&c. &c. &c. EDITED BY ROBERT BELL, AUTHOR OF "LIVES OF THE POETS," "MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS," &c. WITH INCIDENTAL NOTES, CRITICAL AND ILLUSTRATIVE. THE object of this publication is to collect and preserve the best specimens of the fugitive literature of Europe-those Every nook of literature, ancient and modern, will be explored for the means of conferring a permanent grace on the The plan of "The Story-Teller" will admit short articles of every kind-Sketches of Society and Scenery-Real Nar- The selected papers will be accompanied by notes, or introductions, when they happen to be of a nature to demand, or "The Story-Teller" will be published every Saturday, and will consist of 36 pages imperial extra, printed in double Advertisements will be received till Wednesday of every week. NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS. To "K. H."-Yes. We cannot state the time with certainty, but can promise that it shall not exceed a month. The arrangements of this periodical preclude the possibility of entertaining such elaborate productions as "The Chronicles of the Bastille." It would afford us much pleasure to hear from our Liverpool correspondent," J-S-," in the only way which can enable us to give a We accept the suggestion of "C. Mc G." in the spirit in which it is offered. All such points have been already fully considered; and in "The Leaden Heart" is deficient in incident-at least for our purposes. The writer will not think that we slight his proposals, for which "Martha," "S. T." " Viola F." shall hear from us by post. "The Centaur," "The Valley of the Pale Faces," "Heriot's Legacy," "The Haunted House," and the translations from Jean Paul Richter, Our Correspondents must perceive, from the number that have already accumulated upon our hands, the impossibility of answering them "T. J." the same subject has been treated before upon a greater scale. We are not the less obliged, however, by the suggestion. "An Intended Constant." The difficulty lies not in the size and shape of the sheet, and not in the method of folding. But it will be "S." There are three English translations of the "Frithiof's Saga" of Bishop Tegner. "Julia R-," " Merlin," "V," and "Red-Cap," are under consideration. "U. V." We are overstocked with materials of that description. Answers have been sent by post to other Correspondents-"N. B., Dunoon, Argyleshire," "H. B., Hatchland's Park, Guildford," "Burton We are sorry to return to the author the poem on the Steam Ship, which lies for him with the publishers. The subject, although admirably "The Appointment"-" Poor Boxes ""The Bored Hand"-"Lines on a Hawk""The Knight of the Red Plume"-" Gentle Thoughts" Will the gentleman who gives us a "hint" about "old poetry," have the goodness to explain what kind of poetry he means? We confess 4 The Gesta Romanorum-we are flattered by the suggestion, and can only say-perhaps. With considerable curtailment, "An English Home Scene" might be made available. The title is not sufficiently descriptive. "The Gnome" is better calculated for the climate of the Annuals than for that of the STORY-TELLER. It is full of imagination, but we To the two offers of Fabliaux-from Nightingale and Rose-we have only to say, that we are, as we ought to be, greatly obliged, but "Latin Stories"-we have a treasury of them already. "S-t." None of the German Popular Stories of the class alluded to would be fit for us. We know they are very curious notwithstanding, THE STORY-TELLER; OR, TABLE-BOOK OF POPULAR LITERATURE. FESTIVALS OF THE STORY-TELLERS. GATHERING THE FIRST. SCENE-Our Nook. TIME-A sumptuous Breguet, inserted in a bronze tower on the mantelpiece, indicates No TIME, the hands being gone, although the pulsation within is audible. On the dial is inscribed the following LEGEND. Tyme wyseley employed ncedes no warnynge from Arte: Awaye with the Handes! let us count by the Hearte! PRESENT-MR. MARMADUKE HUMPHREY, of Paule's Walk; MR. BULLER of Brazen Nose; SIR ERNEST M'DERMOTT; MR.DIDYMUS MARVELL; and half a dozen others scattered round the table, which is strewn over with glasses and cigars. The centre is occupied by a vast basin of mulled claret, over which a ponderous silver ladle keeps watch and ward. A brilliant oxydator, suspended by a chain from the carved ceiling, illuminates the chamber. Tangled end of a Chorus. Robin Hood, ha, ha! and his merry, merry menGlug, glug-ha, ha! Shouts upon the wind, and echoes in the glenHa, ha-ha, ha! HUMPHREY. Of all men, that was the man-the man, emphatically-to have written a romance. What solemn hours he must have passed in the solitudes of nature-what weird faces he must have seen in the twilight-what thoughts must have agitated his soul-what dreams of ineffable beauty must have filled his imagination, as he stood alone at midnight in the hushed depths of the forest, gazing upwards through the shadowy trees, mottled with starlight! SIR ERNEST M'DERMOTT. Spoken like a poet. But would it be asking VOL. I. too great a favour, just to beg that you'd tell us who you're talking to yourself about in that hypothetical manner? HUMPHREY. Who? who, but Robin Hood. He was the great Idealist of his time, a man who lived in a world of his own, whose associations, to the remotest verge of emotion, were essentially poetical. He had his cool grottos, his nectar, his Helicon; his Academe and his disciples; his hamadryads, satyrs, and naiads. Such a suggestive existence as that must have inspired a meaner man with a profound faith in the visible and invisible, the material and spiritual universe. But Robin Hood had an original genius. 2 SIR ERNEST. No-he lived it. Turn the ladle this Marmaduke; my glass is so parched, I'm afraid it will crack. Write! He couldn't write-he didn't know a letter of the alphabet. He was a man of Action; and, upon my honour, it's my private conviction that all the really great men are the doers of great deeds, not the describers of them. BULLER. Wallenstein was a greater man than Schiller; and the vivid genius of Leitch Ritchie grows pale under the exploits of Schinderhannes. But, remember, that if such men-conquerors, martyrs, and so forth-may be said to be the creators of poets and historians, on the other hand poets and historians become in turn creators of heroes, and of all that imbodied glory which springs out of their enthusiasm; and so the constant succession of Thought and Action is kept up, producing and reproducing new phases of Life to the end of the chapter. I call a toast to the honour of the most influential class amongst all the poets and historians, from Heliodorus to Samuel Lover. BULLER. I will not make a speech. I always suspect when a man makes a speech at such a moment, he is only capitulating for time to work himself up into a sensation. I will give you a class of poets and historians that existed before poetry or history took definite shapes, before their original elements were resolved into scholastic forms. The first historians of all nations; the first poets of all languages; the moralists of all times; the depositaries of the lore of ancient civilization, when barbaric fury swept the illuminated records from the face of the earth, leaving nothing behind but a few fragments of the charmed scrolls, and memories, which neither fire, nor sword, nor pestilence, nor famine could destroy. I give you, gentlemen, THE STORYTELLERS OF ALL NATIONS! (The chamber shakes with the echoes of the frantic applause, and the oxydator winks with astonishment.) HUMPHREY. To your feet, my Tale-Bearers! The StoryTellers of all Nations! OMNES. THE STORY-TELLERS OF ALL NATIONS! Hip-hip-hiccup-huzza-hic-hip-huzza! CHORUS. (The hands of the inebriated company form a festoon, while they dance round the table.) Let History pipe her eyes Nebulous, interstellar! Niebuhr himself would look shy Let Poetry dance the hays, Let Painting shoulder her brush, Let Music give up the ghost, Rackety divo jig, Hullah would look like a drum In a Story-Teller's wig! HUMPHREY. for your erudition, your high-bred suavity, and Mr. Buller, I always held you in reverence that facility of intellectual power which enables you to descend with as much grace and case to an epigram as you can soar into a pindaric. But that toast, sir-that toast, I say-no matter! You have developed a sentiment worthy of you-worthy of the laurels I fancy I can see through the haze that clouds my eyes-I know not why or wherefore-budding at this moment round your temples. The very name, gentlemen, is an incantation. Who WERE the Story-Tellers? When the world was struggling into tribes, and settlements, and forms of government-when the growing populations of the else are the grand impassioned legends they have bequeathed to us but poetical histories, such as one could sit and listen to by the hour together, as the Eastern princes do when they call their grand viziers about them, with music and bells and dances, to lull their Sybarite senses by the help of sweet sounds and visions and dreamy narratives? BULLER. The diviners and soothsayers, the practisers of magic and the professors of signs, the sorceries of Egypt, the Cabbala of the Hebrews, the Platonism of Ficinus, the whole arcana of the mystical philosophies of the middle ages, yield up their secrets to the "open sessame" of the Story-Teller. HUMPHREY. earth were. yet as fresh as its verdure, before | breathe the outer air of the halo that encircles ideas had acquired adequate expression in lan- them. And these were all story-tellers; for what guage, or language types to fix and systematize its use-they were the chroniclers of scattered and scattering races. On the hill-tops and in the valleys, on the wild waters, in the primal woods, the Story-Tellers were the watchers and the recorders of the mighty human progress. To them, life itself was poetry; birds, streams, trees, mountains, clouds, stars, flowers, every thing was new and full of beauty and glory, and their hearts were filled with thanksgivings, and they poured them out in melodious lays-that are now the traditions of antiquity! All this oral poetry originated in the East. The Arabians carried it into Spain carly in the Christian era; the crusades helped to diffuse it through the western world; and that captivating style, efflorescent with images, and full to exuberance of oriental pomp, became rapidly naturalized in colder climates, until the whole of Europe was touched by the spirit of romance. Bretagne, the Arnorica of the ancients, covered with druidical remains, and to this hour tenanted by the superstitions of successive centuries, was amongst the first to catch the inspiration, and will be one of the last to relinquish it. She has still her fairy circles, her elf palaces, her spectres, and a hundred other articles of belief, as well as current usages, drawn from the faith and habits of the Saracens and the Celts. Spain, Germany, France, and the Low Countries, and even Holland, with all her utilities, her dikes and bulbs, grew as fond of legendary lore as the Asiatics themselves. Holland gathered up much of her historic wonders from her early maritime expeditions, her adventurous sailors bringing back to her shores miraculous tales of the strange lands they had visited. The Story-Teller! It is a word of power-it is freighted with the treasures of the Earth's Tongues, not to speak of our own, the richest of all in ballad literature. MARVELL. But some would have it that the word is trite. Bah! When I hear that, I close my eyes, and processions of figures habited in various costumes, some in hose and doublets, some in slashed silks and feathers, some in full suits of armour, seem to pass before me. I fancy I see Raoul de Beauvais, Thomas of Erceldoune, Henry of Veldek, Robert Wace, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Chrestiens de Troyes, Occleve, Bojardo, Hampole, Godfrey of Strasbourg, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Gower, Chaucer, Lydgate, Fabyan, Monstrelet, Froissart, and a score or two more, whom half the world have never approached more closely than just to And the Early Books that teem upon us from former ages! If it were worth while to dazzle the eyes of the multitude, what a pile we could show them on our shelves—a golden pile, brighter than the diamond-mines of a place which I think is called Samarkand, or Sugarcandy, I am not certain which, for my memory grows turbulent and rebellious. There, look into that recess—there, in that dusky corner, you will find the Cid, the Chronicles of the Cid, the Scala Chronica, and all the other Chronicles; the two sets of the Gesta Romanorum, that analyzed by Warton, and that brought to light, or indexed into print by Douce, both copied in an exquisite round hand by a monk of La Trappe; the Roman de Rou, an attested fac-simile; the famous Helden Buch, or Book of Heroes, one of the gorgeous epic romances of the Swabian period, the Augustan age of German literature; the Nibelungen Lied, or Lay of the Nibelungen; the Ethiopics, just as it was snatched by a soldier from the smoking ruins of the tower of Buda,-only mine is the first Paris edition; the famous Lais de Marie, that have puzzled all the critics and conjurers of Europe; the Roman de Gaides, en vers, a French romance of great antiquity; the Welsh Mabinogion; all of the fine old English romances, illustrative of the Round Table, Sir Ywain, Sir Tristram, Joseph of Arimathea and the Sangréal; and sundry other majestic volumes all bound in green morocco, spangled over with magnificent devices. These are all records of that romantic genius which once possessed every cranny of the earth, filling its pores with joy ;that genius which we are destined to relume. My hands are clenched involuntarily-my veins leap-the spirit of prophecy is upon me. |