CHAPTER XI.

66 ATHELWOLD."

Six years had passed since the unsuccessful publication of "Guidone" and "Solitude," when their author, in 1842, gave to the world another drama, "Athelwold." There were some who in private praised it highly. Mill wrote to the author quoting the good opinion of his friend Mrs. Taylor, and Serjeant Talfourd expressed in a letter his warm admiration. The next spring, Macready brought it out on the stage, himself taking the part of Athelwold, while Miss Helen Faucit impersonated the heroine. On its first night, the play met with decided success, and the author was enthusiastically called for. We are not told that he responded it is hardly possible to imagine him coming before the foot-lights, and bowing in response to the plaudits of the house. But for an hour he must have tasted in its full flavor the highest reward that external success can bestow on the author. The other forms of literary fame seem poor and cold beside the satisfaction of the dramatist in seeing his creations worthily bodied forth and striking home to a thousand hearts whose answering emotion speaks in face and voice. All we are told of the author's feelings is that he seemed most impressed by Macready's exquisite rendering of the character of Athelwold. The Memoir adds that Macready pronounced one particular moment in Miss Faucit's acting of Elfrida, "the best thing she ever did."

So for one instant the drama stood on the shining height of popularity. Then it sank into oblivion. Its production on the stage occurred just at the end of the theatrical

season, and the next year it was not reproduced. The literary critics seem to have paid it no attention. Eight years afterward, a reviewer in " Blackwood" disentombed from a dusty pile of books the little volume containing "Athelwold" and its companions, and gave to it enthusiastic praise. But it won no general recognition, and probably very few readers are acquainted with it. There is no trace of any effect of this failure upon the author's mind. The youth who in bitterness of spirit made a literal grave for his first unsuccessful book had become the mature and disciplined man, not to be elated by success nor cast down by failure. And in truth the mind that could create "Athelwold" might well be so strong in its own resources as not to depend on popularity.

The play is based upon the story of King Edgar, Athelwold, and Elfrida, as Hume relates it. The action is vigorous, and the development of the story hurries the reader with breathless interest to the tragic close. The wealth of philosophic thought and of poetic imagery does not clog the movement of the plot. The graver scenes are diversified with lighter action, full of spirit and grace. The interest centres in the characters of Athelwold, Dunstan, and Elfrida. At the opening, Edgar is amusing himself with the nun Edith, whom he has carried off from her convent. Dunstan comes upon him with stern rebuke, but imposes only a trivial penance. He treats Edith's pitiful plea for compassion with the harshest scorn. Then Edgar confides to him that he is about to dispatch his trusted soldier and servant Athelwold on a secret errand, to see whether a certain noble lady, Elfrida, kept by her father in seclusion, is worthy of her reputation for wonderful beauty; with the purpose, if Athelwold brings a favorable report, to make her his queen. Then follows a dialogue between Dunstan and Athelwold, the churchman's purpose being revealed in his previous soliloquy.

The only man who scans and penetrates
My measures and my motives, he is now
The favoured noble of our fickle king;
Loved by the people; even by the court,
The envious court, esteemed and idolized.
Now Athelwold, I win thee for my friend,
Or, as my dangerous rival, tread thee down!
The cause exacts it, and I may not shrink,
That cause which makes of all this mortal world
But one vast engine for its purposes,

And still works on, and pauses not, nor spares,
Though every strained and shrieking cable there

Is spun of human fibre. — Here he comes.

Athelwold arraigns him for artfulness and cruelty; for his leniency with the weak and vicious Edgar, and his previous severity to the innocent Edwin for a virtuous marriage. Dunstan defends himself as having acted solely in the interest of the Church, in humoring the weak monarch and crushing the rebellious one.

Athelwold. Thus has it ever been! The cruel zealot
First frames a duty Heaven never meant,

And in fulfilment of it acts such crimes
As wondering Hell made no provision for.
Dominion! still dominion!

Cannot thy church instruct, control, and guide,
Sharing a sway with all good influences,
But it alone must rule the human mind,
And paralyze to rule — making a crime
Of the bare judgment, till our faith is fear,
And in the very best the callous thought
Foregoes, forgets, the finer sense of truth?

- The generous hope which bears us to the skies -
Oh, make not this our bondage!

Dunstan.

Mark you not,

My Athelwold, how in the faith of all

Each child of frailty, each poor worldling, finds

The path he treads to Heaven? On the broad base,
By ages strengthened, of a nation's creed,

As on some mole immense and palpable,

Wrought o'er the abyss, fast to the doors of Heaven,
Each solitary foot treads firm; the flock

Of men pass on

they pause

they fail they fall
But on the road itself, and where it leads,

Or who contrived, they waste no bootless care,
No sad, unequal scrutiny. Therefore

We punish error as we punish crime,

Lest by the perverse freedom of a few
Truth lose her hold on the gross, giddy world.

And hear me out with patience, my good lord

And fortunate, I deem, are men thus ruled,
Who reason not, but in belief obey,
Or with the reason happily confound
A foregone sense of duty; fortunate,
In my esteem, that subject-multitude

The monarch-priest, by his bold government,
Protects from worst of anarchies, from doubt,
And its undying fear: their creed lives in them
Like blood within their veins, and glows or thrills,
As questionless. Know this that he who towers
Above his kind, nor can be taught of them,
Who trusts his faith to solitary thought,

Who strains his ear for accents from the skies,

Or tasks the wavering oracle within,

Shall feed on heavenly whispers, few and faint,
And dying oft to stillness terrible!

Dunstan then goes on to appeal to Athelwold to ally himself with the power of the Church; but is unsuccessful. Athelwold, left to himself, contrasts his own purpose and attitude with Dunstan's.

This Dunstan deals

In a dissembling policy, in arts
Tortuous and little for a noble mind;
And yet in him there is no littleness,
For all is done as task-work, wise or not,

For greatest purposes. This 't is to be

One of your world-controllers. I'd not stoop
From my own pride of virtue and of truth

To rule the planet.

He visits Olgar, Elfrida's father, concealing his errand. In an interview between Elfrida and her confidante Gilbertha, she is shown divided between attraction toward the stranger knight, and a longing for wider conquests.

Gilbertha.

Oh, 't is more Than woman wants to win one noble heart, And all beyond is danger. I should tremble To have the power that lies in thy sweet face To dizzy human brains my own might turn. Elfrida. Now would that I were but in Edgar's court To play this fearful part among his thanes ! How glorious in some royal festival

To feel I was the queen of it!

When all this while thou hast this wandering knight,

Like a stray deer, within the mortal toils!

Say, could the ransacked court supply a match
Nobler than Athelwold?

Elf.

Oh, he's an emperor,

A very demi-god! Let me say it

'T is only to thy ear- say it aloud

Though burning blushes rush, against my will,
To my hot cheek that I do love this thane !

Mark, my Gilbertha, what a brow he has !

How proud! how thoughtful! Peace and war at once With all their several virtues, rally there.

Sometimes his full black eye, taking no note

Of present object, with its thought dilates,

And seems to drink in knowledge from the air ;

Anon it flashes like an energy,

That seems to scorn dependence for the deed

Whole troops of lovers and of prostrate knights,

That I might sacrifice them all to him.

I hate to be thus caught, like a tame thing,

Cooped in this place. He'll think me nothing worth,

Finding me here alone, unsought, unprized,

So cheap a victory. But out alas !

We know not all this while if the thane cares

To make the conquest we are grudging him.