The Sun.
London, England, 1848-06-15 00:00:00

HAROLD, THE LAST OF THE SAX t;
KINGS. 3 Fels. By Sir Eduard 13ulwer Lytton.
Another work from' the pen- of X:rontticist so dis-
tinguished in our national literature as Sir Edward
Buie er Lytton is welcomed by us with all the cor-
diality awarded to an old favourite. We will not
affect an indifference %%hid) we do not feel,—we will
not disguise the sentiments with which we opened
the first volume of " Harold,"—we will not conceal
when
itshm e, work
we
are wasthe fact that we were predisposed to be gratified
perfectlyfirs t
aannouncedwareis
sa
altogether
publication.tor w or worth
h
Criticism,
less unless guided by the most profound impartiality.
To be entitled to any consideration whatever, to ren-
der his praise or his blame of any (even the smallest)
importance, the critic must be uninfluenced by emo-
tions whether of partiality or prejudice; be must be
as unimpassioned as truth, as ruthless as death, as
implacable, as impassable,
and as pitiless as the Gre-
cian Nemesis. Conscious as we are of this neces
sity, and solicitous as we are that our opinion should
not be regarded as worthless, we, nevertheless, ac-
knowledge at once that before a syllable of the narra-
tion under consideration had been perused by
ourselves, we were prepared to imbibe from its pages
a new sensation of enthusiasm. We preface our
criticism with that avowal, and we do
so all the more readily because we are
satisfied that a work of this character only
passes through a severer ordeal in proportion to the
loftier anticipations of the reviewer. Expecting
much, the imagination is more alive to disappoint-
ment. Judging the composition from its very com-
mencement by a high standard the mind of the
reader is rendered only the more exacting and the
more fastidious. So far, therefore, from considering
our admiration for the genius of Sir Edward Bulwer
Lytton as a circumstance calculated to depreciate the
correctness of our estimate,: either as to his merits or
his demerits as a novelist, we feel that that admira-
tion is the best guarantee we could afford of our most
severe and perfect impartiality. So much for our
anticipations; now for their non-fulfilment, or their
realisation. Happily for those who cannot perceive
that the skilful delineations of crime—crime, the
basest or the grindest—are inculcative of the holiest
principles and of the most sublime morality, the last
fiction of Sir Bulwer Lytton is not a companion story
to " Lucretia." In the hideous ineidents which con-
stituted the chief attraction of that morbid but extra-
ordinary production—that production which, al
though the atmosphere surrounding it was an
atmosphere of murder, and treachery, and vice,
although its heroine was the very
.incarnation of
infamy, although her principle yearning was homi-
cide although the whole book, so to speak, was
reeking with poison, and absolutely smelt of
blood, was as much entitled to respect for its
tendency towards good as the truthful history of
Macbeth, or the fictitious history of Orestes—in the
hideous incidents, we say, which formed the paramount
fascination of " Lucretia" the author pourtrayed the
deeds of the Children of Night. His tone was one of
congenial horror, and was for the most part comme-
morative of two anonymous criminals spawned
towards the conclusion of the eighteenth century,
the one amidst the terrors of the First Revolution in
France, the other amidst the domestic pomp of a
country mansion in England. In the vicissitudes of
" Harold" the author has selected a theme of a very
opposite description, and most assuredly one better
adapted to his capabilities as a writer, as well as to his
predilections as a man. If the work bears any direct
resemblance to one of his former productions the si-
militude is certainly traceable between " The Last of
the Barons " and "The Last of the Saxon Kings."
Nor does the resemblance consist merely in the simi-
larity of the titles, in the fact that both tales are illus-
trative of the same national annals, or in the kindred
and peculiar pathos which pervades both, as the record
of the extinction of a race and a dynasty. There is a
more subtle affinity and a more intimate relationship
between the two. They both relate to epochs in our
national history of such supreme importance that any
effort to familiarize the popular mind with the events
which led to those epochs, and the motives
which originated those events, any attempt to
bring the more remarkable characters of those
times more vividly before the imaginations of the
multitude, and to reveal the virtues and blemishes of
those characters with all the accuracy and with more
than the minuteness of the historian, is eminently
entitled to our commendation. The one intervenes
between the downfal of the Houses of York and
Lancaster, and ~the accession of the Tudors ; the
other between the extinction of the Danish and
Saxon dynasties and the subsequent elevation of the
Norman line and the line of the Plantagenets. The
latter epoch, the epoch of Harold the Dauntless and
of William the Conqueror, is one of a very singular
and august character ; it is one the mere remem-
brance of which after the lapse of nearly eight
centuries is fraught with so much that is noble,
grand, heroic, and unfortunate on the part of our
Saxon ancestors, as well as with so much that is
glorious, daring, and successful on the part of our
Norman forefathers (for the present sons of the soil
of England are the descendants of the two races in
nearly equal proportions, from continual intermar-
riage), that it inflames the heart, :and arouses the
sympathies, and elevates the patriotism of the
most phlegmatic. A loftier subject could scarcely
have been selected by the distinguished author
of " Rienzi" and the " Last of the Barons," and he
has handled it with a reverent love, with a love not
unworthy of the royal son of Godwin, the hero of
the Saxon land, the champion of Saxon liberty, and
the last wearer of the Saxon diadem. In the " Dedi•
catory Epistle" to the Right Hon. Charles Tennyson
D'Eyncourt, Sir Bulwer Lytton gracefully ac•
knowledges the hospitality which placed at his
disposal the treasures of an ancient and voluminous
library in the residence of his host, the liberal
representative of Lambeth. From that library—the
library, we suppose,
at Bayons Manor, Lincolnshire
—he has culled the materials of his new historical
romance, dipping not only into the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle, the " Chronicles" of Florence, of William
of Malmesbury, of
William of Poictiers, of Hoveden,
&c., but likewise gathering corroboration from the
Roman de Rou, from Snorro Sturleson, from the
Bayeux Tapestry, and from the recent investigations of
Thierry, Sismondi, Palgrave, and Sharon Turner.
The result of this elaborate and laborious inquiry is
manifest in the historical accuracy which is preserved
in the midst of a fictitious underplot. One
great distortion of the truth there is, but that
Sir E. B. Lytton himself proclaims in the introduc-
tion, we mean the nature of the relationship subsisting
between Harold the Dauntless and Edith the Fair.
Instead of representing Ediva Fairs as the concubine
of the Saxon monarch, he, for reasons enumerated in
the " Dedicatory Epistle," describes them simply as
betrothed to each other, although that is a direct con-
tradiction to the statements of the ancient chroniclers.
We quarrel not with this delicate transmutation of
history into romance, for the effect is exquisite and
bewitching ; but there are one or two minor mis-
representations on the part of our author, which we
will mention at the right opportunity. The narra-
tive of "Harold" is, on the whole, however, so strictly
ir no accordancet annalists—by
the narrative
Rap
in,
by our diffe-
rent by Henry and
Holinshed, by Lingard and Mackintosh, by Palgrave
and Sharon Turner—that we are compelled to refrain
from giving an epitome of the story, seeing that the
incidents have become familiarised to every schoolboy
thei Normans
to the Court of Edward the Confessor down to the
in the ingenious catechisms of Pinnock and the
condensed chapters of Goldsmith. It were as
frivolous in us to recapitulate in a dry cata-
logue
the visit of the events which
from William
catastrophe which gave the victory to that same
Count of the Normans on the field of Sanguelac, as
Count transpired
efn England
it would be to detail the anecdote
. nof Alfred toast-
ing the cakes, or of Canuteprov
any importance occurring rebe-
tween those two events—
Every circumstance of
between the visit of William
to England, A.D. 1052, and the Close of the ever-
memorable and to a certain extent. the ever- deplorable
Dp 1066, being an interval of
Battle of Hastings, A
and a half, calculating from
years
exactly fourteen
woven into the imaginary under-
plotMay to
soOctober—is
deft and a touch so refined that
with a hand
symmetryof the book as a romance, nor
neither the
hework as a history is, with a very
the faithfulness of
alreadythe
alluded to, marred' or muti-
few exceptions. nnecessarily wearying the attention
lated. Withou
recapitulationunnecessarily
of those events, a recapitulation
with a lready explained to be superfluous, we
which we have a
may in a very rapid manner give some notion of the
book as an historical romance, by
construction of the
ticul
following par ars. " Harold" is
stating the
divided into Twelve Books— of the moietya prose epic !
Book 1., entitled Di.,
e Norman Visitor, the Saxon
King and the
Danish Prophetess," recounts the fes-
tivities at the Court of King Edward the Confessor,
ofof Normandy,
of the visit William
on the occas,,on
and shows how the manners of the English courtiers
were mimicked from the Norman courtiers at Rouen
the gates of Westminster striking
—the minstrels at
of Normandy "battle-
the
household scng .
up theof
d the Paladin. Charles the Great,"
hymn of Roland
partially in honourpartially
of the Count, and in
contempt of -
the national minstrelsy. Book 11.,
headed " Lanfranc the Scholar, he Scholar " brings
the tale down
11
eof IN ilham. aider, the renowned
to theminstrel of the Normans, is introduced with
warrior
and chaunts a characteristic ro-
admirable humour, _
Ballad of Rou." The introduc-
tionmaunt, called " 1. he
however,is still fin •
finer, particular
of Lanfranc,
close of th
the description of the
William great scholar's
hto the Count, when iam " transported
speech
leaped up and embraced the priest
from himself with
his vast arms ; he kissed his cheek, he kissed his fore-
head,kissed
as in those days king king with the kiss
of peace." When the Count prepares to leave Lon-
don Sivgard
the great Earl of Northumbria, says to
him—" ,
ed defenders h
jf England ne s w en I and God-