The Sun.
London, England, 1849-01-30 00:00:00

[From this isolated stanza it may be conjectured
how copiously the scenes are painted in language.]
lEgle endeavours to follow her spouse and is drowned
in the cataract. The discovery of her corpse and of
the insensible body of the monarch by Lancelot is
one of the most thrilling incidents in the poem : and
the contrast presented by the two forms, the reviving
form of Arthur and the inanimate remains of 2Egle,
is exquisitely touching—
" Dark—wroth—convulsed, the soul earth holdeth, lay;
Calm from the bier beside it smiled the clay !"
Over the memory of the latter are chaunted the
" Etrurian Ncer.ia3 ' by, the Ilcathen priesthood and
the "Christian Funeral Hymn" by the monks--those
" hermits el the Lord !" Iu these elegiac strains are
admirably displayed the influences for good or evil of
the true and the false religion. Arthur's grief for
the departed is profound, and, in depicting its poig-
nancy, the poet ejaculates this golden couplet
Three truths unite the children of the sod—
All love—all suffer—and all feel a God!"
In the midst of his recret lamentations, however, the
royal Adventurer is summoned to the fulfilment of
his destinies. lie descends with " the w eird lady"
into the mere in quest of the sword welded from a
gem. While he tarries in the submarine Halls of
Time the successive eras of English history—per-
senified in Richard Cceur de Lion, in Henry Vii., in
Henry VIII., in Elizabeth, in Charles 1., and ulti-
mately in Victoria—pass before him like a panorama.
Incidentally in the course of this superb pageant, the
bard apostrophizes the shades of Slick spere, of Spenser,
and of Milton, closing with a rythmical outline of the
present 'reign and of the existing civilization. Its
magnificence and its odium, its deficiencies and its
amplitude, are revealed in a diction at once terse and
melodious. The colossal phantoms of the Past, the
Present, and the Future are grandly conceived, and
seem to be built up, as it were, out of solid " cha-
racters" like granite. Take the mention of the
What Has Been—

" Dead on dead knees the large hands nerveless rest,
And dead the front droops heavy on the breast."
Arthur passes through a tremendous ordeal of
temptations before he obtains the Diamond Sword.
Among others, he is invited to rule over the Cym-
rians by grinding the populace under an armed des-
potism, the tempter exclaiming—

" From its own entrails if the worm supply
The silken purple—let it weave and die!"
After repelling the proposition with imperial scorn,
Arthur appeals in these glorious words to the God of
the Christians—

Thou saidst, Give due to Caesar'—Lord! secure
The mightier tribute Caesars owe to mcn!
Thou who halt oped God's kingdom to the poor,
Rever.l humanity to kings!—again
Descend, Mesniah!—and to earth make known
Bow Christ had reign'd if on the Cretar's throne!'"

He acquires, however, in, their appointed sequence
the Sword, Knowledge—the Shield, Freedom—and
the Virgin, Happiness. His success is attributable
conjointly to his valour and his magnanimity. By a
lofty and felicitous allegory, it is implied that Free-
dom is the crowning emanation from centuries of
toil, and not the Presto ! of a Parchment Constitution
—the result of ages of preparation, and not the Ebul 1 i -
t ion of an abrupt outbreak—the Wanderer rending
the silver guerdon of his bravery from the midst of
the bones of departed generations, and from the en-
trails of an extinct volcano. On the completion of
his labours Arthur discovers instinctively that the
Maiden of the Tomb possesses a subtle and m 3 steri-
ous identity with the guide and guardian of his pil-
grimage. Before the halo of the final vision has dis-
appeared, "their parting ray," says the poet—

" On Arthur's brow the faithful memories leave,
And the Dove's heart still beats in Genevieve '
The music, the plaintiveness, and the indescribable
beauty of that last line can be realised only by those
who have followed the King and the Dove through
their peregrinations. Then do those delicious verses
recur to the memory (B. V. et. 38)—

" Then oft, in truth, and oft in blissful hours,
Miss'd was that faithful guide through stormier life.
Ah, common lot! how oft, mid summer flowers,
We miss the :oother of the winter strife;
How oft we mourn in Fortune's sunlit vale,

Some silenced heart with which we shared the gale !"
Although Genevieve is not introduced until imme•
diately anterior to the conclusion of the epic the pro-
tracted companionship of the Dove and the Sove-
reign prevents their union from bearing an appear-
ance of suddenness. Their alliance, moreover, requires
no long negotiation, for as Sir E. Bu) wer Lytton has
himself remarked with so much truth and sweetness—
" Love wants not speech ; from silence speech it builds;
Kindness like light speaks in the air it gilds."

Of " King Arthur," as an heroic poem, wo cannot
speak too highly. If, as the author has declared in
one forceful verse—
" Man's noblest poem is man's bravest deed,"
then does the epic under consideration deserve the
encomium of being the record of a thousand of those
acted masterpieces. The whole history of King
Arthur, as narrated by Sir Bulwer Lytton, the death
of the bard Caradoc, the character of the Earl Darold,
the budding knighthood of Lancelot, the storming of
Carduel,—all entitle it to that panegyric. It is in
itself an elevated eulogium upon chivalry, an
impassioned memento of romance, a tribute
to the genius of patriotism, an evidence
all this, of devotion to fatherland, an expression of homage to
Christianity, a token of enthtsnsm: for Liberty, and
with
aitestimony of confidence in Civilcz.aqhn. Ilut beyond
riable territpievre'ainse
ittheeopno_eten.
,has still a multiplicity of graces ;
it alternates the droll with the pathetic, the witty
the sublime, satire with solemnity. In this
respect
rendered the temperament
tno
of
accurate , impressionr-educated
il
oorftbtlinieenvtiti;
his medium
that primitive epoch of Catholicity. Sir Gawaine is
of conveying to us upon the
groundwork of
a glin:me(rventurfles, or rather of his mis-
adventures,
t,ictuating, and yet as
that of an —a3
gorgeous asopal---from Fairyland. The