knowledge, candidly tells his readers, Constantinople with every possible that other chronicles say that Belisa- indignity. The blind and mutilated rius was restored to all his former Peganes was compelled to walk before honours. * his friend, with a bowl of earthenThe notices of a Greek guide-book, ware in the form of a censer, filled and the tales of a popular versifier, with sulphur, as if burning incense to concerning a Roman general, ought perfume him. The right eye of Symcertainly to be received with great bat was put out, and his right hand caution, when they are found to be at cut-off, and in this state he was variance with all historical evidence. placed in the Lauron, like a beggar, In this case, tradition cannot be ad- with a bowl hung before his breast to mitted to have had any existence for receive charity. Three days after, many centuries after the death of the two rebels were allowed to return Belisarius. The supposed tradition to their houses, where they were kept is Greek, – the authentic history is prisoners. Symbat regained possesRoman, But historical evidence sion of his sequestered fortune when exists to show that all the details Basil the Macedonian became emconcerning the blindness and beggary peror. of Belisarius have been copied by the Now, even if we admit the possiauthor of the romance, from circum- bility of the politic Justinian having stances which occurred at Constanti- treated Belisarius as Michael the nople in the year 866. Drunkard treated the unprincipled In that year, the Armenian, Symbat, Symbat, still it is impossible to comafter assisting his wife's cousin the pare the words in which the GuideEmperor Michael III. (who re- book and Tzetzes commemorate the joiced in the jolly epithet of the misfortunes of the hero with the narDrunkard,) and the future emperor ratives of the punishment of Peganes Basil the Macedonian, (who subse- and Symbat, without feeling that the quently murdered his patron the former are transcribed from the latter. Drunkard,) to assassinate his own To prove this, if necessary, we could father-in-law Casar Bardas, re- quote the words of our authorities. The belled against his connexion the earliest account of the punishment of Drunkard.t He engaged Peganes, Peganes and Symbat is given by the general of the theme of Opsikion, George the Monk, a Byzantine writer or the provinces on the Asiatic shore whose chronicle ends with the year of the Hellespont, in his rebellion. 920. The chronicle of Simeon MetaPeganes was soon taken prisoner by phrastes, which also belongs to the the imperial troops, and the Drunkard tenth century, and that of Leo Gramordered his eyes to be put out and his maticus, give the same account, alnose to be cut of, and he then sent most in the same words. There can him to stand in the Milion for three be no doubt that they are all copied days successively, with a bowl in his from official documents; the style is hand, to solicit alms. A month after, a rich specimen of the monastic statethe news that Symbat was captured paper abridgment. I was brought to the emperor, while The state-paper style was retained he was feasting in the palace of St in the romance from which the GuideMamas. lle ordered Peganes to be book was copied, to impress the feelled out to meet the new prisoner, ing of reality on the minds of the that Symbat might be conducted into people; while the mention of the obo * Joannis Tzetzæ Historiarum Variarum Chiliades, p. 94, ed. Kiesslingii, Lipsiæ, 1826, 8vo. + Basil the Macedonian was originally a groom, and owed his first step in the imperial favour of the Drunkard to his powers as a whisperer. He broke an ungovernable horse belonging to the emperor, by the exercise of this singular quality, and rendered it, to the amazement of the whole court, as tame as a sheep. Leo Grammaticus says, Tη μεν μιά χειρί τον χαλινών κρατήσας, τη δε ετέρα του ωτός δραξάμενος εις έμερότητα WqO66 Tou Meribanov.--P. 230, ed. Bonn. # Georgius Monachus, p. 540. Simeon Metaph. p. 449. Scriptores post Theyphanem, ed. Paris. Leo Giramm., p. 469, ed. Paris, p. 247, ed. Bonn. lus, an ancient coin, marked the antique sarius and Justinian does not suggest, dignity with which the tale was in- we have failed to comprehend its true vested. The obolus had been, for spirit. In spite of its glory-of its lecenturies, unknown in the coinage of gislative, its legal, its military, its adConstantinople; and the word was no ministrative, its architectural, and its longer in use in the public markets of ecclesiastical greatness, it was destiGreece. But besides this, if the Guide- tute of that spiritual power which book is to be admitted as an authority rules and guides the souls of men. for a historical fact, it very soon It was an age entirely material and destroys the value of its own testi- selfish. Religion was a mere formula: mony concerning the blindness and Christianity slept victorious amidst beggary of Belisarius; for, only a few the ruins of extinguished paganism. lines after recording his disgrace, it Belisarius could depose one Pope, and mentions a gilt statue of the hero as sell the chair and the keys of St Peter standing near the palace of Chalce. to another, without rousing the indig Such is fame. The real Belisarius, nation of the Christian world. Lithe hero of the history and the libelsberty was an incomprehensible term. of Procopius, being a Roman general, That energy of individual indepenowes his universal reputation to the dence and physical force which excicreation of an imaginary Belisarius ted the barbarians of the north to conby some unknown Greek romance- quer the western empire, and enabled writer or ballad-singer. The interest the Romans of Byzantium to save the of mankind in the conquests and re- eastern, was sinking into lethargy. cords of Byzantine Rome has become Patriotism was an unknown feeling. torpid; but the feelings of humanityIndeed, what idea of nationality or in favour of the victims of courtly love of country could be formed by ingratitude, are immortal. The un- the privileged classes of Constantiextinguishable aversion of the Helle- nople ? Their successors the Turks nic race to tyranny and oppression, has may be taken as interpreters of the given a degree of fame to the name of sentiments of the Byzantine Romans Belisarius which his own deeds, great as on this subject, who, while vegetating they were, would never have conferred. in Stamboul, gravely tell you that This is but one proof of the singular Mecca is their country. influence exercised by the Hellenic In short, the spirit of liberty and mind over the rest of the world during religion was torpid in the empire of the middle ages. It may be con- Justinian, and perhaps in the soul tinually traced in the literature both of Belisarius. These two remarkof the east and the west. When- able men were both governed by the ever the sympathies are awakened by material impulses of military discigeneral sentiments of philanthropy pline and systematic administration. among the emirs of the east, or the Verily, the mission of Mahomet was barons of the west, there is reason to necessary to awaken mankind, and suspect that the origin of the tale must rouse the Christian world from its be sought in Greece. Europe has lethargy to the great mental struggle been guided by the mind of Hellas in which, from the hour of the unfolding every age, from the days of Homer to of the banner of Islam, has left the those of Tzetzes ; and its power has minds of men no repose ; and will been maintained by addressing the henceforth compel them to unite the feelings common to the whole human spirit of religion with all their restless feelings long cherished in endeavours to realise each successive Greece after they had been banished dream of social improvement that the from western society by Goths, human soul shall dare to conceive. Franks, and Normans. * There is yet one important reflection Athens, March 20, 1847. which, if the study of the age of Beli 1ace * Things have not changed in our day. Capodistrias lighted his pipe with Canning's treaties and King Leopold's renunciation ; and Colettis makes game of the feeble acts and strong expressions of Viscount Palmerston. VOL. LXI.-NO. CCCLXXIX. 2 T ANCIENT AND MODERN BALLAD POETRY.* mourn over 66 The first day of April is a festival other haunts of fashionable and litertoo prominent in the Kalendar of ary celebrity, Poseidon Hicks will reMomus to be passed over without lapse into gloomy silence, and Miss due commemoration. The son of Bunion refrain from chanting her Nox, who, according to that prince Lays of the Shattered Heart-strings. of heralds, Hesiod, presides especially It a hard thing that a poet may not over the destinies of reviewers, de- protrude his gentle sorrows for our mands a sacrifice at our hands; and commiseration, ; his as, in the present state of the provi- blighted hopes, or rejoice the bosom sion market, we cannot afford to of some budding virgin by celebrating squander a steer, we shall sally forth her, in his Tennysonian measure, as into the regions of rhyme and attempt the light-tressed Ianthe or sleek-haired to capture a versifier. Claribel of his soul, without being The time has been when such a task immediately greeted by a burst of was, to say the least of it, very simple. impertinent guffaws, either Each successive spring, at the season wantonly parodied or profanely ridiwhen a livelier iris glows upon the culed to his face. So firm is our belief burnished dove," Parnassus sent in the humanising influence of poetry forth its leaves, and the voices of that we would rather, by a thousand many cuckoos were heard throughout times, that all the reviews should the land. Small difficulty then, either perish, and all the satirists be conto flush or to bag sufficient game. signed to Orcus, than behold the But, somehow or other, of late years total cessation of song throughout there has been a sort of panic among the British Islands. And if we, upon the poets. The gentler sort have any former occasion, have spoken ireither been scared by the improvisa- reverently of the Nincompoops, we tore warblings of Mr Wakley, or terri- now beg leave to tender to that infied into silence by undue and unde- jured body our heartfelt contrition served apprehensions of the Knout. for the same; and invite them to Seldom now are they heard to chirrup join with us in a pastoral pilgrimage except under cover of the leaves of to Arcadia, where they shall have the a sheltering magazine; and although run of the meadows, with a fair allowwe do occasionally detect a thin and ance of pipes and all things needful ricketty octavo taking flight from the —where they may rouse a satyr from counter of some publisher, it is of so every bush, scamper over the hills in meek and inoffensive a kind that we pursuit of an Oread, or take a sly vizzy should as soon think of making prize at a water-nymph arranging her of a thrush in a bed of strawberries. tresses in the limpid fountains of the We are much afraid that the tendency Alpheus. What say you, our masof the present age towards the face- ters and mistresses, to this proposal tious has contributed not a little to for a summer ramble ? the dearth of sonnets and the exter- Hitherto we have spoken merely of mination of the elegiac stanza. So the gentler section of the bards. But long as friend Michael Angelo Tit- there is another division of that marsh has the privilege of frequent- august body by no means quite so ing the house of Mrs Perkins and diffident. Since our venerated Father * The Minstrelsy of the English Border; being a collection of Ballads, ancient, re-modelled, and original, founded on well-known Border Legends. With illustrative notes by FREDERICK SHELDON. London : 1847. A Book of Roxburghe Ballads. Edited by John PAYNE COLLIER, Esq. London: 1847. A Lytell Geste of Robin Hood. Edited by John MATHEW GUTCH, F.S.A. 2 vols. London : 1847. Poems and Songs of Allan CUNNINGHAM. London : 1847. The Poetical Works of WILLIAM MOTHERWELL. Second Edition, Enlarged. Glasgow : 1847. 66 a Christopher paid, some four years earlier Harrys or Edwards, or the ago, a merited tribute to the genius of charge of the Templars at Ascalon, or Mr Macaulay, commenting upon the the days of the Saxon Heptarchy ? thews and sinews of his verse, and Are they called upon by some irrethe manly vigour of his Lays of pressible impulse to ransack the pages Ancient Rome-ballad poetry in all of English history for a situation," its forms and ramifications has be- or to crib from the Chronicles of come inconceivably rampant. The Froissart ? Cannot they let the old Scottish poetry also, which from time warriors rest in peace, without sumto time has appeared in MAGA, seems moning them, like the Cid, from their to have excited, in certain quarters, a honoured graves, again to put on harspirit of larcenous admiration; and ness and to engage in feckless combat? not long ago it was our good fortune For oh! — weak and most washy are to behold in the Quarterly Review a the battles which our esteemed young laudation of certain lines which are nei- friends describe! Their war-horses ther more nor less than a weak dilution have for the most part a general of a ballad composed by one of our con- resemblance to the hacks hired out tributors. It would be well , however, at seven-and-sixpence for the Sunday had we nothing more to complain of exhibition in the Park. Their arthan this. But the ballad fever has mour is of that kind more espegot to such a height that it may be cially in vogue at Astley's, in the necessary to make an example. Our composition of which tinfoil is a prinyoung English poets are now emulating cipal ingredient, and pasteboard by in absurdity those German students, no means awanting. Their heroes who dress after the costume of the mid- fight, after preliminary parley which dle ages as depicted by Cornelius, and would do credit to the chivalry of the terrify the peaceful Cockney on the Hippodrome; and their lances inRhine by apparitions of Goetz of variably splinter as frush as the texBerlichingen. They are no longer ture of the bullrush. Their dying Minnesingers, but warriors of san- chiefs all imitate Bayard, as we once guineous complexion. They are all saw Widdecomb do it, when struck for glory, blood, chivalry, and the down by the infuriated Gomersal ; deeds of their ancestors. They cut, and the poem generally concludes thrust, and foin as fiercely as fifty with a devout petition to Francalanzas, and are continually Ladye,” not only to vouchsafe her shouting on Saint George. Dim ideas grace to the defunct champion, but of the revival of the Maltese Order to grant that the living minstrel may seem to float before their excited experience the same end-a prayer imaginations; and, were there the which, for the sake of several respecslightest spark of genuine feeling in table young members of society, we their enthusiasm, either Abd-el-Kader hope may be utterly disregarded. or Marshal Bugeaud would have had The truth is, that instead of being by this time some creditable recruits. the easiest, the ballad is incomparably But the fact is, that the whole sys- the most difficult kind of all poetical tem is sham. Our young friends composition. Many men, who were care about as much for Saint George not poets in the highest sense of the as they do for Saint Thomas Aquinas; word, because they wanted the inthey would think twice before they ventive faculty, have nevertheless, by permitted themselves to be poked at dint of perseverance, great accomwith an unbuttoned foil ; and as for plishment, and dexterous use of those the deeds of their ancestors, a good materials which are ready to the many of them would have consider- hand of every artificer, gained a reable difficulty in establishing their spectable name in the roll of British descent even from a creditable slop- literature—but never, in any singleinseller—the founder of our family”. stance, by attempting the construction in the reign of George the Third. It of a ballad. That is the Shibboleth, by is therefore a mystery to us why they which you can at once distinguish the should persevere in their delusion. true minstrel from mere impostor or What-in the name of the Bend pretender. It is the simplest, and at the Sinister-have they to do with the same time the sublimest form of poetry, nor can it be written except under the little of the ballad-maker in his cominfluence of that strong and absorbing position. He was always thinking of emotion, which bears the poet away far himself, and of his art, and the effect from the present time, makes him an which his Æneid would produce,-nay, actor and a participator in the vivid we are even inclined to suspect that scenes which he describes, and which at times he was apt to deviate into a is, in fact, inspiration of the very calculation of the number of sestertia loftiest kind. The few who enjoy which he might reasonably reckon to the glorious privilege, not often felt, receive from the bounty of the nor long conferred, of surrendering Emperor. The Æneid is upon the themselves to the magic of that whole a sneaking sort of a poem. spell, cease for the time to be artists; The identity of Æneas with Augustus, they take no thought of ornament, and the studied personification of or of any rhetorical artifice, but throw every leading character, is too apparthemselves headlong into their subject, ent to be denied. It is therefore less trusting to nature for that language an epic than an allegory; and—without which is at once the shortest and questioning the truth of Hazlitt's the most appropriate to the occasion ; profound apothegm, that allegories do spurning all far-fetched metaphors not bite—we confess that, in general, aside, and ringing out their verse as we have but small liking to that the iron rings upon the anvil! It was species of composition. For in the in this way that Homer, the great old first place, the author of an allegory ballad-maker of Greece, wrote —or strips himself of the power of believrather chanted, for in his day pensing it. He can have no faith in the were scarce, wire-wove unknown, and previous existence of heroes whom the pride of Moseley undeveloped. he is purposely portraying as shadGod had deprived the blind old man ows, and he must constantly be put of sight; but in his heart still burned to shifts, in order to adapt his story, the fury of the fight of Troy; and trow during its progress, to the circumye not, that to him the silent hills of stances which he attempts to typify. Crete many a time became resonant And, in the second place, he commits with the clang of arms, and the shouts the error, equally palpable, of disenof challenging heroes, when not a chanting the eyes of his reader. For breath of wind was stirring, and the the very essence of that pleasure ibex stood motionless on its crag? which we all derive from fiction, lies What a difference between Homer in our overcoming to a certain exand Virgil! Mæonides goes straight to tent the idea of its actual falsity, and work, like a marshal calling out his in our erecting within ourselves a sort men. He moves through the encamp- of secondary belief, to which, accordment of the ships, knowing every man ingly, our sympathies are submitted. by headmark, and estimating his Every thing, therefore, which intercapabilities to a buffet. No meta- feres with this fair and legitimate phor or nonsense in the combats credulity is directly noxious to the that rage around the sepulchre of effect of the poem ; it puts us back one Ilus—good hard fighting all of it, as stage further from the point of absobefits barbarians, in whose veins the lute faith, and materially diminishes blood of the danger-seeking demigods the interest which we take in the is seething: fierce as wild beasts they progress of the piece. Spenser's meet together, smite, hew, and roll Faërie Queen is a notable example of over in the dust. Jove may mourn this. Could we but think that Una for Sarpedon, or Andromache tear was intended, though only by the her hair above the body of her slaugh- poet's fancy, to be the portraiture of tered Hector ; but not one whit on a mortal virgin, unfriended and that account abstain their comrades alone amidst the snares and enchantfrom the banquet, and on the morrow, ments of the world, would we not under other leaders, they will renew tremble for her sweet sake, knowing the battle-for man is but as the leaves that some as innocent and as fair as of the forest, whilst glory abideth for she have fallen victims to jealousy 66 Our |