fair and good as Enid, we would gladly have him give them, also, immortality in similar Idyls. If the story of Geraint and Enid is a somewhat queer and fantastic one, the moral of it is very high and noble. Against all slothful and selfish indulgence,-against all over indulgence in emotions which of themselves may be most honorable,— against all bitter and unfounded jealousy,-against all selfwrought perplexity and sorrow that men endure, it speaks with a simple and right manly utterance. Geraint, a knight of the round table, in the quest of an adventure which he had undertaken in behalf of Guinevere the queen, had found and suddenly had loved, in spite of all her broken fortunes, Enid the fair, the daughter of Earl Yniol. He jousts for her, bravely enough, against her wolfish cousin Edyrn, son of Nudd, who, proud and mean and cruel, failing to win her love, had hated her and had worked the ruin of her father's house. Him, Geraint, after a wondrous battle, had vanquished, and had sent humbled and sullen to Guinevere, to give to her apology and allegiance for the foul insult which he had done her, and which, indeed, was the very cause of Geraint's adventure. Recovering thus, for Enid and her father, title and lands and fortune, he will not have her dress herself in any other than the faded silk in which at first he found her, when he had heard her singing to herself and guided by the music of her bird-like voice, had come to her exclaiming― "Here by God's grace is the one voice for me!" And in that faded silk she rides with him, abashed and trembling, to the court, and there is welcomed with all honor by the queen, who "with her own white hands Arrayed and decked her, as the loveliest, Next after her own self, in all the court." Thus being wedded, for a while Geraint honored and loved with all the power of his great, ardent soul, his fair and guileless wife, rejoicing greatly in the love that was between the queen and her. But at last, heeding the rumors that were rife about the sin of Guinevere, he gained permission, from the king, to go to his own province, hoping there to keep his wife beyond the reach of any taint or stain of evil influence. And here, absorbed in this one blind affection for her, all other duties are neglected, and all other joys forgotten, so that his very vassals jeer and mock at him as "molten down in mere uxoriousness." Weeping to see herself the cause of all the great dishonor into which her lord has fallen, and fearing lest that strength and courage which she loved so much should indeed be dying out, and all through her; and yet not venturing to tell him all her sorrow and her fear, for dread lest he, with jealous anger, should suspect and blame her boldness, she sits beside his couch, one early morning, gazing admiringly upon the mighty "warrior in his dreams; Who, moving, cast the coverlet aside, And bared the knotted column of his throat, The massive square of his heroic breast, And arms on which the standing muscle sloped, As slopes a wild brook o'er a little stone, Gazing thus admiringly, she sorrowfully reproves herself for lacking in the courage to speak out and counsel him to look to his good name, lest all the sneers and scoffs at him should not be undeserved, and weeping over him exclaims in view of her own cowardice, "O me, I fear that I am no true wife!" "By great mischance," Geraint, awaking suddenly, caught these last words, and stung with jealous pain and anger, and almost with despair, at such confession, springs up and girds his harness on, and starts at once upon a wild and desperate quest of adventure, taking his wife with him, dressed in her meanest dress, even in that old faded silk of hers, which she had reverently treasured. With all the sternness that his love to her, sorrowful indeed, and disappointed and distrustfal, now, but still earnest,-will permit, he bids her ride far on before him, and on no account to speak to him; and so he rides, nursing his bitter anger, tortured with conflicting pas sions, and mourning over all his vainly lavished love, while she goes patient, sorrowing too, and not less deeply, but wondering what has been the -"unnoticed failing in herself That made him look so cloudy and so cold." It does not take long, in that disordered and much neglected province of Prince Geraint's, for them to meet with great adventures; and, in the course of the first day, the prince encounters no less than six strong, caitiff knights, whom he strikes down with spear and sword, and slays. Herein alone was Enid disobedient, that riding on before and seeing first the threatening danger from those savage knights, she turned back to her lord, "met his full frown timidly firm," and warned him of their presence, not daring to "obey him to his harm." Thus for two days, through many perils and through provocations and temptations, Enid endures in meek and patient love, waiting upon her lord, and watching by him when he slept, and weeping over him and growing pale and sorrowful, and wondering wherein she had offended him ; until at last Geraint, who had been wounded in a fight with a base company of knights, fell fainting by the roadside, from his horse. The true and faithful wife, not heeding all his sullen, jealous treatment of her, but only mindful how she best may help him and revive him, searches his wound,-for, in those days, some skill in medicine and surgery was one of the chiefest accomplishments of high born maidens—and binds it up with her own vail. The cruel and brutal earl within whose territories this had happened, noticing, as he rides by, this weeping woman and the wounded knight, and the great war-horse standing mournfully beside them, gives orders that the three be taken to his own rough castle. There at dinner time he finds them all, the knight still seeming senseless, and his faithful wife refusing to be comforted. At last Earl Doorm, impatient at the failure of the coarse and savage hospitality which he had proffered to the pale and trembling Enid, seeing that she will not eat, nor drink, nor clothe her self in gay apparel like the "gentlewomen" of his hall, strode up to her and smote her rudely on the check. "Then Enid, in her utter helplessness, And since she thought 'He had not dared to do it Sent forth a sudden sharp and bitter cry As of a wild thing taken in a trap, Which sees the trapper coming through the wood." But Prince Geraint, who, thanks to Enid's care and watchfalness, had partially recovered from his swoon, although he . had been lying still and silent as if senseless yet, and who had been deeply conscious of his wife's affectionate devotion to him, and of her brave rejection of the brutal politeness of the huge Earl Doorm, had found already that his heart was softening toward her, and had yearned for her forgiveness of his sinful jealousy. And now, nerved by this cruel insult to her, and feeling suddenly his strength renewed, he grasps his sword that lies beside him, springs like a lion at the drunken earl, and smites his head off at a single blow. Panic-stricken at this sudden resurrection of the knight they counted dead, the other men and women fled, "yelling as from a spectre," and Geraint, left now alone with Enid, makes to her his remorseful confession of the grievous wrong that he had done her, and declares, "Henceforward I will rather die than doubt." And so, thenceforth, the current of their mutual life flows with as deep and strong affection as before; but, with this difference, that now it is not ruffled by any whispering breeze of suspicion, nor tossed by any storm of jealousy. Geraint resumed his old distinction in the brotherhood of knights, and Enid, VOL. XVIII. -" whom her ladies loved to call 2 Such, briefly, is the story; but before dismissing it, we ought to record the fate of Edyrn, son of Nudd, against whom, long before, Geraint had jousted, at the time when first he saw his bride. This knight, who was a man of great bravery and prowess, but churlish and brutal in his spirit, came to the court of Arthur sullen and humbled by his overthrow, and meaning to be soon rid of life. But coming there, he found that Guinevere forgave him utterly, and saw that all the court, led by the goodly king himself, not hated him, but treated him with noble kindness and with frank generosity. Thus, by and by, the genial warmth of their fine influence stole through the proud and cold reserve in which he had enwrapped himself, and he was changed from his old wolfish nature. And then he talked with "Dubric the high saint," who at that time was the Archbishop of Caerleon-upon-Usk, until the old man that he had been was supplanted by the new and gentle man as which he was hereafter to be known. So Arthur admitted him to the great order of the round table, and he lived honored, and died bravely; for we think it is none other than this hero, whom we find in another ancient legend, under the name of Ider son of Nuth, fighting valiantly against three wicked giants, on the "mount of frogs," and falling into a trance as if dead, from the severity of his exertions. Whether he ever recovered from this trance, or not, does not appear; but, at any rate, Arthur, who loved him greatly, founded in his behalf the Abbey of Glastonbury, and instituted no less than twenty-four monks, amply endowed with lands and riches, who should pray continually for his soul. This is the story, and Mr. Tennyson, in telling it, has, in the main, adhered to the old tale in the Mabinogeon. Where he has deviated from it, it has been for the better, and for the purpose of securing a greater simplicity, and of teaching a higher lesson. The character of Edyrn son of Nudd, is almost wholly Mr. Tennyson's; and the story of his change, which is told with such uncommon skill, is altogether framed by him. And in his version of the story, the bright, pure character of Enid appears more clearly, teaching with greater power that it is vastly better to be good than fair, and that a true, and |