The most remarkable characteristics of Mr. Taylor's poetry appear to us its manliness and its truth. It is obvious that he writes not from any peculiar theory of the poetic art, though this has been often attributed to him, but in the manner most natural to him, and most congenial with his general estimate of things. It is on a moral base that the intellectual fabric of his poetry rests. Hence an entire absence of false sentiment and factitious effects: hence also, in a volume which is a perfect storehouse of observation and reflection, we shall search in vain for a single remark put forward for its brilliancy rather than its truth. He never solicits our sympathy for morbid sorrows: for real afflictions he never pushes it beyond the limits of what is just and salutary. An excess of pathos is a frequent source of weakness in modern poetry, though, as we are glad to observe, it exists in a much less degree than it did once. In the lower departments of our literature we still find the traces of an evil as great. We allude to that gross and plebeian craving for the harrowing and the horrible, which disgraces the popular literature of a neighbouring country. No doubt persons will always be found who prefer intoxicating drugs to the purer aliments of the mind: but as there exists also a class of readers who look for moral and mental benefits as the result of study, and who have not forgotten that poetry is a study, we rejoice, not only on literary grounds but also for higher reasons, that for this class such books as Edwin the Fair' are still provided. It is a work full of those thoughts which make books dear to us, and yet leave us independent of books. It is solid in its material, severe in its structure, and elevating in its spirit. It has no ornaments that distract the attention from the robust and permanent attributes of true poetry, no subtleties that destroy breadth of dramatic effect. It is nowhere so concise as to be obscure, and, on the other hand, it is free from that diffuseness which makes the best thoughts as ineffective as a musical string relaxed till it can yield no sound.

With reference to our introductory remarks, we must also observe, that in some respects Mr. Taylor's poetry is distinguished from that of other poets of this age, whose merits are unquestioned and have stood the ordeal of time: we allude in particular to his aptitude for observing character and action. It is not only man, but men, that he takes for the subject-matter of his verse: men in all the relations of social and political life, civil or ecclesiastical,men awake to all the excitements of a busy career, and fulfilling their parts with a healthy energy. Mr. Taylor seldom writes as a metaphysician, though frequently as a philosopher. As unconsciousness is a necessary condition of healthfulness of character, so a certain suspension of poetic consciousness appears

to

to be requisite for the vigorous conception of character;which is perhaps the reason that metaphysicians have never been dramatists. It is as ill-judged to exercise the critical and the creative faculties at the same moment as it would be to combine the statue with the anatomical model by the use of some transparent material, and call upon us at once to admire the outward beauty of man's shape and the marvels of his internal economy. In Mr. Taylor's poetry we never come to an analysis of the feelings, for it is not the passions, but men impassioned, that he describes we seldom come to any long strain of merely speculative meditation, for his subject is not thought in itself, but thoughtful men. Passion appears to be valued chiefly as leading to action: nay, action itself is in some degree subordinated to reflection, though reflection of so practical a character as to be in fact a form of action. It is in this respect that he pays his tribute to the age and reflects its spirit. Belonging, on the whole, to the active school, his poetry is, though never sicklied over,' yet sometimes shadowed over with the cast of thought (we do not mean mystical thought), in a degree which makes the principal difference between him and our early dramatists. So far as this predominance of practical thought and fixed purpose tends to weaken his sympathy for natural and healthy passion, it necessarily tends to injure the popular interest of his dramas, and to deprive them of that perfect spontaneity of movement and redundant life which characterizes those of our early literature. On the other hand, the blended dignity of thought and a sedate moral habit invests Mr. Taylor's poetry with a stateliness in which the drama is generally deficient, and makes his writings illustrate, in some degree, a new form of the art-such a form indeed as we might expect the written drama naturally to assume if it were to revive in the nineteenth century, and maintain itself as a branch of literature apart from the stage.

ART. IV.-Medii Evi Kalendarium: or Dates, Charters, and Customs of the Middle Ages, with Kalendars from the Tenth to the Fifteenth Century; and an Alphabetical Digest of obsolete Names of Days; forming a Glossary of the Dates of the Middle Ages, with Tables and other Aids for ascertaining Dates. By R. T. Hampson. 2 vols. London. 1841.

THE plan and intention of this work may be best told in the

words of the author.

"Of a work which is chiefly founded on information derived from manuscript or printed sources, little explanation can be necessary. The original

VOL. LXXI. NO. CXLII.

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original intention was to cast into the form of a glossary as many of the terms now obsolete, being employed in medieval chronology, as could be obtained by a diligent research, and to assign the bearing of each as nearly as it could be satisfactorily ascertained. In the prosecution of this plan it soon became obvious that the utility of the glossary would be considerably enlarged by determining the age of the term itself; and the attempt to effect this object with exactitude has necessarily introduced a multitude of ecclesiastical and legal antiquities which were not contemplated in the first design, but which are indispensable in many cases to confer probability on explanations respecting which there may be conflicting opinions. Writers of considerable eminence on ecclesiastical subjects connected with chronology do not always agree in determining the year in which several of the principal feasts were instituted. The variation sometimes extends to one or two centuries, and occasions difficulties which are not always to be surmounted. In such cases the leading opinions are given, with references to the authorities on which they are founded. . .. Innumerable instances may be readily collected from the glossary, in which it has been a principal object to assemble, in an alphabetical order, whatever might tend to elucidate the obscurities of the chronology of the middle ages. In order the better to preserve the utility of this department of the work by removing from it everything that did not immediately belong to the explanations, it became necessary either to reject many curious and not altogether useless facts, or to embody them in a separate department. The latter course has been pursued.

'The Kalendars, it is presumed, will be found of considerable service. They are six in number, of which two are incorporated in one, but the others are distinct. They range from the middle of the tenth century to the end of the fourteenth, and may therefore be supposed to contain all the information which can be expected from works of their description. Of one, of which the original is believed to have been the property of King Athelstan, it must be confessed that it contains much matter that is not likely to prove remarkably useful, and it has been presented more as a literary curiosity than as an assistant in chronology. The obits of another have been retained, so far as they could be read by the transcriber, because it is possible that one or other of them may determine the date of some particular fact. For instance, we know from the Saxon Chronicles that the battle of Malden was fought in the year 993, and we ascertain, what is not mentioned by our historians, from the obit of Byrhtnoth, that it took place on the 11th of August.'

Mr. Hampson makes no parade of his researches, but he has diligently consulted manuscript authorities, and brought forward much new and very curious matter, hitherto neglected or unemployed. He is, nevertheless, rather deficient in knowledge; and he has fallen into many errors and inaccuracies, displaying want of editorial care. These defects, which we will pass over, are, however, of very secondary importance when compared with the flippant and irreverent spirit by which the work is completely deformed.

deformed. Such passages as those relating to the anointing of our Queen (i. 194), and the observance of the Lord's Day (i. 242), and the articles upon the Sunday (ii. 344), and the Sabbath (ii. 344), are most reprehensible; and the coarse and outrageous abuse of the Roman Catholic Church is in that tone which, instead of checking superstition, only promotes scoffing at all faith, all devotion, and all religious observances whatever. We regret to be compelled to pass this heavy censure upon a work which might have been rendered very useful to historical students: but we must do our duty; and strongly therefore recommend, in its place, the clear and accurate Chronology of History,' by Sir Harris Nicolas-which, though less discursive, and less costly, contains all the information which can be practically required.

Yet our

Those of our readers who are free from the labour of ascertaining the dates occurring in historical or legal documents can have no notion of the perplexity in which such inquiries are involved. Take, for example, an era apparently occasioning so small a hitch as the beginning of the year. New Year's Day was, in the middle ages, only New Year's Day to a comparatively small fraction of the European community. Double-headed Janus, it is true, maintained his place at the head of the written kalendars, which, by tradition, always followed the Roman computation, so as to enable those who chose to reckon by kalends, nones, and ides to do so: still the practical caput anni shifted about, so as to compel you to be constantly on your guard. A very general commencement was on the Feast of the Annunciation, or the 25th March, which continued in use in this country until the introduction of the New Style in 1752; and although this change is a matter of great notoriety, it has nevertheless been repeatedly forgotten by those who have had to deal with documents of comparatively recent dates, but anterior to that alteration. We have known persons, otherwise well-informed, woefully puzzled at the fractional-looking dates, e. g. 14 January, 174, by which careful writers included the strict legal computation, and the other which was finding its way into use, though not recognised by law.

Midwinter, Yule, or Christmas day, was a very common era for the commencement of the solar year, and appears to have been in use from the age of the Anglo-Saxons to about the thirteenth century. There was a considerable degree of thought, or, as we should now call it, philosophy, in causing the new year to begin from the mother-night,' whence, as it seems, the sun, having completed his circle, starts forth again in his race. How amusing it is to trace etymologies to their remote source, and yet how 2 D 2

sure

sure and certain is the path when once it is found. Yule and Golgotha look as if there was not the slightest kindred between them yet they are both of the same stock, about as near as first cousins once removed. Their common parent is found in the Hebrew, to turn or roll. This root reappears in volvo, xudiw, quellen, wallen,* and all their derivatives. From hence comes, by emphatic duplication, baba, a wheel; and, as denoting its round and rolling form, baba, a skull, whence Golgotha. Such was the flow of form and thought in this great branch of the Semitic language. In the Teutonic, the primitive root became Hweol (A. S.) and Hiul, more commonly written Yule; and this term grew to be applied to the winter solstice, because the sun then begins to turn or wheel round: hence the season is also termed Sonnenwende-as will be well recollected by those who are familiar with the great Teutonic epic, the Niebelungen Lay.

Yule, at least, is easily found, being a fixed time-mark; but a more puzzling mode of computation was the one which very generally prevailed in legal documents and transactions in France, according to which the new year began at Easter. Consequently, the computable solar year varied in duration as well as in its commencement in every year of the paschal cycle; and, inasmuch as the paschal year may include thirteen lunar months, or nearly two Aprils, it is impossible, except from internal evidence, to determine to which end they respectively belong.

But all these puzzles, with respect to the commencement of the year, are as nothing compared with the difficulties of ascertaining the particular days in the course of it. Amongst us, nothing appears so easy and so evidently the thing, as to count on and on consecutively, through the kalendar month as it runs: but this plain mode of computation was, during the middle ages, entirely disregarded. The nearest approach they ever made to such a mode of reckoning was when they employed the Roman Kalendar. But that plan was rarely adopted: they almost universally quoted the date simply by what, as the case may be, was

*Gesenius, in his Lexicon Hebraicum Manuale, an able though deeply-tainted work, has a very curious article in which he pursues the ramifications of this root through many other languages and dialects. Gesenius is, throughout, an excellent example of German industry, and also of the conceit of German neology. He illustrates a peculiar Hebrew idiom by a comparison with German and English phrases in the following manner: "der Fremde mit welchem ich gegessen habe: im Englischen mit which-z. b. the books which I did." (Lehrgebäude, p. 744.) But, after a while, he bethought him, and he favours us in his Errata with a correction-"S. 744 1. 8, muss die Englische redensart vollständig heissen: the books which I did you say of." This reminds one of George Faulkener's celebrated erratum, 'In the last number of our Gazette For her Grace the Duke of Richmond-read-his Grace the Duchess of Richmond.' And this acute judge of the niceties of living languages asks us, upon philological grounds, to surrender our belief in the inspiration of the Scriptures!