definite prerogative, and able to do many | Magna Charta and Henry VIII., although violent acts, so far as regards individual that progress was arrested for a time in rights; the other, deprived of its old sup- the first years of the sixteenth century. ports, and as yet unorganized and uncon- He follows out the symptoms of this scious of its strength, yet, on the whole, growth in the great centers of English not unworthy of its trust, and jealous life, political, social, and ecclesiastical, in of any general encroachments. Simulta- a very clear and interesting manner; and neous with this political crisis is a mighty he carefully subordinates the course of his change in the national life-a change in- narrative to the carrying out of his main volving the gravest issues, and launching purpose. We could wish that he had England on a new era. The old bonds marked a little more clearly the enormous of feudalism break down, with the old change which the ruin of feudalism effectsystem of husbandry and population; the ed in the lower and middle classes of old modes of commerce, trade, and manu- England; though he has not failed to facture are felt to be gradually growing dwell on the fact, and he very properly obsolete; and new forces, ideas, and ener- refers to it afterward as one of the comgies, transform the altering frame of so- plex problems of the Reformation. Speakciety. It is in vain that law attempts to ing generally, we think more highly of his control, and to fix in the ancient ways and sketches of the social and ecclesiastical courses these novel elements in English condition of England, than of the imsociety. The fiat has gone forth that me- provements in her laws and constitution. dieval England is to be the England of He has given, we think, too little promimore modern times; and the whole nation nence to the law reforms of Edward I., gradually and unconsciously passes into a for there is no doubt that in that soverdifferent phase of existence. One insti- eign's reign the principles of our common tution alone remains, unchanged in out- law were laid down nearly as they exist; ward appearance at least from what it had that our system of tenures was settled on a been in the fourteenth century, and even basis which lasted untouched till the reign resting on a stronger foundation. The of Charles II.; that our courts were placed Church, which in the reign of Richard II. on their present footing in litigation beseemed likely either to fall altogether, or to tween subject and subject; and that subbe cut off from dependence on Rome, had sequent changes in their procedure are regained, at the accession of Henry VIII., merely expansions of powers then given its old ascendency and apparent influence, them. This extraordinary reform in our and was in the closest relations with the laws is a very curious problem in our hisPapacy. It was still a distinct estate of tory; and we think Dr. Vaughan has not the realm, with enormous privileges and discussed it with his wonted care, ability, exemptions from law, and since the fall and learning. In treating the constituof the feudal aristocracy it was dominant tional progress of England between the in the House of Peers. It had won the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, he right of crushing out heresy, in conse- comes in rivalry with Mr. Hallam, who quence of the reaction against Wyckliffe, has made this his particular study; and and it towered in the highest places of the though he deals with it carefully and land in the full pomp of opulence and dig-minutely, he has little space for originality nity. But it was mined by rank corrup- in this province. His summary, however, tion within; the vices, frauds, and exac is more interesting than Hallam's; and tions of the priesthood had made it a mark for popular hatred; and in its occasional immolations of some early martyrs to nascent Protestantism, it was kindling the fires of its own destruction.

In tracing out the character of this period, Dr. Vaughan has been, on the whole, successful, though, of course, he has not dealt equally fully with all the parts of his important subject. He has well worked out his cardinal idea of the progress of England in general prosperity between

though not so full of antiquarian research,
is probably nearly as useful to the student;
and it notices very fully and ably the
great reforms of the fourteenth century.
Perhaps it is somewhat wanting in its
estimate of the power which the Tudor
princes acquired on account of the fall of
the old noblesse; though it does not fail-
what Hallam omits to notice, besides,
the steady advance which the House of
Commons made at this period.
[TO BE CONCLUDED.]

From the North British Review.

EDWIN OF DEIRA.*

WE are the advocates of the real in | to "Anna's mighty mind," from that. poetry, as in art and in 'every thing, and love our brown loaf better than ambrosia, and claret at thirty shillings more than the mead of the Mysian Olympus. Such tastes are human and ignoble; but we are convinced that a greater amount of incomprehensible twaddle has been talked upon the "ideal" than upon any other mundane matter. The ideal! Except in the frost-bitten romance of the nursery, or during the revelries of the dear Christmas-tide, where does the "ideal" exist? The gauzy wings, and the brief and spangled petticoats, are yet, no doubt, unprofaned by an irreverent criticism.

which recognizes, in the simple and honest. words that Alfred Tennyson addresses to his Queen, a truer spirit of loyalty. In Poetry, too, as elsewhere, the old mythologies have" undergone the earth." The Spirit that had her haunt "by dale, or piny mountain, or forest, by slow stream, or pebbly brook," has vanished, and left no trace of her whereabouts. Where are Oberon and Titania? There is no moonlight now like that in the Midsummer Night's Dream. Never a witch rides to the "Brocken " on her broom; and when, in its mystic cauldron, her black broth simmers upon the stage, the gods laugh. Even the Hobgoblin has lost faith in him"Still in immortal youth Arcadia smiles." self, and cracks a jest upon his own nose. Jack still mounts his marvelous bean-Phillis, and Daphne, and Lavinia have been stalk; and Cinderella drops the fairy slip-forsaken by their swains; and the domesper, as she hurries from the enamored tic poet of the period presents his frigid prince. But the man who, in these days, affections to Mary Jane or Anna Maria. can sit down, and, in cold blood, indite a Our " Bridge of Sighs" crosses the unrotreatise on the "ideal," must be a lunatic, mantic, if not unmemorable river, which or a lover. The reign of chivalry is over; supplies Barclay and Perkins'. It was about time indeed that the roand the "ideal" has no place in a world which has been converted into an exten-mantic school should be abolished, when Mrs. Radcliffe and Monk Lewis had come The kindly old-fashioned Seasons, that to be its apostles. The thing had entirewe all remember so well, Summer, seatedly worn itself out: it was as dead as the Dead Sea-and the sooner it was put out on her tawny pard, and Autumn, crowned with yellow sheaves, and gray-bearded of the way the better. The fairy world Winter, shivering in his bear-skin coat, had been unpeopled; which it was not to have been clean swept away, and men of Shakspeare, though he rather inclines ocfine genius expend more "tender" la-casionally to quiz Peas-Blossom and Musbor on the berries of the mountain ash than on the blue eyes of Lesbia. Why not? Magna est veritas. Let us be true, and sincere, and conscientious, however dreadfully unpleasant we may make ourselves.

sive cotton-mill.

The triumph of the realistic school has been nearly as complete in Poetry as in Art. An immeasurable gulf divides the age which could relish the great Mr. Congreve's" stilted and artificial tribute

66

* Edwin of Deira, and other Poems. By ALEXANDER SMITH. 1861.

tard Seed. But Shakspeare had as real a faith in that world as in any other; it did not strike him with any sense of strangeness. Theseus, no doubt, declares, "I never may believe these antique fables and these fairy toys;" but the Master himself must be held to reply, in the words of Hippolyta, that even the tricks of the imagination are never altogether without warrant; and that, when thus transfigur ed, the story of the night,

"More witnesseth than fancy's images,

And grows to something of great constancy:
But, howsoever, strange and admirable."

Yet even Shakspeare rarely gives us more The nobler incidents of history (using the than a glint of moonlight. Ariel and Ti-word in its widest sense) are thus the matania are very well in their way; but Eng-terials which the poet must use, and, for lishmen need coarser food: moonbeams our part, we are disposed to hold that will not fill the stomachs of mortals; and these incidents should be chosen from the so, with his delightful ease, he turns the past rather than from the present. page, and the strong colorless light falls upon doughty burghers, and patriotic kings, and the passions which consume Lear, and Othello, and Juliet.

That the recoil has been somewhat excessive need not be denied. Reactions always are; and Mr. Buckle will be succeeded by a fanatical Joe Smith or an ultramontane priesthood. Wordsworth has a good deal to answer for in this respect. Steeped in poetry as he was, the bard of Rydal was jet utterly destitute of the faculty of selection, and he always showed himself quite unable to appreciate | the natural suitableness and the relative proportions of the subjects on which he worked. The result was, that in vindicating the real, he not unfrequently descended to what was essentially mean, trivial, and prosaic. Most of his disciples have kept in his track. The delicate revelries of the imagination, the stately discourse of kings and heroes, Belinda's charming burlesque, the polished couplet and the ringing epigram, have been exchanged for the sorrows of an idiot or the amours of the nursery-maid. The fair humanities of old religion, nay, even the ladies and gentlemen in the drawing-room, are scrupulously avoided, and the poet seeks the angel of the house in the scullery or behind the bar. This wretched mistake discredits the reformation. Homeliness is not neces

sarily poetic. It is pure caprice and wantonness to single out the ignoble incident in an ignoble carcer. The man who does so willfully cripples his art. The most exquisite genius is needed to conceal the essential meanness and poverty of many of the situations which Wordsworth selects; and, with all his enthusiasm, he fails to invest them with interest. Whereas a great theater the Thermopylae Pass, the Sacred Lagoon, the Plain of Marathon or of Troy-warms the imagination. It rouses the fire in the reader, and he comes prepared to own and to obey the spell.

The true domain of poetry may be said, in this aspect, to lie somewhere between the photograph and the fairy-land. Nei ther fairy nor photograph is touched by the authentic passion of the imagination; and, deprived of its heat, poetry dies.

Not that we by any means acquiesce in the opinion that the present time is necessarily prosaic. Every age has its own romance; and scraps of that romance are sometimes visible to, and sung by, the cotemporary poets. The Charge of the Light Brigade is already classic as one of Homer's battles. No tragedy in past history causes a thrill such as stirred Europe, the other day, when its greatest statesman died. Cavour's whole life, indeed, is a poem-none the less fascinating because the purity of his patriotism did not shrink from base allies and obscure intrigue. He may, like Robert Bruce, have deeply sinned; but he was true to freedom, and he died for his nation. It is impossible to touch pitch with impunity; but it can not be said to defile the man who devotes his life with incorruptible fidelity to a great cause, as it defiles the man whose aims are sordid and whose ambition is mean. The character of Cavour may continue to perplex the judgment of the formal moralist; but, as with the outlawed king, the higher and more religious instinct strikes home, detects the royal manhood behind, and pronounces ar. unfaltering absolution:

"De Bruce, tay sacrilegious blow

Hath at God's altar slain thy foe;
O'ermastered yet by high behest,

I bless thee, and thou shalt be blessed!"

And even the real life immediately about us still keeps its pathos. Love, anger, jealousy, despair, are potent under Victoria, as under Agamemnon or Lear. There

is not a household in the land where the

Great Sorrow is not felt-which the Destroyer does not enter-from which the Cry of the Human does not ascend to

heaven.

"O God! to clasp these fingers close,
And yet to feel so lonely;

To see a light on dearest brows,
Which is the daylight only.

Be p tiful, O God!"

Mrs. Browning's is a noble poem-alas! that she too should even to-day have dragged that sharp cry, not from one heart only, but from many who reverenced and loved the purity, and gentleness, and unquenchable energy, and vivid intelligence,

of a most helpful woman-but the subject it from languishing or growing tame. is one not easily exhausted. It will last Nor does his fertile pictorial faculty run our time-as also, let us trust, the Love to seed as it used to run; the tendency to which deprives his dart of its sting, and verbal conceits and remote prettiness is reaps victory through her tears. Such subdued; and when an analogy is intro. materials can the present time furnish to duced-for the dawn, and the sea, and the Tragic Muse; and for Comedy-Have the stars, are still visible-it is true, simwe not Vincent Scully and a whole island ple, and effective, and aids, instead of emof Irishmen ? barrassing, the progress of the story. In short, we every where detect the evidence of honest and thorough work, and the result is exactly what we might look for. Mr. Smith has written' a poem, which is marked by the strength, sustained sweetness, and compact texture of real life.

At the same time, as we have intimated, we incline to prefer the claim of History. When a poem possesses a historical basis, the risk of caricature is diminished. The poet who spins his web out of his own brain for any long time, "gangs aft agee;" whereas the poet who relies upon the facts which the unimaginative annalists of a people have recorded, is protected against the deceitfulness of the imagination, and brought back incessantly to reality. And, moreover, an event, as a whole and in its completeness, may be viewed with better effect when removed a little way from us. The pressure of the crowd partly conceals its proportions; but, in the silence of the, night-season, what is poetic in the story is disengaged from its casual environment, grows plainer and more distinctly arti

culate.

We have always held that there was the right stuff in Mr. Alexander Smith. We felt sure that one who united, as he did, the fire of the poet with the sagacity and moderation of the critic, would ultimately work clear of the fogs which obscured his genius. We are glad to find that we have not been mistaken. Mr. Smith has turned to history; and, guided by the Venerable Bede, has produced a thoroughly good piece of work. There can be no mistake about it. He has hitherto failed conspicuously in his choice of subjects; but his choice in this case is admirable. The story is rife with incident, and keeps the reader's interest awake from beginning to end. His plot, too, has been generally very defective: it wanted bone and muscle; but he has now got a historical framework which he is forced to respect, and which prevents him from running into unnaturalness. The morbid and diseased self-consciousness of the Life Drama is got rid of: the author of Edwin of Deira is beyond dispute an eminently healthy and well-conditioned mortal. The passion is no longer inverted or irregular; and, while it has ceased to consume itself in an explosive way, it continues to fire the narrative, and prevents

No doubt, the old cuckoo cry of plagiarism will be again heard. It will be said that Edwin of Deira is a mere echo of The Idylls of the King. We do not dwell upon the fact that Mr. Smith had planned and well-nigh executed his poem before the appearance of the Laureate's master-piece, (though we have the best reason to know that such is the case,) but we say that those who can not see that, however alike in certain subordidate respects the two works may be, Mr. Smith's is yet substantially original, must be quite unable to discriminate between the nicer moods of poetic feeling. We have no doubt that, were we to descend into the obscure arena, we could point out half a dozen passages--not more-in which there is a marked verbal resemblance between Edwin and the Idylls. But what of that? Can such coïncidences-lying upon the surface, and not affecting the internal structure and general bearing of the work

detract from the reputation of a poet who, in the conception and execution of his subject, shows vital force and essential originality?

Some critics, indeed, who desire to deal fairly and honestly with Mr. Smith, may say that his indebtedness does not end here. And in one sense they are right. Mr. Smith is undoubtedly indebted to the Laureate for the form of his verse. The Morte d'Arthur is, if not the first, at least the most perfect specimen, in our language, of a peculiar poetic construction. It is rather difficult to define precisely wherein its peculiarity consists. We may compare it, perhaps, with the paintings of some of the early artists-Cimabue or Giotto-or with the abstract representations of natural forms in architecture. It is plain, angular, unelastic; but in its lofty simpleness there is