rolled off to the counter; how at last he is shipwrecked at Ingolf's head, and goes right up to Swinefell in the storm, to put Flosi's manhood to the proof, and Flosi springs up to meet him and kisses him, and they are for ever reconciled; how Flosi, grown old, puts to sea in a crazy ship, good enough as he thinks for an old and death-doomed man, and is heard of no more, while Kari marries Hildigunna and becomes the head of a great house: all this must be passed over, and much more on which one would like to touch. There is the great lawsuit against the Burners, all the outs and ins and formalities of which are detailed with singular minuteness. There is also the remarkable and weird episode of the battle of Clontarf, well known in Irish annals, to which Northern heathendom gathered its forces for a last struggle with the champions of the Cross. These interesting things the reader must find and appreciate in the book itself. I hope that I have not done injustice to so unique a work in attempting at all to give any account of its story; I wish only to induce any who have not read it, and who can relish a thing fresh from the bosom of nature, though a nature "stern and wild," to get it and enjoy it for themselves. How the learned and brilliant editor has done his work it is hardly necessary to say: such a subject is not got every day, but such editing is still more rare. The only fault I can find with it is that it leaves

In

nothing for anybody to say coming after him. Introduction, notes, and appendices are so done as to combine the highest qualities of English prosewriting with a perfect mastery and exhaustion of the whole subject. speaking of Dr. Dasent's pre-eminent labours in this field, it should not, indeed, be forgotten that his worthy predecessor, Mr. Laing, laid the lovers of Northern literature under deep obligations sixteen years ago by his translation of the Heimskringla, a work of much greater extent than the single Saga of Burnt Njal. But, valuable and interesting as is the chronicle of Sturleson, the Njala has the advantage of being not only of real historical value, but as a story more varied, more sustained in interest, more complete in its structure, than any of the Sagas in the Heimskringla, or, taking Dr. Dasent as authority, than any other Saga that

exists.

The editor may well congratulate himself on the comely dress in which he sends forth this strong foster-child of his to the world. Not only has he himself done his part so as to leave nothing to be desired, but all who have contributed to the book-artists, printers, and publishers-deserve a hearty word of praise. One of the latter gentlemen has added an index to the work, than which, the editor is safe in saying, a better never was made. Whoever studies the book will thank him for it.

N.

THE year 1861 has had the rare good fortune of witnessing the publication of two remarkable novels-"Elsie Venner"

1 Elsie Venner, a Romance of Destiny. By Oliver Wendell Holmes (Macmillan and Co.). Silas Marner, the Weaver of Raveloe. By George Eliot (William Blackwood and Sons). No. 22.-VOL. IV.

and "Silas Marner." Each is so striking and typical in its way,-they have so many points of analogy, and so many points of contrast,-that it is worth our while to bestow upon them not only our perusal, but a little of our thought.

"Elsie Venner" is strikingly, typi

X

cally American; "Silas Marner" is strikingly, typically English. No Englishman could have brought out for us the everyday middle class provincial life of the Northern States as we find it depicted in "Elsie Venner;" no American could have exhibited that familiarity with the rustic mind in out-of-the-way English parishes which has made Raveloe live before our eyes. In point of mere ability, there is little, if anything (beyond a wholesome English briefness in George Eliot), to choose between the two writers. In point of mere interest and excitement, though the palm may lie in the present case with the American, yet the English authoress has shown on other occasions that she was not to be surpassed. Neither book is a mere novel, but a literary study, carefully thought and worked out. The very choice of study is identical. In both cases it is the reduction of the abnormal to the normal, the bringing back into human fellowship of some exceptional sample of humanity. In both, the growth of some human affection is shown as the means by which the process is carried out. But here the parallelism ceases, and a series of contrasts begins, which, to be fully understood, require some short analysis of both works.

The anomaly which "Elsie Venner' deals with is essentially a physical one. The heroine's mother, three months before her birth, has been bitten by a rattlesnake, but her life has been prolonged till three weeks after that event. We are called upon to believe that by this means the nature of the inferior creature has become grafted upon the human one, both physically and morally, so as to produce, amongst other effects, first, familiarity and impunity in dealing with the "ugly things," as the reptiles in question are most truly called by one of the personages, and an attraction towards them; second, like powers of fascination and repulsion; third, cold absence of human affection, with an instinctive savagery, capable of any crime through simple absence of moral sense. The question is not whether this is a

possible or a probable case; it is that which the author has set before himself to treat, and it would be impossible to treat it more naturally, if I may so say, or more powerfully. Granted the primary hypothesis, not a fault can be found with the superstructure. "Elsie Venner," in his book, fascinates at once and repels us, as much as she is represented to do in life.

In "Silas Marner" on the other hand, the anomaly is essentially a moral one. Silas Marner is indeed odd-shaped, near-sighted, subject to trances; but though these physical details form a necessary part of his history, they are not himself. The anomaly is that of a soul, full of love and of a narrow but fervent faith, driven by sudden misfortune, injustice and betrayal, into utter estrangement from man, and, as it deems, from God.

The first great contrast, therefore, between the two books lies in the difference between the physical and the moral points of view. The one is primarily a study in physiology, the other in ethics. Almost as a necessary consequence, Elsie Venner claims scarcely ever more than our pity, nor is she represented as receiving much more from her fellow personages. Bernard Langdon, who may be called the hero, does not so much as fall in love with her, though she falls in love with him. Yet Silas Marner, even when most unsympathetic, has always hold upon our sympathy. The one writer has chosen his standingground out of humanity. He calls upon us to observe how nearly a human being can approximate to a serpent. The other stands within the domain of human nature, and calls upon us to feel how human may be the very failings and habits which seem least so. I doubt if there be in the whole realm of fiction anything more perfect or more touching artistically, more true or more instructive morally, than the exhibition George Eliot makes tous of the well-springs of affection and uprightness which lie beneath Silas Marner's miserliness and misanthropy, and of the mode in which they may at last gush out into life. A comparison

with Balzac's portraits of misers,-master-pieces too in their way,-will easily show how far deeper reaches the observation of the English writer. The frightful reality of Balzac's misers' love for their gold exercises over us a fascination mixed with disgust, like the pathos of a monkey's agony; there is something so like a human affection in it that we writhe as it were under the fellowship with the lower nature which it implies. In Silas Marner, on the contrary, we never lose the sense of human fellowship with the miser; we feel all through that his love for gold is only the stooping of a human love, not its caricature.

Having thus at once grasped hold of our sympathy, the authoress of "Silas Marner" is able pretty nearly to dispense with all adventitious aids. In "Elsie Venner," the writer is obliged to appeal to our imagination under its more sensuous sides. He cannot but make "Elsie Venner" young and beautiful, or she would inspire nothing but. sheer repulsion. Who could care for such a serpentoid creature if she were old and ugly? We should turn from her with the same alacrity as from her quasi-kinsman, the crotalus itself. So she must be seventeen-" tall and slen"der, but rounded, with a peculiar un"dulation of movement "-"a splendid "scowling beauty, black-browed, with "a flash of white teeth;" with "black "hair, twisted in heavy braids," and "black, piercing," "diamond" eyes. She must wear 66 a chequered dress of a "curious pattern, and a camel's-hair "scarf, twisted a little fantastically about her;" she must be for ever "playing listlessly with her gold chain, "coiling and uncoiling it about her "slender wrist, and braiding it with her "long, delicate fingers." Silas Marner, on the contrary, we accept without a murmur as the unprepossessing creature he is from the first nothing more than "a pallid young man, with prominent, "sharp-sighted, brown eyes,"-fifteen years older during the main portion of the story-an old man at the last.

Again, it follows almost necessarily

from the choice of his subject, that Mr. Holmes is carried into a world of stage effects, with "striking" scenes and outof-the-way characters; though, to do him justice, he has done his utmost, by artistic treatment, to subdue the melodramatic element in them. Who, indeed, would care for a rattlesnake that didn't bite? Who would care for a quasirattlesnake who should not act out her savagery ? In what familiar associations could she be exhibited but with persons having some kind of affinity to herself? Hence the, in himself, melodramatic scamp, Dick Venner, the half-savage old negress, Sophy, as the almost necessary adjuncts to Elsie; hence the otherwise unnatural character of her relations with her father, with Bernard, as required to bring out her own unnaturalness; whilst the fall of Rattlesnake Ledge, though in nowise required by the exigencies of the story, is felt to be quite in keeping with it. In Silas Marner, on the contrary, nothing is more remarkable than the quiet consciousness of artistic power which has led the authoress to eschew anything melodramatic, at least in all that touches her hero; which has enabled her to produce as much effect by the mere shadowing of possibilities, as others might by the most direct representation. of actual events. The robbing of Silas -which one forefeels as the necessary result of his miserliness-though the nearest approach to a "scene" in the book, is reduced, by the most subtle tameness of treatment, almost into a mere accident. Again, the possibility of Dunsie's reappearance after he has stolen Silas Marner's money, hangs over nearly the whole book, while all the while he is quietly lying at the bottom of the pool with his ill-gotten cash. During the great ball at the Squire's, it is almost impossible not to expect that Godfrey Cass's drunken wife will turn up somehow to claim and punish him; she is actually shown to us on her way for the purpose, but only to die in the snow, a pauper unidentified. The unjust accusation brought against Marner seems almost

to call for eventual reparation, but Lantern Court itself disappears instead; and Godfrey Cass's neglect of his lawful daughter is punished in the most rightful but unexpected manner, by her preferring to marry a young blacksmith than to receive recognition from him. And the characters are in like manner generally of the homeliest description; or, if otherwise, they please us just in the inverse ratio of their dramatic effectiveness. Dunsie, the villain of the story, Godfrey the lover, with his opium-eating wife, old Squire Cass, the tyrannical father, are nothing to us in comparison with the inimitable village worthies of the "Rainbow," or Silas himself, or the very unromantic but charmingly-painted Nancy Lammeter, or the most lovable and least intellectual personage of all, Dolly Winthrop. In short, whilst the art of the one writer has been to make us accept the extraordinary, that of the other has been to eschew it. The one has done his best to make the "effective" natural; the other has made the homely, in the truest sense of the word, effective.

Nor is it amiss to observe, that the climax of interest in the one book turns upon death, in the other upon life. It is difficult to imagine the once serpentoid Elsie Venner subsiding into an ordinary wife and mother, still more into a perfectly trusted one; and, accordingly, the primary purpose of the work in bringing her round to fellowship with her true kind, can only be carried out by her heart-break, illness, and death. We only thoroughly feel to her as to a fellow-creature, when we see her at last lying "in "the great room, in a kind of state, with "flowers all about her, her black hair "braided as in life, her brows smooth, as "if they had never known the scowl of 66 passion, and on her lips the faint smile "with which she had uttered her last "Good night.'" The whole of this portion of the book is full of pathos and beauty; and it is no slight praise to the author, that, with a subject so difficult to treat, he should have found in himself a reserve of so much power and interest for the catastrophe. But in “Silas Marner," we feel at once that half the

beauty and value of the book were gone, if the change of heart in the weaver were exhibited only to us on his death-bed. The book is essentially a page of life, so complete and satisfying, that we do not care to see the overleaf. And the tender grace of the relations between the awkward foster-father and his wayward foster-child, has a homely pathos of its own, relieved by most cunning touches of a delicate grotesque, which is at least equal to that of the death-bed of Elsie Venner.

I do not quarrel with Mr. Holmes for his choice of subject; still, notwithstanding the delicacy of hand with which he has treated it, one cannot but regret that he should have chosen one which cannot be fully canvassed in general society. Nor has he lessened the regret by his choice of scenery. There is something repulsive to the English mind in the picture of the relation between a young and handsome male teacher and a number of nearly full-grown schoolgirls. However skilfully handled, such a picture is always sensuous, must often border almost on the prurient. As a warning to ourselves, indeed, against the encouragement of the practice from which it is taken, the picture may be a wholesome one. If such be the effect of it, with a pure and high-minded "young Brahmin" like Bernard Langdon for central figure, what would be the reality, with a coarser but weaker type of man in his place?

But we cannot forget that this search after and study of the singular and exceptional pervades too much the ablest American fictions of the day. "Elsie Venner," the serpentoid, inevitably recalls the fame of Mr. Hawthorne's "Transformation," and that peculiar vein of thought and feeling, fluctuating between the odd and the morbid, which runs through all his novels and tales. It seems as if the ablest American writers were now unable to look ordinary life steadily in the face, to see its beauty and its nobleness, and to depict it with the loving care of the true artist.

How

to account for this I know not. It is not for want of acuteness in seeing that

ordinary life, nor yet of skill in rendering it; but they do not seem to appreciate it as in itself a sufficient subject of study; they treat it only as a framing or as a background for the abnormal, the improbable, the fantastic. Partly it may be the result of the evil influence of Poe, that most unwholesome compound of sentimentalism and vulgarity, which all Americans, and too many Englishmen, persist in mistaking for genius; partly, perhaps, to the crude botching of the would-be-painters of ordinary life amongst them. Perhaps more than all does it come from this,-that America herself has been now for many years but a stage-effect, of which the secession crisis has shown at last the hollowness; that the lie of slavery, which has stultified from the first her Declaration of Rights, has poisoned all her art as well as all her social life. So long as the "right to wallop one's own niggers" is considered consistent with the constitution of a free country, so long may there well be something diseased in the national mind, which inclines it to the morbid rather than to the wholesome, and which makes its highest fictions studies in human pathology, not broad representations of human life. Having premised thus much as to the at least semi-morbid tinge which colours "Elsie Venner" as a whole, I need not dwell at any further length on its ethics or its theology.

As respects the authoress of "Silas Marner," I think there cannot be a doubt that she has henceforth reached the very acme of artistic power among contemporary English novelists, raising

herself to a height which places her, within the sphere of art, not far from that queen of fiction, George Sand herself. The wisest may well pause before forming to themselves any further judgment respecting her. Whilst all may surrender themselves freely for the time to the touching charm of her picture of the unfolding of Silas's blighted nature under the appeals of little Eppie's weakness, and the promptings of Dolly's kindliness, it is difficult, when the charm is shaken off, not to ask oneself some further questions. For instance: in the Dinah of "Adam Bede" she has shown us the working and influence of female religious enthusiasm; in Dolly Winthrop she now shows us the very opposite picture, that of the power of a faith inarticulate, incoherent, wholly unimpassioned. That the two portraitures should have cue from the same hand, should have been worked out with the same tenderness, with the same success, is of itself a marvel of art. But one cannot help asking whether we are really to take both forms of religious faith as equivalent, the fervent strugglings of the young Methodist with sin, and the gentle suasions to conformity of the old church-woman. And, if the writer's purpose be merely that of fine æsthetic studies of religious faith under its varied aspects, and the inculcation of a calm philosophic indifferentism to the objects of that faith, all one can hope is, that her art will prove stronger than her purpose, and by its very fidelity to nature will serve to call forth yearnings which it will not satisfy, for truths beyond, below, and above itself.

PART II.

THE WEASEL-WARS OF SCOTLAND AND THE SCOTTISH REFORMATION.

Be the subject that one is discussing what it may, one is sure to find some

thing or other about it in that terrible fellow, Shakespeare. Here, accordingly, from Henry V., is a passage which may be taken as a summary, from the English point of view, of Scottish History, and of the relations of Scotland to Eng