ry from the sum of his occupations. The five years following his marriage (1859-1864), indeed, were barren of any important literary work. He had planned, somewhat antic

part of the series called The Earthly Paradise, the first division of which followed it in 1868. This ambitious work was suggested by Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and consists of no fewer than twenty-four long narrative poems, set in a framework of delicate descriptive verse containing passages that are the very flower of Morris's poetic charm. The scheme of the arrangement is interesting. A little band of Greeks, "the seed of the Ionian race," are found living upon a nameless island in a distant sea. Hither at the end of the fourteenth century-the time of Chaucer-come certain wanderers of Germanic, Norse, and Celtic blood who have set out on a voyage in search of a land that is free from death, driven from their homes by the pestilence sweeping over them. Hospitably received, the wanderers spend their time upon the island entertaining their hosts with the legends current in their day thro

ith Hangings de

dered by h

o the eyes and soothing to the heart. The "unimpassioned grief," the plaintive longing with which he regarded the fleeting and unsatisfying aspects of a world so beautiful and so sorrowful, never found more exquisite expression than in passage after passage of this pellucid and lovely verse. The flight from death and the seeking after eternal life on this material globe constitute a theme that had for him a singular fitness. No one could have rendered with more sensitive appreciation the mood of men who set their life at an unmeasured price. No one could have expressed the dread of dying with more poet

rch! and though

pe of life I g

well the burd

I hear thy bro

the past or

joy! a new

ss to look u

eminder of the silence that

teth all this

self, who cry

heart of sweet

ce, lest pleas

ttle time m

ur open hands, a

ts that Death an

l tells us, in memory of a happy autumn holiday, we

e; may not our h

live to-day,

ay, deeming

arken! through

ings a strange o

sad, the toiling y

f life to str

ll it not be

ife, from patien

bliss we know n

ove which ne'er

ne swells, that

ah, cling close

e enough of l

he selects as the fitting month i

hough a glorio

of glorious l

ruary

hope for joy

ef ever born

ss change of sea

nor House fr

telligence of sympathy creeps in among dreams and shadows, the reader is aware of a living presence near him and responds to the appeal of human weakness and depression. It is because Morris in the languid cadences of The Earthly Paradise spoke with his own voice and took his readers into the confidence of his hopeless thoughts, that the book will remain for the multitude the chief among his works, th

d him trembl

uld not choose

w the world was

id he fail

olly and faithl

urn I gave him

as cling abou

reading me, mayst

ttle is there

at deeds unn

r which words h

ngs as vague a

arth lies hidd

inger of a

nes, the last of The Earthly Paradise was in the hands of the printers by the

f Edward B

W

been gallant on the field and wise on the throne, but is haunted by visions of an ideal love sapping his energy and driving peace from his heart. He deserts his people, and with his henchman, Oliver, wanders through the world until he encounters Azalais, a low-born maiden, who satisfies his dream. He returns to find that his people have become estranged from him and he abdicates at once, to retire into obscurity with

: it grew up w

e knew not its nam

ntrodden by the li

he blossom, no si

d evening passed

ay then?-that Sp

no child to the so

e dreamed through t

e Winter, and wa

on us and waste

'er happy and kne

sadly, for she th

wealth that migh

harvest and the

e blossom in the ri

t sowing, it gre

name and ye knew

'mid your hope a

its blossom, despa

bosom now nurse

d by him, its failure to impress itself upon the public was no great grief to him, and he

nce, but Mr. Mackail says truly that he had taken his life in his hands in essaying a classic subject with his inadequate training and unclassic taste. The same authority, who on this subject, certainly, is not to be disputed by the lay reader, considers the result a success from Morris's own point of view, declaring that he "vindicated the claim of the

s numbers. These are not represented by the singularly rude measures and archaistic language of Mr. Morris. Like Mr. Morris, Virgil was a learned antiquarian, and perhaps very accomplished scholars may detect traces of voluntary a

lta ment

is, spret?que

scholar, 'deep in her soul lies stored the judgment of Paris

eart still so

set at naught by Pa

rated are so common as to leave an impression of wilful ruggedness, and even obscurity, than which what can be less like Virgil? Where Virgil describes the death of Troilus, 'et versa pulvis inscribitus hasta' ('and his reversed spear scores the dust'), Mr. Morris has 'his wrested spear a-writing in the dust,' and Troilus has just been 'a-fleeing weaponless.' Our doomful deed, is that to

orm of a letter although it was never sent on its mission. Acknowledging his debt to Morris for many "unforgettable poems," the younger writer and more accomplished student of language protests against the indiscriminate use of the word whereas in the translations fro

t Three Northern Love-Stories and Other Tales. He had still, he declared "but few converts to Saga-ism," and he regarded his translating from the Icelandic as a pure luxury, adopting it for a Sunday amusement. During the winter of 1875-76, however, he was embarked on a cognate enterprise of the utmost importance to him, although he thought, and with truth, that his public would be indifferent to it. This was the epic poem which he called The Story of Si

touched by finding amidst all its wildness and remoteness such startling realism, such subtlety, such close sympathy with all the passions that may move himself to-day. In conclusion, we must again say how strange it seems to us, that this Volsung Tale, which is in fact an unversified poem, should never before have been translated into English

iercer tendencies. Now he proposed to divest it of some of the childish and ugly details that formed a stumbling block to the modern reader (though plausible and interesting enough to those for whom they were invented), and to add to the "unversified poem" rhyme and metre, emphasising the essential points and such characteristics of the actors as most appealed to him. A comparison of the saga with the poem will show that in his effort to preserve the heroic character of the antique conception

ed Rerir. Volsung is the son of Rerir, and thus the great-grandson of Odin himself. He marries the daughter of a giant, and the ten sons and one daughter of this union are strong in sinew and huge in size, the Volsung race having the fame of being "great men and high-minded and far above the most

as a sacrifice if her father will but remain in his kingdom and decline Siggeir's invitation.) King Volsung, however, insists on keeping his troth, and Signy and Siggeir depart, followed in due time by King Volsung and his sons and nobles in response to Siggeir's request. What Signy prophesied comes to pass and King Volsung falls at the hands of the Goths while his ten sons are taken captive. Now Signy prays her husband that her brothers be put for a time in the stocks, since home to her mind comes "the saw that says Sweet to eye while seen." Siggeir is delighted to consent though he deems her "mad and witless" to wish longer suffering for her brothers. Here the poem departs from the original in that Morris puts the idea of the stocks into the mind of Siggeir in answer to Signy's suggestion that her brothers be spared for a little time. Sigmund and the rest of the brothers are taken to the wildwood, and a beam is placed on their feet, and night by night for nine nights a she-wolf comes to devour one of them. (In the poem Morris hastens matters somewhat by having two wolves appear each night to despatch the brothers two at a time.) Each morning Signy sends a messenger to the wildwood who brings back the woeful news. Finally she thinks of a ruse, and on the tenth night the messenger is sent to smear the face of Sigmund, now the sole remaining br

iam

inting

g this the cause of the duel in which Gudrod was killed. Sinfjotli returns to his home with the news of Gudrod's death, and Borghild in revenge poisons him. Sigmund then sends her away and takes for his wife fair Hiordis, meeting his death at the hand of Odin himself, who appears to him in battle and shatters the sword he had drawn in his youth from the Volsung Branstock. As he lies dying he tells Hiordis that she must take good care of their child, who is to carry on the Volsung tradition, and must guard well the shards of Odin's sword for him. Then comes the carrying away of Hiordis by a sea-king to his kingdom in Denmark, and here ends, rightly speaking, the epic of Sigmund's career, which, as Mr. Mackail has said, is a separate story neither subordinate to nor coherent with the later epic of Sigurd, but which Morris could not forbear uniting to it. Sigurd the Volsung, the golden-haired, the shining one, the symb

for him. This Regin attempts to do and fails until Sigurd brings him the shards of Odin's mighty sword, his inheritance from his father Sigmund. With a sword forged from the shards and named by him "the Wrath," Sigurd sets out on Greyfell, accompanied by Regin, to a

were the mo

was mingled with that

moon was forgotten an

ough he perished, and t

hty desert, a glimme

w pass high-wall

he mountains, and bar

of the shadow; a wi

e o'erhead mid the smal

lone they rode on t

upward, and the mi

and paler, and failed

while dead, but where

he darkness, no strea

d's uprising adown

ping Gulf ere the firs

complishment Sigurd is able to read Regin's heart, and sees therein a traitorous intent, therefore he kills Regin, loads Greyfell with the treasure, and rides to the mountain where Brynhild, the warrior maiden struck with slumber by Odin in punishment for disobedience to him, is lying in her armour guarded by flames. Sigurd wins through the fire, and awakens h

has wedded Gunnar) by Gudrun, who is not averse to marring the peace of the greatest of women, and Brynhild makes the air ring with her wailing over the woeful fact that Gudrun has the braver man for her husband. In the saga she is a very outspoken lady and in a wild temper, and even in the poem her grief fails in noble and dignified expression. At her instigation Sigurd is killed by Gunnar and his brethren. The vengeance brings no happiness, however, and Brynhild pierces her breast with a sword that she and Sigurd may lie on one funeral pyre! Lovers of Wagner opera will remember that the story as there told ends with this climax, but Morris carries it on to Gudrun's marriage

ing him from the wounds of feelings too poignant to handle freely, too deadly to invite. We read of his agony of apprehension, for example, when in Iceland he did not hear from his home for a considerable period. "Why does not one drop down or faint or do something of that sort when it comes to the uttermost in such matters!" he exclaims. But in his writing it is mainly the surface of the earth and the surface of the mind with which he deals. It is in the nature of his genius, says one of his most accomplished critics, to dispense with those deeper thoughts of life which for Chaucer and for Shakespeare were "the very air breathed by the persons living in their verse." Nevertheless, his service to English literature, in translating the Northern sagas as none but a poet could have translated them, was very great, and his Story of Sigurd is in many respects a splendid performance. In writing it he endeavoured to infuse into his style the energy and passion of the literature from which he drew his material, and to brace it with the sturdy fibre of the Icelandic tongue. His efforts to de-Latinise his sentences had already lent his translations a vigour lacking in his earlier work. He had captured something of the Northern freshness corresponding very truly to his external aspect if not to the workings of his brain. T

unvarnished tale Morri

he heart that once i

om begrudged, the mig

was he waxen, but

had gotten, and til

of Greyfell, and rid

of Fafnir that led t

adown it, and the

glorious of that Tre

e he wended, and whe

dwelling, the dread

eath it was builded by

o the heavens, down 'n

ashioned for the he

ind without, and wit

ri the ancient, and th

hat spared not and the

igurd the Volsung, and th

gold-heaps of the a

unburied, and the c

s of battle, lay there

th quarried, where none

golden rivers no f

of the mighty and th

m of Aweing that the F

wonder beside it, th

he heavens nor has ear

h moreover Andvar

s finger, the Ran

ost gold-heap like the f

of even when the moo

of Sigmund, and stoop

rst of the harvest a

m of Aweing, and the

he heavens nor has ear

day of the Volsungs

o the labour and put

to the moon, on the

adornment, and rings

Greyfell, and the c

rd rattled in the fl

aded Greyfell, and the

f the Serpent-but wit

O Sigurd! let the gol

of the Volsungs the

, O Sigurd! for thy

ood and gladdened by the

, O Sigurd! and gla

make thee merry ere

, O Sigurd! for the

of Kings, and the halls

Sigurd! for what is t

to awaken, and the

O Sigurd! for the str

eld's reaping, and the

O Sigurd! but how s

winning and the ti

the star-worlds were gre

fully laden; then S

d rock-wall that the l

the gate and the door

Greyfell for aught th

awhile, till the hear

war-gear he leaped

th neighed Greyfell an

o'er the waste, and l

roken rampart, the

e clomb, and there

ntains and great cr

he wendeth, and go

ning to wane, and the d

sun to arise and loo

of the Treasure and the gift

employed by Wagner to make the heroes and heroines of this same saga live for our time, it must be admitted that the latter drives home with the greater energy and conviction. Morris himself, however, was "not much i

iterally as by the prose crib of which he made frank use. Mr. Watts-Dunton finds in this translation the Homeric eagerness, although the Homeric dignity is lacking. The majority of competent critics were against it, however, nor is a high degree of classical training necessary to perceive in it an incoher

re

red with ver

ng near, he w

ears, but found

his master.

ed away a t

neherd whom he

is I marvel

on the dungh

hether in the

rly shaped I

hance, as house

eep them for th

?us, thou did

ongs to one

er of limb whi

hunting when

ft him, thou wo

tness and his st

rest depths whi

d by footprint

a sufferer,

ar from his ow

men heed the cr

master is no

ase from their

y that one be

Jove takes half

ntering that fai

where the illust

gus the black

y as soon as

ent now for

tion by Morris of the i

woodhound Argus all

as he noted Odys

, and fawning he l

to drag him nighe

o beheld him and

from Eum?us, unto wh

rvel at the dog on

is body, but nou

fairness he hath

nto some-men's t

their fairness lord

erd Eum?us, didst s

nd of the man that ha

nd to look on he w

ehind him when to

onder beholding his

followed through the de

d well he wotted of thei

since his master in a

e the women, that are

hey are missing their

willing to do the t

-voiced, taketh ha

thralldom hath hol

homestead of the ha

hall he wended 'mid

of the death-day of

on Odysseus in this

two, although it was foreshadowed by the illuminated manuscripts made for friends during these years. A selection from his own poems, a translation of the Eyrbyggja Saga, a copy of Fitzgerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, and the ?neid of Virgil were among the works that Morris undertook to transcribe with his own hand on vellum, with decorative margins