4 From The Athenæum. The Anglo-Saxon Poems of Beowulf, the Scop, or "Grammar," has all the predilection of the Northern scholars for the Scandinavian literature, and he evidently looks more to the North than to the South. It is perhaps this predilection, joined with a recent fashion of exaggerating the influence of "BEOWULF" is a poem which ought to be read the Danish invasion in England, which has led generally, as one of the very foundation-stones Mr. Thorpe to propose a new theory relating to of Anglo-Saxon history. It is a rare relic-such the literary history of the poem of "Beowulf." as no other branch of the Teutonic race can It is his opinion, that "it is not an original proboast of that period when the whole history duction of the Anglo-Saxon muse; but a metriand all the traditions and belief of the people cal paraphrase of a heroic Saga composed in the to whom it belonged, were preserved in this epic south-west of Sweden, in the old common lanform. We see no reason for doubting what has guage of the North, and probably brought to this been assumed, from various circumstances con- country during the sway of the Danish dynasty. nected with this poem, that it is of Anglian It is in this light only that I can view a work origin, and that it existed among the Angles be- evincing a knowledge of Northern localities and fore they left their earlier home in the North of persons hardly to be acquired by a native of EngEurope to colonize so large a portion of Britain. land in those days of ignorance with regard to The extensive class of literature to which it be- remote foreign parts. And what interest could longed was preserved entirely by memory by a an Anglo-Saxon feel in the valorous feats of his class whose profession it was to know and recite deadly foes the Northmen? In the encounter of it. This profession appears to have existed in a Sweo-Gothic hero with a monster in Denmark? fall force till the close of the Saxon period, and or with a fire-drake in his own country? The was even encouraged by the Saxon population answer, I think, is obvious-none whatever." for some time after the Norman Conquest; but These difficulties appear to us by no means so as it died away, the mass of this grand tra- formidable as to Mr. Thorpe, nor, indeed, so ditionary literature was lost. Some portions of great as many which must present themselves if it, however, were, either through the curiosity of we adopt his hypothesis: and we think that they individuals, or by their zeal for their country's are mostly met by the previous editors and wriantiquities, committed to writing; but even in ters on the subject in England and Germany. this more permanent form, neglect soon led to The knowledge now possessed of the literature its destruction, and this poem of "Beowulf" is of the Anglo-Saxons, and of its history and the only one which has escaped (mutilated as it character, seems to us to be in perfect accordance unfortunately is) in anything like a complete with the form in which we find the poem of form. Small fragments of others, among which "Beowulf" after it had passed through the severthe more remarkable are the "Gleeman's Tale" al centuries subsequent to the period at which and the "Fight at Finnesburg" given in Mr. it must have been brought over with the Angle Thorpe's edition, have also been preserved. The race, and the modifications which it must have question whether the personages introduced into sustained. these epics be in the main historic or mythic, is one which has been warmly debated. Mr. Thorpe leans to the side of those who assert their pure historic character. COAL MINING ON THE OHIO. THE first thing to be done after opening a coal bank-here, where I am working, up the Ohio river is to fix an inclined plane from the river to the mouth of the pit. This is made of wood, and somewhat resembles the planes in use at the ballast dépôts on the Tyne, minus the engine. If it be intended to haul out the coal with mules, a wooden rail-road is laid from the top of the inclined plane, throughout the pit. If the diggers bring out their own coals, oak planks are laid for the wheels of the cart to run on. Screens are erected either at the top or bottom of the hill. The capital required for commencing a colliery (or coal bank) here, is trifling compared with what is requisite in England-in fact it would, in England, hardly give a supper to Mr. Thorpe has evidently edited the text of "Beowulf" with great care, and, we think, it has benefited, especially in the parts where the original manuscript is damaged, by his collation. He is a more cautious editor and translator than Mr. Kemble; yet, on the whole, we prefer the translation of the latter, because it is more elegant and readable, and in some instances, we think it gives the sense better, if not the literal representation of the words. Mr. Thorpe's translation, in consequence of being rendered word for word, is often disagreeable, and is sometimes scarcely intelligible. The two scholars belong, moreover, to different schools, for there is division even in Anglo-Saxon philology. Rask; who first brought the Anglo-Saxon language under philo- the sinkers.. logical principles, treated it as having a close The usual way of beginning to work the affinity with the Scandinavian dialects. Grimm, coal is, to drive one or two entries, or headwith large and just views of the European family ways, through the substance of the hill, or as of languages, claimed for the Anglo-Saxon its far into it as may be thought necessary. right place among the Germanic or Teutonic di- Rooms, or bords, are then turned away on vision. Mr. Kemble adopted, to their full ex- each side of the entry. Each digger has a tent, the views of Grimm; while Mr. Thorpe, room eight yards wide, parted by walls, two who first appeared before the public as an Anglo- yards thick, from the rooms adjoining. Each Saxon scholar in his translation of Rask's room is "driven" from fifty to a hundred yards. 素 Means for promoting ventilation are never coal-boating, or they go down to the Lower thought of, as the vein is considered to be quite Countries. It is a common thing for men from free from inflammable gases. Few faults or in- these parts to go down to St. Louis, or thereterruptions occur in our mines; the only ones abouts, and get three or four months' work in that I have seen are clay veins. They vary from the winter, and although St. Louis is fourteen or six inches to three feet in thickness; generally fifteen hundred miles off, a journey of that dislie in a perpendicular position, and seldom alter tance counts almost for nothing.-Household the course of the vein of coal. The coal itself Words. is of first-rate quality for household and steam purposes. The price paid for digging here is a dollar and three-quarters per one hundred bush-4 els of separated coal; which is, I believe, the highest price paid anywhere. In some places the payment is as low as a dollar and a quarter. his room. The coal banks are generally rented of the owner-half a cent per bushel being the usual payment here for the right of working. At some places the coal is leased, at others the rent is so much for each digger employed. Collection of Documents on Spitzbergen and Greenland: comprising a translation from F. Marten's Voyage to Spitzbergen; a translation from Isaac De la Peyrièr's "Histoire du Groenland," and "God's Power and Providence in the Preservation of Eight Men in Greenland Nine Months and Twelve Days." Edited by Adam White, Esq., of the British Museum. subject as a pursuit, but not of much attraction Spitzbergen and Greenland" in the volume bofore us belongs to the last class. to others: the "Collection of Documents on The digger is expected to buy all his tools, and to keep them in repair. He must also sharpen them, the master providing means for doing so. He must set all his own posts, or Old books of travel, whose popular attraction props, and lay the road into his own room. He does not tempt a publisher to reprint them, must find his own house; and, in most cases buy though well worthy of circulation by a society, his own firecoal. Very often he must take part may possess an interest of three kinds. They of his earnings in store-goods, sometimes great may exhibit strange and stirring adventures, ly to his disadvantage. The balance due to him borne with a brave simplicity and expressed in is generally paid when the running season closes, a style quaint but strong, and markedly exhibit in summer and winter. At some banks, when a digger is about to leave, he has the right to selling the characteristics of their age: and such was Hawkins's Voyage, the first volume publish, He must not calculate upon getting ed by the Hakluyt Society. They may throw a more than nine months' work in the year. valuable light upon the manners and history of Some of these things are not quite to the taste our own or foreign countries: as will doubtless of men from Durham and Northumberland. be the case in, the forthcoming " Collection of Embassies to Russia in the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James I," to be shortly published by the same Society. Through a special subject, a limited field of observation and adventure, or a natural want of comprehensiveness in The produce of the mine is conveyed to dis- the author, they may only possess a limited and tant markets in flat-bottomed boats, built ex-special interest, curious to those who study the pressly for the purpose; they are from a hundred to a hundred and fifty feet in length, and about twenty feet in breadth, and are generally loaded five or six feet deep. Two of these are lashed together with strong ropes. At the outside of The accounts are three in number. The first each are three oars, and each has a large steering contains a narrative of Marten's Voyage to oar at the stern. Sixteen hands are required Spitzbergen in 1671; less remarkable for the besides the pilot and cook, to take a pair of boats voyage itself than for the author's observations to Cincinnati, or Louisville; and, if the freight on the country, climate, productions, ice, sea, etc., be destined for St. Louis, or New Orleans, a still which, though unscientific-they could not then greater number of men is engaged. These hands be otherwise-are very accurate and sensible; to are paid by the trip-sixteen dollars a-piece, per- these the editor, Mr. White, has added a variety haps, to Cincinnati: twenty to Louisville. The of information from later voyagers. The " Hisrun from Pittsburg to Cincinnati usually oc- toire du Groenland" is a compilation; a class of cupies six or eight days. Coal boating forms a composition to which the Hakluyt Society is very lucrative business, although the undertaker rather partial, though we think original works (or boss) is liable to loss, on account of the num- should as a rule be the choice of a society. The ber of sand-banks and snags on the river. Fogs, last document is a narrative of the wintering of too, are very common at night. It sometimes eight seamen who were unfortunately left upon happens that the snag pierces the bottom of the the coast of Greenland in 1630-'31. It is an inboat, and, in that case, its own weight breaks it teresting narrative of danger braved and hardup in a few minutes, and down go three or four ship borne in a plain old English spirit. In a hundred dollars' worth of fittings. A plurality popular point of view, it is the most attractive of means for obtaining a livelihood is the great of the three reprints. The original tract is very thing in this country, and for any such necessity scarce; the text has been reprinted in Churchill, we, North-of-England men, seem to be little qual- and we think in less established collections, at ified. Some persons here are seldom without least in part. The volume is well edited, and ilwork. In the summer they will be farming, in lustrated by fac-simile maps.-Spectator. the full coal-digging, in the winter lumbering, or LITTELL'S LIVING AGE. —No. 598.-10 NOVEMBER 1855. From the North British Review. Letter to the Queen on Lord Chancellor Cran- Ir is, doubtless, less known in our own, than 66 as, indeed, it often is said, "All you say may be very true in theory-but the system of which you complain works well. The evils are possible evils, but in fact they do not arise." To show that they have arisen, and that they do arise, is to show that they may and will again arise; and to demonstrate that they are not possibilities but actualities is to enlist the sympathies of many who would turn aside with indifference from the theoretical question, and remain content with things as they are. It is an illustration rather than a disquisition; To talk about the "bad taste" of obtruding a moving example rather than a chapter of matrimonial quarrels upon the public is simply formal argumentation-a painful episode of to talk as a dolt or a petit maitre. As if such personal history more weighty and pregnant in its simple details of much wrong and mighty suffering, than sheaves of subtle controversy or swelling declamation. And it is one of those "over-true tales," the pathos of which goes straight to the heart. questions as these could be settled by an appeal to taste. It is not to be supposed that Mrs. Norton-a woman, with all the generous impulses and fine sensibilities of genius, has any personal gratification in telling the world how her domestic life has been one long scene Into the minuter circumstances of the sad of conflict and humiliation-how the sweetest story it is not necessary to enter. It is enough of human faces has been clouded with sorrow, that we should express our faith in Mrs. Nor- and the kindliest of human hearts filled with ton's statements, and our sympathy with her bitterness, by a process too certain in its operasufferings. If we speak incidentally of her tion for humanity to resist. As well might you trials, in the course of this article, it will not suppose that when "Scævola's right hand be because we have been made acquainted hissed in the Tuscan fire," there was personal with them through the medium of an unpub- gratification in the self-torture. For our own lished pamphlet, but because they have become parts, knowing well what it must have cost sufficiently matters of notoriety to render all her, we admire the courage, and applaud the reservation unnecessary and inexpedient. Our martyrdom of the English lady who, sustained business is with the subject itself, not with the by her strong conviction of the justice of a case which illustrates it. In the volume which great cause, can thus tread down all the delithe injured lady circulated last year, she de- cate instincts of womanhood-ay, even those clared that she would not write again, except of much-bearing and much-forbearing motherupon this subject; and so far she has kept her hood-whilst she pleads the common cause of word. Within the last few weeks she has pre- her sister-sufferers, the highest and the lowest sented to the outside public a letter to the alike. Queen on the Laws of Marriage and Divorce. There is the less necessity, therefore, that we should dwell upon the contents of the work which has not come formally before our literary tribunal. There will, doubtless, be among Mrs. Norton's readers many women, prosperous in their love, or believing themselves to be thus prosperous, who will say that they deplore her revelations, and repudiate her doctrines. They are And, in truth, the published pamphlet very in health or their disease is latent and unclosely resembles that written for private dis- suspected – and they need not the Physician. tribution. It is the same with a difference- Happy are they in their security-or their the difference principally consisting in the delusion. That Mrs. Norton's case is an exomission of the extracts from Lord Mel- ceptional one in degree, we believe, but only bourne's letters, which have, doubtless, been in degree. Even in degree, though exceptional, read with curiosity in the first instance, and it is not solitary; and in kind we are afraid it admiration in the second. That the published is common. It so happens that in this unhappy work deals largely in private matters we do instance, all the evils of the existing laws, as not complain. The redress of many great they affect women, find apt illustration, meetpublic wrongs has been brought about by the ing together and being massed into a strange exposure of private grievances. But for such congeries of multitudinous wrong. But any one reference to individual cases it would be said, of these evils, taken separately, is sufficient to DXCVIII. LIVING AGE. VOL. XI. 21 1 The call attention to the existing state of the law, "I wrote," says Mrs. Norton, two "pamphlets; and to clamor loudly for the most earnest con- one on 'The Separation of Mother and Child, sideration that can be given to the great ques- and the other, 'A Plain Letter to the Lord Chan tion of human justice which it involves. It is British and Foreign Quarterly Review' attribut cellor, by Pierce Stevenson, Esquire.' no reason, because there are happy homes in ed to me a paper I did not write, and never saw, England, and honored and cherished wives, On the Grievances of Woman; and boldly ser that those who are wronged and outraged, ting my name in the index as the author proshould not be protected by the law. And ceeded, in language strange, rapid, and virulent, ought not the thank-offering of the prosperous to abuse the writer, calling her a she-devil and a to be boundless sympathy with those poor she-beast. No less than 142 pages were devoted bankrupts in domestic love, whose cause Mrs. to the nominal task of opposing the infant Custody Bill, and in reality of abusing me. Not being Norton is so eloquently pleading? As briefly as we can, and as much as possi-solicitor to prosecute the Review for libel. He the author of the paper criticised, I requested my ble in Mrs. Norton's own words, we propose to state at the outset what are the individual wrongs grouped together in her unhappy case: informed me that, being a married woman, I could not prosecute of myself-that my husband must prosecute-my husband who had assailed Ime with every libel in his power. There could be no prosecution; and I was left to study the grotesque anomaly in law, of having my defence made necessary, and made impossible, by the same person." "I cannot," she writes in the published pamphlet, "divorce my husband either for adultery, desertion, or cruelty. I must remain married to his name. I am, as regards my husband, in a worse position than if I had been divorced by him. In that case Englishmen are so Culled from different parts of Mrs. Norton's generous that some chivalrous-hearted might perhaps have married and trusted me," Letter to the Queen," these facts may in spite of the unjust cloud upon my name. I posed to represent the sum and substance of the am not divorced, and I cannot divorce my hus-plaint against that state of the law which de band; yet I can establish no legal claim upon clares the "non-existence" of married women. him, nor upon any living human being." man sup ap A woman, except under very extraordinary "I do not receive," says Mrs. Norton, "and have not received for the last three years a farth- circumstances, cannot divorce her husband. ing from my husband. He retains, and always She cannot hold property; she cannot earn has retained, property that was left in my home money for herself, she cannot enter into legal -gifts made to me by my own family on contracts; she cannot defend herself against articles libel. Is it right that her identity should be my marriage, and to my mother He thus merged into her husband's- that legally bought from my literary earnings, etc. receives from my trustees the interest of the por- she should be "non-existent". a nominal tion bequeathed me by my father, who died in pendage or "chattel" of one who has practi the public service. I have also (as cally cast her off, and ceased to be her proMr. Norton impressed upon me by sub-poenaing tector or provider? my publishers) the power of earning by literaWe may admit, at the outset, that there is ture-which fund, though it be the grant of heaven, not the legacy of earth, is no more legally some difficulty in arguing such a question as mine than my family property. When this in a perfectly unprejudiced and dispas The man will take the man's we first separated, he offered me as sole provi- sionate manner. sion, a small pension paid by Government to view of the question; the woman will take the each of my father's children; reckoning that woman's. Reviewers, however, are of no sex. pension as his." They are collective and epicæne; of many "In order to raise money on our marriage set-sided vision and catholic sympathies-judges, tlements," says Mrs. Norton, in another place, and not advocates. If our summing up, as we "my signature was necessary. To obtain my signature Mr. Norton drew up a contract. He anticipate, is satisfactory to neither party, we dictated the terms himself, and I signed it. The shall rest assured that it is not much wanting effect of my signature was that Mr. Norton im- in justice and truth. mediately raised the loan. The effect of his signature was absolutely nil. In 1851 my mother died. She left me (through my brother to guard it from my husband) a small annuity, as an addition to my income. Mr. Norton first endeavored to claim her legacy, and then balanced the first payment under her will, by arbitrarily stopping my allowance. Iinsisted that the allowance was secured by her own signature, and other signatures, to a formal deed. He defied me to prove it- as by law man and wife were one, and could not contract with each other; and the deed was therefore good for nothing.' As long as there are men and women in the world, there will be bad husbands and bad wives. As long as there are human laws, there will be defects and insufficiencies in them. Let us legislate as we may, there will still be cases which our laws will not reach- still cases of individual hardship very painful to contemplate. If the laws were made by mixed assemblies of men and women, there would still be cases in which they would bear hardly on one sex more than on the other. All that we can do is to approximate to a just striking of the balance iná 20 མ་ ere i in the aggregate, compounding for an instance | are all judged according to our opportunities, It need not be said that the practical equal- tion there will be much mercy. The crime ity of the sexes is contended for by very few, may be the same in the eyes of God, whether or that those few know not what they are ask-committed by man or by woman; but it does ing. To demand equal privileges is at the same not therefore follow that by whichsoever sex it time to demand equal responsibilities. Every may be committed, the offence against the other rational woman knows that, if she is to be ex- is the same. In the conjugal contract the anteRempted from certain responsibilities, she must cedent chastity of the man is not pretended by forego certain privileges in return for the ex- one party or expected by the other. Unfortuemption. Every rational man acknowledges nately, in this Christian country, where early that, inasmuch as he enjoys greater privileges, marriages are rare, and early depravity is not it is just that he should be subject to greater responsibilities. The question is, whether, in the present state of the law, and present temper of society, the woman does not purchase her exemption from certain responsibilities by too large a sacrifice of certain privileges or rights. where our youths in all ranks of society are cast, with their strong passions and weak principles, into a vortex of temptation from which not one in a hundred struggles unpolluted there must be a tacit understanding that, whatever may be the conditions imposed upon the future, the conditions with respect to the We incline to think that she does. We make past required of the woman are not to be rethe concession more sparingly than may per- quired of the man. Now one crime cannot jushaps be appreciated by the more vehement ad- tify or mitigate another. But, doubtless, the vocates of the Rights of Women; but we yield notorious fact of the general incontinence of to none in our delicate regard for the dignity men before marriage, diminishes the horror of the sex, or our earnest consideration for their with which subsequent infidelities are regarded, happiness. The question is one not to be re- and therefore the amount of injury inflicted garded with what Mrs. N. calls the eye of the upon the wife. The desecration in one case Cyclops. It may be true that men regard it in seems less than in the other. The offence of this one-eyed manner; but it is not less true the wife changes purity into impurity; the of that women take an equally contracted view fence of the husband makes impurity more imof the subject. Not contented with moderate pure. There may be exceptions on both sides; admissions and concessions, the latter fre- but this is the rule. In the woman's case there quently weaken their argument and injure is the loss of a priceless jewel, which the man their cause by contending for more than can is not expected to carry with him to his new be fairly granted to them either in theory or in conjugal home. practice. And in no instance is this more no- That bravery is to Man what chastity is to ticeable than in the manner in which the ques- Woman-that society expects all its men to tion of Divorce is argued. It is not sufficient be brave and all its women to be chaste-may in many cases to concede that the difficulties not be, in theory or in practice, good Chriswhich lie in the way of the wife, who would tian morality. But arguing the case as beobtain an absolute release from her conjugal tween Man and Woman, it would seem to be obligations, ought to be mitigated by the law. not otherwise than just to indicate that if there It is contended by many a fair controversialist are qualities of which the world takes less acthat a breach of conjugal fidelity, whether on count in men than in women, there are others the one side or the other, should be visited by of which less account is taken in women than the same consequences, as an offence with in men. The want of courage, which dis-` which the sex of the delinquent has nothing to graces a man, is no slur upon the reputation do. "We are bound," it is said, "by the same of a woman. That very contact with the divine laws. We have made the same vows to world-that very exposure to its indurating cling to each other, in loyalty and truth; and and invigorating influences which make strong there are no conceivable grounds upon which nerves, and steady pulses, and steadfast hearts, one of the contracting parties can claim ex- also brings its temptations and contaminations emption more than the other from obligations to pollute the minds and defile the bodies of clearly defined and voluntarily undertaken." men, making them strong to do and weak to It must be understood that we are arguing resist. Woman may put forth the plea of cirthe case, as between man and woman-not cumstances; may not man also advance it? between the human creature and the Divine If the weakness and helplessness of the one Lawgiver. It is not for us to say more in re- sex may be asserted in extenuation of certain ply to an assertion of the eternal truth that deficiencies of character and conduct, may not God's commandments are issued to all man- the temptations to which the other sex is exkind to man and to woman alike—than posed, be also pleaded in mitigation of their that we humbly and hopefully believe that we short-comings ? It were clearly unreasonable |