ETHELFLED.*
Tnis is a very perfect specimen of one of the most perfect and har- monious, though least important and impressive, departments of English literature, the feminine delineations of what we may call pale life, and which bear to the pictures of the highest literary artists much the same relation which water-colours do to oil-pictures- clearer, simpler, easier to excel in, but not well suited for producing much body of effect, and leaving altogether the impression of a poorer instrument and a thinner and more surface delineation than the latter. Of this class of works, the authoress of " Mary Powell" has produced a great many very finely executed specimens. The colours are pure, delicate, and harmonious, but they are water-colours, and not very rich water-colours either. The class of sentiments with which her graceful works are diversified, are of that placid sort which, we sup- pose, render needlework so pleasant to even the most educated and thoughtful women ; those which flit through the mind casting pleasant and various tints on the different scenes of life, but which are by no means so engrossing as to render the guidance of the needle an in- terruption, or the effort to backstitch a bore. Men usually enjoy but little of these moods of conscious twilight sentiment, which eviaently are so pleasant to educated and uneducated needlewomen. Men are thinking very trivial thoughts at the idle times, when women are (far better) occupied in placid unmomentous feelings. The consequence is, that if a clever man without marked genius tries to write a novel, it is apt to be either an utter failure, or fatiguingly smart. They have no command of the numberless pleasant neutral tints which make the quieter class of lady-novelists such delightful reading for a tired mind. As a rule, a tame masculine novel is intolerable. 1Ve met with one only the other day, which tried to colour in ugh Church leanings, as Miss Sewell or Miss Yonge would have done. Instead of succeeding and giving us a deep impression of the attractiveness of that class of views, he induced a sudden sense of profound dejection, which could only be thrown off by throwing aside the work. The truth was, that he tried to paint quietly in water-colours, but had no placid sentiment in him ; it was allprosy. viewiness; he sought in vain for the tranquil interests which feminine sentiments afford to feminine artists of no greater intellectual power. The imaginative world lying between that of true genius and of mere taste seems reserved almost exclusively for feminine authors, though many of them rise far above it. Miss Brontë, for example, could not and we know did not, conceive her novels in the placid needlework mood. She and her sisters used to pace feverishly about their little room, as they " made out" their scenes, and you see it in the result. Their colours are laid on solid—sometimes confused and sometimes clear and strong ; but there is nothing in them of the watery clearness and delicacy.
This pale-tinted imagination is not unsuitable for painting the social surface of the Past—a purpose for which our present author uses it with great grace and success. The surface aspects of a life and manners that are long passed away may, of course, be partially restored, but it is impossible either to give or to require the same minute vividness in the portraiture which we may and do require from the painters of the life and manners around us. This is, no doubt, the main reason why men of great creative genius so often choose to throw back their pictures i
into the past. What they really have the impulse to paint is human character in its essence, and apart from the mere external incidents of time and circumstance. But it is far easier to bring this out, without startling men's taste, in relation to manners and times we know only by tradition, than in relation to those of which we can judge by our own every-day experience. Tennyson could never have painted so noble a Sing Arthur for us had he been trammelled by the fetters of modern customs. It is the very vagueness and gene- rality, the softened outline and broad effects of traditional manners, which suit them for the framework of great poetic conceptions. The softened colours and vaguer effects are chosen expressly in order to prevent the killing influence which modern detail has on such con- ceptions. But the very same faintness of detail which serves to bring out dramatic conceptions in their full force, and spares us the smothering effect of the manners photographed by our modern novelists, also makes the past a fit subject for those mild lunar imaginations which are scarcely capable of painting any very vivid pictures at all.
And of this class is the imagination of the present writer. She gives with great beauty and harmony all such general pictures of antique manners as thoughtful and delicate insight into the old traditions en- able her to catch. She throws herself back into the old scenery, and looks out upon it with her own mild, cheerful, and humorous intellect, and discerns there almost all that it is possible or desirable for a quick- sighted woman of the nineteenth century to discern in the ninth. And
* The Chronickr Ethetfied. Set forth by the Author of "Mary PowelL" Virtue, and Co. she calls up for us a refined halo of Anglo-Saxon customs and modes of thought, almost as vivid and much more interesting than her pictures of modern English life. For when she paints the latter we neces- sarily fudge her by a much severer standard than we can do while she paints the former, and as it wants the novelty of her old-world pictures, we are generally far less satisfied with a given measure of literary capacity. Nothing can be pleasanter than the volume before us. The tints arc all quiet and subdued, but all in harmony; and Ethelfled, the gentle, relined, shrewd abbess, who tells the story, is just the sort of quiet Englishwoman whom we have no difficulty in transferring to any age, whether or not we are committing an anachronism in so doing. For example, Ethelfled, who has a taste for art, and is much attached to her brother-in-law, Alfred the Great, has made a first attempt in illuminating a psalter for him. In the following pas- sage she describes the king's reception of her effort : " About an hour before sunset of the same day, my women having uncorded my chest, I took therefrom the Psalter I had illuminated at my loved mother's bedside, and placed it, not without a little secret elation, in the hands of the king. Thereon he, smiling and greatly content, called unto him Ethelswitha, that they its contents simultaneously might behold. Now I with modesty looked another way ; but anon, venturing to cast mine eyes to the king, I saw his eyebrows, which were very movable, quickly uprise and decline again, and his mouth betray that he was making merry at my expense. Then my face became suffused as if with the red colour of stibium,* and I said, You have shamed me, my king.' He said, Thy shame be upon me, my sister! Of a truth, to laugh at thee was inimannerfike, more especially for thy failing well to depict things thou haat never seen; but indeed, Ethelfled, these waves of the Red Sea look like frcet- wungs,t and these clouds like dumplings. Neither wet I how these warriors should escape being fined for carrying their spears so dangerously, nor why this giant's head should exceed in size his body unless to be the better mark. But be not discouraged, my sister, you need nothing but better teaching. Oh, that I in my boyhood had in many things been. better taught.' And after a good deal more parley that was delightsome and praiseful, albeit that sudden smile once and again lit up his face, he saith: Have you ever beard of the famous gospel of St. Cuthbert, commonly known as the Durham Book?' I said, ' I knew it had been transcribed and illuminated by the Bishop of Lindisfarne a hundred years ago, and that lie had been twenty-and-two years about it.' The king saith: Sister, believe me no great work was ever perfected in a hurry. It was by labour and patience that the bishop made his book worth a royal ransome. I have desired that mine eyes should see it long time, but would not send spears and horses so far in troubled times only myself to please. Nevertheless, now that it may profit you to see the book, I will send. It may be that the monks will lend it to me on pledge, or on the word of a king.' Thereafter he praised my delineations of herbs and flowers, my colours of red and of blue, and the smoothness of my parchments: howbeit, when I to my chamber retired that night, I was disturbed that my limnings had made merry the king, and was ready to wish that I had not shown them unto him. Then saw I how far the pleasure of executing a work of Art exceedeth the pleasure of having it apprized by others when ywrought ; for sympathy is pleasant, and praise is pleasant, but the excellency of Art is that it is all-sufficient in itself. To conclude, I, Ethel- fled, thus mused in my mind: ' Thou, 0 king, hest many painful, many weariful hours ; and is it not a good thing that even at mine own expense, I, for a little, should have made thee merry, my brother.' "
The whole picture of Ethelfled's life, both in her father's house, and afterwards as a nun and abbess in her convent, is exceedingly fresh and pleasing, if not altogether free from the influence of modern Pro- testant notions. Chosen at a very early age to be abbess, she thus recounts with pleasant vanity one or two of her early trials as a ruler :
" It was dinner-time and on a fast day, when I left my retreat and took the Abbess's place at table. Every eye was fixed on me. It fell that day that our fish was not dressed with the usual care. Howbeit, I made no comment, but eat thereof sparingly and without egg-sauce, to which the others helped themselves plentifully. The novice whose turn it was to read, delivered to us the life or Egbert, the priest who lived upon bread and milk, and I was musing thereon after she had come to an end, without witting that all had finished, when sud- denly becoming aware that from me was expected a benediction, I with some fervour ejaculated the Ceorl's grace, ' Thanks be to God for my good dinner;' and immediately noting thereupon a general smile, if not on the lips, yet in the eyes of all present, I looked at them steadfastly, and with great deliberateness and determination repeated, Children, let us thank God for our good dinner,' and then pronounced the Latin benediction. Every eye sank before mine."
We are afraid that there is some colouring of modern views here and there in the chronicle. The following development of the bath- gospel of modern times is scarcely perhaps truly antique :
" Now while I was at my pen, the sisters were mostly at their needles. Their embroidery was a very miracle for delicateness, and as it was much in request in the world without, and brought no small gain unto the Abbey, they were habituated to work garments of empty pride in diversified colours, which I, Ethelfled, secretly thought inconsistent with their profession. For had they not by their own examples borne testimony against the wimples and the tunics of this world, the crtels, mentels, and the fine linen? And had they not adopted instead of, a stomacher, a sackcloth, and instead of well-set hair, bald- ness? and, I was nigh to saying, instead of much washing and bathing, a great indifference to the application of fresh water ? Sorry am I to say it, but so it was. Never have I yet been able to understand why, to present the cleaner heart unto God, we should go with unwashen hands. Never could I see the peculiar sanctitude of St. Cuthbert's practice of wearing his leathern boots, day and night, for months together, till they dropped off his feet. Nor was there anything I less admired in Queen Etbeldreda, Abbess of Ely, than her wearing none but woollen undergarments and rarely using a hot-bath. Howbeit, these things must, of course, be approached with reverence. And there may be some- thing very improving in dirt, though I, Ethelfled, have never been able to find it, but, on the contrary, have always endeavoured to inculcate among the poor that resorted unto me for an alms, that cleanliness was next to godliness."
From these extracts our readers will sufficiently gather the nature of the literary merit of this book. The execution is exceedingly finished, and no portion of it duller than, or inferior to, the rest. It Is a tranquil refiexion of the features which chiefly strike an educated woman's eve in reading of the old Anglo-Saxon times, rendered bri.ghter and more interesting by the noble figure of Alfred, round which the whole story is grouped. He is not, indeed, drawn with striking or masterly power, but then no attempt is made to probe the
• Rouge not unknown to the Anglo-Saxon ladies. The zigzag ornament so often seen in Saxon architecture.
depths of his character. What we do see of him is bright and pleasant—the image of a self-possessed, hopeful, and tranquil king, as he would be seen by a sister-in-law well inclined from the first to worship him, and so deeply impressed with his merits that she could not make up her mind to marry any who fell below that noble standard. She goes into a convent because she fancies that she can better aid and serve him thus by her influence in the church than in the world. Everything that is pleasant in her chronicle is connected with his appearance ; everything sad, with his reverses. There is a truthful tranquillity about the whole book which contrasts very pleasantly with the forced intellectual efforts by which Bulwer and other historic novelists of the high-art school try to restore the past. Distance in time, like distance in space, necesbarily subdues all vivid colours : and those who would give its anything like true pictures of the past, must be content with quiet general effects, and resign the pleasure of startling us with obtrusive details.
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