VI.
The principle of authority and its correlative, subordination and dependence, is represented, in a remarkable manner, in the constitution of physical nature, especially in the province of astronomy. It is a remark of Dr. Whewell in his Bridgewater Treatise, [Footnote 136] "that the relations among the planets is uniformly, not co-ordinate, but subordinate. Satellites are subject to the influence of their primaries; primaries to that of the central sun; the central sun itself to a higher and more distant centre; in a sublimer material hierarchy, ascending in gradations of{384}immense numerical magnitude; and thus while insuring the stability of the whole planetary and stellar systems, ultimately, as every analogy teaches us, making one grand centre of revolution and subordination, at a point of space whose distance we cannot even imagine."
[Footnote 136: Bohn's Edition, p. 175.]
In his remarks on the Third Law of Kepler, namely, that the squares of the times of planetary revolution round the sun are proportional to the cubes of their mean distances from that central luminary, Sir J. Herschel has the following pertinent observations, "Of all the laws to which induction from pure observation has ever conducted man, this third law, as it is called, of Kepler, may justly be regarded as the most remarkable, and the most pregnant with important consequences. When we contemplate the constituents of the planetary system, from the point of view which this relation affords us, it is no longer mere analogy which strikes us—no longer a general resemblance among them, as individuals independent of each other, and circulating about the sun, each according to its own peculiar nature, and connected with it by its own peculiar tie. The resemblance is now perceived to be a truefamilylikeness; they are bound up in one chain—interwoven in one web of mutual relation and harmonious agreement—subjected to one pervading influence, which extends from the centre to the furthest limits of that great system; of which all of them, the earth included, must henceforth be regarded as members." [Footnote 137 ]
[Footnote 137: Outlines of Astronomy, chap. ix §489.]
The remarks of the same great philosopher on the systems of double stars, in a later part of his work on astronomy, bear still more directly on the view we are proposing. "It is not with the revolutions of bodies of a planetary or cometary nature round a solar centre, that we are now concerned; it is with that of sun round sun—each, perhaps, at least in some binary systems, where the individuals are very remote, and their period of revolution very long, accompanied with its train of planets and their satellites, closely shrouded from our view by it the splendor of their respective suns, and crowded into a space bearing hardly a greater proportion to the in enormous interval which separates them, than the distance of the satellites of our planets from their primaries bear to their distances from the sun itself. A less distinctly characterized subordination would be incompatible with the stability of their systems, and with the planetary nature of their orbits. Unless closely nestled under the wing of their immediate superior, the sweep of another sun in its perihelion passage round their own might carry them off, or whirl them into orbits utterly incompatible with the conditions necessary for the existence of their inhabitants. It must be confessed that we have a strangely wide and novel field for speculative excursions, and one which it is not easy to avoid luxuriating in." [Footnote 138]
[Footnote 138: Outlines of Astronomy, chap. xvi. § 847.]
VII.
The phenomena of nature or suggest an interesting view all of law in general, which we shall in a few words faintly outline. It is constantly urged as an objection to the doctrine of revelation regarding the Blessed Eucharist, for example, that it is contrary philosophy, inasmuch as it assumes and implies the suspension of a universal law, which connects certain definite accidents or qualities of matter invariably with their corresponding substance; for in the Holy Eucharist the properties, qualities, or accidents of one substance are attached to another.
By a "Law" in physics no more can be understood than a deduction from a sufficiently large series of observed facts, establishing, from long and tearful and extensive observation, a uniformity of result in the same given circumstances. Some laws are said to be "empirical," which though derived from careful noting of invariably{385}recurring phenomena, enunciate no principle, or rationale, but merely the numerical result of observation. Thus Kepler's three laws of planetary motion, and Bode's law of planetary distances from the sun, are instances of law simply and confessedly empirical. Newton's law of gravitation is said to furnish the principle which is involved in Kepler's formula of details; because once Newton's law is admitted as governing planetary motion, what Kepler observed of the movements of the planets, can be deduced by calculation. It would be perhaps more philosophical, in the present state of our knowledge, to regard even the most apparently elementary and fundamental law as only empirical, and the ultimate principle as lying deeper than any known law. In this view, a law like that of Newton's demonstrating, would be said to lie only one step nearer the ultimate principle than the earlier and more empirical. Probably there is no ultimate principle nearer than the divine volition.
In fact, the law of gravitation is now regarded by philosophers as something short of the ultimate solution of material attraction and repulsion; they are groping their way, at this moment, to something more universal than that law, as may be gathered from the following observations of Sir J. Herschel: "No matter from what ultimate cause the power which is called gravitation originates—be it a virtue lodged in the sun, as its receptacle, or be it pressure from without, or the resultant of many pressures or solicitations of unknown fluids, magnetic or electric ethers, or impulses—still, when finally brought under our contemplation, and summed up into a single resultant energy, its direction isfrommany points on all sidestowardthe sun's centre." [Footnote 139]
[Footnote 139: Outlines of Astronomy, chap. ix. §490.]
Whence is this uncertainty about the probable nature of this force? Because, universal as it has been thought, it fails in certain circumstances, as in some electrical conditions, and within very small distances; when the relation of material particles to one another is one of repulsion, and not of attraction. Take another law, as it is called, that fluids will always rise as high as their source, and no higher. The phenomena of capillary attraction prove that this law does not hold in all cases. The chemical law of atomic combination is sometimes found signally to fail. Physical laws, therefore, like these, are good only as far as they go; there are limits to their application.
Why may not this be true in regard to the law which is said to militate against the doctrine of the blessed Eucharist? It may hold good for a thousand instances, and may fail in the next, like other physical laws; and that instance may be the very one of this revealed doctrine.Exceptio probat regulamis a sound rule in a certain sense; it tells the other way, however, when the absolute impossibility even of an exception is maintained in regard to any physical law.
But, in fact, we see that this law of relation between quality, or accident, and substance, is very uncertain in its application to many conditions of matter. Modern discovery has much diminished the number of the properties, or qualities, of matter; and has proved that even these are by no means constant in the same substance, nor always variable in different substances; so that one substance often looks to every sense, like another, wholly different; and "behaves," like it, in a variety of ways; while the same substance has sometimes more than one mode of appearance. There is, in fact, no law of uniformity between material substance and its properties; if there is any law on the subject, it is the other way; and the result of discovery seems clearly to demonstrate that we know absolutely nothing of the nature of substance.
VIII.
Closely connected with this view of law is the interesting subject is{386}throughout nature, but especially in the motions and temporary disturbances in the heavenly spaces, and which afford, in fact, the best evidence of the stability of the vast system of creation. A variation is observed in the ellipticity of the earth's orbit, for instance, of which one evident proof is the acceleration of the moon's motion round her primary; it might seem as if, at some vastly remote period in future time, the total derangement of our planetary system must ensue; but calculation has assured us that there is a point, far short of that, at which there will occur a change; and in the lapse of ages things will return to their original condition. Thus beyond an exception to law there is still Law existing supreme, regulating the conditions and the term of such exceptional existence. In a similar manner, the law of storms, as it is called, establishes the dominion of definite order even in the confusion and mad fury of the tropical hurricane; so definite, and so completely under the control of observed rule, that navigators are provided with certain instructions for evading the overwhelming force of those terrible visitations. We think of these cycles of apparent exception and departure from established order, in the physical world, when we hear objections made against this or that apparent anomaly in the spiritual and moral government of God; till the principles and laws of one government are proved wholly unlike those of the other, we imagine a secular variation not impossible in the one as it actually exists in the other; and we can endure even a temporary eclipse of the outward glory of his church, the prevalence of her enemies against her, for a longer or a shorter time; the exile of her chief pastor; the triumph of iniquity in her glorious capital; convinced that erratic trains of events like these are subject to law in the permission of him who governs as he made the universe of matter and of mind, by an act of his sovereign and omnipotent will.
IX.
From what has preceded, one or two general reflections occurred to an intelligent mind, somewhat to this effect. It seems that the horizon of science has never been long stationary, and is now opening wider then at any former period. Every science has passed through many strange phases of empiricism, before reaching the philosophical basis on which it now rests. All of them are disclosing facts and analogies undreamed of by our grandfathers. A very few years make a book on chemistry or physiology old and out of date. We are posting on to further knowledge; strange and unimagined relations between matter and matter, and still stranger between matter and mind, are no doubt awaiting the detection of future discoverers; our children, or their children, will know more than we. A single sentence of Professor Faraday's reflections on the subject of Allotropism, is sufficient to open a wide view of the possible career of science. "The philosopher ends," he says, "by asking himself the questions, In what does chemical identity consists? In what will these wonderful developments of allotropism end? Whether the so-called chemical elements may not be, after all, mere allotropic conditions of purer universal essences? Whether, to renew the speculations of the alchemists, the metals may the only so many mutations of each other, by the power of science naturally convertible? There was a time when this fundamental doctrine of the alchemists was opposed to known analogies;it is now no longer opposed to them, but only some stages beyond their present development." [Footnote 140]
[Footnote 140: Faraday's Lectures, pp. 105, 106.]
Is it safe to trust to what are considered to be indications of physical truth in a contest with moral evidence when the limits of physical knowledge are so floating and ill defined? Is it safe to erect barriers of supposed physical laws against the entrance of conviction regarding the truths of{387}revelation, when recent discovery has established so much that tells on the side of faith; when it has overturned so many old philosophical objections to it; when future discovery may, and seems likely to push the advantage of revelation still further into the domain of matter; when its indications have so many analogies to the doctrines of revealed truth? We are sure, at least, that future discovery can take from us no advantage which we at present derive from our knowledge of physical laws; it cannot fail widely to extend that advantage, by enlarging our acquaintance with the laws of nature.
X.
The natural termination of our reflections is the consideration of how short a way we yet see into the constitution of Nature; how far we are still from reaching the secrets of her vast operations. "After all, what do we see?" asks Admiral Smyth, in hisCycle of Celestial Objects. "Both that wonderful (stellar and nebular) universe, our own, and all which optical assistance has revealed to us, may be only the outlines of a cluster immensely more numerous. The millions of suns we perceive cannot comprise the Creator's universe. There are no bounds to infinitude; and the boldest views of the elder Herschel only placed us as commanding a ken whose radius is some 35,000 times longer than the distance of Sirius from us. Well might the dying Laplace exclaim, 'That which we know, is little; that which we know not, is immense.'" [Footnote 141] If, on the one hand, the discoveries of man in every department of material knowledge prove him to be in genius and intelligence only "a little lower than the angels," the boundless expanse of undiscovered worlds of investigation in his own and distant systems may well abate his enthusiasm, and make the greatest philosopher acknowledge that we as yet know only in part.
[Footnote 141: Vol. ii. Bedford Catalogue, p. 303.]
If so, partial knowledge of the laws of divine government can never be a safe or a philosophical guide to direct us in accepting or rejecting whatever comes to us claiming to be from the author and sustainer of that government, as revelation does. It can never be safe even as a preliminary guide; as an ultimate rule to test the value of revelation, it is totally disqualified. Till we know all, we can say nothing of what is possible or impossible, probable or the reverse. We can understand a person to whom the claims of revelation on his assent were new and strange, hesitating to accept it at all, till its credentials had been examined, and their evidence ascertained; but once that process is concluded, and a revelation established, we cannot understand a philosophical mind, in the elementary state of human knowledge, proceeding to select from the sum of revealed truth what seems to it intelligible, and accepting that, while rejecting whatever it considers to be the reverse; and maintaining that, because it cannot comprehend the mysterious things of revelation, therefore they cannot be from God. The only course, at once safe and philosophical, is to accept the whole of what is presented to us, without questioning its coincidence, or otherwise, with our previous views of what is likely or befitting; with our present notions of what is intelligible. To our limited knowledge it may seem in its doctrines unintelligible, imperfect, perhaps even contradictory: clouds of doubts may seem to hover over it; storms of conflicting principles and laws and assumptions, subversive, as we think, of the course of nature, may now rage about its path. But ascend the mountain-top, and the clouds are left far beneath; the roaring of the storm cannot be heard so high. Descend a little way into the deep, and the agitation of its surface ceases; silence and order and everlasting rest are established there. So the deeper we penetrate into the knowledge of God, as manifested in his material government, or the higher we ascend in contemplating his modes{388}of action in nature, the nearer we shall approach to the vision of that perfect harmony and nice adjustment of every part of his vast creation, the full disclosure of which will recreate our intelligence in the light of his eternal beauty. It cannot be matter for wonder, then, that we rejoice at every new step in science, at every discovery of the secret powers of nature. We welcome the advance of physical science as a pioneer of the ultimately victorious progress of revealed truth, which shall demonstrate its intimate harmony with all that is known of the divine operations in the constitution of nature.
Meanwhile, we can afford to wait "till the day breaks and the shadows flee away." The veil will one day be withdrawn, and we shall see, eye to eye. Influences and agencies which it has not yet been given to man even to imagine, will then be disclosed, around us and within us; as when the eyes of the prophet's servant were opened, and he beheld his master surrounded with chariots of fire and horses of fire. Things will then be seen as they are, in the day of the manifestation of the sons of God. We can afford to wait for that day. We feel within us, already, much that we cannot account for, on natural principles; strong presentiments, and instincts of the supernatural and eternal order of things, are ever and ever crossing our path, stirring us with strange and sudden and mysterious power; disposing us for the revelations of the final day. A day of wonder; a day of benediction; but not for those who have refused to believe because they could not see, but for Christ's simple little ones, who were content to believe before, or without seeing; for whom it was enough that the great Creator had spoken to them by his Son, and since by his church; more than enough, that, even here, they could recognize the subservience of philosophy to faith; that they could perceive "in outward and visible things the type and evidence of those within the veil."
Copied from a print of the Blessed Virgin in a Catholic Village in Germany. Translated into English by E. T. Coleridge.
Dormi, Jesu! mater ridetQuae tam dulcem somnam videt,Dormi, Jesu! blandule!Si non dormis, mater plorat,Inter fila cantans orat,Blande, veni, somnule.Sleep, sweet babe! my cares beguiling:Mother sits beside thee smiling;Sleep, my darling, tenderly!If thou sleep not, mother mourneth,Singing as her wheel she turneth;Come, soft slumber, balmily!
{389}
There is no people, the annals of which may not be separated into three distinct periods, namely: the period of heroes and epico-poetic narration; the period of myth, fable, and apotheosis; and the period of realistic and definitive history. Or, to range the whole in the order of historical sequence, the three distinctive phases of race-annals may be formulated as follows:
1. The period of myth and apotheosis—which, among the European races especially, constitutes the beginning of history.2. The period of heroes and poetic annals—which forms a kind of transition period.3. The period of realistic definitive history, untinted with imaginative glories—the beginning of which indicates the point in race-history at which literary civilization commences.
To the analysis of the first we apply the termmythology; but for the second it happens that there is no term—unless we may be permitted so to deepen the sense of the wordanthologyas to include within its sweep of definition, not only poetic extracts, but poetic material and the logical analysis of that material. For the purposes of this paper, therefore, the word will be used in the sense suggested, as including the poetic material of a people, and the discussion of any anthological idiosyncrasies therein manifested.
The use of the word being permitted—it happens that, however intricate and various in details, theessentialdata of anthology are everywhere the same in classification, and everywhere susceptible of the same logical analysis. Without here pausing to specify reasons, which may be more conveniently specified hereafter—this division into classes ofdata, needful because as yet no logicalization has been here attempted, may be effected with tolerable precision by recurring to the usual analysis of a people's poetic material. The analysis of thesedata—anthological because imaginative and poetic—may, therefore, be exhibited thus:
1. Mythology and semi-historical or moralistic fable.2. Poetic annals and ancient waifs of ballad and song.3. Household legends, fairy stories, and superstitions.
In the region of mythology the data have been collected and collated with considerable thoroughness, especially by Germansavans; in the region of poetic annals, only the general details have been subjected to analytic scrutiny; and in that of household lore and legend, saving the collection of the Brothers Grimm, little has been effected in comparison with the importance of the subject. Enough has been done, however, to demonstrate, not only the applicability of the fore-made classification, but also the singular analogical resemblance in minute details which exists between the household legends of any one people as compared with those of any other, and which, in analogy at least, points to the original historical unity of the human race.
Nor is the analogy which bespeaks this unity to be limited to the general analysis of class. Amid the vagaries of mythology and apotheosis, amid the epic-annals of heroes and demi-gods, and, in short, amid the more minute imaginings and superstitions{390}of every people may be traced curious and often startlingly singular analogical resemblances.
The Edda, weird, Northern and Gothic in theensembleof its imaginings, reproduces, otherwise nomenclated, the mythology of the Greek and of the Roman; the dim bat-winged Athor of mystical Egypt, who presided under the shadows of the pyramids over the creation of beauty, reappears, less mystically aureola'd, in the classicalmythosof Venus; and the ghoul of the desert-inhabiting Saracen—most Arabic of all Arabs—haunts the woodlands and waste-places of Germany, as illusive and wine-dispensing Elle-maid; in short, in all forms of superstition and in all moods of anthology there is an essential unity—a unity having its root in the general unity of the human imagination. For, the imagination, however through the operation of local causes its dreams may be tipped with rainbow-tints or imbued with shadowy sublimity—is one in the ever-varying rhythm of its creations, and one in the vague palaces of fantasy which it uprears. Valleys and palaces of ideal loveliness it may evoke—visions to which Poe weds expression in the weird imagery of his Haunted Palace:
"And travellers in that happy valley,Through two luminous windows, sawSpirits moving musicallyTo a lute's well-tunéd law;"
Or, again, valleys and palaces of lunatic ghastliness and superstition—visionary lunacies, which Poe graphically, though somewhat metaphorically, depicts in his own modification of the above rhythm-painting:
"And travellers now within that valley.Through the red-litten windows, seeVast forms that move fantasticallyTo a discordant melody."
But, whether the music be discordant or well-tuned, the humanity of its note cannot be mistaken; and whether the creations of the human intellect be palaces of loveliness or pagodas of ghastliness, they still bear the unmistakable impress of man's toiling after the ideal—of the vague, restless, and unsatisfied yearning for the lost ideal of his being, to compass which he toils and struggles and dreams. In this essential unity of human imagination is grounded the essential unity of thedataof anthology, and hence its marvellous and minute analogical resemblances.
Anthology having never been reduced to definitive system, it happens that no little of its critical material exists only in lumbering and uncollated masses. Indeed, not a little of that which might have been valuable as material has been permitted to rot in mildewed manuscript—for need of appreciation of its real value on the part of scholars—instead of having been (as it should have been) treasured and preserved, as the pabulum of thought and science; and yet more remains uncollected, and will so remain until a more valid comprehension of its value shall have been impressed upon the minds of spectacled professors who are usually the last to comprehend that in the comprehension of which they ought to be first. But, notwithstanding this apparent apathy and neglect on the part of the learned, there are, still, certain problems of history which can only be unriddled with this key—that of comparative anthology—as, for instance, the exploits of Joan d'Arc; a hundred riddles of mental philosophy there are, which can not be unravelled without it; and, in every language, multitudes of words are based, as to their peculiar shades of significance, upon anthological criticism. Thus thenightmareis thedemon which haunts the night; theHuguenotswereimps of the woods—fromHugon, the demon of the woodlands;—and not not as a learned dean supposes thepeople eidgenossen; and aseeris simply asee-er, that is, one who has the gift of the second sight.
{391}
A minute knowledge of anthology—we here use the term to denote that blossoming of events and moral ideas into imaginative forms, which constitutes most of that which we denominate the poetic material of a people, is, therefore, in the highest degree necessary to the proper comprehension of—
1. Historical criticism.2. Comparative philology.3. Mental philosophy—especially in those moods of mind of which modern civilization furnishes no examples.
To take a familiar illustration. It has been over and over demonstrated that, unless we deny the validity of the common principles of historical evidence, to admit the existence of that peculiar imaginative faculty denominated "second sight" is a necessity. Nor is the faculty, if its existence be admitted, necessarily to be accounted a preternatural gift—being simply the logical result of the cultivation of certain impulses of human intellect seldom, in the experiences of modern society, evoked into activity; being, in fact, the logical deduction of that scenery which surrounded the Highlanders of Scotland, and of that mood of mind which was their prevailing habit. Civilization develops no sublimity of mental strength, except in the region of reason. Moral sublimity is not developed by communion with streets and avenues. Neither is imaginative insight—that which, in ultimate deduction, is inspiration—an inhabiter of palaces. Born of crags, of' mountains, and of the lurid and ghastly grandeur of the tempest—the imaginative insight is the lightning of the mind, and like the lightning at midnight reveals that which to the moon and stars is wrapped in darkness. To educe the principle: the imaginative forms (anthology) into which primitive moral ideas, rude reasonings, and epic-events blossom, are essentially modified by two ever-active causes, namely: idiosyncrasies of race and scenic surroundings. And hence, in reducing the fragmentary imaginings of a people to scientific system, we are compelled to keep constantly in view the idea of answering to the conditions of three problems:
1. Given the scenery of a country and the idiosyncrasies of its people, and we may, in a general way, indicate its anthology; or2. Given the anthology and idiosyncrasies, and we may, with tolerable accuracy, indicate the leading peculiarities of the scenery; or3. Given the scenery and anthology, and we may indicate, with exactitude, the leading idiosyncrasies of the people.
Having indicated, by way of preface, the general scope of anthology and the value of itsdata, we shall devote the remaining portion of this paper to the anthological relics of the Irish race, and especially to its elfin and poetic phases.
Fairies are (among the Irish peasantry) still believed to exist, and to exercise no little influence over the affairs of mortals. They are generally represented as pigmies, and are, so runs the superstition, often seen dancing around solitary thorns, which are believed to be among their most frequented haunts. Hence the veneration of the peasantry for old solitary thorns—the peasantry believing that if these thorns are cut down or maimed, the fairies are thereby provoked, and will either maim the person who has cut the tree, cause his cattle to sicken and die, or otherwise injure his property. Places supposed to be haunted by fairies are termed gentle, as likewise are several herbs, in gathering which a strange ritual is observed. If provoked by any person, it is believed that the fairies will steal and carry away that which is dearest to that person, as his wife, or especially any members of his family in babyhood and before baptism. The castles in which the fairies dwelt were generally believed to be movable at the pleasure of the proprietor, invisible to human eyes, and usually built in ancient forths or raths. Among the principal fairy kings were Firwar, whose castle was at Knock Magha, and Macaneantan,{392}whose fairy palace was at Sgraba. Whistling Hill (Knock-na-feadalea), in the county of Down, is still visited by hundreds of the peasantry, who, especially on the last night in October, which is observed with singular ceremonials, aver that they can hear the music of the fairies issuing from the hill. The following verses include the names of the principal places fabled to be inhabited by fairy kings:
"Around Knock-Grein, and Knock-na-Rae,Bin Builvia, and Keis Korain,To Bin Eakhlan and Lokh Da-ean,And thence north-east to Sleive Guilin.They trod the lofty hills of Mugarna.Round Sleive Denard and Beal-at-an-draigh.Down to Daudrin, Dundroma, and Dunardalay,Right forward to Knock-na-Feadalea."
Which was the route of procession on the night of the last of October, when aërial spirits were supposed to be peculiarly active. The following legend of Whistling Hill we extract from a collection of these legends in the original Irish made by Rev. William Neilson, D.D., and printed by Hogan, No. 15 Lower Ormond Quay, Dublin, in 1808:
"There was au honest, pious man, who lived formerly near the river, by the side of the hill (Whistling Hill); and the vestiges of his house may yet be seen. His name was Thady Hughes; and he had neither wife nor family—his mother, an aged woman, keeping his house."Thady went out on a Hallow-eve night to pray, as he was in the habit of doing, on the bank of the river; and looking up to observe the stars, he saw a dusky cloud from the south moving toward him as if impelled by a whirl-wind, and heard the sound of horses just as if a troop of cavalry were tramping along the valley. Thady noticed that they all came over the ford and round the mountain."Remembering that he had often heard it said, 'if you cast the dust under your feet against the cloud, if the fairies have any human being with them they are compelled to release him,' Thady seized a handful of the gravel which was under his feet and hurled it, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, against the whirlwind: whereupon fell down a strange lady, weak, faint, and wearily moaning."Thady started, but, imagining that the voice of the strange lady's moaning was human, went to the spot where she fell, spoke to her, and took her in his arms and carried her to his mother, who gave her food—the lady eating but little."They asked her few questions that night, knowing that she came from the fairy castles. Besides, she appeared to be sick and sorrowful, and did not seem to be in any mood for talking. The next morning, however, she related her story, having first enjoined secrecy, which Thady and his mother promised."The strange lady's name was Mary Rourke, and she had formerly lived in the county of Galway, where she was married to a young man named John Joyce, who lived hard by Knock Magha. One year after her marriage with Joyce, King Firwar and his host carried her away to the fairy castle of Knock Magha, leaving something in the form of a dead woman in her place which bulk was duly waked and buried."She had been in Knock Magha nearly a year and was daily entertained with dances and songs, notwithstanding she was in sorrow at having been parted from her husband. At length the host of the castle told her that her husband had married another woman; that, therefore, she ought to indulge in grief no longer; and that Firwar and his family were about to visit the province of Ulster, and intended to take her with them. They set out at dawn from Knock Magha forth, both Firwar and host; and many a fairy castle they visited from dawn till fall of night, traveling all mounted on beautiful winged horses."After they lost Mary, the fairies did not halt; for they were to feast that Hallow-eve in the fairy castle of Sgraba, with the fairy king, Macaneantan."
{393}
The story adds that Thady Hughes married Mary Rourke, and that a difficulty subsequently arose between Thady and John Joyce, who, having heard of the escape of the strange lady from the fairies, went to Thady's cottage and claimed her as his wife. The matter afterward came before the bishop for adjudication, who adjudged that as Mary had, to all appearances, died and been buried as the wife of John Joyce, she was under no obligation to be his wife after her death. And thus ends the legend.
The general similarity of the fairies as depicted in this legend to those of Germany as illustrated in Goethe's Erl King, is obvious, and seems to argue either historical kin or identity of origin. In Goethe's ballad a corpse is left in the arms of the father. The version subjoined is an anonymous newspaper version, but is so far superior to that of Mrs. Austin, that we quote it in preference:
"Who rideth so late through the night wind lone?Yet is a father with his son."He foldeth him fast; he foldeth him warm;He prayeth the angels to keep from him harm."' My son, why hidest thy face so shy?'"' Seest thou not, father, the Erl King nigh?"'The Erlen King with his train, I wist?'"'My son, it is only the fog and mist.'"'Come, beautiful one, come away with me,And merry plays will I play with thee!"'Ah! gay are the blossoms that blow by the shore,And my mother hath many a plaything in store.'"'My father, my father, and dost thou not hearWhat the Erlen King doth say in my ear?'"'Be still my darling, be still, my son,Through the withered leaves the winds howl lone.'"'Come, beautiful one, come away with me,My daughters are fair, they shall wait on thee!"'My daughters their nightly revellings keep,They shall sing, they shall dance, they shall rock thee to sleep.'"' My father, my father, and seest thou notThe Erl King's daughters in yon wild spot?'"'My son, my son, I see, I wist,It is the gray willow down there in the mist.'"'I woo thee; thy beauty delighteth my sense.And, willing or not, shall I carry thee hence.'"'O father, the Erl King now puts forth his arm!O father, the Erl King, he doeth me harm!'"The father rideth, he rideth fastAnd faster rideth through the blast."He spurreth wild, through the night wind lone,And dead, in his arms, he holdeth his son."
Of this topic—the folks-lore of the Irish peasantry—we shall here take leave, merely hazarding the opinion that there is some remote historical connection between the Irish traditions of the idiosyncrasies and doings of elves and those of the Germanic races—a connection probably dating from the Danish occupation of the country about the seventh or eighth century. In the Irish poetic annals, which antedate the Danish occupation by several hundred years, no traces of elfin traditions can be detected; and the same is true of the Ossianic ballads which McPherson has rather imperfectly collated, and between which and the several Celtic manuscripts there is a singular resemblance.
The collation of McPherson, valuable in many respects, is amenable to almost fatal criticism, in that the sublimity of the Gaëlic composition is marred by being twisted from the parallelism (which, in the original, is analogous to the Hebraic) into the form of prose: the parallelism being in English—as in Gaëlic, Celtic, and Hebrew—the most effective form into which sublimity can be wrought. And to demonstrate the truth of this proposition we need only to put portions of McPherson's prose version into the parallelistic form, and shall adopt for this purpose Fingal's interview with the spirit of Loda, than which, uniquely considered, a poem of more overwhelming sublimity was never written or conceived. Subjoined is McPherson's version:
"A blast came from the mountain: on its wings was the spirit of Loda. He came to his place in his terrors, and shook his dusky spear. His eyes appear like flames in his dark face: his voice is like distant thunder. Fingal advanced his spear in night, and raise his voice on high. 'Son of night retire: call thy winds, and fly! Why dost thou come to my presence with thy shadowy arms? Shall I fear thy gloomy form, spirit of dismal Loda? Weak is thy shield of clouds; feeble is that meteor thy sword! The blast rolls them together; and thou thyself art lost. Fly from my presence, son of night! call thy winds and fly!'
{394}
"'Dost thou force me from my place?' replied the hollow voice. 'I turn the battle in the field of the brave. I look on the nations, and they vanish: my nostrils pour the blast of death. I come abroad on the winds; the tempests are before my face. But my dwelling is calm above the clouds; pleasant are the fields of my rest.'"'Dwell in thy pleasant fields,' says the king. 'Let Comhal's son be forgotten. Have my steps ascended from my hills into thy peaceful plains? Have I met thee with a spear on thy cloud, spirit of dismal Loda? Why then dost thou frown on me? Why shake thine airy sphere? Thou frownest in vain: I never fled from the mighty in war; and shall the sons of the wind frighten the king of Morven? No—he knows the weakness of their arms.'"'Fly to thy land,' replied the form; 'take to the wind, and fly! The blasts are in the hollow of my hand: the course of the storm is mine. Fly to thy land, son of Comhal, or feel my flaming wrath!'"He lifted high his shadowy spear! he bent forward his dreadful height. Fingal, advancing, drew his sword, the blade of dark-brown Luno. The gleaming path of the steel winds through the gloomy ghost. The form fell shapeless into air."
Now, let us put this in the form of the parallelism—a form into which the sententious sublimity of the composition naturally falls, and in which nearly all these ancient Gaëlic and Celtic epics occur in the original:
"A blast came from the mountain:On its wings was the spirit of Loda.He came to his place in terrors,And shook his dusky spear.His eyes appear like flame in his dusky face:His voice is like distant thunder.Fingal advanced his spear into the night,And raised his voice on high.Son of night, retire;Call thy winds, and fly!Why dost thou come to my presence with thy shadowy arms?Shall I fear thy gloomy form, spirit of Loda?Weak is thy shield of clouds;Feeble is that meteor, thy sword.The blast rolls them together:And thou thyself art lost.Fly from my presence, son of night!Call thy winds, and fly!''Dost thou force me from my place?' replied the hollow voice.'I turn the battle in the field of the brave,I look on the nations and they vanish:In my nostrils is the blast of death.I came abroad on the winds:The tempests are before my face,But my dwelling is calm above the clouds;Pleasant are my fields of rest.''Dwell in thy pleasant fields,' said the king.'Let Comhal's son be forgotten.Have my stops ascended from my hills into thy peaceful plains?Have I met thee with a spear on thy cloud, spirit of the dismal Loda?Why dost thou frown on me?Why shake thy dusky spear?Thou frownest in vain;I never fled from the mighty in war;And shall the sons of the wind frighten the king of Morven?He knows the weakness of their arms.''Fly to thy land,' replied the shadow;'Take to the wind, and fly!The blasts are in the hollow of my handThe course of the storm is mine.Fly to thy land, son of Comhal,Or feel my flaming wrath!'He lifted high his shadowy spear:He bent forward his dismal heightFingal, advancing, drew his sword, the blade of the dark-brown Luno.The gleaming path of steel winds through the gloomy ghost.The form fell shapeless in air."
For vague sublimity, for weird, dismal, ghastly, and phantasmagoric grandeur of conception and effect, the imagery of the above episode of Ossian has never been exceeded in the vast domain of fantasy-weaving; and this effect is vastly heightened by the sententious step of the sentences and the shadowy cadence of the parallelism—a cadence which is the natural expression of sublimity, and to compass which in ordinary blank verse it is impossible. Compare, for instance, the following imagery of similarensemble, from Milton's "Paradise Lost":
"O'er many a dark and dreary valeThey passed, and many a region dolorous;O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp;Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens and shades of death—A universe of death."
Or the following rhythmical painting of more than Miltonic massiveness and magnificence of imagination, from the "Orion" of R. H. Horne—a poem of more idiosyncratic merit than most poems upon the classical model. Orion thus describes the building of a palace for Hephaistos (Vulcan):
"So that great figures started from the roof,And lofty coignes, or sat and downward gazedOn those who stood below and gazed above—I filled it; in the centre framed a hall;Central In that a throne: and for the lightForged mighty hammers that should rise and fallOn slanted rocks of granite and of flint.Worked by a torrent, for whose passage downA gape I hewed. And here the god could take,Midst showery sparks and swathes of broad gold fire,His lone repose, lulled by the sounds he loved:Or, casting back the hammer-heads until they stoppedThe water's ebb, enjoy, if so he willed,Midnight tremendous, silence, and iron sleep."
{395}
Both of which, though in their manner unparalleled, are, in a less degree, imbued with that which we may term POETIC ILLUMINATION; that which constitutes the felicitous sublimity of Ossian; in short, that for which only one simile, and that an impossible one—namely, shooting of a sun athwart the heavens at midnight—be adduced.
But—the seasons here specified being deemed insufficient—if further reasons be necessary for the adoption of of the parallelistic form in treating the ancient Gaëlic and Celtic compositions, these necessary reasons are fluent from the original form of those compositions, and from the fact that the parallelism is the only poetic form adapted to their style; which may be demonstrated by comparing the rhythmical collocation of a single poem, the Songs of Deardra, a Celtic poem in manuscript which will form the basis of the remainder of this paper, with the collocation of the parallelistic English rendering. Adopting phonographic equivalents for the Irish letters, the initial stanza of Deardra's song improvised as a farewell to Scotland, runs as follows;
"Ionmuin lioni an tio ud shoin,Alba cona hionghantuio;Nokha tliucfuinn aisde de,Muna dtioefuinn re Noise."
And the parallelistic rendering, line for line, as follows: