BEFORE proceeding to notice the new poem with which Mr. Longfellow has gratified his many admirers, at this side of the Atlantic as well as at his own, it has occurred to us, that we may offer no unacceptable service to our readers, if we give some account of the singular and now almost forgotten book, which has given to it its name, and the spirit of which has influenced the American poet so much in its composition.

Fed and surfeited as this generation has been by the everteeming harvests of exciting fiction, with every taste gratified, and every leisure moment filled up, it seems scarcely possible to conceive a state of existence when the same mental aliment was not forthcoming, and when what has become

for us a very necessity of our daily lives was either utterly unknown, or was enjoyed as a luxury rarely and with extreme difficulty to be obtained. Compared with the astonishing fecundity of modern literature, this is unquestionably true; compared with the wonderful up-heaving of the intellectual surface which is now continually going on-throwing up smiling hills or devastating volcanos, down whose different sides flow fertilising streams or desolating lava-the former appearance of the world of letters seems but an arid and immoveable plain, with a few giant oaks scattered at wide intervals over its uninviting bosom, and its horizon bounded by some inaccessible mountains, whose heads are lost amid the clouds. The intellectual world of that period pretty closely resembled the material. In the immediate vicinity of the feudal castle a little taste or cultivation may have been bestowed in fostering a few indigenous

plants, that elsewhere, as not contributing to the absolute wants of the people, were wholly neglected; and in the garden of the monastery, or in those tranquil parterres surrounded by the arched corridor of the cloister, where the monks paced up and down for exercise or meditation, the few seeds brought by pilgrim or crusader from the shores of the Mediterranean or the plains of Asia, were tended with loving care; but around the cottage of the serf no garden smiled-no little patch, reclaimed from the waste or the rudelytilled fields, gave indication that there were other wants besides the mere material ones of instinct, and that in their limited sphere, and with their limited leisure, the peasant and his child were akin to the baron in his hall and the lady in her bower.

This did not arise wholly from a want of taste, or an incapacity of enjoying intellectual amusement; but, until the discovery of the art of printing, through an absolute impossibility of its being supplied. The precious manuscript, even if it could be understood or appreciated, was too valuable to be borne further from the scantilyfilled shelves of the scriptorium or the library, than to the thronged hall of the castle, or to the blazing hearth of the monastic refectory. But in those unconscious "lyceums"-those foreshadowing "institutes"-for many a long age were the innate cravings of the human intellect and imagination supplied with just as much of nutriment as kept them healthily alive, and prepared them for the abundant repast that in the fulness of time was prepared for them. Small and meagre as was the supply at that period, it is very questionable whether, in point of fact, there was not more en

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joyment in those Lenten days of literature, than in the over-crowded carnival of production in which we are living. Many are the true minstrels at this moment confiding the secrets of their hearts and the enthusiasm of their inspiration to the blank face of inanimate foolscap, who might envy the enjoyment that was occasioned, and the success that followed the lay of the rudest troubadour that ever sang in those days to the greedy ears of kerne and knight. We, who have grown fastidious from repletion, and who glance with a critical as well as an admiring eye over the choicest serial of a Dickens, a Lever, a Bulwer, or a Thackeray, can have little perception of the intense and thorough delight with which our forefathers listened to what constituted for them, what "Parlour Libraries," and Shilling Novels," and a thousand other similar publications supply for us the brief romance of Knightly Chivalry, or the more elaborate legend of some saint. The latter was, beyond all question, the favourite subject, that at once awakened the fancy of the "author," and secured the attention of the "reader" in those days, if we may be permitted to make use of words so modern in their signification as those we have marked. The religious element, so largely mixed up with those narratives, was useful in many waysnot only for the opportunities which it presented of inculcating good advice. on moral and spiritual subjects, but for its satisfying the consciences of both writer, reader, and listener, that the time devoted to the production or hearing of those legends was well spent. Thus, while the intended moral to be drawn from them attracted the attention of the more religious, the romantic incidents and marvellous miracles which they unfolded enchained the admiration of the crowd.

The most interesting collection of those legends, the one indeed, that, from its greater popularity and acknowledged superiority to all others, received the honourable and distinctive epithet of "The Golden Legend," although originally published under another name, was that written by Jacobus de Voragine, an Italian bishop, in the latter half of the thirteenth cen

tury. No work in ancient or modern times was ever more popular. It was read in every monastic, collegiate, or baronial hall in Europe. It was copied by innumerable transcribers—it was translated into every language: and when the wonderful art of printing allowed an easier reduplication of copies, next to the Bible itself, the work that, in the beginning of the typographical era, most exercised the printing-presses of Germany, of England, and of Italy, was this extraordinary book.

In the monasteries, in the chateauxeverywhere, says the anonymous editor of the French translation before us, "The Golden Legend" was read with insatiable curiosity and delight. Those multiplied miracles to which the most profound conviction gave a welcome credence those martyrs so intrepid in the midst of the severest tortures-all those wonders influenced the dullest and most lethargic spirits. To every attraction of the most artfully constructed romance, and the most entangled confusion of events, The Golden Legend” added the character of an incontestible veracity. At every page do we not meet the devil, disguised under an ever-new form, attempting to take some artful advantage of the servants of God?-the devil with whom that age was so pre-occupied, with whom it waged such an obstinate and unfruitful war, and whom it hated with such cordial sincerity. In spite of all the supernatural power which he was so ready to exhibit, Satan was always scoffed at, baffled, and often beaten in the recitals of the "Legend;" and this denouement never failed to be received with shouts of triumphant laughter, by those who listened with all their ears, as some clerk read aloud to them the ever-welcome pages.*

In reading through this singular book, we marked, as we went along, whatever appeared to us worthy of particular remembrance; butere we reached the end of the first volume, we found that our pencil had left its memorial almost on every page. We trust that the reader will not object if we should present him with some of the results of our reading. The following passages are given faithfully in point of substance, in a condensed form, and without any attempt to give an exact ver