I yield to the strict sentence of the church. Dunstan. You must fast, too; nor may you slack your hand To all mankind example eminent Of penitential sorrow. Edgar. I will fill All England with right noble edifices, * In the second act the characters, both of Dunstan and Athelwold, are made to reveal themselves in a dialogue they sustain together. The saint endeavours to gain over to the church the young nobleman, whose talents and elevation of character mark him out as a worthy champion of her cause, and in whom, whilst a layman, Dunstan sees an obstacle to his own influence at the court of Edgar. He "Dunstan. You are a scholar, have been bred at Rome, Athelwold. I am a scholar, At least have spent some hours in solitude With books and meditation.-Pleasant hours! Take whoso will the pomp of happiness, Wealth, and dominion, give me quiet thoughts In his worst madness, bid me expiate With pangs of martyrdom my quest of truth, I have no fear-I would not live in fear I would not hold existence on the bond, That, like a coward, I must lie for life. With errors of some service, in a state So full of errors-nor would teach a truth You speak you know not what. Thrice happy they And not responsible for true or false, Obey in their belief; at peace, they feel The sense of duty in an act of faith. Would I were one the humblest of a flock By others led, by others train'd to thought!— A cheap and safe felicity is his Whose faith, unsought for, lives within his heart Of a vex'd spirit, task'd beyond its strength, Athelwold replies that he holds in little estimation this government of superstition. He says "Ye sow fears thick as grass upon the earth, And call it comfort to the race of man." And, proceeding to criticize this spiritual government which Dunstan values so highly, he glances, amongst other topics, at the gross inequality in the punishment which he, as the organ of the church, thought proper to inflict on the good Edwin and Elgiva, and that penance which he had just imposed on the licentious Edgar. Dunstan answers "Dunstan. What is the nice adjustment, moralist, The fate of millions hangs? This pompous man And being, as he is, a creature spoil'd, Nor may I quit dominion. Ye children of the earth who feel, at worst, The past transgression-mine the grief, The sufficiently gay to please. Here they They are worth, we think, saving from the flames. are. SONG. "Go, gather jasmine, gather rose, See how the dancing garland glows On the smooth happy brow beneath! Too light the beauteous wearer finds:— The next scene is one of a very different description. Edgar gives a banquet to his courtiers. Here the beauty of Elfrida is lauded in very gallant terms by one of the guests; and the king's curiosity being raised, Athelwold is pitched upon, as combining, by consent of all, an excellent taste with the clearest honour, to go to her residence in Devonshire, and bring back a faithful report of her charms. The third act transfers us to the castle of Olgar, the father of Elfrida, where Athelwold-with all his honour and all his philosophy, and in spite of scholarship and meditation -is taken captive by that beauty which he has come to survey. young thane assumes, at first, the habit of a minstrel, and carrying his harp slung across his shoulder, he wanders through the grounds of Olgar's residence, in hopes to meet with the fair lady, and in this manner accomplish his mission. He is fortu◄ nate enough to encounter Elfrida, sitting in an open parterre, amidst a bevy of damsels. They are full of mirth, and engaged in preparing some festive ornament-some decorations or other in which the fair of those days bedecked themselves. He has an opportunity of looking at Elfrida some minutes before he is observed. On being detected, his harp and minstrel habit obtain for him a speedy introduction, and he is invited to give them a specimen of his minstrelsy. Athelwold still retains something of his own reflective character in the verses that he sings; but they are Athelwold at first considers himself out of all danger, because, although fascinated by the beauty of Elfrida, he has no hope and no thought of obtaining her. Some kindness, we suppose, on the part of the lady, took from him the ground of safety, and we found him, apparently with a clear consciousness of his folly, yielding his honour to his passion. Here are some of his reflections under both these predicaments. Whether on account of the song or the singer, the music or the sentiment, which seems covertly to advise an exchange of the careless gaiety of the maiden for the happy cares of the wife, the minstrel was much applauded, and he was invited to enter the mansion. Athelwold had convinced himself, without a shadow of a doubt, of the surpassing beauty of Elfrida; his task, therefore, was accomplished; his page was waiting with his steed, he had but to mount and return to Edgar. Instead of which, however, we learn that he gave his harp to the page, resumed his sword, and making some other slight alteration in his equipments, introduced himself to Olgar in his own person, a royal thane and a well-known favourite of the king. "If on the eye the light of beauty fall, I needs must see; if soft melodious speech Where reason, listening to the beating heart, * It has been said, or sung in gentle verse, * 津 A bride-a loving wife-grant it a good, Of all earth holds the thing most excellent And grant that beauty, wit, and happy smiles, Are in a wife most commendable gifts Why, in the name of reason, why alone This woman's beauty, and why her smiles alone? Can no other hand Give that soft pressure felt upon the heart? Day after day, I sit like any stone, Musing one endless thought, if thought it be, Which is a medley not composed at all Of any jot of reason, a mere maze Of pain, and pleasure, and delirium." Athelwold's page, talking of his master, as was and is the custom of all pages, lets us know that his courtship was not carried on altogether by sitting still he gives us this insight into the wooing. "Love! you may call it love-'tis the old phrase, And many are the wild things answer to it, And this the wildest. 'Tis an ecstasy; The man's enchanted, sir. Now mark you this: The little dauntless covetable flower: Athelwold returns to Edgar's court, and tells that falsehood which was almost as repugnant to the lover, as it was to the man of honour. Many excuses readily occur to cheat his conscience; but chiefly this, that his own love was so much more pure, and would be so much more constant, than that of the roving Edgar. He contrives to describe Elfrida as an ordinary dame, whose renown was owing to her secluded position. He adds, that she is amiable, her father wealthy, and that the match might suit a thane not so devoted to beauty as his sovereign. He obtains permission to pursue his own courtship. On his second return to court, Athelwold begins to betray signs of repentance and of a troubled spirit. Dunstan, who was desirous that the king should marry, had been disappointed in the failure of the late project, and who beheld in Athelwold an enemy to the Church, is not slow in framing suspicions adverse to the thane. He goes himself to Olgar's castle where the bride was kept immured much against her will-he sees at once the treachery that had been practised, and does not fail to sow some seeds of discord in the mind of Elfrida. He returns, divulges his discovery to Edgar, and then follows the well-known catastrophe. She who had been loved for beauty only, now displays an ungovernable vanity. The manner in which she contrives to quarrel with her husband, and justify the full permission she gives her beauty to captivate the king, is managed by the writer not without art; the remorse, too, of the noble thane, for the breach of honour he had committed, mingled as it is with many reflections of a philosophical as well as moral nature, is portrayed with some spirit. But we are not tempted to rescue either of these portions of the play from the flames. They must burn. We shall extend our generosity to one more extract only. In the fourth act, while Athelwold has again left the court, and is completing his courtship of Elfrida, we are brought into closer acquaintance with Dun stan. We see him not in the moving world, but in his solitude. He is sitting by the side of that most miserable of all abodes which ascetic ever constructed a kind of open grave which he had dug with his own hands for his painful habitation. He here reveals to us a combination, which, in men of such excitable nature and such dubious morality as Dunstan, has probably often existed; the visions of enthusiasm alternating with religious doubts, and these, coupled with remorse, leading to renewed severities of penance. "Dunstan. (alone-midnight.) Is this unseen Omnipotence ! Come back, ye shapes that talk'd with me erewhile! Oh, stand betwixt this Nature-God and me, This dread Invisible! Let devils come, |