Gothic castle of Faust. Arrived she expresses her devotion to him in a fine scene, and forthwith follow a number of others in which the Gothic and classic elements are strangely, yet finely contrasted. The next scene is in Arcadia, where Faustus, Helena, and the fruit of their amour, Euphorion, make their appearance. The latter is said to represent the union of ancient and modern poetry; but this charming conception seems rather intended to embody the joyous spirit of youth, with its versatile desires and aspiring aims. Space does not admit of our indicating seriatim the series of conversations which follow, or the meaning which critics suppose to underlie them. Suffice to say that Euphorion dies, and is lamented in a beautiful dirge; and Helena vanishes, leaving her robes behind her, which take the form of clouds, on which Faust is wafted away to a high mountain, where he meets Mephistopheles, who volunteers to satisfy his new-born passion for fame, power, and glory. Then come scenes at the court of the Emperor, for whom Faustus raises a battle of magic, and is recompensed by him, being awarded the seashore as a feoff. In the fifth act Faustus is still conceiving new plans of activity, and after the representation of various scenes of violence and outrage, the life of Faust, now purified by suffering and exertion, tends to its end. The scene of his death, and those which follow, in which Mephistopheles and the angels contend for his soul, which is saved by the latter, are among the most powerfully written in the poem, which concludes with a magnificent philosophic religious hymn. His body rests on the earth, his soul ascends, a chorus of penitent saints, headed by Marguerite, appear, and invoke the protection of the Virgin for the spirit which, after its pilgrimage of sin and sorrow, is finally received into the bosom of Divinity, whence it emanated.

Having thus indicated the structural outline of the second part of "Faust," a work which, full of varied meaning, as it is of profuse beauty of conception and depth of thought, requires not to be perused merely, but studied, if the reader would possess himself of the spirit with which it is impregnated, and of which, from its extent, tenor, and unity,

no extracts compatible with our space would convey an adequate idea, it remains to allude briefly to the manner in which it has been rendered into English by Dr. Anster. Some Frenchman has said that an original work is a creation; a translation, a resurrection-not, however, in the sense of its thus appearing in a more glorified form. And so it is with respect to the greater number of such efforts as have been made to naturalize the great compositions of antiq‐ uity, and of Europe, middle-aged and modern, in British literature, in which we find that, though the skeleton has been reproduced, and the meaning rendered prosaically intelligible, all those indefinable beauties of diction, cognate with the action of the original writer's imagination, and the genius of his language, have evaporated during the transformation. To account for this phenomena is simple, many of our renderings, especially from the classic authors, having been mere matters of task-work; but the great and obvious cause is to be found in the fact of the inferiority of the mind of the translator to that of the ori ginal writer. Whereas, to produce a translation approximating perfectionfor the differences of languages, even those most closely filiated, render absolute perfection impossible the genius of the one should equal that of the other. It rarely occurs that such affinities and adaptabilities exist; but even apart from such conditions, the admirable German translations of Shakspeare, and some others of the great English poets, demonstrate how much can be done by that love of subject, assiduity, and taste, of which we have had so few examples in British literature. Much of the verisimilitude attaching to similarity of form also has been lost, by writers arbitrarily adopting species of verse and metre different from the original; of which we find an instance in Carey's

Dante," one of our best works of this class, but which, despite its literalnes and truth, is rendered intolerably stiff from being rendered in Miltonic hex ameter.

It is pleasing and hopeful to turn from the long array of indifferent English poetic translations-in most of which a caput mortuum is all that remains of the foreign author, and some of the best of

valuable addition to the library of English history.

and, weighed down as were his last days with family troubles, Charlemagne never witnessed their actual invasion, He died "right royally," surrounded by all his great officers of state; and then, clad in imperial robes, with jewelled diadem on his brow, his ivory horn slung in his baldric, his good sword Joyeuse by his side, he was borne to his chair of state in the vault beneath his throne in the Basilica of Aix, and there, with gospel book open on his knees, his golden shield and sceptre pendant before him, sat in ghastly state-emperor even in the grave; while Louis le Debonnaire succeeded to an inheritance of sorrow. Charlemagne breathed his last beneath the gilded roof of the palace of Aixla-Chapelle, Louis, heart- broken, in a leafy hut close beside the Rhine, soothed by the pleasant ripple of its cooling streams, leaving to Charles le Chauve

The very pleasant little volume of Anglo-Saxon history, published in 1830, first introduced Sir Francis Palgrave as an historical writer, while his subsequent admirable work, The Rise and Frogress of the English Commonwealth during the Anglo-Saxon Period, placed him at once in the foremost rank. It is to this that we owe his largest and most important work, unfortunately left unfinished by his death, The History of Normandy and of England, for, as he remarks in his preface to the first volume, English history is the joint graft of Anglo-Saxon and Norman history," and therefore it is necessary to trace the annals of Normandy from the beginning, in order to understand more clearly the relative position of the two peoples. The first volume, published in 1851, comprises a history of the Carlovingian an empire more weakened and a future dynasty from the death of Charlemagne to the reign of Charles le Simple, together with the incursions of the Northmen and the settlement of Rollo in Neustria. The second volume, published in 1857, carries on the history of the three first dukes of Normandy, while the third volume now before us, relates the history of the three last dukes, and more at length, of the greatest of them all, William the Conqueror. As he occupies the larger portion of the third volume, and the beginning of the fourth, while the remainder of that is devoted to the reign of the Red King, and a very long dissertation on the first crusade, we shall confine our review to the more important subject-the life of William, first slightly glancing at the previous history of Normandy.

Glorious and prosperous as was the reign of Charlemagne, yet, "thick and lowering were the tempests gathering on the horizon, while the sun shone bright and cheerful on the vaulted roofs of Aix-la-Chapelle." Not only were the Sclavonian tribes pressing onward, and the Saracen power slowly and steadily advancing, but the dark sails of the Northmen already loomed on the Belgic coasts, and already had these fierce pirates sought a landing on the fertile plains of France. This sad beginning of future woe to his race was, however, spared to the great ruler of the tenth century;

still darker; for the Northmen, already victorious along the eastern coast of England, now hovered on the shores of Neustria; and ere long, invited by the withdrawal of the Frankish squadron, entered the mouth of the Seine, rowed up the tempting river, and plundered and burned "Gallo-Roman Rothomagus."

The

It was not often that pirates obtained spoil so abundant and so precious. They hurried back to summon their brethren, and stout Regner Lodbrok, with his hundred and twenty "dragons of the sea," ploughed cheerily through the crashing ice, on the following bleak Eastertide, right onward to Paris. inhabitants fled in dismay, having buried their treasures; but to the Northmen the huge beams of the church roofs, and the iron-work of the gates, were tempting spoils, and with these they loaded their barks. Seven thousand pounds of silver were offered by Charles as a subsidy, and the Northmen sailed back well satisfied. Arrived in Denmark, Regner repaired to Eric the Red, and related his good fortune; the king refused to believe him. Again Regner sought the presence of his sovereign, not with the silver, but followed by gangs of his crew, some carrying the long beams pulled from the church roofs, and others laden with the huge iron bar of the Paris gate. These trophies were irre

sistible; Eric the Red headed the next | succeeded to an inheritance of strife and expedition, and invasion followed inva sion, until the fairest provinces were subjected to their sway.

bloodshed. Many were the perils of his minority, but he surmounted them all, and from the day he reëntered Rouen, after his proud triumph over Louis d'Outremer, to when-a full half century later-he was placed in the stone chest in the pathway expressly hollowed out for him, Richard Sans-peur was a name of fear to his enemies, of fond re

ly the ruler "by whose deeds and doings the duchy was fashioned and framed." Richard Sans peur was succeeded by his eldest son, Richard, on whom was bestowed the title of "Le Bon," apparently not so unsuitable a title as those usually bestowed upon rulers. In his reign the first relations of England with Normandy were formed; for his sister Emma was married to Ethelred, and her subsequent return with her two sons, Edward and Alfred, and their education in Normandy, were important links in the chain of events which led to the conquest.

Of Rollo, the founder of the dukedom of Normandy, little can be known. He seems to have been a warlike youth, compelled by a quarrel with their "over king" to flee away with his brother to England. Here he became a viking chief, and, after many successful voy-membrance to his subjects-emphaticalages, he sailed up the Seine to Jumieges. The inhabitants, worn out with incessant attacks, now sought to capitulate, and invited Rollo "to a peaceful occupation of Rouen, terra firma, and islands." To this he consented, and a danegeld of five thousand pounds having ratified the contract, the bold viking and his hardy followers took possession of their lands. But ere long Rollo enlarged his boundaries. The empire under Charles le Chauve's successors was too feeble to offer resistance, and, at length, not Rouen and its appendages alone, but "Haute Normandie," became the fief of the Danish rover. A noble barbarian does Rollo seem to have been. Although a pirate from his youth, he had the wisdom to recognize the benefits of civilization, and in his new territory he encouraged both arts and learning. He became a Christian, too, in his grim old age, and holy church rejoiced when he wrapt the white chrismal vestment around him, for right royal were the gifts he bestowed on her ministers; the unlettered warrior doubtless looking up with wondering admiration to the booklearned priests, to whom he committed the education of his only son, Guillaume Longue- épée. Singular was it, too, "that the reputation of Rollo the legis. lator vied with the reputation of Rollo the conqueror." More than fourscore years of active life were allotted to this illustrious viking, and when infirmity at length warned him to retire from the world, his chieftains took the oath of fealty to his son, and soon after the great founder of the duchy of Normandy was laid "in the Metropolitan Basilica of Notre Dame of Rouen."

Guillaume Longue épée fell a victim to foul assassination ere his middle age, and Richard Sans-peur, the bright-eyed, golden-haired boy-so lovingly celebrated both by chronicler and trouvère―

Ethelred subsequently followed Emma to Normandy. He seems to have been kindly received; and from thence he returned to England, where, shortly after, he died, and was succeeded by Edmund Ironsides. During this time, Emma appears to have continued in Normandy, and here her children were educated, "their hearts thoroughly alienated from England, and the Normans and Normandy became as their kindred and their home."

Duke Richard le Bon died in middle age, leaving two sons, Richard, to whom he bequeathed the duchy, and Robert, to whom he left the county of Hiesmes. But Robert felt himself aggrieved that Falaise, which had formed a portion of that county, was withheld. He went to

war with his brother soon after his
father's death, and seized and held Fa-
laise. The brothers were now at deadly
strife, when friends interposed, and
effected a reconciliation. Merrily they
returned to Rouen; a splendid banque
was prepared, but "the young and flour
ishing Richard was suddenly stricken,
and he passed from the hall to his death-
bed." Many of the party shared the
same fate, and no one doubted that
poison had done its work.
Robert exonerated from the imputation

"Never was

was postponed. This incident is important, for it shows the strong interest Robert felt in his cousins, and how naturally Edward, after he had become by right of succession king of England, would still look to Normandy rather than elsewhere for council and aid.

But Robert, although wealthy and prosperous, and holding a station of higher political importance than any preceding duke, was ill at ease. He had one child, upon whom he seems to have doated with a more than mother's fondness, and whom, notwithstanding the illegitimacy of his birth, he determined to make his heir. Of little consequence was mere illegitimacy. Some of the dukes had not been clear of that stain; nor, although Arletta's general character was disrepu table, was that insuperable. But of all the working classes, the skinners were viewed-both by the French and Germans -as the most degraded of men, and her father was one. "Those who pursued the useful, albeit disgusting trade of skinning beasts, were stigmatized as a distinct and depraved caste

of fratricide; never was the dark stain effaced; never was the obscure suspicion dispelled." Robert succeeded to the duchy of course; there was no claimant to contest his right, and, whatever might be the general opinion, he soon won golden opinions from his subjects by his extravagant munificence. This well supplies the reason for his more favorable title, Robert le Magnifique; for that less complimentary one, by which he is more generally known, Robert le Diable, it is more difficult to ascertain its origin, since, "whatever may have been his secret crimes, he never manifested any open tendency to outrage or cruelty." A wild, rollicking life did Robert lead at Falaise, his favorite residence; and here he met Arletta, and here was born his only son-the dreaded William the Conqueror. But Robert, although pleasure-loving to the utmost excess, had talents for government, and he interfered successfully in the affairs of Flanders, and, on King Robert's decease, in those of France. During this time, the English Athelings, Edward and Alfred, had remained at their cous-ranked among the races maudites of in's court their mother, Emma, now wearing, a second time, the crown of England as the wife of Canute. Robert was their sole protector, and, with chivalrous feeling, he availed himself of a short interval of tranquillity to open negotiations with Canute for "an equitable division between the representatives of the two dynasties;" and a precedent was already familiar in the case of the partition between Canute and Ironside. But Canute's reply was a defiance"Let them hold what they can win." Robert generously accepted the challenge. He fitted out a noble fleet for the conquest of England, even while that son was in his cradle who was so direfully to achieve it. But the time was not yet. Although the cloudless sky and the prospering gale greeted the departing armament, the storm soon arose, the north wind blew furiously, the fleet was dispersed, and long afterwards were the decaying hulks to be seen rotting at Rouen. But the main portion escaped, and the Athelings continued on board, lingering for the opportunity of presenting themselves; but no opening ensued. The scheme became abortive, and the conquest of England

France, holding a place somewhat between a mesel and a gypsy, cohabiting or marrying only among themselves; and here, the sole offspring of Robert the Magnificent was grandchild to old Hulbert the tanner, whom the meanest burgess of Rouen would cross the way to avoid! No wonder that the very thought of a child of such base parentage inheriting the proud duchy of Rollo was gall and wormwood to the nobles; no wonder that the lowest of the people heaped epithets of obloquy on the boy, until "William the Conqueror could never rid himself of the contumelious appellation, which bore indelible record of his father's sin." Keenly did Robert feel this hostility towards his darling child-an hostility which, naturally enough, increased when the old tanner was elevated to the incongruous office of court chamberlain, and his daughter flaunted in almost royal state as the duke's publicly-recog nized mistress. "The boy, William, was the object of universal contempt; no wonder that the magnificent Robert was sad at heart."

Suddenly Robert convened his prelates and nobles, and then made the