SCOTT'S FITZ-JAMES AND RODERICK DHU.

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It may be said that Scott prematurely discloses the almost certain issue of the struggle, by giving in advance a reason for the ending. This is so far true; but indeed in his introduction of the prophecy he had already prepared our minds for the actual conclusion. Still, even when we know how a struggle is to terminate, we can feel a strong interest in seeing by what steps and wavering turns the end is reached. So it is in the present case.

Three times in closing strife they stood,
And thrice the Saxon blade drank blood;
No stinted draught, no scanty tide,
The gushing flood the tartans dyed.
Fierce Roderick felt the fatal drain,
And shower'd his blows like wintry rain;
And, as firm rock, or castle roof,
Against the winter shower is proof,
The foe, invulnerable still,

Foil'd his wild rage by steady skill;
Till, at advantage ta'en, his brand
Forced Roderick's weapon from his hand,
And, backward borne upon the lea,

Brought the proud Chieftain to his knee.

The action here is perhaps too rapid; the effect of Fitz-James's superiority too immediate. More parley might have been allowed before Roderick Dhu had sunk so low. The author, however, has for us a surprise in store; the energy of Roderick in his prostrate condition protracts the issue, and very nearly turns the scale. The two exchange a few brief words, at the very highest tension of defiance.

"Now, yield thee, or, by Him who made

The world, thy heart's blood dyes my blade! "

Thy threats, thy mercy, I defy!

Let recreant yield, who fears to die."

Then follows the splendidly sustained description of Roderick's desperate move :—

Like adder darting from his coil,

Like wolf that dashes through the toil,
Like mountain-cat who guards her young,
Full at Fitz-James's throat he sprung;
Received, but reck'd not of a wound,
And lock'd his arms his foeman round.

In this attitude he can still command a speech, perhaps rather too highly illustrated for reasonable probability in the situation:

"Now, gallant Saxon, hold thine own!
No maiden's hand is round thee thrown!
That desperate grasp thy frame might feel,
Through bars of brass and triple steel!

A fearful scene ensues, enough to satisfy the most ardent lovers of a death struggle. The author's selection of circumstances is suggestive in the highest degree. Unlike many poetical descriptions, it enables us with a very slight effort to realize the phases of the struggle. No

thing could be omitted; and nothing more is needed to give us the full glut of a bloody business.

They tug, they strain !-down, down they go,

The Gael above, Fitz-James below.

The Chieftain's gripe his throat compress'd,
His knee was planted in his breast;
His clotted locks he backward threw,
Across his brow his hand he drew,
From blood and mist to clear his sight,
Then gleam'd aloft his dagger bright!-
But hate and fury ill supplied

The stream of life's exhausted tide,
And all too late the advantage came,
To turn the odds of deadly game;
For, while the dagger gleam'd on high,
Reel'd soul and sense, reel'd brain and eye.
Down came the blow! but in the heath
The erring blade found bloodless sheath.
The struggling foe may now unclasp
The fainting Chief's relaxing grasp;
Unwounded from the dreadful close,
But breathless all, Fitz-James arose.

The circumstance of skill and steadiness overpowering brute force and passion, is an agreeable manifestation of the quality of strength, and is a favourite point in romance. Much as we like to see any man possessing extraordinary strength, we are especially gratified at finding the coarser forms of energy made to succumb before the more elevated and refined.

Tennyson has not omitted to describe the single combat. In Gareth and Lynette,' Gareth has three fights: one with the Morning Star, a Second with the Noonday Sun, and the third with the Evening Star. The last is most protracted, there being included in the attractions of the fight Lynette's shrill encouragement to Gareth. The first and third fights are preluded by a touch or two of Homeric vituperation. Also, in Geraint and Enid' there is a set single combat between Geraint and the Sparrow-Hawk.

In Mr. M. Arnold's poem, Sohrab and Rustum,' we have a recent example of the working up of a life and death encounter. This work stands close examination for its artistic development; but the interest is removed to a much higher sphere, and partakes more of Pathos than of Malignity.

CONTESTS IN VARIOUS FORMS.

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The conflicts of armies in mass involve a different management. They may be described with the precision of Kinglake, which embodies both comprehensiveness and minute details, with a few touches of personal encounter. This is the mode adapted to modern warfare. Collective strength, if well conceived, has an impressiveness of its own, but it is dependent on the picturesqueness of the description. For the more strictly poetic treatment of mass engagements, we may refer to Scott's 'Battle of Flodden,' to Carlyle's battles in Cromwell and in Friedrich, and to Macaulay, who has furnished two styles-the one in the History of England, the other in the Lays.

The Tournament is a form of single combat, which, when given in fiction, obeys all the laws of interest of the fight. Scott rejoices in this also; and Tennyson has many occasions for it in The Idylls of the King'.

The Chase is a variety of the same all-pervading interest, and is worked up with poetical vividness by the great masters. The Lady of the Lake (Canto I.) is a sufficient example. As the pursuit and slaughter of destructive and ferocious animals, it commanded general sympathy, and gratified our natural malevolence without any revulsion of feeling. The case is very much altered when the subjects are the feebler animals, whose mischief could easily be prevented in other ways.

Contests of strength and prowess for the mere assertion of superiority, without slaughter, are a refinement upon the interest of conflict. This is the spirit of games of strength and skill, which admit of a poetic rendering. The Odyssey affords a case, when Ulysses contends with the Phæacians at the palace of Alcinous; the interest is heightened by interchange of taunting speech, and the discomfiture of the original aggressor. In the Rape of the Lock,' Pope introduces a game at cards, and handles it in his felicitous manner.

The highest refinement of all is the War of Words, which is eminently suited to poetry, and is splendidly exemplified in the great poets of ancient and modern times. Vituperation, more or less veiled, sarcasm and innuendo, and, lastly,

cool argument, may severally be employed as weapons; and all are interesting. Nevertheless, the laws of evolution, as already typified in the primitive duel for life, have to be fully observed. The management of such encounters leads us into the very core of dramatic art. That one of the two should be humiliated is essential; or, if the reader has no favourite, he expects both to suffer by turns.

The combative interest of mankind finds endless gratification in the fight of state parties, in rival orators, in contests of diplomacy and tactics, in litigation before the Courts of Law, and in the competitive struggle among mankind generally. The novelist finds his account in all these manifestations, and augments their natural charm by his genius and his art.

BENEFICENT STRENGTH.

To exhibit the various classes of Strength-Physical, Moral, Intellectual, Collective, Natural, Supernaturalas working for BENEFICENT ends, is one of the cherished departments of literary effect.

Beneficence, viewed as such, appeals to our Tender Emotion, and its poetical handling is ruled by that circumstance. The forms of Beneficent action that manifest the quality of Strength are chiefly the displays of unusual power directed towards objects of general utility. A great law-giver like Solon, the authors of civilized progress, the founders of states by the arts of peace, call us at once to witness their prowess in overcoming difficulties and their genius in originating improvements. King Alfred was both a warlike hero and a civilizing monarch. Pope has celebrated the Man of Ross; both Burke and Bentham composed eulogies of Howard. The endurance and resource of successful missionaries of civilization are coupled in the same picture with their beneficent achievements.

The liberation of oppressed peoples, the rescue of the victims of a strong man's cruelty, exhibit the most stimulating forms of strength as beneficence; the reason, obviously, being that the higher satisfaction of revenge enters into the case. Examples must be found where the interest is divided exclusively between the delineation of power and

CELEBRATION OF CIVILIZERS.

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the production of good. The reason for preferring general utility to the advantage of single individuals is simply that, in this last case, our regard for the person is too engrossing. We may commence with an example from Pope :

Till then, by nature crown'd, each patriarch sate,
King, priest, and parent of his growing state;
On him, their second providence, they hung,
Their law his eye, their oracle his tongue.
He from the wandering furrow call'd the food,
Taught to command the fire, controul the flood,
Draw forth the monsters of th' abyss profound,
Or fetch th' aërial eagle to the ground.

This is a highly successful attempt, in Pope's manner, to celebrate the civilizers of early society. In addition to the vigour and condensation of the language, it presents three points of interest. First, the picture of the lofty elevation of the chief of a primitive state. Second (lines 3 and 4), the admiring submission of his people-a legitimate and effective aid to the reader's feelings. Third, the detail of his feats of power all beneficent-with only the smallest tincture of malignancy. The operations described are in themselves familiar, and could be stated in plain prose, but Pope gives them elevation by the choice of a vigorous poetical phraseology, duly constrained into metre.

The following lines of Shelley give the effect in his more glowing manner :—

For, with strong speech, I tore the veil that hid
Nature, and Truth, and Liberty, and Love,—
As one who from some mountain's pyramid
Points to the unrisen sun!-the shades approve
His truth, and flee from every stream and grove.

The two first lines have a vigour of their own from the intensity of the figure-'tore the veil,' and from the cumulation of high, but not difficult, abstractions, well arranged for a climax. The simile in the three remaining lines is an agreeable illustration in itself, without adding to the compressed energy of the previous lines. There is a slight infusion of destructive interest in tearing the veil,' and an approach to the same interest in the sun's conquest over the shades of night; so difficult is it to achieve a great effect of energy without some aid from the destructive side of power.

The Heroes and Hero-worship of Carlyle includes biographical sketches of six great men, distinguished in different