Flower-wreath'd, their snowy robes from clasped zone Her milk-white neck embower'd in arching spray, The trembling and the touching of sweet sound. Of flute or harp; as though she trod from earth As the light dew-shower on a tuft of flowers. Was bliss, was sweet indulgence.'-pp. 6-8. It must not be supposed that we give our unqualified applause to this passage; we object to the diction in many parts of it; (but this is an old quarrel between Mr. Milman and ourselves, upon which we will say a few words hereafter;) we think moreover that there is some little inconsistency in the conception of the character. But its principal fault as a composition is an injudicious mixture of the beauty which is merely external, with that which is to be inferred from the effects it produces, or the qualities it is said to express. It is very possible to give the liveliest idea of beauty without the definite drawing of a single feature, or the mention of any merely corporeal attribute, such as shape, or colour; it is equally possible to invert the mode of description: but it is very seldom that the two can be well mixed, at least in the present instance they are jumbled together in most unaccommodating masses. As every one knows, the weak and passionate Vortigern is subdued by this beautiful apparition, who, after pledging his health, instantly instantly retires as she came. The King impatiently inquires who and whence she is, and learns from Hengist that she is his daughter. Upon this a conversation ensues between them apart, and ends with the proclamation of Hengist King of Kent' by the infatuated monarch. The Saxons receive it with a clamorous shout of joy, and drain their goblets to the new King-but this introduces to us the hero of the poem in a noble manner. Nothing can be more happy in conception or execution-the language and metre have a solemn and placid dignity, without effort, involution, or glitter-the ideas are correspondent, and the precise effect is produced, which was intended, of impressing us from the first moment with a lofty idea of Samor. 'As mid the fabled Libyan bridal stood Went forth, and all the riotous hall was mute; His speech, and courtly reverence smooth'd its tone.'-p. 11. The speech which follows is not unworthy of the introduction, neither vaunting nor (which is Mr. Milman's usual fault) too long; but simple, dignified and firm; denying the king's right to give any part of the island, which was his only to govern, and disclaiming any allegiance to the new chief. At the close he leaves the hall, attended by the nobler part of the British courtiers. Vortigern makes light of the threatened opposition; he exclaims contemptuously 'Whom the flax binds not, must the iron gyve.' As he leaves the banquet, Samor encounters him; his open and animated remonstrances joined with the most earnest supplications rouse in the King the dormant virtues of the warrior and patriot, and in the enthusiasm of the moment he determines on renouncing the dishonourable alliance with the Saxon. The resolution has hardly passed his lips, when the fatal beauty arrives in her bridal car, and the poet tells us the issue in a single line, 'Alone she came-alone she went not on."' The second book opens with another of the thousand and one imitations of the Council of Kings in the Iliad, and we are sorry, principally on that account, that Mr. Milman should have thought it necessary to the conduct of the story. There is nothing that so disturbs disturbs the illusion, which should be preserved in all works of fiction, as imitation of incident. In a narration of real events if a circumstance occurs resembling one already familiar to us, we are surprised at first, but we instantly regard it as what it really is, a curious though not an unnatural coincidence, and the sensation on the whole is rather pleasurable than otherwise. But when the same thing happens in a work of fiction, we reflect and examine for a moment as in the former case, but the first and immediate effect of this is to dispel all the dream, in which we had yielded to the story as true; and this alone is painful; the second effect is, dissatisfaction with the author, who having the tissue of incidents at his disposal might have avoided this imitation. In the present instance the borrowed incidents may be convenient for the introduction and development of new characters, but we think that Mr. Milman's ingenuity properly tasked might have discovered some less hacknied means for the same object. In order to make our readers understand this part of the poem, we must go back a little to events which are supposed by the poet to have happened before its commencement. Constantine, King of Britain, is said to have aspired to the purple, and to have led an army to the continent to support his claim. After some successes he lost his own life and crown, together with the flower of his troops, in a disastrous battle near Arles.* He left three sons, Constans, Emrys, (Aurelius Ambrosius,) and Uther, but they were all thought too young to conduct the retreat of the army and sustain the sinking fortunes of Britain; Vortigern therefore was elected King. In the council now assembled Emrys first rises, and in a firm yet temperate manner reclaims for his brother and himself the crown, which they had lost by their youth, but which Vortigern had forfeited by his treason to the common weal. Uther followsa more impetuous character-his warm and animating appeal to the chiefs, his denunciation of instant and interminable war on Vortigern and his allies produce a suitable effect on the council. Shouts of war are heard, spears are brandished, and shields are clashed; when Samor rises to still the commotion. This is managed with too apparent intention of contrast, and his speech is much too long and too rhetorical; as in many other places it is Mr. Milman and not his hero, who speaks; still there is much of beauty, and even moral force in the address; ، Oh! Kings, Our council thus appealing, may not wear Or phrenetic vengeance: we must rise in wrath, * It is not of much importance in a case like this, but Mr. Milman will find that he has misquoted Gibbon as to these facts in his prefatory notice.. But But wear it as a mourner's robe of grief, In reply to Emrys and Uther he urges the superior right of Constans, their elder brother, to the vacant throne. Constans was a peaceful hermit, and the proposition of such a man for King at such a crisis calls forth the bitter scoff of Caswallon, chief of the mountains north of Trent; who demands the crown for himself, and threatens to join the Saxons if rejected. Caswallon's character will fully appear in the sequel; it is sufficient here to observe of him that he is the Mezentius of the poem, as Malwyn, his only son, is the Lausus. This latter personage bursts upon us in a very interesting manner, refusing to share his father's treason, but throwing himself between him and the spears of the irritated chiefs. Caswallon, however, is dismissed in safety from the assemblya single incident in the mode of his departure finely marks the cha racter of the man, 'far was heard His tread along the rocky path, the crash Of branches rent by his unstooping helm.'-p. 33. Samor's proposition is assented to, and he is himself commissioned to bear the offer of the crown to Constans; Emrys departs to solicit succours from Hoel, King of Aquitain; Uther is dispatched to the west, and the other chiefs repair each to his own domains to stir up his vassals to the great enterprize. Such is the council, of which it seemed necessary to say thus much for the better knowledge of the personages who fill great part of Mr. Milman's canvass. Samor immediately departs on his mission to Constans, accompanied by his friend Elidure; in their way, from a woody eminence they see the bridal procession of Vortigern and Rowena winding along the valley below. How or why this procession came so near the place of assembly of the insurgent chiefs, or whither it was going, we are not informed. It seems to have been brought here for the sake of an incident, which might have been very sublime, if the judgment which regulated the execution had been at all equal to the fancy which conceived it. A shape of strange and savage appearance bursts suddenly upon the gay troop, and arresting its progress by the terror it inspires, utters a tremendous denunciation of woe upon the nuptials. Before a shaft could fly, the path was vacant.'-Vortigern alone recognises Merlin, and moans' his name in anguish. This is finely imagined. A slight inaccuracy may be remarked in the manner of the recognition by Vortigern. It must be remembered that the persons on the stage at present are Samor and and Elidure: they are seeing the procession from some distance. In the main action of his poem, a poet by tacit compact is allowed to be omniscient and all-seeing; we allow him to tell us what is passing in the hearts even of his personages, and never ask how he learned the secret. But his personages themselves are not so unlimited; they can only be allowed to see, hear, and know, according to the faculties of their nature. Now in the present instance the procession is not the main action, but it bears the same relation to it which a picture introduced in a picture, or a play in a play, bear respectively to the picture or play which contain them; that is to say, they are wholly subordinate to them. The poet then must divest himself of his own unlimited faculties, and describe nothing relating to the procession, which those who are the main subjects could not have seen and heard. But, to mention one instance of the violation of this rule, it is clear that Samor and Elidure could not from the place of their concealment have heard Vortigern moan the name of Merlin-this therefore should have been omitted. A more obvious, and less pardonable fault remains to be commented on in the denunciation. Here again it is Mr. Milman who speaks, and not Merlin-it is the youthful poet, high in spirits, rioting in the luxuriance of words and ideas, and delighting to toss them about in point and antithesis, not the aged, woe-begone, and austere prophet. If we can be sure of any thing that is matter of taste and judgment, we are sure that the denunciation should have been short and solemn; the poet has made it long, brilliant, and ironical. Irony is always a dangerous weapon, but in epic poetry especially the mightiest master should strike but a single blow with it, it can scarcely ever be in his hands safely for more than an instant at a time. Mr. Milman has used it once or twice with success, but what can we say to such lines as these, among many others? 'I see the nuptial pomp, the nuptial song I hear; and full the pomp, for Hate, and Fear, And excellent Dishonour, and bright Shame, And rose-cheek'd Grief, and jovial Discontent, And that majestic herald, Infamy, And that high noble Servitude, are there, A blithesome troop, a gay and festive crew. And the land's curses are the bridal hymn; Sweetly and shrilly doth the accordant isle Imprecate the glad Hymenæan song.'-p. 40. Statius might have written such lines, but if, as we think probable, Mr. Milman took the first hints of his incident from the awful dou #gopla of the Agamemnon, or the mournful elegy of Andromache, |