List! the charger's trampling heel! VI. Mercia's warriors never shrank Boast the Cambrian and the Dane; VII. Seven Earls of Anlaf's train Ghastly strew'd the sodden plain.- From her fleet and army lost. VIII. But the Chieftain of the North, IX. And the fallen Constantine, Shorn his crest, and marr'd his shield, Even from Tweed to Holy Kilda, x. Blackening on the blasted heath He could not save him from the falchion's power. To wail the young in war, the lad with golden hair, He wept his princely dead, and cursed that bitter hour. ΧΙ. Ne'er shall haughty Anlaf boast, Nor the remnant of his host, That their swords in combat smote With th' accustom'd strength of yore : Ne'er th' assemblies of the mote Shall they lead in counsel more : Never shall they now rejoice In the heaps of slain and dying XII. Scarce a broken band See the Northern warriors meet, 'Gainst this hostile strand; XIII. And the Saxon Brothers, fraught With the spoil of chiefs renown'd, XIV. With the dead, they left afar xv. Noblest blood flow'd free as water; Like a cloud upon our coast, NOTES. "Our Sovereign Athelstan." This King was the natural son of Edward the Elder, but the stain in his birth was not, in those times, deemed so considerable as to exclude him from the throne. Athelstan is regarded as one of the ablest and most active of our ancient Princes: he died at Gloucester in the year 941, after a reign of 16 years, and was succeeded by Edmund his legitimate brother [mentioned in the ode].-Hume, vol. i. p. 136, &c. "Mercia's warriors never shrank," &c. Mercia, the largest, if not the most powerful, kingdom of the heptarchy, comprehended all the middle counties of England; and, as its frontiers extended to those of all the other six kingdoms, as well as to Wales, it received its name from that circumstance.-Hume, vol. i. p. 63. "From the hordes of Anlaf :-" Anlaf was the son of Sithric, a Danish nobleman, on whom Athelstan had conferred the title of King of Northumberland, because the inhabitants of that country bore with impatience the English yoke. On the death of Sithric, which happened very shortly afterwards, Anlaf, and his brother Godfrid, assumed the sovereignty without waiting for Athelstan's consent. They were, however, soon expelled by the power of that monarch. Anlaf subsequently entered into a confederacy with Constantine King of Scotland; and having collected a great body of Danish pirates, whom he found in the Irish seas, and some Welsh princes, who were terrified by the growing power of Athelstan, he made, in conjunction with the numerous forces of the Scottish King, an irruption into England. This great army was signally defeated, in a general engagement, at Brunsbury (or, as formerly called, Brunanburgh), by the English troops under Athelstan, anno Domini 938. Holy Kilda." Saint Kilda is one of the Hebrides, and the most westerly island of Great Britain. There is no land between it and North America. (It is not introduced in the original ode.] "The mote." The word "ward-mote" is still in constant use to express a meeting of the principal inhabitants of the ward. "Eblana's ancient halls." Eblana was the early name of Dublin, or of a town on the spot where Dublin now stands. RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW. MIDDLE-AGE LATIN POETRY. - Collections of Grimm and Haupt :-Hilarius.* AMIDST so much that has been done of late to make the world acquainted with the poetry of the Middle Ages, we are glad to see that at last some attention begins to be paid to the Medieval Latin writers. It is a mistake to suppose that this old literature is interesting only to the antiquary. It possesses many intrinsic and original beauties, and it is deeply interesting in one point, viz. that, whilst the poetry of the present (and of all ages of refined society) represents only the thoughts and feelings of its authors, that of the middle ages spreads before us the character and sentiments of nations. In the Latin Poetry, it is true, we must not look for the chaste beauties of the Augustan age. The Latin of the middle ages was a spoken language, and those who wrote in it created words, and took liberties, and used forms and constructions, which are barbarous to those who look upon it simply as the language of ancient Rome. The pure Hexameters and Elegiacs of the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries, are, however, often elegant and correct: for ourselves, we do not like the harsh jingle of the formal Leonines; but it is in the simple rhiming verse, used, with short measure, for songs and satire, where all shackles and imitation of purer Latin is thrown aside, that we find the spirit and the peculiar beauties of the poetry of the darker ages. The poems now published by Grimm and Schmeller, written during the tenth and eleventh centuries, are chiefly valuable for their intimate connexion with the earliest cycles of German romance. The first poem it contains, entitled Waltharius, relates a romantic incident connected with the invasion of the Frankish provinces by the Huns. In one of their excursions, the Huns, under their redoubtable leader Attila, exacted a tribute from the Franks, the Burgundians, and the Aquitanians, and carried off with them as hostages Hagen (a noble youth of Burgundy), Walthere, the hero of the story, and son of Alfhere king of Aquitaine, and Hiltgunt, daughter of Herric king of the Burgundians, for it seems to have been the custom for the tributary kings to send their * Lateinische Gedichte des x. and xi. Jh. herausgegeben von Jac. Grimm and Andr. Schmeller. 8vo. Göttingen. 1838. London, Schloss. Exempla Poesis Latinæ Medii Ævi, edita a Mauricio Hauptio Lusato. 8vo. Vienna, 1234. London, Schloss. Hilarii Versus et Ludi (edited by Champollion Figeac). 12mo. Paris, Techener, 1838. London, Pickering. own children as hostages. We may, perhaps, venture to doubt the truth of the declaration with which Attila receives the messenger who is sent by the tributary king to his camp : "Federa plus cupio quam prælia mittere vulgo. While their children were yet infants, Alfhere and Herric had negotiated a marriage between Walthere and Hiltgunt. In the court of Attila, Hiltgunt was soon a favourite with the queen of the Huns, and Walthere became a great hero, led the armies of the Huns, and was famed far and wide for his strength and his courage. On a time, Hagen, one of the hostages, escaped from Attila's court, and went home. The queen of the Huns, fearful that Walthere may follow his example, advises her husband to offer him one of the princesses of his court to wife, with the hopes of retaining him who had now become the great staff of the kingdom. Walthere evades the proposition, and regains Attila's confidence; but he was none the less determined to fly. He had, however, other reasons for declining the marriage; he loved his betrothed, Hiltgunt, and waited an opportunity of carrying her with him. After having acquainted the lady with his project, and prepared every thing for putting it in execution, he invites Attila and his queen and the whole court to a feast, and makes them all so drunk, that they were none of them in condition to leave their beds until late the next day. In the mean time, the hero and his intended bride, who had purposely kept themselves sober, mounted swift horses, and, carrying with them rich treasures, were far advanced on the road towards Aquitaine. They travelled on for many days, continuing their journey by night and hiding themselves in the woods by day. Walthere had provided fishing tackle, and they lived on the fish which he caught in the numerous rivers which they met with. He also caught birds, but the mode by which he entrapped them is rather schoolboy-like : "Atque die saltus arbustaque densa requirens, On the fortieth day they reached the banks of the Rhine, not far from the city of Worms, the seat of the Frankish court. Gunthere was at this time king. One day there were strange fishes, such as seldom were caught in the rivers of France, served on the table; and when the man who had sold them was examined, he said that they had been given him by a warrior, accompanied by a lady, as the payment of his fare for carrying them in his boat across the river. Gunthere immediately guessed the quality and name of the traveller, and resolved, rather contrary to the rules of hospitality, and in spite of the expostulations of Hagen, who knew that Walthere was a rough person to deal with, to follow him and rob him both of his treasure and his lady. "Unum dico tibi," says Hagen, “regum fortissime, tantum, Walthere, though not aware of the treachery intended against him, had chosen his resting-place in a cave on the top of a mountain, which rose in the midst of a wild wood, and which could only be approached by one person at a time. Here the Franks attacked him; and, after he had performed prodigies of valour, and slain some of the bravest warriors of Gunthere's court, they leave him, with the intention of watching his steps and attacking him in the plain. The hero recognised Hagen at a distance by his shield. We learn also in this part of the poem that Walthere's armour was made by Weland the smith, and that its excellency on one occasion saved the hero's life, when he was taken somewhat unawares : "Ecce repentino Randolf athleta cavallo, The next morning Walthere again sets out on his journey, but he is overtaken by Gunthere and Hagen, and a terrible combat ensues, which ends by Walthere's chopping off King Gunthere's leg, and knocking out Hagen's eye and six of his teeth, and by Hagen's cutting off Walthere's hand: whereupon they all become friends, sit them down together on the grass, call the maiden to bind up their wounds and give them something to drink, and then become facetious on each other's losses. The poem contains between fourteen and fifteen hundred lines, and is supposed to have been written in the tenth century. The story is well told, and is the more interesting because it was composed at a period when the state of society it represents was still present before people's eyes. The Waltharius is followed by another early Latin poetical romance on the adventures of a hero called Ruotleib. All that remains of this poem consists of nineteen fragments, taken from so many scraps of vellum found at the beginnings and ends, and in the covers, of old manuscripts, and amounting in all to upwards of two thousand lines. The third poem in the collection is entitled Ecbasis cujusdam Captivi per tropologiam: its plot is laid in the year 812, and it was no doubt intended for a pungent satire; but the persons against whom it was directed are concealed under the names of the wolf, the fox, the calf, the lion, and so forth. If Grimm judge right that it is of the tenth century, it is interesting as being by far the earliest poem belonging to the famous cycle of Reynard the Fox. An isolated fragment of the poem of Ruotlieb first appeared in the little collection by Dr. Haupt, the title of which we have given at the beginning of our article, along with the Milo of Matthæus Vindocinensis, and two other smaller poems. An appendix to Grimm's collection contains four Latin songs of the eleventh century from a Cambridge MS.; a song of the eleventh century (which is also connected with the Reynard cycle), entitled Gallus et Vulpes; and a longer poem called Unibos, which relates how by a concurrence of tricks and accidents a simple countryman contrives to cheat all his neighbours, and bears some analogy to an Anglo-Latin poem entitled Descriptio Norfolciensium, which we shall shortly have occasion to notice.* We need scarcely add, that the tolerably extensive dissertations with which Grimm and Schmeller have accompanied these poems, like every thing which comes from these two great scholars, are full of erudition. The little collection of Latin poems published published by Techener was edited by M. Champollion-Figeac, of the Royal Library, where is preserved the manuscript from which they are taken. Hilarius appears to have been an Englishman, and was certainly a disciple of the famous Abelard, one of the songs being addressed to that philosopher. On the whole, Hilarius's poems are not edited with much taste: we entirely disapprove of the re-production in Latin texts of all the obvious blunders of the scribes, which can serve no other purpose than to embarrass the reader; and we would recommend M. Champollion, another time, instead of giving the corrections at the bottom of the page, to give them always in the text, and indicate the errors in the notes. Several of Hilarius's poems are addressed to nuns, who were most of them English by birth. The first piece in the volume is in praise of Eve, who had been consecrated by her parents in an English monastery : "Providerunt quendam locum qui erat in Anglia, We do not see in the third line of this extract the difficulty which M. Champollion seems to point out by his knotty insertion (sic), but are inclined to * Published in the Early Mysteries and other Latin Poems of the Middle Ages, recently edited by T. Wright, esq. M.A. F.S.A. Nichols and Son. Edit. |