The fir-trees rock'd to the wailing blast,
As on through the forest the warrior past
Through the forest of Odin, the dim and old,
The dark place of visions and legends told,
By the fires of northern pine.

The fir-trees rock'd, and the frozen ground
Gave back to his footstep a hollow sound,

And it seem'd that the depths of those mystic shades
From the dreamy gloom of their long arcades

Gave warning with voice and sign.

But the wind strange magic knows
To call wild shape and tone

From the grey wood's tossing boughs,
When Night is on her throne.

The pines closed o'er him with deeper gloom,
As he took the path to the monarch's tomb,
The pole-star shone, and the heavens were bright
With the arrowy streams of the northern light,
But his road through dimness lay!

He pass'd, in the heart of that ancient wood,
The dark shrine stain'd with the victim's blood,
Nor paused, till the rock, where a vaulted bed
Had been hewn of old for the kingly dead,
Arose on his midnight way.

Then first a moment's chill

Went shuddering through his breast,
And the steel-clad man stood still
Before that place of rest.

But he cross'd at length, with a deep-drawn breath.
The threshold-floor of the hall of death,

And look'd on the pale mysterious fire,

Which gleam'd from the urn of his warrior-sire
With a strange and solemn light.*

Then darkly the words of the boding strain,
Like an omen, rose on his soul again,

-"Soft be thy tread through the silence deep,
And move not the urn in the house of sleep,
For the viewless have fearful might!"
But the magic sword and shield
Of many a battle-day

Hung o'er that urn reveal'd

By the tomb-fire's waveless ray.

With a faded wreath of oak-leaves bound,
They hung o'er the dust of the far-renown'd,
Whom the bright Valkyriur's glorious voice
Had call'd to the banquet where gods rejoice,
And the rich mead flows in light.
With a beating heart his son drew near,
And still rung the verse in his thrilling ear,
"Soft be thy tread through the silence deep,
And move not the urn in the house of sleep,
For the viewless have fearful might!"
And many a Saga's rhyme,

And legend of the grave,

That shadowy scene and time

Call'd back to daunt the brave.

*The sepulchral fire, supposed to guard the ashes of departed heroes, is frequent

ly alluded to in the Northern Sagas.

But he raised his arm-and the flame grew dim,
And the sword in its light seem'd to wave and swim,
And his faltering hand could not grasp it well-
From the pale oak-wreath with a clash it fell
Through the chamber of the dead.

The deep tomb rung with the heavy sound,
And the urn lay shiver'd in fragments round,
And a rush, as of tempests, quench'd the fire,
And the scatter'd dust of his warlike sire

Was strewn on the champion's head
One moment-and all was still
In the slumberer's ancient hall,
When the rock had ceased to thrill
With the mighty weapon's fall.

The stars were just fading, one by one,
The clouds were just tinged by the early sun,
When there stream'd through the cavern a torch's flame,
And the brother of Sigurd the valiant came

To seek him in the tomb.

Stretch'd on his shield, like the steel-girt slain
By moonlight seen on the battle-plain,

In a speechless trance lay the warrior there,
But he wildly woke when the torch's glare
Burst on him through the gloom.
"The morning-wind blows free,
And the hour of chace is near;
Come forth, come forth with me;
What dost thou, Sigurd, here?"

"I have put out the holy sepulchral fire,

I have scatter'd the dust of my warrior-sire!

It burns on my head, and it weighs down my heart,
But the winds shall not wander without their part
To strew o'er the restless deep!

"In the mantle of Death he was here with me now,
There was wrath in his eye, there was gloom on his brow,
And his cold still glance on my spirit fell

With an icy ray and a withering spell

Oh! chill is the house of sleep!"

"The morning wind blows free

And the reddening sun shines clear,
Come forth, come forth with me,

It is dark and fearful here!"

"He is there, he is there, with his shadowy frown,
But gone from his head is the kingly crown,
The crown from his head, and the spear from his hand
They have chased him far from the glorious land
Where the feast of the gods is spread!*

"He must go forth alone on his phantom-steed,
He must ride o'er the grave-hills with stormy speed,
His place is no longer at Odin's board,

He is driven from Valhalla without his sword!

But the slayer shall avenge the dead!"
That sword its fame had won

By the fall of many a crest,

But its fiercest work was done

In the tomb, on Sigurd's breast.

F. H.

* Severe sufferings to the departed spirit were supposed by the Northern Mytho logists to be the consequence of any profanation of the sepulchre.

MR. IRVING.

WE would recommend to Mr. Washington Irving, in whatever quarter of Germany he may be, to post back to England without delay, and look after his particular celebrity; for here is a synonimous gentleman, who has started during his absence, and is not only in the full enjoyment of a slap-dash renown of his own, but from a natural puzzle occasioned by identity of name, is coming in, among certain classes of his admirers, for supplemental honours which of right belong to the author of the Sketch-book.

We have been to "the Caledonian," the cant appellation by which the scene of Mr. Irving's oratory is now familiarly known, in the neighbourhood of Hatton Garden. We would not willingly exaggeratestill less would we indulge in any thing verging upon irreverent levity -but the exhibition was so new in a place of Christian worship, and so much bustle and curiosity have been excited regarding the principal performer, that, as mere reporters of passing novelties, we consider ourselves fully justified in giving a faithful summary of what we felt

and saw.

The whole concern has a theatrical air. You must have a ticket of admission. When, installed in your seat, you cast your eyes upon the scene, you at once perceive that the persons around you are strangers to the place and to the sentiment that should prevail there-that they have come, not to say their prayers, but to have it to say that they have heard Mr. Irving. You look in vain for the keen and homely countenances, and the composed demeanour of a Scotch congregation; in their stead you have a miscellaneous assemblage of tittering misses, corpulent citizens, single gentlemen "from the West end" with their silk umbrellas, members of Parliament, and, " the flowers of the flock," a gallery full of the choicest specimens of the fair population of chariots and landaulets. The service begins at eleven; for the preceding halfhour, on the morning of our attendance, the passages leading to the gallery were the scene of tremendous rushing and confusion-all memory of the day and place was obliterated-there was nothing but the most unsightly working of shoulders and elbows, producing combinations of attitude, and varieties of ludicrous endurance, which no gravity could resist. We cannot stop to specify many examples; but the public sympathy is justly due to the young lady with the pink-lined bonnet who was so mercilessly jammed in by a column of dowagers and dandies and never thought of fainting away; and to the apoplecticlooking gentleman in blue, who by one heroic plunge emerged from his wedge, and, losing an arm of his coat in the effort, clambered up the gallery-stairs with this portion of his raiment dangling askant from his back like an hussar's supernumerary jacket.

This extraordinary scene would have astonished us, if we had been less familiar with the fury of a great capital for every thing in the way of sights and novelties. The bare announcement, in our fashionable circles, of the arrival of a Caledonian preacher, whose eloquence opened upon his congregation with the force of a galvanic battery, was quite sufficient to collect around him all the high-born and the loveliest sinners in the land, impatient to partake in the delicious horrors of a shock. Then the whisper ran that the personage in question was

Vol. VI. No. 33.-1823.

25

neither more nor less than one of Sir Walter's Covenanters a palpable, living and authentic illustration of the Scotch Novels-so superior to any of Westall's, that the artist was thinking of applying for an injunction. Here was a sight indeed! and as potent a stimulus for all this bustling and rushing for priority, as if Diana Vernon, or Meg Merrilies, or Old Mortality himself had come to town. There was another ground of attraction, and also of rather a worldly kind— Mr. Irving had announced his intention of "passing the limits of pulpit theology and pulpit exhortation." He determined upon employing weapons not heretofore wielded at the altar, and directing them against the most influential classes in the country. He came "to teach imaginative men, and political men, and legal men, and scientific men, who bear the world in hand, and having got the key to their several chambers of delusion and resistance, to enter in and debate the matter with their souls, that they might be left without excuse ;" and the published example (the work now before us*) of "this new method of handling religious truth" had apprised the community, that a part of his plan was to level the boldest, and were he not a holy man, we should say, the most bitter personalities against some of the most eminent writers of the day. But, suspending our opinion for the present upon the merits of such a mode of exhortation, was more wanting to secure to the inventor a brilliant auditory? What food for male and female curiosity! What a relief to the ordinary dulness of Sabbath occupation! What woman, with a woman's nature, could resist the prospect of seeing "the heartless Childe" dragged by a spiritual critie to the altar, and made to undergo a salutary smarting for the petulance and wanderings of his heroes; or of beholding Moore, with all his crimes and Melodies upon his head, soundly belaboured in the pulpit by a Calvinistic chastiser of Anacreontics? What scene of Sheridan's could compare with a debate between Mr. Irving and Mr. Canning's soul, upon the honourable member's Parliamentary ways? Lord Eldon, too, with his own and a more illustrious conscience to answer for ; and Mr. Robinson, with the enormities of his budget; and the Broughams and Scarletts; and Sir Humphrey, in spite of his safety-lamp; and Mr. Jeffrey, so carnally insensible to the strains of the water-poets; -all of these might be summoned by name and roughly communed with (as some of them have already been) to the inexpressible edification of a fashionable and overflowing congregation.

But to return from this not altogether irrelevant digression. Mr. Irving ascended the pulpit at eleven o'clock. The first effect of his appearance is extremely startling. He is considerably more than six feet high. He has a pallid face-the outline rather triangular than oval the features regular and manly. The most striking circumstance about his head is a profusion of coarse, jet-black hair, which is carefully divided in the centre and combed down on either side, after the Italian fashion in the middle ages. The eye-brows and whiskers are in equal abundance. Upon the whole, we thought the entire countenance much more Italian than Scotch, and imagined that we could discover in the softness and regularity about the mouth and chin some resemblance to the Bonaparte family. There is a strongly marked

The Oracles of God; Four Orations. Judgment to come, an argument in Nine Parts, pp. 548.

organical defect in the eyes: when upturned, they convey the idea of absolute blindness. The forehead is high and handsome, and far too anxiously displayed. We were sorry to see Mr. Irving's fingers so frequently at work in that quarter to keep the hair in its upturned position. The petty care bestowed upon this point, and the toilet-associations connected with bleached shirt-wrists, starched collar, and cherished whiskers, greatly detracted from his dignity of aspect, and reduced what might have been really imposing into an air of mere terrific dandyism. His age, we understand, is about forty years. If any one should ask us, take him all in all, what he looked most like, we should say, that when he first glided into view, his towering figure, sable habiliments, pallid visage, and the theatrical adjustment of his black and bushy hair, reminded us of the entry of a wonder-working magician upon the boards of a real theatre.

The style of the discourse we heard was so similar to that of his publication, upon which we shall observe hereafter, that for the present we shall confine ourselves to Mr. Irving's pulpit manner. His voice is naturally good: it is sweet, sonorous, and flexible, but he miserably mismanages it. His delivery is a tissue of extravagance and incorrectness. There is no privity between his sentiments and accents. There is no want of variety of intonation, but it is so capriciously introduced, that in one half of the emphatic passages his tongue seems to be utterly ignorant of the sense and bearing of what it is commissioned to articulate. The tones are at one moment unmeaningly measured and sepulchral-the next as inappropriately raised to the highest pitch of ecstatic fervour. His discourse took a review of the wonders of the animal and vegetable creation; and he was as enwrapt and vehement upon the budding of a flower, or the growth of an insect, as if he were throwing off the most appalling thoughts that can agitate the human frame. This want of conformity between the matter and the manner was painfully apparent throughout. Let any one imagine the Battle of Prague, or any other piece of descriptive music, with the marks for expression transposed or dispersed at random, and the leading passages executed accordingly. We should then have pianissimo volleys of cannon, sotto voce trumpet-calls, and maestoso wailings of the faint and expiring. The effect would not be more fantastic and provoking than Mr. Irving's incessant misappropriation of his tones to his topics.

His gesture is equally defective in dignity and propriety. It is angular, irregular, and violent. In many passages intended to be argumentative or persuasive, his hands were going through petty and vulgar evolutions, as if he were attempting to explain by signs the method of effecting some common mechanical operation. More than once he abruptly grasped with both hands the edge of the pulpit on the right, and reclining his body in that direction, like one seized with a sudden pain in the side, declaimed over his left shoulder to the auditors in the farther gallery. The movements of his countenance were to the full as infelicitous as his attitudes and gesture. Instead of a natural play of features, instead of "looks commercing with the skies," we had forced, anomalous, and at times, quite terrific contortions. In some passages where the subject would have demanded composure or elevation of feature, the preacher stooped over the pulpit, so