelations she makes in her delirium. Suffice it to say that she proves her married life to have been a grossly un- faithful one, and that she names as the dearest of her lovers a Christian priest, who, by a not unparalleled fiction, has persuaded her to regard him as an impersonation of the Second Person of the Trinity. In an agony of shame and horror, Julian curses the Gralilaean ; this uttermost indignity was needed to give him the power of perfect hatred against Christianity. But for the moment there is no time for reflection. His victory has won him the jealousy of the Emperor, and, threatened with the fate of Oallos, he only saves his life by leaping out of the window into the throng of soldiers. His appeal to their gratitude turns the scale violently in his favour ; he is elected

' EMPEEOR AND GALILEAN.' 63

Emperor, and marches towards Constantinople. The central idea in this act is the moral force which the adultery of his Christian wife and the treachery of the Christian Emperor exert, in concert with circumstances, in driving Julian into active enniity against their feith.

The fifth act is occupied with the march through Italy. The body of Helena, by reason of her purity, forsooth ! works miracles, to Julian's infinite disgust. On the other hand, he makes retreat impossible by publicly worshipping Helios, and marches victoriously eastward. So closes ' Julian's Apostasy,' having scarcely flagged anywhere in interest and power, and leaving a distinct heroic central figure on the mind.

But the second drama, ' Julian the Emperor,' from the very outset, is afflicted with a sense of flatness and deadness that the author in vain struggles to throw off. The moment we find Julian crowned at Constantinople he ceases to be an heroic figure at all. The vain effort to revive the Pagan cultus among the masses of the people, the trifling and annoying passages at Antioch, the intellectual mean- nesses of Julian, the terrible fiascos at Alexandria and Jerusalem, have nothing tragical in them. These long acts of Ibsen's drama are not without importance, but their interest is solely historical, or perhaps philosophical ; they are utterly prosaic. The dramatist has been hampered by an overplus of historical and legendary material. No trifle is spared us, even that slight epigram against Apolinarius, ^Avsyvcov £<yv(ov Karayvcov, is dragged in, losing- all force in its Norse translation. We find litle to praise or blame in the first three acts of this long drama, but when the fatal Persian march commences, the soul of the

64 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

poet revives. His spirit remembers its august abodes^ and Julian's figure recovers something of heroic dignity. It is almost inconceivable that Ibsen has chosen to dwell on tlie dirty habits of his hero ; he has not spared us the tra- ditional inky fingers, or the vermin-haunted beard. High talk about Helios and the Phrygian Mother consorts but ill with such terrible details. But with the fourth act our interest revives ; we forget the importance of the histori- cal Julian in the lofty dreamer and great warrior, who rises to the height of the occasion in the great eastward expedition against Persia. The story is told finely and graphically ; we see the baffled and dejected Emperor pushing on unflinchingly, stung by the songs of the Chris- tians, gnawed at heart with the sense of his ill-success against their Master, yet through it all, determined, calm, and resolute. The condition of his mind is illustrated by a dialogue with the mystic Maximos, of which we translate a part : —

Maximos. The vine of the world is grown old, and yet you fancy to be able, as before, to ofter raw grapes to those who thirst after new wine.

Julian. Ah ! my Maximos, who thirsts ? Name me one man, outside om* intimate circle, who is led by a spiritual enthusiasm. Unfortimate that I am, to be born into such an iron age !

Maximos. Blame not the age. Had the age been greater, you had been less. The soul of the world is like a rich man who has coimtless sons. If he parts his riches equally to all the sons, all are well-to-do, but none rich. But if he leaves them all penniless but one, and leaves all to him, then that one stands rich in a circle of poor men.

Here we find expressed Julian's hope and his despair. Ever pressing like a weight upon his spirit, is the indiffer- ence with which the world receives his gift of the new

'EMPEROR AND GALILEAN.' . 65

wine. It is the most deadly of his reverses ; it is worse a thousand times than the army of King Sapores, worse even than the untiring zeal of his Christian adversaries. These his persecutions have roused into martyr-heroism and soldered together with brotherly love, but no passionate zeal burns in the dull hearts of the worshippers of Pan and Helios. Yet his one hope and consolation is that in himself all that is god-like centres, that when all foreign opposition is put down, the conscious divinity in himself will blaze out, to the discomfiture of the Gralilseans, and, above all, to the spiritual awakening of the Polytheists. Then follows the burning of the ships, and even till the middle of the last act, Ibsen contrives to lose again the poet in the religious philosopher. But in describing the last night before the final battle, his genius suddenly takes fire, and he closes the poem in a white-light of imaginative sublimity. By a pool of dark water, in the midst of trees, Julian stands and consults with the faithful Maximos. He clings more vehemently than ever to the belief in his own divinity. He longs to die to become a god ; it even flashes over his brain to slip into the dark pool, and take his place at once ' at home in the light of the sun and of all the stars.' He is haunted by the unendurable vision of the Crucified. Without terror, without remorse, but with maddening hatred and horror, he sees wherever he goes the great figure robed in white stretching its bleeding hands to stop him in his course. In the midst of this weird augury the Persian army bursts at midnight on the camp. In the darkness the armies meet and thunder together ; Julian unarmed leaps on horseback, and plunges into the foremost fighting. Through the night his

V

66 THE LITEKATURE OF NOETHERN EUROPE.

unscathed figure is seen in the thickest of the battle, but just at daybreak he looks eastward, and there, where other men see only the crimson dawn shooting along the cold sky, Julian in an ecstasy of horror sees the colossal figure of Christ, robed in imperial purple, circled by singing women that string their bows with the light of his hair, storming down the awakened heavens to crush him into nothingness. He turns to plunge again into the battle, but his old foster-brother, Agathon, now becomes a furious fanatic, draws his bow, and wounds him deeply in the side. He falls, crying, ' Thou hast conquered, Galilsean ! ' Now, to give briefly a notion of the causes that have militated against the positive success of this work. First and foremost, the technical imperfection of its style ; it is written from first to last in prose. It is hardly credible that Ibsen, a poet who has distinguished himself above all recent writers by his skill in adapting lyrical and choral measures to dramatic themes, should have deliberately abandoned his instrument when he undertook this tragical study. It is as if Orpheus should travel hellwards without his ivory lyre. Every charm of harmony and plastic art was needed to draw the buried figure of Julian out of the shameful oblivion of the ages. I earnestly trust that no idle words of that garrulous criticism which is only too ready to commend the indiscretions of popular poets will induce him to appear again in so serious a part without his singing-robes. Rut more important than this is the failure to support the heroic dignity of the principal character. If Julian does not fill the scene, who can? Not Gregory, not Basil, who are mere lay-figures ; not Maximos, who wanes and waxes with the waxing and

HISTORICAL DRAMAS. 67

waning of his master. But perhaps the ultimate reason of failure is to be found in what lies out of the poet's reach — the inherent quality of the theme. Julian was not the voice of his time; he was an anachronism. In his brief life was exemplified how much can be done by one whole- hearted man in stopping the civilisation of a world, only to rush on with a fiercer current when he is taken out of the way. Julian attempted to restore what had been tried in the balances of history and found wanting ; he had nothing new to suggest. The gods of ^schylus had dwindled down to the nymphs of Longus ; the ' folding- Star of Bethlehem ' had glared on them, and they had sickened and fled away. To resuscitate their ghosts was the dream of a morbid scholar, ignorant of the hearts of men, and blind to the deeper significance of all the signs of the times.

I have left myself no space to do more than mention the names of Ibsen's historical and national dramas. The first, ' Grildet paa Solhoug' (' The Banquet at Solhoug ') appeared in 1856. This was followed in 1857 by 'Fru Inger til Osteraad ' (' Mistress Inger at Osteraad '), a much finer poem, which Ibsen has lately revised and almost rewritten. It has been Ibsen's fortune in life to rise very slowly, like Dryden, into the full exercise of his powers. In each successive drama we find a more ample expres- sion and greater audacity of thought than in the one before it. ' Hsermsendene paa Helgoland ' (' The Warriors at Helgoland') followed, in 1858, with a fresh series of scenes from old Norse history, given with wonderful vigour and precision. But Ibsen's masterpiece in this kind of writing is ' Kongs-Emnerne ' ('The Pretenders'), which

F 2

68 THE LITERATUEE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

appeared in 1864. It has for its theme the struggle for the vacant throne of Sverre, in the first half of the thir- teenth century. This epoch, the most romantic in saga- history, has been a favourite with the northern poets from Ohlenschlager down to Bjornson. In this case, the time is chosen which immediately followed the death of King Sverre. A troop of claimants clutched at the falling crown, but two stood out above the rest, and drew the eyes of all men upon them — Hakon Hakonsson and Skule BSrdsson. Between these the choice really lay ; Hakon was putative son of Sverre, and Skule brother of an earlier king. Ibsen's drama begins with a scene in which all the heads of the nation, gathered in front of Bergen Cathedral, wait for the ordeal of hot iron to decide whether Hakon is truly Sverre's son or no. The ordeal declares in the affirmative, and Hakon, so assured by Heaven, gains perfect confidence in himself and in the justice of his cause, while Skule doubts and hesitates. Thus the key-note of the poet's estimate of each character is struck at once : Hakon's strength is his calm self- sufficiency, as Skule's weakness is his vacillating self-mis- trust. Hakon becomes king, does everything to conciliate Skule, makes him duke, marries his daughter, but to no avail. In Skule there is ever the same fiery craving for equality with Hakon, for the name and right of king. But while Hakon possesses to an eminent degree the good fortune and august bearing of an old-world king, Skule, as his rival says, has all the superb gifts of intellect and courage, is made to stand nearest to the king, but never to be king himself.' Hakon's great new idea is to make Norway not a kingdom only, but a nation ; to break down

'THE PKETENDEKS; 69

provincial feuds, and make the people one and indivisible. How Skule plagiarises this idea, finds it gives him a power over men's hearts that no thought of his own ever gave him, how by its help he rises to brief kingship, through much blood, and falls at last before the innate power of will that makes Hakon king by every right, human and divine, can only be roughly indicated here. The main characters are drawn with great subtlety and finish, and are relieved by the delicate portrait of Queen Margaret, wife and daughter of the rivals, and by that of Bishop Nicolas, a crafty and witty priest, utterly selfish and unprincipled, but devoted to the interests of his Chm'ch. The dramatic power displayed in this poem quite raises it out of any mere local interest, and gives it a claim to be judged at a European tribunal.

THE LOFODEN ISLANDS.

Among the thousands who throng to the Continent for refreshment and adventure, how few leave the great southward-streaming mass, and seek the desolate grandeur of those countries which lie north of our own land I Of those who do diverge, the great majority are sportsmen, bent on pitiless raids against salmon and grouse. It is strange that the noblest coast scenery in Europe should be practically unknown to so ubiquitous a people as we are : but so it is : and as long as the thirst for summer climates remains in us, the world's winter-garden will be little visited. It is the old story : the Northmen yearn after the Nibelungen treasure in the South.

Doubtless, for us who are supposed to shiver in peren- nial fog, this tropical idolatry is right and wise. With all the passion of Kosicrucian philosophers, we worship the unfamiliar Sun-god, and transport om-selves to Italy or Egypt to find him. But what if he have a hyperborean shrine — a place of fleeting visit in the far North, where for a while he never forsakes the heavens, but in serene beauty gathers his cloud-robes hourly about him, and is lord of midnight as of mid-day ? Shall we not seek him there, and be rewarded perchance by such manifestations of violet and scarlet and dim green, of scathing white

THE LOFODEN ISLANDS. 71

light, and deepest purple shadow, as his languorous votaries of the South knew nothing of?

With such persuasive hints, I would lead the reader to the subject of this chapter. I imagine to most minds the Lofoden Islands are associated with little except school- book legends of the Maelstrom, and perhaps the unde- sirable savour of cod-liver oil. With some they have a shadowy suggestion of iron-bound rocks, full of danger and horror, repulsive and sterile, and past the limit of civilisation. So little has been written about them, and that little is so inadequate, that I cannot wonder at the indifference to their existence which prevails. With the exception of a valuable paper by Mr. Bonney, that appeared some time back in the ' Alpine Journal,' I know of no contribution to geographical literature which treats of the group in any detail ; and that paper, both from the narrow circulation of the periodical, and also from the limited district of which it treats, cannot have had that influence which its merit and the subject deserve.

The Lofoden Islands, which I visited in 1871, are an archipelago lying off the Arctic coast of Norway. Although in the same latitude as Central Greenland, Siberia, and Boothia Felix, they enjoy, in common with all the outer coast of Scandinavia, a comparatively mild climate ; even in the severest winters their harbours are not frozen. The group extends at an acute angle to the mainland for about one hundred and forty miles, north- east and south-west. In shape they seem on the map like a great wedge thrust out into the Atlantic, the point being the desolate rock of Rost, the most southerly of the islands ; but this wedge is not solid : the centre is occupied by a

72 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE,

sea-lake, which communicates by many channels with the ocean. As all the islands are mountainous, and of most fantastic forms, it can be imagined that this peculiar con- formation leads to an endless panorama of singular and eccentric views. The largest of the Lofodens is Hindo, which forms the base of the wedge ; north of this runs the long oval isle of Ando ; to the west lies Lango, whose rugged coast has been torn and fretted by the ocean into the m^ost intricate confusion of outline ; the central lake has for its centre Ulvo — thus the heart of the whole group ; and from the south of Hindo run in succession towards the south-west, Ost Vaago, Vest Vaago, Flakstado, Moskenaeso, Vsero, and little ultimate Eost. All these, and several minor satellites also, are inhabited by scat- tered families of fishermen. There is no town, scarcely a village ; it is but a scanty population so barren and wild a land will support.

But quiet and noiseless as the shores are when the traveller sees them in their summer rest, they are busy enough, and full of animation, in the months of March and April. As soon as the tedious sunless winter has passed away, the peculiar Norwegian boats, standing high in the water, with prow and stern alike curved upwards, begin to crowd into the Lofoden harbours from all parts of the vast Scandinavian coast. It is the never-failing harvest of codfish that they seek. Year after year in the early spring, usually about February, the waters around these islands are darkened with innumerable multitudes of cod. They are unaccountably local in these visitations. I was assured they had never been known to extend farther south than Vasro, at the extremity of the group.

COD-FISHERIES. 73

The number of boats collected has been estimated at 3,000 ; -and as each contains on an average five men, the popula- tion of the Lofodens in March must be very considerable. Unfortunately for these * toilers of the sea,' the early spring- is a season of stormy weather and tumultuous seas : when the wind is blowing from the north-west or from the south-west, they are especially exposed to danger ; when in the former quarter the sudden gusts down the narrow chan- nel are overwhelming, and when in the latter the waves are beaten against the violent current always rushing down the Vest Fjord from its narrow apex. The centre of the busy trade in fish is Henningsvser, a little collection of huts perched on the rocks under the precipitous flanks of Vaagekallen, the great mountain of Ost Vaago. I was assured that in April, when the fish is all brought to shore, and the operations of gutting and cleaning begin, the scene on the shore becomes more strange than delightful. The disgusting labours which complete the great herring season in our own Hebrides are utterly outdone by the Norse cod-fishers. Men, women, and children cluster on the shore, busily engaged in their filthy work, and steeped to the eyes in blood and scales and entrails : at last the rocks themselves are slippery with the reeking refuse : one can scarcely walk among it ; and such a smell arises as it would defy the rest of Europe to equal. The fish is then spread on the rocks to dry, and eventually piled in stacks along the shore : in this state it is known as klip-fish. Some is split and fastened by pegs to long rods, and allowed to flap in the wind till it dries to the •consistence of leather : it is then called stock-fish. Before midsummer, flotillas of the swift boats called

74 THE LITEEATUEE OF NOETHEEN EUEOPE.

jagter gather again to the Lofodens, and bear away for exportation to Spain and Italy the dried results of the spring labour. Bergen is the great emporium for this trade. The other industry of the islands is the extraction of ' cod-liver oil : ' the livers of all kinds of fishes supply this medicine, those of sharks being peculiarly esteemed. Along the low rocks, and around the houses, we find great caiddrons in which these painfully odorous livers are being slowly stewed : a heavy steam arises and the oily smell spreads far and wide. But this is not a feature peculiar to the Lofodens : all over the coast of Finmark the shores reek with this flavour of cod-liver oil.

It is a matter of regret to me, in my functions of apologist for these islands, that truth obliges me to raze to the ground with ruthless hand the romantic fabric of fable that has surrounded one of them from time im- memorial. The Maelstrom, the terrific whirlpool that

"WTiirled to deatli the roaring whale,

that sucked the largest ships into its monstrous vortex,^ and thundered so loudly that, as Purchas tells us in his veracious ' Pilgrimage,' the rings on the doors of houses ten miles off shook at the sound of it — this wonder of the world must, alas ! retire to that limbo where the myths of old credulity gather, in a motley and fantastic array.. There is no such whirlpool as Pontoppidan and Purchas describe : the site of the fabulous Maelstrom is put by the former writer between Moskenseso and the lofty iso- lated rock of Mosken. This passage is at the present day called Moskostrom, and is one of those narrow straits, so^ common on the Norwegian coast, where the current of

THE MAELSTROM. 75

water sets with such persistent force in one direction, that when the tide or an adverse wind meets it, a great agitation of the surface takes place. I have myself seen, on one of the narrow sounds, the tide meet the current with such violence as to raise a little hissing wall across the water, which gave out a loud noise. This was in the calmest of weather ; and it is easy to believe that such a phenomenon occurring during a storm, or when the sea was violently disturbed, would cause small boats passing over the spot to be in great peril, and might even suddenly swamp them. Some such disaster, observed from the shore, and exaggerated by the terror of the beholder, doubtless gave rise to the prodigious legends of the Maelstrom. Such a catastrophe took place, I was informed, not long since, on the Salten Fjord, where there is an eddy more deserving the name of whirlpool than any in the Lofodens. The legendary importance of the Maelstrom, as a kind of wonder of the world, led to the frequent mention of the Lofodens by the versifiers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But a specially interesting example of this kind connects with our islands the name of a most extraordinary personage. Bishop Anders Arrebo, the father of modern Scandinavian poetry. This great genius, whose sensuous and fiery nature contended in vain against the social laws of his time, and whose verse remains as a monument of broken hopes and wasted powers, was born at ^rseskjobing, in Denmark, in 1587, the year that Shakspeare came up to London. In 1618 his brilliant parts had already been rewarded by the bishopric of Throndhjem, in Norway, from which he was ejected in 1622, for too much love of songs and stringed instruments, for

76 THE LITERATUEE OF NOETHERN EUEOPE.

amorous discourse, and for too copious joviality at wed- dings and junketings. The offence seems to have been venial, the disgrace was ruinous ; and Arrebo returned from his brief stay in Norway a broken and dejected man. He died in 1637, leaving his QnagnuTn opus, his didactic epic of the ' Hexsemeron,' still unprinted. It saw the light in 1661. Arrebo was a student aud disciple of Eonsard and Du Bartas, and his writings partake of the universal affectation that stains the European poetry of his time, but they share also the love of physical beauty and the joyous naturalism of that rich age of fecundity and liberty. It was during his unlucky stay in Norway, that he is believed to have composed the ' Hexfe- meron,' which contains many passages describing Nor- wegian scenery. That which deals with the Maelstrom may be worth citing : —

In Loufod far to north on Norway's distant shore,

A flood is found that hath no like the wide world o'er,

Entitled Moske-flood, from that high Mosker rock

Round which in seemly rings the obsequious waters flock ;

When this with hasty zeal performs the moon's designs,

If any man comes near, the world he straight resigns ;

In spring its billows rear like other mountains high.

But through theii* sides we see the sun, the earth's bright eye ;

Then, if the wind should rise against the flood's wild way,

Two heroes rush and meet in crash of war's array.

Then tremble land and house, then doors and windows rattle,

The earth is fain to cleave before that monstrous battle ;

The vast and magic whale dares not its breach essay,

But turns in fear to flight, and roaring speeds away.^

After more description in the same grandiose style, Arrebo proceeds to propound a theory of his own, which was universally received for at least a century, and which ' Appendix R.

THE MAELSTROM. 77

made the poet more famous than the best of his verses. It runs thus : —

Now my belief is this : that underneath the sea

A belt of lofty rocks is forced immutably,

Which hath au entrance, but is solid stone elsewhere.

And in the centre sends a peak high up to air.

When now the flood is come, with angry voice it calls,

And rushes inward like a thousand waterfalls,

And can no exit find to rule its rugged shock,

So madly whirls around the lofty central rock,

And rumbles like a quern when man doth grind therein.'

Ten years after the death of Arrebo there was born at North Hero, on the Arctic coast of Norway, a man who was destined to give considerable literary prominence to the Lofodens. This was Petter Dass, son of a certain Peter Dundas, a Scotchman of Dundee, who came over to Norway in 1635. This man, who was an influential ecclesiastic in the province of Nordland, composed, between 1678 and 1692, a long itinerary in verse, somewhat in the fashion of Drayton's ' Polyolbion,' entitled ' N ordlands Trompet ' (' The Trumpet of Nordland '). This poem— if poem it can be called — has enjoyed since the lifetime of its author an uninterrupted popularity, which it owes rather to its lucid and sensible style, its humour and its nimble versification, than to fancy or imagination — of which it is devoid. A long canto in it is devoted to the Lofodens, much of which unfortunately is taken up with describing, with far less beauty of language than Arrebo had employed, the Maelstrom. We learn, however, that in Dass's time the principal Lofoden village stood on Skraaven, a small island now almost desolate. From Petter Dass's language, it seems to me almost certain that he visited the Lofodens, ' Appendix b.

78 THE LITEEATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

and lodged at Skraaven, and also at a fishing station on Vaago, of which he gives a minute and curious descrip- tion.

Until lately, the topography of the islands was in a very unsettled state. The name of the group begins to appear on maps of North Europe about the year 1 600 ; but for a century and a half there is no sign to show that geographers were at all aware of the real position of the islands. In Pontoppidan's map the right point on the €oast is at last fixed, but the oval smooth pieces of land, at a great distance from one another, which adorn the coast of Finmark on his chart, are a sadly inaccurate realisation of these firmly-compacted and fantastically- shaped Lofodens. Only within the last few years has the patient survey of the Norwegian Admiralty presented us with a minute and exact chart of the coast, and the sea- line may now be considered as accurately laid down. But with the interior of the islands it is not so : they consist of inaccessible crags, dreary morasses, and impenetrable snow-fields. The Lofoden islander prizes the sea-shore, for it feeds and enriches him ; and the fringe of rich pas- ture which smiles along it, for it preserves his cattle ; but the land which lies behind these is an unknown wilder- ness to him : if he penetrates it, it is to destroy the in- solent eagles that snap up stray lambs, or to seek some idle kid that has strayed beyond the flock. Hence it is very difficult to find names for the peaks that bristle on the horizon or tower above the valleys ; in many cases they have no names, in many more these names have found their way into no printed maps. It was an object with me to fix on the true appellations of these magnifi-

THE VEST FJORD. 79

cent mountains ; and I was in many cases enabled, through the courtesy of the people and through patient •collation of reports, to increase the amount of information in this respect. It must be remembered that many of the names given were taken down from oral statement, and that the spelling must in some cases be phonetic.

The only key to this enchanted palace of the Oceanides is, for ordinary travellers, the weekly steamer from Trondhjem. This invaluable vessel brings the voyager, after a somewhat weary journey through an endless multitude of low, slippery, gray islets and tame hills, to the Arctic Circle. Another day through scenery which at that point becomes highly eccentric and interesting, and in some places, grand, brings him to Bodo. This depressing village is London and Liverpool in one for the inhabitants of our islands : every luxury, from a watch to a piano, from a box of Huntley and Palmer's biscuits to a pig, must be brought from Bodo. After a long stoppage here, the steamer passes on up the coast some twenty miles, to a strange place called Gryto, a labyrinth of slimy rocks just high enough to hide the horizon. From this the boat emerges through a tortuous and perilous sound, and is at once in the great Vest Pjord. Forty miles ahead in one unbroken line rise the sharp mountains of the Lofodens, and without swerving a point, the good ship glides west-north-west into the very centre of the great wall. If the traveller visit the islands in summer, and make the passage across the Vest Fjord at midnight, as he is almost sure to do, the scene, provided the air be clear and dry, will be gor- geous. In the weird Arctic midnight, with a calm sea shimmering before the bows, and all things clothed in

80 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

that cold yellow lustre, deepening to amber and gold behind the great blue mountains, which is so strange a characteristic of the sun at midnight, the scene is won- derfully impressive. As the steamer glides on, making for Balstad on the south-west corner of Vest Vaago, Flakstado and Moskenseso lie somewhat to our left ; and perchance, if the eye is very keen, far away in the same direction it may detect the little solitary rock of Viero, and still farther Eost itself, our ultimfia Thule. The southern range of the Lofodens has been compared to a vertebrated skeleton, and the simile is vastly well chosen ; for the isles taper off to a minute tail, and the channels that run between them are so narrow and fit the outline so exactly, that they appear like joints. Seen from the Vest Fjord, the whole looks like one vast land, undivided. Higher and higher on the primrose-coloured sky the dark peaks rise as we approach our haven. And now the hills of Moskenseso assume definite shape ; the two central points rising side by side are Gruldtind and Eeinebring, the former being the southern one. For an account, the only one I know, of Moskenseso I can refer the reader to the ' Eeise durch Norwegen ' of Herr C. F. Lessing, pub- lished in 1831, at Berlin ; a scarce book, I believe. Herr Lessing was an enterprising natm-alist, who visited Voero, Moskenseso, and Vest Vaago, and v/rote an entertaining chapter about them in his excellent little book. The mountains of Moskenseso are not very lofty, but the island is inaccessible, the shores being so steep and the outline so indented by the sea, that it is necessary to take a boat from haven to haven : one cannot pass by land. The highest mountain of Flakstado, the precipitous

SKOTTIND. 81

Napstind, is on the northern extremity of that island, and hidden from iis by the projecting promontories of Vaago ; but the lofty hills very slightly to our left belong to this island. Even while we speak, we glide between half- submerged rocks and rounded islets crowded with sea- birds into the bay of Balstad, and the Lofodens are around us ! The hour is that one of glamom- in^these Arctic sum- mers when the day is but a few hours old, and the golden sheen of midnight has given way to the strong chiaroscuro of sunrise. Above our heads rises the mountain Skottind, and we perceive how strange is the land we have arrived in ; no longer the rounded hills of the mainland, no more any conventional mountain forms and shapes in any wise familiar. Skottind soars into the clouds one vast cliff of dark rock split across now and then with a sharp crevasse, above which rises another wall of cliff, and so on to the summit, where thin spires and sharp pinnacles, clear-cut against the sky, complete the mighty peak. This is cha- racteristic of all the mountains of this southern and grand- est range : especially unique and perplexing is the thin look of the extreme summit; apparently the ridge is as sharp and narrow as a notched razor ; no signs of the reced- ing of the edge are to be seen. All these points are inacces- sible on one side ; from the interior it might be possible to reach the top of some of them, and sublime would be the view so gained. At present, this chilly July morning, Skot- tind rises a wall of darkest indigo blue between the sun and our faces ; about its horns the heavy tissue of clouds is smitten and shot through with brilliant white light of sun- rise, and the fainter wreaths of vapour, delicately tinged with rose-colour and orange, pause before they rise and flee

G

82 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

away over the awakened heavens. As for Balstad itself, it is a cluster of wooden houses painted gray and green, and some deeply stained with red ochre, scattered about on a frightfully rugged platform of rocks, so uneven that I can- not think a square yard of earth or tolerably flat rock could be found anywhere. Some of the houses are built on the outlying islets, treacherous low reefs on which the gray, sea creeps and shows his ominous white teeth Such places seem to promise certain destruction in the iirst storm, but the cottages survive, and the bay certainly is very sheltered.

Leaving Balstad, the steamer coasts along the shores of Vest Vaago. The twin peaks that appeared from the middle of Vest Fjord as the highest land in this island lie on the northern coast, and are now far out of sight; they are known under the collective name of Himmelstinder — a poetic and suggestive title. It may be well to point out that ' tind ' is equivalent to needle, spitz, and is de- scriptive of the pinnacle-character of the mountain. Him- melstind was ascended by Herr Lessing, who crossed over to it from Buxnses, and bravely ascended, in spite of pouring rain and the derisive remarks of the natives : his account of the adventure is highly humorous. We pursue our voyage through an infinite multitude of sterile rocks and under fine stormy crags till we reach the mouth of the broad Grimsostrom, the gulf that divides us from Ost Vaago. Here the colossal precipices of Vaagekallen come into sight, the sublimest, though not the loftiest, of all the Lofoden mountains. This stupendous mass occupies the south-west extremity of Ost Vaago, and is almost always shrouded in cloud ; the snow lies in patches about its ravines.

SVOLV^R. 83

but most of its summit is too sheer for snow to rest on or any lierb to grow. Vaagekallen is the beacon towards which the fisher, laden with finny spoils, wearily steers at fall of day ; for under its spurs, on a group of islets in the sound, is built the village of Henningsvser, the most important of all fishing stations, and a flourishing little place. It has a lighthouse also, the largest on this coast. A little farther •on we pass the quaint church of Vaagen — Kirkevaag, as the inhabitants call it — built, like all Northern churches, of wood, and painted dark brown. Here we find the only trace of historic importance that Lofoden can boast, I believe; for it was from Kirkevaag that that enthusiast Hans Egede, led by devoted love for the souls of men, -went in 1721 to preach the gospel to the desolate savages of GTreenland. We pass on through crowds of eider-ducks and terns and cormorants to S vol veer, a promi- nent station on Ost Vaago. The entrance to this harbour is through a maze of black, cruel rocks, round which the sea tumbles and glides ominously; at last, after an intricate half-hour of steering, through passages where no path seemed possible, a large village is reached, built like a lacustrine town on piles above the water. Svolvser is thrown about on a heap of islets and promontories, here a house, and there a house, on a site even wilder than that of Balstad. The mountain rising sheer behind it is the Svolvser Fjeld. Tolerable accommodation may be got at this place, though the house of entertainment is, according to Mr. Bonney, very inconveniently situated. It had been decided by a commission, shortly before I arrived, that if ever it should be thought desirable to found a town on the Lofodens, this should be the site of it. Leaving Svolvser,

84: THE LITEIIATURE OF NOETHERN EUEOPE.

the Ostnses Fjord, gloomy, narrow, and terrible as that gate which Dante saw in Hell, looms on our left; enormous mountains hem it in. On the west side, eminent above the rest, is a peak called, I believe, the Jomfrutind; it would be a dismal thing to have to live on the shores of this sombre and sinister water-glen.

But now, straight before us, we perceive three islands, not belonging to the general range, but standing at right angles to it, running far out in the Vest Fjord; and be- tween them, we see glimpses of the mainland, now not very distant. These islands are circular, and not indented by the sea; but a shelf of rock, covered with rough pasturage, runs round each of them, and then a mountain soars sud- denly into the skies. Stor Molla, one of the largest and nearest to Ost Vaago, is a double peak of quite exceptional grandeur; and Lille Molla and Skraaven, though less lofty, are scarcely tamer in their forms. It is difficult to form a due conception of this peculiar masculine scenery; there is nothing pretty or charming about it, but it is extremely impressive. Compared with the rest of Norwe- gian sea-scenery, with that south of the Arctic Circle especially, it diifers from it as an American backwoodsman differs from a London counter-jumper. I would here pro- test a little, in wonder, at the compliments paid to the coast scenery of South and Central Norway: saving that terrible sound which nms between Bremangerland and the main, under the awful cliffs of Hornelen, there is no ocean landscape from Torghatten to the Naze to call forth tlie slightest enthusiasm. There is much finer country in the Hebrides. To return to Lille Molla. This island and its congeners are all inhabited, and not two hours' sail from

THE EAFTSUNJ). 85

VSvolvier ; on Stor Molla accommodation of some sort might probably be found, and I think this little group would be well worth investigation. They have just that amount of geographical independence which often suffices to produce a difference in flora and fauna. Between the two Mollas we steam, noticing the rough seeters on the shores, the rows of stockfish flapping in the wind, and the cauldrons of stew- ing livers, faintly odorous from the steamer's deck. The Okellesund (for so the northern passage between Stor Molla and Vaago appears to be called) is too narrow to admit the steamer, but turning north as we leave the Moldoren, we enter the celebrated Eaftsund.

The Eaftsund, which has won the hearty admiration of every traveller who has seen it, is a narrow channel, fifteen miles long, running north-east between Vaago and Hindo. It is of various width, narrowest towards the north ; on each side mountains of the most vigorous and eccentric forms rise in precipices and lose themselves in pinnacles and sharp edges that cut the clouds. As this is the one part of the Lofodens that has been somewhat minutely described, I need not linger in painting it. A few of the peaks, how- ever, I can name. All the loftiest and boldest are on the Vaago side. Perhaps the strangest is listind, a gigantic mass with a tower-like cairn on the summit; Mahomet's Tomb we nicknamed it, till a natiye obligingly gave its true title. This is at the middle of the sound, where an Island breaks the current, and several small fjords push into the land. Another very noble cluster of aiguilles is Euttind, on Vaago, but much to the south of listind. These peaks are mostly wreathed with foamy cloud, that ■on a fine day daintily rises and lays bare their dark beauty.

86 THE LITEKATUEE OF NOKTHEEX EUROPE.

and as airily closes round them again. About the summits the rifts and joints are full of snow all the summer, and from every bed, leaping over rocks and sliding down the smooth slabs of granite, a narrow line of water, white as the parent snow, falls in a long cataract to the sea. On the Hindo side, Kongstind, which lies north-east of listind, is the most striking mass. On both sides near the water the ground is covered with deep grass, of a bright green colour, and flowers bloom in beautiful abundance. In one place the harebells were so thick on the hill-side that they gleamed, an azure patch, half a mile away. Flocks of slieep and goats luxuriate in this lush herbage ; here and there ferns are in the ascendancy, Polypodium phlego- pteris and dryopteris being everywhere abundant.

Leaving the Eaftsund, we suddenly enter that sea-lake which, as I have said, holds the centre of the archipelago. We are now at the heart of the weird land, and the sight before us is one of the loveliest that can be conceived.. The bristling character of the southern coast gives place to a calmer, more placid scenery. Here there are no subtle rocks, no frightful reefs ; all is simple, serene, and stately. I cannot do better than give my remembrance of the first time I saw this scene, on a calm sunlit morning in July. Leaving the Eaftsund, we bore due north. As we steamed through quiet shimmering water gently down on Ulvo, the ghostly mountains lay behind us, a semi- circle of piu'ple shadow ; down their sides the clear snow- patches, muffling the vast crevasses, shone, dead-white, or stretched in glaciers almost to the water's edge. In sweet contrast to their grandeur, the sunny slopes of Ulvo rose before us, with the little kirk of Hassel nestling in a bright

STOKMAEKN^S. 87

gTeen valley ; in its heart one violet peak rose, hiding its dim head in the mystery of the vaporous air above. The sea had all the silence and the restfulness of dreamland : not a ripple broke the sheeny floor, save where a flock of ducklings followed in a fluttering arc the mother-bird, or where the cormorant hurled himself on some quivering fish. We drifted round the eastern promontory of the lovely isle ; peak by peak the pleasant hills of Lango gathered on our right, while to the left of us, and ever growing dimmer in the distance, the prodigious aiguilles of Vaago, in their clear majestic colour, soared unapproachable above the lower foreground of Ulvo. Behind us now was Hindo, less grand perhaps than Vaago, but displaying two central mountains of immense height, Fisketind and Mosadlen, the latter reported to attain a greater elevation than any in the group.

Lango lies very close on the right when we enter the Borosund and make for Stokmarknses. Boro itself lies in the strait between Ulvo and Lango. The pretty hamlet on its shores was the centre of the investigations of Dr. Greorge Berna and his friends, as related by Herr Carl Vogt in his interesting ' Nordfahrt.' On the northern shore of Ulvo, at the mouth of a small valley, lies the large village of Stokmarknses. It is almost a town, containing perhaps one hundred and twenty houses ; it may be the most populous place in the Lofodens, though I am told that the discovery of coal in Ando has greatly increased the village- port of Dvergberg in that island. Stokmarknses looks very pretty from the sea, with its clean painted houses of deal wood, and bright tiled roofs. Ulvo is the ricliest, most fertile, and most populous of the islands. It stands in the sea

88 THE LITEEATUKE OF NOKTHEEN EUEOPE.

like a hat, having a central mountain mass, and a broad rim of very flat and fertile land. To compare great things with mean, it is in shape extremely like that unpleasant island, Lunga, in the Hebrides, facetiously known as the Dutch- man's Hat. Ulvo culminates in a single peak, by name Sseterheid, which rises close behind Stokmarknses. This mountain, whose sides are principally covered by a thick jungle of birch underwood, slopes gradually away into a rocky ridge running across the island, and falls in steep precipitous cliffs to the flat lands that form the external rim. These flats were originally, I suppose, morasses, but have been in great part reclaimed, though on the eastern side of Sseterheid there are still great bogs, and two little tarns, full of trout. At Stokmarknges (which is quite a place of impor- tance, and had in the summer of 1871 a bazaar for the sick and wounded French) good accommodation can be had ; Herr Halls, the landhandler, being in a condition to make visitors very comfortable at a moderate charge, and this is a good station to leave the steamer at. Herr Halls also sup- plies karjols, and a very pleasant excursion can be made on one of those arm-chairs-on-wheels to the south of the island. There is one road in Ulvo, running from Stok- marknses round the eastern coast to Melbo, a gaard or farmstead opposite Vaago. It is a very good road, more like a carriage-drive through a gentleman's park than a public thoroughfare. It is about ten miles from Stok- marknses to Melbo. The road passes Hassel Church, at the eastern extremity of the ^ island, an odd octagonal building of wood, painted red, with a high conical roof. Norwegian churches have an excessively undignified look ; some are like pigeon-houses, some like pocket-telescopes.

ULVO. 89

Hassel reminded me irresistibly of a mustard-pot. Yet it is a structure of high ecclesiastical dignity, for not only all Ulvo, but parts of Lango and Hindo, and the whole north of Vaago, depend upon it for pastoral care. It is a very pretty sight on a summer Sunday morning to see the boats gathering from all parts to it, full of the simple, devout people in their holiday dress.

To judge by the number of red-shank and curlew that wheel above the traveller, or flutter wailing before him, the bogs beside the road must teem with wild-fowl. The north side of the island is thickly dotted witli farms and fishermen's huts, but after leaving Hassel and the adjoin- ing hamlet of Steilo tliese diminish in number, till at Melbo the road itself disappears, and the flat land becomes a wild peat bog, with only a few huts near the sea. Melbo is simply a large farm, owned by Fru Coldevin, a lady who opens her house in the summer for the accommodation of sportsmen and those few travellers that wander to this far end of the earth. A cluster of islets off the coast here is a part of her property. She preserves these rocks for the sea-birds, which flock to them in extraordinary numbers. Little kennels of turf and stone are built to shelter the nests, and here the eider ducks strip themselves of their exquisite down for the sake of their offspring, and in due time see it appropriated by Fru Coldevin.

The lovely range of snowy points in Vaago is seen on a fine day bewitchingly from Melbo. Mr. Bonney who unhappily seems to have had execrable weather in the Lofodens, sighed pathetically at these peaks from Melbo. He gives Alpine names to the two highest, supposing apparently that they were nameless in the native tongue ;

90 THE LITEEATURE OF NOETHERN EUEOPE.

they are not so neglected, however. The foremost moun- tain, which from Ulvo seems the highest, is Higraven, ' the tomb or monument of the wild beast ; ' and the other, really the loftiest peak in Vaago, is Blaamanden. My friend Mr. W. S. Green accomplished in 1871 the ascent of Higraven, and kindly permits me to transcribe from his journal the story of his adventure. Mr. Green's famili- arity with Swiss Alpine scenery would tend to make him a severe critic of mountain effects, and that he can write thus enthusiastically of the Lofodens is no small proof of their wonderful beauty.

Mr. Green started from Melbo on a fine July morning, at 10 A.M ; the clouds, taage, masses of opaque white fleece on the sides of all the peaks, promised ill for the expedition ; but soon these rolled away, and left the snowy rocks clear-cut against an azure sun -lit sky. ' The face of the sea was as smooth as glass, and over it rose the long line of snow-capped peaks, softening from rugged purple crags to emerald-green slopes as they approached the sea, looking about a mile off, though in fact the nearest of them was seven. I had determined beforehand which peak I should climb ; it seemed to be the highest in Ost Vaago and lay at the head of the Stover Fjord. My boatmen were pleasant fellows, and as I lay luxuriously in the stern, steering, I conversed with them in bad Norse ; my questions had reference principally to the sea- birds. A pretty little sort of guillemot with red legs they call testhe ; this bird is very common : another common bird, the hen-eider I think, is called ae. We passed many of these with a train of young ones after them. As the boat skimmed along we passed many beautiful jelly-fish r

ASCENT OF HIGEAVEN. 91

one sort of bolina about the size of a goose-egg was particularly common. At last, after winding through many islets, we enter the Stover Fjord : the only thing I can compare it to is the Bay of Uri, which I think it surpasses in beauty, and the Aiguille de Dru is rivalled by these snow-seamed pinnacles. But it was 12 o'clock, and I jumped ashore at a sort of elbow where the fjord forks. I put some provisions into my pocket ; then, with my sketching materials slung upon my back and my alpen-stock in my hand, I commenced the ascent. I first scrambled over boulders covered with fern, bushes, and wild flowers ; these soon became very steep, and slinging myself up hand over hand through the bushes was very warm work. I took off my coat and hung it in the strap on my back ; after a sharp climb over steep rocks I got on to a slope of snow that filled the gorge. In about an hour and a half I reached a col that I had aimed at all through. I could see the boat, a speck below, so I jodeled at the top of my voice, and soon heard a faint answer. The place I had come up was very steep, and the thought of descending it again not very pleasant. I took the pre- caution, however, of fixing bits of white paper on the rocks and bushes where I had met with difficulty, to serve as guides in my descent. There was a glorious view from where I stood, and the day was perfection. After another hour of steep climbing I reached a cornice of snow, but was able to turn off to the right and cross a level plateau of snow, from the other side of which rose up my peak. I now encountered very steep snow-slopes and rocks, and just before the snow rounded off into the dom, forming a summit, it became so hard that my feet could

92 THE LITERATUEE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

get no hold. I had to resort to step-cutting: about a dozen steps sufficed to land me on the dom ; an easy incline then led to the summit, on which I stood at 4.30 P.M. I wished for an aneroid ; but from the time I took to ascend, and from other circumstances, I should think the height to be over 4,000, and possibly 5,000 feet. Now for the view. I have yet to see the Alpine view that surpasses this in its extreme beauty : the mountain chain of the mainland was in sight for, I suppose, a hundred miles ; then came the Vest Fjord, studded with islands. The mountains around me were of the wildest and most fantastic form, not drawn out in a long chain, but grouped together, and embosoming lovely little tarns and lakes. The inner arm of the Stover Fjord, over which I seemed to hang, was of a deep dark blue, except where it became shallow, where it was of a bright pea-green. This latter colour may be accounted for by the fact that the rocks below low-water mark are white, with pure white nulli- pore and balani ; there is no laininaria or sea-weed of any sort in these narrow fjords, except Fucus veslculosns, and this grows only between tide-marks. Looking away to the north came Ulvo, with its fringe of islets ; then Lango, with its sea of peaks : these do not appear, how- ever, to be so high or rugged as the peaks of Hindo, that come next to the sight. Here Mosadlen stands up with his lovely crest of snow ; far away, in an opposite direction, lies Vest Vaago, where I remarked another peak that seemed to be of a respectable height. The view was per- fection : one drop of bitterness was in my cup, and that was that a neighbouring peak was evidently higher than the one I had climbed. It was connected with my peak

ASCENT OF HIGKAVEN. 93

by a very sharp rock arrete just below which was a flattish plateau of crevassed neve : it was too far to think of try- ing it, and it looked very difficult ; an attempt upon it would be more likely to succeed if made from the south- east. Having made a sketch and built a cairn of stones, I looked al)out for the easiest way to descend, and found that a long- slope of snow led into a valley connected with the north arm of the fjord ; this I determined to try. I climbed down the steps I had cut, with my face to the snow ; then sitting down and steering with my alpen- stock, I made the finest glissade I ever enjoyed. As I neared the bottom it was necessary to go lightly, as a torrent was roaring along under the snow. I soon had to take to the moraine, which was of a most trying character. I now got down to a charming little lake, in which islands of snow floated, and in which the peaks were mirrored to their summits. Skirting along this, and descending by the edge of a stream that led out of it, I came to another lovely tarn, on which were a couple of water-fowl. From this I clambered down through bushes at the side of a waterfall, and arrived on the strand of the fjord all safe. At 6.30 r.M. I was sitting in the boat, and in two hours arrived in Melbo.'

The superior peak that dashed Mr. Green's happiness was Blaamanden, which must now be considered the highest point out of Hindo. Vaagekallen is certainly lower even than Higraven.

Of the northern islands of the Lofoden group space fails me to speak much ; they are but little known. Lango was skirted by the German expedition whose story is ' erziihlt von Carl Vogt,' but his notes on this part of tlie tour are

94 THE LITEEATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

unfortunately very scanty. The northern peninsula would seem to be the finest part of Lango. I hear of a splendid mountain, Klotind, which fills this tongue of land with its spurs. Ando, the most northerly of the archipelago, is the tamest of all : the interior of it has been surveyed with such minute care, that it is impossible to suppose its moun- tains can be very rugged. For the sake of anyone desirous of visiting Ando, I may remark that a little steamer has been started in connection with the large boat which meets the latter at Harstadhavn in Hindo, skirts the north of that island, calls at Dvergberg and Andenses in Ando, and after a visit to the north of Senjen, returns the same way to Harstad. The same steamer calls oflf the coast of Oryto, a mountainous Lofoden, whose vast central peak of Fussen is seen in the distance from the Vaags Fjord.

In ordinary years the snow disappears from the low ground in these islands before May, and the rapid summer brings their scanty harvest soon to perfection. A few years ago, however, the snow lay on the cultivated lands till June, and a famine ensued. These poor people live a precarious life, exposed to the attacks of a singularly peevish climate. A whim of the cod-fish, a hurricane in the April sky, or a cold spring, is sufficient to plunge them into distress and poverty. Yet for all this they are an honest and well-to-do population ; for, being thrifty and laborious, they guard with much foresight against the severities of nature. In winter the aurora scintillates over their solemn mountains, and illuminates the snows and wan gray sea; they sit at their cottage-doors and spin by the gleam of it ; in summer the sun never sets, and they have the advantage of endless light to husband

THE MIDNIGHT SUN. 95

their hardly-won crops. Kemote as they are, too, they can all read and write : it is strange to find how much intelli- gent interest they take in the struggles of great peoples who never heard of Lofoden. It is a fact, too, not over- flattering to our boasted civilisation, that the education of children in the hamlets of this remote cluster of islands in the Polar Sea is higher than that of towns within a small distance of our capital-city ; ay, higher even, proportionally, than that of London itself.

I would fain linger over the delicious memories that the name of these wild islands brings with it ; would fain take the reader to the pine-covered slopes of Sandtorv, the brilliant meadow of little Kjoen, so refreshing in this savage land ; to the Tjeldsesund, as I saw it on a certain midnight, when the lustrous sun-light lay in irregular golden bars across the blue spectral mountains, and tinged the snow peaks daintily with rose-red. But space is want- ing ; and being forced to choose, I will wind up with a faint description of the last sight I had of the islands, on a calm sunny night in summer.

All day we had been winding among the tortuous tributaries of the Ofoten Fjord, and as evening drew on slipped down to Trano, a station on the mainland side of the Vest Fjord, near the head of that gulf. It had been a cloudless day of excessive heat, and the comparative cool- ness of night was refreshing ; the light, too, ceased to be garish, but flooded all the air with mellow lustre. From Trano we saw the Lofodens rising all along the northern sky, a gigantic wall of irregular jagged peaks, pale blue on an horizon of gold fire. The surface of the fjord was slightly broken into little tossing waves, that, murmuring

96 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

faintly, were the only audible things that broke the sweet silence ; the edge of the ripple shone with the colour of burnished bronze, relieved by the cool neutral gray of the sea-hollows. From Trano we slipped across the fjord almost due west to the mouth of the Kaftsund. The sun lay like a great harvest-moon, shedding its cold yellow light down on us from over Hindo, till, as we glided gra- dually more under the shadow of the islands, he disappeared behind the mountains : at 11. 30 p.m. we lost him thus, but a long while after a ravine in Hindo of more than common depth again revealed him, and a portion of his disk shone for a minute like a luminous point or burning star on the side of a peak. About midnight we came abreast of Aarstenen, and before us rose the double peak of Lille Molla, of a black-blue colour, very solemn and grand ; Skraaven was behind, and both were swathed lightly in wreaths and fox-tails of rose-tinged mist. There was no lustre on the waters here ; the entrance to the sound was unbroken by any wave or ripple, unillumined by any light of sunset or sunrise, but a sombre reflex of the unstained blue heaven above. As we glided, in the same strange utter noiselessness of the hour when evening and morning meet, up the Eaftsund itself, inclosed by the vast slopes of Hindo and the keen aiguilles of Vaago, the glory and beauty of the scene rose to a pitch so high that the spirit was op- pressed and overawed by it, and the eyes could scarcely fulfil their function. Ahead of the vessel the narrow vista of glassy water was a blaze of purple and golden colour, arranged in a faultless harmony of tone that waft like music or lyrical verse in its direct appeal to the emo- tions. At each side the fjord reflected each elbow, each

THE RAFTSUND. 97

edge, each cataract, and even the flowers and herbs of the base, with a precision so absolute that it was hard to tell where mountain ended and sea began. The centre of the sound, where it spreads into several small arms, was the climax of loveliness; for here the harmonious vista was broadened and deepened, and here rose listind towering into the unclouded heavens, and showing by the rays of golden splendour that lit up its topmost snows, that it could see the sun, whose magical fingers, working unseen of us, had woven for the world this tissue of variegated beauty.

RUNE BERG.

At the opening of the present century the monarchy of Sweden lay defenceless and almost moribund, supported in European opinion solely by the memory of its vast pres- tige. The dynasty of Wasa, which had held the crown for nearly two centuries, and from the hands of whose successive kings Sweden had received such matchless glory and such a world of sorrows, was approaching its last degeneracy in the person of Grustavus IV., a prim and melancholy bigot, touched with madness, and retaining of the iron will and clear intelligence of his ancestors nothing but a silly obstinacy and the ingenuity of a wizard maker of prophetic almanacks. The old order was passing away, throughout Europe, and the new had scarcely taken iixed form or entity. Geographically, Sweden had been dwindling throughout the eighteenth centmy, drying up, as it were, along the south shores of the Baltic : Courland was lost, Esthonia lost, even Pomerania was assailed. Finland, the most precious, the most extensive outland province, forming more than a fourth of the entire dominion, remained untouched, or almost untouched. There had not been wanting signs of Russian ambition working on the vast open frontier by Lake Ladoga. Already, before the century was half out, the great new power of Eastern Europe had determined that its capital would never be secure until the Russian supre- macy was acknowledged everywhere east of the Gulf of

FINLAND. 99

Bothnia. The Empress Elizabeth, while seizing the eastern counties of the province, had dangled before Fin- land the tempting hope of national independence under a protectorate of Kussia. In 1788 the malcontent nobles, met at Anjala, offered to another great woman, to the Empress Catherine II,, the dictatorship of Finland ; but their treason infuriated the middle and lower classes, and when the Russian army commenced its invasion in 1789, it was met by a resistance as determined as it was unexpected. It was in this campaign that modern Finland first expressed itself; the war culminated in the battle of Porrasalmi, a glorious victory for the Finns, in which Adlercreutz and Dobeln, afterwards so famous as generals, won their spurs. The peace of Warala, in 1790, left Finland full of the enthusiasm of military success, and loyal as a dependency of Sweden. But the murder of Gustavus III., at the Opera House of Stockholm, in 1792, brought the luckless Grus- tavus IV. to the throne, and reduced the nation to despair. One of the first events of the new reign was the loss of Pomerania. Finland now became the most precious, as it was the last, jewel in the Swedish crown ; and to comfort his excellent Finnish subjects, and to strengthen their, hearts in the fear of 'Punaparte,' as the Finns called Napoleon, the dreary monarch made a solemn tour through the province in 1802. Thus security reigned for a little while on both sides of the Gulf of Bothnia, Em'ope in the meantime writhing, convulsed by a conjunction of wars that threatened to conclude in chaos.

At this eventful moment the greatest poet that has ever used the Swedish tongue saw the light in a sea- port of Finland. Johan Ludvig Runeberg Avas bom

u 2

100 THE LITERATUEE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

February 5, 1804, at Jakobsstad, a little town half-way up the Grulf of Bothnia. He was the son of a merchant captain, and the eldest of six children. The straitened means of the parents induced them to accept the offer of the father's brother, a very well-to-do man in UleSborg, who offered to adopt Johan Ludvig. Thither, therefore, far away north, to the extreme town of the country, the child went. In Uleaborg he must have seen the birth- place of the greatest then-living poet of Finland, Franzen^ in whose steps he was afterwards to tread. We know little of his boyhood, except that at due age he was sent to the college at Wasa, and that he was so poor that he could only continue his studies there by serving as tutor to the younger and richer boys. But in the meantime changes of vast importance had occurred in the constitution of his country, changes to which he was destined in after life to give immortality by his art. In 1807, Napoleon had met Alexander I. at Tilsit, and had offered Finland to the Eussian monarch in exchange for help against England. By one of those coincidences which give history the air of a well-planned sensational drama, the autocrat who now lies under a mass of Finnish poi-phyry in his Parisian tomb set out on the last great perilous enterprise which led him to his doom by the sacrifice of Finland to Russian ambition.. In February 1808, three Russian armies broke into Fin- land. Like the troops who obeyed the summons from Anjala in 1788, these armies were grievously disappointed to find the fruit not ripe or ready to drop into their hand. Everywhere the Swedish sentiment was decided ; the Finns rose in arms, 19,000 strong, and collected around the fortress of Tavasthus. But their resistance was, at first.

WAE WITH EUSSIA. 101

not very successful. The south of the province was over- powered. Sveaborg, an impregnable maritime citadel, the Gribraltar of the north, built by Augustin Ehrensvard, in 1749, on seven islets at the entrance of the harbour of Helsingfors, was shamefully and treasonably surrendered. In May the Eussians marched into Helsingfors. Mean- while the Finlanders had a different fortune in the north, where, under two noble generals, Adlercreutz and Dobeln, they rallied their forces to defend the sea-coast and the Bothnia districts. On April 18, across the frozen river Siikajoki, the Swedes and Finlanders won their first victory, and defeated the Russians again, nine days later, at Revolax. A little later, Dobeln contrived to drive the enemy back from the walls of Nykarleby, and to win a signal victory at Lappo. But on September 14, 1808, Adlercreutz lost all but honour at the terrible battle of Oravais, the most fiercely contested and the decisive en- gagement of the campaign. Finland was lost, and by the Peace of Fredrikshamn, on September 17, 1809, it was finally annexed, as a grand duchy, to the dominions of Russia.

Such were the events which agitated the childhood of Runeberg. In after life he clearly remembered seeing Dobeln and Kulneff, the Swedish general with the black band round his forehead that concealed the wound in the left temple which he bore away after the battle of Porro- salmi, the Russian general with his bright eyes and long brown beard. He saw them in the streets of Jakobsstad, when he was four years old, and this memory gave a par- ticular colouring to his pictures of the war. Stories were repeated in his presence of the chivalric regard which each

102 THE LITEEATUEE OF NOETHEEX EUEOPE.

opponent liad for the other — ^how Kulneff forbade his Cossacks to fire upon Dobeln, and how Dobeln's soldiers respected the person of Kulneff; and when he came to wi-ite ' Fanrik StRls Sagner,' there was to be found among the portraits of friends and patriots a noble tribute to the generous Russian leader also. It is noticeable that in the native literature of Finland, since the annexation, there is none of the tone of smothered insurrection which marks the atmosphere of Poland, or even the dull discontent of Esthonia and Courland. The Swedish Lutherans of Finland have been by far the best treated of all the dependants of the empire. Xo attempt has been made to force Russian upon them as their official language, no check has been put on the free development of the literature, even when, as in the case of Runeberg, that development has taken the form of deepening and extending the patriotic sentiment. The fact is, that under the easy Russian yoke Finland is almost as free as she was under the Wasas, and has actually attained that intellectual and spiritual independence which Porthan, her great citizen of the eighteenth century, dreamed for her — an independence which consists in liberty of thought, the spread of an education congenial to the natm-e of the people, and a free development of science and 'belles lettres.'

In the autumn of 1822, Runeberg, then in his nine- teenth year, left Wasa to enter a student life in the University of Abo. He enjoyed few of the luxuries and the amenities which we identify with the existence of an undergraduate. Such a university life as is to be found in Aberdeen or St. Andrews presents a truer analogy with that in a Scandinavian town. Most of the students were poor.

FIRE OF Abo. 103

many of them extremely poor, and among these few had a harder struggle than Kuneberg. In the spring of 1827 he successfully closed his examinations, and received the degi'ee of Doctor of Philosophy. It was a little earlier than this that he made his first appearance before the literary public. One evening in 1826 a party of young people met at the house of Archbishop Tengstrom, the metropolitan of Finland ; a game of forfeits was set on foot, the last of which was lost by a student of the name of Euneberg. The young ladies put their heads together, and finally decided that, as he was suspected of writing verses, he should then and there compose a Hymn to the Sun. This he accom- plished, nothing loth ; and it was so highly approved of that Sjostrom, then considered one of the chief Finnish poets, printed it forthwith in a newspaper of which he was the editor. The young poet had hardly received his degree, when an event occurred which entirely revolutionised his career. On a mild September evening in 1827, as the good people of Abo were going to bed, they were alarmed to hear the tocsin furiously sounded from the tower of their cathedral. A girl had spilt some tallow, the tallow had taken fire, and in half an hour the wood-built city was in a blaze. The fire spread with infinite velocity, engulfed the university first, and then the cathedral ; before the morning broke, not an eighth of the flourishing capital of Finland still existed. In the confusion that ensued, the university was transferred to Helsingfors, a larger town further east on the Gulf of Finland, and this place has since then been the seat of government. Euneberg was left to choose his career. He decided to leave the sea-coast, where he associated only with educated persons using the

104 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

Swedish language, and to penetrate into the heart of the country, by so doing to gain a knowledge of his beautiful fatherland and its singular aborigines. He therefore accepted a tutorship in a family living at Saarijiirvi, a sequestered village in the heart of the country, on the high road between the Gulf of Bothnia and the White Sea. Here he had plenty of leisure to study the primitive life of the country people, among the desolate and impressive scenery of the interior. Saarijarvi lies on the extreme arm of one of the great winding lakes, that seem to meander for ever between forest and moorland, thickly dotted with innumerable islands. Kound it stretch in every direction the interminable beech-woods, muffling the air with such a silence that the woodman's axe falls with a mysterious, almost with a sinister sound. There are few spots in Europe so utterly remote and inaccessible ; the solitude is broken only by the farmer's cart, the footstep of some wandering Finn or Quain, or the voice of a Kussian pedlar from Archangel singing loudly to keep himself company through the woods. Here it was that Euneberg buried himself for three years. He had a good many books, mainly the Greek poets ; he studied hard, whether nature was his master or Homer, and he set himself studiously to unlearn whatever his teachers had taught him of the art of Swedish poetry. The ruling genius of Sweden at that date was Tegner, the famous poet of ' Frithiofs saga,' in whom the peculiarly Swedish vice of style, which consists in cultiva- ting empty and sonorous phrases, had reached its climax. Tegner was a poet of great genius, but he had not the intellectual courage or the inclination to cast behind him the poetic phraseology of his day. Instead of doing this,

KEALISM. 105

instead of adopting a realistic style, he simply gilded and polished the old ' ideal ' language, and the practical result of his brilliant productions was to paralyse poetry in Sweden for half a century. It was right that the voice which was to do away for ever with this glitter and fustian should come out of the wilderness. Not in Lund or Upsala, but in an unknown village in the heart of the forests of Finland, the seed was germinating which was destined to fill the whole country with a flower of a new sort, a veri- table wood-rose to take the place of the fabulous asphodel. In Tegner the old forces that battled in Swedish literature had found a common ground, and, as it were, an apotheosis. There were no longer academic writers who loved the old French rules, ' Phosphorists ' who outdid Tieck and Novalis in mysticism, Grothic poets who sought to reconcile the antique Scandinavian myths to elegant manners and modern thoughts ; all these warring groups united in Tegner or were extinguished by him. Between Tegner and Euneberg the natural link is wanting. This link properly consists, it appears to me, in Longfellow, who is an anomaly in American literature, but who has the full character of a Swedish poet, and who, had he been born in Sweden, would have completed exactly enough the chain of style that ought to unite the idealism of Tegner to the realism of Euneberg. The poem of ' Evangeline ' has really no place in Anglo- Saxon poetry; in Swedish it would accurately express a stage in the progress of literature which is now unfilled. It is known that Mr. Longfellow has cultivated the lan- guage of Sweden with much assiduity, and has contemplated literary life in that country with all the unconscioug affection of a changeling.

106 THE LITEKATUEE OF XOKTHEEN EUEOPE.

The years spent by Euneberg at Saarijarvi were occu- pied in almost continual literary production. He wrote here the most important and most original works of his early manhood. Among- these must be mentioned ' Svarts- jukans natter' ('Nights of Jealousy '), a large part of his

• Lyrical Poems,' and his great epic or idyl of ' Elgskyt-

tarne,' or * The Elk Hunters.' Of these the lyrical poems have lately been translated in their entirety in a version remarkable for care and scholarship.' They were originally published, together with a collection of Servian Folksongs, in 1830, and formed Euneberg's first published volume. This publication followed close upon the young writer's reappearance in the civilised world ; he left his hermitage in that year to accept the post of amanuensis to the council of the university, now settled in Helsingfors. The volume was dedicated to Franzen, the poet-bishop of Hemosand, one of the most illustrious persons Finland had produced ; a poem addressed to this eminent man breathes the same fresh and unconventional air that animates the body of the book itself, and also contains not a few traces of the study of the poet eulogised. In fact, the influence of Franzen is strong throughout the early writings of Euneberg — a pure and genial, but not robust influence, which did the young poet no harm, and out of which he very speedily grew. Franzen wrote to him a letter full of tenderness and prophecy. ' I know,' he had the generosity to write to this unknown beginner, ' that it is a great poet that Finland is about to produce in you.' The

' Johan Ludvig Euneberg's « Lyrical Songs, Id3'lls, and Epigrams,' done into English by Eirikr Magnusson, and E. H. Palmer. London,

1878.

THE GRAVE IN PERRHO. 107

perfume of the violet and the song of the lark were strong in this book of thoroughly sincere and unaffected verses, and the public was not slow in acknowledging the Bishop of Hernosand to have been a true prophet.

In 1831 he attempted to win larger laurels than the coteries of Helsingfors could offer him. He sent in to the annual prize-giving of the Swedish Academy a poem of considerable length, ' Grrafven i Perrho ' (' The Grrave in Perrho '), a work which for the first time displayed to advantage his rich severity of style, his epic force and freshness. It was the story of a grave in the wilds of Finland, the grave of an old man and his six tall sons, and told with infinite beauty the tragic circumstances that laid them there. The Swedish Academy, unable to overlook so much originality, but unwilling to crown a realist who disregarded the conventionalities so rudely, rewarded the poet with the small gold medal — a distinction commonly given to very mediocre merit. Still this was a measure of national recognition : and, in the glee of success, Eune- berg married one of the young ladies who had set him his first lesson in verse five years before, at the house of Archbishop Tengstrom. This year, indeed, proved a turn- ing-point in his life, for he received a post which bound him to the capital ; in reward for a learned tractate com- paring the ' Medea ' of Euripides with the ' Medea ' of Seneca, he was appointed Lecturer on Eoman Literature at the University. From this time forward every step was an advance ; he felt himself more and more sure of his genius, of his representative position in so small a state as Finland, where he began to take a place as literary oracle. He now undertook the labours of journalism, and founded

108 THE LITERATUEE OF NOETHERN EUROPE.

a newspaper, the ' Helsingfors Morgonblad,' whicli he edited with such success that it became the most influen- tial journal in the grand duchy. Runeberg remained sole editor until 1837, and dm-ing these years he made it the medium of spreading far and wide the principles of culture and literary taste. All the best critical writings of the poet, all which is preserved in the sixth volume of his col- lected works, originally saw the light in the columns of the ' Helsingfors Morgonblad.'

The greatest result of his solitude at Saarijarvi remained, however, still unknown till in 1832 he published his ' Elgskyttarne,' or ' The Elk Hunters.' This poem marks an epoch in Swedish literature. It is as remark- able in its way as the novels of Zola ; it begins a new class of work, it is one of the masterpieces of scrupulous realism, a true product of the nineteenth century. The form is the same adopted by Voss, Groethe, Tegner, Kings- ley, and many more North European poets for narrative work — the dactylic hexameter. But the Swedish language suits this exutic growth much better than Grerman or English : there are more compact masses of rolling sovmd to be obtained, it is far more easy to observe the rules of position. Euneberg seems to have gone straight back to Homer for his model ; and though there are moments when we feel that he could not entirely forget ' Hermann und Dorothea,' his hexameters have as a rule a more pure and classical character than Groethe's. The plan of the poem is as follows. The local magnate of an inland Finnish district, the Kommissarie or Agent, has ordered all the chief men of the place to meet at his house for an elk- himt next morning. The worthy farmer, Petrus, at home

'THE ELK hunters; 109-

in his large guest-room, prepares, half overcome with sleep, for the duties of the morrow, furbishing up his gun, and listening to his wife Anna, as she busies herself in the house and gossips. The door opens, and Anna's brother, Mathias, a rich farmer from a distant parish, whose wife had died about a year before, appears on an improvised visit. He has scarcely sat down to supper, when Anna commences to mourn over the desolate condition of his children, and urges him to find a wife to take care of his fine home at Kuru. Petrus proposes the beauty of their parish, Hedda, the daughter of Zacharias, and the pair paint her virtues in such glowing terms that Mathias begins to wish to see her. It is agreed that he shall follow the hunt next morning, and be introduced to her incidentally at the meet. Next morning Petrus is waked by the noise of a quarrel between Pavo, one of his servants, and Aron, a beggar to whom, after the Finnish custom, he is exercising hospitality. He rises in the dark winter morning, and he and Mathias start for the rendezvous. It is a ringing frosty day, or rather night, for the stars are still brilliant overhead. Petrus supplies his brother-in-law with an old Swedish rifle, a jewel of a weapon, as he explains in an episode. It was with this rifle that Petrus's uncle, Joannes, picked out a spy at an incredible distance in 1808, and this leads to other tales of the great war with which they beguile the way to the Agent's. At last they reach the house, and receive a warm welcome ; already the guest-room is full of people, and among the first they meet are Zacharias and his lovely daughter Hedda. There are, moreover, a group of Russian pedlars from Archangel who recognise Mathias, and loudly praise the hospitality

110 THE LITP:RATUEI<] of northern EUROPE.

they lately enjoyed at his house in Kuru. One of the pedlars, the brown-bearded Ontrus, thinks this an excellent opportunity for hawking his wares, and we have an ex- quisite pictiu-e of the girls darting like swallows around his pack as he displays his treasures. But alas ! they are poor, and there are no purchases. Mathias conceives that this is the moment for him to advance. He buys presents for them all, but the most costly and most tempting for Hedda. Petrus cannot help paying the beautiful girl a compliment in these words : —

As when a cloud in spring hangs bright o'er the trees on a hill-side, Hushed is the underwood all, and the birches stand mutely admii'ing, Watching the pride of the morning, the rose-hued breast of the

cloudlet, Till from the heart of it issues a breeze, and the shoots on the

branches Tenderly wave, and their leaves half unfolded shiver with pleasure, Not less quivers the youth when he gazes on Hedda and hears her.^

Hedda finds herself in a shy confusion, and sends Mathias a grateful glance when he reproves his brother-in-law for this persiflage. The Agent now appears, dawn is break- ing, and the hunters all go out into the snow, Mathias still dreaming of the beauty of Hedda. However, they call upon him for a story, and he rouses himself to de- scribe, in the most powerful and brilliant language, the killing of a bear. They find the elk on a wooded island, and the hunt begins ; but we are transported back to the Agent's guest-room, wliere the Archangel traders have made themselves cosy with the girls, and where the youngest of them, the handsome Tobias, excited with beer and love, begins to dance about, and to offer the indignant Hedda all his wares in exchange for a kiss. ' Appendix T.

'THE ELK HUNTERS.' Ill

His elder brother, Ontrus, turns him out of doors, where he screams and sings and jumps about till he drops down fast asleep. Ontrus gravely presses on Hedda the ad- vantages she would find in marrying this his scapegrace brother, till she at last escapes from his importunity by joining the old women upstairs. Ontrus then has a vio- lent quarrel with a spiteful ancient dame, the cripple Rebecca, and at last falls fast asleep upon the floor. This odd scene is described with great humour, and in minute detail, like a Teniers. Meanwhile the liunt proceeds ; four elks are shot, of which Mathias bags two with the famous Swedish gun. On the way home he asks Zacha- rias for leave to court his daughter. No sooner has he entered the guest-room than he finds an opportunity of speaking to Hedda, and is on the point of tenderly press- ing his suit, when the abominable old Rebecca puts in an oar and spoils it all. The girl flies to an upper room, but Mathias sends Petrus after her. A very quaint and charming scene ensues. Petrus sits down with his pipe opposite the conscious maiden, and recounts at great length the virtues and the possessions of this 'brave Mathias from Kuru,' — how fine his farmstead is, how wild and fertile his fields are, — taking care to explain that they consist of rich black top-soil on a clayey bottom. These poetic details move the maiden less than an eloquent re- cital of the vigour and excellence of the possessor, and Petrus begs her not to refuse because Mathias is no longer a romantic youth. He perorises thus : —

Never so rich is in blossoms a field in the heart of the summer, Child, as in pleasures the way to the grave if we walk with con- tentment ; If we but step with a care to the road, nor let Hope the enchantress

112 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

Leap from the path at our feet, and persuade us another -were fairer. Only the fool is beguiled, but he follows and wantonly wavers, Never at peace, till death suddenly falls on him, sighing, and takes him.^

Hedda finds it difficult to reply, but at last she manages to murmur a pretty and modest assent. And she sits awhile, weeping for pleasure, and patting Petrus's hand, until he weeps too, to keep her company. Then Mathias comes, and all is liappiness. We are now taken back to the homestead at Tjaderkulle, where Anna sits at home, while Aron the beggar plays national airs upon the jew's- harp — an instrument, perhaps, hitherto unknown to epic poetry. At Anna's desire he tells the terrible story of his life : how one bad season after another ruined him, till at last his wife died of starvation, and he himself nearly went mad. He has scarcely closed this tragical recital, when Petrus enters, and proposes they should all imme- diately proceed to the Agent's house, to be present at the betrothal of Mathias ; this they accordingly do, and the poem ends with a spirited and humorous picture of the scene at the ceremony.

The next few years of Runeberg's life were full of work and happiness. In 1833 he published a second voliune of lyrical poems, and improved his economical position by lecturing on Grreek literature in the imiversity. It was about the same time that he met the indefatigable collector of Finnish legends, the famous Dr. Elias Lonnroth, then still occupied in putting together the ancient epic of the ' Kalevala.' In this new-found treasure- house of mythological wealth Runeberg took the keenest interest, and translated the beginning of it into Swedish. ' Appendix U.

'HANNA.' 113

In 1836 Lonnroth made himself and Finland famous throughout Europe by his publication of the original text. It is perhaps fortunate that Euneberg did not carry out his original idea of translating the whole of the ' Kalevala,' a work well performed by less- representative hands than his. In 1834 he had attempted dramatic creation, in the form of a comedy in verse, ' Friaren frSn Landet ' (' The Country Lover '), which was acted and printed in ' Mor- gonblad,' but which the poet would never allow to be re- printed among his works. In 1836 appeared a poem far more worthy of his genius, the delicate idyl of ' Hanna.' This also is written in hexameters, and closes the first period of his poetic career. It was dedicated ' To the First Love,' and it forms, in fact, a kind of modern ' Eomeo and Juliet.' In a quiet Finland parsonage the pastor sits in his study, calmly smoking his pipe, and gazing over the hazy landscape. It is a warm summer afternoon, and he sits waiting for liis son, who has just

o

passed his examination at Abo. The lad has been told that if he passes he may bring home with him some poor comrade to spend the vacation in the country ; and he has passed, so a stranger is expected. In another room sits the pastor's lovely daughter, Hanna, weaving, but the perfume of the lilacs, blossoming at the open window, troubles her fancy, and she leans out into the warm air, her brain full of little graceful vanities, the pretty whims of a spoilt child. At this moment the old housekeeper, Susanna, enters, and tells her to dress as quickly as sh» can to receive the Bailiff, a man of fifty, rich and re- spected, who has just come to pay her father a visit. From some words the portly gentleman has let fall, she

I

114 THE LITERATUKE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

fancies that his mission is to ask Hanna for his wife. The girl is much fluttered, but not displeased at this notion : to be the cliief lady of the place is flattering to her vanity, and she does not comprehend what it is to be a wife. Her father comes to call her down, and though she clings to Susanna in her confusion, she is absolutely obliged to open the study-door at last.

Blushing she stood at the door, in the exquisite charm of her shyness, Coy as a strip of the sea that is caught by the rush of the mornmg. Slender and quivering in rosy dismay through the gloom of the wood- lands.^

The Bailiff is hardly less confused than she ; but her father, who greatly desires the match, expends much flowing speech, till the suitor succeeds in gaining confi- dence, and expatiates on the charms of his house and garden, the latter being so well-cultured and protected that sometimes, in very warm summers, they manage to ripen an apple. He apologises much for his age, thougli this has not occurred to Hanna as an objection. They give her some days to make up her mind, and she flies to her own room. There a girl, half friend, half depen- dent, called Johanna, is taken into her confidence, and violently objects to the match, advising Hanna to wait for some young suitor. Hanna, a little shaken in resolu- tion, is desiring more light on this difficult subject, when suddenly her brother and his friend arrive. The Bailiff has by this time gone, and the pastor is left free to welcome his son. The friend is discovered to be the son of the poet whose bosom companion the pastor was at college, and who died early. He is a handsome, ardent, ingenuous youth, and the old man is delighted thus to

' Appendix V.

• HANNA.' 1 1 5

renew the early alliance. Hanna enters, and there is mutual love at first sight. With him it is conscious, with her it is an unconscious trouble and dismay for which she cannot account. The pastor desires that they should embrace one another as if they were brother and sister, and Hanna kisses him lightly, like a summer wind, and disappears, to think it all over in her own room.

' So she thought to herself, and her thoughts were less words than a perfume.' She smiles to think how fresh and radiant he is, and then she weeps — not, she says, for love, but in anger that he, a young poor student, should dare to look so charming and so confidential. They have the evening meal together, and then her brother insists that she and the friend should go with him for a long- stroll together. They proceed down to the lake, and the brother expatiates on the scene, a truly inland land- scape, unlike the coast of the Grulf of Finland at Abo.

• Look at tke lake in the sunset," lie answered, ' look you, how unlike

'Tis to the sea as it moans round the rock-built shores of your child- hood ! Here there are verdure and colour and life ; quaint unmberlesrf

islands Shoot from the breast of the wave, and, gracefully swaying on each

one, Clumps of underwood offer the worn-out mariner shadow. Follow me down to the beach, calm strip between meadow and

water, Here you may glance o'er a wider expanse, discerning the hamlet Dimly sequestered afar, and the steeple that shines in the distance.' '

They continue their walk in the soft and magical air of a northern sunset, while their voices grow intenser and graver. A talk about wild birds reveals the tenderness of

' Appendix W.

116 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

Hanna's nature, and she is led to tell, with exquisite pathos, the story of the death of an old fisherman whose hut they pass. At last the brother confesses that he is betrothed to the friend's sister. They all seat themselves in the purple twilight round a bubbling well, and subdued by the witchcraft of the sound of the water, the perfume of the earth and the colour of the heavens, the lovers, who only met a few hours before, obey a sovereign im- pulse and fall into eacli other's arms. The brother is de- lighted ; all three proceed through the deepening dusk to ask the father's blessing, which he grants with some surprise, but with a very fairly good grace.

The great landmarks in a poet's life are events which would scarcely be worthy of mention in the biography of a man of action. The solitude at Saarijarvi, the public career in Helsingfors, had each in succession moulded and ripened the powers of Euneberg's mind ; a third step, the last in his life, was to develop those powers to their utmost, and to prepare him for their natural decay. In 1837 he accepted a professorate of Latin Literature at the College of BorgR, and removed thither with his family. This quiet little town remained his home for forty years, until his death. BorgS, which the long residence of Euneberg has rendered famous, lies some thirty miles east of Helsingfors, close to the sea, and on the high road into Eussia. It has a cathedral and a bishop, and enjoys a certain sleepy distinction that prevents it from becoming too tamely provincial ; but nothing can avail to make it other than a very hushed and dreamy little place. The poet became exceedingly attached to BorgS, and soon fell into that absolute, almost

JULQVALLEN. 11?

mechanical round of life which so often marks the later years of men of genius. In this quietude, which the college and the cathedral preserved from entire stagnation, he was able to write without distraction, and with the utmost regularity. He was now recognised as a leading- poet throughout Scandinavia: in 1839 the Swedish Academy, of its own free will, voted him the large gold medal, the highest compliment in its gift, and had he been a citizen of Sweden he would without doubt have been forthwith elected into that stately body. Baron von Beskow, on behalf of the Academy, conveyed to the young- Finnish poet a series of compliments that could not fail to gratify him. It was indeed a period of transition. The old writers were passing away ; several eminent poets of the elder generation had just died — Wadman, Nicander, Wallin. Tegner was at the height of his glory ; there was no young man so fit to be considered heir apparent of the skaldship as Runeberg. He was thus urged on to still higher attainment. His first work at BorgS, was of doubtful success. ' Julqvallen,' or ' Christmas Eve,' is an idyl of the same class as ' The Elk Hunters ' and ' Hanna,' but it possesses neither the force of the first nor the sweet- ness and colour of the second. It is not even a complete story ; it is merely an episode, and an episode not specially suited to poetic treatment. At the same time it is worked out with even finer dramatic tact and insight. An old crippled soldier, Pistol, is stumbling from his hut in the woods, through the snow, to the house of the Major, who has invited him to come to spend the festive Christmas Eve with his servants. Much jollity, however, cannot be expected : everyone has some near relative away in the

118 THE LITEKITURE OF NOETHEEN EUEOPE.

Russian armies fighting- the Turk, and who knows if he be alive or dead ? Pistol thinks of his only son, the apple of his eye, of whom he has for a long while heard nothing. While he tramps on, he hears a carriage behind him, and the clear voice of the IMajor's younger daughter, Augusta, calling to him to get in and ride. She is the light of the whole parish, and a universal favourite. Her elder sister, whose husband is away in the war, and her mother, spend their days in weeping and sighing, and nearly drive the old Major out of his wits ; Augusta alone tries to keep up something like cheerfulness at home. When they arrive at the house, Pistol goes into the kitchen, Augusta into the guest-room, where she finds the usual scene of petulant recrimination going on. Even she is almost in despair. But by degrees she manages to bring peace into the house again, and the way in which the Christmas Eve is spent, above stairs and below, is described very brightly and humorously. In the midst of it all there is a great noise in the com'tyard, lights are brought, and it is found that the Lieutenant, Augusta's brother-in-law, has come back safe and sound. There are universal rejoicings, until he comes to explain that poor Pistol's son has been killed by the enemy in a skirmish. This renews their regret, and Pistol is almost broken-hearted, thinking of the desolate life he must now live, alone in the woods. But the Major declares that he wn'll not allow him to go back to that solitude ; he must in futm-e take up his abode as one of the retainers of the great house, and in the prospect of so much kindness he is a little consoled for his loss. In ' Julqvallen ' Runeberg returns to the rigidly realistic style of ' Elgskyttarne,' which he had

' NADESCHDA.' 1 1 9

partly abandoned in ' Hanna ' in favour of a tenderer and more romantic feeling.

In the same year, 1841, lie published a very different poem, and a more successful one. He had hitherto devoted himself entirely to the study of Finnish character and the scenery of Finland ; in ' Nadeschda ' he has drawn from his experience of Russian character and manners, and has in fact written one of those Builinas or national Russian epics about which Mr. Ralston has told us much and promised us more in his charming ' Songs of the Russian People.' This curious poem is closely allied to the lyrical stories that Ruibnikof collected on the shores of Lake Onega from the lips of the peasants ; it is composed from the peasant's point of view, and shows a singular insight into Russian popular feeling. Until Mr. Ralston completes his study of the Builinas, it is not easy for a non-Russian student to understand what is exactly the form of these curious epics ; but Runeberg has pro- bably been correct in composing ' Nadeschda ' in a great variety of unrhymed, strongly accentuated measures. Nadeschda is a lovely Russian girl, a serf, and when the poem opens we find her wandering beside a tributary of the Moskwa, stirring the flowers with her fair feet, and dreaming of some vague lover, who will come to marry her. She bends over the water, and while she is admiring her own reflection, she remembers that this beauty is the beauty of a slave, and can be bought and sold. At this moment Miljutin, lier foster-father, comes to summon her to the festival of welcoming Prince Woldmar, their master, back to the castle. Nadeschda will not come, full of this new revolt against the^ humiliation of her birth. At last

120 THE LITEEATUEE OF NORTHEEN EUEOPE.

INIiljutin persuades her to come, and leaves her that she may adorn herself; but she refuses to bathe in the river, to girdle herself with flowers, or to put on her saint's-day garments. She weaves a belt of thistles and other dolorous herbs, and binding them round her common dress, she follows Miljutiu. INIeanwhile Prince Woldmar is approaching in a golden chariot, accompanied by his brother Dmitri, who is burning with jealousy to see the noble estate which his brother has inherited. Just out- side the gates they stop, at Dmitri's desire, and while the cortege waits, the brothers, with their falcons on their wrists, pass out into the woodland. They send their hawks after a dove, who flies in terror into Woldmar's bosom, and Woldmar's falcon kills Dmitri's. At this the evil brother's rage increases, and he demands a ransom. Woldmar promises him the fairest of his slaves, and at that moment they perceive Nadeschda passing through the forest towards the castle. They regain their carriage, but these incidents have sufficed to throw Woldmar into a rage, and as they drive up through the ranks of gaily-dressed retainers, his eye catches one girl who has only a coil of straw in her hair and thistles for a girdle. He stops and shouts to her to come to him ; it is Nadeschda. He storms at her for her disrespect, and swears she shall instantly marry the basest of his grooms ; but she, glancing timidly at him, perceives that he is the lover of her dream, and she flushes rosy red with shame and sorrow. He falls under the spell of her beauty and loves her, even before he has finished his reproof. Dmitri, also, perceives her loveliness, and claims her as the ransom for his falcon. But Woldmar gives Nadeschda her freedom, and then

'NADESCHDA.' 121

brusquely turning to Dmitri, says that he only promised to give him a slave, and that this is a free woman. Dmitri, excessively piqued, sends out the same night to secure her, but she has disappeared, and he cannot discover what has become of her. Two years are now supposed to pass, and we are presented to Nadeschda, a lovely and accomplished woman, who has been protected and educated in hiding by some noble ladies, friends of Prince Woldmar. He comes to visit her, and we are given one of Runeberg's characteristic love-scenes, full of tenderness and highly-wrought passion. He explains to her that they have everything to fear from his mother's pride and his brotlier's jealousy. In the next canto, however, he has resolved to brave these dangers, and bringing Nadeschda to his castle, he is about to be privately married to her, when Prince Dmitri hears of it, and communicates witli his mother, the Princess Natalia Feodorowna. The proud dowager determines that, sooner than her sou shall marry a serf, she will herself denounce him to the Empress. We then have a very dramatic scene. Potemkin is presented loimging on a rich ottoman, and scolding General Kutusoff and other eminent soldiers for the laxity of their regiments : he has some insolent word for each, and finally bids them all to leave his presence, except Prince Woldmar. Potemkin charges him with his intended mesalliance as with a crime, tells him of the Empress's displeasure, sends him oft' forthwith to Tomsk, and gives his castle, with Nadeschda in it, into his mother's care. Nadeschda is turned out of doors, and returns to the hut of lier foster father Miljutiu. Thither Dmitri follows her, expecting an easy conquest, but her dignity and her

122 THE LITERATUEE OF NOETHERN EUEOPE.

despair overcome him, aad he consents to leave her unmolested. The Princess Natalia ruins the district with her tyrannies, and the serfs are in the last 'condition of destitution, when suddenly the Empress announces that she is coming to the castle to spend the night. To hide the desolation of the scene, the Princess has some painted semblances of cottages set up along the opposite hill-side, and when the Empress arrives, she is so pleased at this appearance of comfort that she insists on going to visit the cottagers themselves. The Princess is accordingly disgraced, Nadeschda throws herself at the Empress's feet and is pardoned, and Prince Woldmar returns to celebrate his marriage.

The position of Euneberg at BorgS became more and more firmly settled. In 1842 he was offered and accepted the chair of Greek. A third volume of lyrical poems, in

1843, and the cycle of romances entitled ' Kung Fjalar,' in

1 844, testified to the freshness and ascending vigour of his imagination. 'Kung Fjalar,' in fact, marks the very apex of his powers ; Euneberg never exceeded this tragic work in the admirable later creations of his brain. It has an audacity, an originality that raise it to the first order of lyric writing. It is very difficult, by making a cold- blooded analysis of such a poem, to give the reader the least notion of its beauty. The plot is as follows. A mythical king of Grauthiod, Fjalar, has fought many battles and won as many victories ; his hair is silver, and he now determines to live at home in peace, and keep watch over the prosperity of his people. It is Christmas time, and there are re veilings in Fjalar's castle. As his warriors gather round him, he tells them that he desires

KING FJALAE. 123

rest ; he swears that by his own help, resting on his own will alone, he will lead the land up into wealth and happiness. As he makes this oath, an unknown stranger strides up the hall ; he uncovers his face — it is Dargar the seer, the all-wise prophet, who hates Fjalar. He prophe- sies woe to Grauthiod and its king ; and, as a last sorrow, Fjalar is to see before he dies his only daughter locked in the burning embrace of his only son. At a curse so fearful, silence and consternation rule in the hall : no one dares to speak till Fjalar orders the nurse to bring Hjalmar and Grerda, his infant children. He takes one babe on each arm, not knowing which to sacrifice, till at last his warriors persuade him to leave the boy to reign after him. One of them, Sjolf, approaches, and lifting Gerdafrom the king's embrace, takes her out into the night, and flings her, ' a laughing sacrifice,' off the cliff into the roaring sea. Fjalar forbids her name to be mentioned again, and then walks out in silence. The next canto takes us twenty years onward. In the Ossianic kingdom of Morven, the three sons of the king are all in love with his foster- daughter Oihonna, a lovely being mysteriously saved from the waves. Each of the sons tries to win her lieart by a song. This is Gall's, the eldest : —

Come, Oihonna, follow my life ! The hunter loves thee, rosy cloud ! The tall prince of the mountains Prays thee to sliare his upland footways.

Hast thou seen from thy mountain rocks The broad expanses smile in the morning ? Hast thou seen the wakening sunrise Drink the dew of the tremblin<i: haze ?

124 THE LITERATUKE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

Remember the sound of the windy woodlands, Leaves that stir in the wing of the wind, Birds' riot, and the intoxicate Brook that flies through the sounding houlders !

Dost thou know how beats the heart When to the noise of the horn and hounds Rustle the bushes, and lo ! the stag Checks his leap and is here before us ?

Maiden, lov'st thou the sombre twilight That melts to the shine of the dewy stars ? Come, from the summit of Mellmor Let us watch how the night is born.

how oft have I sat on the mountain "When in the west the sun has been closing His glimmering gates, and the red glow Slowly faded out of the sky.

1 have drunk the cool of the spirit of even, Seen the shadows walk over the valleys, Let my thoughts go wander

Around the sea of nightly silence.

Lovely is life on the cloudy heights,

'Tis easy to breathe in the fragrant woods ;

Ah ! be my bride ! I will open

A thousand pleasures around thy heart."

So sings Gfall the hunter, but in vain ; nor can Rurmar the bard, nor Clesamor the warrior soften her crystal heart. Next we have a scene in which Oihonna, ' the huntress of the swan-like arm,' is hunting the deer in the valley of Lora, in company with her friend the singer Gylnandyne. She sings the saga which tells how Hjalmar desired his father, King P^jalar, to let him go a- viking, and how, when the king would not, Hjalmar got away by stealth and won glory at sea. At this moment Oihonna is summoned back to Morven. When she arrives there, the Scotch king

• Appendix X.

KING FJALAR. 125

tells her of the circumstances of her coming- to that land, how a captain, sailing one Christmas night by King Fjalar's castle, found a girl-child in the sea, brought her to Morven, and dying, bequeathed her to the king. Hjalmar, the terrible vikingr, now appears and attacks Morven. He fights with each of the sons of King Morannel in turn, and kills them ; the youngest, Clesamor, fights so well that Morven trembles to hear a late half-dying echo from Ossian's heroic days, but falls at last. Morannel dies of grief in the arms of Oihonna. We then return to Gauthiod, where, from the heights above his castle, Fj alar, now extremely old, gazes in content and self-gratulation over the land that has prospered under his firm will and peaceful rule. He thinks of the old curse only to deride it, when suddenly the evil seer, Dargar, arrives, and denounces the king. The hour of the vengeance of the gods is, he says, at hand ; and he points to a golden speck on the horizon, the dragon of Hjalmar returning across the sea. They watched the approaching fleet ; the prows grate the shore, and Hjalmar slowly ascends the mountain with a bloody sword in his hand. He explains that from the court of Morven he bore off Oihanna, a lovely and a loving bride ; that on their homeward voyage she told the story of her birth, and that he perceived her too late to be his sister. With the sword he holds he slew her, and now he slays himself before his father's throne. The sun goes down, and when they turn to King Fjalar he is dead. Even from so slight an outline as this it may be seen how lofty a rendering this is of the old theme that wise men are powerless fighting against the gods. Fjalar is great, virtuous, and humane, but because he does not make the

126 THE LITEKATUKE OF NOKTHEEN EUROPE.

gods witnesses to his oath, he brings down upon himself and his race their slow but implacable vengeance. The style in which this poem is composed is exceedingly cold and severe, with delicate lyrical passages introduced with- out any detriment to the general solemnity. The work is like a noble frieze in marble, where among the sublime figures of the gods and their victims, the sculptor has sought to introduce an element of tenderer beauty in the flying graces of a garment or the innocent sweetness of a child's averted head.

We have now arrived at the work which did most to give Euneberg a name throughout all classes and in all the provinces of the North. It was in 1848 that he published the first series of ' Fanrik StSls Sagner ' (' Ensign StSl's Stories '), a series of narrative poems dealing with the war of independence in 1808. The cycle pro- fesses to be said and sung by an old ensign, a veteran from the days of Dobeln and Adlercreutz, who recites to a young student all he can remember about the war. Similar stories Euneberg himself had heai'd, as a boy of sixteen, from an old corporal at Euovesi. He himself, as we have said, dimly remembered seeiug the Swedish and Eussian armies pass through his birth-place, Jakobsstad. The publication of these national poems, breathing the full perfume of patriotic regret, the mingled tone of war-song and of elegy, created such a sensation as is but poorly comparable with the success of Mr. Tennyson's ' Charge of the Light Brigade.' The volume was such a one as Mr. Dobell's ' England in Time of War ' might have proved in the hands of a far saner and more judicious poet. The first series appeared in 1848, the second in I860; and

FANRIK STALS SAGNER. 127

with one poem on the treacherous surrender of Sveaborg-, which was suppressed at the supplication of the descend- ants of the traitor, there are thirty-five pieces in all. They are varied in subject and style ; they describe every- one from the king and the generals down to village maidens and ' drunken privates of the Buff.' ' Fanrik StSls Sagner ' opens with the famous hymn which has become the national anthem of Finland, ' VSrt land, vSrt land.' This is one of the noblest strains of patriotic verse ever indited ; it lifts Euneberg at once to the level of Callicles or Campbell, to the first rank of poets in whom art and ardour, national sentiment and power of utterance, are equally blended. Unhappily, in its crystal simplicity and its somewhat elaborate verse form, it is practically untranslatable. To enjoy it is one of the first and best rewards of him who takes the trouble to learn Swedish. The old Ensign is next described, and the events that led to his repeating tliese tales of his ; and then the tales themselves begin. Some of the figures that stand out against the background of the war are of a marvellous freshness and realistic force. The stupid Sven Dufva, who had an heroic heart ; Lieutenant Ziden, who cheered on his little troop from Wasa; Wilhelm von Schweriil, the boy-hero ; Otto von Fieandt, who uses his whip instead of a sword ; General Adlercreutz fighting at Siikajoki. All are good ; it may almost be said that not one is poor or weak. Perhaps the most exquisite, the most inimitable of all is ' Soldatgossen,' the boy whose father — a brave young soldier — fell at the battle of Lappo, and who is only longing to be fifteen years old that he may take up his rifle and go to fight the Kussians. The absolute

128 THE LITEEATUEE OF NOETHEEN EUEOPE.

perfection of this poem, which it would be ruinous to fail to give, is too terrifying for a translator to attempt. Such a poem is like the strange draughts that Persian monarchs boasted ; it takes its colour wholly from the vase that holds it, and would seem mere trash poured into a less cunning goblet. As a ballad less fine, and in a form less exacting, I venture to attempt a version of ' Torp- flickan ' : —

THE VILLAGE GIRL.

The sun went down and evening came, the quiet summer even, A mass of glowing purple lay between the farms and heaven ; A weary troop of men went by, their day's hard labour done. Tired and contented, towards their home they wended one by one.

Their work was done, their harvest reaped, a goodly harvest truly, A well-appointed band of foes all slain or captured newly ; At dawn against this armed band they had gone forth to fight, And all had closed in victory before the fall of night.

Close by the field where all day long the hard hot strife was raging, A cottage by the wayside stood, half-desolate and ageing, And on its worn low steps there sat a silent girl, and mused And watched the troop come slowly by, in weary line confused.

She looked like one who sought a friend, she scanned each man's face

nearly. High burned the colour in her cheek, too high for sunset merely ; She sat so quiet, looked so warm, so flushed with secret heat, It seemed she listened as she gazed, and felt her own heart beat.

But as she saw the ti-oop march by, and darkness round them stealing, To every file, to every man, her anxious eye appealing Seemed muttering in a shy distress a question without speech, More silent than a sigh itself, too anguished to beseech.

But when the men had aU gone past, and not a word was spoken. The poor girl's courage failed at last, and all her strength was broken. She wept not loud, but on her hand her weary forehead fell, And large tears followed one by one as from a bm-uing well.

FANRIK STALS SAGNER. 129

' Why dost thou ^Yeep ? For hope may break, just where the gloom is deepest !

daughter, hear thy mother's voice, a needless tear thou weepest ; He whom thy eyes were seeking for, whose face thou could&t not see, He is not dead : he thought of love, and still he lives for thee.

He thought of love ; I counselled him to shield himself from danger,

1 taught him how to slip the fight, and leave them like a stranger ; By force they made him march with them, but weep not, rave not thus, I know he will not choose to die from happy life and us.'

Shivering the maiden rose like one whom awful dreams awaken, As if some grim foreboding all her soul in her had shaken ; She lingered not, she sought the place where late had raged the fight, And stole away and swiftly fled and vanished out of sight.

An hour went by, another hour, the night had closed around her ; The moonshot clouds were silver-white, but darkness hung below

them. ' She lingers long ; O daughter, come, thy toil is all in vain, To-morrow, ere the dawn is red, thy bridegroom's here again ! '

The daughter came ; with silent steps she came to meet her mother, The pallid eyelids strained no more with tears she fain would

smother ; But colder than the Avind at night the hand that mother pressed, And whiter than a winter cloud the maiden's cheek and breast.

' Make me a grave, mother dear ; my days on earth are over ! The only man that fled to-day, that coward, was my lover ; He thought of me and of himself, the battle field he scanned, And then betrayed his brothers' hope and shamed his father's land.

When past our door the troop marched by, and I their ranks had

numbered, I wept to think that like a man among the dead he slumbered ; I sorrowed, but my grief was mild, it had no bitter weight, I would have lived a thousand years to mourn his noble fate.

( ) mother, I have looked for him where'er the dead are lying, But none of all the stricken bear his features, calm in dying ; Now will I live no more on earth in shame to sit and sigh. He lies not there among the dead, and therefore I will die.' *

' Appendix Y.

130 THE LITERATUEE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

There can be little doubt that in ' Fanrik StSls Sagner' Finland has presented Swedish literature with the most intimate, glowing, and original poetical work that it possesses. And it is very interesting to note how much of what is most notable in the history of Sweden has proceeded from this desolate and distant province, now hopelessly separated from the realm itself. In the annals of statecraft, of the church, of war, and of the navy, the names of Finns are singularly prominent. In literature, some of the leading writers in each century — Frese in the seventeenth, Creutz and Kellgren in the eighteenth, Franzen, Fredrika Bremer, and Zakris Topelius in the nineteenth — have been natives of Finland ; but of all these Kuneberg is the greatest. On May 1 3, 1 848, the ' VSrt Land,' to which music had been set by the greatest of Finnish composers, Pacius, was sung outside the city of Helsingfors, and the ringing tones of the new National Anthem were taken up by thousands of voices. This was the crowning day in the life of Runeberg.

By this time he had outlived the economical pressvu'e of his earlier years. In 1844 he had been made titular Professor, and decorated with the order of the North Star by the King of Sweden, Oscar I. In 1847 he was unani- mously elected Rector of the College of BorgS. In 1 851 he achieved the only foreign journey he ever took, namely, a trip into Sweden, the great aim of which was a visit to the novelist, Almqvist. He entered Stockholm just in time to hear that this illustrious person, perhaps the first intellect which Sweden then possessed, had just taken flight for America under a charge of forgery and suspicion of mur- der. This startling catastrophe caused Runeberg a lively

EUNEBEEG AT BORGA. 131

disappointment, which the Swedish Academy and its spokes- man, Baron Beskow, did their best to remove by the cordiality of their welcome. Both in the capital and in Upsala he enjoyed the honours of a notable lion. At Upsala however, he was thrown into the deepest melancholy by the constant necessity of answering the speeches made him on public occasions, for he was a very shy and poor speaker. He soon returned to BorgS, never to leave it again, hugging himself with the delight in home which so often marks a man of his type of genius. He was now possessed of a handsome house, which it was his delight to fill with objects of art, for he posed as the first connoisseur in Finland. When he had originally settled in BorgS he had rented a very small and humble house in the out- skirts of the town ; and towards the end of his life he was fond of repeating a story which showed that this prophet at least was not without honour in his own country. For, walking in the lonely streets one moonlight night, he was struck with a desire to go and look at this little lodging where he had spent so many of his struggling days. He found it ; there was a light in the window, and, peeping through the shutters, he saw an artisan busy over his work, and singing. He listened attentively ; it was one of Eune- berg's own songs, and the poet turned away with tears of pleasure in his eyes. From this time forward his life was extremely uneventful. In 1853 lie collected his prose writings, and published them under the title of ' Smarre Berattelser.' In 1857, as president of the committee to select a National Psalter, he published a 'Psalm-book for theuseof Evangelico-Lutheran Congregations in Finland,' to which he contributed sixty-two psalms of his own com-

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132 THE LITEEATURE OF NORTHEEN EUROPE.^

position, A second series of ' Ensign StSl's Tales ' appeared in 1860, and he closed his long literary career with the production of two dramatic works, — ' Kan ej ' (' Can't '), a comedy in rhyme, performed and published in 1 862 ; and ' Kungarne pS, Salamis ' (' The Kings at Salamis,') a tragedy in the manner of Sophocles. This last is one of his noblest works, combining the Attic severity with the modern poifft's realism and truth of detail. It resembles our own English dramas of ' Atalanta in Calydon ' and 'Philoctetes ' more closely than what the continental poets usually give us as revivals of the antique tragedy. The metre in which it is written is closely modelled on what the Swedish poet has conceived to be the tragic measure of the Greeks, the Sophoclean trimeter.

When, in 1S70, Professor Nyblom, in editing the works of Euneberg, issued a biographical notice which still remains the chief storehouse of information, the poet was already in very weak and precarious health. As late, how- ever, as April 1877, he was well enough to publicly con- gratulate his old friend and fellow-poet Cygnseus on attain- ing his seventieth birthday. But he was taken ill very shortly after, and on the afternoon of Sunday, ]May 6, 1877, he passed away in his seventy-fourth year. He has left many disciples behind him, and in his friend and follower, Topelius, Sweden once more borrows from Finland lier most prominent living poet. The influence of Euneberg on the literature of his timeh as been healthy and vigorous. In Talis Qualis, who survived him only a few weeks, he found in Sweden itself a quick and strong imagina- tion lighted at the lamp of his own. The present King of Sweden, Oscar II., in his excellent poem of ' Svenska

SWEDISH POETRY. 133

flottans minnen,' has shown himself a scholar of the great Finnish realist. In Carl Snoilsky, the latest product of Swedish poetry, we find another side of Euneberg's genius, the artistic and classic, laid iinder the contribution of discipleship, although the main current of this last writer's lyrical work flows in a more modern and a more intense channel, and proves him the more direct disciple of the great Danish lyrist, Christian Winther. We know as yet little of Euneberg's life, little of the inward development of his great powers. A collection of his posthumous writings, as well as an exhaustive biography, will be welcomed by every lover of his noble verse.

THE DANISH NATIONAL THEATRE.

The only instance in which unfamiliar forms of culture have a claim on public attention is when they are wholly original and individual. The development of the ages is now too vast for men to spare much time in the study of what is merely imitative, and even reproductions of ancient phases of art and literatm-e must now be very excellent or very vigorous, to succeed in arresting general interest. But art is no respecter of persons, and merit in nations, as in individuals, is still not naeasured by wealth or size ; and it sometimes happens even in these days that what is most worthy of attention is to be discovered in narrow and im- poverished circles of men, the light of genius burning all the clearer for the atmospheric compression in which it is forced to exist. Of modern peoples none has displayed the truth of this fact more notably than Denmark, a country so weak and poor, so isolated among inimical races, so forlorn of all geographical protection, that its very place among nations seems to have been preserved by a series of accidents, and which yet has been able, by the brilliance of the individual men of genius it has produced, to keep its distinct and honourable place in the world of science and letters during a century and a half of perilous struggle for

DENMARK. 135

existence. There is not another of the minor countries of Europe that can point to names so universally illustrious in their different spheres as Orsted, Thorwaldsen, Oehlen- schlager, Madvig, H. C. Andersen. The labours of these men, by nature of their craft, speak to all cultivated persons ; the electro-magnetic discoveries of Orsted tinge all modern habits of life ; the fairy-stories of Andersen make an enchanted land of every well-conducted nursery. These men have scarcely influenced thought in their own land more strongly than they have the thought of Europe. But I purpose here to speak a little of a form of culture which has penetrated no less deeply into the spiritual life of Denmark, and which by its very nature is restricted in its workings to the native intelligence.

Of all the small nations of Europe, Denmark is the only one that has succeeded in founding and preserving a truly national dramatic art. One has but to compare it in this respect with the surrounding lands of a cognate character, with Sweden, Norway, Holland, to perceive at once the complete difference of individuality. In all these countries one finds, to be sure, what is called a Eoyal Theatre, but on examining the repertoire one is sure at once to find the bulk of acting plays to be translations or adaptations. If the popular taste is sentimental, the tendency will be towards Iffland and Kotzebue, tempered with a judicious selection from Shakspeare and Schiller ; if farcical, perhaps native talent will be allowed to compete with adaptations from Scribe, while the gaps will be filled up with vaudevilles and operettas translated from the French, and set on the stage purely to give employment to the gregarious multi- tude that sing tolerably and act most intolerably. In such

136 THE LITERATURE OE NORTHERN EUROPE.

a depressing atmosphere as this the stage can hardly be said to exist ; what poetical talent the nation possesses pours itself into other channels, and sometimes a theatre is found stranded in a position of such hopeless incompetence, that it is ready to adopt the masterpieces of the contempo- rary English drama.

But the old dingy tlieatre that was pulled down in Copenliagen in 1874 had another tale to tell than such a dreary one. For within its walls almost all that is really national and individual in the poetic literature of the country had found at one time or another its place and voice. Within the walls that now no more will ever dis- play their faded roses and smoky garlands to the searching flare of the footlights, almost every Danish poet of eminence — with the exception of Grrundtvig and Winther, perhaps every one — had received the plaudits of the people, and been taken personally into the sympathy of the nation in a way no mere study-writer ever can be taken. Perhaps this is why the Danes preserve such an astonishing personal love for their dead poets. Men who had seen the white, sick face of Ewald grow whiter under the storms of applause, and the long thin fingers press the aching brow in an agony of nervous agitation ; the next generation that saw Oehlen- schlager, handsome and burly, in his stall, receive the plaudits like a comfortable burgess, one of themselves ; the younger men that knew the haughty, keen face of Heiberg, master of all the best aesthetic culture that his age could give, yet a Dane in every feature, and a type to every romantic youth of what a Dane should be— these men had a sense of being a living part and parcel of the national poetic life such as no citizens have had save at Athens, and Florence,

THE DANISH THEATEE. 137

and Weimar ; and their sympathy has been so far wider than these, that it was not the emotion of a single circle, however brilliant, of a single city, however potent, but of a whole nation not potent or brilliant at all, but beating to the heart's core with that warm blood of patriotism that has sent its men, again and again, to certain, hopeless death with cheerful resignation. It is this living force in the dramatic art of Denmark that makes it worthy of study. No lyric or scenic excellence in native writers, no glitter- ing and costly ornament, coidd have secured to the Royal Theatre of Copenhagen the wonderful influence that it has had over public life, if it had not in some way been able to stand as the representative of the best national life of the coimtry. It is this that gives it a unique place in the history of the modern drama. In Copenhagen the stage has been, what it has not for centuries been in London, the organ by which poetry of the highest class speaks to the masses. The nearest parallel to the position of the Danish Theatre is found amongst ourselves in the new-born popularity of concerts of classical music. Just as crowds throng to hear the elaborate and delicate harmonies of Beethoven and Schumann, till one is set wondering how much of this is habit and fashion, and how much apprecia- tion of the noblest art, so in Copenhagen is one astonished and puzzled to see crowded audiences, night after night, receive with applause dramatic poems that take a place among the most exquisite and subtle works in the language. Nor is the position of the theatre as a means of widely popularising the higher culture the only or the main service it performs ; it is a school for patriotism. Here the people hear their native tongue spoken most purely and most

138 THE LITERATUEE OF NORTHEEN EUROPE.

beautifully, and the peculiar character of the ablest plays on the boards gives the audience an opportunity of almost breathing a condensed air of love for the Fatherland. The best Danish comedies, the old-fashioned but still popular pieces of Holberg, deal almost wholly with life in Copen- hagen; and after the lapse of one hundred and fifty years, the satire in them which lashes an affectation of Grerman taste and German fashion is as welcome and as fresh as ever ; the most popular tragedies are those of Oehlenschlager, almost without exception occupied with the mythic or the heroic life of early Scandinavia ; the later dramas of Heiberg mingle poetic romance with life out in the woods and by the lakes of Zealand ; while the farces of Hostrup never stray outside the walls of Copenhagen, but point out to a keenly-appreciative audience the ludicrous side of the men and women that jostle them hom'ly in the familiar, homely streets. In a commimity so small that almost everybody knows everybody else, a copious literature studded with local illusion becomes as intensely interesting to the popu- lace as the vers de soclete of a witty poet become to his circle of admirers and butts ; and when the interest thus awakened is led to concentrate itself on topics of the gravest national importance, art approaches its apotheosis, and nears the fulfilment of its highest aim. In fact, if a foreign power secured Copenhagen and understood the temper of the people, its first act would undoubtedly be to shut for an indefinite period the doors of the Koyal Theatre.

The ugly old theatre that has just been pulled down to make room for a splendid successor was a disgrace to Kongens Nytorv, the handsome central square of Copen-

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THE OLD DANISH THEATRE. 139

liagen, and its area had long been quite unable to offer comfortable sitting room to the audience. It was well that it should be pulled down and a better house be opened ; but in the moment of destruction a thought of gratitude seemed due to the building that had seen so many triumphs of art, so many brilliant poetical successes, and had so large a share in the best life of the country. It was one of the oldest theatres in Europe, having reached the age, most un- usual in this class of houses, of one hundred and twenty-six years. In Paris, where dramatic art has so lovingly been studied, and where the passion for scenic representation was so early developed, only two out of the thirty or more theatres now open date from the last century — the Theatre Franjais from 1782, and the Theatre Porte St. Martin from 1781. The latter suffered so severely under the Commune in 1871, that it hardly comes into the category. Here in London almost all the theatres date, in their pre- sent position, from later than 1800, although several of the most important occupy the same classical ground as houses that have been destroyed by fire. This greatest enemy of theatres has wonderfully spared the stage at Copenhagen, where the Eoyal Theatre, built in 1784, contrived to last till our own day, to undergo the more ignominious fate of being pulled stone from stone.

When Eigtved, the architect, finished it in 1748, it was not the eyesore that it had been of late years ; it was considered an adornment to that very Kongens Nytorv that lately groaned under its hideousness. But the growth of the audience, the necessity of more machinery and more furniture, at various times obliged the management to throw out frightful fungus-growths, to heave up the roof,

140 THE LITERATUEE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

and make all raaniaer of emendations that destroyed the last vestiges of shapeliness. It was the first theatre where the Danish drama found a firm place to settle in ; and after doubtful and dangerous sojourns in Grounegade and other places, this secure habitation was a great step forward. It seated, however, only eight hundred spectators ; and although the decorations and machinery were so magnifi- cent that a performance was announced gratis, merely that there might be an opportunity of impressing society with a Mercury on clouds, and Niglit brought on in an airy chariot drawn by two painted horses, still a modern audience might have grumbled at having to spend an evening, or rather an afternoon — for the performances began at 5 p.m. — in the old building. The stage was lit up by tallow candles, which had to be briskly snuffed by a special attendant ; the orchestra could onlv muster ten pieces, and the wardrobe suffered from a complaint the most terrible for green-rooms — poverty of costumes. Tiie heart and soul of tlie management was Holberg, that most gifted of all Danes before or since, who more than any other man has succeeded in lifting his country into an honourable place among the nations. If it be true, as has been said, that Groethe created for Grermany the rank it holds in the literature of Europe, much more true is it that Denmark owes to Holberg what rank she has succeeded in attaining. This remarkable man played so important a rule in the dramatic life of the early times of wliich we speak, that a few words seem demanded here on his life and personal character. He was born, like so many other men who have made a name in Denmark, in Norway, in 1 684. When he was eighteen he came up to study at the

HOLBERG. 141

University of Copenhagen, and, being- left almost entirely destitute, was thrown on the resources of his own talents. Wandering all over the north of Europe, he came at last to Oxford, where he lived for two years, studying at the University, and subsisting in the meanwhile by teaching languages and music. After years of extraordinary adven- tures, including a journey on foot from Brussels to Mar- seilles, a narrow escape from the Inquisition at Genoa, and a return journey on foot fi'om Rome over the Alps to Amsterdam, he settled in Copenhagen about the year 1716. Already a great part of his historical works were written, and he gave himself now to law and to philology. His name became generally famous in Denmark as that of a brilliant writer on the subjects just mentioned, but no one suspected that a series of comic poems, published under the pseudonym of Hans Mikkelsen, and over which Copen- hagen became periodically convulsed with laughter, were produced by the grave Professor of Latin Eloquence. From 1716 to 1722 he successfully preserved his authorship a secret from the world ; but when a circle of those friends to whom his humorous genius was known besought him to try to write for the Danish stage comedies that should banish French adaptations from the theatrical repertoire, in assenting he took a place before the public as a comic poet which has outshone all his reputation in science and history, bright as that still is. Until then Copenhagen had possessed a Crerman and a French, but no Danish theatre. The first of Holberg's Danish comedies that was produced was the ' Pewterer turned Politician ' (' Den politiske Kandestober '), a piece that recalls somewhat the style of Ben Jon son in the ' Alchemist,' but which for the

142 THE LITEEATUEE OF NOETHERN EUROPE.

rest is so wholly original, so happily constructed in plot, so exquisitely funny in evolution, that it is one of the most remarkable works ever produced in Scandinavia. Had Moliere never lived, the genius of Holberg would have proved itself superhuman : but the fact is that the Danish poet, in the course of his travels, had had opportunity to study the French comedian thoroughly, and had adopted the happy notion of satirising atfectation and vice in Copenhagen, not in the same but in a parallel way with that adopted by Moliere in lashing Parisian society. In consequence, the series of Holberg's dramas display no imitation, but a general similarity of method, while the precise nature of the wit is characteristic only of himself. These comedies so far belong to the school represented among ourselves by Ben Jonson, and in our own day by Dickens, that the source of amusement is not found in intrigue, nor mainly in the development of the plot, but in the art of bringing prominently forward certain oddities of character, which in the Shakspearian time were called ' humours.' Holberg's loving study of the French drama preserved him from the temptation of exaggerating these studies of eccentric character into caricature; the odd lines are just deepened a little beyond what nature commonly presents, and that is all. These comedies show no signs of losing their freshness. They are as popular on the stage to-day as they were one hundred and fifty years ago, and com- pared with those English plays that just preceded them, from Wycherley to Colley Gibber, they appear astonishingly modern, and as superior in wit as they are in morality and decency ; whereas Holberg's humorous epics and lyrics have long ago gone the way of most such writing, and are

HOLBERG'S COMEDIES. 143

honourably unread in every gentleman's library. The thirty Holbergian comedies formed the nucleus of the Danish drama. It was in 1722, before the actors had found a home in Kongens Nytorv, that the ' Pewterer turned Politician ' was produced, and the rest followed in quick succession. Some remarks in one of them against the Gferman tendencies of the ministry then in power had the effect of bringing upon Holbergthe displeasure of men in authority ; an attempt was made to burn the play publicly, together with another peccant book of Holberg's, the comic epic of ' Peder Paars,' and to punish the author. Fortunately, King Frederick IV. took the poet's part, and this incident only served to intensify popular interest in dramatic representations.

When the Eoyal Company flitted over to Kongens Nytorv in 1748, Holberg was the heart and soul of the new enterprise. The repertoire consisted almost entirely of his own comedies, and of translations of the best pieces of Moliere. He was fortunate enough to secure in Clementin and Londemann two interpreters whose tradi- tions still cling about the stage, and whose genius, if we may trust the reports of contemporary writers, was in the highest degree suited to set the creations of the great humourist in the broadest and wittiest manner before an audience that had to be educated into appreciation. The memory of these two men is so far interesting to us, as there seems no doubt that it is to them and to their great master that we owe the chaste and judicious style in acting which still characterises the Danish stage. A stranger from London or Berlin, we will not say from Paris, is struck in Copenhagen by the wonderful reserve and poetical

144 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

repose that characterises the general tone of the acting ; no one is permitted to rave and saw the air ; it is preferred to lose a little in sensation, if thereby something can be gained in completeness. The great merit now-a-days of Danish acting is not the supreme excellence of a single performance so much as the intelligence of the whole company, and the happy way in which all the important parts are individually made to build up the general harmony of effect. This chastity of art has come down as a tradition from Clementin and Londemann, and for this, if for nothing else, they deserve a moment's recol- lection.

In 1771, the Royal Theatre entered upon a fresh and fortunate epoch. It became a pensioner of Grovernment, and at the same time received its first important enlarge- ment. This crisis was simultaneous with two events of literary importance. One was the production of the lyrical dramas of Johannes Ewald, the poet who composed the well-known national hymn,

King Christian stood Iw the high mast,

and who composed, lying on his back in bed, dying, like Heine, by inches, some of the masterpieces of Danish dramatic literature ; and the other was the production of a single play so unique in its character that it is worth while to pause a few minutes to discuss it. In the course of fifty years, no poet had risen up whose talents in any way fitted him to carry on the war against affectation that Holberg had fought so bravely and so successfully. The comedies of that author, however, still kept the stage, and the particular forms of folly satirised by them had long

'LOVE WITHOUT STOCKINGS.' 145

ago died and faded into thin air. But affectation bas a thousand hydra-heads, and if a Hercules annihilate one, there are nine hundred and ninety-nine left. The craving after Grerman support and German fashion was indeed dead in 1772, but another fearful craving had taken its place, a yearning after the stilted and beperiwigged chivalry that passed for good manners and good taste in France, or rather on the French heroic stage. To act in real life like the heroes of the tragedies of Voltaire was the universal bourgeois ideal in Copenhagen, and to write as much as possible in alexandrines the apex of good taste. Zaire was the model for a romantic Danish lady. This rococo taste had penetrated to the theatre, where the nobility and the court had introduced it after the death of Holberg. Voltaire had been translated and imitated with great popular success ; and when the Royal Theatre was opened anew after its enlargement, a native tragedy by the court poet, Nordahl Brun, was performed on the opening night. This production, which out-Alzired ' Alzire,' was the finishing touch given to the exotic absur- dity. A young man, who had hitherto l^een known only as the president of a kind of club of wits, rose up and with one blow slew this rouged and ruffled creature. His name was Wessel, and the weapon he used was a little tragedy called ' Love without Stockings.' The title was quite eii regie ; ' Love without Hope,' ' Love without Fortune,' ' Love without Eecompense,' all these are familiar ; and why not ' Love without Stockings ' ? The populace thronged to see this novelty, and Zaire and Zarine and all the other fantastic absurdities faded away in a roar of universal laughter. ' Love without Stockings ' is in some

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146 THE LITEEATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

respects unique in literature. The only thing- I know that is in any way parallel to it is Lord Buckingham's ' Eehearsal ; ' and it differs from that inasmuch as that, while the ' Eehearsal ' parodies certain individual pieces of Dryden and others, Wessel's play is a parody of a whole class of dramas.^ ' Love without Stockings ' ! Cannot one love without possessing stockings ? Certainly not, answers Wessel ; at all events, not in the age of knee-breeches. And out of this thought he developes a plot wholly in accordance with the arbitrary rules of French tragedy, with the three unities intact, with a hero and his friend, a heroine and her confidante, with a Fate that pursues the lovers, with their struggle against it, their fall and tragic death. And the whole is worked out in the most pathetic alexandrines, and with a pompous, ornate diction. At the same time, while he adheres strictly to the rules of French tragedy, he does so in such a manner as to make these rules in the highest degree ridiculous, and to set the faults of this kind of writing in the very plainest light. The wedding-day of the two lovers has arrived ; all is ready, the priest is waiting, the bride is adorned, but alas ! the bridegroom, who is a tailor, has no stockings, or, at all events, no white ones. What can he do ? Buy a pair ? But he has no money. Borrow a pair of his bride ? On the one hand, it would not be proper ; on the other, his legs are too thin. But his rival is rich, is the possessor of many pairs of white stockings ; the lover fights a hard battle, or makes out that he does, between virtue and love — but love

' Perhai^s the closest English analogue is Henry Carey's Draijon of Wantley, the fun of which was so potent against the Italian opeia in 1738.

'LOVE WITHOUT STOCKINGS.' 147

prevails, and he steals a pair. Adorned in them he marches off to the churcli with his bride, but od the way the larceny is discovered, and the rival holds him up to public disgrace. For one moment the hero is dejected, and then, recalling his heroic nature, he rises to the height of the situation and stabs himself with a pocket-knife. The bride follows his example, tlien the rival, then the confi- dante, then the friend ; and the curtain goes down on a scene in the approved tragic manner. The purity of the language, and the exactitude with which not only tlie French dramas, but the Italian arias then so much in vogue, were imitated, secured an instant success for this parody, which took a place that it has ever since retained among the classics of its country. The French tragedy fell ; an attempt to put Nordahl Brun's ' Zarine ' on the boards again was a signal failure, and the painted Muse fled back to her own Gallic home. The wonderful promise of ' Love without Stockings ' was scarcely fulfilled. Wessel wrote nothing more of any great importance, and in a few years both he and Ewald were dead. The death- blow, however, that the first had given to pompous affec- tation, and the stimulus lent by the second to exalted dramatic writing, brought forward several minor writers, whose very respectable works have scarcely survived them, but who helped to set Danish literature upon a broad and firm basis. The theatre in Kongens Nytorv took a new lease of vitality, and, after expelling the French plays, set itself to turn out a worse cuckoo-fledgling that had made itself a nest there — the Italian Opera. This institution, with all its disagreeable old traditions, with its gang* of castrati and all its attendant aliens, pressed hard upon the

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comfort and welfare of native art, and it was determined to have done with it. The Itnlians were suddenly sent about their business, and with slirill screams brought news of their discomfiture to Dresden and Cologne. Then for the first time the Royal Theatre found space to breathe, and since then no piece has been performed within its walls in any other language than Danish. When the present writer heard G-luck's opera of ' Iphigenia in Tauris ' sung there some years ago Avith infinite delicacy and finish, it did not seem to him that any charm was lost through the fact that the libretto was in a language in- telligible to all the hearers. To supply the place of the banished Opera, the Danes set about producing lyrical dramas of their own. In the old Hartmann, grandfather to the now living composer of that name, a musician was found whose settings of Ewald have had a truly national importance. The airs from these operas of a hundred years ago live still in the memory of every boy who whistles. From this moment the Eoyal Theatre passed out of its boyhood into a confident manhood, or at least into an adolescence which lasted without further crisis till 1805.

It was in that year that the young and unknown poet, Adam Oehlenschlager, wearing out a winter in Germany under all the worst pangs of nostalgia, found in the Uni- versity Library at Halle a copy of the Icelandic of Snorre Sturleson's ' Heimskringia." The event was as full of import to Scandinavian literature as Luther's famous discovery of the Bible was to German liberty. In Oehlen- schlager's own words, he read the forgotten classic as one reads a packet of new-found letters from the dearest friend

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OEHLENSCHLAdEE. 149

of one's youth; and when he reached ' Hakon Jarl's Saga ' in his reading, he laid the folio aside, and in a kind of ecstasy sat down to write a tragedy on that subject, which was the firstfruits of a new epoch, and destined to re- volutionise poetic literature, not in Denmark only, but thi'oughout the North. To follow the development of Oehlenschlager's genius would take us too flir from our present inquiry, and belongs rather to the history of poetry proper than to that of the Danish theatre. It suffices to point out that the real addition to national dramatic art given by these tragedies was that the whole subject-matter of them was taken from the legendary history of the race. Instead of borrowing themes from Italian romance or German tradition, this poet took his audience back to the springs of their own thought and legend ; in the sagas of Iceland he found an infinite store of material for tragic dramas in which to develop emotions kindred to the people in whose language they were clothed, and to teach the unfailing lesson of patriotism to a nation that had almost forgotten its own mediseval glories. In place of the precious sticklers for the unities, Oehlenschlager set be- fore his eyes Shakespeare for a model; but his worship was less blind than that of the German romanticists, and did not lead him into extravagances so wild as theirs. In later years, when he passed from the influence of Goethe, he fell into a looser and more florid style ; but in his earlier dramas he is, perhaps, the coldest and most severe playwright that has ever succeeded in winning the popular ear.' So intent

' There can be no question that the early decadence of Oehlen- schlager's genius was mainly due to the absurd excess of laudation showered upon him in Denmark. He rose again, for one moment, in 1842, to the height of his power, in the tragedy of ' Dina.'

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was he on insisting on the heroic, primal forms of life, so careless of what was merely sentiment and adornment, that he presents in one of his most famous tragedies, ' Palnatoke,' the unique spectacle of a long drama, in which no female character is introduced. It was not intentionally so; simply Oehlenschlager forgot to bring a woman into his plot. He rewarded the patience of the public by dedicating his next play, ' Axel and Valborg,' entirely to romantic love. The success of this piece on the stage was so great, that, as the poet was away from Copenhagen and wished the printing to be delayed, large sums were given for MS. copies, and a clerk busied himself day after day in writing out the verses for enthusiastic playgoers. As it was seventy years ago with fashionable people, so is it to this day with every boy and maiden. The fame of Oehlenschlager, like that of Walter KScott amongst ourselves, has broadened and deepened, even while it has somewhat passed out of the recognition of the cultivated classes. It is usual now-a- days, in good society, to vote Oehlenschlager a trifle old- fashioned; but for every thoughtful boy his tragedies are the very basis upon which his first ideas ofculture are built up; they are to him the sum and crown of poetry, while all other verses seem but offshoots and imitations ; they are to him what bread is among the necessaries of life. He measures the other poets that he learns to know, by Oehlenschlager, but there is no one by whom he dreams of measuring him; he looks at him as the sun of their planet- circle, and he knows nothing yet of any other solar system. Just as these tragedies are tjie foundation of a Dane's edu- cation, so for the Danish stage they have always been, and will remain, the foundation of everything that the theatre

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can offer of serious drama, the very cornerstone of the whole edifice: and, rightly enough, an amBitious actor's first desire is to fit himself for the performance of the heroic parts in these, the manner and style being already traditional. The strings that' Oehleuschlager touched had never before been heard in Denmark; he led his audience into a world of thought and vision where its feet had never stood before, and he spoke in a language that had never yet been declaimed from behind the footlights. It was not, therefore, wonderful that some years went by before a school of actors arose whose powers were adequate to the biu'den of these new dramas, and who coidd be the poet's worthy interpreters. Without such interpreters the tragedies of Oehleuschlager might have passed from the stage into the library, and their great public function never have been fulfilled. But as early as 1813, in Ryge, a man of superb histrionic genius, an actor was found wholly worthy to bear the weight of such heroic parts as Hakon Ja rl and Palnatoke ; some years afterwards Nielsen and his celebrated wife began to share this glory, and the palmy days of Danish acting set in. Fru Nielsen was the Mrs. Siddons of the Danish stage; in her highly-strung sensibi- lity, native magnificence of manner, and passionate grace, she was exactly suited to give the correct interpretation to Oehlenschiager's queenly but rather cold heroines.

The next event in the Royal Theatre was the intro- duction of Shakspeare, but unfortunately he did not arrive alone. The newly-awakened sense for what was lofty and pathetic sought for itself satisfaction in the dreadful dramas of the Grerman * Sturm und Drang Periode,' and threatened to lose its reason completely in the rant

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and bluster of melodrama. Again the popular sanity was rescued from its perils. We have seen the Danish drama created by the comedies of Holberg, and then fall into the snare of pseudo-classic tragedy; we have seen it saved from this wrinkled and mincing foe by a single scathing parody, and then fall gradually into a condition of tameness and triviality. Out of this we have seen it suddenly lifted into the zenith of the poetical heavens by the genius of Oehlen- schlager ; and now we find it tottering dizzily, and ready to fall into some humiliating abyss. It does not fall, but is carried lightly down into the atmosphere of common life on the wings of a mild and homely muse. Hitherto the stage had been forced to adapt itself to the poet's caprices ; it found in 1825 a poet who would mould himself to its needs and exigencies. Heiberg imderstood how to bring all forms of scenic individuality into his service; for the descendants of Holberg he provided laughter, for the interpreters of Oehlenschlager parts that displayed the mild enthusiam of Scandinavian romanticism. Above all he possessed the art of setting an audience in good humour at the outset ; his most serious dramas had some easy-going prologue, in which good, honest Copenhageners found themselves lightly laughed at, and their own darling haunts and habits por- trayed with a humour that was wholly sympathetic. And, having at his hand more than one young composer of en- thusiasm and talent, and being from the first a passionate admirer of the Swedish airs of Bellman, he brought music and dancing into his plays in a way that the audience found ravishing, and that filled the house as it had never been filled before. His success combined with it that of his inti- mate friend, Hertz, whose southern imagination and passion

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flowed out in pJays that brought au element of richness and colour into Danish dramatic art that had always been lack- ing before. Heiberg's wife became the first actress of her time ; and these three friends contrived for a long succession of years to hold the reins in all matters regarding the theatre, and in measure, also, to govern public taste in general ques- tions of art and literature. The two poets are both dead ; F'ru Heiberg still lives in honoured age, the centre still of a keenly critical circle. The influence of Heiberg and Hertz on popular feeling in Denmark has been extraordinary; in a larger country it could not have been so powerful, being, as it was, almost wholly critical and of a peculiarly delicate type. The average cultivated Dane now-a-days is very much what Heiberg has made him ; that is, one of the most refined, fastidious, and superficially cultivated men of his class in Europe, but wholly incapable of creating new forms of art, and so perfectly satisfied with its past that lie has no curiosity for its future. The only new class of drama ])roducedin Denmark in our own time is the farces of Hostrup, pieces that belong to the ' cup and saucer ' school, and are very much what Robertson would have written, if Robertson had happened to be born a poet. Let us hope that the new house will bring forward new writers, anrl that the period of lethargy and reaction after the last out- burst of poetry is nearly over.

An account of the Danish Royal Theatre would be very imperfect without some notice of a form of art which borrows no aid directly from poetry, but which has developed itself in a quite unique manner at Copenhagen. Already in the middle of the last century, under tlie direction of Graleotti, tlie ballet was made a prominent

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feature on the boards of the Eoyal Theatre ; and from the records of that time we learn that it already began to be regarded with a seriousness that has hardly been afforded to it elsewhere. However, it was not until about fifty years ago that it took the peculiar form which it now holds, and which gives it a national importance. If one can fancy an old Gfreek in whose brain the harmonious dances of a divine festival still throbbed, waking suddenly to find himself settled in this commonplace century as dancing-master at the Eoyal Theatre of Copenhagen, one can form some notion of the personality of Bournonville. Tins poet, to whom the gift of words seems to have been denied, has retained instead the most divine faculty for devising intricate and exquisite dances, and for framing stories of a dramatic kind, in which all the action is performed in dumb show, and consists of a succession of mingled tableaux and dances. These dumb poems — in the severely intellectual character of which the light and trivial pettiness of what all the rest of Europe calls a ballet is forgotten — are mostly occupied with scenes from the mythology and ancient history of Scandinavia, or else reflect the classicism of Tborwaldsen, with whose spirit Bournonville is deeply imbued. No visitor to Copenhagen should miss the opportunity of seeing one of these beauti- ful pieces, the best of all, perhaps, being ' Thrymskviden ' (the ' Lay of Thrym,' a giant king), to which Hartmann has set the wildest, most magical music conceivable. Certain scenes in this ballet remain on the mind as visions of an almost ideal loveliness. The piece is oc- cupied with the last days of the ^sir, the gods of heathen Scandinavia, against whom, it will be remembered, be-

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trayed by Loki, the Evil God, one of themselves, the powers of darkness and chaos rose, and who sank to destruction in the midst of a general conflagration of the imiverse. When once the natural disappointment that follows the discovery of these colossal figures of the ima- gination dwarfed to human proportions has subsided, the vigour and liveliness of the scenes, the truly poetic conceptions, the grace and originality of the dances, surprise and delight one to the highest degree ; and the vivid way in which the dumb poem is made to interpret its own development is worthy of particular attention, the insipidity of ordinary ballet-plots giving all tlie more piquancy to the interest of this.

It cannot be wholly without value to us to be made aware of the success of other nations in fields where we have been notoriously unsuccessful ourselves. Without falling into any of the jeremiads that have only been too plentiful of late years, we may soberly confess that our own theatres have long ceased to be a school for poetic education, or influential in any way as leaders of popular thought or taste. They have not attempted to claim any moral or political power ; they have existed for amuse- ment only, and now, in the eyes of most cultivated persons, they have ceased even to amuse. Over the drop- scene at the Koyal Theatre at Copenhagen there stands in large gold letters this inscription : ' Ej blot til Lyst ' — not merely for enjoyment : and in these simple words may be read the secret of its unique charm and the source of its power. It has striven, not prudishly or didacti- cally, but in a broad and healthy spirit, to lead the popular thought in high and ennobling directions. It

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has not stooped to ask the lowest of its auditors how near the edges of impropriety, how deep into the garbage of vulgarity and slang, how high in the light air of triviality it dared to go ; it has not interpreted comedy by farce, not turned tragedy into melodrama, nor dirtied its fingers with burlesque, but has adapted itself as far as possible, meekly and modestly, to the requirements of the chastity of art, and has managed for a century and a half to support a school of original actors and a series of national plays without borrowing traditions or dramas from its neighbours. Denmark is an extremely insignificant country ; but that exemplary insect, the ant, is also small, and yet the wisest of men deigned to recommend it to human attention.

FOUR DANISH POETS.

The revival of romantic poetry in Denmark was almost exactly coeval with the movement of Wordsworth and Coleridge amongst ourselves, and in each case the intro- duction of a somewhat poor and inartistic element from Germany was the immediate cause of the development of a rare, vigorous, and many-sided poetic art. In Denmark, two Scandinavian exiles brought romanticism back with them on their return ; of these one was a philosopher, Henrik Steffens, the other was a poet, Schack- Staffeldt. These persons did for their country not only what Coleridge did for England, but what he proposed to do. In theory and practice, by stirring lectures and by exquisite lyrics, they pointed their countrymen to the value of abstract and mystic thought, and in the same dreamy spirit to the popular legends and ancient mytho- logy of their country. Steffens indeed was met by public disapproval, but in private discussion he lit the ambition of Oehlenschlager and Gnmdtvig, and a new epoch com- menced. To chronicle the bare facts of the fertile and brilliant period that ensued, merely to enumerate works of all the romantic poets from Schack- Staff eldt to Paludan- Miiller, would need more than one volume. The efflo- rescence of Danish poetry lasted about half a century,

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from 1800 to 1850, and in this sliort space of time tlie valuable part of the literature of Denmark was trebled in bulk. I have thought it might be of some interest, and not unsuited to the limited space at my command, if I gave a rapid sketch of the characteristics of four deceased poets, widely divergent from one another, each of the highest eminence in his own line, and with each of whom it has been my privilege to come into some measure of personal intercourse. These four were the last ' survivors of a race of intellectual giants, the tradition of whose prestige will long give Denmark an honourable prominence among the nations of Northern Europe.

It was on the last Sunday of July 1872 that I set out to hear Bishop Grundtvig preach in the little workhouse chapel, called the Vartou, opposite the trees and still waters of the western ramparts of Copenhagen. I had much desired for some time past to satisfy the curiosity I felt to see the oldest poet, certainly, then alive in Europe, but my friends were of the orthodox party in the Church, and some little difficulty was made. However, the amiability of my host overcame his scruples as a rival theologian, and we set out together. We found seats with difficulty, for the chapel was crowded with communicants, the day being of special importance among the sect. After sitting more than half-an-hom-, surrounded by strange fanatic faces, and women who swung themselves to and

' I do not forget Christian Winther, but regard him as the first of a new school, rather than as the last of tlie old.

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fro in silent prayer, it seemed to be decided that tlie Bishop was unable to come, and we began to sing- hymns in the loud, quick, joyous manner invented by the poet, and very different from the slow singing in the state churches. Suddenly, and when we had given up all hope, there entered from the vestry and walked rapidly to the altar a personage who seemed to me the oldest man I had ever seen. He prayed in a few words that sounded as if they came from underground, and then he turned and exhorted the communicants in the same slow, dull voice. He stood beside me for a moment as he laid his hands on a girl's head, and I saw his face to perfection. For a man of ninety, he could not be called infirm, but the attention was drawn less to his vitality, great as it was, than to his appearance of excessive age. He looked like a troll from some cave in Norway ; he might have been centuries old.

From the vast orb of his bald head, very long silky hair, perfectly white, fell over his shoulders, and mingled with a long and loose white beard. His eyes flamed under very beetling brows, and they were the only part of his face that seemed alive, even when he spoke. His features were still shapely, but colourless and dry, like parchment. I never saw so strange a head. When he rose into the pulpit, and began to preach, and in his dead voice warned us all to beware of false spirits, and to try every spirit, he looked veiy noble, but the nobility was scarcely Christian. In the body of the church he had reminded me of a troll ; in the pulpit he looked more like some forgotten Druid, that had survived from Mona and could not die. It is rare indeed to hear any man

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preach a sermon at ninety, and perhaps unique for that man to be also a great poet. Had I missed seeing him then, I should never have seen him ; for he took to his bed next day, and in a month the grand old man was dead.

Nikolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig was born in 1783, at the parsonage of Udby, in the south of Zealand. All his relatives were Zealand folk : both on the father's and mother's side the family had been Danes of the most Danish intensity for loug generations. Perhaps this has had something to do with his great love of all that is national and homely ; of all the Northern writers, not one has so exclusively been a man of the people. When he was only nine years old he was sent away to school in Jut- land, and while he was here the news came of the execu- tion of Louis XVI. The poet was wont to declare that he could remember it ; doubtless the great events in PVance were the subject of much excited talk in the tutor's house at Tyregodluud. When he was fifteen he was sent to the Latin school at Aarhuus, but long before this his mind had begun to take in literary impressions. On the wild moors of Jutland, lie had learned to steal out alone with old chronicles and war-songs under his arm, and devour strange romances. At Aarhuus he made friends with a little old shoemaker, and, sitting by his fireside through the long winter nights, heard folk-song after folk-song, and story after story. In 1800 he became a student at the Uni- versity of Copenhagen, and began to study Icelandic. About 1803 he came under the influence of his cousin, Henrik Steffens, then a very prominent man just returned from Germauy full of Fichte and Schelling, and whose

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lectures on the poetic treatment of themes of popular history were a revelation to the young men of the day. The works of Steffens are almost forgotten now- a-days, but in the earliest years of the century he was a power in the North of Europe, more by the almost magnetic attraction of his personal presence than by any great depth or value in his words.

In a pretty country-house, in the island of Langeland, where he was tutor, Grundtvig now began to throw him- self heart and soul into literature. He studied Icelandic, that he might make himself master of the ancient sagas ; German, that he might revel in Goethe and Tieck ; and English, that he might stand face to face with Shakspeare. But what roused the young Titan more than all was the publication of Oehlenschlager's first volume of poems, which came to him in his solitude in Langeland, and fired him with a new ambition. Henceforth he was a poet, but his first two works, though published under the patronage of Eahbek, the Maecenas of Danish letters, fell dead from the press. But he had many strings to his bow. In 1 807 he published ' On Religion and Liturgy,' in which he stepped forward as a spiritual reformer, urging the neces- sity of a broader spirit in religious matters. The daring tone of the book drew people's attention to its author. In 1808 he appeared before the public in yet another guise, as author of ' The Mythology of the North,' a first attempt at a philosophico-poetical interpretation of the Scandi- navian miyths, and this was followed by a long epic poem of similar drift, ' The Decline of Heroic Life in the Nortli.' Literary work was carried by him to such an excess that in 1810 his nervous system gave way, and the young poet

M

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had to go home to his father's house to be nursed. Here he wrote ' A Short Sketch of the World's Chronicle,' a fanatical and violent work, which roused a good deal of ill-feeling against him. In 1813 his father died, and he came to live in Copenhagen. There his literary am- bitions blossomed out in the most fervid manner. The seven years of his stay in the city are filled with the record of ceaseless labour ; he published in that period a great mass of poetical, theological, and philosophical works, edited and wrote a newspaper, and translated into the best Danish, Snorro Sturleson, Saxo-Grammaticus, and Beo- wulf. In 1821 he came with his newly-wedded wife to live at Prsesto, a little country town in Zealand, of which he had been made pastor ; but the provincial life proved unbearable, and in a few months he flitted back to the capital.

Hitherto his life had been one of constant and well- merited success, but now a hand was interposed to stop the onward course of victory. It must be confessed that his own imwisdom drew it on him. In the University of Copenhagen a Dr. Clausen was Professor of Theology ; Grundtvig, who had long passed beyond the romantic theology of Steffens, considered Clausen too much addicted to rationalistic ideas, and openly, even violently, charged him with heresy. The result was a law- suit for libel, and Clausen was suc- cessful. Grundtvig was heavily fined, and placed under ecclesiastical censure, a ban which was not removed for sixteen years. He retired from publicity in consequence, and lived as a private man of letters ; the languages and popular literature of the peoples of the North continued to be his constant study. . He interested himself in Anglo-

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Saxon, and, that he might explore all the streams of that language at their fountain-head, he paid four successive visits to England. In 1842, especially, when the Trac- tarian movement at Oxford was beginning to work so powerfully in the English Church, Grrundtvig, who had watched the battle from afar, came over to us again, that he might study on the spot the various currents of excited religious opinion then dividing English society. All this while he was not entirely without public influence in theo- logical matters ; soon after his disgrace, he sought and at last obtained permission to preach in a single church in Copenhagen, where he, Sunday by Sunday, declaimed and exhorted in his peculiar manner to a select audience of disciples. At first his influence was very small, but his pupils, if few, were extremely enthusiastic, and his doctrines have so far spread as to have formed a sect who glory in the name of Grundtvigians, and who comprise within their numbers a large proportion of the inhabitants of Denmark and Norway, and not a few in Sweden. In his later years he has spent much labour in advocating a new scheme of education for the peasants, by means of what are called Popular High Schools. These schools are carried on under Grrundtvigian principles, — that is, everything the old poet has counselled is carried out on an extravagant scale — for he remarked, it is said, that he never was a ' Grundtvigian ' himself, and never sanctioned half the follies that are perpetrated in his name. These Higli Schools are now found all over Denmark and Norway. The peasants meet together, men and women, in the winter nights, and are taught to read and write, if that is needful but chieflv receive oral instruction in the

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elements of singing, and above all, study the history of their country in Grrundtvig's rhythmical chronicles and songs. In Denmark the schools are extremely popular, and the spirit of hatred towards the ' German tyrant ' is strongly fostered in them, for every Grundtvigian is, above all things, intensely a Dane.

In religious matters Grundtvig never divided him- self distinctly from the Danish Church ; to the last he remained within the pale of it. But at the very time that he was confutino- the neologism of Professor Clausen he was developing views at variance with Danish ortho- doxy. He opposed the usual view of the inspiration of the Bible with great subtlety, and with evident sincerity, though his views were neither entirely logical nor entirely original. He first made public his convictions at the very time when an extremely interesting work of an analogous character was appearing in England, the ' Con- fessions of an Inquiring Spirit,' by S. T. Coleridge. But while Coleridge conscientiously refers to Lessing as the suggester of his ideas, Grundtvig was under the impres- sion that his own were entirely new. The formula upon which all that is peculiar in his teaching rests, is that ' the Church of Christ is founded on a word, and not on a book ; ' and so, without in any way rejecting the Bible, he considers it secondary to the Creed, and would fain trace this last to the actual oracular word of Jesus. If this theory be vague, it is at the same time quite un- deniable that Grundtvig has brought about a great and salutary revival in the practical character of the Danish Church. He has introduced animated and popular preach- ing, hearty singing and frequent communions, with a new

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and excellent hymn-book for general use, in which he has superseded the tiresome and conventional pieces of the last century in favour of the stirring and national hymns of such ancient poets as Kingo and Brorson. At the same time, the most sober-minded theologians looked askance at Gfrundtvig's doctrinal laxities. He was an old Pagan at heart, after all, a viking — baptized, indeed, and zealous for the faith, but dim on all crucial questions of dogma. His youth had been wearied by much abstract talk about virtue, and it was the conquering power and wide-spreading enthusiasm, rather than the morality of the gospel, that charmed him. The picturesque and an- thropomorphic features of religion delighted him to a dangerous excess, and he was not always very sure if it were Christ or Baldur for whom he fought. The great point was to be always lighting for some pure and personal deity. For the Old Testament he scarcely disguised his indifference. His ardour and his glowing passion made the common people hear him gladly, but grave theolo- gians, such as Dr. Martensen and Dr. Fog, eminent divines whose creed was crystallised in systems of Christian ethics and Christian dogmatics, always held aloof from the rash and emotional schismatic. Grundtvig's title of Bishop was only an honorary one ; he never held a diocese.

As a poet, one of the greatest of Scandinavian critics has called Grrundtvig ' the younger brother of Oehlenschlager ; ' but he differed greatly from that eminent man, and in- deed from all later Danish poets, in being no artist, but essentially a fighter, a man of action. He never cared to address the polite world of letters ; he wrote poems for the

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people, and in return there is no poet in our time whose works have been read and loved in the homes of the peasants as his have been. ' Like a bird in the green- wood, I would sing for the country folks, so that my song might pass from mouth to mouth, and give delight from one generation to another. It will be my greatest happi- ness, as a child-like poet, if I can write songs that will make bare legs skip in the street at the sound of them. That shall be called my best poem, my greatest glory and memorial, which is the greatest favourite in Danish harvest-fields when the girls are binding sheaves. That shall be my crowned and accepted poem which inclines most girls to the dances at every country wedding.' This is, at least, a very intelligible ambition, and a very arduous one. It can hardly be said that Grrundtvig has the perfect simplicity and repose that such an aim re- quires. He is, perhaps, of foreign writers, the one most near to Carlyle in temperament. On all sides of his genius he was a little too destructive ; he gloried through- out his long life in opposing himself to conventional forms and conventional aspirations : he even found an exhilaration in the mere act of fighting. He was a dangerous old literary bersark to the last. Slightly altering his own words, we may take them as describing his life's course : —

This hero followed not the tide ; He dashed the waves of thought aside, — Above his hair their wild spray passed, But only silvered it at last.

It was in lyrical composition that he achieved the

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greatest triumphs ; as a lyrist he will always rank high among the poets of the North, although he lacked the gifts of concentration and compression.

II.

There can never have existed two poets more widely different in genius and disposition than Grundtvig and Bodtcher, who for nearly eighty years lived as fellow- citizens of the same little state. They had almost less in common than Burns and Keats ; the first was essen- tially a man of action, the second as essentially a dreamer and an artist. Ludvig Adolph Bodtcher was born on April 22, 1793, being thus by eight months Shelley's junior. When he was a very little child the young Oehlenschlager came to act in private theatricals with his brothers, and thus in his father's house the boy became acquainted with the new romantic literature. Oehlen- schlager became his first master in verse, but he soon learned to express his very plastic and definite genius in his own wa;y. In 1812 he went to the university, and lounged easily through an uneventful student-life in which love and verse outweighed the attractions of deep study. Early in life his innocent epicureanism asserted itself, and when in 1824 his father died, leaving him a small fortune, he did not hesitate an hour, but set off at once to live in Italy. He settled in Kome ; his rooms looked on to the Piazza Barberini, and exactly opposite him was Thorwaldsen's studio. For eleven years he received at his window every morning the great sculptor's greeting from the shinina: street below, and he became in time the

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most intimate of all the friends of Thorwaldsen. In his own house he held a little court for Scandinavian poets and painters visiting Kome ; and the enjoyable monotony of his life was only broken by little excursions into the moun- tains or to the Bay of Naples. His favourite spot outside Rome was Nemi, the scenery of which inspired several of his most exquisite verses. The simplicity and idle ease of Eome delighted Bodtcher ; he was able to do exactly what he pleased, and in company with Thorwaldsen he associated with an extraordinary group of personages. To the studio came the King of Bavaria, the ex-Eang of Holland, Dom Miguel of Portugal, and Napoleon's old mother Letitia, while Bodtcher counted among his own visitors not these only, but King Frederick VII. of Den- mark, Sir Walter Scott, Cornelius and Horace Vernet. To study so motley a crew of notabilities was the 3^oung Danish poet's delight, and he filled up the odd corners of his timie by polishing to their last perfection one after another of his own adorable verses, composing with the utmost deliberation and at long intervals.

In 1835 Thorwaldsen died, and it then became apparent that Bodtcher had deserved well of Denmark, for it was only by liis constant and untiring effort that the versatile sculptor had beeu induced to leave his works to his own country. Bodtcher had had to fight the battle step by step with the King of Bavaria, who had made up his mind to secm'e the sculptures for Munich, and who could not conceal his displeasure when the poet outwitted him at last, by inducing Thorwaldsen to sign the deed of bequest. To accompany the precious freight to Copen- hagen, Bodtcher tore himself away from Italy. With

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all his late friend's masterpieces around him, be set out from Leghorn with a gay ' a rivederla ! ' to the Italian coast, which he was not fated to revisit. For finding himself once again in Copenhagen, his easy indolent nature led him to put off the idea of returning southwards, until his life had taken root again in the North. As, however, he made a little Denmark around him in Eome, so in Copenhagen he contrived to enjoy something still of Italy. With his guitar, his roses, his quaint friends, he lived his own life without constraint, profoundly careless, because unconscious, of the ' fall of sceptres and of crowns.' His philosophy was that of Anacreon, or rather of Omar Khayyam : he never vexed himself about liis soul ; he lived for enjoyment only, but then he enjoyed not merely the sunshine, and flowers, and choice wines, but still more the conversation of his friends and the diapason of the noble poetry of all time. He was no critic, but his range of poetic pleasures was very wide, and if he had a fault it was foolish indulgence to every needy man of letters who sought his help or his sympathy. To Bodtcher went the poetess who was ' misunderstood ' at home, and the anti- quarian whose researches a cold world derided. In liim at least they always found an auditor. It did not occur to him to publish his own poems until 1856, when he was already an elderly man. They fill one slender volume, which has been augmented since his death by another still more slender.

Ludvig Bodtcher is one of the most finished poets that the North has produced : the entire collection of his works is no larger than the poems of Thomas Grray, but almost every one of them is a gem, cut and engraved with the most

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exquisite precision. In metrical construction his lyrics have an extraordinary delicacy and shapeliness ; he is the most consummate artist in form among the Danish poets. His most characteristic pieces unite a kind of dry sparkle of humour with the intense light and vivid form of anti- quity or of Italian landscape. Among these the longest and finest is ' The Meeting with Bacchus,' a delicious ' piece of Paganism,' as Wordsworth would have called it. The poet leaves the dewy gardens of Frascati in the early morning, and on a stout mule climbs towards Monte Porcia. The rosy radiance of the morning strikes them as they pass the ancient Tusculum, and the smiling poet finds that the mule is smiling too. In this joyous mood they wend on their way, and the poet falls into a dream, in which the lovely modern laodscape becomes full of antique life. At last, at the side of an old rock-cistern, he shouts ' Evoe ! ' and starts to hear a triple echo. Suddenly he perceives at his side the ancient altar of Bacchus, and before him rise a motley group of satyrs.

' And lo ! in a quiet reverie beside me, a youtli lay stretclied upon the marUe, with a dreamy smile as if his thoughts rekhidled the dark fires of antique art,

' The sandal which bound his foot was delicately fastened ; one arm supported his head, the other, with a glass in the hand, lay along the table naked, as though Phidias had carved it.

' Mine eyes sank when that youth turned and gazed on me, for midnight owns no star so sparkling as his eyes were, and yet my looks were chained to their clear fires.' '

The youth pours out a cup of wine, and when the poet praises it, says coldly, ' Non c'e male ! ' ' Not bad, indeed ! show me a better,' cries the guest ; ' Si, Signore ! ' replies

' Appendix Z.

BODTCHBE, 171

the youth, and bids him follow. He leads him to a rustic dwelling in the rock, all overgrown with ivy, and leads him down into a cellar. He crushes marvellous red grapes into a beaker, and the poet lifts up his song of praise to Bacchus, while still the youth gravely smiles.

' He loAvered the Leaker ; there came a cascade of fire, a murmur of vine-leaves, and then all the cavern was filled with a perfume of wine, mingled with roses and jasmine.

' I drank, while my eyes gazed intently beyond the glory and the A'apour ; the first grew like a magian's lamp, the last became a dim veil of pearl, through which all seemed mistier but fairer than before.

' It seemed to me that pillars rose from the floor, and shot out marble shoulders, over which a cupola sprang high into the roof, and that roimd the alabaster of the walls the ivy swung in festoons.

' But such a mist hung round me ! then it cleared, and lo ! the wine-casks had disappeared, and seven yellow leopards, still and severe, lay watching me, with folded paws.

'Then, reeling with the vision, I turned to the youth that brought me thither smiling. He rested, majestic, on a thyrsus, and his look was terrible. I fell before him in the dust, and stammered " Dionysos ! " ' i

He wakes to find that he has been dosing in the wood by the road-side, and that his mule stands patiently by him. I cannot hope in this bald sketch to give any idea of the form and beauty of a poem that approaches as near perfection as modern verses can. This is perhaps the finest of Bodtcher's lyrics, though there are several others that in precision and originality, — in the qualities of a cameo or an intaglio, clear form carved in colour, — come very near it.

I had the privilege of being presented to this charming

' Appendix AA.

172 THE LITEEATUEE OF NOETHEEN EUEOPE.

old man and divine poet, during the last year of his life. He was living in Svsertegade, a litfe street in Copenhagen, where he occupied rooms high up the house, close under the sky. I was introduced by an esteemed friend of his, and the singularly genial and gentle manner of his welcome put me at my ease with him at once. His sitting-room was thoroughly in keeping with his character. It was filled with works of art and memorials of his life in Italy. Behind his arm-chair stood Bissen's bust of the poet when he was a young and handsome man. It could not be said of liim at eighty-one that he was otherwise than pleasant-looking, although the loss of one eye was a marked disfigurement. He wore dark spectacles, and a snuff-coloured wig ; his figure was tall and spare, his fore- head very full at the temples ; and his mouth had evidently been large and sensitive, like Keats's. His one blight eye was still of an extraordinary brilliance and vivacity. It was the first year, he explained to me, that he had not been able to get out into the beech-woods on

• Pinsedag ' or Whitsunday, a day on which Copenhagen

is always deserted, and the forests are filled. It was on "Whitsunday that we visited him, and the old gentleman was a little inclined to be mournful about it. But he cheered up as the sun came out and lighted into intense pale green the young leaves of a beech-tree, in a pot which filled the window, flanked by two rose-bushes. ' Ah I ' he said, ' the sun through the leaves is as good as a flower to me, and when you are gone, I shall sit for the rest of the day and dream of the woods.' He talked readily of his friendship with Thorwaldsen, and chuckled as he recounted the oft-told tale of how he outwitted the

BtoTCHEE. 173

King of Bavaria. WTiile he talked he sat on a forhoining, or raised platform in the window ; his restless eye seemed all the while to follow something, and presently I dis- covered that opposite him an oblique mirror allowed him to watch the life passing in the street below. On the wall behind him hung his guitar ; of his carpet he used to say that it was very costly, when you considered how many of the best cigars had to be consumed over it before it got so rich a colour, from the descending smoke ; every object in the room had its particular anec- dote or association connected with it ; each could only have belonged to Bodtcher, and the gentle epicurean seemed not the least precious or the least antique of the objects of art.

His smile was sweet and humorous^ — such a smile as Charles Lamb might have given a visitor in his happiest and quietest hours. It was on the 25th of May 1874 that I had the pleasure of this welcome ; next day I received a little note and the poet's photograph. In July he sent me a kind greeting in a letter from Christian Winther, and on the 1st of October of the same year he died, after one day's illness. To the very last he clung to his old habits, singing his own songs in a feeble broken voice, and playing meanwhile on the guitar. He left behind him the fragrant memory of a long life, in which there was no sadness or baseness, but in which art and an affec- tionate nature were self-sufficient to the close.

UI.

There was no man of genius in Europe so accessible as Hans Christian Andersen. Whether in his own house

174 THE LITER ATUEE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

in Havnegade, or in the country at Eolighed, where his friends the Melchiors had fitted up rooms for him, he was at the service of any visitor who brought with him the pass-word of enthusiasm and respect. He delighted in publicity, and responded to the sympathy of strangers with the utmost alacrity. I saw him in 1872, and again in 1874, and he did me the honour to write to me frequently between the earlier date and his death. Yet, although he accepted me at once into his intimacy, I can- not pretend that I have anything very characteristic to add to the published memorials of one of the most singular persons of our time. For Andersen throughout his long literary life never scrupled to make the world his con- fidante, and that with the utmost sincerity ; so that his friends could but testify to the minute fidelity of hi^. portrait of himself. It is true that that portrait is not to be found complete in those stories for children, which are chiefly associated with his name in the mind of the English public. "We have to read the ' Komance of My Life,' and his chatty, egotistic books of travel, to realise his chai'acter, but in these it is drawn as firmly and coloured as richly as if Titian had survived to paint his features.

The passion for hoarding up little treasures of every kind — pebbles that friends had picked up, leaves that had been plucked on a certain day, odd mementoes of travel and incident — was always strongly developed in Andersen. He hated to destroy anything, and he dragged about with him, from one lodging to another, a constantly increasing store of what irritable friends were apt to consider rubbish. In like manner, he could not endure to tear up paper with writing upon it, even if that writing were disagreeable

ANDERSEN. 175

or derogatory to his dignity. Hence, when his executors began to examine the piles of MS. that the poet had left behind him, they came upon such a mass of correspondence as few eminent persons can ever have bequeathed. Most people are glad to destroy any letter in which their own conduct is sharply criticised or in which reproof is administered to an obvious fault. But it was part of the crystal innocence of Andersen's character, than whom a simpler or a purer creature never breathed, to preserve with the utmost impartiality the good and the evil, the praise of his friends and their blame. Consequently, there is little need of personal memorials of Andersen. In his writings we can trace every change of tempera- ment, every turn and whim of this guileless and trans- parent mind.

Few English people, perhaps, are aware how numerous and how versatile are the writings of Andersen. He at- tempted almost every form of authorship in the course of his long life. He was born on April 2, 1 805, at Odense, in the Danish island of Funen. His father, a poor shoe- maker, whose love of books and book-learning made him discontented with his trade, died in the poet's early childhood, and until his confirmation Andersen was left in the charge of his mother, an ignorant and superstitious but kindly person. Until Andersen's death the true raciness and originality of her mind were unknown ; but her letters to her son, which then came to light, pi'ove her to have been, in shrewdness, wit, and sense, worthy to be the mother of a great man. Except during the few hours' wi'etched instruction at the Poor School, he was chiefly occupied witli a little theatre of marionettes, on

176 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

which he brought out various pieces, generally of his own composition. This early taste for theatrical pursuits was nourished in the child by a visit paid to Odense by some of the company of the Eoyal Theatre of Copenhagen. The actors gave special performances, and on these occasions Andersen managed to get on the boards and mix with the supers. After this, of course, the Copen- hagen stage was the great aim of his life. After his confirmation in the autumn of 1819, he travelled up to the capital to try his fortune, and entered the dancing and singing school at the theatre ; but it soon became plain that he had no histrionic talent, and when his voice broke he was obliged to leave. However, he had managed to awaken interest in several very distinguished men — in Collin, Eahbek, the Oersteds, Baggesen, Weyse, and Siboni — and by their efforts he obtained a free entrance into the Latin school at Slagelse ; when the rector of the school, the learned Meisling, was transferred to the college at Helsingor, he took Andersen with him. ^Mei- sling, however, though learned, was unsympathetic, and without understanding at all what was great and lovely in Andersen's character, made his eccentricities the object of untiring ridicule. The young man who had already written ' The Dying Child,' and appeared as a poet, in 1827, in such influential journals as the 'Kjobenhavnspost' and Heiberg's ' Flyvende Post,' could at last bear this no longer, and came back to Copenhagen, where L. C. Moller introduced him into the University in 1828. The year after he published his first important work, ' A Journey on Foot from Holmen's Canal to the East Point of Amager,' and the same year had produced, on the boards of the

ANDERSEN. 177

Eoyal Theatre, ' Love on St. Nicholas' Tower,' a comic vaudeville in rhymed verse, which parodied the romantic dramas of the day ; during the ensuing Christmas season appeared his first collection of poems, of which several already had attained consideralble notoriety in the ' Fly- vende Post.' In 1830 Andersen made the first of many travels, a tour in Funen and Jutland, and in 1831 published a volume of ' Fancies and Sketches,' which was not so well received as his earlier works, and was es- pecially cut up by Hertz in his powerful ' Gjenganger- Breve.' This want of success, a blighted love experience, and other misfortunes threw Andersen into a painful condition of despondency, and he was ordered to travel for his health. He went to Grermany, and published on his return ' Shadow-Pictures of a Tour in the Hartz and Saxon Switzerland.' In 1832 appeared his 'Vignettes of Danish Poets,' and a new volume of poems entitled ' The Twelve Months of the Year.' He was lucky enough to receive a draft of money for travelling from the Grovern- ment in the spring of 1833, and proceeded to Paris, where he met the enfeebled and almost blind P. A. Heiberg. Later in the year he was in Rome, Avhere he fell in with Thorwaldsen and Bodtcher, and with his own great opponent. Hertz. In the summer of 1834 Andersen returned to Copenhagen, where in the meantime his beautiful dramatic poem 'Agnete and the Merman,' which he had sent home from Switzerland, had appeared. After his return was published in 1835 his exquisite romance ' The Improvisatore,' which he had commenced in Rome, and in which he sketches the life of the country folk in Italy, as in his next romance, ' (). T.,' which came

• N

178 THE LITEEATUEE OF NORTHEEN EUEOPE.

out the year after, he sketches the sarae in Denmark. But in the meantime, by the publication of his first volume of 'Eventyr,' or 'Fairy Tales' in 1835, Andersen had laid the foundation of his immense reputation, and the successive series of these stories, unapproached in modern literature for depth, pathos, and humour, continued to appear Christmas by Christmas, the most welcome gift to young and old. In 1852 they ceased to be entitled ' Eventyr ' and were called ' Historier.' To the same class belongs the inimitable ' Picture-Book without Pic- tures,' 1840. To his novels Andersen added in 1848 'The Two Baronesses.' In 1837 came ' Only a Player.' Another novel was ' To be or Not to be.' In 1853 Andersen published his own autobiography, under the title of ' My Life's Komance.' As a dramatic author he has also shown no small genius, though this is not the most brilliant side of his life's work. The romantic dramas of ' The Mulatto,' 1840, and ' The King is Dream- ing,' 1844; the romantic operas of 'Little Christie,' 1846; 'The Wedding by Lake Como,' 1848; with certain small comedies, especially ' The New Lying-in Eoom ' (' Den ny Barselstue ; ' Barselstuen being a very popular piece by Holberg), 1845, attained very marked success at the Eoyal Theatre, which was also the case with the fairy comedies, ' More than Pearls and Gold,' ' Ole Lukoie ' and ' Hyldemoer,' which were brought out in 1849, 1850, and 1851 respectively at the Casino Theatre at Copenhagen. Andersen was incessantly moving hither and thither over the Continent of Europe, and on one occasion he crossed the Mediterranean Sea. The results of his ob- servations were given to the public in a variety of chatty

ANDERSEN. 179

and picturesque volumes, of which the most characteristic were 'A Poet's Bazaar,' 1841; 'In Sweden,' 1849; and 'In Spain,' 1863.

Andersen's nature craved the excitement of travel, and wherever he went he made himself acquainted with the prominent literary people of the place. There is no doubt that this personal habit helped his genius to make itself heard outside the borders of Denmark sooner than it would otherwise have done, but this has also been greatly exaggerated in Denmark, where some unworthy but not inexplicable jealousy was felt of the ubiquitous poet who carried his fame over Europe with him. It is well known that Andersen was a visitor of Dickens's at Gradshill ; two years earlier he had been Wagner's guest in Berlin, and almost every literary or artistic man of eminence in Europe received a visit from him at one time or another. In 1861 he was at Kome just in time to see Mrs. Browning before her death, and to receive from her the last stanzas she ever wrote : —

' And oh ! for a seer to discern the same ! '

Sighed the South to the North. ' For a poet's tongue of baptismal flame, To call the tree or the flower by its name ! "

Sighed the South to the North.

The North sent therefore a man of men

As a grace to the South, And thus to Rome came Andersen. ' Alas, but you must take him again ! '

Said the South to the North :

verses which the old poet was never tired of repeating in his broken English.

Among all his multitudinous writings, it is of course

N 2

180 THE LITERATUEE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

his so-called Fairy Tales, his ' Eventyr,' that show most distinctly his extraordinary genius. No modern poet's work has been so widely disseminated throughout the world as these stories of Andersen's. They affect the Hindoo no less directly than the Teutonic mind ; they are equally familiar to children all over the civilised world. It is the simple earnestness, humour, and tender- ness that pervades them, their perfect yet not over-subtle dramatic insight, their democratic sympathy with all things in adverse and humble circumstances, and their exquisite freshness of invention that characterise them most, and set them on so lofty a height above the best of other modern stories for children. The style in which they are composed is one never before used in writing ; it is the lax, irregular, direct language of children that Andersen employs, and it is instructive to notice how admirably he has gone over his earlier writings and weeded out every phrase that savours of pedantry or contains a word that a child cannot learn to understand. When he first wrote these stories he was under the influence of the Grerman writer Musaeus, and from 1830 to about 1835 he was engaged in gradually freeing himself from this exotic manner, and in bringing down his style to that perfection of simplicity which is its great adornment.

In character, Andersen was one of the most blameless of human creatures. A certain irritability of manner that almost amounted to petulance in his earlier days, and which doubtless arose from the sufferings of his childhood, became mellowed, as years went on, into something like the sensitive and pathetic sweetness of a dumb animal. There was an appeal in his physical appearance that

ANDERSEN. 181

claimed for him immmiity from the rough ways of the world, a childlike trustfulness, a tremulous and confiding- atfectionateness that threw itself directly upon the sympathy of those around. His personality was somewhat ungainly : a tall body with arms of very unusual length, and features that recalled, at the first instant, the usual blunt type of the blue-eyed, yellow-haired Danish peasant. But it was impossible to hold this impression after a moment's observation. The eyes, somewhat deeply set under arching eyebrows, were full of mysterious and changing expression, and a kind of exaltation which never left the face entirely, though fading at times into reverie, gave a singular charm to a countenance that had no pre- tension to outward beauty. The innocence and delicacy, like the pure frank look of a girl-child, that beamed from Andersen's face, gave it an unique character hardly to be expressed in words ; notwithstanding his native shrewd- ness, he seemed to have gone through the world not only undefiled by, but actually ignorant of its shadow-side. The one least pleasing feature of his character was his singular self-absorption. It was impossible to be many minutes in his company without his referring in the naivest way to his own greatness. The Queen of Timbuc- too had sent him this ; the Pacha of Many Tails had given him such an Order ; such a little boy in the street had said, ' There goes the great Hans Andersen ! ' These reminiscences were incessant, and it was all the same to him whether a little boy or a great queen noticed him, so long as he was favourably noticed. If, however, the notice was unfavourable, he was inconsolable for the time being, and again in this case it mattered nothing from what source

182 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

the censure came. The Norwegian poet Welhaven used to relate that he was once in a Copenhagen coffee-house with Andersen, when the latter, glancing at one of the lowest and most ribald prints of the hour, became sud- denly excessively agitated. With trembling hands he pointed out to Welhaven a passage in which some miserable penny-a-liner had pointed a coarse jest with an allusion to Andersen's appearance. ' Is it possible,' Welhaven asked, ' that you, with a European reputation, care what such a man says of you in such a place ? ' ' Yes,' replied Andersen, with tears in his eyes, ' I do — a little ! ' This intense craving for perpetual laudation, no matter from whom, was an idiosyncrasy in Andersen's character not to be confounded with mere vulgar vanity. It sometimes assumed really magnificent proportions, as when he once said to a friend of mine, an old friend of his own, in deprecation of some fulsome praise from abroad, ' It is true that I am the greatest man of letters now living, yet the praise should not be to me, but to God who has made me so.' It was a strange and morbid characteristic, to be traced, no doubt, to the distressing hardships of his boyhood. It was harmless and guileless, but it was none the less fatiguing, and it was so strongly developed that no biographical sketch of him can be considered fair that does not allude to it. During his lifetime, it would have been inhuman to vex his pure spirit by dwelling on a weakness that was entirely beyond his own control; but it is only just to his own country- men, who have been so harshly blamed for their want of sympathy with him, to mention the fact which made Andersen's constant companionship a thing almost in-

ANDERSEN. 183

tolerable. In a small community like that of Copenhagen, a little personal peculiarity of this kind is not so easily overlooked as in a wider circle.

He passed peacefully away at eleven o'clock on the morning of August 4, 1875. He died just outside the northern suburb of Copenhagen, at Eolighed, in the arms of a family who had devoted themselves for years to the care of their eminent guest ; here he fell asleep, in the truest sense, for out of a mild and peaceful slumber of many hours' duration, he never awoke. He had been suffering acutely and hopelessly from a complaint that now proved to have been cancer, and for some years past his life had been one of ceaseless suffering, patiently and even heroically borne. Four months before the end he had completed his seventieth year, and in the festivities of that day he had been able in great measure to join. He could never rally from the relapse brought on by the excitement of this birthday, which was celebrated by the whole nation, from the royal family downwards, as a public holiday. He had the joy of receiving the greatest honour a poet can take from his country, the erection of a statue which will remind all coming generations of his outward form and feature, and having lived to receive this glory, not from one man or one clique of men, but from all Denmark, it was permitted him to rest from liis suffer- ing. He could not have died at a moment when his fame, spread from one end of the world to tlie other, was more living than it is now, and in dying he took from among us the most popular of all contemporary writers of the imagination. It is said that the very last literary subject in which he took interest was the history and

184 THE LITEEATUEE OF NOKTHEEN EUEOPE.

work of his own great predecessor, the Hindoo fabulist, Bidpai, and the best books on that writer lay strewed upon his death-bed.

IV.

So many poets came up to the University of Copenhagen in 1828, that some wit dubbed them the four greater and the twelve minor prophets. This classification caused a great deal of amusement at the time, and is still re- membered because Hans Christian Andersen happened to be one of the major prophets, and Paiudan-lNIiiller to be one of the minor. The minor prophet, indeed, lived to see himself easily first among the children of Parnassus in Denmark.

Frederik Paludan-Miiller was the third son of^a remarkable man, Jens Paludan-Miiller, who died as Bishop of Aarhuus, and who became famous after his death as a theological writer of much vigour. Each of his sons became distinguished in one way or another. Frederik, the poet, was born at Kjerteminde, a little town in Funen, on February 7, 1809. He went to school at Odense in 1820, a few months after Andersen — poor little forlorn adventurer that he was— left that city for the capital. In 1832 he wrote four romances, in the hope of gaining a prize offered by the Society of Fine Arts. He was un- successful, but the romances, which were published, attracted attention. The same year he brought out a romantic drama, ' Love at Court,' wliich had a considerable run, and still holds the stage. But when, in 1833, he printed his delicious poem of 'The Dancing Grirl,' with

PALUDAN-MULLER. 185

all its profusion of wit, pathos, and melody, his position as a poet was made. In 1834 he opened a new poetic vein, since admirably worked by Swinburne amongst ourselves, and by Paul Heyse in Germany, with his lyrical drama of ' Amor and Psyche,' a work displaying stilistic gift of the first order, and which produced much such a sensation in Copenhagen as, thirty years later, attended ' Atalanta in Calydon ' with us. At this pomt he began to go a little wrong ; his next production, a story in rhyme, called 'Zuleima's Flight,' being tinged with Byronisms and other inscrutable insipidity. The two volumes of ' Poems,' however, in 1836 and 1838, redeemed his reputation. All this time the poet had been quietly working away at his literary and juridical studies, and had attained his thirtieth year with no more exciting experience than could be contained in a walking-tour through the north of Zealand. He set out, however, in 1838, for a two years' wandering over Europe ; he only once left Denmark again. The life of such a hermit is but a catalogue of his works. In 1841 he published his lyrical drama of ' Venus,' and the first part of ' Adam Homo,' an epic which it is customary to mention as his masterpiece. In 1844 appeared the noble drama of 'Tithonus' and the delicate idyl of ' The Dryad's Wedding.' His later pro- ductions were the conclusion of 'Adam Homo,' 1848; ' Abel's Death,' 1854 ; ' Kalanus,' 1857 ; ' Paradise,' 1861 ; 'Spirits of Darkness in the Night,' 1862 ; 'Ivar Lykke's Story,' a prose novel ; ' The Times are Changing,' a comedy, 1874 ; and ' Adonis,' 1874. In the face of such a barren list of titles, the curse of Babel does indeed become a burden. It is useless to recommend the reader to the

186 THE LITEKATUKE OF NOETHEEN EUEOPE.

books themselves, and how is a weary critic to persuade him of the value of their contents ? This, however, I shall presently attempt to do.

In 1872 Paludan-Mliller was living- in one of a little group of houses in the Royal Park of Fredensborg, on the left-hand side in driving up to the palace. It would be difficult to secure a more poetic situation. The great undulating park extended on all sides, with its classic solitude, its ricli hoard of memories from the last century, and its delicious greensward swept by the long boughs of the beeches. From the back of the poet's house, the park sloped away to the Esrom Lake, the most beautiful of all the beech-smrounded meres of North Zealand. There, in the most exquisite silence, broken only by the sound of a deer that came down to drink, the poet could watch from dawn to gloom

The lake-reflected sun illume The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom.

The court was never at Fredensborg, except for a little time in the summer, and its idyllic quiet was unbroken. The old palace was always there to remind the wanderer, with its clean white walls and green cupola, of the beperi- wigged gentlemen and bepatched ladies that had flirted down its smooth arcades. The place fostered the morbid melancholy of Paludan-Miiller, and yet it possessed that note of refinement and personal elegance which he would have missed in a retreat more purely sylvan. When I saw him first he had not received a stranger for years; he asked pardon for his manifest agitation, as some veritable Robinson Crusoe might do in suddenly re-viewing a European face. But

PALUDAN-MULLER. 187

he was then at the very point of recovering from his strange melancholy illness, and so far woke up to new life that he proposed to me a series of early morning walks, and at last conceived it possible that he might journey to London. This he never contrived to do, but he returned to Copenhagen and to society, and when I saw him again in 1874 he was looking ten years younger. He had a singularly fine and spiritual face, the eyes large and clear, the hair silvery when I knew him, but deep yellow in earlier life. In speaking he expressed himself with emphasis, and in some cases a little too dogmatically for modern habits of thought, and he had but slight personal sympathy for his con- temporaries. I was full of enthusiasm for the Norwegian poet, Ibsen, and spoke of him on one occasion to Paludan- Miiller, but he confined himself to a rather cynical con- demnation of the close of ' Brand.' It was evident that he found no place in art for anything but the ideal beauty of which he was himself so exquisite an exponent. His adoration for the memory of his father was a very marked point in his cliaracter ; in a review of one of his books I had especially indulged this pious foible in order to please him, and he recollected it two years afterwards with vehement commendation. The news of his death was a great surprise to his friends, for he had regained an un- wonted vigour in 1874 and 1875. But the winter of 1876, that was fatal to Christian Winther, was fatal also to him, and within three days ; for while tlie latter died on December 30, Paludan-Miiller died on December 27, 1876. There can be little doubt, that posterity will judge Adam Homo ' to be its author's greatest claim to a place among poets of the first class. This epic, in ottava rmia,

188 THE LITERATUEE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

is the history of a single man, a Dane in the Denmark of the poet's day, from his cradle to his grave. The hero is a Philistine of the Philistines, but his character is worked out with an irony so subtle, that we begin by sympathising with the man that we end in ridiculing and despising. The poem is full of great and original qualities ; humour and satire give place in rapid interchange to descriptive and pathetic passages of the most delicate beauty. Dr. Brandes, in his brilliant volume on the modern Danish poets ('Danske Digtere,' 1877), a work no Scandinavian student should be without, has very justly said of ' Adam Homo,' that it is 'a piece of Denmark, a piece of our history, a piece of living cloth cut out of the web of time.' But to the foreign reader it certainly lacks the cosmo- politan interest of the writer's lyrical dramas. Of these the greatest is, without doubt, ' Kalanus,' and I cannot give a better idea of the genius of Paludan-Miiller, than by an analysis of this noble poem.

The scene is laid far back in heroic times, when the great presence of Alexander overshadowed the ancient world, and the story of his patience, and his labour, and his glory was in the mouth of all men living. Kalanus, an Indian, born by the Ganges, and brought up in a temple of Brama, has been living in the hills near the sources of the Indus, as a solitary mystic, worshipping the Invisible Unity whom men call Brama. Day after day, kneeling by the river-side among the palms, he has prayed and longed for a manifestation of the incarnate Godhead. Born about the same time as the son of Philip of Macedon, his life has been spent in the silence of unbroken devotion, tended by his old mother and a faithful slave. Meanwhile,

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Alexander has driven like a tempest through the world, achieving the ultimate possible aim of an active sensuous nature. To Kalanus in his mystical existence of almost supernatural calm comes the glorious Alexander, sailing up the Indus with his fleet; the myfatic had been praying most importunately for the divine vision —

There by the prow I saw him staud, With hehnless hair, and like the moruing suu ! His lotus-eyes flashed beams of radiance round ! For ever all my heart and soul are his !

In absolute faith that this is Brama, he forces himself into Alexander's presence. The conqueror, pleased with his enthusiasm, invites him to join his train, and forthwith Kalanus, lu"s old mother, and all their small possessions, are moving with the Grreek army in its westward retreat. The first important halt is at Pasargadse, in Persia, and here the play opens and continues to the end.

The first act begins with a fine symphony that strikes the key-note of the whole play at once. Kalanus and his mother are saluting the rising smi with their song of morn- ing prayer, that their pure souls may rise with his into the ethereal kingdom of the Truth, losing })ody and sense in the perfection of the soul. This is the day on which Kalanus is to have audience of Alexander, and he counts the hours till the splendid moment shall arrive. Sankara, his mother, who knows nothing of his conviction, is troubled by his sudden pas sion i(y t Grreat King, and asks its cause. ' Why,' she asks, ' is the clear flame of thy devo- tion, which no wind could move, now become a quivering tongue of unsteady fire ? Has the sight of one man so changed thee ? ' Then he unfolds to her his new-born faith.

190 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

that this hero, that man called Alexander, is no other than the universal Brama made flesh to visit humanity. To his dazzled and inexperienced imagination all things seem to point to this one goal, and his intensity easily wins Sankara to his view. Most subtly is the growth of this new faith, born of desire and introspection, and fed by distance from its object, sketched by the poet in Kalanus' confession to his mother ; we are won into love and respect for the mild mystic at once, and the dreamier his speculations are, the more musical is his expression of them. Passing over some side-scenes of great interest, we move on to the meeting of Kalanus and Alexander. The Indian approaches the palace as if it were a sanctuary, but his soul has no fear of the divinity ; all his nature is absorbed in that pure love that casts out fear ; he will at last wind his frail humanity round the omnipotent deity, as the ivy curls round the straight stem of the cocos-palm. Alexander meets him with the light patronage of an emperor at his ease, rallyingKalanus good-natm-edly on his reticence and gloom, but saying no- thing so obviously mortal as to shake the Indian in his confidence. Presently the conversation turns on those questions of divine ethics which are nearest to the heart of Kalanus. The reticence of the mystic melts in the fiery heat of his own ecstasy, and pours itself along the channels of Alexander's activities and aims, so strange to him. His soul overflows with the sudden accession of new thoughts and new desires, and the king, becoming deeply interested in his impassioned admirer, adopts a seriousness unusual to him, and exerts his great and masculine intelli- gence in presenting new ideas of energetic action to the passive Indian. The soul of Kalanus, in his own esteem,

P ALUD AN-MtJLLER. 1 9 1

now first wakes into full bloom of thought ; this one

interview with the divine though concealed Brama has

effected it, —

As iu my country, after one night's rain, The desert blossoms with a million flowers ;

— and he throws himself into the dust in adoration.

The beginning of the next act is occupied with the humours of two Grreek philosophers — Mopsos, a sensual atheist and scoffer ; Pyrrhon, a troubled doubter — who argue, and after a while combine to cross-question Kalanus and to trouble his pure soul, unused to such a spirit of false philosophy. To Mopsos the enthusiasm of Kalanus for the king is merely the cringing of a toady ; to Pyrrhon, it is a mystery of genuine belief almost incredible in its novelty. Alexander and Hephsestion join the three, and Kalanus once more basks in the sunlight of Brama's sup- posed presence. All minor vexations are lost in the joys of adoration. The progress of this long scene is in the highest degree masterly; the five characters are drawn with a firm and vigorous hand, and the .interest, though of a purely intellectual character, is sustained and heightened to the end. Kalanus, whose utterances during his season of complete conviction were conspicuous for harmony, be- comes more and more fragmentary and discordant as Alex- ander, in the easy neighbourhood of friends, slips into a frivolous vein of badinage that is most unlike the spirit of Brama. As the wine heats his brain, Alexander becomes still more jocose, and orders Kalanus to dispute with Mopsos on philosophical questions ; the Indian, struggling against his own dejection, obeys. The selfish scepticism of Mopsos is reproved by the sublime mysticism of his

192 THE LITEEATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

opponent, who proclaims that the ultimate desire of the soul is to be absorbed into the Eternal, —

Returning like a drop of dew, and lost

In that great fountain-ocean whence it came.

As this great idea, new to all the scoffing Greeks, is being discussed and ridicided, the doors burst open, and the whole changes into one of those splendid scenes of glowing, sensuous colour, in painting which Paludan- Miiller shows a singular delight. A chorus of girls, led by two of the most distinguished hetairai of the time, all garlanded, and singing to the music of stringed instru- ments, rush into the palace. No one heeds Kalanus, who has risen behind Alexander, and stands there rigid and pale with passion. There follows some exquisite choral writing, and at last Thais, pouring out her soul into a lyric that is like a ' god's voice hidden in a bird,' throws her lute aside and flings herself into the arms of Alexander. But before she can reach her royal lover, Kalanus is between them, with a knife, ready to sacrifice the impious nymph. The king angrily brushes him aside, Thais rushes to embrace Alexander, and the whole company, singing and shouting, leave the palace to seek fresh revels else- where. Kalanus is left alone, a dying priest in a polluted shrine ; the god he has been worshipping proved to be a mere naan, the slave of wine and women, tossed about by vulgar and ungodlike passions. He departs in unutterable sorrow.

In the third act, Alexander, repenting of his foll}^ under the exhaustion of the morning after the revel, is troubled at the absence of Kalanus, and learning that a

PALUD AN-M LILLE R. 193

pyre is being built on which it is reported that the Indian is about to destroy himself, he supposes that the cause of Kalanus's despair is his own harshness, and starts in person to reassure him of favour. In a later act Sankara and her son are discovered in their hut, and Kalanus is sleeping. He wakes calm and quiet, but when Sankara attempts to dissuade him from self-immolation, his purpose is shown to be firm and absolute, and again she gives way before his more powerful will. But in his sleep he has had a glorious vision of Brama, and his fancy is no longer haunted by the desire of an anthropomorphic revelation of the Grod- head, but is securely content to pass into the splendour of a Presence whose form and fashion he knows not, but in whom he trusts with an infinite repose. This vision of glory, and a clearer intellectual perception of the mystery of divine things, lift him above all mundane hopes and fears. His mother leaves him to prepare the bath of purification, and Alexander enters, addressing Kalanus with gracious courtesy. To the conqueror's intense surprise, he finds, instead of a suppliant, broken-hearted at his feet, a calm and resolute opponent. Alexander assures him of his friendship; takes for granted that this report of a funeral pyre is untrue ; commands, entreats, at last kneels to him for a promise to save his own life ; storms at him with sudden passion ; entreats again, but to no avail. Kalanus stands outside the magic ring, and in the power of his purity is stronger of will than the world's master. This is one of the most powerful scenes in the poem. Tired out with his efforts, Alexander leaves him at last, swearing to prevent his purpose with physical force. But here also the mystic's wiJl is stronger than the king's, and in the last

o

194 THE LITEEATUEE OF NOETHEEN EUEOPE.

act Alexander sanctions the burning of Kalanus. The philosopher approaches his own fiery tomb with a solemn elation, a sublime joy. Dismissing the troops, casting aside the adornments that Alexander has sent to do him honour, he gathers his own countrymen about him, mounts the pyre, and in the midst of a choral invocation to the spirit of Brama, expires, his soul rising to the skies like wine poured out into the fire. The chorus around pro- claim his absorption into the Universal Oneness that is spirit and light.

The work which seems to me to approach most nearly to the classic severity and grace of ' Kalanus ' is the last thing that Paludan-Miiller published, his greeting to approaching Death, of whom he had ever been a lover. This is ' Adonis,' a short poem of less than fifty stanzas, in the manner of the early mythological studies in which the poet developed his poetic individuality in its purest and most ideal form. It belongs to the same class of his writings as ' Tithon ' and ' Amor and Psyche,' though it is much slighter and more direct than these. Charon is represented as just setting his sail to catch the weak wind that blows along the Styx, when he hears a voice cry to him from the landing-place, and before he has time to turn, a beautiful youth has leaped into his boat. The thin ghosts shudder together at the unwelcome coming of one so full of life. Charon inquires his name, and learns that it is Adonis, who, snatched away from men by Aphrodite, has found that good fortune at last a burden, whose heart has remained unsatisfied among all the Paphian roses, and who now has escaped from her, and goes to lay his devotion and his desire at the feet of Persephone,

PALUDAN-MULLEE. 195

flying from pleasure that lie may find rest. ' For I must always love, and always love a goddess ; that was m}' destiny, and I have followed it all my life. Venus and Proserpine were near when I was born, and before 1 began to breathe two goddesses were contesting to possess me.' Aphrodite has held his manhood first ; now, weary of a love so exciting and so exhausting, he turns with irrepressible longing to the goddess, crowned with calm leaves, in whose hushed dominions there are no budding and no falling flowers. The boat of Charon passes in silence down the dark channel, roofed in with rocks, the pulse of the oars alone breaking the deep stillness. Arrived at the harbour of death, a shade summons the coming- shades to the banquet of Pluto. Adonis sees them disappear, as he stands alone upon the desolate margin of the stream. Presently a dead-pale maiden comes, bearing a torch, and cries, ' Charon, is he come ? ' This girl Persephone sends daily to inquire if Adonis has arrived. At last, after so many years, the answer is ' Yes ! ' She binds his eyes, and leads him through the realms of death, down into the hall of the infernal gods, where, when his eyes are unbound, he sees Persephone sitting on her throne in silence and solitude. A tinge of red flies to her white cheeks, she opens her majestic arms, and breathes his name ; with an outburst of passionate love he throws himself at her feet, and tells her how, even in the arms of Aphrodite, he has loved her, and now has flown to her to experience with her keener and deeper pleasures than the earthly goddess could give him. But Persephone repels his caresses, and warns him that she has no love to give him that can be likened with the love of passion ; if he

o 2

196 THE LITEEATUKE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

seeks for that he is deceived, but she also loves him, and she has better gifts for whom she loves. While the beautiful Adonis still clasps her knees with his hands, she bids a maiden fill a beaker with the waters of Lethe. He drinks the divine nepenthe, and has only just time to respond to the kiss the goddess presses on his mouth, before he sinks at her feet in slumber, and lays his weary head upon her knee. So, through the ages these two remain unmoving, — Adonis in a happy dream, forgetful of all past passions and desires, Persephone bending over him with a grave smile, pleased at her final victory over her earthly rival. The open heavens are above them ; and time is only marked by the waxing and the waning of the moon.

WALT HER VON DER VOGELWEIDE.

When the history of mediseval poetry comes to be written we shall understand, perhaps, what must remain very dark till then, how it was that during the marvellous twelfth century, amid all the chaos of the shattering and building of empires, such sudden simultaneous chords of melody were shot crosswise through the length and breadth of Europe, interpenetrating Iceland and Provence, Acquitaine and Austria, Normandy and Italy, with an irresistible desire for poetic production. In that mysterious atmo- sphere, in an air so burdened with electric force, the or- dinary rules of germination and growth were set aside ; out of barbarous races, and wielding the uncouthest of tongues, poets sprang full-armed, so many Athenes born suddenly adult from the forehead of the new Gothic civi- lisation. That was an age of rapid movement and brilliant development, an age thirsting for discovery and invention, ready with one hand to fill the West with the new-found marvel of the pointed arch, with the other to push with sword and cross far into the fabulous East. It was at such a time, under such violent auspices, that poetry was born, full-grown, in Grermany; the rude-bud of folksong blossom ing in one single generation into the most elaborate art,

198 THE LITEEATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

only to wither again, as is the wont of such sudden' blooms, in as short a time as it had taken to expand. No more such brilliant verse was written in Grermany, until the time of Groethe, as was produced between the years 1150 and 1220, by a group of poets residing mainly at the courts of Austria and Thuringia. It would be out of place here to give any sketch, however slight, of the influences brought to beai' upon them from without. We must hurry over the various cardinal points which demand mention, before we can intelligibly introduce the subject of this memoir. It was about the year 1140 that an Austrian knight, whose name has not been preserved, gathered into epical shape the scattered ballads which form what we know as the ' Nibelungenlied.' Somewhat later, another Austrian, of equally obscure personality, collected the priceless epos of ' Kudi'un.' The minne-song, the lyric of love, was at the same epoch invented or imported by the great German lyrist, Heinrich von Veldecke, and his ex- ample was shortly followed by the simultaneous outburst of the four great poetic voices of medieval Germany — the nightingales as they called themselves — Gottfried von Strassburg, Hartmann von Aue, Wolfram von Eschenbach, and Walther von der Vogelweide. The genius of the first three of these was essentially epical. In the ' Tristan ' of Gottfried, in the ' Iwein ' of Hartmann, in the ' Parzival * and 'the ' Titurel ' of Wolfram, we have the four great epics of romance literature, the four poetic pillars on which the whole structure of High-German language and litera- ture rests. In these unique works, steeped in the purest colours of knight-errantry and chivalry, and written in verse-forms of astonishingly delicate art, we have in it&

EPICS. 199

original and undiluted form that spirit of romance that has so often since fascinated and bewitched the youth of Europe into more or less fatuous imitation. By the side of this native poetry may be set the epics of foreign ex- traction, the masterpiece among which was that ' Alex- andersage ' of the Pfaffe Lamprecht so extravagantly eulogised by Gervinus. But this epical literature was not the sole product of the age ; a lyrical growth accompanied it, represented by myriads of minor singers, and one man that by common consent ranks as high as the three great epicists. This first of mediaeval German song- writers was Walther von der Vogelweide.

Over the earliest years of his life there rests an ob- scurity which is likely to remain impenetrable. We know neither the year nor the place of his birth, his rank in society, nor the name of his family. In lack of clearer data than his own verses give us, we may roughly put his birth down at about the year 1170, or nearly a century before that of Dante. That he was of gentle, but not noble birth, is judged by the title given him by all of his contemporaries of Herr Walther, the ' Herr ' being the token of the knightly middle class, in contradistinction to the burghers, who were styled Meister.^ Over his appellative ' von der Vogelweide ' a great deal of ingenious speculation has been expended. ' Walther of the Bird Meadow ' has been fancifully supposed to be a name adopted by himself,

• It is perhaps not generally known that the race of meister- singers has been extinguished only in our own day, and that there is still alive, at the age of over eighty, at Ulm, a grave-digger named J. Best, who is absolutely the last survivor of the last guild of meister- singers in Germany. This guild was dissolved in 1839.

200 THE LITEEATUEE OF NOETHEEN EUEOPE.

either to signify that he was born in some hamlet secluded in the midst of the forest, among the birds, or else merely in token of his own great love for wild places and little birds. But ' Fogilweida ' is understood to mean aviarium in Middle High Gferman ; that is to say, an enclosed space where birds are artificially confined. It would therefore be difiicult to believe that the lover of wild things would take this name from choice, and fortunately the difficulty has been cleared up very lately by the discovery in an old manuscript of the thirteenth century, of the existence of an estate called Vogelweide in the Tyrol, which has now long since disappeared, and there is little doubt that it was hence our poet came, especially as one of his friends and followers, a sweet minor minne-singer of that time, Leutolt von Seven, was born, we know, in that very valley in Tyrol. This mountain province, even in that early time, had not a little thirst after literary glory, and several of its poets, contemporary with Walther, have been fortunate enough to have their 'Lieder' preserved, now to be piecemeal printed by modern admirers. Walther, however, was not satisfied with a local reputation, and very early in life he seems to have left the paternal home to seek his fortune in Vienna.

There was no more attractive city in Germany to a young man with his life before him than the capital of Austria in 1 190. No part of the Empire was so prosperous or so devoted to the graceful arts as the neighbourhood of the Viennese com't, and, what would have special fascina- tion for Walther, nowhere were the poets so brilliant, so popular, and so famous in their art. Jealous of the un- disputed supremacy of Cologne, Vienna was taking advan-

KEINMAK THE OLD. 201

tage of its own security and prosperity to establish its position as the second city, at least, of the Empire, if it could not be the first. It seems that the raw lad from the Tyrol, with nothing to live on but his genius, came and put himself under the tuition of the most famous lyrist of that age, Eeinmar the Old, and lost in the blaze of the Court and the noise of rival wits, we hear no more of him for eight years. It must not be imagined that he was idle during that time ; it was no light task to learn to be a minne-singer. The poetry of that early age, so far from being the simple, wild-wood fluting that is idly and generally supposed, was a metrical art of the most elaborate kind, and one for the skilful performance of which a long and patient apprenticeship was needed. Out of the one hundred and eighty-eight poems of Walther's which exist, at least half are written in unique measures, and all in forms of his own invention. He soon surpassed all his forerunners, even Eeinmar himself, in the intricate mysteries of verse, and it is worthy of no small admiration how supple the stiff old High Grerman becomes in his masterly hands. We shall return to this matter ; for the present it may suffice to point out that the blank years 11 90-1 198 must have been full of laborious exercise, and that all in which he differs from other poets in this, is that he has not seen fit to hand down to us his juvenilia. At the same time, there is no reason against supposing that many of his most beautiful love-songs, which carry no internal or external evidence of date, belong to this early period. However that may be, it is not till 1198 that we catch a distinct view of our poet for the first time.

Indeed, there is a theory that almost all the naive and

202 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

spontaneous lyrics of "Walther's minne-period date from this first Vienna life, and that it was the death of the Emperor Henry VI. that first woke the poet out of hiS' dream of love and pleasure, and that aroused in him that noble spirit of patriotism which has made his name so fragrant ever since. Henry VI. had raised the Empire to a position of secm-e prosperity and dreaded power which it had never reached before ; he was still in the flower of his age, and apparently at the opening of a brilliant career. Suddenly he died at Messina, on September 28, 1197, and the earliest political poem of Walther's that we possess evidently marks the tide of feeling at home when the de- plorable news was brought to Grermany. With his head resting in the palm of his hand, and one knee over the other, and his elbow resting on the upper knee, the poet sits on a rock overlooking the world, and speculates, not without dismay, how fortune, honour, and God's grace are to be reconciled in this bereaved and helmless state. In the next strophe he sees a great water rushing by, with fish in it, and gazing past it he sees the forest : and these fish, and the birds, beasts — yea, and the very worms in the forest, have their order and their rulers, but Germany has none. In the third part he is gifted with prophetic sight, and sees all things done, and hears all things said, by all the men and women in the world, and behold, they all with one accord lift up their hands to God and cry ' Woe ! for the Pope is too young ! Lord, help thy Chris- tendom.' In this first poem of political import we have some of the most characteristic utterances of Walther's muse : desire of order and hatred of anarchy, yearning for the unity of Germany, and deep-rooted suspicion of the

WALTHER AT VIENNA. 203

Papacy. The mention of the youth of the Pope gives us a hint of the exact date of the poem, since Innocent III. was elected in January 1198, at the unusually early age of thirty-seven.

The death of the great Emperor was coeval with the breaking up of Walther's Viennese home. For some reason obscure to us, Austria was no longer favourable to his prospects. Perhaps the fate of Heinrich had less to do with it than the death of his beloved patron, Duke Friedrich, who was lingering in Palestine at the extreme end of the Third Crusade, and who fell, in April 1198, a few months before his great rival Eichard Coeur de Lion defeated the French in the battle of Grisors. It was an epoch of great deeds and names sonorous with romance. While Walther was learning the art of poetry under Eeinmar, the terrible Sultan Saladin had died. To return to Vienna : in place of Friedrich, Leopold VII. ascended the Austrian throne, and in him Walther had at first to mourn an irresponsive patron. We possess an artful elegy over Friedrich, in which his successor is warned to imitate the generosity of the duke, but to so little purpose that we find Walther leaving Vienna precipitately, to offer his singing services to Philip of Suabia. As Friedrich died in April, and as we find Walther singing at Mayence on occasion of King Philip's coronation in September of the same year, we can hardly allow that he gave Leopold time to do justice to his powers. The poem is very flattering, but from a lyrical point of view particularly flat and inefficient. The ex- cellent and handsome Philip responded, however, to our poet's praise of his magnanimity and his beauty, so far, at least, as to take him with him in 1199 to the Diet of

204: THE LITEEATUEE OF NORTHEKN EUROPE.

Magdeburg, where Walther gives us a brilliant little picture of the procession of Philip and his Greek queen Irene to church, attended by a gay throng of Thuringian and Saxon nobles. Next year he was back again in Vienna, welcomed this time by Leopold, and rewarded for his songs by largesse from the hands of that young * glorious and liberal' prince. On May 28, 1200, when Leopold took the sword in solemn pomp as Duke of Austria, gifts of ' not less than thirty pounds ' were made in all directions, and Walther, who had complained in 1198 that the showers of fortune fell on all sides of him but left him dry, was plentifully moistened with golden rain, and had his debts paid. This brings us to the end of his first rest- less period. From 1200 until 1210 he seems to have stayed quietly in Austria.

The only important event that occurred during this peaceful decade was the death of his great master in poesy, Eeinmar the Old. This occurred in 1207. Reinmar, who originally came from Hagenau — that very Hagenau where, in Walther's early manhood, Eichard of England was arraigned before a Diet of the Empire — was par eminence the poet of melancholy passion and tender reverie, and very unlike the joyous, manly figure of Walther. There is a tradition that they did not live together on the friendliest terms — a notion that is curiously borne out by the wording of a very musical and thoughtful elegy by the younger on the elder poet, in which he expressly says that it is not Reinmar he moiu-ns, but his art. The death of Reinmar gave occasion to one of the most important contemporary notices of Walther which have come down to us. Gottfried von Strassburg,

THE DEATH OF EEINMAR. 205

far away in Alsace, received the news as he was writing tlie eighth book of his great epic of ' Tristan.' He broke off to celebrate and mourn ' the nightingale of Hagenau,' and to weave into his narrative a critical sketch of all the great poets of his time. Eeinmar has fallen with the banner in his grasp, and the minne-singers are left without a leader. Gottfried takes up his prophecy : —

Who now shall lead our congregation ?

Whose voice guide this dear singing nation ?

I know full well whom ye will find

Bear best that hauner to yoiu' mind ;

That Vogelweide it must be

Whose clear high voice rings merrily

In fields and in the open air !

Who sings of wondrous things and fair,

Whose art is like an organ's tone,

Whose songs are tuned in Citheron

To please our goddess Lady of Love.^

This testimony, from such a man, proves how far the young poet's fame had already reached, and how highly he was esteemed.

Except that in this same year, 1207, Walther was so frightened by comets and shooting stars that he was sure the Last Judgment was arriving, nothing seems to have occurred in his history until 1210, when we find him in the service of Duke Berhard of Karinthia, where he was so ill at ease that in 1211 he migrated again; and this time to the very home of polite letters, Thuringia, where the young landgrave, Hermann, gathered around him all the most advanced spirits of the age. At the Thuringian Court on the Wartburg, close by Eisenach, Albrecht von Halberstadt was busy with his German version of Ovid's ' Appendix BB.

206 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

' Metamorphoses ; ' Herbert von Fritslar was composing his epic on the tale of Troy; Heinrich von Veldecke, the greatest of Walther's predecessors, had just died, hard by in Naumburg; and, best of all, Walther learnt here to know the rare and exalted genius of Wolfram von Eschen- bach, who was writing his deathless ' Parzival,' amid the roaring joviality and hospitable freedom of the Wartburg, of which Walther, whom it suited less, gives a striking picture. This seems to have been a time of depression and morbid irritation with our wandering poet. His bitterest epigrams against Pope Innocent III. date from this period, and the merry life at Eisenach seems to have jarred upon his melancholy. He is plaintively humorous against a •certain knight Grerhard Etze, who has stolen his horse, and on whom he revenges himself by describing him thus :

He rolls his eyes as monkeys do, But most lie's like the lewd cuckoo,

and other such uncouth pleasantries in the lumbering manner of the Middle Ages. From Thuringia the dis- satisfied man turned to the service of Dietrich, Margrave of Meissen, and remained with him till 1213. It is pro- voking, and a little humiliating, to read the verse-petitions addressed to one monarch after another, praying for pro- tection and shelter, and urging liberality in the style of a charity sermon. Under Dietrich as under Hermann, Walther was a liege servant of the Emperor Otto IV., whose excommunication by the poet's pet aversion, Pope Innocent, provokes him to continual wrath. In all his poems against the Papacy, he writes with a freedom and a force that are truly remarkable, and Luther himself never

POLITICAL POEMS. 207

spoke out more plainly than Walther von der Vogelweide in one little ' Spruch ' or sonnet, where he urges the division of all temporal and spiritual authority, that being given to Grod which is Grod's, and that to the Kaiser which is his. Grermany was divided between rival Emperors. Otto IV. was pitted, to the great danger of the whole Hohenstaufen dynasty, against the legitimate heir to the throne, Friedrich, the young son of Henry VI. The civil war between these princes was carried on for ten years, and by-and-by we find Walther growing impatient with his patron, and urging him, at any cost, to endanger the unity of Germany no longer. Presently he describes with enthusiasm the fine presence and masculine beauty of Otto, but pathetically wishes he were as liberal as he is tall. Things rapidly get worse and worse, till at last Walther takes up his parable against Otto as a double-faced monster, and openly comes over to the cause of Friedrich. This was but the instinct of a wise rather than grateful man of the "world, for the poem we have mentioned last seems to belong to the year 1215, in which Friedrich II. finally gained the day. A series of moving appeals to the clemency of Friedrich meet us next. If only the great man will smile, the poet's genius, now frozen as in winter, will reblossom and revive. He says that —

Then will I sing again of little birds,

Of heather, and of flowers, as once I sang :

Of lovely women and their gracious words, And cheeks where roses red and lilies sprang.^

Vienna seems once more to have become his settled

home, and in 1217 we read his farewell to Leopold, who,

•with the flower of Austrian chivalry, was then starting for

' Appendix OC.

208 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

Palestine on the fifth Crusade. Their departure leaves the court and city as empty and dull, we are told, as the departure of the knights of the Table Eound, when they parted on the quest of the GTraal, left Arthur's fabulous city. The public of Walther's day, it must be remembered, were even more familiar than we are with the Arthurian legends. The humorous tone of this song, however, soon fades in genuine apprehension, and we have a poem in which, in a strain of the tenderest and most child-like piety, he begs Grod to guard him as Grabriel guarded Jesus in the crib at Bethlehem. To this period belongs a curious lyrical tirade against the roughness of the young knights, who have no care for courtesy and the dignity of women. For such licentious and froward mediaeval youth, Walther has but one lesson, and he repeats it incessantly —

And wilt thou gild the round of life, of women speak thou well.

The two years between Leopold's departure and his happy return in 1219 were lightened by brief visits to Styria and Bavaria, but he was back again in Vienna to welcome his prince, and to send a joyous note of congratu- lation after him when he set out once more, this time to be crowned at Eome in the winter of 1220. It must have been about the same year that he gained the friendship of Englebert, the stirring Prince Archbishop of Cologne, under whose special protection he flourished until 1225, when that gifted prelate was murdered by his own nephew. As time goes by, as the poet grows older, and as one friend and patron is taken from him after the other, he loses gradually the elasticity of intellect that had so ong sustained him, and there comes to be something almost

MINNELIEDER. 225

as children do, to see if she will love him or love him not. He begs us ' do not langh ! ' for the answer is favourable, and he is so hopeless that even that affords him some little consolation. Presently we find him, in true Kenaissance spirit, kneeling in supplication to ' Frouwe Minne,' Venus, our Lady of Love, that she will shoot an aiTow into the hard heart of his mistress. It is difficult to imagine how it was possible that these long-winged interchanges of homage and disdain, to prosecute which

Men must have had eternal youth, — Or nothing else to do,

as Mr. Austin Dobson flippantly but pertinently says, could be pursue^ without much ennui. The sense of the ridi- culous was very slightly developed in the early mediaeval times, many proofs of which might be adduced from Walther's poems, and from none more than the next we come to among the ' minnelieder,' which I translate as being at the same time very short and a curiosity in subject and metre : —

Queen Fortune throws her gifts around, <>

But turns her back on wretched me ; No place for pity hath she found,' And what to do I cannot see ; To me to turn she will not deign, And if I run around, I find her turned again. She pleases not to see me ever, I would her eyes stood in her neck, so must she see me then tor all her wild endeavour.'

The abnormal length of the last line is of not unfrequent occurrence in these poems, and points to some peculiarity in the melody to which they were sung, for in all cases the

' Appendix JJ. \

/ Q

226 THE LITEEATUEE OF NOETHEEN EUEOPE.

metre was arranged to suit the tune, not the tune composed for the words.

A fresh group of more hunaoristic ' minnelieder ' opens with a whimsical piece of petulance direct against his lady. All her honour comes from having so great a poet to sing her glory, and if she will not favour him he will sing no more, and her fame will be forgotten. Then with a curious impetuous outburst that is half-comic, half-savage, he hopes that if she refuses him, and takes a young man when she is gray, that her lusty husband may revenge her first poet-lover by ill-treating her, and by whipping her old hide with summer saplings. The next is more fantastic still, full of curses on the winter, queer jokes about the ill- fortune of hearing the ass and the cuckoo on an empty stomach, and ends up by addressing his mistress as Hiltegunde. It has been supposed from this that that was her name ; but, on the whole, considering the etiquette of the times, which, as we have seen, forbad a knight to reveal his lady's name, it is more likely that it is a play on his own name in connection with the popular romance of 'Walther and Hildegunde.' A little later we are assured that the Emperor, probably poor young Heinrich VI., presently about to die in Sicily, would gladly turn music- maker for a kiss of her red lips. Passing one or two simi- larly conventional lyrics, we come to one song of a far fresher kind, one that made Walther famous at once, and which ought to endear his name and memory to every German, the first clear note of high patriotic unity, a hymn in praise of Grermany and German beauty. One verse in particular has often been quoted by modern critics as curiously anticipating the famous national song

LAST POEMS. 227

• Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland ? ' of Ernst Moriz

Arndt : —

From Elbe river to the Rhine, And back again all round to Hungary,

'Tis the best, this land of mine ; The best of all the world, it seems to me.

If I can judge what's fair,

In body or in face, So help me God, no ladies have such grace

As German women bear.^

Whether this declaration of public feeling softened his Hiltegunde's heart or not, at all events we find him soon on terms of familiarity with her, called by her ' friunt ' and ' geselle ' (lover and comrade), and calling her in return ' friundin ' and ' frouwe min ' (darling and wife). With this song and with that quoted above, in which, for her sake, he forgives the winter, the series of ' minnelieder ' closes.

The verses of his later days breathe a spirit of morbid and petulant melancholy that is very sad to meet. He lived long enough to see the decline of art, and to hear the cry that poetry was dead. Walther deplores with much bitterness the loss of courtly popularity. The world whom he has served and still would serve has left him, he tells us, to listen to young fools. The garlands of the world have missed Inm, and the blossoms faded ; the very roses have fallen apart and left only thorns. Virtue has lost its power, beauty its magic, in these sad days. In short, he mourns, like Asaph of old, that the wicked should flourish as a green bay-tree, while he is poor and an outcast. In one of these later poems, however, we come upon a single example of a brighter mood. It begins with the old depression. He is in utter despair ; ' Appendix KK.

228 THE LITERATUKE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

life is not worth living ; all men do evil, and that is the fault of the women. So far all is gloomy, but at the mention of the last word he pauses, and reproves himself for speaking evil of women. He has no right to carp at others because life is dark to him, and the piece ends by his saying, ' Then I will live as best I may, and give out my song.' But he is soon as miserable as ever. Love likes the stalwart limbs of young Four-and-twenty better than the wise bald head of Three-score. The Lady of Love has gone crazed after young fools, and heeds not him nor his songs. Art is at a low ebb, morality is dead, and at last he says farewell to the world altogether.

There is little pleasure in following him through this period of morbid and atrabilious discontent, a Byronic disease of the mind far enough removed from that melan- choly of Leopardi or Shelley, wliieh is deeply poetic in spite of its weakness. We lose in it all trace of the joyous singer who had been unable, in his youth, to lead off even a piece of juggling nonsense about a crow and an old woman, without a prelude of such bubbling Chaucerian sweetness as this : —

When siunmer came to pass, And blossoms through the grass Were wonderfully springing, And all the birds were singing, I came through sim and shadow Along a mighty meadow, In midst of whicli a fountain sprang, Before a woodland wild, that rang With songs the nightingale outsang.^

We have seen that he awoke from this intellectual paralysis which was creeping over him, under the excite-

' ApiDcndix LL.

WALTHER VON DEE VOGELWEIDE. 229

ment of the pietistic revival, and wrote some superb fresh sacred lyrics under the personal influence of St. Elizabeth of Hungary. We have seen, too, that the rousing of the embers was but a flash, and that the end was near. The life of trouble was to find rest in the cloistered silence of Wiirzburg. Thus we have traced the man and the poet through his life and his work to the same point of conclusion.

A DUTCH POETESS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

In one of the precious portfolios of the Fodor Museum in Amsterdam, there exists a drawing the interest of which, to the literary student, far overbalances that of the heads of old women and groups of old armour with which it is associated. It is a study in sanguine, by Groltzius, and it represents a young Dutch lady of the time of Shakespeare. The face is viewed almost in profile; the soft hair — golden blond, as we know from other sources — is drawn tightly back from a forehead of most virginal sweetness, and is enclosed in a lace coif; large dark eyes, partly concealed by somewhat heavy eyelids, and softened by long lashes; a straight nose, finely cut, with resolute and even passionate nostrils; a mouth exquisitely curved; and a small firm chin, compose a countenance in which intelligence and strength of purpose combine with an unusual beauty. The modest diffidence of the upper part of this face is belied by the resolution of the lower part, and we recognise that sweetest paradox of excellent womanhood, the tenderness that is at once wise and strong, the will that knows how, with equal simplicity, to rule or to be ruled. The drawing was made about the year 1614, and it is the portrait, at

CHAMBERS OF EHETORIC. 231

the age of twenty, of Tesselschade Vissclier, the most renowned of Dutch poetesses.

Before we enter upon the study of that particular period which is to be the subject of this chapter, it may be well to regard very briefly the literaiy and political events which led up to it. The phrase, ' Chamber of Rhetoric,' will be frequently mentioned in the course of these pages, and I may at the outset describe the peculiar institution thus referred to. It was under the Dukes of Burgundy and during the last years of the fourteenth century that literary guilds began to be formed in the Low Countries, under the title of ' Kamers van Rhetorica,' or Chambers of Rhetoric. For more than two centuries all literary enterprise was protected and conducted by these semi-official bodies, the existence of which was not confined to the large cities, but marked the prosperity and public spirit of even such unimportant towns as Zierikzee and Schiedam. It was the privilege of these Chambers to encourage the com- position of sacred poems, of scholastic prose treatises, and, most of all, of moralities and dramatic mysteries. As the course of events progressed, first the Renaissance, and secondly, the Reformation, coloured the exercises of the Chambers, and in due time destroyed them. But before this last could happen, a kind of didactic liumanism had taken the place of the study of Thomas Aquinas. There was really little vitality in the constitution of the Chambers. The ' brothers,' as the members were called, discussed, analysed, spun out their endless threads of argument, without much result in science or literature. Under their hands the language became gradually debased, until it threatened to sink into a kind of bastard French . Flanders,

232 THE LITEEATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

in the early part of the fifteenth century, enjoyed a certain fallacious revival in the hands of Houwaert, a man equally illustrious as poet and statesman, who stirred the Chamber of the ' Garland of Mary,' at Brussels, into a sort of frenzy with his pseudo-classical dramas of ' Narcissus and Echo,' ' Leander and Hero,' and the like. But this proved to be a false start. Houwaert had no true conception of the dignity of antique art; and, moreover, the language he wrote in was deformed by all the worst barbarisms of the Burgundian school. Cornells van Ghistele was but a little more successful with the Chamber of the 'Marigold,' at Antwerp, for though he approached somewhat nearer to the sources of antiquity, he did nothing to purify the debased and nerveless language. Meanwhile, the first great writer of the Netherlands had arisen in Antwerp, actually outside the blazing petals of the 'Marigold.' This was the poetess Anna Bijns, perhaps the only woman whose writing, apart from her personal influence, has effected a great change in any epoch of letters. From this time the omnipotence of the Chambers, having been questioned, was ripe to pass away. The struggle with Spain, and the victory of the Northern Provinces, removed the head of intellectual as of commercial enterprise from Antwerp to Amsterdam, but not before it had called forth in the Southern Provinces the quickening genius of Filips van Marnix, Lord of Saint Aldegonde, one of those brilliant and penetrating minds which seem to be produced only in the most critical moments of history. In the plastic hands of Marnix the Dutch language regained its vigour and much of its purity, and became a fit channel for national and patriotic thoughts, while his ' Wilhelmuslied,' a ballad in honour of William

THE EGLANTINE. 233

of Orange, nobly heralded the independence, and has remained for three hundred years the one great popular poem of Holland. To return, however, to the Chambers of Khetoric. We are particularly concerned with one of those institutions, the Amsterdam Chamber of the ' Eglan- tine,' which was founded in 1496, and which took for its motto the words, ' In Liefde Bloeyende ' — ' Blossoming in Love.' In process of time the full title of the Chamber was merged in the phrase, 'The Brothers Blossoming in Love.' This body played no important part until the war with Spain; it failed to compete with its southern brethren; but as soon as Amsterdam began to enjoy the privileges of Protestant freedom, that is to say, from the year 1578, the Eglantine took a foremost j)lace in Dutch culture, and the last fifty years of its existence were years of prolonged triumph. About 1585 Amsterdam was enriched by the arrival of a great number of fugitives from Flanders and Brabant, who brought their wealth and energy to the new market of Holland ; and at the same time there arrived two of the literary guilds of Antwerp, the ' White Lavender Bloom,' and the ' Fig-tree.' From this time forth the Eglantine became known as the Old Chamber, and its character underwent an important modification. While the exiles from the south retained their cut-and-dried traditions, their conventional forms, their tiresome Burgun- dian phrases, the Brothers of the Old Chamber, among whom were counted the noblest and most intelligent citizens of Amsterdam, set themselves to reform the language and enrich the literature of the new-born state. The creation of a national poetry and a national art was exactly coeval with the creation of a national constitution.

234 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

As Holland attained independence with a sudden heroic effort that nothing could withstand, so, with the same rapid decision, she formed for herself, in a single genera- tion, a great literature. In tins work, three men, intimate friends, citizens of Amsterdam, had the main honour of initiation: one of them was the father of our poetess. They were immediately followed by a group of the most elevated and original minds that Holland has produced; and in this greater generation our poetess herself formed the central point around which all the best genius of the time revolved, obeying the irresistible attraction of beauty and sympathy. Hence a full bio- graphy of father and daughter would embrace the whole history of the rise and glory of letters during the short period that they flourished eminently in the Netherlands. Such a copious study would be impossible within our limits, but it will perhaps be within our scope, while never losing sight of the central figure, to contem- plate, in some degree, the whole movement of Dutch literature from 1580 to 1670, the extreme limits of its efflorescence.

Tesselschade was the third and youngest daughter of the poet and rhetorician Roemer Visscher. Her name was typical of the ingenious tastelessness of the age, a quality that we find, like a stain, pervading the whole literature of Europe in the end of the sixteenth century. The name signifies Texel- wreck, and the young lady received this extraordinary title because her father, returning from some voyage, was wrecked off the Texel, at the mouth of the Zuyder Zee, on the day of her birth, March 25, 1594. Her father himself had a punning name, for ' Roemer ' sig-

DUTCH HUMANISM. 235

nifies a goblet or cup, and his contemporaries indulged, of course, in endless pleasantries on so pliable a text. Eoemer Visscher was born in 1545 ; the Independence found him a middle-aged man of wealth and position, a Catholic indeed, but wholly devoted to the State, and with an enthusiasm for letters which overpowered all other considerations. He had plenty of leisure, and he had employed his earlier years in a course of study then very unusual in the north of Europe. For while devouring the classics with all the passion for which Ley den had so long been famous, he did not, like the scholars of that famous university, attempt the vain task of competing with the ancients in their own tongues, but determined to use them as models for the exaltation of the vernacular into a classic language. In this great idea he consciously followed the example of Joachim du Bellay, whose ' Defense et Illustration,' pub- lished when they were children, formed the text-book of the Humanists of Amsterdam. In the labour he under- took, Eoemer possessed a great advantage in being one of the two Presidents of the Chamber of the Eglantine ; and another in having for his colleague his bosom friend Hendrick Spieghel, a man entirely like-minded with him- self. A third agent in the work of this renaissance was Coornhert, a much older, and in some respects less genial and fascinating person than Spieghel or Eoemer, but a great reformer of language, and a prosaist of considerable genius. A didactic humanism, Cicero strongly tinctured with the Bible, formed the starting point of the polemical philo- sophy of Coornhert ; the Old Chamber, under the guidance of the younger men, stood more aloof from religion, gave a warmer tinge to thought, and formed an element in

236 THE LITEEATUEE OF NOETHEEN EUEOPE.

which the imagination could move comparatively un- shackled by conventional disabilities. It was their great glory to have purified the language, to have thrown away the rubbish of the Ehetoricians, and to have restored, in modern form, the nervous language of Maerlant and Boendale, the great mediasval writers of ' Dietsch ' or early Dutch. In this revival, it should be repeated, the Brothers Blossoming in Love took at first a solitary part, and to their two Presidents is due the chief honour of the movement. Spieghel, a wealthy merchant, was a more active, less contemplative character than Eoemer. Born in 1 549, he was slightly younger than his friend, but he seems at first to have taken the lead in literature. Just outside the Utrecht gate of Amsterdam, stood Meerhuyzen, his beautiful villa, in the garden of which, among the boughs of a great old linden, he built a summer-house, which he named the Muses' Tower-court. In this hanging house among the leaves he received a few select friends, and it became the first Dutch salon. Called to the highest honours of the Eepublic, he preferred to pay one heavy fine after another rather than to disturb his study, and imperil the progress of literary reform. As early as 1584, he published his famous ' Twaespraek,' a prose treatise founded on the model of Du Bellay's, in which he advocated, in the form of a dialogue held in his linden tree between Eoemer Visscher and Gedeon Fallett, the necessity of purifying Dutch literature by a tasteful study of the classics, and in which he lays down, for the first time, the principles of prose style. This book was introduced by a preface from the hand of Coornhert, and was in fact a manifesto from all the leaders of reform. We may safely take this date —

HOOFT. 237

1 584 — as the commencement of the great age of Dutch letters.

We can easily mark the decline of genius, but we know- nothing of its rise until it stands before us adult. There seemed, between 1585 and 1605, to be but little practical result of the labours of Eoemer and Spieghel. The great poets of the next generation, all born soon after the earlier date, were fast growing towards maturity in the warm air of freedom and revival. Although the two Presidents of the Old Chamber did not print their poems till the last years of their lives, their pieces were circidated from hand to hand, and their teaching was widely received. Such books as ' Den Pyl der Liefden,' (Love's Arrow), by Arnoldus Cobbault, full of allusions to Venus and Adonis, Panchaian odours, and the progress of Bacchus, pointed the way though without original talent, exactly as the poems of our own Groves and Watsons did. But the first real luminary that rose into the heavens, thus purged of mist by the leaders of the Old Chamber, was a young man destined to become the most influential, if not precisely the greatest, of all Dutch men of letters. Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft was the only poet of the great period, who in after years could remember the meetings among the boughs at Meerhuyzen. Born in 1581, he was admitted as a boy of seventeen into the Chamber of the Eglantine, of which his father, for a long time Burgomaster of Amsterdam, was an enliglitened and prominent naember. The introduction of entire equality among the citizens of the great Dutch cities produced, as it had done in Florence in the fourteenth century, a merchant aristocracy, which the presence of a great national danger chastened and preserved from vulgar

238 THE LITERATUEE OF NORTHEEN EUEOPE.

excess. The glory of the new commonwealth was its mercliant class, with their wide government of the sea. The fall of Antwerp had been the rise of Amsterdam, and this was entirely owing to the immense impetus given to mercantile enterprise. In spite of the exhaustion of the struggle for independence, the wealth of the United Provinces was practically unbounded, and the centre of this prosperity was Amsterdam. The courts that en- couraged art and literature had no counterparts in Holland ; no member of the House of Orange had the opportunity of becoming a Maecenas, except Frederick Henry, and he too late to modify the course of events. Consequently it was left to the wealthy merchants to organise and direct in- tellectual effort, and under their genial protection the fine arts flourished freely, in accordance with the temper of the nation. The elder Hooft was a typical merchant prince, and it was natmal that the son of such a man, being dowered with genius, should know how to cultivate his gifts in the way most advantageous to himself, and to his country. Hooft had the intelligence to import, even in his boyish days, a new element into literature. Hitherto the Dutch Hmnanism had been essentially didactic. Spieghel read Plato in the original, and felt a little the Grreek sense of delight in thought for its own sake, but he was alone in both these attainments. The Eenaissance had come to Holland to teach, and not to enjoy ; the great Latinists of Leyden, though they had produced a Joannes Secundus to their wounding, and a Lotichius to their hurt, had mainly asserted a Ciceronian stoicism in which there was no tincture of the southern delight in luxury and physical beauty. Already in Hooft's boyish tragedy of 'Achilles

HOOFT. 239

and Polyxena,' performed before the Old Chamber in 1598, in spite of the inspiration drawn rather from Seneca than Homer, in spite of the thinness of plot and the poverty of language, a more truly Greek conception of poetry is re- cognisable than in any previous Dutch poem. The chorus (act ii. scene 4) beginning —

The heaven with its halls of cloth of gold,

alone appears to me to protest against the neglect Dutch critics have shown to this dull and puerile but most important drama, and to foreshadow plainly enough the richness and melody of Hooft's later style. In his eighteenth year, flushed with success and ambition, with unlimited means at his disposal, attended by all the charms that wealth, beauty, and vivacity can give, the fortunate young poet started on a three years' tour through France, Italy, and Germany. Italy was the land of his dreams ; he arrived too late to press the dying hand of Tasso, but not too late, it would appear, to pour a florid worship at the feet of Guarini. He recorded his adventures, such as seeing the dead body of Gabrielle d'Estree sitting up in a white satin mantle six hours after her decease, and other remarkable exhibitions, in a highly entertaining note-book, which has been published in our own time. But it is more to our purpose that from Florence, in 1600, he addressed a letter in rhyme to the Old Chamber, which marks an epoch in Dutch verse, so excellent is it. In 1601 he came back to Holland with a splendid pair of mous- taches and one finished drama. The latter was the ' Theseus and Ariadne,' a boyish affair, even worse than the ' Achilles.'

240 THE LITEEATUEE OF NOETHEEN EUEOPE.

Hooft returned, to find the household at Meerhuyzen broken up. Spieghel, persuaded by his second wife, abandoned the Muses' Tower-court in 1602, and proceeded to Alkmaar, now a red-roofed dreamy town, as clean and as empty as a scoured pan, but then a great mercantile centre and the capital of North Holland. But the literary circle was not broken up ; the members merely transferred their rendezvous to the house of Roemer Visscher, on the Cingel, just outside the city of Amsterdam, on the way to Haarlem. In 1602 the family consisted of his wife Aafge, of whom we know next to nothing, and of his three daughters. Of these, Anna, the eldest, was a comely, intelligent girl of eighteen, Truitjen (or Grertrude) six years younger, and Tesselschade, a sweet little person of eight. It was probably at this time, and during the next three years, that these young ladies laid up the stock of accomplishments which formed in after life the wonder of their contemporaries. Speaking of the time before he set out for Constantinople in 1612, Ernestus Brink of Harderwijk wrote : —

Roemer Visscher had three daughters, all of whom were prac- tised iu very sweet accomplishments ; they could play music, paint, write and engrave on glass, make poems, cut emblems, embroider all manner of fabrics, and swim well, which last thing they had learned in their father's garden, where there was a canal with water outside the city.

It will be noticed that the curriculum of their studies was a very healthy and practical one. The blue-stockings of the day, like Anna Maria van Schurmau, talked Greek and wrote Arabic, and were prigs of the most appalling intensity ; but the daughters of Roemer Visscher, though

ROEMER'S HOUSE. 241

possessing the finest feminine intellects of their age, could not even read Latin. They were early instructed in their father's love of his mother-tongue, and of the fine arts, and they inherited no small measure of his admirable good sense. Throughout life nothing was more remarkable in the characters of Anna and Tesselschade that, though habit- ually covered with the most fulsome advdation from all the most eminent men of their age, they never forgot to be sensible, discreet, and modest. Such was the home and such the feminine adornments of the house of Eoemer Visscher. Coornhert had died in 1590; Spieghel was gone to Alkmaar ; Eoemer himself was verging on sixty, and his chief friends, the elder Hooft and the elder Eeael, were old men too. In this company Pieter Hooft, with his Italian- ated manners, his moustaches and his poetic ardour, must have produced a fine impression of youthfulness. One of the first things he did was to fall in love with the staid Anna, who rejected him with a gentle courtesy ; then with two nieces of Spieghel, who died one after the other, and finally with the famous lute-player, the fair Christina van Erp. But this is taking us too far ahead ; we must pause at the year 1605, in which Eoemer moved to the house which was for so many years the nursery of genius, and Hooft first proved himself to be a great poet.

The family of Eoemer left their home on the Cingel and took up their abode on the English quay, now known as the Geldersche Kaai, quite in the middle of Amsterdam. There is a charming engraving in Brederoo's ' Lied-boek,' which may very likely, I think, be a portrait of the house. A broad street, paved with 'klinkers' or rounded bricks, lies between it and the water ; a carved metal railing pro-

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242 THE LITERATUEE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

tects the lower windows, which are themselves provided with delicate screens in ironwork. A long knocker de- corates the stout oak door, with its elaborate lintel, on which hangs the escutcheon of the family. It is a red- brick house, with lattice windows. There is a tree in front of it, and a courtyard beside it ; and if you would know liow cool and clean and sunny it is within, you must refer to the pictures of Mijnheer Pieter de Hooghe. There are effects of sunlight and colour to be found there on summer evenings such as Van der Meer, of all men who ever lived, was alone worthy to paint, but we must not fancy that the daughters of the house appreciated them with all the intensity of the generation that followed. The Italian fashion was supreme in art as in poetry, and there still were memories of the young men who went to Eome with Bernard van Orley to study in the school of Raphael. This Italianating spirit was not lessened, we may be sure, by the next step taken by the ambitious Hooft. In 1605, the year that Roemer moved into the city, the Brothers Blossoming in Love were invited to witness the performance of a pastoral drama by their youthful colleague, a work imprecedented in Dutch history. It is not sup- prising that ' Grranida,' as it was called, excited great notice. From the first verse that the shepherdess Dorilea utters we see how fresh and new a poem this is, and how great was the advance that Hooft had achieved. Pastorals are not now in fashion ; it is unfortunate, for a good dramatic idyl is a lovely piece of art. ' Grranida ' has almost every requisite of this kind of writing ; it is varied and lyrical, sufficiently interesting as a story, amorous and gracious, with a spice of passion, and written in luxurious

ITALIAN TASTE. 243

richly-rhymed verse that is music itself. Compared with our own ' Faithful Shepherdess,' it is a little stiff in form, the Italian model being more closely imitated, and when we read it carefully we find whole passages of the ' Pastor Fido ' bodily paraphrased. But there was no law in those days against the sin of plagiarism, and the unconscious offender errs very gracefully. This delicate, artificial poetry was not to set root in Holland ; its days were already numbered, but in Hooft, as in Spenser of whom he con- stantly reminds us, the love of the French and Italian poets outweighed for a little while the temper of the nation, and produced a brief semblance of the Grolden Age. Moreover, the daughters of Eoemer, with whom Hooft's unlucky suit to Anna had wrought no severance of friendship, were deeply impressed with it, Tesselschade especially, as her early poems prove.

At the English Quay the life at first was very quiet. It is not probable that the house of Eoemer was con- scious of the fact that close by, in Warmoesstraat, a seller of stockings died in 1608, leaving a young son of twenty-one, Joost van den Vondel, in good time to be the intimate companion of Tesselschade and Anna, and himself the greatest of Dutch writers. Still less are the ladies likely to have heard of the arrival, in 1607, at Amsterdam, of an English family exiled as Brownists by the bigotry of James I., and bringing with them their son, Jan Janssen Starter, a boy of thirteen, soon to become an exquisite lyrical poet. They were more interested in certain family matters that gave colouring to the year 1609, when their sister Triutjen, who did not share their literary proclivities, married a rich brewer, Nikolaas van Buyl, afterwards promoted to be

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244 THE LITEKATUEE OF NORTHEEN EUROPE.

sheriff of the city. He belonged to the Eeformed Church, and thus G-ertrude passed out of the circle of her family's interests ; accordingly, we meet with her name no more. It was in the same year that a young man of twenty-six, one of the handsomest and most capable persons of that stirring time, Laurens Reael, was marked out for honours by the great Oldenbarneveldt, and a still greater distinction was accorded to a dearer friend by the Stadtholder. The influence of the family of Hooft with the house of Nassau was very gi'eat, and the brilliant gifts of young Pieter Corneliszoon were not unnoticed by Maurice. In 1609, the bailiff of the castle of Muiden, Willem van Zuijlen van Nijevelt, died, and was succeeded by the author of ' Granida ' with the titles and emoluments of bailiff of Muiden, steward of G-ooiland, and master of the town and lands of Weesp. This appointment was one of the richest and most desirable in the gift of the Stadtholder ; it gave the possessor rank among the highest dignitaries of the country, and assm-ed him more than competence. From this moment Hooft lived at Muiden Castle, on the river Vecht, about ten miles east of Amsterdam.

The mother of our three sisters died soon after her second daughter's marriage, and in 1610 we find Anna head of the household at Engelsche Kaai, and dividing lier care between her ageing father, and the sixteen-year-old Tesselschade, now fast developing into an acknowledged beauty. Soon came the news that Hooft had won the hand of Christina van Erp, and had brought her to share the dignities of Miuden. It was probably in the same year that the sisters became acquainted with Vondel, who had just married, at the age of twenty-three. Some influence,

BREDER06. 245

now unknown to us, united the family of Roemer with the great Latinists of Leyden, particularly with Heinsius, who we find henceforward as a faithful admirer of Anna and warm friend of the others. Thus the circle was enlarging, and one by one those great figures were gathering round the unfolding charms of Tesselschade, ready to greet with their sympathy the earliest emanations of her genius. In

1611 her father at least, and probably herself, became conscious of a youth over whom slie was destined to exercise a very considerable influence. This was Gerbrand Adria- enszoon Brederoo, whose ' Eoddrick and Alphonsus,' per- formed in that year, and dedicated to Hugo Grrotius, revealed the existence of a new dramatic genius. Born in 1585, Brederoo was at this time of the same age as Anna, twenty-six, and a rough, fiery creature, in every way unlike the aristocratic Hooft. He was the son of a poor shoe- maker of Amsterdam, a Protestant, and a stranger to the native refinements of the Roemer family ; but genius was a key that could always unlock that hospitable door, and it was not long before he became an intimate visitor. In 1612, too, the young English exile, Jan Starter, became a member of the Old Chamber, and a friend of Roemer's daughters ; a very different person he from the unpolished, ardent Brederoo, nor did he, a boy of seventeen, impress his personality on the circle as Brederoo did. The year

1612 was a memorable one in the annals of the Dutch drama. Brederoo produced two very important plays before the Old Chamber- — his romantic tragi-comedy of ' Griane ' and his broadly comic ' Farce of the Cow.' A new figure, that of the physician Dr. Samuel Coster, competed for dramatic honours with his farce of ' Teeuwis, the Boor ;' Hooft came

246 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

forward with his noble historical tragedy of ' Geeraerdt van Velsen,' a story of early Dutch history from the times of Floris v., the scene of which is laid in the Castle of Muiden, Hooft's own home ; and last, but not least, Vondel brought out the first of the magnificent series of his biblical dramas, ' Het Pascha,' or the Freeing of the Children of Israel from Egypt, in which, as in most of the writings of this exalted poet, a great national idea or aspiration is not far to seek below the surface of the story. This tragi-comedy was brought out, not by the Old Chamber, but by the Chamber of the White Lavender Blossom, one of the Brabant guilds settled in Amsterdam. It was simultaneously brought out, pirated perhaps, by the Chamber of the Bed Eose at Schiedam. The success of the ' Pascha ' was immediate ; Vondel was invited to come over to the Eglantine, and from this time forward we find him a constant visitor at Koemer's house.

Among all these acquisitions there had been one loss. Oldenbarneveldt had noted, as I have said, the diplomatic and governing qualities in Laurens Eeael, and had deter- mined to take him away from the writing of poetry to a wider sphere. We need not regret it, for making verses was the worst thing this great man could do. In 1602 Holland had founded her East India Company, at a most happy moment, when the sceptre of Asia Avas falling from the enslaved liand of Portugal, and when Spain had proved herself incapable of lifting it again. The treasures of the Eastern Archipelago dropped into the grasp of Holland, and her merchants found a glorious new empire waiting for them under the spice trees of Banda and Amboyna. But government as well as energy, craft as well

BREDEKOO. 247

as courage, were needed to regulate this new Eldorado. The keen glance of the Advocate surveyed the youth of Holland and selected Reael as the most capable person to be found. Accordingly, in 1611, that young man said farewell to his friends in Roemer's house, and set out, in his twenty-eighth year, in command of four ships of war for the Moluccas. No sooner had he reached his destination than he was appointed Grovernor of Ternate, the most pre- cious of the Spice Settlements ; and here, winning golden opinions, we leave him for the present.

At home in Amsterdam, Brederoo was no less rapidly rising into fame, though on the more peaceful scene of the stage. In 1613 he was made a Brother Blossoming in Love, and began, by his growing differences with the elder mem- bers, a split which finally proved the ruin of the Eglantine. To us, the most interesting thing is that he fell violently in love with Tesselschade, now an exquisite girl of nineteen, and that this passion tinged the first few years with hope and the rest of his life with despair. Among the poets of this time she had many admirers, but no other suitor, for Hooft, Vondel, and Coster were married, and in 1614 Starter left Amsterdam to settle at Leeuwarden, in Fries- land, there to found a chamber of rhetoric in memory of his regretted Eglantine. Personally, there was much to recommend Brederoo to a young poetess like Tesselschade ; his fervour, his indisputable genius, his passionate admira- tion of her wit and beauty, and his public acknowledgment of her great qualities ; for in 1614 he dedicated to her by name his tragedy of ' Lucelle.' To her father, on the other hand, the somewhat disreputable son of a Protestant shoe- maker, author of farces in which the decencies were not

248 THE LITEKATUEE OF NORTHEEN EUEOPE.

successfully maintained, the poor adventurer of Helicon, was a very interesting visitor and guest, but not to be thought of as a son-in-law, and so the wooing went on without any obvious result. The dedication of ' Lucelle ' is the earliest of the thousand-and-one tributes to Tessel- schade. Brederoo entreats the ' amiable maiden ' to en- lighten his poor play ' with beams from those flashing stars that stand and sparkle in the heaven of her forehead.' He overwhelms her with thanks, (' friend of books and all fair letters ! ') for having deigned to be present at the first performance ; and already were the genius and beauty of this girl so eminent that he addresses her as ' the Honour of our City, the Grlory of our Age.' He is charmed with the sympathy she showed for his heroine, clothing with the royal purple of pity the lily-white of her maidenly cheeks. It will be observed that the style of Brederoo was far from what we nowadays consider reticent, and no doubt his personal suit was carried on in a manner no less stormy. In the midst of these successes of the younger men, Spieghel had died, in 1612, and in 1614 Koemer Visscher determined to publish to the world his own poems and those of his old friend, neither of which had hitherto circulated except in MS. Accordingly, Spieghel's great masterpiece, the ' Hert Spieghel,' with its passing reference to its author's name, went through the press, and in the same year the ' Zinne-Poppen ' and the ' Brabbelingh ' of Koemer. These names, of which we may translate the first as ' Thought- Puppets', and the second as ' Scribblings,' were in some degree characteristic of the oddity of the contents. The ' Brabbelingh ' consisted of erotic, comic, and epigrammatic pieces, very many of them translated from Catullus, Martial,

ZINNE-POPPEN. 249

and Ovid. It was the pride of Eoemer to be known among his contemporaries as the Dutch Martial ; a modern critic might be more inclined to call him a Batavian Clement Marot. His original pieces are sprightly and earnest ; without being exactly clumsy, he is seldom melodious or neatly turned. Both of his daughters seem to me to surpass him in the technical part of verse. The ' Zinue-Poppen ' is a very delightful book, but it hardly comes under the category of poetry. It consists of nearly two hundred emblems, each illustrated by an engraving in the most charming style, with a motto above and a couplet below. This tills one page, and on the opposite is a short disquisi- tion with the text as a motto. The first editions are extremely rare; I only know the third, of 1669, adorned with the improvements and additions of Anna. It has a pretty title-page, with a roemer^ a coffee-pot, and a grace- ful jug, standing on a slab, again in punning reference to the author's name ; and the engravings in the body of the book are works of delicate art.

The poems of Eoemer and Spieghel were received with great respect, but the age, in its rapid development, had in fact already passed these forerunners of the revival. It was in the drama that the next few years produced the most brilliant successes. Brederoo presented before the Old Chamber in 1615 his 'Moortje,' an adaptation in verse of the * Eunuchus ' of Terence, which remained a popular stage-piece for eighty years, and Coster began a new style of performance with his ' Itys,' a most gruesome classical drama, in the manner of ' Titus Andronicus ' or ' Hoffmann's Tragedy,' a thing of blood and rape, mitigated by passages of considerable romantic beauty. We find

250 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

here side by side the two main streams of dramatic art in Holland, the broad humour and farcical comicality of which Brederoo is the greatest exponent in poetry as Teniers in painting, and the coarse tragedy, dealing with violent effects and horrid crimes in which Coster excelled, or rather, perhaps, persisted. Coster belongs altogether to a lower rank of talent than Brederoo, whose life-like portraiture of ' humours,' less pedantic than Ben Jonson's, is infinitely laughter-compelling still ; but Coster also had his comic side, and wi"ote farces which were quite as coarse if not so fimny as his younger contemporary's. In spite, in fact, of his horrors, he was probably intended by nature to be a kind of bourgeois tragedian of the mild type of Heywood, of whom he frequently reminds us. It is strange to think that Tesselschade, a girl of distin- guished rank in society, and in the flush of her youth, should be present at the performance of these wild plays, and should shower plaudits on their authors. It is more easy to imagine her seated in the theatre of the Brothers Blossoming in Love when her excellent friend Hooft brought out his great historical play of ' Baeto, or the Origin of the Dutchmen,' in 1616. Meanwhile the fussy energy of Coster had brought about dissension in the Chamber of the Eglantine, and finding it impossible to induce the old-fashioned Brothers to act with them, he and other modern sphits left the Chamber in 1617, and built in Amsterdam a wooden theatre, which they named the First Dutch Academy, or more generally Coster's Academy. It was an attempt to imitate the Academia della Crusca of Florence.

Suddenly the troubles of civil war threatened to break

EELIGIOUS FACTION. 251

on the Republic. From one end of the country to the other nothing was heard but the jarring clash of creeds, the endless squabbles of Gromarist and Arminian, and the growing jealousy of the heads of the State. Mr. Motley has given a graphic picture of this terrible storm of em- bittered religious opinions which broke upon the whole society of Holland ; and no one would suspect, in reading his pages, that literature could flourish anywhere during that period. But Amsterdam possessed a partial immunity from the politico-theological scourge, and the house of Roemer, and the castle of Hooft were retired waters that scarcely felt the storm, or, feeling it, could still forget it. In 1618, however, the policy of the Counter-Remonstrants had become a burning question even in Amsterdam, and heated Calvinistic preachers, fulminating from their pulpits with all the rage, if not perhaps all the eloquence of Tertullian, succeeded in closing some of the theatres. In this very year, however. Prince Maurice commanded, and applauded, a performance of Hooft's ' Geraad van Velsen,' while Starter, away in Friesland, was unmolested in putting his ' Timbre van Cardone ' on the stage. To the family of Roemer, with their mild Catholicism and their cultured humanism, these rabid shouts of Free Will and Predestination that deafened the consciences of men, and drove them to the foulest acts of tyranny and treason, must have seemed pitiful indeed ; nor has Protestantism ever shone in so contemptible a light, as in these years preceding the murder of Oldenbarneveldt. A more inti- mate grief came to them in 1618, when Brederoo, worn out with exhaustion and disappointment, died in the arms of his poor old mother, in the same humble house where he

252 THE LITEEATUEE OF NOETHEKN EUEOPE.

was born. Tesselschade had refused him, as her sister had refused Hooffc before, but in the latter case a light fancy had been diverted, in the former an intense passion fatally thwarted. There is no reason for building up a romantic story that Brederoo died of love for Tesselschade : this would be extremely unlikely ; but the innumerable poems in which he displays or disguises his infatuation for her person, leave us with no doubt about the depth and sincerity of his feeling. He died at the age of thirty-six, two years after the death of Shakespeare, and in him Holland lost the greatest dramatist she has ever produced. Almost simultaneously with the death of Brederoo the daughter of Eoemer became acquainted with a friend who was destined to take his place and to complete the circle of genius. This was Constantine Huyghens, a young man born two years later than Tesselschade, and now in his twenty-second year. He was a Hagenaar, or citizen of The Hague, a village entirely given up to politics, and with no literary activity. Yet he had read Roemer Visscher's poems with enthusiastic admiration, and had paid a flying visit to Amsterdam, to pay homage to the old poet and his daughters. But he came of a high and ambitious family, and a diplomatic career opened before him. In 1618, he was sent to London in company with the English Ambas- sador Carleton, who was a friend of his father's. He was presented to James I., then engaged in refreshing the weary Synod of Dort by ' his godly zeal and fiery sympathy,' and in hounding on the Stadth older to the massacre of the Arminians. Huyghens was taken to Oxford, Woodstock, Windsor, and Cambridge ; finally, in September 1618, he accompanied homewards the English delegates, who were

EXECUTION OF BAKNEVELDT. 253

proceeding to assist at that weary Synod aforesaid. But the most noticeable thing in connection with this visit of Huyghens to London, was that he was permitted the honour, as he himself puts it, of pressing the hand of that incomparable divine poet, John Donne.

During the agitations of the political crisis, Anna Roemer began to develop her literary talent in a remark- able degree, and to show the didactic tendencies which afterwards entirely absorbed her work. The ' Maeghden- Plicht' of Cats the Emblematist was dedicated to Anna, and shows that she had already corresponded with the Zealand school of poets. While these literary amenities were passing between Amsterdam and Middelburg, the father of Huyghens noted in his diary, with singular brevity, on May 13, 1618, ' Barneveldt beheaded this morn- ing, directly after breakfast.' This terrible judicial crime was execrated in the circle of Roemer's friends. Hooft was united by the strongest bonds of association and gratitude to the Stadth older, but Vondel, at least, was a passionate partisan of the Advocate, and he and Coster laid no restraint on their scathing satires against the Gomarists and Counter-Remonstrants. In this Tesselschade herself, as a poem of hers to Vondel proves, ardently joined, and in the house of Engelsche Kaai verses were recited in the inmost circle, which would have brought the heads that read them to prison, if not to the scaffold. Vondel's burn- ing ode, beginning —

Holland had he hid and carried

At his heart, Till old age, that had not tarried,

Did its part ;

254 THE LITEEATUEE OF NOETHEEN EUEOPE.

But to wasli the oaths of cravens

In his blood, And to fatten crows and ravens

With its flood ?i

became a kind of watchword among the select company of the best spirits of Amsterdam, who met around the board of the gentle Anna, and the wronged soul of the great Barneveldt held these men and women closer together in a bond of protest. From this time forth we find Vondel strongly leaning to the Catholic religion.

As soon as the triumph of the Calvinists was assured, the rigid suppression of the drama began to be relaxed. Some magnificent posthumous plays of Brederoo's were performed, and Coster shyly came out of his shell, and got his Academy once more into working order. Already before 1619, Anna is conjectured to have published her magnum opus, the descriptive and didactic poem of ' De Eoemster van den Aemstel ' (The Glory of the Aemstel), a work of which the only known edition is without a date. Early in 1620, a second edition of Roemer's ' Zinne- Poppen ' appeared with very considerable emendation and enlargement from the hand of Anna. Some of the verses attached to her father's work display her pedestrian muse at its best. A drawing of a giddy lady, singing to her own accompaniment upon the lute, suggests to Anna the following sensible little poem: —

A wife that sings and pipes all day, And never puts her lute away, No service to her hand finds she ; Fie, fie ! for this is vanity !

• Appendix MM.

DEATH OF EOEMER. 255

But is it not a heavenly sight To see a woman take delight With song or string her hushand dear, When daily work is done, to cheer ?

Misuse may turn the sweetest sweet To loathsome wormwood, I repeat ; Yea, wholesome medicine, full of grace, May prove a poison — out of place .

They who on thoughts eternal rest. With earthly pleasures may be blest ; Since they know well these shadows gay, Like wind and smoke, will pass away.^

There was no fear that the authoress of such cheerful lines would be decoyed away into the barrenness of religious polemic. It has been supposed that Anna visited Zealand in this year, but to me it seems extremely improbable that in her father's infirm state she, as head of the house, would choose to take so long a journey from home. In fact, before the year was out, Eoemer Visscher was dead, at the age of seventy-five. Two years earlier, in 1618, the famous Franz Hals had painted his portrait, a dreamy old man, with finely-cut features, slightly recalling those of his daughter Tesselschade ; in the eyes a weary, wistful expression, but no trace of sourness. To the last he was the honoured centre of the most important literary salon in the north of Europe.

But the circle did not break up with his death, or even materially change. From all parts of Holland poetical tributes to the memory of their father poured in upon the sisters. Hooft wrote two genial epitaphs ; Huyghens,

' Appendix NN.

256 THE LITEEATUEE OE NOETHEEN EUEOPE.

who was away in Venice, sent a long poem of condolence.^ All these elegies presupposed, in their tone, that the same welcome would meet all men of genius at the table of Anna and Tesselschade as at that of Eoemer, and for two or three years Anna was at the head of the Amsterdam school. Meanwhile Laurens Eeael had returned after a brilliant career. In 1616 he had succeeded Ehijnst as Grovernor- Greneral of the Indies, he had defeated the Javanese at Batavia, and the English at Amboyna, and now, ripe with honours, he came back to Amsterdam to greet his friends. He started from the Moluccas in AugTist 1619, and arrived at home in January 1620, to find that his patron and dear friend Oldenbarneveldt had been degraded, condemned, and executed before he liimself had left his new splendours in Asia. Under the new rule there was little in Holland to attract or to solace Reael, and he drew more closely than ever to the sisters, at whose house he met Vondel, Hooffc, and the lovers of the murdered advocate. Vondel himself,

' Hiiyghens, who was one of the greatest masters of metrical form of his age, in one of his epistles to Tesselschade uses, with the utmost ease and at great length, a stanza of which this is an ex- ample : —

Tesselschaedje, Kameraedje, Die dit praetje

Uit mijn hert, En van binnen, Uyi het spinnen Van mijn sinnen. Hebt ontwert.

This is more like one of the lovely creations of Victor Hugo or of Swinburne than a production of the heavy and fettered Teutonic tongues of the seventeenth century. But m respect of mastery over form Huyghens is facile pnncejjs among the Dutch poets of his time or since.

MUIDEN CASTLE. 257

in this year, 1621, wrote his remarkable poem, ' The Praise of St. Ag-nes,' in which his strong bias towards the Catholic religion first found definite expression. Another old friend returned to Amsterdam in 1621; this was Starter, who, anxious to collect his lyrical and amorous poems into a volume, and finding no type for music at Leeuwarden, came up to superintend the publication of his ' Friesche Lust- hof,' or ' Frisian Pleasaunce,' an oblong quarto, illustrated in the most charming way, and altogether one of the most desirable books of that age. At the same time he brouglit out at Coster's Academy his tragedy of ' Darnide,' and continued to live at Amsterdam, in companionship with his old friends, until 1625, when he wandered away, and died obscurely fighting in the Thirty Years' War. Huyghens had gone in January 1621, to London, as Secre- tary to the Dutch Ambassador, and was dubbed Sir Con- stantine in the following year by the sword of James I. In March 1623, he returDed to the Hagiie.

Meanwhile Hooft had been enjoying the luxury of his castle at Muiden since 1609. He found the house in a half-ruined condition, and its walls were almost destroyed by a great storm in 1612. It therefore became necessary to repair it thoroughly, and on this task the poet expended a great deal of time and trouble. At last it was completed, and sumptuously fitted up, and his charming- wife and he hastened to press their friends to visit them, Muiden was a picturesque little castle, built four-square, with four pointed sexagonal turrets, a chapel and a central quad- rangle. It stood in a lake, which itself formed the centre of an island contained between the Eiver Veclit and the sea, so that it was completely isolated, except by a draw-

s

258 THE LITEEATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

bridge on the south-western side. When Hooft accepted the bailiwick, the ground about the castle was bare, but he at once planted it on all sides with aspen, elm, and nut trees, which soon formed a pleasant feature of the landscape. To the south were gardens, and an orchard ; on all other sides these young woods. In the orchard stood two mem- orable objects — a magnificent plum-tree, the fruit of which was specially dedicated to Hooft's friends, and a summer- house, where he sometimes wrote. He chiefly studied and composed, however, in one of his six-cornered tiu'rets, which he had fitted up as a library, and from which, looking over the nut-copses, he could see the grey, shimmering line of the ZLuder Zee. He called this room his 'Torentje,' or little tower, and under this name it became famous in Dutch literature. Here he wrote not only his great poems, but his still greater historical works. To us he is chiefly interesting, at present, in the former capacity, but it may not be amiss to remind ourselves that Motley, not the worst of judges, has gone out of his way to call Hooft one of the greatest historians, not of Holland, but of Europe. It was in Torentje that he wrote his life of Henry IV., and to this fact Vondel refers in his famous lines : —

Oftentimes you choose to clamber To this six-side cloister chamber ;

But its solitude, I own,

Lets you never be alone. In this chamber was beg-otteu AVhat will never be forgotten, —

Greatest Henry's mighty fame,

And the glory of his name From this little place came flying. Fledged by your fine pen undying.^

' Appendix 00.

TESSELSCHADE'S LYKJCS. 259

To share the amenities of Miiiden Castle, and to enjoy a little rest after their sorrow, the daughters of Roemer became the guests of Hooft. Anna came as a friend, but her literary sympathies were by this time far enough alienated from Hooft and the- Italian school. Tesselschade, on the contrary, came as a disciple, and from this time forth was habitually accustomed to lay her poems before Hooft for his revision. Hitherto we have said too little of the sweet poetess herself, and too much of her surroundings. In truth, so rich was the period in which she lived, and so great the men of genius with wliom she associated, that her own productions, judged simply as literature, are a little thrown into the shade. She was the intimate friend, as we have seen and are to see, of the four greatest and most original poets of Holland — Vondel, Hooft, Brederoo, Huyghens — and it cannot be pretended that her verses are worthy to be seen by the side of theirs. It is ' natm'al, considering the bias of her mind, to find her resembling Hooft most nearly. But she had original lyric genius, and her scholarship of the poet of ' Grranida ' is never slavish. A close translation of one of her pastorals will exhibit fairly enough the charms and the limitations of her style: —

THE COMPLAINT OF PHYLLIS.

My sheep, wlio hunger satisfied With fragrant thyme, now turn aside

To these rose-petals, from my crown ; They brought their scent to sacrifice, And ravished heart and soul with spice,

Whene'er to dance I was led down.

'Tis better that the blossoms feed My lambkins which I, dying, lead, Than that, undone, dishonoured, s 2

260 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

Between my g-roans and sighs of woe,

Bathed in my hot tears' burning flow,

They, faultless, wither on my head.

Ah ! chew them small with little nips, Imiocent flock ! hut when yom* lips

Are weary, and you fall on sleep, Muse on the death of my delight, That bids me toss in sad despite

My rosy garland to mj- sheep.

For you were near when faith and troth Philander swore, who breaks them both,

And lewdly com-ts another lass ! For you were near, when his sweet words Bound my weak heart, and heaven recoixis

How tender and how false he was !

Yet health, and not revenge be found ! Give balsam for my aching wound,

Give balsam from the heavenly store ! But if revenge yom- will decree, O gods, chastise, but let it be

The prick of conscience, and no more.

My sorrow, sure, will make him bm-n, My passion to his passion turn.

His passion tm*u again to me ; And so, once more, as once hath been, No happier pair on earth be seen

Than Phyllis and Philander be.^

But in one instance, the praise of music, that inspiring theme for a lyrical poet, lifted the imagination of Tessel- schade into a height which she never approached again. The poem called ' Songsters ' is not only her best, bat worthy of any one of the greatest poets of her age. I attempt as literal a rendering as possible of this exquisitely musical ode; I adhere, as in all other cases, strictly to the metrical form of the original.

' A^Dpendix PP.

SONGSTERS.' 261

' 1.

THE WILD SONGSTER.

Praise tlioii the nightingale, Who with her joyous tale Doth make thy heart rejoice, Whether a singing plume she he, or viewless winged voice ;

Whose warblings, sweet and clear, Ravish the listening ear With joy, as upward float The throbbing liquid trills of her enchanted throat ;

Whose accent pure and ripe Sounds like an organ pipe, That holdeth divers songs, And with one tongue alone sings like a score of tongues.

Tlie rise and fall again In clear and loveh^ strain Of her sweet voice and shrill, utclamoiu's with its song the singing springing rill.

A creature whose great praise Her rarity displays. Seeing she only lives A month in all the year to which her song she gives.

But this thing sets the crown Upon her high renown, That such a little bird as she Can harbour such a strength of clamorous harmony.

II.

THE TAME SONGSTER.

But, wild-wood songster, cease ! Draw breath and hold thy peace ! Thy notes make no sweet noise That can compete for tone with Rosamund a's voice.

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Who hath so dear au art Of whispering to the heart In measured plaintive sobs, That, bound iu friendship's net, like a suared bird it throbs.

Whose cunning voice instils Deep wisdom, while it tills The minds of those who hear, And makes the soul leap up into the listening ear.

In moauiugs low she dies, And then with tender sighs, In amorous soft conceits A world of various tongues she nimbly counterfeits.

No weariness we know, Though from her throat may flow Much song ; new pleasures high Still charm the insatiate ear with each fresh harmony.

Here rarer rapture lives That fitful music gives ; No feathered song so gay As this, that summer gives nor winter takes away.^

In 1621 Anna was exchanging compliments and verses with the famous Peter Paul Rubens, one of whose Madonnas she was then copying. She writes to him famiKarly, and signs herself 'your friend.' How they came to be acquainted does not seem to be known.

In 1622 Anna paid her long-promised visit to Zealand, leaving Tesselschade, it would appear, at home in Amster- dam. She arrived at Middelburg, after a long sea-voyage, in the early summer, and remained there till the end of July. Middelburg was at this time second only to Amsterdam in literary vitality, and as a point of fact the books produced in the former town were far more sumptuously printed and illustrated than those in the ' Appendix QQ.

THE ZEALAND TnIGHTINGALE. 263

latter. Father Cats, now a man of forty-five, ruled the society of the wits ; he was a personage of no little wealth and grandeur. Among his literary associates the most eminent were Sir Simon van Beaumont, the Pensioner or Grovernor of Zealand, a pastoral and lyric writer of no mean gifts, Joanna Coomans, called the Pearl of Zealand, and Westerbaen, a careful imitator of Cats. Anna was welcomed with enthusiasm by these people, and when, immediately after her return, the southern poets pub- lished, in a very handsome quarto, their collected effusions, this book, entitled the ' Zeeusche Nachtegael,' or Zealand Nightingale, was dedicated to ' Anna Eoemers, the Dutch Sappho,' in terms of rapturous eulogy, the excellent Joanna Coomans being especially exuberant in praise, and many of Anna's own best pieces were included in this production. After this time her heart was always with the southern poets, the school of Dort, as they came to be called. Tesselschade in the meanwhile moved in the old circle of Hooft and his wife, Vondel, Eeael, Starter, Coster, and the few other remaining friends of her father ; and this fidelity to the earlier companionships continued past a crisis in her life which is usually very fatal to friendships. In 1622 had appeared the posthumous ' Song-Book ' of Brederoo, a publication that bore upon it the stamp of the Eoemer circle, with its splendid portrait of Brederoo, surrounded by monodies bearing the initials of Coster, Vondel, and Hooft, and containing every form of passionate appeal to the heart of Tesselschade, ' the glory of Amsterdam,' ' goddess bearing the name of the island rich in ships,' — that is the Texel, — and many other lyrical addresses barely concealing his lady's name from

264 THE LITEEATUEE OF NOETHEEN EUEOPE.

the public, to whom no doubt it was well known. These references must have been touching to the heart of the sweet Tesselschade, who consented, however, in the following year, to bury their memory in a less romantic passion. She accepted the hand of a sailor, a middle-aged widower, AUart Krombalgh, of Alkmaar, her sister Grer- trude assisting at the ceremony, on November 1, 1623. To all the poets the marriage of their beautiful friend was an occasion not to be put by. Vondel wrote several pieces on the occasion, and one epithalamium of great length and beauty. Huyghens, who had just returned to the Hague from his second visit to London, poui'ed out his genial soul in poems which displayed, as never before, his absolute supremacy over the language, and his un- rivalled gifts of form. These exquisite verses flow in a measure so buoyant and so rich in rliyme that they ab- solutely preclude the idea of translation. Vondel's and Hooft's soberer eulogies might be attempted, but space fails us. Tesselschade— now, it must be remembered, in her thirtieth year, but still radiantly beautiful — went away with her husband to live in Alkmaar. Three months later Anna followed her example, and bestowed her mature charms on Dominicus Booth van Wesel, on January 12, 1624. This couple proceeded also to North Holland, but to a still remoter place, a polder entitled Wieringewaard, to the north of Hoorn. So the family that had so long formed the nucleus of literary life in Amsterdam bad now entirely left it.

Anna appears no more as tlie friend of the Amsterdam school. She corresponded with Hooft, to whom directly after her marriage she presented a ' loose peruke.' With

TESSELSCHADE'S TASSO. 265

Cats, now gone to reside at Dort, and with Simon van Beaumont she remained on intimate terms ; but she was now forty years of age and her literary interests stagnated. Tesselschade, on the contrary, wrote with ardour during lier married life. Already she was busy in translating the ' Grerusalemme Liberata ' of Tasso, to which Vondel refers in his epithalamium, congratulating her on bravely ven- turing to the wars with Grodfrey ; she patiently continued this version, which Hooft revised, and to which there are many contemporary references, but, unhappily, it was never printed, and somehow, ' as rare things will, it vanished.' It may yet reappear, and would be a most welcome addition to early Dutch literature. For eleven years, from 1623 to 1634, Krombalgh and his poet-wife lived in quiet domestic happiness. She bore him two daughters, one named Tadea, the other, like herself, Maria Tesselschade. Her relations with Hooft remained on the most intimate footing. As early as 1621 they read Lucian together, and Tesselschade wrote to Hooft in Italian. In 1622 we find her sending poems to him for correction, and soon after her marriage he writes that his heart is fast bound by a triple cord of Tesselschade, Anna, and Keael. It may be said in passing that the merits of Reael had been of too shinino: an order to allow his connection with the murdered Barneveldt to stand in the way of his promotion, and he was rapidly rising to the highest civil honours. On June 6, 1624, Hooft lost his excellent wife Christina, and on July 6 we find him writ- ing to Tesselschade what is really a very pathetic and touching letter, in spite of its pedantic references, in the spirit of that age, to Boethius and Montaigne. His four

266 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

children had preceded their mother to the grave, and Hooft, in the midst of his luxury at Muiden, was desolate iudeed. Already in 1625 he was 'courting the beautiful Susanna van Eaerle ; but he was moreover exceedingly busy on the composition of his great liistorical works.

The year 1625 was a critical one in the career of Vondel. This great genius, one of the most original and powerful poetic natures of modern Europe, was approach- ing the age of forty not only without having won a very wide reputation, but almost without having deserved it. Few poets have developed so slowly as Vondel, but on the other hand few have continued their production so late. The ' Pascha ' in 1612 was his debut, and he was already in his twenty-fifth year ; until 1619 he did little more than lay up stores of knowledge and experience, and brood in an infinite distress over the bigotry and violence of his countrymen, to whom the revolution had brought not orly liberty but licence. The meeting of the Synod of Durt brought about a healthy revulsion in Vondel's mind ; Bameveldt was dead, Calvinism had triumphed, there was now at all events none of the sickening anxiety, the liope without hope which had brought so much tension into these last years. In 1619 he took leave of the Flemish Chamber of the Lavender with the performance of his second biblical tragedy, ' Jerusalem Laid Desolate,' and went over to the Eglantine. For the next six years we find him in the highly-wrought, impassioned attitude of defiance to the Calvinistic majority which Alberdingk Thijm has known how to reproduce with so much imagi- native fidelity in the admirable early scenes of his ' Por- tretten.' He waited for the death of Prince Maurice, and

PALAMEDES. 267

when that arrived, in 1625, the result of these years of silence appeared in Yondel's brilliant lyrical invectives against the judicial murder of the Advocate and the persecution of Hugo Grotius. All Amsterdam was up in arms, and the poems of Vondel became a burning- party question. In the midst of this turmoil, his tragedy of ' Palamedes, or Murdered Innocence,' was brought out, in which the trial of the Advocate was painted under the transparent veil of a classical list of persons. Oldenbarneveldt was Palamedes, Prince Maurice, Agamemnon ; the Stadtholder of Friesland, Diomedes. The poet was summoned before the court at Amsterdam, threatened with a charge of high treason and a prison at the Hague, and finally fined 300 guldens. His enemies had hoped to bring him to the gallows, and all they suc- ceeded in doing was to extract a small fine, which a rich friend of the poet's immediately paid ; moreover, from the moment of his trial Vondel was the most famous man in Holland, and a power in politics against the ' Saints of Dort,' as the extreme Calvinists were called.

We must pass hurriedly over the next nine years of Tesselschade's life. She lived very happily in Alkmaar with her husband, taking a lively interest in literatm-e and her friends, and writing and correcting her own poems. Tlie success and prosperity of the circle was something- very remarkable. Brederoo and Starter had been offer- ings to the jealous gods, but all the rest flourished in the most extraordinary way. Cats at Dort and Huyghens at tlie Hague reigned like little kings in the midst of an admiring and luxurious society. In 1627 Huyghens married Susanna van Baerle, to whom Hooft had been

268 THE LITER4TURE OF NOETHERN EUROPE.

making suit, but the latter, without any bitterness, trans- ferred his affections to Leonora Hellmans, and married her before the year was out. About this same time arose the famous Anna Maria van Schurman, called the Torch of Wisdom, really a very surprising person, one of the most learned women that ever lived, who spoke Grreek and wrote Arabic and knew everything. A great fuss was made about her, but it is recorded that Hooft was very faithful to his old friend, and being called upon to admire the new wonder, replied, ' She smells of the school- room ; she cannot hold a rose to our Tesselschade.' In- deed, at this distance of time, the charms of Anna van Schurman have raiher a faded fragrance. In 1626 Eeael went to England as the representative of Holland at the coronation of Charles I., and came back to Amster- dam Sir Laurence Eeael; in 1628 he was Ambassador of the States to the court of Denmark. This very serious person amused himself on these high journeys by para- phrasing in Dutch the ' Basia ' of Joannes Secundus, an occupation which strikes the modern reader as a little frivolous. He had been better occupied, perhaps, in old days in Eoemer's house, translating, with Hooft's help, Seneca for the instruction of Vondel and Tesselschade who knew no Latin.

In 1630, the Chamber of the White Lavender merged itself in Coster's Academy, and Vondel gave a subject on the occasion for a prize poem. Hooft was to award the prize, and the successful candidate was Tesselschade. I do not know what the modern critics who talk about ' Mutual Admiration ' would say to this transaction, but I have no doubt the poem, which we possess and which is very good.

LIFE AT MUIDEN. 269

though a little obscure, deserved its honour. In the same year Hooft and his wife paid the Krombalghs a visit at their house in Corn Street, Alkmaar, and when they re- turned brought Tesselschade back with them to Muiden, while her husband effected a change of house into a better locality in Long Street. It was perhaps upon this occasion that Hooft wrote his well-known verses describing the way Tesselschade spent her time in his house. The seven- teenth century did not excel in vers dp soclete, but these are above the average of pre-Priorian compliment : —

Love-god, stern of sovereignty,

Mark the maiden of the Y, Who in her proud youth and story^ Rohs thy mother of ber glory,

Bkishing cheek, and winsome guile.

And a lovely artless smile !

What employs her leisure so ?

Thoughts are working, fingers go ! Busy are lier eyes, drooped sweetly, Throat and lips are warbling featly ;

Youth and joy can have no fence

'Gainst such dangerous diligence.

Now she makes the diamond pass

O'er the diunb face of the glass ; Now with golden thread she lingers, Painting cloth with nimble fingers ;

Now the pencil bears, and pen.

Kindly charming idle men.

See, she curves her slender throat's Outline up and down the notes I Or to words ber eyes sbe's liming, All her soul gone out in rhyming ! Or she bends her gracious tongue To the French or Roman song !

J' Appendix RR.

270 THE LITERATUKE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

According to F^arlaf-us, Tesselsehade adorned her house, which was exquisitely fitted ujj, with paintings of her own ; he particular!} mentions a flying Psyche, and a landscape of Muiden Castle. If her painting was like her poetry, she must have tended rather to the classic manner of Poelen- burgh than to the style of the Amsterdam realists, among whom Rembrandt was now taking a foremost place. In 1631, Coster and Vondel were at Muiden, and about this time Barlaeus was invited there to meet Tesselsehade. Barlaeus was a man of great learning and energy, who had only very lately been able to extricate himself from the tedious duties of a country minister. For years and years he had been pastor of a little parish on the dull island of Overflakkee, with no literary centre nearer to him than the rather obscure Chamber of the Thistle at Zierikzee; since then he had been away in France, and only now, at the age of forty-seven, was he able to mix with men of letters. He was a brilliant and ardent person, the best Latinist of the day, and he was received at once into the Muiden circle, and became the most infatuated of Tesselschade's admirers ; she played to him, it appears, successively on the organ, klavier, viol, guitar and cithern, and he strove in vain to decide on which her skill in melody was most divine. In this charming way the whole circle lived ; at least at Muiden and at Alkmaar it was so. We find Hooft writing: ' We live here as those dead to the world ; each day is so like the other, that life seems a ship becalmed in a dead sea of stillness.' Hooft's letters are a most invaluable contribution to our knowledge of those times. I know no correspondence so distinguished and at the same time so playful and intimate. For instance, what a delightful

LIFE AT ALKMAA.R. 271

piece of absurdity is that letter, of February 1632, in which he assures Tesselschade that his wife is no Medea to tear little Teetjen Krombalgh in pieces, or make a meal off the limbs of Maria ; on the contrary, she is ' a sweet- milk heart, full of sugar,' and Tesselschade must hurry to bring her little girls to Muiden, where the Hoofts are dying to embrace them. In November of the same year, Tesselschade presented Hooft's wife and daughter each with a goblet engraved by her own hand ; it is said that these still exist, and show rare technical skill. A young French or Italian musician, Francesca Duarte, about this time joined the circle, and shared with Tesselschade Hooft's enthusiastic friendship. In 1633, she settled at Alkmaar, and this gave the Hoofts an excuse for visiting both families in that year.

But a great sorrow waited for them behind all this happiness. On May 28, 1634, Hooft wrote a long letter, begging Tesselschade to come and read Marini with him, upbraiding her with neglecting poetry, and asking her what she thought of some translations Huyghens had been making from John Donne. Keceiving no reply, he grew anxious, and at last sent a messenger to Alkmaar, who returned with news thatthe eldest daughter Tadea (Teetjen), was very ill with small-pox. Full of anxiety he communi- cated the tact to Huyghens and others, but in June he has to report not only that little Teetjen is dead, but that Krom- balgh himself has succumbed to the disease. Huyghens has recorded that the child was bled to death, and Hooft uses the same expression about the father. It may be supposed that this was the result of a foolish attempt to allay the violent secondary fever, in accordance with the

272 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

ignorant practice of the time. At all events, our poetess was thus at one blow left a widow, and deprived of her eldest child.

She bore this sorrow with an exquisite patience. Hooft, who supported her through this terrible trial with the most friendly fidelity, wrote that the heroes might go to school to this much more enduring heroine. He very wisely recommended her to silence her memories of the past by renewed devotion to literary work, and she took his advice. She resumed her version of Tasso, and worked on upon it until it was finished, no slight or holiday pastime for a woman to complete. It would seem that nobody was poor in Holland in those halcyon days, and Krombalgh had left his widow well provided for. With her daughter, the young Tesselschade, a child in every way worthy of so beautiful and so distinguished a mother, she retired to a bouse called Belvedere, outside the town of Alkmaar, in a wood, and here she spent the next eight years in great con- tentment. Barlaeus has dedicated a whole Latin poem, one of his best, to the description of this house, which Tesselschade adorned with all manner of artistic objects paintings by her own hand, tapestries, porcelain, the wonders of the newly-opened and still fabulous East. The poet gives a charming picture of his friend, sericd in vests splendens, shimmering in her satin dress, in her lovely garden, her lute at her hand, as pretty a figure, sui'ely, as ever Netscher or Metzu painted for us in boudoir or courtyard. It must not be supposed, however, that she gave herself up to a frivolous life ; on the contrary, her writings became tinged with a serious, almost a pietistic colour, and she wrote many spiritual poems, among which

VONDEL'S CONVERSION. 273

her hymn to St. Mary Magdalene is the best known. It begins : —

Adorned ov unadorned art thou, Magdalene, As with uubroidered hair thou jewel-less art seen.

Thy chain of pearls undone, thy shining gold profaned. And all that men esteem as vile and false disdained ; Since these can well betray thy tender youth from heaven, And be a stumbling-block that were for pleasure given ? Godfearing woman, hail ! Oling fast, as to a wall That neitiier time can move nor gloomy fate make fall./

Her verse now reminds the critic in no way of Hooft, but of the more massive and robust style of Vondel. Indeed, at this time her relations with the latter poet were very intimate, and he himself was passing through a remarkable period of transition. Still nominally a Pro- testant, it is recorded by Brandt, his first biographer, that he was powerfully drawn towards Eome by a beautiful widow lady, and it has always been understood that this lady was Tesselschade. Vondel's wife was now dead, and in his isolatioD at Amsterdam his heart went out in tender passion towards the sweet poetess at Alkmaar, in whom he found so close and so intelligent a sympathy. There does not seem to have been any talk of marriage between them ; she easily made his sensitive spirit understand that she would not accept again the risks of so near a tie, but the love was great on his side and no doubt responded to on hers. News that the great Vondel was going over to the Popish Church, seems to have found its way to the Hague, and the energetic Huyghens, who was a staunch Protestant, and had just brought out a volume of divine poems, tliought it his duty to upbraid Tesselschade, and, if it

• Appendix SS.

T

274 THE LITERATUKE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

might be, convert her. He set about his pious task in furious style, and attacked his gentle friend in poems and epistles, till at last she could bear it no longer, and entreated Barlaeus to take up the cause on her behalf. Nothing could be more welcome to Barlaeus, and Huyghens suddenly found himself stung in excellent Latin verse, and reproached for his cruelty. He replied that he loved the child too much to spare the rod, but his versatile mind soon wearied of this puritanic fervour, and he returned humbly to his old adulation. Meanwhile it soon appeared why Barlaeus had been so ready in the defence : he had been sighing to Hooft of his wretched condition as a widower, and now he laid his laurels and his heart at the feet of Tesselschade. Never was a poetess so lyrically wooed : the poems of Barlaeus to Tesselschade are so numerous that they form a whole section of his poetical works, under the heading ' Tessalica.' He sung of her in a boat at sea, playing the organ in Alkmaar Church, singing with Francesca Duarte, riding on horseback ; he sung to other people about her, to Huyghens sleeping under her roof, to Hooft about to receive a visit from her ; but in every poem he exalted her priceless worth and beauty, and insinuated that he alone should guard it. For a long time she bore this hot siege with patient amusement ; Huyghens and Hooft, anxious, perhaps, to frustrate the hopes of Vondel, encouraged Barlaeus in every way. At last, in a letter about other matters, she enclosed a copy of a stanza of Cats, which runs as follows : —

AVheu a valved shell of ocean

Breaks one side or loses one, Though you seek witli all deTotion

You can ne'er the loss atone,

'GIJSBRECHT VAN AEMSTEL.' 275

Never make agaiu the edges

Bite together, tooth for tooth, And, just so, old love alleges

Nought is like the heart's first troth. ^

The generous Barlaeus understood the hint, and pressed his suit no more ; but his warm-hearted, intimate friend- ship was no whit slackened by the disappointment.^ In 1639, Tesselschade came up to Amsterdam, with her friend Francesca Duarte, to sing- before the French Queen Dowager, Maria de' Medicis, and to present to her an Italian poem of her own composition. She was at this time busy translating into Dutch the ' Adonis ' of Marini ; this work, like her Tasso, has unhappily been lost. A new race of young literati, now springing up, claimed her patronage, and laid their first-fruits before her. The poetess Alida Bruno claimed her as her poetic mother ; two young dramatists destined to a great reputation, Vos the pupil of Vondel, and Geraerdt Brandt the protege of Barlaeus, sought the honour of her friendship. The Old Chamber of the Eglantine had in 1631 become merged in the Academy, and the stage of the latter had proved inadequate as a national theatre. It was rebuilt on a grander scale and opened in January 3, 1638, by tlie performance of one of the greatest works in the Dutch language, Vondel's immortal tragedy of ' Grijsbrecht van Aemstel,' a drama that still lives on the stage, and enjoys a traditional popularity, when much of the admirable literature of that age exists only for antiquarians. In 1639, Vondel dedicated to Tesselschade his version of the

' Appendix TT.

"^ For this story Scheltema is responsible ; I cannot lind that tlie letter is in existence.

T 2

276 THE LITEEATUEE OF NOETHEEN EUEOPE.

'Electra' of Sophocles, and in 1641, again to her, though this time under the pseudonym of Eusebia, his sacred tragedy ' Peter and Paul.' On his fifty-fourth birthday, November 17, 1641, he went over to the Catholic Church. He suffered for this step. His friends turned their backs upon him, even the hospitable Hooft refused him admission to Muiden. He bore his unpopularity with for- titude, and produced his great dramatic poems in rapid succession : three tragedies, ' The Sons of Saul,' ' Joseph in Dothan,' and ' Joseph in Egypt,' belong to this period of suspicion and estrangement. It must have been a con- solation to Vondel, that in 1642 Tesselschade removed, with her daughter, to Amsterdam, and took up her abode under the roof of her sister Grertrude van Buyl. Scarcely had she arrived, when, in March 1642, she lost her left eye from a spark that flew out of a smithy as she passed. Hooft, Huyghens, and Barlaeus have all left poems de- scribing this accident in glowing colours, but the poetess herself only mentions it to thank Barlaeus, smilingly, for the ' learned plaister over my eye,' which he sent. She still took an interest, as she had ever done, in literary events, and ' assisted,' as the French say, at two famous debuts^ the first performances of Vos's ' Aaron and Titus,' a blood-and-thunder tragedy on the lines of ' Titus Andronicus' in 1642, and Brandt's 'Dissembling Tarquin' in 1643. But the shadows were gathering around her, and her most eventful life was not destined to linger into old age. Her daughter, a charming girl, was now approaching womanhood, and in her all Tesselschade's hopes and wishes were bound up. One by one the other ties dissolved. In 1642 Eeael died ; Hooft passed away

DEATH OF TESSELSGHADE. 277

in the sixty-seventh year of his age, on May 21, 1647 ; on January 14, 1648, Barlaens was laid by Hooft's side in the New Church of Amsterdam, and Vondel wrote above them both a touching epitaph. As if the loss of these dear friends were not enough. Death laid his hand upon the apple of her eye, her only remaining comfort, her daughter. Her heroic patience failed her at last, and on June 20, 1649, she died of grief in the house of her niece in Amsterdam. All the poets wrote verses on her death, but the most simple and touching were those of Huyghens, of which I essay a version : —

'Tis Tesselschade's grave !

Let no one vainly try To measure out in words lier matchless quality ; The honour that men give the Sun to her they gave.

And why in death she lay,

Listen, I will relate : O mothers, think, it was her daughter sealed her fate, And she who owed her life took life fi'om her away.

The child had little blame ;

The mother saw her die, And died that she to keep her company might try. So perished Tesselscha through her own tender aim ! '

Anna van Wesel, her sister, died December 6, 1651. Cats survived till 1660, nearly completing his eighty-third year; Vondel and Huyghens each outlived his ninetieth year, lingering respectively until 1679 and 1687. So passed away the last of the great race.

' Appendix UU.

VONDEL AND MILTON.

The critics of the last century, whose idea of sesthetic analysis not imfreqiiently seems to have been to form a mosaic of such little bits of a poet as could in some degree be held to resemble little bits of earlier poets, found in Milton a wide field for their ingenious labour. With an extraordinary memory and a taste for poetry that far over- flowed the conventional banks of English and classical literature, Milton, at the outset of his career, seems to have steeped his imagination in the fine thoughts of almost all the European poets, and to have occasionally combined or reproduced their felicities in his own verse. But when his blindness came upon him, and he was more and more thrown for refreshment back upon the stores of his memory, he was unable, and, perhaps, not anxious, to ascertain whether a noble fancy or a chord of melody that floated in his brain was or was not his own in any sense but that of conquest. Like Groethe, he had the august arrogance of a supreme poet who is conscious that he con- fers immortality on a thought by stealing it, and that what is stolen leaves his lips so glorified in expression that it has become a new thing. A great deal of foolishness has been said about plagiarism ; to plagiarise is the instinct, the characteristic audacity of almost every poet

MILTON. • 9.79

of the highest class. It is only when it is committed by a small poet or poetaster — in other words, when skill is wanted, and the hand of the thief is seen in the pocket of the owner — that the action becomes blamable, because contemptible. To carry out no further an argument that may to some readers seem paradoxical, it is at least certain, for praise or blame, that the later poems of Milton are studded with memories, more or less faint or vivid, of the works of numerous previous writers. The French didactic poet, Du Bartas, whether in the original or in the transla- tion of Joshua Sylvester, supplied him with ideas ; some fine images and a whole train of thought were taken from the richly coloured ' Christ's Victory and Triumph ' of the younger Griles Fletcher ; even Cowley's ' Davideis ' was laid under contribution for ' Paradise Lost.' These sug- gestions and reminiscences have been frequently dwelt upon, but not so much attention has been paid to the still bolder appropriations Milton made from various foreign writers. Some notice, but to an inadequate extent, has, indeed, been taken of the influence on the great English epic of the ' Adamo ' of the Italian dramatist, J. B. And- reini, who died shortly before Milton commenced his great tusk. The ' Adamus Exul ' of Hugo Grotius, published in l(i01, has not escaped the notice of Milton's last and best biographer, Dr. Alfred Stern. It is probable that a close study of Italian and Spanish literature would bring to light many more cases of Miltonic adaptation and suggestion. Bat the most full and curious of all is one which has, indeed, been frequently pointed out in a cursory manner, but never, to the knowledge of the present writer, been carefully investigated. This is the amount to which Milton was

280 THE LITEEATUEE OF NOETHEEN EUEOPE.

indebted in his sketch of the Fall of the Eebel Angels to the choral drama of ' Lucifer,' by the Dutch poet Vondel.

The Dutch language was not so little studied in the beginning of the seventeenth century as it now is. Eliza- beth, being in some sort looked upon as the head of the Keformed party throughout Europe, supplied help to the Netherlands in their revolt against Spain ; and when the United Provinces, after their almost single-handed and heroic struggles, succeeded in establishing for themselves, not merely independence, but a foremost place among the States of Europe, there was a good deal of diplomatic coquetting between Holland and England before the ulti- mate jealousy and hatred set in. The sudden political start made by Holland was almost immediately succeeded by the creation of a brilliant literature. Within twenty years after the proclamation of the Federal Commonwealth of the Seven United Provinces, in 1581, all the greatest names in Dutch literature were born. It was a time of great imaginative revival all over the North of Europe. The same period saw the birth of Ai-rebo and of Stjernhelm, respectively destined to be the fathers of Danish and of Swedish poetry ; and of Martin Opitz, in whom German literature threw out its first modern blossom. In England the great Elizabethan school was at its climax, and light and heat radiated from London through all the EeformeJ countries. But iu Holland, more tlian anywhere else, all the elements of imaginative production seemed concen- trated and intensified in a brief period of brilliance.

In the last chapter I have given a rapid outline of the rise and development of this literature, and I have tracetl the lives of the principal Dutch poets down to the year

VONDEL. 281

1649. Vondel was then in his sixty-fiftli year, and had reached that time of life ^^at which work is usually laid aside, the harvest of the brain being reaped and garnered. It was not so however with this great man. The decline of life, the loss of friends, the burden of poverty only in- creased the light of his singularly heroic genius. IrABAI- he had joined the Church of Rome, in 1644 Christina of Sweden, whose tendencies were Popish, had honoured him with a golden chain, and her portrait. These events had not increased the favour with which his Protestant fellow- citizens regarded him, nor did his didactic poem ' Altaerge- heimenissen ' (Mysteries of the Altar) add to his. popularity. On the other hand his tragedy of ' Maria Stuart ' brought him much praise and profit in 1646. Vondel, it may be remarked, was the first poet to select for dramatic treat- ment this highly romantic theme ; at Mary's death he was two years old, and therefore in some sense her contemporary. In 1648 he celebrated the Peace of Munster by the performance of ' Leeuwendalers,' a pastoral in the style of Tasso or Gruarini. After the death of his dear friend Tesselschade in 1649, he gave over the stocking-shop in Warmoesstraat to his eldest son, and went to live on the Cingel, then the limit of Amsterdam, with his daughter Anna. In 1653 he was made the president of the Gruild of St. Luke, being crowned on the occasion by the famous painter, Bartholomeus van der Heist. He completed the long li.st of his biblical tragedies with the ' Solomon ' in 1649. It was in his daughter's house that he completed, j in his sixty-seventh year, the masterpiece of his life-time, /^- ^' / the most brilliant poetical work in the Dutch language. This was the ' Lucifer,' which was brought out with great

282 THE LITEEATUKE OF NOETHEEN EUROPE.

display of scenic heavens, but after two nights withdrawn on account of the great expense it involved. It was then printed in 1654. Milton was living in the 'pretty garden- house opening into the park,' and still acting as Secretary to the Council of State, although his failing sight had led him, some months before, to suggest Marvell as his succes- sor. In April peace had been made between England and the United Provinces, and there was a temporary cessation of hostilities. There can be little doubt that Milton, who had received regular lessons in the Dutch language from Eoger Williams, kept himself well versed in the best current Dutch literature. There were frequent interchanges of scholarly civilities. Huyghens had been in London within Milton's manhood, burning incense to the English poets, and carrying back to Holland memories, and, alas ! imitations of the great John Donne. Such a poet as Hooft, kindred in so many ways to Milton's own youth, divided as it was between Puritanism and the worship of beauty, between pietism and sensuous paganism, cannot but have attracted his learned and curious mind. Hence, one may well believe that immediately on the puldication of Vondel's ' Lucifer ' a copy foimd its way to Milton ; it may have been one of the last books he[read with his own faded eyes. Four years afterwards — that is, in 1658 — he is supposed to have com- menced 'Paradise Lost,' and in 1667, thirteen years later than the Dutch drama, it saw the light.

We all know that, in the great English epic, the Fall

of the Angels forms a vast episode in the story of the Fall

of Man. In ' Lucifer,' the angels fill the foreground, and

^ man is secondary and out of sight. The scene of the Dutch

drama is laid in heaven itself, and never leaves it. Above,

/

' LUCIFER.' _, -^^ 283

just beyond our vision, God remains apart, ineffable ; below, the new-created human couple walk their paradise ; but we never trespass on the domain of either. The persons are all angels, and when the curtain rises they are all blessed and serene. This apparent serenity, however, is the mask of a suspicion that has hardly ripened into ill-feeling. Beelzebub and Belial are discovered in conversation when the drama opens ; and we learn from the first that Apollyon has been sent by Lucifer, the Stadth older of the States of Heaven, to make a closer investigation of Adam's bliss, and the condition in which God has placed him. Belial, lean- ing from the sheer heights, sees Apollyon rising from circle to circle, outspeeding the wind, and leaving a track of splendour behind him. He soars into the blue hyaline of heaven, while the celestial spheres almost pause upon their courses as they lean to gaze upon his countenance ; he seems to them no angel, but a flying fire. At last, like a star, he alights on the rim of heaven, and bears in Ms hand a golden branch. Beelzebub praises the blossom and fruit of this branch in very luscious alexandrines ; its golden leaves are studded with aerial dew, and between them the jocund fruit glows with crimson and with gold. It would be a pity to rend it with the hands : the very sight of it fascinates the mouth. If such fruits can be eaten in Eden, the bliss of angels must give way to men. To this light hyperbole Apollyon responds eagerly and seriously, and his listeners are roused to inquire in what this felicity of man consists. He gives a very spirited and poetical account of his journey to the earth, and a vivid but rather rococo description of the wonders and beauties of the earthly paradise, which he praises as far more varied and exquisite

284 THE LITEEATURE OF NORTHEEN' EUROPE.

than the heavenly. He passes to the subject most interest- ing to his hearers — the nature and functions of the inhabi- tants of this garden. It seenas that at the moment that he fluttered on wide pinions over Eden, Adam was giving names to all the animals- Grriffins and eagles were obe- dient to this man, and dragons and Behemoth, and even Leviathan, while the trees and bushes rang with melody. But of all marvels this has amazed him most, that the two inmates of the garden have power subtly to weave together body and soul, and create double angels, out of the same clay- flesh and bones. It is for this purpose, no doubt, that God has just made these two strange creatures, that he may reap from them a rich harvest of souls. Apollyon watches, with an agony of jealousy and longing, their joyous dalliance ; and at last, with infinite pain, tears himself away from a scene in which he can have no part. But of all the beauties and wonders, he praises Woman must, and grows so ecstatic that he declares —

kSearch all our augel bauds, in beauty well arrayed, They will but monsters seem, by the dawn-liglit of a maid. Beeh. It seems you burn in love for this new woman-kind I Apoll. My great wing-feather in that amorous flame, I find

I've singed ! 'Twas hard indeed to soar up from below', '

To sweep, and reach the veige of Angelborough so ; I parted, but with pain, and three times looked around ; There shines no seraph-form in all the rethereal bound Like hers, whose hanging hair, in golden glory, seems To rush down from her head in a torrent of sunbeams, And flow along her back. So clad in light and grace, Stately she treads, and charms the daylight with her face : Let pearls and mother o' pearl their claims before her furl, Her brightness passes far the beauty of a pearl ! Beeh. But what can profit man this beauty that must fade, And wither lilie a flower, and shortly be decayed ? ^

' Appendix VV.

' LUCIFER.' 285

The description that closes with the passage above quoted bears many striking points of resemblance to the Fourth Book of Milton's epic. What follows is contrary to the pur- pose of the English poet. Apollyon goes on to explain that an eternity is assured to mankind by a tree of immortal life which he has seen in the midst of Eden, by eating the fruit of which man will live for ever, and the number and power of his children be eternally on the increase. The key-note sj of the drama is then struck, for Beelzebub, quivering with ^jealousy, exclaims —

Man thus lias power and scope to wax above our heads.

At tliis moment a trumpet is heard, and the hosts of heaven assemble. Grabriel, ' chief of the angelic guards,' appears, attended with the chorus of cherubim, sent as herald from the thi-one of Grod. His message is to this effect : Grod has created man a little lower than the angels, in order that, in the process of time, he may ascend the staircase of the world into the summit of uncreated light, the infinite glory. Though the spiritual race now seems to overtop all others, yet God has from eternity concluded to exalt the human race, and to transport them into a splendour^ which is not different from that of Grod. The eternal Word, clothed in flesh and bone, anointed as Lord and Head and Judge, you shall see give law to all tlie troops of spirits, angels, and man, from his unshadowed kingdom. Tlien the clear flame of seraphim shall seem dark beside the godlike splendour of man. This is destiny, and an unrevokable destiny. A burst from the chorus- Whatever Heaven decrees shall please the heavenly host —

286 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

softens the severity of Grabriel's demeanour, and he passes on to discuss the present state of the angelic orders. Vondel's conceptions in this respect are simply those of St. Thomas Aquinas and Dante : we seem to move in the fourteenth century, as we read of the inmost hierarchy of seraphim, cherubim, and thrones ; of the second of domi- nations, virtues, powers, and the outer hierarchy of prin- cipalities, archangels, and angels. We must remember, however, that Milton also was not free from the technical expressions of a celestial cosmogony tliat the researches of science had already exploded. To return to the earlier part of Grabriel's charge, it will be noted that Vondel, though shadowy in his theology, fully escapes that rock of Arian heresy on which Milton struck in his Sixth Book ; but, once started on the primum mobile, he wanders on in a sufficiently tedious prolixity. At length, however, the speech of Gabriel ceases, and the first act closes with a long antiphonal ode from the chorus. As this passage — almost the only one hitherto translated into English — was ren- dered with some success by the late Sir John Bowring, I will not attempt to give a version of it here. It is a long- rhapsody in praise of the divine attributes, expressed in language of exceptional sublimity, and with a mingling of daring theological dogma with organ-harmony of music which is not unworthy of those that 'sing, and singing in their glory move."

In reviewing this first act, we see that, as in ' Paradise

Lost,' jealousy is the seed out of which the shoot and flower

of rebellion bear such rapid fruit of destruction. But

whereas in that poem, in almost precisely similar terms,

cy Qod himself commands obedience to the Son, ' whom tliis

!^

' LUCIFER.' 287

day I have begot,' and proclaims His superiority to the

Eingfilsj which enflames them to sullen r evoli , it is here the

ignominy of watching the crescent supremacy of the vile

rival man, born of the dust, that rouses the jealous anger

of the Princes of Angelborough. The causes are widely

distinct ; the consequences are curiously identical. But

we must not press on too fast : when the first act closes, all

appears docile and quiet in heaven ; if complaint there be,

it finds no voice in words.

But the second act opens in startling contrast to this

universal subjection. Lucifer himself enters, attended by

Beelzebub and other of his own familiar jfollowers. They

draw rein in this quiet place, and the leader opens discourse

as follows : —

Swift spirits, let us stay the chariot of the dawn,

For high enoiig'h, in sooth, God's morning-star is drawn,

Yea, driven up high enough ! 'tis time for my great car

To yield before the advent of this double star,

That rises from below, and seeks, in sudden birth.

To tarnish heaven's gold with splendour from the earth !

Embroider no more crowns on Lucifer's attire,

And gild his forehead not with eminent dawn-fire

Of the morning-star enrayed, that rapt archangels prize,

For see another blaze in the light of God arise !

The stars grow faint before the eyes of men below ;

"Tis night with angels, and the heavens forget to glow.^

In this tone of almost petulant indignation the Stadt- holder of Heaven proceeds, and only ceases to call the attention of Beelzebub to the sound that reaches them from far away. It is the trumpet of Cfabriel, who pronounces the same disastrous message at another of the gates of Angelborough. The melancholy of Lucifer is stirred and roused by the passionate declamations of Beelzebub, who ' Appendix WW.

288 THE LITERATUEE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

cries that an earth-worm has crept out of a clod of earth that he, the lord of heaven, might with downcast eyes and bended knees adore it. Lucifer had best not wait for the order to lay down his sceptre, but leave his throne at once, and take the lyre in hand, ready, at the first sight of man, to smite its chords with a servile plectrum. All this ironical advice is little to the taste of the prince.

Nay, til at will I resist, so be it in my power,

he cries ; and Beelzebub takes instant advantage of his defiance to build him up in conceit of his own majesty and power. His ever-crescent light, the first and nearest God's, no captious decree can diminish, no upstart mortal approach. Shall a voice of lower pitch thunder from the throne ? To carry out this vain design of promoting man, were to violate the sacred right of the eldest child's inherit- ance. Such an assumption, actually forced on the angelic orders, might provoke all heaven armed against one. Lucifer replies in a spirit of patriotic devotion, which has nothing of the rebel angel in it, but is rather inspired by the recent memories of the holy struggle of the United Provinces against Spain : ' If I am a child of the light, a ruler over the light, I shall preserve my prerogative. I budge before no tyrant, nor archtyrant Let who wi]] budge, I will not yield a foot Here is my fatlierland. Let me perish, so long as I perish with this crown upon my head, this sceptre in my fist, and so many thousands of dear friends around me. That fall will tend to honour and imwithering praise,

En liever d'eerste Vorst in eenigli lager liof,

Dan iii't gezalight licht de tweede, of uocli een minder,

'LUCIFER.' 289

. ' and better to be first prince of some lower court, than in ] the blessed light to be second, or even less.' These two lines are not less famous in Holland than is with us that single line, in which Milton intensified the expression of Vondel's idea in half the number of words. But in the midst of these vague desires and unshaped instincts of defiance, the chariot of GTabriel, in whose hands the book of God's mysteries lies folded, is driven their way, and Lucifer determines to question the herald further as to the actual import of this message that so trenches on angelic pride. Beelzebub leaves him, and the two great princes meet. Lucifer addresses Grabriel with a frank statement of his doubts and apprehensions. For what purpose has the eternal Grace humiliated its children ? Why has the angel nature been thus precipitated into dishonour ? Will God unite eternity to a beginning, the highest to the lowest, the Creator to the created ? Must innumerable God-like spirits, unweighted by bodies, bow before the gross and vile element of mortal clay? He closes by entreating Gabriel to unlock the sealed book he holds, and explain to his wondering intelligence this terrible paradox. To this eloquent appeal Gabriel has no very intelligible reply to give ; he repeats the statement of destiny, he charges the Stadth older with obedience ; but he fails to give any very salient reasons for a decree that must have startled and perplexed himself. ' Obey God's trumpet ! you have heard His will ! ' is the sum of the explanation that he has to give. Lucifer then draws a picture of the misery of those coming days, when he will have to see man sitting beside the Deity upon His throne, and watch the incense-censers swinging to the sound of thousand thousand unanimous chorales, each

u

290 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

bar of which will dull the majesty and diamond rays of the Morning Star, and echo like wailing in the courts of heaven. Gabriel interposes occasionally with commonplaces about obedience, duty, and contentment, while the lament of Lucifer grows keener and shriller as he mourns beforehand over the ruin of his dignity. Nay, even of Grod's dignity ; for he declares that if the fountain of light is to plunge its splendour into the pit of a morass, the heavens will be struck blind, the stars whirl and fall dizzily into space, and disorder and chaos rule in Paradise. It is to give Grod His right that he thus presumes to oppose His decree. To which Gabriel pertinently, if rather prosaically, answers : ' You are very zealous for the honour of God's name ; but without considering that God knows much better than you do in what His greatness consists.' He quells the murmurs of the Stadtholder with some sharp words about the necessity of cheerful obedience, and bids him see to it that his feet walk in the steps of God's revealed wisdom. Beelzebub, being left alone with Lucifer, hastens to point out to him that the obvious effect of this new edict will be to clip the wings of the Stadtholder's authority, which, indeed, the latter needs no argument to perceive. Lucifer vows to take his honour into his own hands ; he will raise his seat into the very centre of heaven, past all the circles with their starry glory. The heaven of heavens shall furnish him with a palace, the rainbow shall be his throne. On a chariot of clouds, borne up on air and light, he will crush ^nd override all opposition, even from the Lord of earth himself. Or, if he falls, the transparent arch of heaven shall burst like a bubble, and all the universe crash in chaos. He summons Apollyon to council. In the dialogue that

' LUCIFER.' 291

ensues some dramatic skill is shown, though Vondel's force lies rather in description, in gorgeous expression, and in lyric rhetoric, than in the true field of the drama. Lucifer is flushed and arrogant; Beelzebub, an ethereal lago, hounds him on to rebellion ; Apollyon is prudential and diffident, a graceful courtier, who hints a weak point and hesitates difficulties. The argument of the latter is that Michael, God's Field-Marshal, holds the key of the armoury ; the watch is entrusted to him, and not a star can move without his thorough consciousness. He finally exemplifies the serene strength of the Deity by saying that although the Castle of Heaven should set its diamond gates wide open, it would fear not craft, nor ambush, nor attack. Lucifer, however, decides that the attempt must be made ; but first of all Apollyon is sent to direct Belial to sound the minds of the angels ; the ' persuasive accents ' of Belial, as in ' Paradise Lost,' being set great store by for their power of eloquent dissimulation, since

his tongue Dropt manna, and could make the worse appear The better reason, to perplex and dash Maturest counsels.

It may be said, in passing, that the figure of Beelzebub, though to less marked a degree, resembles the grand figure so named in Milton's poem. Lucifer and Beelzebub ascend and disappear : Belial enters with Apollyon, who is now eloquent in the course he lately shunned, and Belial needs no persuasion. They pass to whisper the project of rebellion far and wide among the Orders. While they are busied in this work, the stage is crowded with the Chorus of loyal angels, who contemplate, as from the Primum

V 2

292 THE LITERATURE OE NORTHERN EUROPE.

Mobile, the Hierarchies circling in the Crystalline Heaven, illuminated by the uncreated light, as Dante in the 'Paradiso' gazed on the snow-white Rose of the Blessed. They witness with alarm the change that comes over the snowy, starry purity of the Orders.

Why seem the courteous angel-faces

So red ? Why streams the holy light

So red upon our sight, Through clouds and mists from mournful places ?

What vapour dares to blear

The pure, unspotted, clear

And luminous sapphire ?

The flame, the blaze, the fire Of the bright Omnipotence ? Why does the splendid light of God Glow, deepened to the hue of blood,

That late, in flowing thence, Gladdened all hearts ? ^

What is the cause, they cry ? Since, but now, all the balconies and battlements of heaven were thronged by myriads of happy faces, singing the praise of Man ! The Anti-chorus takes up its parable in reply —

When we, enkindled and uplifted

By Gabriel's trumpet, in new ways

Began to chant God's praise, The perfume of rose-gardens drifted

Through paths of Paradise,

And such a dew and such a spice Distilled, that all the flowery grass Rejoiced. But envy soon, alas !

From the under-world came sneaking. A mighty crowd of spirits, pale And dumb and wan, came, tale on tale,

Displeased, some new thing seeking ; With brows that crushed each scowling eye,

And happy foreheads bent and wrinkled ; The doves of heaven here on high.

' Appendix XX.

' LUCIFER.' 293

Whose innocent pinions sweetly twinkled, Are struck with mourning one and all, As though the Heavens were far too small For them, now Adam's been elected. And such a crown for Man selected. This blemish blinds the light of grace, And dulls the flaniing of God's face.^

This ode, which is here rendered with scrupulous adher- ence to the original, is an interesting example of the alterna- tion of exquisite with tawdry and prosaic imagery, and noble with flat and poor expression, which is characteristic of most of Vondel's writings. These choruses at the close of each act are not peculiar to the ' Lucifer,' but common to Dutch dramatic poetry generally. We have in English an exactly analogous example in the ' Cleopatra ' of Samuel Daniel, a tragedy wi'itten in rhymed verse, with solemn choral variations.

In the second act the rebellion was confined to the desires of a few princes ; in the third act it has taken fast hold of the multitude. The whole process is precisely that recounted in Book V., lines 616-710, of 'Paradise Lost.' Belial and Apollyon have passed far and wide among the ranks of the angels, and, while calling them together under the banner of Lucifer, have ' cast between ambiguous words and jealousies to sound or taint integrity.' The angels are discovered huddling together, with all their beauty tarnished, drowned in grief and deep sunk in their own melancholy thoughts, and, ever and anon, with one voice they cry — -

Alas ! alas ! alas ! where has our bliss departed ?

The loyal Chorus are properly displeased with this ' Appendix YY

294 THE LITERATUEE OF NOETHERN EUROPE.

excessive and groundless show of depression. They declare that Heaven freezes with the wind of their lamentations. The azure ether is not accustomed to hear a music of affliction go up in vapour through its joyous vault. Triumphs, songs, and symphonies on stringed instruments befit the blessed. They call upon their fellow-choristers to aid them in cheering these sorrowful souls. But the Luciferists, as they are now called, only repeat their monotonous cry —

Alas ! alas ! alas ! where has our bliss departed ?

The Chorus reminds them of their being. They were born to be joyous ; brought forth, like flowers, upon a beam of the gioiy of God ; created to hover and flash through the unshadowed light of life. At last the Luci- ferists inquire if the Chorus is really in earnest in asking them why they mourn ; is it not well enough known that the angels have fallen from their high estate to make room for the dull brood of Man? The charter given by Grod has been repealed ; the sun of spirits is suddenly gone down, and, burying their faces in their folded wings, they repeat once more their miserable refrain. The Chorus, excellent persons with whom the reader finds it a little difficult to have patience, exclaim : ' How dare you censure the high ordinance ? This seems like a revolt I my brothers, cease this lamentation and defiance, and bow yourselves under the inevitable yoke ! ' This ex- emplary advice is severely criticised by the Luciferists ; and a long discussion ensues, in which each party says a sinoie line, after the occasional manner of most Creek plays. The ball of argument is tossed from hand to hand.

' lucifer; 295

and both speak well, the Luciferists, however, with most point and wit. The great seducers, Belial and Apollyon, then come upon the scene, and affect the greatest surprise at the appearance of the ranks of angels plunged in sorrow and wrapped about with desolation. They inquire, with simulated anxiety, into the cause of this ; but the Luci- ferists are sad beyond speech, and the Chorus replies : ' They mourn that the state of Man triumphs, that God will entwine His being with Adam's, and spirits be subject to human authority. There you learn briefly the ground of their sorrow.' The Chorus further begs that Belial will settle the dispute ; but without advantage to itself, for the angel-princes take, of course, the rebel standpoint, and argue with more subtlety than the lower Luciferists. The wrangling progresses farther, the one side continually preferring their charge of a promise broken, a charter disannulled, and the other repeating in a variety of shapes the formula that

Obedience pleases God, the ruler of our day,

Far more than incense clouds or godlike music may.

Belial at last sums up in saying — I y Equality of grace would fit the Godhead best ;

/ a rebellious assumption of superior justice, which rouses I c^ the Chorus to a somewhat long-winded summary of the ) contrast between the supremacy of the Creator and the / subjection of the created. During the closing words of V_-this harangue, the clouds and lurid fiery blaze increase, and out of the sinister gloom appears Beelzebub. On his appearance, the miserable Luciferists repeat their uniform cry. The new-comer consoles them, and bids them be of good cheer —

296 THE LITERATUEE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

Oil cease from wailing ; rend your badges and your robes No longer without cause, but make your faces bright, And let your foreheads flash, children of the light ! The shrill sweet throats, that thank the Deity with song, Behold, and be ashamed that ye have mixed so long Discords and bastard tones with music so divine.^

The followers of Lucifer reply. They are now so enraged that they declare themselves ready to smother Man in his own blood, rather than permit his usm-pation. They entreat Beelzebub to lead them on to battle, and they swear to follow his standard. Beelzebub, ' than whom, Satan except, none higher sits,' with dignified indignation admirably displayed, rejects the proposition of the muti- neers, and enters into a long argument with them, in which he pretends to be slowly persuaded of their wrongs. He further feigns to be exceedingly moved by the defalca- tion of Apollyon and Belial, but he steadily refuses their offer of leadership, unless they will permit him to lead them, as suppliants for mercy, to the Throne of Grrace ; and there is a peculiar motive for the unctuous zeal of this last offer, for, while the words are in his mouth, the mag- nificent presence of Michael is before us. The Field- Marshal addresses Beelzebub, in a haughty tone, and, in spite of this last flosculus which has fallen from his lips, roundly accuses him of stirring up rebellion. Beelzebub, nothing abashed, humbly rebuts the charge, and prays Michael to assist him in interfering in favour of peace. Michael thereupon offers, in a sufficiently peremptory tone, to lay their petition before the Deity. The Luci- ferists boldly insist on their right, and blaze up into the most absolute defiance. Michael thereupon warns them

' Appendix ZZ.

'LUCIFER.' 297

that those who fight against him fight against Grod ; but the rebel host shriek back that the Stadtholder, Lucifer, is on their side. Michael can hardly believe it ; and then, in thunderous rhetoric, he calls down divine vengeance upon them, and, gathering the ranks of the faithful about him, soars upward to lay the matter at God's feet. Beelzebub raises the courage of the Luciferists by announc- ing the advent of Lucifer, who approaches on his chariot, and greets them with great dignity of speech. The Luci- ferists pour out their anguish to him thus —

Forbid it, Lucifer, nor suiier that our ranks

Be mortified so low and sink without a crime,

AVhile Man, above us- raised, may flash and beam sublime

In the veiy core of light, from which we seraphim

Pass quivering, full of paui, and fade like shadows dim.

AVe swear, by force, beneath thy glorious flag combined, To set thee on the throne for Adam late designed ! We swear, with one accord, to stay thine arm for ever ; Lift high thy battle-axe ! our womided rights deliver ! ^

Lucifer, however, still deems it politic to feign a loyal and pious mind ; but at length he gives way, especially to the ^arguments of Beelzebub. To his own superior intelligence the contest seems hopeless, the battle lost before it is fought. But at last he cries —

I will content me, then, foi'ce to resist by force !

But he stops the shouts of delight with which this con- cession is greeted, to bid the princes take witness that he is forced into this step by the need to protect Grod's realm against usurpation. Beelzebvib, then, like some arch-heretic or anti-pope, busies himself to prepare divine honours for the new deity. The crowd take up the idea, and shout — ' Appendix AAA.

298 THE LITERATUEE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

Crown, crown with triumph great God Lucifer.

At the command of Beelzebub, they bring perfumes and burn them before him, and in choral antiphonies they sing his praise.

Follow the chief, whose trumpet and whose drum

Protect the crown of Angeldom ! Behold, behold, hew the Morning Star outflashes ! ^

They pass away in triumph, and the Heavenly Chorus

descends, filling the vacant scene, and trilling a mournful

epode to this dithyrambic passion, full of pain and anxious

wonder.

The fourth act opens with a most Miltonic blare of

martial melody. All heaven is in a blaze, and Gabriel

speeds to bid Michael prepare to defend Grod's name. The

third part of heaven has sworn fealty to the traitorous

Morning Star, and leads him on with shouts and singing.

Melancholy and depression have now seized the loyal

angels, and the unfaded seraphim sit brooding on their

woe. To Michael, who demands to learn what effect the

news produced at the Throne of Grod himself, Gabriel

replies —

I saw God's very gladness with a cloud of woe O'er-shadowed, and there bm-st a flame out of the gloom That pierced the eye of light, and hung, a brand of doom. Ready to fall in rage. I heard the mighty cause Where Mercy pleaded long with God's all-righteous laws, Grace, soothly wise and meek, with Justice arguing well. I saw the Cherubim, who on their faces fell, And cried out ' Mercy, mercy ! God, let Justice rest ! ' But even as that shrill sound to His great footstool pressed, And God seemed almost moved to pardon and to smile. Up curled the odious smoke of incense harsh and vile

' Appendix BBB.

'LUCIFER.' 299

Burned down below in praise of Lucifer, who rode With censers and bassoons and many a choral ode ; Then Heaven withdrew its face from such impieties, Cursed of God and Spirits and all the Hierarchies.^

Michael, thereupon, in a speech of great poetic vigour, calls the battalions of heaVen to arms. They all pass out, and the scene is filled by the Luciferists, who enter, accompanying Lucifer and Beelzebub. They cry to be instantly led to storm the ranks of Michael : but Lucifer first inquires into the condition of his own army, and then proceeds to take their oaths of allegiance. He bids them remember that it is now too late to recede, but they have taken a step at once fatal and fortunate which now forces them with violence to tear from their necks the yoke of slavery to Adam's sons. But whilst they shout in answer, and rapturously pledge themselves to follow the Morning Star, a herald is seen winging his way towards them from the height of heaven. This is Eaphael, sent on a last embassy of peace and reconciliation. The position of Raphael in this act closely resembles that of Abdiel, ' faithful foimd among the faithless, faithful only he,' in the end of the Fifth Book of ' Paradise Lost.' In each case a single seraph opposes Lucifer at the moment of his violent action, alone, in his own palace, and undaunted by the hostile scorn of myriads. There is, however, the im- portant distinction that Raphael is an ambassador, while the beautiful figure of Abdiel distinguishes itself by stand- ing out in unshaken loyalty from the very ranks of the insurgents themselves. The resemblance is least marked in the opening words of Raphael's address. Instead of adopting the lofty arrogance of Michael or the cold im- ' Appendix CCC.

300 THE LITEEATUEE OF NOETHEEN EUEOPE.

partiality of Grabriel, Eaphael flings himself, overwhelmed with grief, on the neck of the Stadtholder. He says that he brings balsam from the lap of God ; all will still be forgiven, if the rebel angels be disarmed, and if Lucifer return to his loyalty. He weeps in picturing to the assembly, in florid and impassioned language, how in the old happier days Lucifer bloomed in Paradise, in the presence of the sun of Grodhead, blossoming out of a cloud of dew and fresh roses. He reminds Lucifer that his festal robes stood out stiff with pearls and turquoises, emeralds, rubies, diamonds, and bright gold. He describes him, exactly as Memling or Van der Gfoes would have painted him two centuries earlier, standing behind the throne of some gorgeous Madonna, witli his gold hair streaming against the clear green and blue of a distant strip of landscape, or glancing among his jewellery, as he crushes an enemy under his mailed foot. It would have well suited a painter of that effluent period to paint the Stadtholder, as Raphael describes him, with the heaviest sceptre of heaven in his hand, and blazing like a sun among the circling stars. The arguments of Raphael are more worldly than those of Abdiel. He is afraid that Lucifer's beauty will be changed into the semblance of a grif&n or dragon or other monstrous thing, and stimulates his vanity in the hope of changing his purpose. At last he interposes force, or a courteous semblanceof force, and strives to wrest the battle-axe out of one of the Stadtholde]-'s hands, and his buckler out of the other. The arch-rebel replies with dignity to these familiarities, and utterly rejects his overtures of peace. Raphael argues, but in vain ; for Lucifer declares that Adam's honour is the whetstone of his battle-axe, and that he

' LUCIFER.' 301

has but to reflect on the indignity which has been threatened to the angels, to grasp more tightly the weapon that must wipe out the memory of that insolence. Eaphael takes it absolutely for granted that the rebellion will instantly and iitterly fail ; and, finding Lucifer deaf to his loving and sentimental entreaties, he threatens him with the punish- ment prepared for him. He declares that a pool of sulphm-, bottomless, horrible, has in this very hour gaped to receive him. To all this Lucifer cannot listen with patience ; he repels him with indignation and defiance. Eaphael continues, however, calling him the perjured leader of a blind conspiracy, and declaring that the chains are actually being forged for his limbs. In a brilliant passage Lucifer wavers and sickens, wonders if he dare return to his duty, seeks vainly for counsel and confidence, but is constantly held up by his pride and rage. At the moment that he wavers most, the trumpet of God sounds through the circles of heaven, and it is too late. The battle breaks upon his despair, but Apollyon is full of hope and daring. Eaphael, in an agony of regret, and with a breaking heart, remains on the scene, while the Luciferists rush to battle. To him the Chorus of good angels enters, and they with him join in a hymn of passionate entreaty to God even now, if it be not too late, to exercise the glorious privilege of pardon.

So closes the fourth act ; and when the fifth opens, Eaphael is discovered at some distance from the field of battle, giving rapturous thanks for its victorious issue. He has not fought in it himself, but he has been watching from far off, and now he sees the shields of good angels returning, and glittering like suns, each shield-sun stream-

302 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

ing triumphant day. Uriel comes to him out of the ranks, and as he crosses the plain of heaven he swings his flaming sword till its rays are flashed back from the facets of his diamond helmet. Called upon by Eaphael to describe the fight, Uriel tells how God commanded Michael, the prince of his army, and faithful Gabriel, next to him in command, to lead forth the invincible ranks of the angels against the rebellious godless army, and to sweep them from the pure azure of heaven into the gulf,

which ready opens wide His fiery Chaos to receive their fall.

Straightway the heavenly army flew to victory like an arrow from the bow. Unnumbered multitudes of celestial warriors, well-marshalled, progressed in a three-cornered phalanx, a triangle of advance, a unity in a three-pointed light. Michael, with the lightning in his hand, led the van. Meanwhile the rebel host was speeding to meet them with no less velocity.

Their army waxed apace, and like a crescent moon Threw out two points like horns that gained upon us soon, Or like the star that fronts the Bull i' the Zodiack, And the other monsters quaint that wheel around his track With golden horns bedight.^

One horn is led by Belial and one by Beelzebub, while Lucifer brings on the van. The description of the Apostate, though with barocco details omitted by the purer taste of Milton, is closely parallel to the celebrated analogous passage in the Sixth Book of ' Paradise Lost.' Encircled by his staff-bearers and green liveries, in golden harness, on which his coat of arms shone in glowing purple, ' Appendix DDD.

i

' lucifee; 303

he sat in his sun-bright chariot, the wheels of which were thickly inlaid with rubies. Like a lion or fell dragon he raged for the fight, and his soul iBamed athirst for destruc- tion ; nor, as he flashed through the field, could any foe see his back, sown all over with stars. With his battle-axe in his hand, and on his left arm a buckler engraved with the Morning Star, he rushed into the fray. Eaphael inter- rupts again to mourn over the beauty of this phoenix, now doomed to endless flame, but bids Uriel proceed. The latter describes how the battle burst in a hail of bm-ning darts, and the whole air was thunder. After this artillery had expended its force the armies met on closer terms, and, lighting down from their chariots, met hand to hand with club and halbert, sabre, spear, and dagger. The plumes of the angels were singed with lightning, and all their gorgeous panoplies were mingled in undistinguishable confusion, so that one saw turquoise-blue and gold, diamond and pearl, mixed and jarred together, nor knew which splendour belonged to which angel. Again and again repulsed, still Lucifer brought back his shattered army, still only to break like a wave on the iron ranks of the blessed. At last from a height he poured his forces on them : and Vondel, in describing the charge, adds a figure of speech which may have been inspired by one of the landscapes which Jacob Euysdael was just beginning to exhibit at Amsterdam, but which can hardly be drawn from the home-staying poet's own experience —

Like some great inland lake or northland waterfall That breaks upon the rocks and raves with rushing brawl ; A terror to wild beasts in deep sequestered valleys, Through stones and down from heights in mighty jets it sallies.^ ' Appendix EBE.

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Then the battle raged more than ever ; the vaults of heaven were deafened with ' the roar of an angel onset ; ' but the point of Michael's array pierced the half-moon of Lucifer's with a lurid blaze of red and blue sulphurous flame, and with blow on blow, like thunder-clap on thunder-clap, in spite of all Lucifer's fierce endeavour, struck it apart and divided it. Then, soaring high above the fight in his bright steel array, Lucifer gloomed like a blue dragon, poisoning the whole air with his split tongue and blowing odious vapours through his nostrils. At last Michael and he were face to face, and around them half the battle paused to watch the encounter of two such magnificent princes. First Lucifer swung high his battle- axe with intent to fell God's banner, on which the mystic name of the Creator stood blazoned in crystalline splendour. But Michael shouted to him to beware and to yield — to lead off his godless rout, or else prepare to suffer the worst pangs of punishment. But the maddened archangel strove all the more to cleave the diamonds that formed the sacred name, but the moment he touched them the blade of his battle-axe sprang to atoms. Then Michael grasped his lightning sword, and cleft the arch-enemy of the blessed through helmet and head. He fell heavily out of his chariot. Then Apollyon felt the flaming sword of Uriel. Beelzebub still raged, Belial still defied the hosts of Grod ; but the fall of the Stadtholder had fully broken the half-moon of the rebel onset, although the giant Orion attempted to lead a return charge. Uriel compares the appearance of the fallen archangel to that of an ass, a rhinoceros, and an ape, such an uncouth monster did he seem lying prone on the battle-field.

• LUCIFEE.' 305

Apollyon fled ; and soon he and all the rest were driven thunder-struck before the sword of Michael till they came to the abyss that gaped to receive them, and were hurried down, roaring and yelping, into the jaws of hell itself, while Michael, returning, was greeted with cymbals, shawms, and tambours.

The remarkable points of resemblance between this long and spirited description of the fall of the rebel angels and that given in the Sixth Book of ' Paradise Lost ' are, of course, far too close and too numerous to be mere coin- cidences. There can be no doubt whatever that the deep impression made on Milton's imagination by the battle in the ' Lucifer ' remained vividly before him when he came to deal with the same branch of his subject. In some respects the earlier poet has distinctly the advantage. He g-ives but one fight ; while Milton, for no intelligible reason, divides the action between three days. The addi- tions of the gunpowder and the ridiculous tossing about of mountains torn up from their bases are certainly no improvements upon the simpler, more human description of Vondel. In volume of melody and in the beauty of individual passages the English poet, of course, far exceeds the Dutch.

Uriel ceases his discourse as Michael and the victorious Chorus enter. They sing this ode, curious for its varia- tions of metre and the eccentric distribution of its

rhymes- Blest be the hero's hour, "VSTio smote the godless power, And his might, and his light, and his standard, Down toppling like a tower ; His crown was near God's own, But from his lofty throne, X

306 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

With his might; into night he hath vanished ;

God's name must shine alone.

Outblazed the uproar fell,

When valorous JNIichael With the brand in his hand quenched the passion

Of spirits that dared rebel.

He holds God's banner now ;

With laurels crown his brow ! Peace shall reign here again, and her forehead

Shall vanquished Discord bow.

Amid the conquering throng

Praises to God belong ; Hououi" bring to the King of aU kingdoms !

He gives us stuiFfor song.'

Michael, in a triumphal harangue, proclaims the victory of the loyal cause, and points to the hosts of the fallen angels, ever sinking dizzily downwards, writhing, accursed, misshapen. It is at this minute that Gabriel hastily enters bearing most startling tidings —

Gabriel. Alas ! alas ! alas ! to adverse fortune bow !

What do ye here ? In vain are songs of triumph now, In vain of spoil of arms and gonfalons ye boast I

Michael. What hear I, Gabriel ?

Gabriel. Oh ! Adam is fallen and lost !

The father and the stock of all the human race Most grievously hath erred and lies in piteous case.^

Lucifer has gathered together the remnants of his army in the bowels of hell, and, to hide them from God's eye, has concealed them in a cloud, a dark cavern of murder. Seated in the midst of them, in hellish council, he addresses them, precisely as in Milton, and proposes to them to attack man by force or subtlety ; the seduction of the human race is agreed upon. Lucifer gloats over the future misery of man, fallen like themselves, and rejoices to imagine that this will complete their revenge on God, ' Appendix FFF. - Appendix GGG.

' LUCIFER.' 307

and ensure the defeat of His purposes. Belial is then de- puted to make his way up from hell to the Terrene Para- dise, and, having accomplished the journey, he tempts Eve exactly as recounted in Grenesis, and she falling is the cause of the fall of Adam. How Eve gives her husband the apple, and how they awake in dolorous plight from their state of hapjjy innocence, is pathetically told. Grod thunders among the trees of the garden ; and Michael bids Uriel undertake the duty, that in ' Paradise Lost ' he undertakes himself, of cbiving the guilty pair out of Eden with the two-edged flaming sword. Michael then charges other archangels with the final punishment of the rebel and now intriguing angels, and with this doom of endless pain the drama closes —

Ozias, to whose fist the very Godhead gave

The heavy hammer framed of diamond beaten out,

And chains of ruby, clamps and teeth of metal stout,

Go hence, and take and bind the hellish host that rage,

Lion and Dragon fell, whose banners dared to wage

War with us thus. Speed swift on their accm'sed flight,

And bind them neck and claw, and fetter them with might.

The key which to the gates of their foul pit was fitted

Is, Azarias, now mto thy care committed ;

Go hence, and thrust therein all that our power defied.

Maceda, take this torch I to your zeal confide,

And flame the sulphur-pool in the centre of the world ;

There torture Lucifer, and leave his body curled

In everlasting fire, with many a prince accursed,

Where Sorrow, wretched Pain, numb Horror, Hunger, Thirst,

Despair without a hope, and Conscience with her sting

May measure out their meed of endless suffering.'

When we consider to how great an extent an Englisli

writer was about to borrow from this poem, it is singular

to find its Dutch author acknowledging a debt to a now

• Appendix HHH.

X 2

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forgotten English writer. In the learned and interesting preface to his play, Vondel notes, while citing earlier writers on the same subject, 'among English Protestants, too, the learned pen of Kichard Baker has discussed very broadly in prose the fate of Lucifer and all the matter of the rebellious spirits.' This was Sir Richard Baker whose 'Chronicle' Sir Roger de Coverley was so fond of; a wealthy but imprudent gentleman, who ended his days in the Fleet Prison. The passage referred to by the Dutch poet is to be found in section Which art in Heaven, of Baker's ' Meditations and Disquisitions upon the Lord's Prayer,' 1637, a work which Sir Henry Wotton commends as having ' not a little of the African style of St. Austin.' ^ The ' Lucifer ' was not received very favourably in Holland. It was true that the violent and internecine strife of the two great religious parties, the burning and parching zeal to which the noble Barneveldt had fallen a victim thirty years before, had in a great measure cooled down. But still fanatic rage ran very high in the United Provinces, and one attack after another was made upon ' the false imaginations,' 'hellish fancies,' and 'irregular and un scriptural devices ' of Vondel's beautifid drama. An effort was made in February 1654 to prevent the re- presentation of ' the tragedy made by Joost van den Vondel, named Luisevar, treating in a fleshly manner the high theme of God's mysteries.' When this fell through, and the piece had been acted, a still more strenuous effort was made to prevent the printing and to prohibit the sale ;

' Sir Richard Baker seems to have reflected much on the story of the Fallen Angels ; I find it discussed again in' his ' Meditations and Disquisitions on the Seven Penitential Psalms,' 1639, and in ' On the First Psalm of David,' 1 640.

POLITICAL IMPORT. 309

but at last, through a perfect sea of invective and obloquy, the poem sailed safe into the haven of recognised literature. Its political significance, real or imagined, give it no doubt an interest that counterbalanced its supposed ^ns against theology. It was considered — and the idea has received the support of most modern Dutch critics — that in ' Lucifer ' Vondel desired to give an allegorical account of the rising of the Netherlands against Philip II. Ac- cording to this theory, Grod was represented by the King of Spain, Michael by the Duke of Alva, Adam by the Cardinal Granvella, and Lucifer by the first stadtholder, William the Silent, who was murdered in 1584. There are several difficulties in the way of consenting to this belief: in the first place, the incidents occurred more than seventy years before the writing of the poem ; and, secondly, the event of the one rebellion was diametrically opposed to that of the other. William of Orange, indeed, was murdered by a hired assassin, but not until he had se- cured the independent existence of the new State ; and there would be a curious inappropriateness in describing the popular hero as a fallen and defeated angel thrust into hell. There is, however, another theory of the poli- tical signification of the ' Lucifer,' which seems to me much more plausible. It is that which sees in the figure of the rebel archangel the still dominant prince of the English Commonwealth, Cromwell, the enemy of Holland, and in the God and the Michael of Vondel's drama, Charles I. and Laud still surviving in their respective successors. Considered as a prophecy of the approaching downfall of the still flourishing English Kepublic, the allegory has a force and a spirited coherence that are en- tirely lacking in the generally received version.

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If Milton had preserved his original design, it is probable that the resemblance of his poem to Vondel's tragedy would have been still greater than it is. In the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, are, or were, two drafts of Milton's first scheme for ' Paradise Lost,' and they show that his earliest intention was to treat the theme in a di'amatic form. It is strange that in this day of in- cessant reproduction and republication these most inter- esting documents have never been presented to the public. It would be exceedingly interesting to note in what form the essentially epic story of the Fall of Man originally impressed the imagination of Milton before his unening instinct for art led him on the better Avay.

Soon after the representation of ' Lucifer ' heavy sorrows fell upon the aged poet. His son mismanaged the business in Warmoesstraat, and in order to stem the approaching bankruptcy Vondel sacrificed his own little fortune of 40,000 gulden, but in vain. In spite of his infirmities he travelled to Denmark to treat with his son's creditors, and on his return was obliged to accept a wretched clerkship to support himself. In this misery Holland allowed her greatest poet to drudge from his seventieth to his eightieth year, and his employers had the insolence to reproach the old man with sometimes writing verses in his office hours. I doubt if in all the tragical annals of literatm-e there is a sadder story than this, and that London should have let Otway starve seems to me less in- famous than that Amsterdam should have plagued the aged Vondel so harshly for a pittance of fourteen pence a day. Nothing extinguished the flame of his genius, however. He recommenced his series of biblical tragedies. The ' Jephta ' appeared in 1 659, the ' Samson ' and ' King David

VONDEKS LAST YEAKS. 311

Eestored' in 1660. In the latter year he completed his translations of the ' (Edipus Tyrannus ' and of the ' ^Eneid.' I can but enumerate his next dramatic productions, the ' Adonis ' of 1661, the ' John Calling to Eepentance ' and the ' Batavian Brothers ' of 1662, the ' Phaeton ' of 1663, and the epic poem of'De Heerlijkheid der Kerke ' (The Glory of the Church) of the same year. We must however pause an instant before the ' Adam in Ballingschap ' (Adam in Exile), 1664, a biblical drama the choruses of which are among the most lovely productions of the age. In this play we find a lyrical poet of nearly eighty warbling his wood-notes as delicately and as freely as the young sereuader that sings to his lady-love at twenty-five. If we consider the time of life at which it was composed, and the circumstances, the ' Adam in Ballingschap ' is certainly one of the most marvellous works on record. In 1666, Vondel celebrated the naval triumphs of the Dutch over the English in some spirited odes, and in 1667 published his last tragedy, the 'Noah.' On Augaist 10, 1668, having nearly completed his eightieth year, he was called before the Burgomaster and released from his drudgery by the gift of a small state pension. He continued to amuse himself by publishing translations of Sophocles in 1668, and of Ovid in 1670, retaining his faculties and his force of mind until the last. He lived to see all his poetical pupils die before him, except Antonides van der Goes, who survived until 1684. But the young men of genius whom Vondel had loved best passed away very early, — Jan Vos, the promising author of ' Aaron and Titus,' dying in 1667, and Keyer Anslo, whose epic of ' The Plague at Naples ' still lives in Dutch literature, meeting his fate from the pest he sung of, at Perugia, in 1669.

312 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

Vondel suffered from no disease in his old age, and succumbed at last to the cold of sheer senility. His last couplet was improvised to his friend and biographer Brandt, who tells us that the old man remarked the numbness of extreme age creeping to his heart, and, laughing, said that this must be his epitaph : —

Here lies Vondel, still and old, Who died because he was so cold.

He drew his last breath on February 5, 1679, dying five years after Milton, although more than twenty years his senior. He was ninety-one years and three months old, and his enormous span of life had embraced the death of Spenser and the birth of Addison.

Almost till the day of his death he laboured at the im- provement of the literature of his coimtry. But he had the mortification, whilst outliving every one of his great contemporaries, whether in poetry or philosophy — for even Spinoza, the last great Dutchman, died before him— of seeing the romantic and lyrical practice of his youth entirely set aside in favoiu- of the rhetorical and artificial manner of the French, which, spreading over Europe like a plague, did not spare the literature of Holland, and this in spite of the Forty Years' War and all the pei'sonal hatred for France. In the year 1672, the poet Antonides, the last friend of Vondel, and lover of the old school, lamented that the whole literature of his country bad become the ape of the French ; and by the time of VondeFs death this sterile rhetoric had deformed every branch of letters and learning. A history of the lifetime of Joost van den Vondel is a chronicle of the whole rise and decline of the literature of Holland.

THE OERA LINDA BOOK.

We are accustomed to pride ourselves on the progress that we have made during the past century in the matter of critical insight. Without doubt the elements of technical knowledge are more widely spread than they were in the days of George Psalmanazar. We no longer believe in the highly-polished mahogany-coloured old masters that our forefathers cherished ; we have reduced our belief in the music of the ancients to scientific limits ; but it is ques- tionable, after all, whether we are much less in thraldrom to tradition, or much more ready to give an independent opinion on an undiscussed subject, than our ancestors of the eighteenth century were. In the particular matter of literary forgeries, it is hard to say positively whether oiu- generation would or would not be deceived by the produc- tions of a Chatterton or a Walpole whose skill and learning were in due ratio advanced beyond the average culture of a hundred years ago. It is more a question, perhaps, of ingeuidty in the forger than of intuition in the reader. A blunderer like Ireland is detected almost at once ; and there has never, in all probability, been a believer in ' Vortigern ' since the solitary performance of that unique drama. On the other hand there are still people of educa-

314 THE LITERATUEE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

tion and taste who uphold the comedies of the Terentian mm Hroswitha, and pin their faith to the antiquity of Clotilde de Sm'ville. These celebrated productions may be said to reach the high-water mark of intelligent forgery ; their inherent value is so great that there may always be admirers too blind to be critical. But it is one thing to be delighted with a rondeau like ' Au clair de lune,' and another to be taken in by a ' History of Formosa 'in the language of that island. Yet there is just now being circulated and discussed throughout the learned societies of the North of Europe a hoax that bears a remarkable likeness to the geographical and linguistical revelations of the mysterious Mr. George Psalmanazar.

The ' Oera Linda Book ' — which, from being translated out of Frisian into Dutch and Grerman, has now been exalted into an EngKsh translation, and which is expected by its faithful band of admirers presently to revolutionise the history of Europe — has had a variety of evasive stages in its long and singular history. As at present published it is understood to be taken from a MS. of the thirteenth century, and its more rational adherents no longer seek to claim for it a greater antiquity. But when it first appeared on the scenes, and indeed still in Friesland itself, no more modest pretensions were put forth on its behalf than that it was ' the oldest production, after Homer and Hesiod, of Em-opean literature.' It can be imagined what excitement has been caused by the sudden appearance on the quiet horizon of Frisian letters of a meteor so portentous as this. It is well known that the industrious and intelligent inhabitants of the north-eastern provinces of Holland preserve in remarkable purity the

THE OERA LINDA BOOK. 315

old Frisian language ; and tliat, though Dutch has super- seded it in the towns and in business relations, yet that a strong conservative process is going on there as elsewhere in Europe, having for its object a patriotic preservation of the national language, lawg, and customs. The capital of this peculiar district, Leeuwarden, boasts a variety of Frisian institutions, and the strength of feeling and the literary activity of the people has been more obvious than their critical acumen in this wordy warfare about the ' Oera Linda Book.' Friesland is by no means ready to allow itself to be snuffed out by its wealthier and more influential neighbours. It claims for itself and its lan- guage all the dignity due to a most ancient noble stock fallen into decay. It produces learned little books, intended as trumpet-blasts to waken slumbering philology, and bearing such titles as the ' Old Friesic above all others the Fons et Origo of the Old English, and Archaic ' — little books which are too apt to give an uncertain sound when the supreme moment of trumpeting arrives. Fries- land, moreover, does not forget that it has twice contri- buted a great name to European poetry and art : in the sixteenth century, Grijsbert Japix ; in the nineteenth, Laurence Alma Tadema. In the ferment of patriotic feel- ing it becomes quite a sin against the fatherland not to believe in any great memorial of the national glory. As we shall see, if only the ' Oera Linda Book ' were trust- worthy, Greece and Egypt and Rome would be obliged to come down from their pedestals of honour, and do obeisance. Friesland is thirsty after national glory, and a MS. suddenly appears, showering a whole deity of magnificence into the lap of its respectable and sleepy history. That it

316 THE LITEKATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

should be difficult to be critical under such circumstances is pardonable ; and yet the 'Oera Linda Book ' might have taxed our credulity a little less. With the sincerest affection for Friesland, this is too much : — ' Hitherto we have believed that the historical records of our people reach no farther back than the arrival of Friso, the presumptive founder of the Frisians ; whereas here we become aware that their records mount up to more than 2,000 years before Christ, surpassing the antiquity of Hellas, and equalling that of Israel ! ' This is a quotation from a paper read by a well-known scholar before a meeting of the Frisian Society, at Leeuwarden, iu 1871, and warmly commended by all present. These are big words, and we cannot do better than examine the document on which such assumptions are founded.

In the first place, the publisher of the ' Oera Linda Book' has an advantage over Mr. Macpherson and other producers of strange works, in that the ancient MS. from which he took his text has not been burned to ashes at the moment when the task of transcription was complete, or been stolen and destroyed by some person ignorant of its value, or even carried up into heaven by a young gentleman with wings, as befell the hapless golden books of the Mormons. None of these unfortunate accidents has arrived to baffle students of primeval Frisian history. The ' Oera Linda ' MS. remains in the possession of Mr. C. Over de Linden, Chief Superintendent of the Eoyal Dockyard at the Helder. Some rather scrappy infor- mation has been published, from which we gather that the present possessor received the MS., in August, 1848 (we are very particular about dates), from his aunt,

THE OERA LINDA BOOK. 317

Mrs. Aafje Meylhoff, who had preserved it for twenty-eight years in her house at Enkhuizen, in Friesland. This takes us back to 1 820 ; and we learn that on April 1 5 of that year it was delivered to Mrs. Meylhoff, then Miss Aafje Over de Linden, by her father, Mr. Andries Over de Linden, at his death. Here the chain breaks, and we are blandly told that the document had been handed down to the last- named gentleman by generation after generation from time immemorial. The tradition of the great antiquity of this record seems to have been accepted by the family ; but no attempt was made to decipher or analyse it until Br. E. Verwijs requested permission, about ten years ago, to examine the MS. He, we are told, ' immediately re- cognised it as very ancient Fries.' A letter at the com- mencement, which we shall presently examine, gave the year 1256 as that of the present copy, attributing the actual composition to a certain Adela, who lived and wrote about twenty centuries and a half before the Christian era, and to some other persons of a less extreme antiquity. This record,- consequently, assumes to be 3,900 years old in its contents, and to belong to the thirteenth century in its present and physical form. It is a large quarto volume, of cotton paper, and written upon with large uncial letters in a previously unknown, but easy and consistent, alphabet. As a specimen of thoroughly intelligent modern criticism, I will quote at this juncture some remarks by the Frisian enthusiast. Dr. Ottema, who first saw the book through the press : —

In old writings the ink is very black or brown ; but while there has been more writing since the thirteenth century, the colour of the ink is often grey or yellowish, and sometimes quite pale, showing that

318 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

it contains iron. All this affords convincing proof that the manuscript before us belongs to the middle of the thirteenth centm-j, written with clear black letters between fine lines carefully traced with lead. The colour of the ink shows decidedly that it does not contain iron. By these evidences the date given, 1256, is satisfactorily proved, and it is impossible to assign any later date. Therefore all suspicion of modern deception vanishes.

Was there ever such a sweet simplicity in any man since that poor dear Abbe blinded himself in deciphering the scribblings of a German schoolboy in the Mexican Cave I Here is a man after Horace Walpole's own heart. Dr. Ottema is a phenomenon in the modern life of a European philosopher. He ought to have been a don at Oxford when GTeorge Psalmanazar was made Professor of Formosan. I return again and again to this reminis- cence. There seems to me no parallel in literary history closer than that between the eighteenth-century ' History of Formosa ' and this ' Pre-historic Chronicle of Frieslaud ' in our own days; and when I find Dr. Ottema saying, as he does, ' As a specimen of antiquity in language and writing, I believe I may venture to say that this book is unique of its kind,' I cannot help pausing to call his attention to that earlier and once so famous masterpiece.

The letter which claims 1256 as the date of the MS., and which all the Frisian scholars point to with especial insistence, it may be as well to quote here in full and literal translation : —

Okke, my Son, — These books thou must preserve with body and soul. They contain the history of all om- folk and of oiu- ancestors. Last year I saved them out of the flood with thee and thy mother. Then they became wotted : they in consequence began to perish. In order not to lose them I have copied them on to foreign paper {vp wrlandisk jpampjjer) . In case thou inheritest them, thou also must copy them. Thy children also, that they may never be destroyed.

THE OERA LINDA BOOK. 319

Written at Ljuwert. After Atland sank the three thonsand four hundred and forty-ninth year ; that is, after Christian reckoning, the twelve hundred six and fiftieth year.

(Signed) Hidde, surnamed Oera Linda. AVatch.

Below this, and, as far as we can discover, written on the same paper, is a letter dated four hundred years earlier. This also has a peculiar importance. It reads as follows : —

Beloved Successors, — For the sake of our dear forefathers, and of our dear liberty, T entreat you a thousand times never let the eye of a monk look on these writings. They are very insinuating, but they destroy in an underhand way all that relates to us Frisians. In order to gain rich benefices, they conspire witli foreign kings, who know that we are their greatest enemies because we dare to speak to their people of liberty, rights, and duties of princes. Therefore they seek to destroy all that we derive from our forefathers, and all that is left of our old customs.

Ah ! my beloved ones ! I have visited their courts ! If Wr-alda permits it, and we do not show ourselves strong to resist, they will altogether exterminate us.

Written at Ljudwerd. Eight hundred and three years after Christ.

LiKO, surnamed Oviea Linda.

It will be noticed that an air of superior archaism is introduced by the spelling of the signature, Ovira Linda, in 803, becoming Oera Linda in 1256. Unfortunately this difference of language is not kept up consistently, exactly the same forms and the same spelling occurring in the first document as in the last; this paradox being the result, that during the four centuries in which the Gothic languages were undergoing the most rapid and complete transfiguration, the Frisian dialect alone preserved its forms with inflexible rigidity; which is absurd.

The narrative is opened with very considerable in-

320 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

^enuity. In order to avoid the awkwardness of an intro- duction Ave are suddenly plunged into the middle of things. Adela, the priestess-prophetess, is discoursing, and we learn from her words that a crisis has just taken place in the Frisian polity. The commander Magy, for whose name an ingenious Dutch note accounts by saying ' King of the Magjars or Finns,' has murdered the Folksmother, or female president of the Frisian Commonwealth. On this deed of violence other misfortunes have followed, and the same ' Magjars or Finns ' have wi'ested from Friesland all the lands beyond the Weser. To stem the tide of conquest, and to consider in what way best to prevent the total extinction of the Frisian power, a council is called of the sovereign women and the men who hold office under them. We see at once that we have before us the curious idea of a republic governed by august maidens. At this council Adela rises and demands a hearing, and recapitulates for the benefit of her people, and for our amusement, the various matters that follow. She opens with a denuncia- tion of the infidel policy which has disregarded the com- mands of the tutelary goddess Frya, and has negligently relaxed those god-given laws on which the whole frame- work of the community subsists. She harangues the assembly witli very considerable eloquence, and charges the maidens to carry out instant reforms. They are to visit all the citadels, and to write down the Laws of Frya on the walls of each. The internal machinery of govern- ment is to l)e subdivided and put into full working order, and this significant exhortation is subjoined: —

If I might add more, I would recommend that all respectable girls in the towns should be taught ; for I say positively, and time will

THE OERA LINDA BOOK. 321

show it, tliat if you wish to remain true children of Frya never to be vanquished by fraud or arms, you must take care to bring up your daughters as true Frya's daughters.

And this, which sounds sweet in the ears of Leeuwarden to-day: —

You must teach the children how great our country has been, what great men our forefathers were, how great we still are if we compare ourselves to others.

Adela's advice, we are told, was followed, and a tedious list of apparently meaningless names is added in due course. Then an account is given of the earliest history of Fries- land: how Wr-alda, the Infinitely Old, the only eternal and good God, breathed upon the Earth so that she brought forth three maiden daughters, Lyda the fierce, Finda the sweet- voiced and treacherous, and Frya the mild and beneficent. The description of Frya has a real charm of style in it. Her body is of the colour of snow at sunrise. Her hair, as fine as a spider's web, shines like the sun itself. When she opens her lips, the birds stop singing, and not a leaf rustles in the forest; the lion lies down at her feet, and the asp forgets its poison. She has three lessons for her children: the first is self-control, and the second the love of virtue, and the third the value of freedom ; for, she says, ' Without liberty all other virtues serve to make you slaves.' When she had gathered around her her children to the seventh generation, she was taken suddenly up to heaven and made divine. Her children were gathered around her, when suddenly she was not. The earth shook, the air grew black and leaf-green with tears, and at last, as they gazed upwards, they saw the lightning flash out for one moment the word ' Watch ' written across the firmament. Her

Y

322 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

children consoled themselves by building a great citadel, on which they wrote her laws, called the Tex. They are the Frisians of this wondrous history.

After this prologue the Laws themselves, Frya's Tex, are given in full. Here the ' Oera Linda Book ' challenges comparison with the most important fragment of genuine mediaeval PMsian which we possess — the Old Laws of Friesland, put down at various times dming the Middle Ages, but all claiming to have been originally drawn up by Charlemagne. There is no doubt whatever of the genuine authenticity of these very remarkable documents; and in point of style they resemble, sometimes very closely, this primaeval Tex of Frya. The old Parisian laws were printed so early as the end of the fifteenth century ; again revived, they were published by Christian Sehotanus, in 1664, in his ' De- scription of the Glory of Friesland.' More than a century elapsed before they were printed again ; and then they appeared in the form which I have before me at this moment, printed at Campen and Leeuwarden, in 1782, by J. A de Chalmot and J. Seydel. This edition of the Old Frisian Laws is worthy of some note ; it might even suggest itself to a sceptical mind to inquire whether this volume was not the real nucleus and *fons et origo,' to use the true Frisian phrase, of Adela and Frya and the whole structure of the ' Oera Linda Book.'

It must be understood, however, that the compilers of the Old Laws knew no such strange gods as Linda and Wr-alda. Their straightforward statement, on the contrary, opens thus : — ' To the honour of Grod, of his dear mother Mary, and of the whole heavenly host, and of all free Frisian freedom.' These last words, on which much

i

THE OERA LINDA BOOK. 323

interesting speculation might be founded, reveal to us a high level of national vitality at that early period The sturdy alliterativeness, aire fria Fresena fridam, has in itself the ring of a watchword, and a noble music of liberty in it. Again and again it is repeated, and throughout the code Di fria Fresa, the free Frisian, is invariably used for citizen or inhabitant.

Either this characteristic is of an infinite age, or the Oera Linda has cunningly borrowed it, for the Tex abounds in such spirited enactments as this: —

If an} man shall deprive another, even his debtor, of his liberty, let him be to you as a vile slave ; and I advise you to burn his body and that of his mother in an open place, and bmy them fifty feet below the ground, so that no grass shall grow upon them. It would poison your cattle.

There is something ' sans-cidottish ' about this. This lawgiver has the soul of a Eobespierre. Again we note the date of the edition of the Frisian Laws, 1782,

We now come to the passages which are wholly ridicu- lous, if taken in the serious, historical way affected by Dr. Ottema and his Frisian friends, and which might have shown them, without a moment's hesitation, that, whatever the MS. was, it was a relation not of fact, but of fiction. We are told that Minno, obviously Minos, was a Frisian king, born at Lindawrda in Friesland, and that lie wandered about the world till he came to Kreta, where he gave laws to the inhabitants. An extract from his insti- tutions has a good deal of the antique Teuton flavour about it : —

The toad blows himself out, but he can only crawl. The frog cries, ' Work, work,' but he cau do nothing but hop and make him-

324 THE LITEEATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

self ridiculous. The raven cries 'Spare, spare' (spar, spSr), but lie steals and wastes everything that he pets into his beak.

Minos settled a Frisian colony in Kreta, and, retm-ning home, left a virgin ruler to govern the island in his stead. Her suggestive title was Nyhellenia ; but her real name, we are told, was Min-Erva. There is here some obscurity in the narrative ; but, if we understand aright the mean- ing of the author, this lady Min-Erva, in her turn, sailed from Kreta and settled in Krekalanda. A Dutch note to the Frisian text kindly explains that ' Krekaland means Mao-na Grecia, as well as Greece.' We feel a curiosity to know who supplied this note, and from what authority. Min-Erva teaches the Krekalanders to worship one God ; to be wise and self-restrained, and tolerant.

At this point there comes a break, and the story is told, in somewhat different fashion, in the form of an ex- tract of some autobiography of Minos. It is primarily interesting because he says that he started from ' Athenia ' on his way to Kreta, and thus supplies us with another familiar name. The historical style of the author is very molluscous, and we find it difficult to state precisely what he intends us to learn. This passage, however, is plainly enough intended to add an original testimony to the fact of the disappearance of that mysterious continent of Atlantis whither the ancients timidly set sail to gather precious dragon's blood, and of which it has been supposed that the Azores and the Canaries, Madeira and the Cape Verdes, are the loftiest summits, too high to be sub- merged : —

Now the bad time came. During the whole simimer the sun had been hid behind the clouds, as if unwilling to look upon the earth.

THE OERA LINDA BOOK. 325

There was perpetual calm, and the damp mist hiiug like a wet sail over the houses and the marshes. The air was heavy and oppressive, and in men's hearts was neither joy nor cheerfubiess. In the midst of this stillness the earth began to tremble as if she were dying. The mountains opened to vomit forth tire and flames. Some sank into the bosom of the earth, and in other places mountains rose out of the plain. Aldland, called by the seafaring people Atland, disappeared, and the wild waves rose so high over hill and dale that everything was buried in the sea. Many people were swallowed up by the earth, and others who had escaped the lire perished in the water. It was not only in Finda's land that the earth vomited tire, but also in Twisk- land. Whole forests were burned one after another, and when the wind blew from that quarter our land was covered with ashes. Rivers changed their course, and at their mouths new islands were formed of sand and drift.

Twiskland is Grermany. "We seem, in the early part of this description, to be listening to a man whose imagi- nation was full of the horrors of the earthquake at Lisbon.

One hundred and one years after the event just re- corded, we are told, a people came up out of the East, driven onward by another people. They called themselves Magjars, and their king was named Magy. We now find ourselves brought down to the age of Adela herself, who began her narration thirty years after the murder of the Volksmoeder by the commander of the Magjars. We can therefore supply some outlines of chronology ; for since Hiddo Oera Linda made the present copy of the MS. in 'the three thousand four hundred and forty-ninth year after Atland was submerged ' — that is, in a.d. 1256 — the date of the disappearance of Atlantis may be placed at B.C. 2193, the incm-sion of the Magjars at B.C. 2092, ;md the event narrated so suddenly at the opening of the book in B.C. 2062. In the year B.C. 1982, then, to continue the Oera Linda chronology, Wodin, a Danish viking, invited by

326 THE LITEEATUEE OF XOETHEEN EUEOPE.

the Frisians, went out to fight the Magjars, and, after re- pulsing them for some time, was captured by them and — made their king. We are next introduced to two Frisian brothers, Nef Tunis and Inka, who start for the southern seas to win their fortunes : they proceed together in amity as far as a town in Spain, called Kadik, where there is a stone quay. It is very instructive to note that nearly two thousand years before the Christian era, Cadiz existed and flourished. Here they fell to a disagreement, and it was determined that one brother should go west, the other east. Inka, accordingly, set out to try whether there might not be, far beyond the Hesperides, some remnant of the vanished Atlantis, The ' Oera Linda Book ' says that he was never heard of again, but I am inclined to think that we have met with him in the history of Peru. Nef Tunis went eastward ujd the Mediterranean, and after divers troubles arrived, in the year B.C. 2000, at ' an island with two deep bays so that there appeared to be three islands. In the middle one they established themselves, and afterwards built a city wall round the place. Then they wanted to give it a name, but disagreed about it. Some wanted to call it Fryasburch, others Xef Timia (I) ; but the Magjars and Finns begged that it might be called Thyrhisburch.' The Dutch annotator has again been afraid that we should not recognise this name, and has added ' Tyrus.'

With the inhabitants of the coast, and as far as the town of Sydon, they traded, exchanging amber and iron for wine, honey, and various products of the land. It is a pity that they did not elect the name Neftunia ; it would have formed an elegant pendant to ]Min-Erva !

THE OERA LINDA BOOK. 327

We meet with other familiar names as we proceed — Athens, Ulysus, Troja, and so on ; but we find nothing very important or interesting till near the end of the first part, the Book of Adela. This, as being in my opinion the most vigorous episode in the work, I give in sum- mary.

One stormy winter night the watchman on the citadel of Texland heard, above the roar of the tempest and the sea, a noise of ruin in the watch-tower. In another moment he saw the sacred immortal light fall from its high station on to the bastion, and by its glare he saw thousands of men battering the gates and scaling the walls. Without a moment's warning war had fallen upon the Frisian peojjle. It was the old foe, jMagy, come with a fleet of light vessels to steal the sacred lamp. The watchman gave the alarm, but it was too late ; the mul- titudes rushed into the city, and one l)rutal Finn pierced to the chamber of the Mother herself. He ran a sword through her before a guardsman of her own could cleave his skull. Her still living body was borne on board the ship of Magy. When she was in measure restored, the insolent conqueror offered her humiliatingterms for her life, and attempted to make use of her prophet's power. The dying maiden made as if she heard him not ; but at last she took up her speech against him, and cried : ' Before seven days have passed, your soul shall haunt the tombs with the night-birds, and your body shall be at the bottom of the sea.' She fell fainting on the deck, and her captive maidens clustered around her ; but the raging conqueror thrust them all aside, and bade his soldiers throw her still breathing body into the deep. This episode is invented

328 THE LITERATUEE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

with extraordinary force and skill, and is well worthy of attention. In the figure of the Maiden, ]\Iother of her People, the author whom Dr. Ottema and his friends traduce by supposing him capable of a monstrous chro- nicle, has not thought of history, but typifies from the point of view of a romance-writer the fervour of liberty, the passion of Frisian freedom and unity, which has al- ways characterised this remarkable little nation. Judged as a romance, the ' Oera Linda Book ' is a fairly interest- ing and novel Utopia ; judged as a veracious piece of ancient history, it only casts ridicide on the critical faculty of those who have discussed it.

With the event last described, the Book of Adela closes ; but not so the manuscript. A certain Adelbrost immediately takes up the thread, and states himself to be the son of Adela. But before he has written more than a page and a half, he comes to a horrid end. Two and thirty days after his mother's death, Adelbrost was found murdered on the wharf, his skull fractured, and liis limbs torn asunder. It is his brother Apollonia, who continues the narrative, to whom we owe these harrowing particulars. After dwelling on them, he gives us an account of his mother Adela's death, who was also murdered by the Mag- jars. Friesland would seem to have fallen on very troublous times about the year b.o. 2000. We learn that Adela, like Queen Gruenevere, was seven feet high, and that her wisdom exceeded her stature. There were giants on the earth in those days.

On the occasion of the death of Adela, there was in- scribed on the outside wall of the city tower a long state- ment of religious opinion, which was to serve as doctrine

THE OERA LINDA BOOK. 329

to the inhabitants. This is a sort of impersonal deistic creed, dealing more largely in morality than faith, and apparently the result of a well-digested course of the works of Jean Jacques Eousseau. We learn therefrom that the causes of sin are dulness, carelessness, and ignorance ; that the principles of Calvinism and elective grace are base and false ; and that the existence of man ought to be a constant advance towards that absolute perfection which is Wr-alda, or the One Grod ; but that the human spirit is not the Spirit of God, but a shadow of it. There is also happily defined the familiar reflection that without the powers of the senses we should have had no proper thoughts at all. ' If Wr-alda had given us no organs, we should have known nothing, and been more irrational than a piece of seaweed driven up and down by the ebb and flood.'

It can serve no critical purpose to follow the disjointed narrative any farther. One narrator after another takes it up, recording the deeds of successive generations ; but there is no alteration of style, and the characteristics of the history remain unaltered. An attempt to give an account, from the Frisian point of view, of the rise of the Christian religion, is grotesquely ingenious, and would hardly have disgraced a speculative encyclopaedist. In the heart of Cashmere the daughter of a king brought forth a child, whose father was a high priest. To save herself from destruction the princess entrusted her babe to a poor couple, who brought him westward till he fell into the hands of a Frisian sailor, who taught him to value the wisdom of Texland, and become, in short, a good frla Fresa. There follows a piece of brilliant comparative

330 THE LITEKATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

mythology, the force of which is less apparent in the English version, because Mr. Sandbach, in a fit of inex- plicable prudery, has outraged the Frisian text by dis- guising the first name as Jessos : —

His fii'st name was Jes-us ; but the priests, who hated him, called him Fo, that is, false; the people called him Kris-en (Iviishna), that is, shepherd ; and his Frisian friend called him Btida (Buddha), purse, because he had in his head a treasure of wisdom, and in his heart a treasure of love.

This fourfold deity combines in himself all the virtues of the Orient, and the benefits of four great philosophic systems. Shortly after his death we find kingly tyranny and priestly aggression, the two great bugbears of the autlior of the ' Oera Linda Book,' rapidly undoing all the lovely work of the man-god's blameless life, and the rhetoric rises to passionate eloquence as the corruption and enthralment of the world are bewailed.

Soon after this lyric outburst the narrative incon- tinently closes in the middle of a sentence, and the weary reader hardly wishes it completed. The monotony of the style has been excessive, and the invention has seldom had the power of riveting the student's attention or persuading his conviction.

In summing up, this much-discussed MS. chronicle of primaeval history must be regarded as a romance of the end of the last century, written in all probability by a radical and free-thinker whose mind was steeped in the scep- tical ideas of the eighteenth century, but still more in the intense and passionate patriotism which has never ceased to characterise the Frisian people. He was evi- dently a man of learning and talent, but of no genius ;

THE OEKA LINDA BOOK. 331

for a man of genius would have arranged his narrative with more art, would have given it shape and proportion, and would have set here and there some jewel of sugges- tion or insight which would have constrained our belief, though only for a moment. These gifts we cannot re- cognise in the writer of the Oera Linda MS. His book is replete with feeling, elevation, and sentiment : it is, above all, what the Germans call a Tendenz-Buch ; it strives to teach an earnest moral lesson in the form of a romance. All this is characteristic of the period to which I am inclined to assign its authorship. I would go farther, and dare to conjecture that its composition dates from the earliest years of reaction, when the ideas of the Encyclopsedia had fully blossomed in the French Eevolu- tion, and had borne such bitter fruit that men began, still clinging fast to Rousseau, to give up all other free-thinking supports, and return to a modified deism and a modified conservatism. The tide once turned, the flood rushed back with violence ; in a few years Joseph de Maistre and Chateaubriand were the leaders of opinion. The ' Oera Linda Book ' seems to me to mark the instant of reaction, and to stand midway between Diderot and the Seraphic Epos. But while giving the author credit, not only for most pure and exalted desires, but for very considerable talent and ingenuity in putting them fortli, I am at a loss how to characterise the critics who have palmed this romance upon the world as a genuine primaeval history. They are seriously to be blamed for having wasted their time in attempting to persuade European scholarship of the truth of such a frivolity — time that might better have been spent in discovering the exact date of composition

332 THE LITERATL'EE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

of the MS., and tlie name and purpose of its author. It is to be hoped that they will at length be persuaded to give their attention to this investigation. To find out who wrote the ' Oera Linda Book,' and what its subse- quent history has been, cannot, to say the least, be more difficult than to discover what song the Sirens sang to Ulysses ; and this we know, on the authority of Sir Thomas Brown, is a legitimate subject for scientific inquiry.

The above was written in the early part of 1876, and was received here and still more in Holland with reproaches against what was termed its extravagant scepticism. But a French critic, ^I. Jules Andrieu, in the summer of the same year, in a very grave and learned analysis of the ' Oera Linda Book,' rejected, as I had done, without dis- cussion, the assumption of the great antiquity of the MS., but was inclined to place the date of composition at the end of the seventeenth, and not of the eighteenth century. He cited a variety of passages showing beyond a doubt that the author was largely . indebted to the ' Atland eller Manheim ' of Olof Eudbeck the elder, to the ' Origo rerum Celticarum et Belgicarum ' of Adriaan Schrieck, and to the ' Becceselana ' of Goropius Becanus, all of them pedantic and now forgotten moniunents of the lumbering learning and false philology of the seventeenth century. M. Andrieu seemed to prove so conclusively that the ' Oera Linda Book ' was the work of a man who had outlived the murder of the brothers De Witt, that I was afraid I had been, as they said, too sceptical. But there followed a pamphlet by a

THE OERA LINDA BOOK. 333

professor at Haarlem, Dr. Beckering Vincker, which fully bore out my original view, and went even farther. In this little work, entitled ' De Onechtheid van het Oera Linda- Bok' (The Oera Linda Book not genuine), the Frisian style was minutely and trenchantly criticised, and the utter worthlessness of its pretensions to antiquity exposed. Dr. Vincker was inclined to consider the date of composition posterior to 1853. Mr. C. Over de Linden being now dead, his son Leendert Flores Over de Linden was persuaded to send a page of the MS. to be examined by a famous expert at Amsterdam. He gave a very decided opinion that the writing was certainly not more than seventy-five, and perhaps only twenty-five years old. Before communicating this reply, however, to the Over de Linden family, he sent on the page to the head of the great paper factory at Apeldoorn, and received from him the opinion that the paper in question was undoubtedly fabricated at the factory of Messrs. Zielens & Schrammen, about the year 1845. It is now very generally supposed that the MS. was written about 1848 by Mr. C. Over de Linden in his official rooms at the Helder. The ' Oera Linda Book ' is thus an exploded antiquity, but as a curious piece of Frisian literature it may still be read with interest, especially as a few farces, some translations, and the poems of Grijsbert Japix are the only specimens of belles-lettres to attract a student to the language.

APPENDIX,

TEXT OF THE POEMS TRANSLATED.

Atter hseved

Sig min Sjel. Jeg Svalen saae,

Ssenkende sig under over

Skyens melkelivide Vover,

Og jeg fiydedes paany.

Hvor den svseved !

Hvor den svinged i det Blaa,

Solfoigyldt, skjiiudt i sit Gry

Solen bagom Aasen laae !

Hvor den svinged ! hvor den svseved,

Somom den optrak i Luften

Med sin blanke

Vingespids et straalelet

Gylden-og blaastribet Net !

Jeg den fulgte mod min Tanke,

Hvor dens Flugt nion videst vanke,

Hvor de Balsamdryp, den bar,

Foran tindred

Som et Tvillingstjernepar.

Wergeland : Svalen, ii. 131-149.

336 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

B.

Hvor i blaaneiide Gelecl Alper frem af Dalen stige, — Hvor vecl den ki'ystalne Brse Blomstrer snelividt Abildtrse, Medens i en Snefonns Spor Vilde Rose lystigt gi-oer, — Hvor en Kilde fiirst sin Sang Knn mundhai-pespfed begjaider Murmlende blandt Mos og Stene ; Men saa under Orregrene Fra sin Afdal ud sig skynder, Dreven af ungdomlig Trang Til med Hoveddalens Ynder I sin Glands sig at forene ; Og, liig David Harpeslager, Fra en Hyrde bleven til Dalens Konning ved sit Spil Stolt og msegtig gjennemdrager Alt sit skjbnne Rige, Dalen,

Wergeland : Den engelshe Lods, xi. 55-73.

G.-TIL MIN GYLDENLAK.

Gyldenlak, for D\i din Glands bar tabt Da er jeg Det bvoraf Alt er skabt ; Ja, for Du mister din Kiones Guld, Da er jeg Miild.

Idet jeg raaber : med Vindvet op ! Mit .sidste Blik faaer din Gyldentop. Min Sjsel dig kysser, idet forbi Den flyver fri.

APPENDIX. 337

Togange jeg ky.sser din sUde Mund ; Dit ei- det fdrste med Rettens Gi-und, Det caudet give du, Kjseve husk, Mill Rosenbii.sk I

Udspi-ungen feaevjeg den ei at see ; Thi bring min Hilsen, naar det vil skee ; ^S siig, jeg onsker, at paa min Grav Den l^lomstrer af.

Ja siig, jeg onsker, at paa minBryst. Den Rose ]aa, du fra uiig ],ar kyst; Og, Gyldenlak, va3r i Dodens Huus Dens Brudeblus!

Wekx; ELAND : Fra DddsUjet.

^^—AFTEXSTEMNIXG.

Nil synker Aftenen sagte ned

Med gylden Rodme paa Sij og Lier, Og lydlos Taushed og yndig Pi-ed Til rolig Skimmer Katuren vier. De gronne Strande Sig stille blande I Soens Spil med de blanke Vande, Der flmge dem.

Se Fiskerbaaden bvor slaiik og let,

Hoit paa den glimrende Flade blaven, Hvor Karlen biJier sig mod sit Net, Men stille Pigerne liolde Aaren. ' Den tau.se Tale Fra So og Dale Al Dagens Higen liar kunnet svale, Og l)inde dem. z

338 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

Men sciclt hensunken en Pige staar

Og fremad ser i den klare Himmel, Mens Isengselsvakt liendes Tanke gaar Til Julelegen og Dandsens Viimmel. Den I'ijde Liae Paa Afteneus Bue Hai- kastet Funkier vi ej kan skiie — Hnn stirrei' ud.

Dii rige, rodmende Sommernal,

De eiei- Meer end de lyse Dage, O, bring den Fagi-e din bedste Skat, Lad Drommen kjserlig til hende di'age : Kaar snart de lande Ved gronne Strande, Lseg Solverkronen oni hendes Pande Som salig Brud !

MoE : Bland ede lyrisTce Digte.

E.

I Skogen Smaagiitten gik Dagen lang ; Der havde lian hbrt slig en nnderlig Sang.

Gixtten en Flujte af Selju skar, — Og proved, om Tonen derinde var.

Tonen den hvisked' og na?vnte sig ;

Men bedst som ban lytted,' den lob sin Yej.

Tit, naar ban sov, den til bam smog, Og over bans Pande med Elskov strog.

Vilde den fange og vaagned' brat ; ^len Tonen bang fast i den blege JSat.

Herre, min Gud, tag mig derind ; Thi Tonen bar faaet mit bele Sind,

APPENDIX. 339

Herren han svared' : ' Den er din Yen, SkjiJnt aldiig en Time du ejer den.

' Alle de andre dog lidt forslaai*

Mod dennc, dii soger, men aldrig naar ! '

Bjornson : Ar7ie, xiv.

Solgiad Dag i hegnet Have

Skabtes dig till Lyst eg Leg ; Tfenk ej paa, at Hostens Gave

Tidtnok Vaarens Lofter sveg, -^bleblomsten, livid og vakker,

Breder over dig sit Tjeld, — Lad den saa langs alle Bakker

Drysses vejrslaat nseste Kveld !

Hvad vil du om Frugten spbrge Midt i Tvssets Blomstertid 1 Hvorfor sukke, hvorfor sbrge,

Slovet under Slaeb og Slid ? Hvorfor lade Fugleskrfemmen

Klappre Dag og Natt paa Stang Glade Broder, Fuglestemmen

Ejer dog en bedve Klang !

Hvorfor vil du Spurven jage

Fra din rige Blomstergren ! Lad den for soni Sanglbn tage

Din Foihaabning en for en. Tro mig, du ved Byttet vinder,

Tusker 8ang mod sildig Frugt : Husk Moralen ' Tiden rinder ; '

Snart din Friluftslund er lukkt.

340 thp: literature of northern europe.

Jeg vil leve, jeg vil synge,

Til den dijr, den sidste Hsekk ; Fej da trbstig alt i Dynge,

Kast saa liele Stadsen vsek. Grinden op ; lad Faar og Kvigev

Gramse graadigt, hver som bedst ; Jeg briJd Blomsten ; lidt det siger,

Hvem der tar den dbde Rest !

Ibsen : Kjcurlighcde'iis Komi'di'-

G.

STYVER.

Ja, det var nu i Den Tid, jeg var forelsket.

FALK.

Er da den forlii 1 Jeg trode ej din Elskovsrus udsovet !

Nu er jeg jo o&.c\eit forlovet ;

Det er jo mere endi forelsket, ved jeg !

Ibsen : KjccrligJiedens Komedie, i.

H,

FALK.

Det gjbr hver Glsedens Rigmand till en Tigger ! Hvis jeg som Sprogets Sultan maatte raade En Time kun, det Silkesnoren fik, Og skill de ud af Verden uden Naade.

STYVER.

Hvad bar du da imod det Haabets Ord '/

APPENDIX. 341

FALK.

At det formorker os Gucls fagre Jord.

' Vor nseste Kjserlighed,' ' vor nseste Viv,'

• Vor nseste Maaltid ' og ' vor nteste Liv,'

Se, den Forsynliglbed, som heri ligger,

Den er det, som gjtir Glsedens Son till Tigger.

Saalangt du ser, forstygger den vor Tid,

Den drseber Nydelsen af Ojeblikket ;

Du hai- ej Ro for dii faar Baaden vrikket

Imod ' den nseste ' Strand med SIseb og Slid :

Men er du fremme — mon du da tor hvile 1

Nej, du maa atter mod et ' Nseste ' ile.

Og saadan gaar det — fortvsek — udaf Livet, —

Gud ved, om bag et Stoppested er givet.

FROKEN SKJ^KE.

Men fy, Herr Falk, hvor kan De tale saa ! SHgt inaa min Kjfereste ej hijre paa, Han er excentrisk nok. — Aa hoi-, min Kjaere ; Kom hid et Ojeblik !

STYVER (heskjceftiget med at rense sin Pibespids). Jeg kommer snart. Ibsen : Kjcerlighedens Komedie, i.

I.

Saa ubarmhjertigt, som en strasbvirgsk Gaas, Med rimet Sludder og med metrisk Vaas, Saa alt bans Indre, Lever, Sjsel og Kraas, Naar ud det krsenges, findes ganske fuldt Af lyrisk Ister og rethorisk Smult.

Ibsen : Kjoirlighedens JComedif, i.

342 THE LITERATURE OE NORTHERN EUROPE.

J.

Dsekk mine Ojnes Spejl mecl Blindheds Skimiuel, Saa skal jeg digte om den lyse Himmel. . Skaff mig, om blot en JNIaanedstid paa Borg, En Kval, en knusende, en Kjsempesorg, Saa skal jeg synge Livets Juljel ud. Og heist, min Fi'oken, skafF mig blot en Bi-nd.

Ibsex : Kjcerlighedens Xomedie,

K.

SVANHILD.

Da Troen truedes ifjoi- i Syrien, Gik De da did som Korsets svoiiie Mand ? Nej, paa Papiret var De varm som Taler, — Og sendte ' Kirketidenden ' en Daler.

(Falk gaar ojjpover i Haven). Falk, er De vred 1

FALK,

Nej Aasst ; jeg gaar og stuici-, — Se, det er alt.

SVAKHILD.

De er som to Naturer — To uforligte —

FALK.

Ja det ved jeg vel.

SVANHILD.

Men Grunden !

FALK.

Griinden 1 Jo, fordi jeg hader At gaa omki'ing med fra?kt udringet Sjfel,

APPENDIX. 343

Lig Godtfolks Kjserlighed i alle Gader, — At gaa omkring med blottet Hjeitevarme, 8om imge Kvinder gaar med niigne Arme ! De var de eneste, — De, Svanhild, De, — Saa taenkte jeg, — naa den Ting er forbi —

{^Hun (jaar over og seer ud). Delytter?

SVANHILD.

Till en anden Heist, som taler, Hyss ! Hiirer De ? Hver Kveld, uaar Solen daler, Da kommer flyvende en liden Fugl, — Se der, — der kom den frem af Lovets Skjul, — Ved De, livad fuldt og fast jeg ti-or 1 Hver den, Som her paa Jord blev nsegtet Sangens Gave, Hnn fik af Gud en liden Fugl till Ven, For en kun skabt og for den enes Have.

[tager en Sten opp fra Jorden). Da gjselder det, at Fugl og Ejer modes, Skal ej dens Sang i fremmed Have odes.

SVANHILD.

Ja, det er sandt ! men jeg har fundet min.

Jeg fik, ej Ordets Magt, ej Sangerstemme ;

Men kviddrer Fuglen i sit griJnne Gjemme,

Det er som Digte daled i mit Sind —

(Falk kaster Stenen ; Svanhild udstoder et Skrig.)

O Gud, der slog De den ! Hvad bar De gjort !

det var syndigt, syndigt !

FALK {i lidenskaheligt Oj)pr'6r).

Nej — kun Oje For Oje, Svanhild — ikkun Tand for Tand ! ISTvi faar De ingen Hilsen fra det hcije, Og ingen Gave mer fra Sangens Land. Se, det ei- Hsevnen over Dei'es Vserk !

344 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

SVANHILD.

Mit V^rk 1

TALK.

Ja Deres ! Indtill denne Time Slog i mit Biyst en Sangfugl kjsekk og stierk. Se — nu kan Klokken over begge kime, De har den draebt !

SVANHILB.

Hai- jeg !

FALK.

Ja, da De slog Min iinge, glade Sejerstro till Jorden Da Deforloved Dem !

Ibsen : Kjcerliglbedens Komedie, i.

Han fordum vai' paa Mod so rig ;

Han stred med Verden om en elsket Kvinde ;

Hom Vedtsegts Kiikestornier Manden gjaldt,

Hans Kjserlighed slog nd i glade Sange !

Se paa ham nu ! I Kisteklpeder lange,

Et Tobensdi-ama om hvor dybt ban faldt !

Og Fruentimret med de slukne Skjiii't,

Med skja?ve Sko, soni klaskei^ mider Ha?lene,

Hun er den VingenuJ, som skulde fort

Ham ind till Samfimdsliv med Sklinhedssjoelene.

Hvan er igjen af Flammen 1 Nep})e Rogen !

Sit transit gloria amoris, Fi-oken !

Ibsex : Kj(f'rlvjhe(hns Komedie, i,

M.

Vi vil ej sogne mei- till Platheds Kiike, Som Led af Trivialitetens Meniwhed !

APPENDIX. 345

Se, Maalet for Personlighedens Virke Er dog at staa selvstisndig, sand og fri.

Ibsen : Kjmrlvjhedens KomecHe, i.

. N.

FAlJv.

Saa mange Hoveder, saa mange Sind !

Nej, alle famler de paa gale Veje.

Hvei- Lignelse er skjsev ; men hor nu min ; —

Den kan paa hver en Vis De sno og dreje.

Der gror en Plante i det fjerne Ost ;

Dens Odelshjem er Solens Fsetters Have —

DAMEHNE.

Aa, det ei- Theen !

TALK.

Ja . . . Den liar sit Hjem i Fabellandets Dale, Vel tnsind Mile bagom Orkner golde ; — Fyld Koppen, Lind ! Saa Takk ! Nu skal jeg holde Om The og Kjserlighed en Thevandstale.

{Gjcesterne rykker ncermere sammen). Den har sit Hjem i Eventyrets Land ; Ak der har ogsaa Kjserligheden hjemme. Kun Solens Sonner, ved vi, fik Forstand Paa Urtens Dp-kning, paa dens E,ogt og Fremme. Med Kjserligheden er det ligesan. En Draabe Solblod maa i Aaren slaa, Hvis Kjperlighed skal skyde Rod derinde. Skal grlJunes, gro, og frem till Blomstring vinde.

FROKEN SKJ.ERE.

Men Kjserlighed og Kjaerlighed er et ; Af The der gives baade god og slett.

346 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

FRU STEAAMAND.

Ja , man har The i mange Kvaliteter.

ANNA.

De gronne Foraarsspirer allerfcirst —

SVANHILD.

Den Slags er kxm for Solens Dottres Toi-st.

EN UNG DAME.

Man skildrer den bernsende som ^tlier, —

EN ANDEN.

8om Lotos duftende, og sod som Mandelen.

GULDSTAD.

Den forekommer aldrig lier i Handelen.

FALK.

Ak, mine Darner, livei- i sin ISTatur

Har og et sferligt lidet ' liimmelsk Rige.'

Der knopped sig af Spirer tusind slige

Bag Blyheds feldende Kinesermur.

Men Fantasiens smaa Kineserdukker,

Som sidder i Kioskens Ly og sukkev,

Som drommer vidt — saa vidt — med SliJr om Lajndeiiie,

Med gyldne Tulipaners Flor i Hfenderne, —

Till dem I Fbrstegrodens Knopper sanked.

Og saa det siste store Lighedspunkt ; Se hvor Kulturt ns Haand hai' lagt sig tungt Paa ' Himmeli'iget ' i det fjerne Osten ; Dets Mur forfalder og dets Magt er sprseng-t, Den sidste jegte Mandaiin er hfengt, Proftme Hsender alt besorger Hosten. Snart ' Himlens Rige ' er en Saga blot, Et Eventyi", som ingen Isenger tror paa ;

APPENDIX. 347

Den hele Verden er et graat i graat ; Vidunderlandet bar vi kastet Joid paa. Men har vi det, hvor ev da Kjperligheden t Ak, da er ogsaa den jo vandret heden. Naa, lad forgaa, hvad Tiden ej kan bsere ; En Thevandsskaal till salig Amors ^re !

Ibsen : Kjwrligliede'iis Komedie, ii.

0.

EJNAR.

Agnes, min dejlige Sommerfugl,

Dig vil jeg legende fange ! Jeg fletter et Gam med Masker sma

Og Maskerne er mine Sange.

AGNES.

Er jeg en Sommerfugl, liden og skjer,

Sa lad mig af Lyngtoppen drikke ; Og er du en Gut, som lyster en Leg,

Ha, jag mig, men /(nig mig ikke !

EJNAR.

Agnes, min dejlige Sommerfugl,

Nil har jeg Maskeme flettet ; Dig hjselper visst aldrig din flagrende Flugt, —

Snart sidder du fangen i Nettet !

AGNES.

Er jeg en Sommeifugl, mig og l)lank,

Jeg lystig i Legen mig svinger ; Men fanger du mig under Nettets Spind,

Sa ror ikke ved mine Vinger.

EJNAK.

Nej, jeg skal lofte dig varligt pa Hand

Og lukke dig ind i mit Hjerte ; Der kan du lege dit hele Liv

Den gladeste Leg, du l?erte ! Ibsen : Brand, i.

3-48 THI>: LITERATUEE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

PIGERNES KOK.

Profeten er kommen ! Profeten, Herren, den alting vidende, Till OS, till OS, er lian kommen. Over Sandhavet lidende ; Profeten, Heiren, den aldrig fejlende. Till OS, till OS er han kommen Gjeixaem Sandhavet sejlende ! Ror Flojten og Trommen ; Profeten, Profeten er kommen !

Hans Ganger er Mselken, den hvide, Som strommer i Pai-adisets Flodei-. Boj eders Knse ! Sft-nk eders Hoder ! Hans Ojne er Stjerner, blinkende, blide. Intet Jordbarn dog taaler Glansens Glans af de Stjerners Straaler ! Gjermen Orken ban kom. Guld og Perler sprang frem paa bans Bryst. Hvor han red blev det lyst. Bag ham blev Morke ; Bag ham foer Samum og Tbrke. Han, den herlige, kom ! Gjennem Orken han kom, Som en Jordson pyntet. Kaba, Kaba staar torn : — Han bar selv forkyndt det !

KOR.

Roi' Flojten og Trommen ; Profeten, Profeten er kommen !

Ibsen : Peer Gynt, iv,

APPENDIX. 349

Q.

HUHU.

Saa Lmu mig Ore — Fjernt i Ost, som Krans om Pande. Staar de malebarske 8ti-ande, Portugiser og Hollsendei- Landet med Kultur bespaender. Desforuden l)oer der Skai-er Af de a5gte Malebai'er. Disse Folk liar Sproget blandet ; De er Herrer nvi i Laiidet. Men i Tiden Itengst forgangen Raaded der Qrangutangen, Han var Skogens Mand og Herre ; Frit han turde slaa og snserre. Som Naturens Haand hain skabte, Saa hau gren og saa lian gabte. Uforment ban turde skrige ; Han var Herskei- i sit Rige. Ak, men saa kom Fremmedaaget Og forplumred Urskogs-Sproget. Firehundredaarig Natten Ruged over Abekatten ; Skal vi vore Tankei- male, Maa det ska ved Hjajlp af Tale. Jeg bar provet paa at feegte For vort ITrskogs-Maal, det a^gte, — Provet at belive Liget, — Hsevdet Folkets Rett till Skriget,— Skreget selv, og paavist Trangen Till dets Brug i Folkesangen.

Ibsen : Peer Gynt, iv.

350 THJ: LITEEATURE of northern EUROPE.

R.

I Loufod Norden hen, i Noriigs Konge-riige, Een Strom befindes stoor, som ej liar mange Liige, Den kaldes Moske-strom, af Mosker spits liin hoje, Som Strommen runden om ret artig veed at ploje. Naar denne gjcir sin fliid oc Maanens Yerk forretter, Oc nogen kommer neer, hand Verden snart forgfetter. Den Bylge reis' i vser som and re Bierge hoje, Mand der igiennem kand see Soolen Yerdens Oje. Er Yinden Strommen mod, to helte sammen riide, Oc med sligt bulder stoor imod hver andre striide. At Land oc Huus der ved, ja Dor oc Yindvi ryste, Oc tage saa af sted, som Jorden skulde bryste. Den stserke Trolde-hval kand dei- ej giennem hryde. Men trecker vred derfra, forfserdelig maae skryde.

Arrebo : Ilexaemeron, ed. lOGl, p. 102.

Min Meening er der om, at der af Klipper liiije En Skser'gaard i det Dyb maa sig tilhobe fdje, Som een Indkiorsel haer, men ellers steen liernnded, Oc midt i samme Gaard en runder Klippe fundet. Naar Strommen kommer nti, foifa?rdelig den bnuiser, Oc ind ad samme Poort som tusend fosse fnnser, Oc ingen Udgang haer, den svii-er oc regierer, Oc hojen middel Steen ret rimden om spatserer, Thi sn\irrer den med Mact, som qvfernen, naar ninnd maler, Arrebo : Ilexaemeron, ed. IGGl, ]>. 103.

Som da ett varmoln hviler sin glans Inland traden pu kulleu. Buskarne frujdas och bjorkarna sta i stilla forundran,

APPENDIX. 351

Skarlancle morgonens pi-akt och tlet I'osenfargade molnet. Tills ur sitt skiite det siinder en fliikt, da svigta de spada Grenanies skott, och de krusiga lofven skiilfva af vallust ; Mindve hiifvav ocksa, ej gossen, da Hedda ban aliiir.

RuNEBERC : Elyskyttarne, iii. 111-116.

U.

Jcke sa rik ar pS, blommor en ang i den varmeste sommai-, Barn, som pa gladje den vag, der vi ga mot grafven bestandigt, Endast vi akta oss viil, alt ej hoppet, det hala, bedragei* ; Ty hvar vi stanna en stnnd att njuta en lycka, i blinken >Spi'inger der hoppet forut och vi'-ar en battre pa afstand. Daren foljer den lysten fran en till en annan och ratar, Aldrig fornojd, tills slutligt ban snckande hinnes af doden.

EuNEBEiwj : Elgshjttarne, v. 345-351.

Rodnande syntes hon dei', i sin blyghet Ijud till forundran : Lik en strimma af sjon, som, af morgenstralar begjuten, Smyger sig in och rodnar emellan skuggiga hinder.

RuNEBERG : Hanna, i. 134 13G.

W.

' 8ei' du den rodnande sjun/ sa, sade ban, ' ser du, bur olik Hafvet, som suckande slar mot din hembygds klippiga striindei- i Har iir grijnska och farger och lif. Otaliga holmar Skjuta ur vagoma upp, och svajande vinka fran alia Luinmiga tran, som bjuda den ti-ottade roddaren skugga. Nalkas dii udden, som nu tycks traffa det mcitande landet, ( )ppnas en vidare rymd af vatten, och trefliga byar Skymtit pa striinderna fram, och kyi-kan lysei- i fjeii-an.

RuNEBERG : Hanna, iii. 9-16.

3o2 THE LITERATUKE OF NORTHERN EUROPK.

X.

Kom, Oihonna, mig folj i lifvet, Jagai'n alskar dig, rosiga sky ! H(5ga fjallarnes fiirste Ber dig dela hans banors lust.

Sag du i'\Tiideiuas glada sjaier Hogt fran bergen i morgonens stund, Sag du vakuade strsilar Dricka skalfvande dimmors dagg 1

Mins du skogarnes Ijud, dfi vinden Rbr med vingen de dan-ande liif, Fogeln jublar, och lusig Mellan hallarne backeii flyi- 1

Eller vet du, liur hjertat klappar, Nar vid homens och hundames skall Busken prasslar, och hjorten StSr for cigat med hejdadt sprang?

Flicka, alskiU- d\\ dunkla qvallen Bleka stjeruornas bafvande Ijus 1 Kom, fran toppen af Mallmor Lat OSS skada, hur natten fdds.

O, jag suttit pa fjallet ofta, Nar i vester sin skimrande port Solen shitit, och rodnan Stilla vissnat pjl molnets hy.

Druckit svalkau n£ qvallens ande, Skuggans vandring i dalderna sett, Latit tankarue iiTa Kring den nattliga tystnans haf.

APPENDIX. 353

Skbnt 'dv lifvet pa skyars hojdar, Lcitt man anclas i doftande sko£f ; Blif min brud, och jag oppnar For ditt hjerta en verld iif fiojd.

RuNEBERO : I{u7ig Fjdlar, ii. 103-144.

Y.— TORPFLICKAN.

Ocli solen sjunk och qviillen kom, den milda sommarqvallen, Ett sken af mattad piu'pur guts kiting bygderna och tjallen, Frtln dagens mcidor glad och trott en skara landtman kom, De fylt sitt vJirf, de vande nu till sina hyddor om.

De fylt sitt viirf, de gjoit sin skord, en dyrbar skord den gangen, En djerf, fiendtlig krigartrupp var nedgjord eller fangen, De dragit i;t till kamp mot den vid moi-gonsolens sken, Nar allt i seger iindadt var, da var det afton re'n.

Helt nara fiiltet, der den stutt, den langa, beta striden, Vid vagen big ett litet torp, balft ode da for tiden, Pa stugans laga trappa satt en flicka tysc och sag, Hur skavan kom och drog foibi i fiidsamt atertag.

Hon sag som den, som suker, ser, hvem vet, pa hvad hen tankte ? Pa kinden brann en hijgre fiirg, an aftonrodnan skankte, Hon satt sa stilla, men sS, varm, sa spanande anda, Att, om hon lyssnat, som hon sag, hon hort sitt hjerta sla.

Men truppen gick sin bana fram, och flickan sag den tslga, Till hvarje led, till hvarje man hon blickade en fraga, En fraga, biifvande och skygg, en fraga iitan riJst, Mer tyst an sucken sjelf, som smog ur hennes fulla brost.

Niir hela skaran gatt fijrbi, de foi-sta som de sista, Da svek den arma flickans lugn, da sags dess stjTka brista, Hon grat ej hijgt, men pannan sjiink mot hennes oppna hand Och stora taiai- skoljde Ijuft den friska kindens brand.

A A

354 THE LITEEATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

• Hvad ar at grata 1 Fatta mod, an stS.r oss hoppet fiter,

dotter, hor din moders rost, en faf ang tar du grater ; Den, som ditt oga sokte nyss, och nu ej aterfann, Han lefver iin, han fankt pa dig, och derfcir lefver han.

' Han tankt pa dig, han fbljt mitt rad att ej gablindt mot faran, Det var mitt tysta afskedsord, dS, hen drog han med skaran. Af tvang han fdljde trnppan at, hans hag var ej at slass, Jag vet, han ville icke do fran lifvets frojd och oss.'

Och flickan sag med bafven npp, nr sorgsna driimmer vacknad, Det var som om en aning stort det stilla hjertats saknad, Hon drojde ej, hon sag en gang ditat, der striden brann; Och smog pa vag och flydde tyst och skymdes och forsvann.

En stnnd flot bort, en stund iinnu, det led mot natten i-edan,

1 skyudsam molnet silfverhvitt, men skymning lag der nedan. ' Hon drojer an ; o dotter, kom, din oro faf ang ar,

I morgon, innan solen gryr, ar le'n din brudgum har.'

Och dottem kom, med tysta fjiit hon nalkades sin moder,

Det bKda ciget skymdes nu af inga tarefloder,

Men hennes hand, till helsning rackt, var kail som nattens

vind, Och hvitare an fastets sky var hennes svala kind.

' Red mig en graf, o moder kar, min lefnadsdag ai' liden ;

Den man, som fick mitt hjertas tro, har flytt med skam vtr

striden ; Har tankt pa mig, har tiiukt pa sig, har foljt ert varningsord Och svikit sina bruderg hopp och sina f aders jord.

' Nar skaran kom, och han ej kom, begrat jag nyss hans ode, Jag trodde, att han lag som man jjti f altet bland de diide, Jag sorjde, men min sorg var Ijnf, det var ej bitter da, Jag velat lefva tusen ar, att honom sorja fa.

APPENDIX. 355

• O moder, jag har sokt bland lik till sista skymt af dagen,

Men ingen af de slagna bar de kiira anletsdragen, Nu vill jag icke dvaljas mer pd denna svekets '6, Han fans ej bland de dcida der, och derf or vill jag dii.'

RuNEBERG : Fdnrik Stcds SUgner.

Z.

Men ved min Side strakte En Yngling sig paa Boenken I I'olig Eftertpenken Og med et Drommesmil, Som diinkle Minder vakte Om Kiuistens Oldtidsstil.

Sandalen, som omgjorded Hans Fod, var ziirlig knyttet. En Arm bans Hoved stotted, Den anden med sit Glas Laa nogen benad Bordet, Som stobt af Phidias.

Og da jeg Ojet sfenked,

Traf mig biin Ynglings Blikke, —

Nei, Midnat ejer ikke

Saa stserkt et Stjernespil,

Mit Oje bang som Ijenket

Til denne mnntre lid !

BoDTCHER : Modet med Bacchus.

AA.

Han ssenkede Pokalen, Der kom en Ildcascade, En Brusen, som i Blade, Og saa en Duft af Viin, Der fyklLe Klippesalen Med Eoser oix Jasmin.

A A 2

356 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

Jeg drak, mens Ojet stirred Bag Gnister og bag Dami^e, — Det var en magisk Lampe, Et mystisk PerleslUr, Hvori jeg saae forvirret, Men skjonnere end for.

Mig var det, som Colonner Fra Grdvet steg med Bnlder Og skjod en Marmorskiilder Ind under Kupplens Last, Og Epheu bandt Festonner Om Murens Alabast.

En sfelsoni Taage var der ! Med Eet de miuitre Fade Forsvandt fra deres Stade, Og alvorsfuldt der laa Syv gule Leoparder Med Labben ki'vdset, skraa.

BoDTCHER : Model med Bacchus.

BB.

War leitet nu die lieben scliar ? Wer wiset diz gesinde ? Ich \v?ene, ich si wol vinde, Din die baniere fiieren sol : Ir meisterinne kan ez wol, Diu von der Vogelweide. Hei wie diu iiber heide Mit boher stimme schellet ! Waz wunders si gestellet, Wie sp?ehe s'organieret ! Wie si ir sane wandelieret !

APPENDIX. 357

Ich meine ab in dem done Da her von Zitherone, Da diu gotinne Minne Gebiutet iif nnd inne. Gottfried von Strassbueg : Tristan, 4794-4808.

CO.

Zahi wie'cli danne sunge von den vogellinen,

Von der heide und von den bluomen, als ich wilent sane ! Swelch schcene wip mir danne gsebe ir habedanc, Der lieze icb liljen unde rtisen iiz ir wangel schinen. Walther von der Vogelweide : Ed. Bartsch. cxlix. 4-7.

DD.

Der rife tet den kleinen vogelen we,

Daz sie niht ensungen, Nu horte ich s' aber wiinnecliche als e ;

Nil ist dill heide entsprungen. Da sach ich bhiomen strlten wider den kle

Weder ir lenger wsere. Miner froiiweu seite ich disiu msere.

Tins hat der winter kalt und ander not

Vel getan ze leide. Ich wande, daz ich iemer bluomen rot

Ssehe an gi-iienei- heide. Joch schate ez giioten liuten, wsere ich tot,

Die nach fieiiden riingen Und je gerne tanzten unde sprungen.

Versumde ich disen wiinnichlichen tac,

So wsei-' ich vei-wazen Und wfere an freiide ein angestlicher slac :

Dennocli miiese ich lazen

358 THE LITEKATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

Al mine freude, der icli wilent pflac.

Got gesegen' iucli alle : Witnscliet nocli, daz mu- ein lieil gevalle.

Walther : Ed. Bartscli. Ixxiii.

EE.

Got, dine lielfe uns sende ! Mit diner zesewen hende Bewar luis an dem ende,

So uns der geist verlat, Vor helleheizeu wallen, Daz wii- dar in ilit vallen ! Ez ist wol kunt uns alien,

AVie jsemerliche ez stat, Daz hei'e lant vil reine. Gar helfelos vind eine. Jerusalem, nu weine,

Wie din vergezzen ist ! Walther : Ed. Bartsch. Ixxviii. 61-72.

FF.

Owe war sint verswunden alliu miniu jar ! Ist mir min leben getroumet oder ist ez war 1 Daz ich ie wande daz iht wsere, was daz iht ? Dar nach han icli geslafen unde enweiz es niht.

Nu bin ich erwachet und ist mir unbekant Daz mir hie vor was klindic als min ander hant. Liut unde lant, da icli von kinde bin erzogen, Die sint mir fremde worden, reht' als ez si gelogen.

Mich grliezet maneger tiage, der mich bekande e wol. Diu werlt ist allenthalben ungenaden vol ; Als ich gedenke an manegen wiinniclichen tac, Die sint mir enpfallen gar als in daz mer ein slac.

APPENDIX. 359

Owe wie jsemerliche junge lint tuont !

Den vuivil riuwecliclie ir gemiiete e stuont,

Die kitnnen nu wan soi-gen : owe wie tuont sie so ?

Swar ich zer werlte kere, da ist nieman fro.

Tanzen, Lichen, singen zei-gat mit sorgen gar. Nie ki'istenman gesach so jsemerliche schar. Nu market, wie den frouwen ir gebende stat ; Die stolzen ritter tragent dbrperliche wat.

Dar zuo die vesten scliilte und din gewibten swert ! Wolte got, wser' ich den sigeniinfte wert ! So wolte ich notic man verdienen richen solt, Joch meine ich niht die huoben, noch der herren golt,

Ich wolte selbe krone eweclichen ti'agen ; Die mohte ein soldensere mit sine sper bejagen. Mbht' ich die lieben reise gevaren tiber se, So wolte ich denne singen ' wol ' und niemer m^re * ouwe,' Niemer mere ' ouwe ! '

Walther : Ed. Bartsch. clxxxviii.

GG.

Under der linden

An der heide,

Da unser zweier bette was,

Da muget ir vinden

Schone beide

Gebrochen bluomen unde gias.

Vor dem walde in einem tal,

Tandaradei !

Schone sane diu nahtegal.

Ich kam gegangen Zuo der ouwe :

360 THE LITEEATUEE OF NOETHEEN EUEOPE.

Do was min friedel koraen c.

Da wart er enpfangen,'

Here fi-ouwe !

Daz ich bin sa^lic iemer me.

Kuste er mich 1 wol tuseutstuut :

Tandaradei !

Sehet, wie rot mir ist der mixnt.

Do liet er gemachet

Also riche

Von bluomen eine bettestat ;

Des wirt noch gelachet

Innecliche,

Komt iemen an daz selbe pfat,

Bi den rosen er wol mac

Tandai-adei !

Merken wa mir'z houbet lag.

Daz er bi mil' Isege,

Wesse ez jemen

(Nu enwelle got !) so schamte ich mich.

Wes er mit mir pflsege,

Niemer niemen

Bevinde daz wan er und ich

Unde ein kleinez vogellin :

Tandaradei !

Daz mac wol getriuwe sin. ■

Walther : Ed. Bartsch. ix.

TIH.

Hat der winter kurzen tac, So hat er die langen naht, Daz sich liep bi liebe mac Wol erholn, daz e da vaht. Waz ban ich gesprochen 1 owe, ja hsete ich baz geswigen. Sol ich iemer so geligen !

Walther : Ed. Bartsch. Iviii. 13-18.

appp:ndix. 361

II.

Got hate ir wengel hohen fliz :

Er streich so tiiire varwe dar, So reine rot, so reine wiz,

Hie I'oeseloht, dort liljenvar. Ob ich'z vor slinden tar gesagen,

So ssehe ich s'iemer gerner an Dan bimel oder hinielwagen.

Owe waz lobe ich tumber man 1 Mach' ich mil- sie ze her

Vil lihte wirt mins mundes lop mins herzen sei'. Walther : Ud. Bartsch. xvii. 21-30.

JJ.

Fro Sfelde teilet umbe mich

Und keret mir den rucke zuo. Da enkan si niht erbarmen sich : I'n weiz waz ich dar umbe tuo. Si stet ungerne gegen mir : Louf ' ich bin vimbe, ich bin doch iemer hinder ir, Si' n rviochet mich niht ane sehen, Ich wolte, daz ir ougen an ir nacke stlienden — so miieste ez ^ne ir danc geschehen.

Walther : Ed. Bartsch. xxix.

KK.

Von der Elbe nnz an den Rin Und her wider nnz an der linger lant

Mugen wol die besten sin, Die ich in der werlte ban erkant.

362 THE LITEKATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

Kan icli rehte scliouwen Guot gelaz imd lip, Sam mir got, s6 swiiere icli wol daz hie din wip Bezzer sint dann' ander frouwen.

Walthek : Ed. Bartsch. xxxix. 25-32.

LL.

Do den sumer komen was,

Und die bluonien durcli daz gras

Wiinnecliclie enspi'ungen,

Alda die vogele sungen,

Dar kom ich gegangen

An einen anger langen ;

Da ein luter brunne entspranc ; ,

Vor dem walde was sin ganc,

Da din nahtegale sane.

Walther : Ed. Bartsch. iv. 1-9.

MM.

Had hy Holland dan gedrageii

Onder't hart, Tot sijn af-geleefde dagen

Met veel smart, Om't meyneedigh swaert te laven

Met sijn bloet En te mesten kray en I'aven Op sijn goet ?

VoNDEL : Genze-Vesper.

NN.

Een Vrouw die niet als singht en tuyt, Die garen danst, en die de Lnyt Schier nimmer uyt haer handen leydt, Fy, fy, dat is lichtveerdigheydt.

APPENDIX. 363

Maer is het niet een hemel schier, Te sien hoe dat een geestigh dier, Met sangh of spel haer man verquickt, Als't noodigli huyswerck is beschickt ?

Misbruyck verkeeyt het soetste soet In "walchelijck en bitter roet, Ja heylsaem uutte medicijn, T'ontijdt gebruyckt, keert in fenijn.

Dan die sijn oogh op't eeuwigh slaet, De tijdelijcke fiaeyheydt laet : De met al't wereltsche gespoock Verdwijnen .sal als windt en roock.

Anna Roemers : Zinne-Poppen, 1669.

00.

Somtijds kiest gij't zeskant huisken Voor nw afgescheiden kkiisken ;

En zijt, in dees eenzaamheen,

Nimmer min dan dus alleen. In dit kkiisken werd geboren (t'Was zoo van uw lot beschoren)

's Grooten Hendriks groote faam,

En de gvootheid van zijn naam Kwam uit deze kleenheid rennen, Vlug geworden door uw pennen. VoNDEL : Nog een Brief aan den Brost van Muiden, 29-38.

PP.

PHYLLIS KLACHTE.

Mijn schaepjes, die uw honger bluste

Met weeldrig thijm, boat nu uw luste

Met rooseblaedtjes van mijn krans,

364 THE LITERATUKE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

Die al haer geiir ten offer brachten, Mijn breyn, dat hart en ziel verkrachte, Wanneer ick viytstack aen den dans.

't Is beter, dat de bloempjes voeden •

Mijn lamm'ren, die ick stervend hoedde,

Als dat ze, van haer eer berooft Door suchten, die mijn leven quellen En heete traentjes trouw versellen,

Ontschuldigh dorren op mijn hooft.

Erkauwse menighmael met smaeckjens, Onnoosel vee ; maer als uw kaeckjens

Vermoeyt zijn, ende slaep u groet, Peinst dan eens om mijn doode leven, Wat oorsaeck dat mijn sinnen dreven

Tot schennis van mijn i-oosen-hoet.

Ghy waert er by, toen my Philander Zijn trouw toe swoer, die nu een ander

Met geyle tochten besich houdt ; Ghy waert er by, toen my zijn eden In't hiiwlijk met hem deden treden,

Dat in den Hemel was gebouwt,

Doch'k wensch geen straf, maer bid voor sonde ; 'k Eysch balsem voor een' vuyle wonde,

'k Eysch balsem die den Hemel voed, Maer is uw wil tot straf genegen, Soo straf 't bedroch, en wel ter degen,

Met wroegingh van zijn snood gemoet.

Dan sal gewis mijn leet hem deeren, Mijn liefde tot zijn liefde keeren,

Zijn liefde wederom tot mijn ; Als ghy ons dan hebt t' saem gebonden, Nooyt is er trouwer paer gevonden,

Dan Phyllis en Philander zijn. Tesselschade • llet Amsterdamfich Minneheeckje.

APPENDIX. 365

QQ.

WILDE ZAXGSTER,

Prijst vry den Nacbtegael, Als hy u meenigniael Verlust en scliatert uyt, Een zingencl vedevtje en een gewieckt geluyt.

Wiens qninckelei'e soet, De oore luystren doet, Gaiiw, nae het tiei'eliertje Der vlngge luchtiglieyd van't oolijk vrolijk diertje.

Wiens tijlpend schril geluyt Gelijck een orgel fluyt, Veel losse toontjes speelt, En met een tong alleen, als duyzent tongen queelt.

Zijn hoogh' en laege zwier Met Ueflfelijk getier Van't he lie schelle zoetje Vermeestert al't gesang van't zingend springend goetje.

Een diei'tje wiens gelaet In zeldzaemheyd bestaet, Om dat het niet en heeft Als zangh die maer een maent in't gansche jaer en leeft.

Maer't meeste wonder dat Zijn roem ooit heeft gehadt, Is dat zoo kleine leden Herbergen zulk een kracht van die luydruchtigheden.

TAMME ZANGSTEK.

Maer wilde Zangstei' zwijg, En nae uw adeni hijgh ! Uw tjukken heeft geen klem, Nocli konit niet by den aerdt van Rosemondtjes stem.

366 THE LITEKATUEE OF NOKTHEEN EUEOPE.

Die na een liever trant Doet luystren liet verstandt, Met wisse maet en snikjes, Die vriendlijkheytjes sluyt in vaster toonestrikjes.

Wiens rede stem vertaelt En waerdigei' onthaelt De geestjes van 't gehoor, En hupplen doet de ziel van 't hartje tot aen 't oor.

Als zy met grof gedi'eun, En dan met teei- gekreun Van minnelijke treeken Doet onderscheidelijk versclieyde tongen spreeken.

Geen veelheyt ons verveelt, Hoe veel haer keeltje kweelt, Maer eenen verschen lust Bekoort het graege oor als 't maer een snikje rust.

'T is zeldzamer geneught, Die staegh op nieuw verheught, Geen stemmigheyt zoo lustigh, Als deez' die zomers is en 's winters even rustigh.

Tesselschade : Verscheidene Gedichten, 1653

Mingod, streng van heerschappy,

Ziet ghy wel die Maeght aen't Y, Op het eelste van haer daegen, Die uw' moeder heeft ontdraegen

Bios van kaeken, en den slagh

Van die lieflelijke lach !

Wat, zich, trekt zy zorgen aen 1 Zinnen wei-ken, handen gaen,

APPENDIX. 367

Doonde zijn haer oogen zedigli, Keel en lippen zijn onleedigh ;

Magh een jevighdt zoo green en Ms

Tegen zoo veel moeyenis 1

"Vat zy diamant ; een kras

Spreeken doet het stomme glas ; Ziet dien duim, met gouden draeden, Maelen kostele gewaeden ;

Vingers voeren pen, penseel,

Knockels kittelen de veel.

Ziet dan gaet dat mondjen we^r,

Met de nooten, op en neer ; 't Oogh zich aen de letters lijmen, De gedachten aen liet rijnien ;

Tong zich krommen in de klank

Van den Roomer en den Frank.

HooFT : Bruyloftzcmg.

SS.

Onttooyt of tooyt ghy u, Maria Magdalene,

Als ghy uw hayr ontvlecht, verweqit de luystersteenen,

Verbreeckt het perlensnoer, versmaedt het scheinbaer goed, En keurt voor vuyl en vals, al wat dat voordeel doet. Om dees uw malsche jeucht het eeuwigh te beletten, En op een stronckelsteen uw tdeverlaet te setten ?

GodvTuchte vrouw ! Ghy haeckt vast nae een stalen muvu', Die niet beswijcken kan door tijt oft droevig uur.

Tesselschade : Maria Magdalena.

TT.

Als van twee ghepaerde schelpen

De eene breeckt, of wel verliest ; Niemant zal u konnen helpen,

Hoe men soeckt, hoe nau men kiest,

368 THE LITEEATUEE OF NOETHERN EUROPE.

Aen een, die met efFen randen

Jiiyst op d'ander passen sou ; D'outste sijn de beste panden

Kiets en gaet voor d'eerste trouw.

Cats.

UU.

Dit is Tesselschades Giaf.

Liet niemand zicli vermeeten Haer onwaerdeerlijkheid in woorden uit te meeten : Al Avat men van de Zon kan zeggen gaet haer af.

Hoe dat ze om't leven kwam

Verhael ik even noode. Wat dunkt n, Moeders ! 't was haer Dochter die haer doodde, En die zy't leven gaf, was die haer't leven nam.

Maer't kind had weinig schuld ;

De Moeder zag het sterven, En stierf cm dat zy't haer geliet te kunnen derveu. Zoo sneefde Tesselschae door al te veel geduld.

HuYGHENS : Korenhloemen.

VV.

Bejegent Engelen, hoe schoonze uw oogh behaeghden, Het zijn wanschapenheen by 't morgenlicht der maeghden.

BEELSEBUB.

Het schijnt, ghy blaeckt van minne om 't vrouweKjcke dier.

APOLLIOX.

Ick heb mijn slaghve^r in dat aengename vier Gezengt. Het vielme zwaer van onder op te stijgen, Te roeien, om den top ynw Englebnrgh tc krijgen.

APPENDIX. 369

Ick scheide, doch met pijn, en zag wel driewerf om.

Nu blinckt geen Serafijn, in 't hemelsch heilighdom,

Als deze, in 't hangend hair, een goude nis van stralen,

Die schoon gewatei't van den hoofde nederdalen,

En vloeien om den rugh. Zoo komtze, als nit een liclit,

Te voorschijn, en verheught den dagh met haer geziclit.

Laet perle en perlemoer u zuiverheit beloven ;

Haer blanckheit gaet de perle en perlemoer te boven.

BEELSEBUB.

Wat baet al 's menschen roem, indien zijn sclioonheit smelt, En eindelyck verwelckt, gelijck een bloem op 't velt 1

VoNDEL : Lucifer, i. 162-177.

WW.

LUCIFER.

Ghy siielle Geesten, houdt nu stant met onzen wagen :

Al hoogh genoegh in top Godts Morgenstar gedragen ;

Al hoogh genoegh gevoert : 't is tijdt, dat Lucifer

Nu duicke voor de komst van deze dubble star,

Die van beneden rijst, en zoekt den wegh naer boven,

Om met een aertschen glans den Hemel te verdooven.

Borduurt geen kroonen meer in Lucifers gewaet ;

Vergult zijn voorhooft niet met eenen dageraet

Van morgenstarre en strael, waer voor dAertsenglen nijgen !

Een andre klaerheit komt in 't licht der Godtheit stijgen,

En schijnt ons glansen doot ; gelijck de zon by daegh

De starren dooft, voor 't oogh der schepselen, om laegh.

't Is nacht met Engelen, en alle Hemelzonnen.

VoNDEL : Lucifer, ii. 1-13.

B B

<»■

370 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

XX.

KEY VAN ENGELEN.

Hoe zien de hofFelijcke gevels

Zoo root ] hoe straelt het heiligh licht

Zoo root op ous gezlcht, Door wolcken en bedroefde nevels 1

"Wat damp, wat mist betreckt

Dat zuiver, noit bevleckt,

En loutere saffier 1

Die vlam, dien glans, dat vier Van 't heldere Alvermogen ?

Hoe schijnt ons nu de diepe gloet

Der Godtheit toe, zoo zwart als bloet,

Die flus zoo klaer alle oogen

Verheugbde 1

VoNDEL : Lucifer, ii. 385-397.

YY.

TEGENZANG.

Toen wy, op Gabriels bazuinen,

Ontvonckten, en een nieuwe wijs

Aenhieven, Godt ten prijs ; De rozegaerden, en de tuinen

Van 't hemelschi paradijs,

Door zulck een dau en spijs Van lof en zang vei-blijt,

Ontloken ; scheen de Nijt Van onder in te sluipen.

Een groot getal der Geesteu, stom

En bleeck en dootscli, ging, drom by drom, Misnoegend henedruipen :

De winckbraeu hing verslenst op 't oogb, Het gladde voorbooft zette een rimpel ;

De Hemelduiven, hier om hoogh.,

APPENDIX. 371

Onnozel eerst, opreclit, en simpel,

Aen 't zuchten sloegen, zoo het scheen ;

Als of de Hemel viel te kleen "Voor haer, toen Adam wert verkoren, En zulck een kroon den mensch beschoren.

Dees smet ontstelt het oogh van 't Licht.

Z' ontsteeckt die vlam in Godts gezicht.

VoNDEL : Lucifer, ii. 407-428.

ZZ.

Houdt op van kermen : scheurt veltteeckens en gewaden Niet langer zonder reen, maer heldert uw gezicht En voorhooft met een strael, o kinders van het licht ! De schelle keelen, die met zang de Godtheit dancken, Zien cm, en belgen 't zich, om dat ghy valsche klancken En basterttoonen mengt in 't goddelijck muzijck.

VoNDEL : Lucifer, iii. 222-227.

AAA.

Ontferm u, Lucifer ! Gedoog niet, dat onze Oi'den

Zoo laegh vernedevt worde, en zonder schult verzink',

De mensch, gelijck een hooft der Englen, strale, en blinck',

In 't ongenaeckbi-e licht, waer voor de Serafijnen,

Al bevende van angst, als schaduwen verdwijnen.

Wy zweeren u met kracht, in voile majesteit, Te zetten op den troon, aen Adam toegeleit. Wy zweeren uwen arm eendraghtigh t' onderstutten, Aenvaert dees heirbijl : help, och help ons Recht beschutten !

VoNDEL : Lucifer, iii. 422-434.

B B 2

372 THE LITERATURE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

BBB.

Volglit dezen Helt, op zijn bazuin en trom,

Beschiit de kroon van 't Engelsdom ! Ziet, ay ziet nu de Morgenstar bKncken !

VoNDEL : Lucifer, iii, 507-509.

COO.

Ick zagh Godts blyschap zelf zich met een wolck van rou Beschaduwen, in 't endt de wraeck een vlam ontsteecken lu d' oogen van bet licbt, eer, om dien slagb te breecken, Het last gaf tot den toght. Ick hoorde een wijl bet pleit, Hoe d' opperste Genade, en Godts gerecbtigbeit Elckandre in wederwigbt, met pit van reden, bielen. Ick zagb de Cbervibijns, boeze op bun aenzicbt vielen, En riepen vast : Gena, gena, o Heer ! geen Recbt. Men bad dit zwaer gescbil gezoent, en scbier geslecbt, Zoo scbeen de Godtbeit tot genade en zoen genegen ; Maei^ als de wyroockstanck in top komt opgesteegen, De smoock, die Lucifer om laegb wort toegezwaeit, Met wyroockvat, bazu.in, en lofgezangen, draeit De Hemel zijn gezicbt van zulcke afgoderyen, Gevloeckt van Godt, en Geest, en alle Hierarcbyen.

YoNDEL : Lucifer, iv, 34-48.

DDD.

Het groeide snel, en wies, gelijck een bah^e maen. Het wet zijn punten, zet twee borens op ons aen ; Gelijck 't gestarrent van den Stiei- de Hemeldieren En andie monsters, die rondom bem benezwieren, Met goude boornen dreigbt.

VoNDEL : Lucifer, v, 53-57,

APPENDIX. 373

EEE.

Gelijck een binnenzee, of noortsche waterval, Die van de rotsen bruisclit, en ruischt, met een geschal, Dat dier en ondier schrickt,'in diepgezoncke dalen, Daer steenen, van de steilte, en dicke waterstralen.

VoNDEL : Luciftr,\. 161-164.

FFF.

KEY.

Gezegent zij de Helt,

Die 't goddeloos gewelt, En zijn maght, en zijn kracht, en zijn standert

Ter neder heeft gevelt.

Die Godt stack naer Zijn kroon,

Is, nit den hoogen troon, Met zijn maght in den nacht neergezoncken.

Hoe blinckt Godts naem zoo scboon !

Al brant het oproer fel,

De dappre Michael Weet den brant met zijn hant uit te blusschen,

Te straffen dien rebel.

Hy hanthaeft Godts banier,

Bekranst hem met laurier. Dit palais groeit in pais, en in vrede ;

Geen tweedraght hoort men hier.

Nu zingt de Godtheit lof,

In 't onverwinbaer hof. Prijs en eer zij den Heer aller Heeren !

Hy geeft ons zingens stof.

VoNDEL : Lucifer, v. 275-294.

374 THE LITERATUEE OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

GGG.

GABRIEL.

Helaes, helaes, helaes, hoe is de kans gekeert ! Wat viert men hier 1 't is nu vergeefs getriomfeert : Yergeefs met wapenroof en standerden te brallen.

MICHAEL.

Wat hoor ick, Gabriel ?

GABRIEL.

Och, Adam is gevallen ; De vader en de stam van 't menschelijck geslacht Te jammeilijck, te droef alree ten val gebraght.

YoNDEL : Lucifer, v. 313-311

HUH.

Ozias, aen wiens vuist de Godtheit zelf vereerde Den zwaren liamer van gekloncken diamant, En ketens van robijn, en krammen, spits van tant, Ga bene, vang en span bet heir der belscbe dieren, Den Leeu, en fellen Draeck, die tegens ons banieren Dus woeden : vaegb de lucbt van dees vervloeckte jagbt, En boeize aen neck en klaeu, en ketenze met kracbt. Dees sleutel van den put des afgronts en zijn bolen Wort, Azarias, n en iiwe zorg bevolen. Ga bene, sluit in 't bol al wat ons magbt bestrijt. Maceda, neem dees torts, die vlam is u gewijt : Ontsteeckt den zwavelpoel in 't midde.lpunt der aerde, En pijnigb Lucifer, die zoo veel gruwlen baerde.

APPENDIX. 375

Tu 't eeuwighbranclend vier, gemengt met killen vorst ; Daer Droeflieit, Gruwzaemheit, Veisteentheit, Honger, Dorst, De Wanhoop, zonder troost, de prickel van 't Geweten, En Onverzoenbaerlieit, een straf van 't boos vermeten.

VoNDEL : Lucifer, v. 448-463.

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