about to abandon an obscure jargon, which has tired the public, he says, and will soon tire themselves. He also thinks that Germany has now attained that stage of mind, in which the writer no longer forms the public will, but the public will directs the writer: in other words, that the day of independence is past; and that the sophistry patronized by the greater courts is henceforth to be manufactured, according to order, by the ready industry and loquacious accomplishment of a numerous, but venal, race of sprucely-educated publishers.

This work may be a neat, a welcome, and an agreeable compendium of general literature, since it is written with mildness, with elegance, and with information: but it does not appear to us to announce either talents of so high an order, or opinion so courageously self-supported, as the dramatic lectures of the author's brother. Writers are judged in this book by their particular tendencies, not by their inherent force; and it displays criticism exerted too much on the principle of an expurgatory index. The author seems inclined to with-hold from general perusal, under pretext that they have not written with good taste, those historians, poets, and orators, whom he considers as allied in sentiment with the philosophists but criticism should never be warped by partyviews. A principal branch of its office consists in the promulgation and encouragement of excellence; and, if it teaches any undue value for mediocrity, or meanly disguises the inherent power of intellect, it prepares errors in self-knowlege, instability of sentiment, and the corruption of the public mind. In proportion to the genius exerted, it is useful to study an author. Personal virtue may co-exist with almost any opinions: but strong minds are formed only among the strong; and he who would become the competitor, the rival, or the victor, of those great writers who, during the late war of the Titans, have shaken or propped the fundamental pillars of European society, must become familiar alike with the arguments of his adversary and those of his ally.

ART. V. De Danorum Rebus Gestis, Secul. III. & IV. Poëma Danicum, Dialecto Anglo-saxonica, ex Bibliotheca Cottonianá Musei Britannici edidit, Versione Lat. et Indicibus auxit, GRIM. JOHNSON THORKELIN. 4to. pp. 260. Hauniæ. 1815.

THIS

HIS is a Danish edition of Beowulf, an Anglo-saxon epopea, consisting of forty-three or rather forty-four sagas or cantos, which has been preserved among the manuscripts of the Cotton Library at the British Museum, and which is now first edited in a foreign country by the meritorious assiduity

and

and appropriate learning of M. THORKELIN of Copenhagen. Hickes mentions the poem in his Thesaurus, Wanley in his Wonders, and Warton in the History of English Poetry: but the most extensive account of it in our literature occurs in the fourth chapter of the sixth book of Mr. Sharon Turner's History of the Anglo-saxons. All these notices being imperfect, we shall undertake a new epitome or analysis.

The shaper, or bard, thus commences:

At the beginning

Who was the Dane's

King of the people;

Winner of glory,

Leading their nobles

The path of daring?

Shefing the Shyld.
Threat'ner of foes,

For many crews'
Dwellings he won.'

In the eleventh line, mention occurs of an earl whose name is obliterated, but who is praised as a good king: in the thirtieth line, we have another anonymous monarch, whose name must have been Egtheow; and these three princes seem to have been all the ancestors of Beowulf whom the poet could enumerate. The Saxon chronicle, under the year 854, mentions a Shefing, there said to be born in the ark of Noah, which merely means that memory or record reaches no farther back; so that, both according to the Saxon chronicle and to this poet, Shefing is, among the East-Danes, the eldest son of Fame. By East Danes, we presume, are meant those who settled in East-Anglia, the modern Norfolk and Suffolk; and it is remarkable that the Saxon chronicle gives us, among the descendants of this Shefing, one Beaw Scheldwaing, which is very like to Beowulf the Shyld. In transcribing the Anglo-saxon names, we insert an h after c when it precedes e or i; because, in the Anglo-saxon alphabet, which was borrowed from the Italian, the h was in such circumstances always pronounced: thus our word witch is written in Anglo-saxon wice.

After this short catalogue of forefathers, the poet thus introduces his hero:

'Famous was Beowulf;

Wide sprang the blood
Which the heir of the Shylds
Shed on the lands.

So shall the bracelets

Purchase endeavour,

Freely presented

As by thy fathers;

And all the young men,
As is their custom,
Cling round their leader
Soon as the war comes..
Lastly thy people

The deeds shall bepraise,
Which their men have per-
formed."

Beowulf, having collected his crew, embarks.

• When the Shyld had awaited The time he should stay,

Came many to fare

On the billows so free.

His

L13

This is the substance of the proem, which the editor does not include in the enumeration of his cantos; and which, in our judgment, has been transposed by the copyist from the place to which it belongs:-at least a more natural beginning would be that of the first canto,

In this hall, we are told, a shaper, or poet, sang the lay of the creation, in presence of the "grim guest Grændel;" and in this song he relates the murder of Abel by Cain: so that

the Danes were already converted to Christianity, when these personages flourished; which obliges us to date the poem as late as the tenth century, and not, as M. THORKELIN in his title-page ventures to assert, in the third or fourth century.

From the second section, we learn that this Grændel, getting drunk, quarrelled with his host, and said that he would never keep peace with these Danes. He is called

(p. 16.) a heathen, and is described as an adorer of Hela, and ignorant of the Creator. Some injury he accomplished, which is not well defined; probably, the plunder of the new mansion, with which apparently he made off. To revenge this feud, or injury, Beowulf had sailed.

The third canto introduces Beowulf consulting Higelak, a king of the Goths, concerning the manner to be adopted in punishing and revenging the mischievous visit of Grændel. This prince sends Beowulf to his relation' Rothgar. In the fourth canto, Beowulf goes to the residence of Rothgar; and, when a shield-bearer or keeper of the shore comes to inquire the motive of the visit, Beowulf announces it as friendly, and calls himself the son of Ægtheow. In the fifth canto, he is led through a paved street to the dwelling of Rothgar, to whom he explains his purpose. Here should have been placed all the previous narrative. In the sixth canto, Rothgar acknowleges the family-ties which bind him to Beowulf, and, expresses a disposition to favour his views against Grændel. It appears that Rothgar is a king of the West-Danes, and that about three hundred men are to act under the orders of Beowulf. Both parties look up to Higelak, as to a common sovereign. In canto vii. Rothgar relates his own history. In the eighth, an altercation takes place between Beowulf and Ilunferd, the King's minister. In the ninth, Beowulf relates an expedition into Finland. The wife and daughter of Rothgar are present, and bring mead and beer. In the tenth canto, Rothgar presents armour to Beowulf the Goth, and wishes him success,

Canto xi. Grændel, having been informed of the preparations making against him, resolves to anticipate his adversaries by marching against Rothgar. This very poetical section opens thus:

Then came across the moor,
Beneath a roof of mist,
Grændel, the foe of God,
Bent on the lofty hall
To wreak his wrath,
And work the scath
Of human kind.

Wrapt under clouds he steps
To seek the golden home,
Where once he shared the feast:
Now big with angry hate.
Not the first time was this
He sought for Rothgar's hall;
But never he

In days of yore
Was doom'd before

To meet with harder hands

Or braver fellows there.'

Grændel is so far successful as to surprize and set on fire the palace, at which his people shout for joy. The poet then goes on:

'A noble shudder fell

On all within

Whom that dire cry arous'd.

The foe of God

Delighted sang aloud

A lay of victory:

And Hela heav'd her head

And steadily beheld
Upclimb the spreading flame."

In the twelfth section, Grændel is compelled to retreat and presumed to be slain by the exertions of Beowulf.-In the thirteenth, the description of the palace, half in ruin, is quite from nature. Bodies of the heathens are scattered in the surrounding marshes; and the King's skald, or singer, is commanded to celebrate Beowulf.- Canto xiv. Rothgar proposes to reward the courage of Beowulf by the gift of his daughter's hand. In the fifteenth, the mansion is cleansed and repaired, and adorned for the approaching festivity; and the sword of Healfden is given to Beowulf as a reward of honour. In the sixteenth, the comrades of Beowulf are recompensed. In the seventeenth, some enterprizes against the Frieslanders and the Jutes are celebrated. At p. 84., and again at p. 86., the word Hengest is here rendered by the Latin adjective maritimus: but we suspect this to be a mistranslation; and that the word, which signifies a horse, is here a proper name. In canto eighteen, the Queen presents the cup of brotherhood to Beowulf and her sons. In the nineteenth, it appears that the mother of Grændel has cured his wounds by spells, and restored him to life; and that fresh exertions against him will be necessary. In the twentieth, Rothgar describes Grændel as a magical being, the son of a ware-wolf. In the twenty-first, Beowulf undertakes the new enterprize, and is armed with the sword Runting, a poisoned weapon, good against spells. - In canto xxii. Beowulf takes leave of his father-in-law, and embarks to attack Grændel at his dwelling-place. On the voyage, mermaids appear to him. - In the twenty-third canto, he accomplishes his purpose, and slays Grændel with the sword Runting; which, however, melts like ice after having perpetrated the deed. The body is taken on board of the ship in order to be presented to Rothgar; and on their arrival they cut off the head and carry it by the hair into Rothgar's hall.-In the twenty-fourth saga, Beowulf relates again the history of his voyage and victory, and receives the benediction of Rothgar.

-

Now