Wolf, the learned German, was certainly very far wrong—as Germans in their endless speculations are apt to be—when he set himself to explain the Iliad without Homer; an attempt which, to our British ears, generally sounded pretty much as profane as to explain the world without God, or, according to Cicero's simile against the Epicureans, to explain the existence of a book by the mere accidental out-tumbling of alphabetic counters on the ground. The Iliad could not have existed without Homer—so the rude instinct of the most unlearned and most unmetaphysical English Bull declared against the cloud-woven theories and the deep-sunk lexicographical excavations of the famous Berlin professor; and the rude instinct, after much philological sapping and mining, stands ground. But Wolf did not labour in vain. Though he did not take the citadel, he made breaches into many parts of our classical circumvallation, formerly deemed most strong, and made us change, in great measure, the fashion of our fortifications. In the same manner Niebuhr, with his knotty club, made sad havoc among the waxen images of the old Romans, which the piety of Livy—taking them for genuine granite statues—had set forth with such a wealth of fine patriotic elocution; but after all this work of destruction, Rome still remains with its Tiber, and, in the minds of most sane persons, Romulus also, we imagine; while the great Julius shines a kingly star every inch, as much after Niebuhr's strong brush as before. What, then, was the great truth by virtue of which—as stupid sermons are redeemed by a good text—Wolf, with his startling anti-Homeric gospel, made so many proselytes, and such fervid apostles, among the learned and the poetic of his countrymen? Plainly this, that he seized with a keen glance, and a grand comprehensiveness, the minstrel character of the Popular Epos of early ages, as distinguished from the more artificial and curiously-piled compositions of more polished times, bearing the same name. Wolf was wrong—say mad, if you please—in asserting that Pisistratus, with a whole army of such refurbishers of old wares as Onomacritus, could have put together such a glowing vital whole as the Iliad; but he was right, and altogether sound, when he looked upon the great Epic song of the wrath of Achilles as a thing essentially different, not only in degree, but in kind, from the Æneid of Virgil, or the Paradise Lost of our Milton. Many men of learning and taste, from Scaliger downwards, have instituted large and curious comparisons between the great national Epos of the Greeks, and that of the Romans; but the comparison of things that have a radically different character can seldom produce any result beyond the mere expression of liking and disliking; as if, among critics of trees, one should say, I prefer a bristling pine, while another says, Give me the smooth beech. Or, a result even more unsatisfactory might be produced. Starting from the beech as a sort of model tree, a forest critic, predetermined to admire the pine also, might spin out of his brain a number of subtle analogies to prove that a pine, though bearing a different name, is, in fact, the same tree as a beech, and possesses, when more philosophically considered, all the essential characteristics of this tree. You laugh?—but so, and not otherwise, did it fare with old Homer, at the hands of many professional philologists and literary dilettantes, who, with a perfect appreciation of such works of polished skill as the Æneid and the Jerusalem Delivered—as being akin to their own modern taste—must needs apply the same test to take cognisance of such strange and far-removed objects as the Iliad and Odyssey. Such transference of the mould that measures one thing to another, and an altogether different thing, is indeed a common enough trick of our every-day judgments; but it is, nevertheless, a sort of criticism altogether barren of any positive results, and which ends where it begins—in talk. To the character and certainty of a science, it can assuredly have no claim. If you wish to descant with any beneficial result upon roses, pray compare one English rose with another, and not with a Scotch thistle. Bring not the fine city dame into contact with the brown country girl; but let Lady B's complexion be more delicate than Lady C's, and the brown of Bessie be more healthy than that of Jessie. Jessie, if you will consider the matter, has nothing in common with Lady B, except this, that she is a woman. As little has Homer in common with Virgil, or Tasso, or Milton. With whom, then, is Homer to be compared? A hundred years ago, Voltaire, with all his wit, could not have answered that question—the whole age of European criticism of which Voltaire was the oracle and the god could not have answered it; but thanks—after the Percy Ballads, and Cowper, and Wordsworth, and Southey, and Burns—to Frederick Augustus Wolf, that question we can answer now in the simplest and most certain way in the world, by pointing to the famous Spanish Cid, and the old Teutonic Lay of the Niebelungen.

To the Cid, we may presume that those of our readers who love popular poetry, and are not happy enough to know the sonorous old Castilian, have been happily introduced by the great work of Southey. But, with respect to the other great popular Epos of Western Europe, we suspect Mr Lettsom is only too much in the right when he says, that this venerable monument of the old German genius is "so little known amongst us, that most ordinary readers have not so much as heard of it. Even amongst the numerous and increasing class of those who are acquainted with German, few pay attention to the ancient literature of Germany: they are generally conversant only with the productions of the day, or, at farthest, with those of the most celebrated authors." So, indeed, it must be; the necessary business and amusements of life leave but few of us at liberty to follow the example of the learned Germans, and refuse to look at Helen before we have critically investigated the history of Jove's amours, and of Leda's egg. So much the more are we beholden to gentlemen like the present translator, who, by the patient exercise of those pious pains which are the pleasure of poets, put us into the condition of being able to hear the notes of that strange old Teutonic lyre prolonged through the aisles of an English echo-chamber. Mr Lettsom has done a work, much wanted for the English lover of poetry, honestly and well: this we can say from having compared it in various places with a prose translation of the old German poem, published at Berlin in 1814;[15] also from the distinct recollection which we have of the character and tone of the modern German version of Marbach, which we read for the first time several years ago. But Mr Lettsom's translation bears also internal evidence of its excellence: there is a quiet simplicity and easy talkative breadth about it, characteristic no less of the general genius of the Germans than of the particular mediÆval epoch to which it belongs. With a perfect confidence, therefore, in the trustworthiness of the present English version, we proceed to lay before our readers a rapid sketch of the Epic story of the Niebelungen, accompanied with such extracts as may serve to convey an idea of the general tone and character of the composition.

At Worms, upon the Rhine, (so the poem opens,) there dwelt three puissant kings—Gunther and Gernot and Gieselher—three brothers, of whom Gunther was the eldest, and, in right of primogeniture, swayed the sceptre of Burgundy.[16] These kings had a sister named Kriemhild, the real heroine and fell female Achilles of the Epos; for though she is as gentle and mild as a Madonna till her love is wounded, after that she nourishes a desire of vengeance on the murderers of her husband, as insatiate and inexorable as that which the son of Peleus, in the Iliad, nurses against the son of Atreus for the rape of the lovely Briseis. In fact, as the great work of Homer might be more fully designated the wrath of Achilles, so the most significant designation for this mediÆval Iliad of the Germans would be the revenge of Kriemhild. After naming these, and other notable personages of the Burgundian court at Worms, the poet makes use of a dream, as Æschylus in the Agamemnon uses an omen, to open up, in a fitful glimpse of prophecy, the general burden and fateful issue of his tale.

With these words ends the very short first canto, or, in the phraseology of the bard, "adventure" of the poem. The second introduces us to the most prominent male character in the first part of the poem—for it is divided into two distinct parts or acts—the famous Siegfried, "with the horny hide," as the old German chap-book has it, which any of our readers may have for a groschen or two in Leipzig, and not more, we suppose, than a sixpence here.

This princely youth, who, like the Spanish Cid, is perfect even to the smallest hair on his beard, after having employed his early days, like ancient Hercules and Theseus, in attacking and overcoming every sort of terrible monster, in bestial or human guise, that came in his way, is dubbed knight with the stroke of the chivalrous sword, in due form, and a festival is held in honour of the event, the description of which occupies the "second adventure." Like a dutiful son, as well as a fearless knight, he will accept no royal honours, or share in the official dignities of government, so as long as his father and mother live.

But even the sturdy mail-clad heroes of mediÆval knighthood sometimes tired of "battles;" and when they were thus aweary, they had one other serious occupation, and that, of course, was love. With the entrance on this new career, the third adventure is occupied.

Siegfried opens his determination to his parents to follow the fortune of this rumour, and take to wife none other than—

This resolution, of course, as is the fortune of true love, meets with opposition, at first, from the parents of the youth; but with a calm and decided answer, such as true love knows how to give, the difficulty is overcome.

Forthwith, therefore, he sets out on an expedition to Worms, predetermined, after the common fashion of mediÆval love-romances, to marry the woman whom he had never seen; for in these matters, rumour, it was thought—that plays so falsely elsewhere—could not err. To make the necessary impression on so mighty a king as Gunther, the Prince of the Netherland is pranked out most gorgeously with all that woman's needle can produce of chivalrous embroidery; and, thus accoutred,—

Then follows the formal reception at the court of Worms, and, as on all great festival occasions in those days, a tournament is held, where the stranger knight, of course, acquits himself like a god rather than a man, to the admiration of all beholders, but specially of the gentle ladies, who, on occasions when propriety did not allow them publicly to appear, enjoy the dear delight of gazing on bearded swordsmen even more exquisitely from behind a window.

But though Kriemhild saw Siegfried through the window, Siegfried remained with Gunther a whole year,

Like the disciples of Pythagoras, the amorous knights of those days had first to serve a long apprenticeship of the severe discipline of abstinence, before they were permitted to kiss the hand of beauty, or to meet even its distant glance. The fourth adventure, therefore, goes on to tell how Siegfried showed his prowess by fighting with the Saxons, who had come under the guidance of their king, Ludeger the Bold, and leagued with him King Ludegast of Denmark, to attack the realm of the Burgundians. Coming home, like a Mars-subduing Diomede, from this fierce encounter, the knight of the Netherland is at length deemed worthy to be introduced to his destined fair. Another tourney is held, at which Kriemhild publicly appears.

With not less of serene beauty, and a quiet naturalness that is peculiar to him, the old bard describes the feelings of Siegfried on first coming within the sweet atmosphere of woman's love.

Thus far well. But his probation was not yet finished. Before finally joining hand and heart with the peerless sister of King Gunther, Siegfried must assist her brother in a yet more difficult work than anything that he had hitherto achieved—in gaining the love of Brunhild, a doughty princess of Iceland, "far beyond the sea," who, being of a masculine temper and strength, had determined to submit herself to no male lord who had not proved himself worthy to wield the marital sceptre, by actually mastering his spouse in strong physical conflict.

Doubtful of his single strength to subdue so mettlesome a maid, Gunther enters into a compact with Siegfried to assist him in his enterprise—by fair means or foul, as it appears; and in this evil compact, and the underhand work to which it gives rise, lies already visible before the unveiled eye of the reader, the little black spot on the fair blue of the epic sky, which is destined (and the bard is ever forward to hint this catastrophe,) at a day though distant yet sure, to dilate into a wide-spreading cloud, and to burst in a fearful deluge that shall sweep hundreds and thousands of the guilty and the guiltless into destruction. This is neither more nor less than the dark old doctrine of retribution, which in the Greek tragedians, and especially Æschylus, plays so awful a part; only with this difference, that in the Niebelungen, as in the Odyssey, the punishment overtakes the offending parties, and not, as in the tragedians, their sons and grandsons. But to proceed: Siegfried, like Jack the Giant-killer, though commencing his career as a single mortal with no miraculous power, had in the course of his chivalrous exploits, and as the reward of his extraordinary prowess, got possession of certain wonder-working instruments, that rendered him, when he chose to use them, sure of victory against mere mortal strength. With the aid of these, Siegfried, for the sake of the love of Kriemhild, had determined (secretly and unfairly) to assist Gunther in subduing the stout Brunhild.

In order the more surely to afford his necessary aid, Siegfried appeared among the attendants of Gunther, in the character of a subordinate vassal. Having thus arranged matters, they set out for the far island of the sea. And here, as in many other passages, it is noticeable with what a childlike, almost girlish delight, the old bard expatiates on the gay dress of his mighty men. He evidently did not live in an age when a Napoleon would have sought to make an impression on the vulgar by "wearing the plain dress of the Institute;" nor has he the slightest conception of the soul of poetry beating in a breast of which the exterior vesture is the "hodden grey," or the plain plaid of our Scotch Muse. We shall quote this one passage to serve for many similar, with which the poem is studded:—

With the arrival of the kingly travellers, and their reception at Iceland, we cannot afford to detain ourselves. Suffice it to say, that, by the aid of the secret invisible cloak (Tarnkappe) of Siegfried, and his good sword Balmung, Gunther is greeted by the vanquished Brunhild as her legitimate lord and master; and sails back with him to Worms, where she is most hospitably and magnificently received by her mother-in-law, dame Uta, and her now sister, the lovely Kriemhild. A double marriage then takes place; that of King Gunther with Brunhild, and that of Siegfried with Kriemhild; and the festivities which then took place furnish the poet with another opportunity for exercising his descriptive powers, and displaying the sunny joyousness of his social nature. Herein, as in many other points, he is quite Homeric; a certain magnificence and amplitude in the common acts of eating and drinking being as essential to his idea of poetry as the luxuriant energy of more lofty functions. But in the midst of this connubial hilarity, the black spot of destiny begins perceptibly to enlarge into a threatening cloud; and the stately Brunhild begins to show herself as possessed by that pride which the wise man tells us was not made for man, and which, wherever it is harboured, is not long of banishing love, confidence, peace, and happiness from palace as from cabin. The haughty spouse of Gunther looks with an evil eye at Siegfried, whom she had known only in his assumed character as vassal of her husband, judging it an affront that her sister-in-law should be given away to a mere vassal. The respect with which the hero of Netherland is treated by her husband, and the whole court, she cannot and will not understand. Either he is a vassal, and then her pride is justly offended at the unequal match; or he is not, and then Gunther had deceived her with regard to the true character of his companion—and there must be some mystery beneath this, which, as a true daughter of Eve, she can have no rest till she unveils. Possessed by these feelings, she takes a course worthy of the masculine character for which she had early been so notable. On the marriage-night she resumes her old virgin obstinacy, and will not be tamed:—

Alas, poor Gunther! So has it ever fared with men who marry women with beards. The embrace-less bride took a cord, which she wove strong and tough about her wrist, and with that

In this dilemma Siegfried with his invisible cloak was again called in, and did strange service a second time in helping Gunther to subjugate his refractory yoke-fellow. Brunhild then became tame, and, like Samson, lost her wondrous strength; while Siegfried, as a sort of memorial of this notable service, secretly abstracted and brought with him a golden ring which the stately lady used to wear on her fine finger, and likewise the girdle with which she had tied her lord; and both these, in an evil hour, he gave to his wife—"a gift that mischief wrought," as we shall presently see.

After these achievements, the horny hero retired home to the land of his father Siegmund and his mother Siegelind; and after remaining ten years with him, "the fair queen, his consort, bore him at last an heir." All this time the haughty spirit of Brunhild was brooding over the deep wrong.

And to clear up this matter, as well as for the sake of old kindness, an invitation is sent by King Gunther to the heroine in Netherland, which is accepted. Siegfried and Kriemhild, and the hoary-headed old Siegmund, come with a great company to Worms, and are entertained in the sumptuous fashion that, as before remarked, the material old minstrel describes with so much zest.

The high festal was kept for eleven days; but the loud merriment, which so luxuriantly was bellowed forth to Siegfried's honour, failed to deafen the evil whisper of pride and jealousy in the dark heart of Brunhild.

The cloud thickens; and the first thunder-plump, prophetic of the destined deluge, will immediately burst. Jealousy is a spider that never wants flies. In the midst of the tilting and junketing, the two queens—as queens, like other idle women, will sometimes do—began to discourse on the merits of their respective husbands; in the course of which conversation, the most natural thing in the world was that Brunhild should proclaim her old cherished belief that Siegfried, as a mere dependent vassal, could never be put into comparison with Gunther, who was his king and superior. On this, Kriemhild, whose gentleness, where the honour of her lord was concerned, fired into lionhood, gave the retort with a spirit more worthy of Brunhild than herself. She said that, to prove her equality with the wife of Gunther, she would walk into the cathedral publicly before her; and she did so. This was bad enough; but, following the inspiration of her womanly wrath once roused, she divulged the fatal fact of her possession of Brunhild's ring and girdle—expressing, at the same time, plainly her belief that her husband Siegfried could not have come by these tokens in any way consistent with the honour of the original possessor. Here now was a breach between the two queens, that no human art could heal. In vain was Siegfried appealed to by Gunther, to testify to the chastity of Brunhild.

The haughty princess of Iceland now perceives that she had from the beginning been practised upon by Gunther, and that Siegfried had performed the principal part in the plot. Against him, therefore, she vows revenge; and, in order to accomplish his purpose, takes into her counsels Hagan chief of Trony, one of the most prominent characters in the poem, and who in fact may be looked on as the hero of the second part, after Siegfried has disappeared from the scene. This Hagan is a person of gigantic energy and great experience, but utterly destitute of gentleness and tenderness; all his aims are selfish, and a cold calculating policy is his highest wisdom. Conscience he seems to have none; and, except for a purpose, will scarcely trouble himself to conceal his perpetration of the foulest crimes. He has the aspect of Napoleon—as he is painted by the graphic pencil of Emerson. Like Napoleon, he never hesitates to use falsehood to effect his ends. Pretending extraordinary friendship for Kriemhild, he worms from her the secret of her husband's invulnerability, or rather of his vulnerability—like Achilles—on only one part of the body.

Possessed of this secret, Hagan finds it easy to watch an opportunity for despatching him. A hunting party is proposed; and when the hunters are dispersed in the tangled wilds of the Wask (Vosges) forest, Hagan, with Gunther, who was accessory, secretly draws Siegfried aside to refresh himself, after hard sport, from the clear waters of a sylvan well; and, while he is kneeling down, transfixes him between the shoulders on the fatal spot with a spear. Then—

The death of Siegfried is the catastrophe of the first part of the poem. Kriemhild laments the death of her peerless knight with a love more than the love of common women, and which feeds itself on the intense hatred of the murderer, and the inly-cherished expectation of revenge. The hoary old Siegmund returns home in silent sorrow, for he is too weak to offer resistance; and, to complete the matchless wrong, the thorough-working, never-hesitating Hagan takes unjust possession of "the Niebelungen treasure"—a famous hoard bestowed by Siegfried on his wife—thus depriving the fair widow of the means of external munificence, as he had formerly stopt her source of inward consolation. Not avarice, but policy, was Hagan's motive for this, as for all his crimes. He was never a villain without a reason.

A deep desire of revenge now takes possession of the once gentle mind of Kriemhild; and all the milk of her affections is metamorphosed into gall. The best things, it is proverbially said, when abused, become the worst; and so the revenge of Kriemhild, revealed in the second part of an essentially Christian poem, works out a catastrophe far more bloody than the warlike wrath of the heathen Pelidan, or the well-calculated retribution worked by the bow of the cunning Ulysses,—

We have now finished a rapid outline of nineteen adventures of the Niebelungen Lay; and there are thirty such divisions in the whole poem. Our space forbids us to detail what follows with equal fullness; but the extracts already given will have been sufficient to give the reader a fair idea of the general character of the composition. A brief summary of the progress of the story, till it ends in the sanguinary retribution, may therefore content us.

For thirteen years after the death of Siegfried, Kriemhild remained a widow. At the end of that period a knightly messenger, Sir Rudeger of Bechelaren, came from Etzel, King of the Huns, requesting the fair sister of King Gunther to supply the place of his queen, "Dame Helca," lately deceased. Nursing silently the religion of sorrow, the widow at first refused steadfastly to give ear to any message of this description; Hagan also, with his dark far-seeing wisdom, gave his decided negative to the proposal, knowing well that, beneath the calm exterior of time-hallowed grief, the high-hearted queen, never forgetting by whose hand her dear lord had fallen, still nursed the sleepless appetite for revenge. The brothers of the king, however, his other counsellors, and Dame Uta, urged the acceptance of the proposal, with the hope thereby, no doubt, of compensating in some degree to the royal widow for the injury at whose infliction they had connived. But all this moved not Kriemhild; only the distinct pledge given by Rudeger that he would help her, when once the sharer of King Etzel's throne, to avenge herself of all her enemies, at length prevailed. She married a second husband mainly to acquire the means of avenging the death of the first. Under the protection of Margrave Rudeger therefore, and with bad omens only from the lowering brows of Sir Hagan, the widow of Siegfried takes her departure from Worms, and proceeding through Bavaria, and down the Danube—after being hospitably entertained by the good bishop Pilgrin of Passau—arrives at Vienna, where she receives a magnificent welcome from "the wide-ruling Etzel," and his host of motley courtiers, pranked with barbaric pomp and gold, that far outshone the brightest splendour of the Rhine. Polacks and Wallachians, Greeks and Russians, Thuringians and Danes, attend daily, and do knightly service in the court of the mighty King of the Huns. The marriage feast was held for seventeen days with all pomp and revelry; and after that the happy monarch set out with Kriemhild for his castle at Buda. There he dwelt "in proudest honour, feeling nor woe nor sorrow," for seven years, during which time Kriemhild bore him a son, but only one, whom the pious wife prevailed with her lord to have baptised after the Christian custom. Meanwhile, in her mind she secretly harboured the same deep-rooted determination of most unchristian revenge; and towards the dark Hagan delay only intensified her hatred. Accordingly, that she might find means of dealing back to him the blow which he had inflicted on her first husband, she prevailed on Etzel to invite her brothers, with their attendants, and especially Hagan, to come from the far Rhine, and partake the hospitality of the Huns in the East. This request, from motives partly of kindness, partly of curiosity, was at once responded to by all: only, as usual, the dark Hagan stands alone, and prophesies harm. He knew he had done a deed that could not be pardoned; and he foresaw clearly that, in going to Vienna, he was marching into a lion's den, whence, for him, certainly there was no return. But, with a hardihood that never deserts him, if for no other reason than that no one may dare to call him a coward, he goes along with the doomed band, the only conscious among so many unconscious, who were destined to turn the halls of Hunnish merriment into mourning, and to change the wine of the banqueters into blood. So far, however, his dark anticipations prevailed with his unsuspecting comrades, that they marched in great force and well armed; so that when, after encountering some bloody omens on the long road, they did at length encounter the false fair welcome of the injured queen, they were prepared to sell their lives dearly, and to die standing. No sooner arrived than they were well advertised by the redoubted Dietrich of Bern, (Verona,) then attached to Etzel's court, of the temper of their hostess, and of the deathful dangers that awaited them behind the fair show of regal hospitality. This information only steeled the high heart of Hagan the more to meet danger in the only way that suited his temper, by an open and disdainful defiance. He and his friend Volker, the "valiant gleeman," who plays a distinguished part in the catastrophe of the poem, doggedly seated themselves before the palace gate, and refused to do homage to the Queen of the Huns in her own kingdom; and, as if to sharpen the point of her revenge, displayed across his knees his good broadsword, that very invincible Balmung which had once owned no hand but that of Siegfried. This display of defiance was a fitting prelude to the terrible combat that followed. Though the knight of Trony was the only object of Lady Kriemhild's hatred, connected as he was with the rest of the Burgundians, it was impossible that the sword should reach his heart without having first mowed down hundreds and thousands of the less important subordinates. Accordingly, the sanguinary catastrophe of the tragedy consists in this, that in order to expiate the single sin of Hagan—proceeding as that did originally out of the false dealing of Siegfried, and the wounded pride of Brunhild—the whole royal family of the Burgundians or Niebelungers are prostrated in heaps of promiscuous slaughter with their heathen foemen, the Huns. The slaughter of the suitors, in the twenty-second book of the Odyssey, is ferocious enough to our modern feelings; but the gigantic butchery with which the Niebelungen Lay concludes out-purples that as far as the red hue of Sylla's murders did the pale castigation of common politicians. Eight books are occupied in describing the details of this red ruin, which a woman's revenge worked; and the different scenes are painted out with a terrific grandeur, that resembles more the impression produced by some horrid opium dream than a human reality. Victim after victim falls before the Titanic vastness of the Burgundian heroes—Gunther, and Gernot, and Gieselher, the valiant gleeman Volker, who flourishes his broadsword with a humorous ferocity, as if it were his fiddlestick, and, above all, the dark Hagan himself:

Finding her first attempt at midnight assassination fail, the Queen first commits her cause to Bloedel, the brother of Etzel; but in an instant his head was severed from his body by the might of Sir Dankwart. A terrible massacre ensues, during which the banqueting hall of King Etzel is turned into a charnel-house. Then Iring, the Danish Margrave, falls in single combat with Hagan. An infuriate rush is now made by the Huns against the Burgundians, who had fortified themselves in the hall; but against such men as Dankwart, Hagan, and Volker, they avail no more than hail against the granite rock.

Kriemhild then, finding all her efforts with the sword baffled, sets fire to the hall; but, the roof being vaulted, even this application of the terror that scared Napoleon from Moscow, did not subdue the Promethean endurance of the Burgundians. The noble Margrave Rudeger is at last appealed to, as bound by his promise made to Kriemhild at Worms to prosecute the bloody work of her revenge to the last; but he also, with five hundred of his men, falls in the bloody wrestling, and with him his adversary Gernot, the brother of Gunther. Last of all, the haughty defiant spirit of the unsubdued Hagan draws, though unwilling, the redoubted Dietrich of Bern into the fight; and before his might Hagan himself is not slain, but taken captive, that he may be reserved to glut the private appetite of the sanguinary queen. "Bring me here John the Baptist's head in a charger!" Nothing less than this will satisfy the terrible revenge of Kriemhild. With her own hand she lifts up the terrible sword Balmung, and, meeting Hagan face to face in the dark prison, and charging him hot to the heart with his deadly wrongs, severs the head from his body. Kriemhild's revenge is now complete. But the revenge of Him who rules above required one other blow. This was immediately executed by the aged master Hildebrand, one of Dietrich's company. And the poem concludes, like a battle-field, many to weep for, and only a few to weep.

On the singular poem, of which a brief but complete outline now stands before us, many remarks of a critical and historical nature might be made; but we confine ourselves to three short observations, and with these leave the matter to the private meditations of the reader. First, that the poem is not "snapt out of the air," as the Germans say, but has a historical foundation, seems sufficiently manifest—Etzel being plainly the famous Attila, Dietrich, Theodoric the Goth, and counterparts to Siegfried and Gunther being producible from the early history of the Franks.[17] Besides this, it is perfectly plain, from the analogy of the Cid, and other popular poetry of the narrative character, that not religious allegory—as some Germans would have it—but actual, though confused and exaggerated history, is the real staple of such composition. The nucleus of the story of the Burgundian Kings, and the revenge of Kriemhild, belongs, probably, to the century following that in which Attila was so prominent a character. But the complete poem, in its present shape, is not later than the thirteenth century. Its author is not known.

Secondly, the lay of the Niebelungen is extremely interesting, as disproving, so far as analogy may avail to do so, the Wolfian theory above alluded to, of the composition of the Iliad out of a number of separate ballads. Lachmann has tried the same process of disintegration with the unknown Homer of his own country; but a sound-minded Englishman needs but to read the poem as it has been given us, for the first time, complete by Mr Lettsom,[18] in order to stand aghast at the extreme trouble which learned men in Germany often give themselves, in order to prove nonsense. "Nihil est tam absurdum quod non scripserit aliquis Germanorum."

Thirdly, as a poetical composition, the Lay of the Niebelungen will not bear comparison for a moment with the two great Greek works of the same class; it is even, in our opinion, inferior to its nearest modern counterpart, the Cid. The author of the Iliad possessed a soul as sunny and as fiery as those lovely island-fringed coasts that gave him birth; and in describing battles he rushes on himself to the charge, like some old French-eating Marshal Blucher, the incarnation of the whirlwind of battle which he guides. Our German minstrel takes matters more easily, and, while his pen revels in blood, sits all the while in his easy chair, rocking himself delectably, and, like a true German, smoking his pipe. His quiet serene breadth is very apt to degenerate into Westphalian flats and sheer prosiness. When, again, he would be sublime and stirring, as in the bloody catastrophe, he is apt to overshoot the mark, and becomes horrible. His heroes are too gigantic, and do things with a touch of their finger which no Homeric hero would have dreamt of without the help of a god. The fancy, also, of the old German is very barren and monotonous, as compared with the wealthy Greek. His similes are few; he has no richness of analogy. Nevertheless, the Niebelungen Lay remains for all Europe a very notable poem—for all lovers of popular poetry an indispensable study. Whatever else it wants, it has nature and health, simplicity and character about it; and these things are always pleasurable—sometimes, where a taint of vicious taste has crept in, your only curatives.