men.

In

made the name and infamy of the hero, familiar to our countryIn the eighth century, the Moors were invited into Spain by Count Julian, a powerful courtier, in revenge for the violation of his daughter Florinda, by the king, Roderick. the battle of Xeres, the invaders were completely triumphant, and Roderick having disappeared, leaving his armour and horse on the field, it was generally believed, that he was drowned in attempting to cross the river. Mr. Southey grounds the story of his poem on another tradition; that the king, in the disguise of a peasant, escaped; and with a monk, named Romano, fled to a lonely promontory in Portugal, where they dwelt together a year. At the end of that time the monk died, and Roderick, who, in adversity, had become a penitent and a convert, finding solitude and inaction, with his feelings and remembrances, insupportable, returned into Spain; where, in the garb and character of a monk, following the course of providential circumstances, he assisted Pelayo, the next heir to his throne in establishing an independent sovereignty amid the mountains of Asturias. At the battle of Covadonga, where the Moors were overthrown with an extent of ruin which they could never repair in that part of the Peninsula, Roderick, after performing miracles of valour, is at length recognised by Pelayo and his old servants; but impatiently returning to the conflict, he carries terror and death wherever he moves, avenging his own and his country's wrongs, on the Moors, and the renegadoes that assisted them. At the conclusion he disappears as unaccountably as he had done at the battle of Xeres, leaving his horse and his armour on the field as before.

It was a perilous undertaking of Mr. Southey, to unsettle the prejudices so long and so inveterately held against Roderick's character, and to transform him from a remorseless tyrant and a shameless ravisher, into a magnanimous patriot and a self-denying saint; nor was it less bold, after his condemnation had been recently renewed, and his death irrevocably sealed by a brother bard, to revive and lead him out again into the field, not to recover his lost crown for himself, but to bestow it upon another. We think that in both attempts our Author has suc ceeded. By the artful development of Roderick's former history, always in connexion with the progress of his subsequent penitence, and disinterested exertions for the deliverance of his country, we are gradually reconciled to all his conduct, except the outrage done to Florinda; and even that the poet attempts to mitigate almost into a venial offence,-the sin of a mad moment, followed by instantaneous and unceasing compunction. After he has softened our hearts to pity in favour of the contrite sinner, he finds it easy to melt them to love, and exalt them to admiration of the saint and the hero. Roderick's character rises

at every step, and grows more and more amiable, and interesting, and glorious, to the end, when he vanishes, like a being from the invisible world, who has been permitted for awhile to walk the earth, mysteriously disguised, on a commission of wrath to triumphant tyrants, and of mercy to a perishing people.

Roderick's achievements in the first battle, wherein he was supposed to have fallen, his flight, remorse, despair, and penitential sorrow, are thus strikingly described in the first section.

Bravely in that eight-days fight

The King had striven,-for victory first, while hope
Remain'd, then desperately in search of death.
The arrows past him by to right and left,

The spear-point pierced him not, the scymitar
Glanced from his helmet. Is the shield of Heaven,
Wretch that I am, extended over me?

Cried Roderick; and he dropt Orelio's reins,
And threw his hands aloft in frantic prayer,-
Death is the only mercy that I crave

Death soon and short, death and forgetfulness!
Aloud he cried; but in his inmost heart
There answered him a secret voice, that spake
Of righteousness and judgement after death,
And God's redeeming love, which fain would save
The guilty soul alive. 'Twas agony,

And yet twas hope; a momentary light,

That flash'd through utter darkness on the Cross
To point salvation, then left all within

Dark as before. Fear, never felt till then,
Sudden and irresistible as stroke

Of lightning, smote him. From his horse he dropt,
Whether with human impulse, or by Heaven
Struck down, he knew not; loosen'd from his wrist
The sword-chain, and let fall the sword, whose hilt
Clung to his palm a moment ere it fell,

Glued there with Moorish gore. His royal robe,
His horned helmet and enamell'd mail,

He cast aside, and taking from the dead
A peasant's garment, in those weeds involved,
Stole, like a thief in darkness, from the field.
Evening closed round to favour him. All night
He fled, the sound of battle in his ear
Ringing, and sights of death before his eyes,
With dreams more horrible of eager fiends
That seem'd to hover round, and gulphs of fire
Opening beneath his feet. At times the groan
Of some poor fugitive, who, bearing with him
His mortal hurt, had fallen beside the way,
Rous'd him from these dread visions, and he call'd

In answering groans on his Redeemer's name,
That word the only prayer that past his lips
Or rose within his heart. Then would he see
The Cross whereon a bleeding Saviour hung,
Who call d on him to come and cleanse his soul
In those all-healing streams, which from his wounds,
As from perpetual springs, for ever flowed.
No hart e er panted for the water-brooks

As Roderick thirsted there to drink and live:
But Hell was interposed; and worse than Hell,
Yea to his eyes more dreadful than the fiends
Who flock'd like hungry ravens round his head,-
Florinda stood between, and warn'd him off
With her abhorrent hands—that agony

Still in her face, which, when the deed was done,
Inflicted on her ravisher the curse

That it invok'd from Heaven.-Oh what a might

Of waking horrors.'-pp. 4-7.

On the eighth day of his flight he reaches a deserted monastery, where one monk only, is waiting for release from the bondage of life by the sword of the enemy. At evening he was come to the gate to catch the earliest sight of the Moor, for it seemed long to tarry for his crown.'

Before the Cross

Roderick had thrown himself: his body raised,
Half kneeling, half at length he lay; his arms
Embraced its foot, and from his lifted face
Tears streaming down bedew'd the senseless stone.
He had not wept till now, and at the gush
Of these first tears, it seem'd as if his heart,
From a long winter's icy thrall let loose,
Had open'd to the genial influences
Of Heaven. In attitude, but not in act
Of prayer he lay; an agony of tears

Was all his soul could offer. When the Monk
Beheld him suffering thus, he raised him up,
And took him by the arm, and led him in;
And there before the altar, in the name
Of Him whose bleeding image there was hung,
Spake comfort, and adjured him in that name
There to lay down the burthen of his sins.
Lo! said Romano, I am waiting here
The coming of the Moors, that from their hands
My spirit may receive the purple robe

Of martyrdom, and rise to claim its crown.
That God who willeth not the sinner's death

Hath led thee hither. Threescore years and five,

Even from the hour when I, a five-years child,

Enter'd the schools, have 1 continued here

And served the altar: not in all those years
Hath such a contrite and a broken heart

Appear'd before me. O my brother, Heaven
Hath sent thee for thy comfort, and for mine,
That my last earthly act may reconcile
A sinner to his God.'-pp. 9-11.

Roderick confesses his name and his sins, and the monk determines to live a little longer for his sake. Accordingly, instead of waiting for martyrdom, he accompanies the royal fugitive on his way, as we have already seen.

In a work of imagination we never before met with an account of the awakening and conversion of a sinner more faithfully and awfully drawn,-one might almost presume, not from reading, nor from hearing, but from experience. Had the name of Christ, and redemption in his blood, never been mentioned in the course of the narrative, but in connexion with such feelings and views of sin and its consequences, as are contained in the foregoing extracts, and the immediate context, these pages should have had our cordial approbation, qualified only by a passing murmur of disgust at the circumstance of the monk, when they set out on their pilgrimage, taking with him our Lady's image,' and saying,

In this

We have our guide, and guard, and comforter,
The best provision for our perilous way.'

This circumstance, though perfectly in place and character, at once dispels the vision of glory, which before seemed to shine round the fallen penitent, and forces upon us the painful recollection, that it is only a picturesque fiction, not an affecting reality with which the Poet is beguiling our attention: while his not scrupling to mingle the false and degrading notions of a superstitious faith with the genuine workings of a contrite heart, seems to imply the belief that both are alike the natural emotions of the mind, and may as such, be employed with equal familiarity, for the purposes of poetry. Roderick's piety throughout the whole poem, while it sheds transcendent lustre on his deeds and sayings in every scene and situation, except when he is in his heroic moods, sometimes undergoes eclipses, which appear to change its very nature; and while he is thirsting for vengeance, or rioting in blood, its sanctity serves only to give a more terrific and sacrilegious ferocity to his purposes. Meek, humble, and equally magnanimous in action or suffering, as we generally find it, and disposed as we are at all times to love it, as pure and undefiled religion, we are the more shocked when we are compelled to shrink from it as raving fanaticism. It is true, that when it is associated with violent and implacable emo

tions, they are emotions of patriotism, and the vengeance pursued by him, is vengeance against infidels, traitors, and usurpers. Be it so; but still let the patriot fight, and the avenger slay, in any name, except in the name of Him, whose kingdom 'is not of this world.' We shall not enter further into the subject; we give this hint in consequence of the frequent allusions to converting grace, the blood of Christ, and the love of God, in the mouth of the Hero. We have repeatedly shuddered at sentiments and expressions, which, under other circumstances, would have been music to our ears, and comfort to our hearts. This is a fault for we cannot call it by a milder namewhich we find, not as critics, but as Christians. The things we condemn are quite consistent with the religious costume of the age, if we may so speak; but we think, that the Poet ought to have been more careful not to introduce them where they may give occasion of offence to the sincerely pious, and of mockery to the scorner. The fact is, that in order to reconcile the mind to the introduction of these sacred subjects, it is requisite that the Author's purpose should approve itself to the reader as being of a high and ennobling character. His design as a poet must appear to be quite subordinate to, or rather wholly lost in, the desire of conveying a moral impression. His aim must seem to partake of the dignity of the theme, and his style comport with its reality.

With this single deduction we consider the character of Roderick as one of the most sublime and affecting creations of a poetic mind. The greatest drawback, however, from its effect is not a flaw in its excellence, but an original and incorrigible defect in the plot itself. Roderick, after spending twelve months in solitude and penance with the monk, returns, emaciated and changed in person and garb, into society, mingles with his own former courtiers, has interviews with Florinda, Julian, Pelayo, and others who have known him from a child, yet remains undiscovered to the last scene of the last act of the poem. All this while he gives no plausible account whence he came, or who he is in his assumed character; he is a being of mystery, emanating from darkness, and haunting like a spectre the day light in which his bodily presence was but lately the joy of those eyes, that are now holden from distinguishing him, though sometimes his looks, his voice, or his gestures, trouble them like the images of a dream, that mock recollection, yet cannot be driven away from the thoughts. This awkward ignorance, though necessary for the conduct of the story, compels the reader, whenever it crosses him, to do violence to his own mind in order to give assent to it. Indeed, there is nothing in "Thalaba," or "Kehama," how marvellous soever, which, under the given circumstances, appears such