BOOKS.

MR. DE VERE'S LEGENDS OF THE SAXON SAINTS.* WE prefer Mr. de Vero as a dramatist to Mr. de Vere as the writer of idyls or lyrical pieces, for his dramatic instinct is keen, and gives an effect of strength and unity to his "Alex- under the Great" and "St. Thomas of Canterbury," such as we fail to find in the often beautiful, but much less effective, poems which he produces in his purely contemplative moods. Never-

theless, though the Legend8 of ad &Moil, .Sirrilatti will not compare in general power with either of the fine plays we have named, —plays whose poetic strength, though not generally recognised, seems to us superior even to that of QUCeM Mary which is far the best of the Laureate's efforts in the same line,—it is a book of much reflective beauty, in which we find, if not pre- cisely a picture of the age to which it relates, at least a picture of the typo of mind which diffused the finest spiritual leaven of that age. The type of maid which is pictured in these pages,—a type of mind of which we have now far too few speci- mens,—is evidently the mind of the poet himself,—a, mind a little devoid of interest for the common affairs of the world, a little blank in its bearing towards the interests of earthly care and ambition, blank with the luminous blankness, we mean, of the

old Giotto frescoes, but showing an inward brightness, the signi- ficance of which is hardly apparent to ordinary observers, be- cause a sort of film is interposed between it and them, a film of separating interests which half veils tte author's mind from theirs, as the moon is sometimes veiled by a thin, transparent

mist. Mr. de Vera has given so fine a picture of this sort of half moon-struck brightness of mind, as it would seem to the

triflers of the world,—of this false semblance of vacancy which of the whole thoughts,—in his arises from the inward-turning fine picture of" Ceadmon the cow-herd, the first English poet," that we must quote his description of the old Yorkshire vision- ary, who divided his heart between his cows and the spiritual aspects of God's earth :— " Alone upon the pleasant bank of Bak Ceadmon the Cowherd stood. The sinking sun Reddened the bay, and fired the river-bank,

And darned upon the ruddy herds that strayed

Along the merge, clear-imaged. None was nigh :

For that cause spelt() the Cowherd, Praise to God!

Ho made the worlds; and now, by Hilda's baud

Plantoth a crown on Whitby's holy crest

Daily her convent towers more high aspire : Daily ascend her Vespers. Hark that strain!' He stood and listened. Soon tho flame-touched herds

Sent forth their lowings, and the cliffs replied,

And Coadmon thus resumed : The music note Rings through their lowings dull, though hoard by few; Poor kine, ye do your best ! "Ye know not God,

Yet man, his likeness, unto you is God, And him ye worship with obedience sage, A grateful, sober, much-endring race That o'er the vernal clover sigh for joy,

With winter snows contend not. Patient kine, What thought is yours, deep-musing P Haply this, r

"God's help ! how narrow are ou thoughts, and few ! Not so the thoughts of that slight human child Who daily drives us with her blossomed rod From lowland valleys to the pails long-ranged l" Take comfort, kine ! God also made your race! if praise from man surceased, from your broad chests That God would perfect praise, and when ye died, Resound it from yon rocks that gird the bay ; God knoweth all things. Lot that thought suffice Thus spake the ruler of the deep-mouthed kine : They were not his ; the man and they alike _A neighbour's wealth. He was contented thus : Humble ho was in station, mock of soul, Unlettered, yet heart-wise. His face was pale ; Stately his frame, though slightly bent by ago : Slow were his eyes, and slow his speech, and slow * Legends of the Saxon Saints. By Aubrey de Vero. London: C. E. Paul 84 Co.!

His musing stop; and slow his hand to wrath ; A massive hand, but soft, that mank a time Had succoured man and woman, child and beast, And yet could fiercely grasp the sword. At times As mightily it clutched his ashen goad

When like an eagle on him swooped some thought: Then stood he as in dream, his pallid front Brightening like eastern sea-cliffs when a moon Unrisen is near its rising."

That is the kind of mind which we see from the first the last,—the mind of one who stands as if " in dream, his pallid front Brightening like eastern sea-cliffs when a moon Unrison is near its rising."

It is the influence of a great dramatic situation which alone stirs Mr. de Yore into a mood of more vivid life, though not, perhaps, greater beauty than this. The moon actually rises on his drama ; but on his contemplative poems his muse gives out only such a light as when "a moon unrisen is near its rising." Very fine, too, is the picture of Caedmon's "song of creation" to the assembled guests in Whitby Abbey,—his un- conscious grasping after his goad, and seizure of the Crosier,-- and the poet's final complaint that now, whether audiences applaud the poet or condemn him, they alike fail to give him the sort of help which he needs, the help of that true spiritual accord with hie best thoughts, which alone lend heart and voice true boldness :— " Ceadmon from his knees Arose and stood. With princely instinct first The strong man to the Abbess bowed, and next To that great twain, the bishop and the king, Last to that stately concourse each side ranged Down the long hall; then, dubious, answered thus : Great Mother, if that God who sent the song

Vouchsafe to me to recall it, I will sing;

But I misdoubt it lost.' Slowly his face Down-drooped, and all his body forward bent While brooding memory, step by step, retraced Its backward way. Vainly long time it sought The starting-point. Then Ceadmon's large, soft hands Opening and closing worked ; for wont were they, In musings when he stood, to clasp his goad, And plant its point far from him, thereupon Propping his stalwart weight. Customed support Now finding not, unwittingly those hands Reached forth, and on Saint Fiban's crosier-staff Settling, withdrew it from the old bishop's grasp ; And Coadmon leant thereon, while passed a smile From chief to chief to see earth's meekest man Tho spiritual sceptre claim of Lindisfarne. They smiled I he triumphed : soon the Cowherd found That first fair corner-stone of all his song; Thence rose the fabric heavenward. Lifting hands, Once more his lordly music ho rehearsed, The void abyss at God's command forth-flinging Creation like a Thought ; where night had reigned, The universe of God. The singing stars

Which with the Angels sang when earth was made

Sang in his song. From highest shrill of lark To ocean's moaning under cliffs low-browed, And roar of pi no-woods on the storm-swept hills, No tone was wanting ; while to them that heard Strange images looked forth of worlds now-born, Fair, phantom mountains, and with forests plumed Heaven-topping headlands, for the first time glassed In waters over calm. O'er sapphire seas Green islands laughed. Fairer, the wide earth's flower, Eden, on airs unshaken yet by sighs From bosom still inviolate forth poured Immortal sweets that sense to spirit turned. In part those noble listeners made that song! Their flashing oyes, their hands, their heaving breasts, Tumult self-stilled, and mute expectant trance, 'Twas these that gave their bard his twofold might. That might denied to poets later born Who, singing to soft brains and hearts ice-hard, Applauded or contemned, alike roll round A vainly-seeking eye, and, famished, drop A hand clay-cold upon the unechoing shell, Missing their inspiration's human half."

But though the beauty of these legends chiefly consists in such pictures as these, of a mind half-averted from the world, of a mind sometimes in inward ecstacy, sometimes, as another poet describes it,— " Thus drugging pain by pationco,—half-averse From thine own mother's breast that knows not thee,"

yet there axe passages where Mr. de Vere'e muse awakens to it history of more outward things, and paints by a powerful touch or two the relation of the old paganism to the new spiritual

life he is trying to portray. This picture, in his proem, of a (somewhat imaginary) Odin, anticipating the education in

Scandinavian regions of the race he is supposed to lead North.

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wards from the Caucasus, after his defeat by Pompey, in order by hardening it in the grim North, to prepare it for its venge- ance on Rome HOMO centuries later, is full of vigour and fire. We will quote with it the short " argument " which gives Mr. do Yore's traditionary pretext for his picture :— " Odin, a Prince whe reigned near the Caspian Sea, after a vain resistance to the Roman arms, leads forth his people to the forests north of the Danube, that, serving God in freedom on the limits of the Roman Empire, and being strength- ened by an adverse (ghost% they may one day descend upon that empire in lust revenge; wideb destiny was fulfilled by the sack of Rome, under Alaria Christian King of the Goths, a raeo derived, like the Saxon, from that Eastern people.

Forth with those missives, Chiron, to the Invader ! Hence, and make speed : they scathe mine eyes like lire: Pompoins, thou heist conquered ! What remains ? Vengeance ! Man's race has never dreamed of such ; So slow, so sure. Pompoius, I depart : I might have hold those mountains yet four days: Them fifth had soon them thine- ] look beyond the limit of this night : Four centuries I need ; then comes mine hour.

What seal; the Accursed One of the Western World ?

1 hear oven now her trumpet ! Thus she saith : '1 have enlarged my borders : iron reaped Earth's field all golden. Strenuous fight we fought : I left some sweat-drops on that Carthage shore, Some blood on Gallic javelins. That is past !

My pleasant days are come my couch is spread

'Beside all waters of the Midland Sea ; By whispers lulled of nations kneeling round ; intoned by light of balmiest climes; refreshed By winds from Atlas and the Olympian snows : Henceforth my foot is in delicious ways : Bathe it, yo Persian fountains ! Syrian vales, All roses, make me sleepy with perfumes!

Caucasian cliffs, with martial echoes faint Flatter light slumbers ; charm a Roman dream !

I send you my Pompoius ; let him lead Odin in chains to Rome !' Odin in chains!

Were Odin chained, or dead, that God he serves Could raise a thousand Odins- Rome's Founder-King beside his Augur standing Noted twelve ravens borne in soquent flight • O'er Alba' s crags. They emblernod centuries twelve, The term to Rome conceded. Eight are flown ; Remain but four. Hail, sacred brood of night !

Hencefore my standards bear the Raven Sign, The bird that hoarsely haunts the ruined tower; The bird sagacious of the field of blood Albeit far off. Four centuries I need :

Then comes my day. My race and I are one.

0 Race beloved and holy ! From my youth Whereer a hungry heart impelled my feet, ,Whate'or I found of glorious, have I not • Claimed it for thee, deep-musing? Ignorant, first, For thee I wished the golden ingots piled In Smut and Eebatana:—ah fool !

At Athens next, treading where Plato trod, For thee all triumphs of the mind of man, And Phidian hand inspired ! Ah fool, that hour Athens lay bound, a slave ! Later to Rome in secrecy by Mithridates sent To search the inmost of his hated foe, For tlamo I claimed that discipline of Law

Which made her State one camp. Fool,.fool once more!

Soon learned I what a heart-pollution lurked Beneath that mask of Law. As Persia fell, By softness sapped, so Rome. Behold, this day, Following the Polo Star of my just revenge, I lead my people forth to clearer fates lihrough cloudier fortunes. They are brave and strong : "Pis but the rose-breath of their vale that rots Their destiny's bud =blown. I lead them forth, A race war-vanquished, not a race of slaves ; Lead them, not southward to Euphrates' bank, Not Eastward to the realms of rising suns, Not West to Herne, and bondage. Hail, thou North ! Hail, boundless woods, by nameless oceans girt, And snow-robed mountain islets, founts of fire ! Four hundred years ! I know that awful North !

I sought it when the one flower of my life Fell to my foot. That anguish set um free : it dashed me on the iron side of life: I woke, a man. My people, too, shall wake : They shall have icy crags for myrtle banks, Sharp rocks for couches. Strength ! I must have strength ; Not splenetic sallies of a woman's courage, But hearts to which self-pity is unknown : Hard life to them must be as mighty wino Gladdening the strong : the death on battle-fields Must seem the natural, honest close of life ; Their fear must be to die without a wound And miss Life's after-banquet. Wooden shield Whole winter nights shall lie their covering solo: Thereon them boy shall stem the ocean wave; Thereon the youth shall slide with speed of winds

Loud-laughing down the snowy mountain slope :

To him the Sire shall whisper as ho bleeds, 'Remember tho revenge Thy son must prove More strong, more hard than thou!' Four hundred years !

Increase is tardy in that icy clime, For Death is there the awful nurse of Life : Death rocks the cot. Why moot we there no wolf Save those huge-limbed ? Because weak wolf-cubs die. "Pis thus with mien; 'tis thus with all things strong :— Rise higher on thy northern hills, my Pine !

That Southern Palm shall dwindle."

That imaginary anticipation of Mr. Darwin's use of the principle of "natural selection by the conflict for existence" is very finely

put. And doubtless it adds greatly to the effect of these pic- tures, that the hard bottom of the Saxon character in its native

paganism is here HO powerfully prefigured.

We cannot truly assert that all the legends are on a level with the extracts we have here given. Doubtless some of them drag at times. We find, for instance, the legend called "The Vengeance of the Monks of Bardeney " a little unintelligible in motive and a little wearisome in execution; and "King Oswy of Northumbria," though redeemed by a noble battle-scene, is other- wise indistinct. Speaking of battle-scenes, we must give one more short extract, describing the battle of Oswald's Field, between the Christian Oswald and the Welsh invader Cadwal- Ion, also Christian, but in alliance with the Pagan. It shows Mr. do Vere in his most Homeric mood :—

" The sun uprose :

Ere long the battle joined. Three dreadful hours Doubtful the issue hung. Fierce Cambria's sons

With chief and clan, with harper and with harp,

Though terrible yet mirthful in their mood,

Rushed to their sport. Who mocked their hope that day P

Did Angels help the just ? Their falling blood, Say, leaped it up once more, each drop a man

Their phalanx to replenish P Backward driven,

Again that multitudinous foe returned With clangour dire ; futile, again fell back Down dashed, like hailstone showers from palace halls Where princes feast secure. Astonishment Smote them at last. Through all those serried ranks, Compact so late, sudden confusions ran Like lines divergent through a film of ice Stamped on by armbd heel, or rifts on plains Prescient of earthquake underground. Their chiefs Sounded the charge ;—in vain : Distrust, Dismay, Ill Gods, the darkness lorded of that hour : Panic to madness turned. Cadwallon sole From squadron on to squadron speeding still As on a winglul steed—his snow-white hair

Behind him blown—a mace in either hand—

Stayed while he might the inevitable rout : Then sought his death, and found. Some fated power Mightier than man's that hour dragged back his hosts Against their will and his ; as when the moon, Shrouded herself, drags back the groat sea-tides That needs must follow her receding wheels Though wind and wave gainsay them, breakers wan Thundering indignant down nocturnal shores, And city-brimming floods against their will Down drawn to river-months."

Had Homer understood the theory of the tides, we can well imagine his embodying a metaphor hardly more powerful than this in the greatest of the world's epics. Mr. de Vert: is not always equal to himself, but that a bright genius flashes at times from out of the too pallid lustre oven of his contemplative poems, no one who reads this volume intelligently will deny.