Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 71, No. 436, February 1852

"But you, good Hubert, go before,Fill me a goblet of May-drink,As aromatic as the MayFrom which it steals the breath away,And which he loved so well of yore;It is of him that I would think.You shall attend me, when I call,In the ancestral banquet-hall."

Previous to retiring, however, he utters the following soliloquy, which we transcribe as a passage of considerable descriptive merit.

"The day is done; and slowly from the sceneThe stooping sun upgathers his spent shafts,And puts them back into his golden quiver!Below me in the valley, deep and greenAs goblets are, from which in thirsty draughtsWe drink its wine, the swift and mantling riverFlows on triumphant through those lovely regions,Etched with the shadows of its sombre margent,And soft, reflected clouds of gold and argent!Yes, there it flows for ever, broad and still,As when the vanguard of the Roman legionsFirst saw it from the top of yonder hill.How beautiful it is! Fresh fields of wheat,Vineyard, and town, and tower with fluttering flag,The consecrated chapel on the crag,And the white hamlet gathered round its base,Like Mary sitting at her Saviour's feet,And looking up at his beloved face!O friend! O best of friends! Thy absence moreThan the impending night darkens the landscape o'er!"

The scene then changes to the farm where Prince Henry is residing. Elsie, the farmer's daughter, scarcely more than a child in years, but a woman in tenderness and devotion, is as beautiful a conception as ever was formed in the mind of the poet. She resolves, in conformity with the mysterious remedy suggested by the doctors of Salerno, to offer her life for that of her Prince, and communicates her resolution to her parents. We regard this scene as by far the most touching in the drama; and, as we have quoted passages in which the author does not appear to great advantage, we gladly request the attention of the reader to extracts of another kind. We regret that our limits will not permit us to transcribe the scene at length.

URSULA"What dost thou mean? my child! my child!ELSIEThat for our dear Prince Henry's sake,I will myself the offering make,And give my life to purchase his.URSULAAm I still dreaming or awake?Thou speakest carelessly of death,And yet thou knowest not what it is.ELSIE'Tis the cessation of our breath.Silent and motionless we lie:And no one knoweth more than this.I saw our little Gertrude die;She left off breathing, and no moreI smoothed the pillow beneath her head.She was more beautiful than before.Like violets faded were her eyes;By this we knew that she was dead.Through the open window looked the skiesInto the chamber where she lay,And the wind was like the sound of wingsAs if angels came to bear her away.Ah! when I saw and felt these things,I found it difficult to stay;I longed to die as she had died;And go forth with her side by side.The saints are dead, the martyrs dead,And Mary, and our Lord; and IWould follow in humilityThe way by them illumined!URSULAAlas! that I should live to seeThy death, beloved, and to standAbove thy grave! Ah, woe the day!ELSIEThou wilt not see it. I shall lieBeneath the flowers of another land;For at Salerno, far awayOver the mountains, over the sea,It is appointed me to die!And it will seem no more to theeThan if at the village on market-dayI should a little longer stayThan I am used.URSULANot now! not now!ELSIEChrist died for me, and shall not IBe willing for my Prince to die?You both are silent; you cannot speak.This said I, at our Saviour's feast,After confession to the priest,And even he made no reply.Does he not warn us all to seekThe happier, better land on high,Where flowers immortal never wither;And could he forbid me to go thither?GOTTLIEBIn God's own time, my heart's delight!When he shall call thee, not before!ELSIEI heard him call. When Christ ascendedTriumphantly, from star to star,He left the gates of heaven ajar;I had a vision in the night,And saw him standing at the doorOf his Father's mansion, vast and splendid,And beckoning to me from afar.I cannot stay!"

We need not point out the exquisite simplicity of the language here employed, or the beauty and tenderness of the thought. It is in such passages that Mr Longfellow's genius is most eminently apparent; because in them all is nature, and there is no indication of a model. In his more laboured scenes there is generally an appearance of effort, beside the imitative propensity, to which we have already sufficiently alluded.

The acceptance of Elsie's offer, on the part of Prince Henry of Hoheneck, seems to be the turning-point of the story and the temptation. Here again Lucifer interposes, in the character of a monk, who, from the Confessional, gives unholy advice to the Prince; but this scene does not strike us with peculiar admiration. In brief, the offer is accepted. Prince Henry and the peasant's daughter set out together for Salerno, and the greater portion of the remainder of the drama is occupied with the description of their route, and what befel them on their way. Mr Longfellow has made excellent use of this dioramic method. He has contrived to throw himself entirely into the age which he has selected for illustration; and crusaders, monks, pilgrims, and minstrels pass before us in varied procession, giving life and animation to the scenery through which the voyagers move.

The most remarkable passages are the Friar's Sermon, and the Miracle play represented in the cathedral of Strasburg. We observe that several critics have already fallen foul of the author on account of those scenes, denouncing him in no measured terms for the levity, and even the profanity, of his tone. One or two have even gone the length of declaring that he is more impious than Lord Byron; and that Cain is, in the hands of the youthful reader, a less dangerous work than the Golden Legend. This is sheer nonsense. Mr Longfellow, as the general tenor of his writings discloses, is eminently a Christian poet, and the last charge which can be brought against him is that of scepticism and infidelity. His aim, in this part of the Golden Legend, is to reproduce a true and vivid picture of the manners, the customs, and even the superstition of the age; and this he has been enabled to do, through his intimate familiarity with writings which are very little studied at the present day. He is deeply versed, not only in the monkish legends and traditions, but in that kind of theological literature which, in the thirteenth century, and even much later, was mixed up with the pure evangelical doctrine, and retailed to the people as truth, by the ministers of a corrupted Church. That the sermon delivered by Friar Cuthbert, in the square of Strasburg, must sound irreverent to modern ears, is a proposition which no one can deny. It is irreverent, but not a whit more so than were all the sermons of the period. It is intended to mark, and does mark more accurately than anything we ever read, the license of language which was employed by the emissaries of the Church of Rome – the haughty claims and systematic usurpations of that Church – and the mixture of truth and fable which then constituted the staple of her doctrine. Friar Cuthbert is not preaching from the Evangelists: he is preaching half from his own invention, and half from the spurious Gospel of Nicodemus. His sermon is nothing more nor less than a satire upon the teaching of the Church of Rome, and a most effective one it is. Into what, then, do the objections of our scrupulous brethren resolve themselves? Is it wrong to depict, in prose or verse – for the lesson may be conveyed in either – the ignorance of the people of Europe in past ages, and the exceeding presumption and monstrous latitude of their teachers? If so, it would be better for us at once to get rid of history. A work of fiction, which does nothing more than reproduce historical truths, can never, in our opinion, be condemned for giving a faithful picture of the manners of the time; and that Mr Longfellow's is a faithful picture, no one who has studied the manners and perused the literature of the middle ages will deny. It is very possible, however, that our purists never heard of the Gospel of Nicodemus, and are not aware that such liberties were ever taken with the revealed truths of religion. That is no fault of Mr Longfellow's. But if the Golden Legend is to be condemned on account of these scenes, we very much fear that Chaucer must also be voted unfit for reading, and our old friend and favourite Sir David Lindesay consigned to entire oblivion. What is more, the ban must be extended to many of the early reformers, nay, martyrs of the Protestant Church. The sermons of Latimer, from their familiarity of allusion and illustration, and their frequent reference to tradition, would sound strangely in modern Calvinistic ears. It is a notorious fact that, for a considerable period after the Reformation, the most eminent divines, finding that the people were greatly attached to the legendary tales and fictions which formed so large a portion of the teaching of the Romish Church, were compelled in some measure to continue the practice, and to look for illustrations beyond the compass of the sacred writings, in order to give effect to their discourses. This of course was only a temporary expedient, but still it was employed, in order that the change might appear less sudden and violent. But on that account, are the writings of Latimer and many more of the early reformers to be condemned? We should be sorry to think so. What sort of picture of the age would have been presented to us, had Mr Longfellow put into the mouth of Friar Cuthbert the language of an adherent of Geneva? Is the sermon towards the conclusion of Queenhoo Hall, written by Sir Walter Scott, to be pronounced blasphemous, because it is conceived in the manner of the times? If not, Mr Longfellow also must be relieved from this preposterous censure, which one or two critics, wishing to be thought more reverent – being, in fact, more ignorant – than their neighbours, have attempted to fasten upon him.

As to the Miracle play, we look upon it as a most successful reproduction, or rather image, of those strange religious shows which were long represented in the Romish churches all over Europe, and which, though somewhat altered in their form, are not yet abolished in some parts of the Continent. Mr Longfellow, whilst preserving so much of the spirit of the old Mysteries as to convey an adequate idea of their grotesqueness, has lent to this composition a charm which none of the old plays possess. Those who are anxious to ascertain what a Miracle play really was, will find a fair specimen in the first volume of Hawkins' English Drama. The general reader may, however, content himself with Mr Longfellow's production, which is, in many points of view, remarkable. The scenes represented are principally taken from the Apocryphal Gospels, attributed to St Thomas, of the Infancy of our Saviour – which gospels were long read in some of the Nestorian churches. Here, again, Mr Longfellow has been charged with impiety, as if, by his own invention, he were supplementing Scripture. He has done nothing of the kind. He has simply reproduced, in a peculiar form, a legend or tradition well known in the middle ages; and if this license is to be prohibited, what imaginative or poetical author who has treated of sacred subjects can escape? Milton has sinned in this respect far more deeply than Longfellow. But we really do not think it necessary to pursue this subject further.

We must not, any more than the travellers, loiter on the road, therefore we pass over the scenes at the Convent of Hirschau, as also that in the neighbouring nunnery. We confess that the carousal of the monks, in which Lucifer bears a share, (for the fiend continues to travel in disguise along with his expected victim,) does not strike us as being happily conceived. It is coarse, and we are sorry to say, vulgar; though it may be, doubtless, that such things were often said and enacted within convent walls. But the poet is bound to use a certain degree of discretion in his choice of materials, and in his manner of setting them forth. We think some of the ribaldry in this scene might have been spared with advantage, without in the least injuring that contrast between outward profession and real purity which the author evidently intended to draw; and we would urge upon Mr Longfellow the propriety of revising in future editions the passages to which we refer, as tending in no way to promote the strength, whilst they undoubtedly diminish the pleasure which we receive from other parts of the drama. The scene in the nunnery, in which the Abbess Irmengarde relates to Elsie the tale of her youthful attachment, and the preference which she gave to Walter of the Vogelweide over Prince Henry of Hoheneck, when both of them were her suitors, is very sweetly written, and entirely in keeping with the times.

Then follow several scenes of much beauty, which conduct us through Switzerland into Italy. The travellers embark from Genoa in a felucca, bound for Salerno; and thus speaks the captain or padrone of the vessel, as the wind is freshening. It is a strange piece of rhyme, but worth listening to, were it only on account of its singularity.

IL PADRONE"I must entreat you, friends, below!The angry storm begins to blow,For the weather changes with the moon.All this morning, until noon,We had baffling winds, and sudden flawsStruck the sea with their cat's-paws.Only a little hour agoI was whistling to Saint AntonioFor a capful of wind to fill our sail,And instead of a breeze he has sent us a gale.Last night I saw Saint Elmo's stars,With their glimmering lanterns, all at playOn the tops of the masts and the tips of the spars,And I knew we should have foul weather to-day.Cheerly, my hearties! yo heave ho!Brail up the mainsail, and let her goAs the winds will and Saint Antonio!Do you see that Livornese felucca,That vessel to the windward yonder,Running with her gunwale under?I was looking when the wind o'ertook her.She had all sail set, and the only wonderIs, that at once the strength of the blastDid not carry away her mast.She is a galley of the Gran Duca,That, through fear of the Algerines,Convoys those lazy brigantines,Laden with wine and oil from Lucca.Now all is ready, high and low;Blow, blow, good Saint Antonio!Ha! that is the first dash of the rain,With a sprinkle of spray above the rails,Just enough to moisten our sails,And make them ready for the strain,See how she leaps, as the blasts o'ertake her,And speeds away with a bone in her mouth!Now keep her head towards the south,And there is no danger of bank or breaker.With the breeze behind us, on we go;Not too much, good Saint Antonio!"

The verse sounds like an echo of the shrill piping of the Mediterranean wind.

The voyagers arrive at Salerno; and we are immediately introduced to the schools, sonorous with academical wrangling. Mr Longfellow displays much humour in this part of his poem, having, we think, hit off excellently the extreme acerbity exhibited by the scholastic disputants on the most worthless of imaginable subjects. He has given us a vivid picture of the war which was so long maintained between the sect of the Nominalists and that of the Realists; and not less of the fury which possessed the souls of ancient hostile grammarians. "The heat and acrimony of verbal critics," says Disraeli the elder, "have exceeded description. Their stigmas and anathemas have been long known to bear no proportion against the offences to which they have been directed. 'God confound you,' cried one grammarian to another, 'for your theory of impersonal verbs!'" In the Golden Legend we have first a travelling Scholastic affixing, as was the usual custom, his Theses to the gate of the college, and offering to maintain his one hundred and twenty-five propositions against all the world. Then appear two Doctors disputing, followed by their pupils.

DOCTOR SERAFINO"I, with the Doctor Seraphic, maintainThat a word which is only conceived in the brainIs a type of eternal Generation;The spoken word is the Incarnation.DOCTOR CHERUBINOWhat do I care for the Doctor Seraphic,With all his wordy chaffer and traffic?DOCTOR SERAFINOYou make but a paltry show of resistance;Universals have no real existence!DOCTOR CHERUBINOYour words are but idle and empty chatter;Ideas are eternally joined to matter!DOCTOR SERAFINOMay the Lord have mercy on your position,You wretched, wrangling, culler of herbs!DOCTOR CHERUBINOMay he send your soul to eternal perdition,For your Treatise on the Irregular Verbs!"

(They rush out fighting.)

The sort of intellectual diet supplied to the students of Salerno is next explained by a hopeful votary of Sangrado. It seems very tempting.

SECOND SCHOLAR"What are the books now most in vogue?FIRST SCHOLARQuite an extensive catalogue;Mostly, however, books of our own;As Gariopontus' Passionarius,And the writings of Matthew Platearius;And a volume universally knownAs the Regimen of the School of Salern,For Robert of Normandy written in terseAnd very elegant Latin verse.Each of these writings has its turn.And when at length we have finished these,Then comes the struggle for degrees,With all the oldest and ablest critics;The public thesis and disputation,Question, and answer, and explanationOf a passage out of Hippocrates,Or Aristotle's Analytics.There the triumphant Magister stands!A book is solemnly placed in his hands,On which he swears to follow the ruleAnd ancient forms of the good old School;To report if any confectionariusMingles his drugs with matters various,And to visit his patients twice a-day,And once in the night, if they live in town;And if they are poor, to take no pay.Having faithfully promised these,His head is crowned with a laurel crown;A kiss on his cheek, a ring on his hand,The Magister Artium et PhysicesGoes forth from the school like a lord of the land.And now, as we have the whole morning before us,Let us go in, if you make no objection,And listen awhile to a learned prelectionOn Marcus Aurelius Cassiodorus."

Lucifer now comes upon the stage in the garb of the Doctor who is to decide regarding Elsie's fate. The main plot of the story, as we have already stated, is at once so obscure and unnatural that it will not stand examination. It is, therefore, rather from conjecture than assertion that we presume the author intended to represent the power of the Evil Spirit over the Prince, as depending upon his acceptance or rejection of the innocent self-offered sacrifice. Be that as it may, the Prince and Elsie appear; and, in spite of the remonstrances of the former, the girl persists in her resolution. Let us quote one more passage in Mr Longfellow's best and most pathetic manner.

ELSIE"O my Prince! rememberYour promises. Let me fulfil my errand.You do not look on life and death as I do.There are two angels that attend unseenEach one of us, and in great books recordOur good and evil deeds. He who writes downThe good ones, after every action closesHis volume, and ascends with it to God.The other keeps his dreadful day-book openTill sunset, that we may repent; which doing,The record of the action fades away,And leaves a line of white across the page.Now, if my act be good, as I believe it,It cannot be recalled. It is alreadySealed up in heaven, as a good deed accomplished.The rest is yours. Why wait you? I am ready.

(To her Attendants.)

Weep not, my friends! rather rejoice with me.I shall not feel the pain, but shall be gone,And you will have another friend in heaven.Then start not at the creaking of the doorThrough which I pass. I see what lies beyond it.

(To Prince Henry.)

And you, O Prince! bear back my benisonUnto my father's house, and all within it.This morning in the church I prayed for them,After confession, after absolution,When my whole soul was white, I prayed for them.God will take care of them, they need me not.And in your life let my remembrance linger,As something not to trouble or disturb it,But to complete it, adding life to life.And if at times beside the evening fireYou see my face among the other faces,Let it not be regarded as a ghostThat haunts your house, but as a guest that loves you.Nay, even as one of your own family,Without whose presence there were something wanting.I have no more to say. Let us go in.PRINCE HENRYFriar Angelo! I charge you on your life,Believe not what she says, for she is mad,And comes not here to die, but to be healed.ELSIEAlas! Prince Henry!LUCIFERCome with me; this way.

(Elsie goes in with Lucifer, who thrusts

Prince Henry back and closes the door.)"

There is, however, happily no occasion for the expenditure of our tears. Prince Henry plucks up heart of grace, bursts open the door, and rescues Elsie just as she is on the point of submitting to the Luciferian lancet. The pair return in triumph to the Rhine – the hearts of the old people are made glad by the recovery of their daughter – and the drama ends, not with horror, but with the agreeable finale of a marriage.

Such is the nature of the poem, which does undeniably exhibit many proofs of genius, accomplishments, power of expression, and learning; but which, nevertheless, we cannot accept as a great work. It is like an ornament in which some gems of the purest lustre are set, side by side with fragments of coloured glass, and even inferior substances. The evident presence of the latter sometimes shakes our faith in the absolute value of the jewels, which are deserving of better association; and we cannot help wishing that the whole work could be taken to pieces, the counterfeit materials thrown aside, and the remainder entirely reconstructed on a new principle and design. There is ever an intimate connection between the design and the material. Thoughts, however rich in themselves, lose their effect when ill displayed; and the want of the knowledge of this has ere now proved fatal to the fame of many a promising artist. The language and sentiments of Elsie, however beautiful in themselves – and that they are beautiful we most unhesitatingly maintain – excite in our minds no sympathy. They are simply portions of an ill-constructed drama, almost aimless in purpose, and without even an intelligible moral; they do not tend to any point upon which our interest or expectations are concentrated, and therefore, in order to do justice to them, we are forced to regard them as fragmentary. Mr Longfellow has not succeeded in giving a human interest to his drama. His story is poor, or rather incomprehensible, and his plan essentially vicious; and these are faults which no brilliancy of execution can ever serve to redeem. We are deeply disappointed to find that such is the case, for we can assure the author that we have watched his poetical career with no common interest – that we have long been aware of the great extent of his powers – and that we have waited, with much anxiety, in the expectation of seeing those powers exhibited in their full measure. We fear that we must wait a little longer before he shall do justice to himself. It is a sound rule in criticism that every work is to be judged according to its profession; an epic as an epic – a drama as a drama – a ballad as a ballad. After making every allowance for the avowed irregularity of this composition, we cannot admit that it satisfies even the requirements of a dramatic romance. It cannot be said that it was purposely constructed to exclude belief, and therefore, interest; because Mr Longfellow has taken obvious pains to mark the time by the accessories, in which he has perfectly succeeded; and also to give us a vivid sketch of society as it then existed. His radical error, we think, may be traced to two things – the want of a life-like plot, and the introduction of supernatural machinery.

No reader of The Golden Legend will venture to aver that he has derived the slightest interest from the story, apart from the poetry with which it is surrounded. Now, although there is undoubtedly a great deal in the manner of telling a story, the matter of the story itself is obviously of greater consequence. The matter is the body of the tale – the manner its dress and ornament. And inasmuch as no accumulation of ornament will suffice to make up for want of symmetry, or disguise deformity in the body to which it is applied, how can we expect that a poem radically defective in plan, can be rendered interesting by any amount of adventitious accomplishment? In the acted drama we know very well that a bad or uninteresting plot can never be redeemed, even by the most brilliant speeches. To the epos, or narrative tale, the same rule applies; for episodes, however spirited or pathetic, never can make up for the want of interest in the leading story. The fault is not peculiar to Mr Longfellow – it is discernible in most of the compositions, both in prose and poetry, of the present age. Aptitude of handling is considered a greater accomplishment than unity or strength of design; and the consequence is that we lay down works, written by many of our best authors, with a vague feeling of disappointment, which can be attributed only to their total disregard of that preliminary consideration of story and plan which occupied the attention, as it constituted the triumph, of our older literary masters. Surely, when a man sits down to write, his first care ought to be that his subject is not only intelligible, but also interesting to his readers. We have already, at the commencement of this paper, expressed our decided objection to the machinery employed by Mr Longfellow. It is the reverse of original, being now very hackneyed; and it is absurdly disproportionate to the object for which it is introduced. Most devoutly do we trust that both poets and poetasters will henceforth refrain from including Lucifer in their dramatis personæ. By introducing him as they have done, they have read no valuable lesson in ethics to mankind. If they represent him as a talented fiend, he is certain to blaspheme – if as an amiable one, they mistake the character altogether. If malice, envy, and a desire to plunge others into perdition, are the characteristic impulses which a poet thinks necessary to portray, surely he can find samples enough of these upon earth, without invoking the presence of an actual demon. Even in poetry or fiction, familiarity with the Powers of Darkness is a thing by no means to be coveted.