SIR WALTER SCOTT AND THE DIES IRE.

MHE controversy which has appeared, partly in these columns,

and partly in letters to the Pall Mall Gazette, on the subject of the originality which Mr. Gladstone lately attributed to Sir Walter Scott's "Hymn for the Dead " in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, seems to us to derive its chief interest less from the question directly at issue, than from the remarkable contrast to which it introduces us between the Dies lrm itself and the use which Sir Walter made of it. We cannot help holding so far with those who assailed Mr. Gladstone's criticism, that we think he greatly overrated Scott's general poetical genius, and yet we hold with him that this hymn is almost entirely original. The true test, we think, of so great a writer as Sir Walter Scott's acclimatization, if one may so speak, in any one department of literature, is the degree to which the special form to which he submits his genius seems to stimulate or to cramp its power. Compare Goethe's dramatic power when he writes in prose and when he writes in verse, and you will see at once the immense gain to him of the poetic form. It seems to us just the reverse with Sir Walter. No one, we think, will assert that, had Scott written only his poems, his name could possibly have attained any- thing like the eminence which it must still have had, had he never written a poem, but been known only by his prose fictions. The truth is that the poetical form in many directions simply cramped and paralyzed him. Verse stimulated what we may call the heroic side of his imagination ; it added to the rapidity and the vigour of his narrative ; it increased the rhetorical force of his declamation ; it set a rude music to the rough gallop of his Border chiefs ; it lent a strong effect of light and shadow to his free bold sketches of Highland or Lowland scenery ; but it entirely eclipsed his great dramatic power, and his rich free humour ; it turned him from one of the most real into one of the most vaguely ideal of romance-writers ; it obliterated his wonderful power of giving at once splendour and minutely life-like finish to historic portraits ; it banished all subtlety from his style. Think of Scott's empty romantic picture of James Fitz-James and, think of what the same writer would have made of him had he bean the subject of a novel, —compare this empty picture, for example, with the lustrous splen- dour of his delusive but still magnificent portrait of Mary Queen of Scots in The Abbot. Compare Roderick Dhu in the Lady of the Lake with the picture of Rob Roy's fierce, shrewd, humorous, cunning in the novel of that name. No one can avoid seeing for a moment that Sir Walter Scott's verse was a medium for only a very small part, and this, too, the least powerful part, of his creative genius. As he himself said in the fine verses to Erskine at the beginning of the third canto of Marmion :— "For I was wayward, bold, and wild, A self-willed imp, a grandame's child ; But, half a plague and half a jest, Was still endured, beloved, caressed. For me, thus nurtured, dost thou ask The classic poet's well-conned task ? Nay, Erskine, nay—on the wild hill Let the wild heath-bell flourish still ; Cherish the tulip, prune the vine, But freely let the woodbine twine, And leave untrimmed the eglantine Though wild as cloud, as stream, as gale, Flow forth, flow unrestrained, my tale."

Whatever Sir Walter Scott's rank as a poet, there can be little doubt that his verse was a far too inelastic medium for his great artistic powers. You might as well try to turn the Firth of Forth into the bed of a Highland torrent, as embody Scott's great creative art in the limits of that rugged, galloping verse which has little or no organic structure in it, no rest, no growth of separate -detail, no capacity for interior delicacies of structure. The wash of the sea, the sleep of the sunshine, the sighing of the wind, the flowering of sweet blossoms, have no reflection in Sir Walter's hasty, roughshod verse. It is full of an eager human, or rather equestrian movement, but has little play, and no still depths.

But as regards Sir Walter Scott's special appropriation of the Dies Irte to the hymn sung by the monks on occasion of the pilgrimage undertaken for the soul of the wizard Michael Scott, we must say that the completeness of the transformation can hardly be exaggerated. It is not so much that, of the twelve lines of this short hymn, we do not think more than four can in any sense have been borrowed from, or even suggested by, the Dies 1rx, but still more, that the whole movement and mood of the hymn is completely metamorphosed. The Latin Dies Ira, as we shall show presently, has a long, slow, meditative motion of its own, proper to the strictly individual mood of the spirit whose vision it is supposed to embody ; it is strictly an act of private devotion, 'a soliloquy cast in the school of the Augustinian theology, and carefully adapted to reduce the individual soul to complete despair, and then cast it in passionate trust on the love and mercy of the Redeemer. Its movement is almost exactly that of Tennyson's Two Voices,—each stanza being a triplet,—a metre curiously effective for the purpose of religious meditation, as our own great poet perceived. But Sir Walter Scott's "Hymn for the Dead" has the fervent clang of a chorus of many voices in it, realizing, in common for all awestruck hearts, the awful catastrophe of the universal judgment, and pouring out one united cry for mercy. Nor is this all. It would be a great mistake to ignore the place of this hymn in the Lay of the Last Minstrel. It is sung by the monks, as we have said, on occasion of the pilgrimage to implore rest for the soul of the great wizard, who is supposed to be still haunting the earth. It immediately follows, and is evidently intended to stand in the relation of a sort of religious pendant or rather superincumbent to, the pre- ternatural event in Branksome Hall, when the elfish page is snatched away amidst the crash of the elements. The dirge of judgment is specially elaborated to recall the lightning flash and rolling thunder which had so lately struck with awe the characters of the tale, and to remind us how vastly the imaginary terrors of the imaginary magician fall short of the sublimer catastrophe, which he, like all men, is delineated in prophetic vision as certain one day to encounter. This was the scene in Branksome Hall :—

" Then sudden through the darkened air

A flash of lightning came ; So broad, so bright, so red the glare The castle seemed enflame.

Glanced every rafter of the hall, Glanced every shield upon the wall, Each trophied beam, each sculptured stone Were instant seen, and instant gone ; Full through the guests' bedazzled band Resistless flashed the levin-brand, And filled the hall with smouldering smoke As on the elfish page it broke.

It broke with thunder long and loud, Dismayed the brave, appalled the proud, From sea to sea the larum rung.

At Berwick wall and at Carlisle withal To arms the startled warders sprung.

When ended was the dreadful roar, The elfish dwarf was seen no more."

That is the scene which is the immediate cause of the pilgrimage for Michael's Scott's soul, of which the poet says,—

" After such dreadful scene 'twere vain To wake the note of mirth again,"

—and, accordingly, instead of attempting this, he substitutes a brief description of the solemn pilgrimage, closing with this hymn of judgment, in which the merely preternatural gloom and terror produced by the wizard's power are completely merged and lost. No one can fail to see an intention of comparing the tenors of the legendary magician with the greater terrors beheld by prophets as likely to beset all men,—in the elaboration given to the middle verse of this great chant :--

" rimer FOR THE DEAD.

"That day of wrath, that dreadful day, When heaven and earth shall pass away, What power shall be the sinner's stay ? How shall he meet that dreadful day ?

"When, shrivelling like a parched scroll, The flaming heavens together roll ; When louder yet, and yet more dread,

Swells the high trump that wakes the dead,— " Yet, on that day, that wrathful day, When man to judgment wakes from clay, Be thou the trembling sinner's stay, Though heaven and earth shall pass away !"

In the controversy about the originality of this hymn, every one has noted that the lines commencing the second verse, and suggested by the second Epistle of St. Peter, are completely now; but so, in fact, are the last two lines of the same verse describing the thunder of the last trumpet, which are utterly different both in phrase and move- ment from those in the Dies Ira of which it is supposed that they are paraphrases. In truth, the verse is clearly intended to cap the preternatural flash and crack which turned the guests in Branksome Hall so white with fear, by the grander terrors which all souls are one day to encounter, and to fix the imagination on the only refuge from such terrors, whether imaginary or real. In fact, we may say that the whole purpose of Scott in this fine hymn is to adapt to this special purpose the prophetic vision of the last day, with its parting flame and rolling thunder, and the glimpses of the divine pity beyond.

Now turn to the Dies Ira itself, of which we furnish as good a version as we are able, line for line, beside the original,.—having departed from extreme literalness only when it seemed necessary to secure some approach to the spirit of the original :—

"Dies irae, dies ills Sol vet &velum in favilla, Tests David cum Sybilla.

" Quantus tremor est futarns, Quando Judea est venturus Cuncta strict° discussurus.

"Tuba mirnm spargens sonuns Per sepulchre regionnm Coget omnes ante Thronum.

"Mors stupebit et Natura Cum resurget creatura Judicanti responsara.

"Turn liber scriptas proferetur In quo totum continetur Uncle mundus judicetnr.

"Judea ergo cum sedebit Quidquid latet apparebit Nil 'milt= remanebit.

"Quid sum, miser, tune dictums. Qum patronum rogaturus Cum viz justus sit securas ?

"Rex tremendae majestatis, Qui salvandos salves gratis, Salva me, fens pietatis !

"Recordare, Jests pie ! Quod cum causa tuae viae No me perdas ills. die !

" Qaaerens me sedisti lassas, Redemisti crucem passus, Tantus labor non sit cassus "Juste Juder ultionis Donum fac remissionis Ante diem rationis.

"Ingemisco tanquam ronsr Culpa rubet valtus matte, Supplicanti parce, Dens!

" Qui Mariam absolvisti„ Qui latronem exaudisti, Mihi quoque spem dedisti: " Preces meae, non aunt diva& Sod ta bonus fee benign°, Ne perenni cremer igne.

"Inter eves locum praesta, Et ab haedis me sequestra, Statnens in parts destra.

"Confutatis maledictis, Flammis aeribus addietisi Voca me cum benedictis.

"Oro supplest at incliois, Cor contritnm quasi cinis,, Gere curam mei finis.

" The day of wrath, that haunting day

Shall the whole Age in ashes lay, Thus David and the Sybil say.

"What terror then shall seize the breast, When the great Judge is manifest To institute the awful quest !

"The trumpet sheds its thrilling tone Through the far tombs of every zone To force us all before the Throne.

"Nature and Death shall stand aghast When poor ephemera of the past Stand up to face their Judge at last.

"Then shall the book divine appear, Where every word of God stands clear, For which the world must answer here.

"And when begins the dread assize, Hid things shall flash before all eyes, And loss each guilty gain surprise.

"What shall my wretched spirit plead, What power invoke in that last need, When scarce the just is safe indeed ?

"Sov'reign of most dread majesty ! For heirs of grace thy grace flows free,—

Thou spring of love, shed grace on me !

"Forget not in that day of bale Why Thou didst tread this mortal vale, Nor let for me Thy ransom fail.

"In quest of me Thy feet were worn To ransom me Thy cross was borne Let not such love reap only scorn!'

"Just Judge, whose eyes strike sin- ners dumb, Blot out my sins' uncounted sum Ere the sure day of reckoning come.

"Forth at Thy bar I groan my dread, My guilty spirit blushes red, Spare, oh, my God ! the suppliant head.

"The Magdalen absolved by Thee, The thief saved on the accursed tree, How should they not bring hope to me ?

"My prayers are worthless, weak desires Save as thy holy love inspires,— Then snatch me from th' eternal fires.

"Grant me my place among Thy sheep, Far from the goats my footsteps keep, And where the left eternal weep.

"When the condemned are put to shame, And cast to the devouring flame, Oh! with the blessed call my name.

"With prostrate soul my head I bend,

My broken heart before Thee rend, Be Thine the care to guard my end.

"Rex tremendae majestatis, Qui salvandos salves gratis, Salva me, fons pietatis !"

This terse and majestic and intense verse is the very key of the whole hymn. It is an individual appeal on the part of an individual soul which has been following up slowly the whole train of thought connected with the scene in which it will have to play a part. And thus realizing that Christ's will to save is his only hope, the writer goes on to draw out a personal appeal to Christ why He should not lose even this single grain of His possible harvest. Was it not Christ's love for each individual sinner that brought Him down from heaven to earth, that moved Him to wander over the earth where He had no where to lay his head, that inspired Him when he sat weary by the well of Samaria, that led Him to bear His cross and endure his passion ? Should such acts as these fail of their effect, even in the case of the worst of sinners who desires to be saved ? The writer hopes nothing from his own prayers, but much from the love shown in the pardon of such sinners as Mary Magdalene and the thief upon the cross. The whole tenor of the hymn is one of personal appeal, of loving devotion, of humble contrition. When it is grandest it is sweetest, and contains least of physical imagery. It winds its long path of meditative Augustinian piety from the beginning to the close without a single peal of thunder like that of Sir Walter Scott's second verse. As it seems to us, no poems—so equally fine of their kind—could be cast in more different styles, or express more different moods of poetry, than Sir Walter Scott's "Hymn for the Dead," intended evidently as a fitting close to the legen- dary terrors of Michael Scott's sorcery, and the Dies Irm, by which it was avowedly suggested.

4' That day shall weep out its despair " Laerymosa dies ills When ashy earth and kindling air Cum resurget ex favilla, See man before the judgment-stair. Judieandus homo rens. Him in that day, 0 Jesus, spare I" Huie ergo paree Dens !"

Here there is absolutely no great scenic effect. The " shrivelling " heavens are not here ; and there is nothing at all to correspond to the crash of doom in Scott's- " When louder yet and yet more dread Swells the high trump that wakes the dead."

Spargens mirum sonum" is a phrase of infinite gentleness. The trumpet sheds (literally, "sprinkles") its music like a kind of vivifying light on the darkness of those far-distributed tombs. Sir Walter Scott's lines, if intended as a translation, could not have been a completer failure, but evidently they were not so meant. The " mirum sonum " was not 'wonderful' for its shock, but for its suasive coercion. It was of a silver-toned trumpet that the writer was, we suspect, thinking,—of flute-like notes, not of what we call the "crack of doom." All the grand verses of this hymn are those which describe the love of the Saviour, and the agony of entreaty on the part of the sinner. There is no grand physical imagery about it. It begins with a meditative statement of the fact of a day of judgment, calling witnesses that the writer may the better realize it,—" so David (i.e., the Psalmists) and the Sybil agree in asserting." Nothing could be more characteristic than this sign of the mood of individual meditation in which the whole is cast. Scott could not have put this line into his psalm without spoiling Ms drift altogether. Then the writer realizes what dread will fall on him when the time comes, when the trumpet breaks the silence of the tomb, and by an invisible compulsion charms all before the judgment-seat. Then, for the first time, he gets sublime, not at the physical grandeur of the scene, but at the stupefaction of Nature and Death at a resurrection of the creature,—" Mors stupebit et Natura." It is his first grand touch,—unless the very gentleness of the last trumpet, the " spargens mirum sonum," be itself a grand touch. Then the Bible is cited in a singularly prosaic verse as the record of revealed wisdom by which man shall be tried. The revelation of all secret sins follows, and as a consequence the helplessness of the sinner who should choose to be judged by his works. Then comes the grandest stanza of the whole, hinging entirely on the faith that God alone can justify, and even He perhaps only those who are predestined to salvation,—