The Portland daily press., 1866-12-07

b, SALARY OF ROUTE AGENTS. hear thai
. movement is being made by the route agents
to secure an increase ofpay. The movement
is fully justified. Even before the war, eight
hundred dollars year was small pay for men
qualified to discharge the responsible duties of
route agents; how much smaller then, must it
be since the cost of living has advanced a hun
dred per cent All other kinds of labor com
mand wages to correspond with the enhanced
cost OF living, while the route agent has re-
ceived no addition to his pay, which in reality
has amounted to no more than four hundred
dollars year for the last three years. :. How he
has been able to live OH such pittance, it is
difficult to conceive, especially when it is con-
sdered that he is away from home half his
time. We are glad to see that the Postmaster
General has in his annual Report, earnestly
urged upon Congress the duty Of not only rails
ing the pay of route agents prospectively but
also of allowing them back pay for services un-
remunerated. We hope this class ofpublic SER
wants will be properly paid, and at once.
The SONG OF RoLAND.-In our notice OF the
London Quarterly for October we referred to
an admirably written article on ancient Lit
erature in France" The writer of that article
gives his theory of the famous "Chanson de
Roland" as follows:
The examination of the "Chanson de Ro-
land" entirely overthrows, in our opinion, the
theories of some of the most pedantic critics
who have written on the subject of epic poetry,
and who insist that all the primitive epics-
those, indeed, which they alone deign 10 style
such have been created by sort of spOnta-
neous agglutination in the popular mind, and
differ not only in character but in kind from
"a n laCifi Of n1rIft nfa1
The defeat of Roncesvaux-which was, in fact,
the surprise of the rear-guard of Charlemagne
by the Gascons in the Pyrenees-struck the
popular imagination most strongly, not only
because it was the single disaster of Charlie
magne, but from the number of illustrious
chiefs who fell on the occasion. The doleful
echoes of the marvellous horn of Roland re-
sounded for ages not only in the gorges of the
Pyrenees, but reached also the most distant
countries Of Europe, and extended even to Ice
land and Asia. The simple facts of history are,
that Charlmagne made successful expedition
to Spain at the inv tation of one of the Sara
cen chiefs, and suffered partial disaster from
an ambuscade of Gascon mountaineers ia the
Pyrenees on his way back to France. This
happened in 778. For nearly three centuries
after, this event was the subject of Teutonic
ballad and popular song. Roland, STYLED by
Eginhardt "Prefect of the March of Britanny,h
Hrodlandus prgfectus limits Britdnaici, was
doubtless as great popular favorite as Murat
or Ney or any of the most daring generals of
NlpOle0nj ana tnlS one great tragic cataStrO-
phe predominated over all Carlovingian legend
and ballad till the time that Theroulde took
possession of it and threw the traditional song
on the subject into regular epic form :
Whether he took it directly from the German,
or whether the poem had, like the curious frag
ment "Walther of Aquitaine," assumed Lat
in form, from which the trouuere derived his
epic material, or whether it already existed in
french version, it is impossible in these times
to discover; but the poem as it is now read ey-
identity passed through the mould of single
mind, and that mind, in our opinion, was clear
ly acquainted with the great classic models OF
iect of the death of Roland, and made it his
own three centuries after the event, in precise
ly the same way as Goethe appropriated the le
gend of Faust, after about an equal lapse of
time, or as Ariosto seized upon Carlovingian
legends for his province four centuries after
Theroulde. -,.. .-..