to the rude annals of the race from which they passed. Its projects, conflicts, defeats, victosprung.

ries-all are at an end. We begin to descend The child is a creature of impulse and feeling. the hill, and look doubtfully at the dark shadows His dormant reason can only be awakened, stim- which surround its base. We remember, with ulated, guided and supported, by means of his sad tenderness, the valley where we sported at affections. But his very instincts, for the most morning; its sunshine and flowers, the joyous part, prompt him to what is good. It is true, song of birds and the lovely radiance, which that pride and selfishness are soon at work within clothed even the homeliest objects in the hues of him. It is true, that the excess, even of com- Heaven. We review, with a strange mixture of mendable feelings, will sometimes hurry him be- pride and self-reproach, all that we suffered and yond the limits that divide every virtue from its achieved, in the ascent of the mountain beneath corresponding vice. But, nevertheless, the main- the glare of the mid-day sun: the perils encounsprings of the youthful heart, with rare and lam-tered, the obstacles surmounted, the wild joy of entable exceptions, are truth, justice and gene- the struggle, the intoxication of success. Before rosity. It loves the beautiful, reveres the pure, us is no pleasing prospect. Each step that we admires the daring, is awed by the sublime, take, still weaker than the last, brings us nearer weeps over the pathetic, abhors the cruel, burns to that "cold obstruction," towards which we with indignation at oppression and wrong, and are hastening. And we cling, with vain repiswells with a noble sympathy at the triumph of nings, to recollections of the brilliant sunrise, the innocent and the downfall of the guilty. Let and the glorious noon-tide of life's short day. him who doubts the fidelity of this sketch, recall his childish emotions, when he listened at the nurse's knee, to the sad story of the Children in the Wood, the valiant knight-errantry of Jack the Giant-Killer, and the terrible vengeance which overtook the bloody Blue Beard upon the battlements of his own castle. Let him do this: and, if his pulse beat as quickly now as it did in those early days, at the tale of rescued innocence and punished crime, he may rejoice that he has not been sorrowfully taught

"To know he's farther off from Heaven,
Than when he was a boy."

Is there not a close parallel between this our mortal career, and that which may be called the moral life of nations? Do not the changes in the temper and spirit of a people correspond with those we have been describing? Where, except in the first ages of a rising state, shall we look for simplicity of manners? for the strong tie of citizenship? for that frank hospitality, which designated, by the same word, the stranger and the guest? Where else do we find such examples of lofty patriotism, of generous self-devotion, of romantic courage and of high-souled clemency? To borrow a happy thought from one, who utters many of them, it is "far away in the early period of time, where the uncertain hues of poetry blend with the serener light of history," that we are to seek for those heroic hearts who loved to hear and to emulate the noble deeds of others. Such were the men who delighted in the majestic song of Homer, or the impassioned strains of the Celtic bards; such the men who left, as themes for future poets, the Pass of Thermopylæ and the Field of Bannockburn.

But, alas! few can boast such freshness of soul. The rough experience of the world, the busy cares of interest and ambition, the collisions and struggles, which task the intellect and rouse the energies of manhood, seldom fail to deaden our sensibilities and to develop, in excess, all our selfish tendencies. The love of pleasure, the thirst for gold and the lust of power, absorb the finer feelings of our nature. At every turn we inquire-" cui bono?"-what doth it "Time rolls his ceaseless course." He bears profit me? Our motives of action are contracted away, on his resistless current, the landmarks of into a narrow calculation of worldly ease or ad- early civilization. An age of iron is to succeed. vantage. Here and there we do, indeed, find The sacred love of independence is supplanted men, in whom the love of excellence still abides by the unhallowed passion for foreign conquest. who have replaced the ardor of youth with the The minds that labored, and the hearts that bled surer strength of moral principle and religious for freedom and the right now exert their powfaith. And, perhaps, few are not sometimes, ers, at the bidding of unjust and unscrupulous nay often, moved to shake off their earth-fast ambition. The infant state, that but lately strugfetters, and strike one generous blow for the wel-gled to defend itself, has grown up into a mighty fare of their kind. But the short-lived impulse empire, upon the ruins of its weaker neighbors, soon dies: the conviction of duty fades away the arts of peace, too, blessed as is their general from the mind: and we are plunged again into influence, foster the greedy spirit of the time. the tumult and strife of our daily existence.

Thus we push on and painfully win our way to the confines of age. The prime of life is

"The land is full of harvests and green meads"the cities teem with busy manufactures: the seas swarm with white-winged messengers of trade:

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and the whole force of the people, physical and make the ballads of a nation he would care litintellectual, is chained to the service of private tle who made the religion of it"-has passed long gain, or public aggrandizement. The romantic since into a proverb. And equally familiar to feeling of other days is every where extinct: un- every body is the remark of a pamphleteer of less it survive in some mountain solitude, undis- that day, that the famous Lilliburlero" sung turbed as yet by the harsh clank of machinery, King James II. out of three kingdoms. The or the grovelling thunder of the rail-way. very triteness of these quotations proves their At last comes the season of decay. The vices universal reception as political truths, and justiof excessive wealth and refinement have shot up fies the high estimate which has been placed in rank exuberance, and matured their deadly upon the rude lyrics of a former day. Let us fruits. Luxury, sloth and licentiousness over- then devote an hour to the consideration of that spread the soil and choke the seeds of every gen-poetry which had so large a share in forming erous emotion, every manly virtue. The hand and reflecting the features of contemporary hisof death presses heavily upon the body politic. tory-to the labors of the old Chroniclers and Gone is the elastic activity of youth-the nervous Rhymers, the makers and the minstrels of Navigor of manhood. Vainly does the palsied do- tional Ballads. tard recount now with exulting chuckle, and anon with tears, the proud achievements of bygone days. These can avail nothing to stay the relentless decree of Fate. The haughty empire of the Assyrians and the colossal strength of Rome, their glories tarnished, their triumphs forgotten-lie prostrate in the dust, whence they

arose.

We are now in the full maturity of life as a nation. Infancy, such as we have endeavored to portray, our country has never known. The founders of the American States were men born and reared in a highly civilized era, and were themselves in no way behind the intelligence and knowledge of their age. But it may not be uninteresting nor wholly unprofitable to recur to that distant time in which our own origin is to be discerned, mingled with the beginnings of the various European nations, whose blood courses in the veins of Anglo Saxon and Anglo American. It may be worth while to look back upon the thoughts and deeds of men who trod the earth before us, and who left their impress upon their own, perhaps upon succeeding generations: to glance at the records, rude and imperfect thouhg they may be, of the mighty and prolific Past. Among those records we shall find naught more deserving of attention than the ancient ballads; not unfrequently, indeed, they are the only sources of history and tradition. To us they are valuable as exponents of the character of the times which produced them: but, in those times, their office was more important-for they wielded no small influence over the manners and sentiments of the people who listened to them. The pithy saying of Fletcher of Saltoun*" that if he could but

* This is sometimes rendered "give me the making of a nation's ballads and I care not who makes its laws." It is attributed now to one celebrated man and now to another. Very recently, a contributor to the Edinburg Review ("divil

a less," Mr. Lever would say) ascribed the maxim to Cardinal Mazarin! But we make our stand resolutely on

Fletcher of Saltoun.

In the infancy of the arts, and especially before the invention of letters, poetry and music combined seem to have been naturally, and even necessarily, resorted to, on all public occasions. At the assemblies of the people, whether for religious sacrifice, or social festivity, their chief occupations were song and dancing. The solemnity of religious worship required for its expression a language more elevated than the common discourse of life, and produced the first attempts at rhythm, or measured speech. Melody soon came to its aid: pleasing the ear by musical cadences, and, through their agency, impressing more strongly on the memory and the heart the sacred poems with their fervent spirit of adoration. Hence the sublime strains of the Hebrew Prophets, and the classic hymns of Greece. Legislators, philosophers and historians, availed themselves of the same method, to proclaim the laws, to publish scientific truth, and to transmit to future generations the events of their own as well as of former times. At such meetings Homer sang his Iliad, a poem and a chronicle : a series of narratives in verse, wherein real occurrences are blended with the fabulous, and embellished with all the treasures of poetic genius and dramatic art. And thus were preserved the early traditions of all nations: the Arabs and the Persians, the Greeks and the Germans, the hordes of Scythia, and the Celtic tribes of Gaul and Britain.

The great characteristics of lyric poetry are its versatility, freedom and animation. It does not follow the stately march of history, but wanders at will in digressions and episodes. Unfettered by the continuous measure of more elaborate composition, it varies with the changeful current of passionate emotion. Sometimes it flows on in smooth tranquillity, sometimes it hurries along with the force and vehemence of a torrent. Now it rises into grandeur and sublimity—and now subsides into the tender and pathetic. Here it winds peacefully amid the chequered scenes of

common life, and anon it swells with the mighty | personages for the dramatis persona, ascribing to tides of ambitious policy, or thunders with all them lives and exploits, in which the fable bethe tumult of furious war. Nor does it disdain gan largely to predominate over the truth: until the pursuit of lighter themes. The banquet hall at length these compositions became wholly unand the bower of love-the revels of the noble, worthy of confidence, as vehicles of history, and and the games of the rustic-the gay, the humor- were superseded in this, their original office, by ous and comic aspects of life—are reflected upon annals of a more grave and imposing appearance. its surface, and relieve its deeper shades. Of all For a long time, however, the metrical romanthe countries of modern Europe, Italy alone has ces and the minstrels, by whom they were compreserved, in the art of the Improvisatore, some-posed and sung, retained their place in the esteem thing like the diversified and spirited poesy of the of the feudal knights and nobles. The minstrel olden time.

The character of different nations, as we are told by scholars conversant with their literature, is displayed in their early poems. The songs of the fierce Gothic people breathe of battle and slaughter: the Chinese treat of gentle and more peaceful subjects: the Greek is full of speculations upon Chaos, Creation and the physical history of the World: the Spanish and Moorish ballads mingle a chivalrous and martial spirit with much of refinement and delicacy: while the Oriental poets often, as in the Proverbs, and the Book of Job, present us with impressive lessons of moral and religious truth.

was a character of high distinction. His person was sacred. He was sometimes the ambassador, often the companion and friend of kings and emperors; and his services were rewarded with the most substantial as well as the most honorable marks of princely favor.

When Richard, the Lion-hearted king of England, was on his return from the crusades, he was treacherously seized and imprisoned by the Duke of Austria, whilst passing through his territories. For the space of a year, no tidings of him could be heard. At last Blondel de Nesle, a minstrel, who had been brought up in his household after a laborious search for him in many Much has been written about the origin and lands, came to the castle in which he was confined development of romantic poetry in Europe. and ascertained that an unknown prisoner was Numberless theories have been maintained, com- there kept with unusual strictness. He obtained bated and abandoned. The received opinion, at access to the castle, without difficulty, in his cathe present day, derives the first knowledge of pacity of minstrel: and, watching his opportuthis species of literature from the Scandinavian nity, began one day singing a French song, which or Gothic tribes: and supposes it to have been King Richard and himself had composed tomodified—perhaps revolutionized-by the inter-gether many years before. When he had sung course of the Crusaders with Eastern countries, half the song he stopped: whereupon the king and the influence of the elegant and polished Saracens who were so long seated in Spain. Thus, the "barbaric horror," which invests many of the oldest fictions, is ascribed to the dark and gloomy superstitions of the North: whilst the more brilliant and splendid enchantments of later fables are traced to the people of those sunny regions, which produced the Arabian Night's tion. Entertainments. And the spirit of the latter, changed and colored by other accidents of time in the palmy days of the profession. But the and place, still survives in the "marvellous machineries" of Tasso and Dante, and in the gorgeous Fairy Queen" of Spenser.

took up the unfinished strain and concluded it. Thus the minstrel became satisfied, where, and by whom, his master was detained : and, returning to England, made known his discovery to the queen and the nobles. A negotiation was immediately set on foot with the Duke of Austria, which resulted in the king's ransom and libera

Such was the honored position of the minstrel,

number of those who embraced the calling, their idle and vagrant life, the silent but continuous change in the constitution of society, and the inIn Europe, during the middle ages, ballads troduction of the prose romances, to which the were made up of historical events, adventures of art of printing gave birth, gradually effected their particular heroes, pictures of domestic and social downfall. They were banished from the feasts life, the occupations and amusements of the peo- of the nobility and gentry, and sunk by degrees ple, their manners and customs, habits and tastes. into itinerant ballad-singers : in which character, At first, the historical details were probably cor- for a long time, they were received, as favored reet in substance, and ornamented only to a small guests, at the tables and firesides of the poorer extent by the fancy of the chronicler: but, as in classes. From their songs, or the fragments of process of time, the narratives descended from them, preserved by tradition, have been collected age to age, changes crept in through the ignor- the remains of ballad-poetry, in England and ance of some minstrels and the invention of oth- Scotland, by Dr. Percy, Sir Walter Scott, and ers; new poems were composed with the same other gleaners of less celebrity: encouraged in

their work, by the successful labors of their breth-have utterly disbelieved the whole, and even ren, in the no less fruitful fields of German and denied the existence of the monarch himself. Spanish poetry.

Around these great centres, revolved a host of We have adverted to the writers of prose ro- luminaries, scarcely less splendid-Roland, Rimances, who supplanted the old minstrels, in the naldo, and Olivier-Sir Gawain, Launcelot du favor of the great. Possessed of somewhat more Lac, Palmerin of England, and a score of others, learning and a much larger share of pretension, who constituted a common stock, for the use of than their fallen predecessors, they did not scru- minstrels all over Europe. Whenever a new ple to steal heroes and subjects from the old bal-ballad was to be elaborated, one of these worlads, and reproduce them in other narratives, thies was selected, and a fresh chapter added to which they imposed upon their unlearned pat- his biography, keeping up his traditionary charrons, as authentic translations from original Greek acter, and providing him with suitable advenand Latin manuscripts. Thus, while they af- tures. They were brought out, like approved fected a superiority, in point of dignity and cor- actors, in new pieces, especially adapted to their rectness to the metrical tales of the minstrels, talents: so that, when the audience tired of one these interminable fictions, swollen to a porten- performance, the old favorites might be ready to tous size by countless excrescences, grew into a re-appear in another drama. deformity, that became constantly more and more But we are by no means to suppose that unlike the truth of history. Sir Walter Scott kings and nobles were the exclusive themes of makes an amusing apology for these prolix and minstrelsy. The beauty and virtue of their discursive romances: "a book, which addresses dames-the vicissitudes of faithful love, whose itself only to the eyes, may be laid aside, when it becomes tiresome to the reader: whereas it may not always have been so easy to stop the minstrel in the full career of his metrical declamation." Such as they were, however, these books were deemed and taken" (as legislators phrase it) by our simple ancestors for faithful annals; and were received with the same implicit confidence, that Lord Chatham is said to have bestowed on the historical plays of Shakspeare.

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course, (as every body knows,) never did run smooth, were fruitful subjects of romance. Nor did they overlook the personages of humbler life. Many a good story is told of bold outlaws, like Robin Hood and little John-of stout yeomen, like the Tanner of Tamworth, and the Miller of Mansfield. In a word, all classes of people, gentle and simple, rich and poor, high and low, all found their appropriate places, and performed their proper parts. Indeed, the value of these The model of most, or all, of these romances, productions, as materials for history, as repreis to be found, according to some critics, in the sentations of the social and domestic life of the Ethiopics of Heliodorus, who was bishop of times, has been highly esteemed by those most Tricca, in Thessaly, in the fourth century. This conversant with them. The testimony of Mawork contains an account of the amours of The- caulay is eloquently given, in his description of agenes and Chariclea; which, although written what history should be. in a modest and reserved style, when compared with others of the same kind, did not escape the severe censure of the church. He was required, either to suppress his book, or to renounce his bishopric. As the story goes, literature carried the day against divinity. The good bishop would not desert the children of his fancy, and sacrificed, for their sake, his clerical preferment.

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The perfect historian is he, in whose work, the character and spirit of an age is exhibited in miniature. He relates no fact, he attributes no expression to his characters, which is not authenticated by sufficient testimony. But, by judicious selection, rejection, and arrangement, he gives to truth those attractions, which have been usurped by fiction. In his narrative, a due subordination The emperor Charlemagne and king Arthur is preserved: some transactions are prominent, of England were the most distinguished heroes others retire. But the scale, on which he repof European Romance. Turpin, archbishop of resents them, is increased or diminished, not acRheims, under the former prince, is the reputed cording to the dignity of the persons concerned author of a fabulous history, the subject of which is the expulsion of the Saracens from Spain, and which has been the original of innumerable legends, concerning the exploits of Charlemagne and his twelve peers. In like manner, the his

in them, but according to the degree, in which they elucidate the condition of society, and the nature of man. He shows us the court, the camp, and the senate. But he shows us also the nation. He considers no anecdote, no peculiarity tory of Geoffrey of Monmouth has transmitted of manner, no familiar saying, as too insignifito posterity the life and exploits of king Arthur; cant for his notice, which is not too insignificant which by the industry of the old chronicler, and to illustrate the operation of laws, of religion, his successors, have been so interwoven and con- and of education, and to mark the progress of fused with a mass of fictions, that some critics the human mind.

“If a man, such as we are supposing, should safed to us, by way of whetting the literary apwrite the history of England, he would assuredly petite. We trust he may be found no less wornot omit the battles, the sieges, the negotiations, thy of admiration, in the other requisites of a the seditions, the ministerial changes. But, with good historian. these, he would intersperse the details, which are But, whatever his merit in these particulars, the charm of historical romances. At Lincoln he has been eminently successful in reversing the Cathedral, there is a beautiful painted window, process. He has shown how the materials of which was made by an apprentice, out of the history may be resolved into their original elepieces of glass, which had been rejected by his ments, and the lost ballads reconstructed. In master. It is so far superior to every other in his "Lays of Ancient Rome," he has presented the church, that, according to the tradition, the us with vivid pictures of Roman life, public and vanquished artist killed himself from mortifica-private, such as we may conceive it to have aption. Sir Walter Scott, in the same manner, peared to one, living and moving in the midst of has used those fragments of truth, which histo- it. With consummate skill and taste, he has inrians have scornfully thrown behind them, in a fused the spirit and energy of the Roman heart manner, which may well excite their envy. He into English verse; and preserving the thoughts has constructed, out of their gleanings, works and feelings, objects and circumstances, which which, even considered as histories, are scarcely belong to that people-sacrificing no propriety of less valuable than theirs. But a truly great his-time or place-he has moulded the whole into torian would reclaim those materials which the language, the most natural and expressive to the novelist has appropriated. The history of the English ear. government, and the history of the people, would There have been also others, no less distinbe exhibited in that mode, in which alone they guished for their success, as restorers and imitacan be exhibited justly—in inseparable conjunc- tors of National Ballads; among whom are contion and intermixture. We should not then have spicuous Scott aud Leyden in the field of Scotto look for the wars and votes of the Puritans in tish poesy, and Lockhart in his inimitable transClarendon, and for their phraseology in Old Mor-lations of Spanish ballads. But to them, as well tality, for one half of King James in Hume, and for the other half in the Fortunes of Nigel.

as to the venerable Bishop Percy, already alluded to, we hope to do ampler justice hereafter: The early part of our imaginary history would for this article has already grown to such a length be rich with coloring from romance, ballad, and as to exclude the extracts which we had designed chronicle. We should find ourselves in the com- to offer to our readers. We trust they will not pany of knights, such as those of Froissart, and be unacceptable on a future occasion : but if we of pilgrims, such as those who rode with Chau- should be disappointed in the sympathy of those cer from the Tabard. Society would be shown, whom we desire to please, and our love of balfrom the highest to the lowest-from the royal lad-poetry seem to be overstrained, we must plead eloth of state, to the den of the outlaw-from the in excuse the invincible force of early association. throne of the legate, to the chimney corner where These poems, as has been finely said of the clasthe begging friar regaled himself. Palmers, min-sics, are to us "the early voice of the world, betstrels, crusaders—the stately monastery, with its ter remembered and more cherished still, than all good cheer in its refectory, and the high mass in the intermediate words that have been spoken: its chapel-the manor house, with its hunting as the lessons of childhood still haunt us, when and hawking—the tournament, with the heralds the impressions of later years have been effaced and ladies, the trumpets and the cloth of gold- from the mind.”

would give life and truth to the representation. We should perceive, in a thousand slight touches, the importance of the privileged burgher, and the fierce and haughty spirit which swelled under the collar of the degraded villain."

VOWS.

Whilst we are copying this quotation, a history of England by Mr. Macaulay himself, is passing through the press. His admirers, (and who is not of this number?) will be eager to see, how far he has been enabled to realize his beau Vows ought to be cautiously made. Leigh, in ideal of a historian, in his own work. That he his Journey to Nubia, says, Osman Bey Bardissi will not be deficient in the art of historical paint- had made a vow, never to shave his head or his ing, we are confident, as well from his high ap- beard, till he should re-enter Cairo. For the preciation of it in others, as from the specimens sake of cleanliness, as well as Cairo, his followof his book, which the publishers have vouchers must hope the event would be speedy.