⚫ et celebratur;'-from which it is quite clear, that the Archbishop did not separate the king from his mistress, but that Edgar continued to cohabit with her, or, as Malmsbury expresses it, Non semel in thoro suo collocavit,' till she had brought him a child; after which, she retired of her own accord to a convent, like another Soeur Jeanne, to edify or provoke its inmates with her repentance. The merit of the separation is, therefore, due to the lady, and not to the prelate, who seems to have tolerated the scandal for the sake of the penance. Hume, it must be owned, has not related all the particulars of the expiation prescribed by the Archbishop for this offence. But how does it happen, that Mr Lingard, who reproaches him with so much petulance for his carelessness in that respect, should himself have overlooked, or kept out of sight, one of the most important articles of the penance? Clericos etiam male actionales de ecclesiis propelleret, monachorum agmina introduceret.'* The omission of this clause is the more remarkable, because it is the beginning of a sentence, on the remaining part of which, Mr Lingard has not disdained to bestow a note, in order, in the first place, facetiously to claim, and then studiously to reject, for Dunstan, the honours of a reformer.' It was surely incumbent on the historian of the Anglo-Saxon Church, not to have neglected so favourable an opportunity of showing how skilfully St Dunstan could extract good from evil, and build on the sins of the king the salvation of his subjects. We must now take leave of Mr Lingard. We can safely recommend his book for the curious matter it contains, and the agreeable style in which it is written. Its defects are perhaps inseparable from the nature of his subject. Candour and impartiality are least of all to be expected from ecclesiastical historians. The contests of theologians have few attractions. Their disputes, though acrimonious, are unintelligible. Their victories, when not supported by fire and faggot, are always dubious. Their records are dull,-their volumes heavy,—their style and matter equally repulsive. No one can wade through such difficulties, and gain a competent knowledge of their controversies, who is not impelled and supported by a spirit of bigotry, which renders his labours altogether useless; because, even though it were possible his intentions could be honest, no confidence can be reasonably placed in the accuracy of his discern ment. *Anglia Sacra, tom. ii. p. 111. ART. IV. The White Doe of Rylstone; or the Fate of the Nortons: a Poem. By WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 4to. pp. 162. London, 1815. THIS, HIS, we think, has the merit of being the very worst poem we ever saw imprinted in a quarto volume; and though it was scarcely to be expected, we confess, that Mr Wordsworth, with all his ambition, should so soon have attained to that distinction, the wonder may perhaps be diminished, when we state, that it seems to us to consist of a happy union of all the faults, without any of the beauties, which belong to his school of poetry. It is just such a work, in short, as some wicked enemy of that school might be supposed to have devised, on purpose to make it ridiculous; and when we first took it up, we could not help fancying that some ill-natured critic had taken this harsh method of instructing Mr Wordsworth, by example, in the nature of those errors, against which our precepts had been so often directed in vain. We had not gone far, however, till we felt intimately, that nothing in the nature of a joke could be so insupportably dull;-and that this must be the work of one who honestly believed it to be a pattern of pathetic simplicity, and gave it out as such to the admiration of all intelligent readers. In this point of view, the work may be regarded as curious at least, if not in some degree interesting; and, at all events, it must be instructive to be made aware of the excesses into which superior understandings may be betrayed, by long self-indulgence, and the strange extravagances into which they may run, when under the influence of that intoxication which is produced by unrestrained admiration of themselves. This poetical intoxication, indeed, to pursue the figure a little farther, seems capable of assuming as many forms as the vulgar one which arises from wine; and it appears to require as delicate a management to make a man a good poet by the help of the one, as to make him a good companion by means of the other. In both cases, a little mistake as to the dose or the quality of the inspiring fluid may make him absolutely outrageous, or lull him over into the most profound stupidity, instead of brightening up the hidden stores of his genius: And truly we are concerned to say, that Mr Wordsworth seems hitherto to have been unlucky in the choice of his liquor-or of his bottle holder. In some of his odes and ethic exhortations, he was exposed to the public in a state of incoherent rapture and glorious delirium, to which we think we have seen a parallel among the humbler lovers of joldity. In the Lyrical Ballads, he was exhibited, on the whole, in a vein of very pretty deliration; but in the poem before us, he appears in a state of low and maudlin imbecility, which wouki not have misbecome Master Silence himself, in the close of a social day. Whether this unhappy result is to be ascribed to any adulteration of his Castalian cups, or to the unlucky choice of his company over them, we cannot presume to say. It may be, that he has dashed his Hippocrene with too large an infusion of Jake water, or assisted its operation too exclusively by the study of the ancient historical ballads of the north countrie.' That there are palpable imitations of the style and manner of those venerable compositions in the work before us, is indeed undeniable; but it unfortunately happens, that while the hobbling versification, the mean diction, and flat stupidity of these mo dels are very exactly copied, and even improved upon, in this imitation, their rude energy, manly simplicity, and occasional felicity of expression, have totally disappeared; and, instead of them, a large allowance of the author's own metaphysical sensibility, and mystical wordiness, is forced into an unnatural combination with the borrowed beauties which have just been mentioned. The story of the poem, though not capable of furnishing out matter for a quarto volume, might yet have made an interesting ballad; and, in the hands of Mr Scott, or Lord Byron, would probably have supplied many images to be loved, and descriptions to be remembered. The incidents arise out of the shortlived Catholic insurrection of the Northern counties, in the reign of Elizabeth, which was supposed to be connected with the project of marrying the Queen of Scots to the Duke of Norfolk, and terminated in the ruin of the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, by whom it was chiefly abetted. Among the victims of this rash enterprize was Richard Norton of Rylstone, who comes to the array with a splendid banner, at the head of eight tall sons, but against the will and advice of a ninth, who, though he refused to join the host, yet follows unarmed in its rear, out of anxiety for the fate of his family; and, when the father and his gallant progeny are made prisoners, and led to execution, at York, recovers the fatal banner, and is slain by a party of the Queen's horse near Bolton priory, in which place he had been ordered to deposit it by the dying voice of his father. The stately halls and pleasant bowers of Rylstone are wasted and fall into desolation; while the heroic daughter, and only survivor of the house, is sheltered among its faithful retainers, and wanders about for many years in its neighbourhood, accompanied by a beautiful white doe, which had formerly been a pet in the family; and continues, long after the death of this sad survivor, to repair every Sunday to the church-yard of Bolton priory, and there to feed and wander among their graves, to the wonder and delight of the rustic congregation that came there to worship. This, we think, is a pretty subject for a ballad; and, in the author's better day, might have made a lyrical one of considerable interest: Let us see, however, how he deals with it since he has bethought him of publishing in quarto. The First Canto merely contains the description of the doe coming into the church-yard on Sunday, and of the congregation wondering at her. She is described as being as white as a lily, or the moon,-or a ship in the sunshine;-and this is the style in which Mr Wordsworth marvels and moralizes about her through ten quarto pages. What harmonious pensive changes Wait upon her as she ranges Round and through this Pile of state, To the open day gives blessedness. p. 9. The mothers point out this pretty creature to their children; and tell them in sweet nursery phrases Now you have seen the famous Doe! From Rylstone she hath found her way Her work, whate'er it be, is done, And she will depart when we are gone.' p. 13. The poet knows why she comes there, and thinks the people may know it too: But some of them think she is a new incarnation of some of the illustrious dead that lie buried around them; and one, who it seems is an Oxford scholar, conjectures that she may be the fairy who instructed Lord Clifford in astrology; an ingenious fancy which the poet thus gently reproveth Ah, pensive scholar! think not so! But look again at the radiant doe!' And then closes the Canto with this natural and luminous apostrophe to his harp. But, harp! thy murmurs may not cease, Thou hast breeze-like visitings; For a Spirit with angel wings Hath touched thee, and a Spirit's hand: A voice is with us-a command To chaunt, in strains of heavenly glory, A tale of tears, a mortal story! The Second Canto is more full of business, and affords us more insight into the author's manner of conducting a story. The opening, however, which goes back to the bright and original conception of the harp, is not quite so intelligible as might have been desired. The Harp in lowliness obeyed: And first we sang of the green-wood shade, And a solitary Maid; Beginning, where the song must end, Of love, upon a hopeless earth.' p. 25. This solitary maid, we are then told, had wrought, at the request of her father, an unblessed work.' A Banner-one that did fulfil The five dear wounds our Lord did bear.' p. 26. The song then proceeds to describe the rising of Northumberland and Westmoreland, in the following lofty and spirited Two earls fast leagued in discontent, Who gave their wishes open vent; The rites of ancient piety To be by force of arms renewed; Glad prospect for the multitude! And that same Banner, on whose breast The blameless Lady had exprest, Memorials chosen to give life, And sunshine to a dangerous strife; This Banner,' &c. p. 27. The poet, however, puts out all his strength in the dehortation which he makes Francis Norton address to his father, when the preparations are completed, and the household is ready to take the field. - Francis Norton said, |