whom the Son of Atreus wedded, and for whose | deep embarrassment about its concerns. From sake Ilion ceased to be. For Faust must be- the dialogue, in long Alexandrines, or choral hold this Wonder, not as she seemed, but as Recitative, we soon gather that matters wear a she was; and at his unearthly desire, the Past threatening aspect. Helena salutes her pater shall become Present; and the antique Time nal and nuptial mansion in such style as may must be new-created, and give back its per- beseem an erring wife, returned from so eventsons and circumstances, though so long since ful an elopement; alludes with charitable lereingulphed in the silence of the blank by-gone nience to her frailty; which, indeed, it would Eternity! However, Mephistopheles is a cun- seem, was nothing but the merest accident, for ning genius; and will not start at common she had simply gone to pay her vows, "accordobstacles. Perhaps, indeed, he is Metaphysi- ing to sacred wont," in the temple of Cytherea, cian enough to know that Time and Space are when the "Phrygian robber" seized her; and but quiddities, not entities; forms of the human further informs us that the Immortals still soul, Laws of Thought, which to us appear in- foreshow to her a dubious future: dependent existences, but, out of our brains, For seldom, in our swift ship, did my husband deign have no existence whatever; in which case the To look on me; and word of comfort spake he none. whole nodus may be more of a logical cobweb, As if a-brooding mischief, there he silent sat; than any actual material perplexity. Let us Until, when steered into Eurotas' bending bay, see how he unravels it, or cuts it. The first ships with their prows but kissed the land,

The scene is Greece; pot our poor oppressed Ottoman Morea, but the old heroic Hellas; for the sun again shines on Sparta, and "Tyndarus' high House" stands here bright, massive, and entire, among its mountains, as when Menelaus revisited it, wearied with his ten years of warfare, and eight of sea-roving. Heena appears in front of the Palace, with a Chorus of captive Trojan maidens. These are but Shades, we know, summoned from the deep realms of Hades, and imbodied for the nonce: but the Conjurer has so managed it, that they themselves have no consciousness of this their true and highly precarious state of existence: the intermediate three thousand years have been obliterated, or compressed into a point; and these fair figures, on revisiting the upper air, entertain not the slightest suspicion that they had ever left it, or, indeed, that any thing special had happened; save only that they had just disembarked from the Spartan ships, and been sent forward by Menelaus to provide for his reception, which is shortly to follow. All these indispensable preliminaries, it would appear, Mephistopheles has arranged with considerable success. Of the poor Shades, and their entire ignorance, he is so sure that he would not scruple to cross-question them on this very point, so ticklish for his whole enterprise; nay, cannot forbear, now and then, throwing out malicious hints to mystify Helena herself, and raise the strangest doubts as to her personal identity. Thus on one occasion, as we shall see, he reminds her of a scandal which had gone abroad of her being a double personage, of her living with King Proteus in Egypt at the very time when she lived with Beau Paris in Troy; and, what is more extraordinary still, of her having been dead, and married to Achilles afterwards in the Island of Leuce! Helena admits that it is the most inexplicable thing on earth; can only conjecture that "she a Vision was joined to him a vision;" and then sinks into a reverie, or swoon, in the arms of the Chorus. In this way, can the nether-world Scapin sport with the perplexed Beauty; and by sly practice make her show us the secret, which is unknown to herself!

I muster them, in battle-order, on the ocean strand.

He rose, and said, as by the voice of gods inspired:
Here will I that my warriors, troop by troop, disbark;
But thou, go forward, up Eurotas' sacred bank,
Guiding the steeds along the flower-besprinkled space,
Till thou arrive on the fair plain where Lacedæmon,
Erewhile a broad fruit-bearing field, has piled its roofs
Amid the mountains, and sends up the smoke of hearths.
Then enter thou the high-towered Palace; call the Maids
I left at parting, and the wise old Stewardess :
And I, in war or peace still adding, have heaped up.
With her inspect the Treasures which thy father left,
Thou findest all in order standing; for it is
The prince's privilege to see, at his return,
Each household item as it was, and where it was;
For of himself the slave hath power to alter nought.

It appears, moreover, that Manelaus has given her directions to prepare for a solemn Sacrifice: the ewers, the pateras, the altar, the axe, dry wood, are all to be in readiness, only of the victim there was no mention; a circum stance from which Helena fails not to draw some rather alarming surmises. However, re flecting that all issues rest with the higher Powers, and that, in any case, irresolution and procrastination will avail her nothing, she at length determines on this grand enterprise of entering the palace, to make a general review and enters accordingly. But long before any such business could have been finished, she hastily returns with a frustrated, nay, terrified aspect; much to the astonishment of her Chorus, who pressingly inquire the cause.

HELENA (who has left the door-leaves open, agitated.) Beseems not that Jove's daughter shrink with common fright,

Nor by the brief cold touch of Fear be chill'd and stunned.

Yet the Horror, which ascending, in the womb of Night,
From deeps of Chaos, rolls itself together many-shaped,
Like glowing Clouds from out the mountain's fire-throat,
In threatening ghastliness, may shake even heroes'

hearts.

So have the Stygian here to-day appointed me
A welcome to my native Mansion, such that fain
That has took leave, I would withdraw my steps, for ay
From the oft-trod, long-wished-for threshold, like a guest
But no! Retreated have I to the light, nor shall
Ye farther force me, angry Powers, be who ye may,
New expiations will I use; then purified,
The blaze of the Hearth may greet the Mistress as the
Lord.

PANTHALIS the CHORAGE.

For the present, however, there is no thought of such scruples. Helena and her maidens, Discover, noble queen, to us thy handmaidens, far from doubting that they are real authentic That wait by thee in love, what misery has befaller denizens of this world, feel themselves in a

Leader of the Chorus.

PHORCYAS.

But I have heard thou livest on earth a double life;
In Ition seen, and seen the while in Egypt too.

HELENA.

Confound not so the weakness of my weary sense;
Here even, who or what I am, I know it not.

PHORCYAS.

Then I have heard how, from the hollow Realm
Shades,

Achilles, too, did fervently unite himself to thee;
Thy earlier love reclaiming, spite of all Fate's laws.

HELENA.

To him the Vision, I a Vision joined myself:
It was a dream, the very words may teach us this.
But I am faint; and to myself a Vision grow.
(Sinks into the arms of one division of the Chorus.)
CHORUS.

tion, we could almost feel as if a vista were opened through the long gloomy distance of ages, and we with our modern eyes and modern levity, beheld afar off, in clear light, the very figures of that old grave time; saw them again living in their old antiquarian costume and environment, and heard them audibly discourse in a dialect which had long been dead. Of all this no man is more master than Goethe; as a modern-antique, his Iphigenie must be considered unrivalled in poetry. A similar, thoroughly classical spirit will be found in this First Part of Helena; yet the manner of the two pieces is essentially different. Here, we should say, we are more reminded of Sophocles, perhaps of Eschylus, than of Euripides: it is more rugged, copious, energetic, inartificial; a still more ancient style. How very primitive, for instance, are Helena and Phorcyas in their whole deportment here! How frank and downright in speech; above all, how minute and specific; no glimpse of “ 'philosophical culture;" no such thing as a "general idea;" thus, every different object seems a new un--In which style they continue musically rating' known one, and requires to be separately her, till "Helena has recovered, and again stated. In like manner, what can be more stands in the middle of the Chorus ;" when honest and edifying than the chant of the Phorcyas, with the most wheedling air, hastens Chorus? With what inimitable naïveté they to greet her, in a new sort of verse, as if norecur to the sack of Troy, and endeavour to thing whatever had happened: convince themselves that they do actually see this "horrible Thing;" then lament the law of Destiny which dooms them to such "unspeakable eye-sorrow;" and, finally, break forth into sheer cursing; to all which, Phorcyas answers in the like free and plain-spoken fashion.

Silence! silence!

Evil-eyed, evil-tongued, thou!

Thro' so shrivelled-up, one-tooth'd a
Mouth, what good can come from that
Throat of horrors detestable-

PHORCYAS.

Issues forth from passing cloud the sun of this bright day;
If when veil'd she so could charm us, now her beams in
As the world doth look before thee, in such gentle wise
thou look'st.

splendour blind.

Let them call me so unlovely, what is lovely know I well

HELENA.

Come so wavering from the Void which in that faintnem
Glad I were to rest again, a space: so weary are my

circled me,

But to our story. This hard-tempered and so dreadfully ugly old lady, the reader cannot help suspecting, at first sight, to be some cousin-german of Mephistopheles, or, indeed, that great Actor of all Work himself; which latter suspicion the devilish nature of the beldame, by degrees, confirms into a moral cer-Yet it well becometh queens, all mortals it becometh well, tainty. There is a sarcastic malice in the To possess their hearts in patience, and await what can "wise old Stewardess" which cannot be mistaken. Meanwhile the Chorus and the beldame

limbs.

betide.

indulge still further in mutual abuse; she upbraiding them with their giddiness and wanton disposition; they chanting unabatedly her extreme deficiency in personal charms. Helena, however, interposes; and the old Gorgon, pretending that she has not till now recognised To conclude your quarrel's idle loitering be prepared: the stranger to be her mistress, smooths her- Haste, arrange the Sacrifice, the King commanded me. self into gentleness, affects the greatest hu

manity, and even appeals to her for protection All is ready in the Palace, bowl and tripod, sharp-ground against the insolence of these young ones. But wicked Phorcyas is only waiting her op- For besprinkling, for befuming : now the Victim let us see. portunity; still neither unwilling to wound, nor afraid to strike. Helena, to expel some unpleasant vapours of doubt, is reviewing her past history, in concert with Phorcyas; and observes that the latter had been appointed Stewardess by Menelaus, on his return from his Cretan expedition to Sparta. No sooner is Sparta mentioned, than the crone, with an offi- What strange sorrow overpowers thee?

O wo! O wo!

CHORUS.

PHORCYAS

Descended on all ports and isles, a plus lering fce,
And still came back with booty, which yet moulders here
Then by the walls of Ilion spent he ten long years;
How many in his homeward voyage were hard to know.

Thou fallest by the axe's stroke. But all this while how stands it here with Tyndarus*
High house? How stands it with his own domains
around?

HELENA.

HELENA.

Is love of railing, then, so interwoven with thee,
That thus, except to chide, thou canst not move thy lips 1
PHORCYAS.

So many years forsaken stood the mountain glen;
Which, north from Sparta, towards the higher land as-
cends

Behind Taygetus; where, as yet a merry brook,
Eurotas gurgles on, and then, along our Vale,

In sep'rate streams abroad outflowing feeds your Swans,
There, backwards in the rocky hills, a daring race
Have fix'd themselves, forth issuing from Cimmerian
Night;

An inexpugnable stronghold have piled aloft,
From which they harry land and people as they please.

HELENA.

How could they? All impossible it seems to me.

PHORCYAS.

Enough of time they had! 't is haply twenty years.

HELENA.

Is One the Master? Are there Robbers many ↑ leagued 1

PHORCYAS.

Not Robbers these: yet many, and the Master One.
Of him I say no ill, though hither too he came.
What might not he have took? yet did content himself

With some small Present, so he called it, Tribute, not

HELENA.

PHORCYAS.

Nowise ill! To me he pleasant look'd.

A jocund, gallant, hardy, handsome man it is,
And rational in speech, as of the Greeks are few.
We call the folk Barbarian; yet I question much
If one there be so cruel, as at Ilion
Full many of our best heroes man-devouring were.
I do respect his greatness, and confide in him.
And for his Tower! This with your own eyes ye should

How the cursed old beldame enjoys the agony of these poor Shades: nay, we suspect, she is laughing in her sleeve at the very classicism of this drama, which she herself has contrived, and is even now helping to enact! Observe, she has quitted her octameter trochaics again, and taken to plain blank verse; a sign, perhaps, that she is getting weary of How looks he? the whole classical concern! But however this may be, she now claps her hands; whereupon certain distorted dwarf figures appear at the door, and with great speed and agility, at her order, bring forth the sacrificial apparatus; on which she fails not to descant demonstratively, explaining the purpose of the several articles as they are successively fitted up before her. Here is the "gold-horned" altar, the "axe glittering over its silver edge:" then there must be "water-urns to wash the black blood's defilement,” and a “precious mat," to kneel on, for the victim is to be beheaded queenlike. On all hands, mortal horror! But Phorcyas hints darkly that there is still a way of escape left; this, of course, every one is in deepest eagerness, to learn. Here, one would think, she might for once come to the point without digression; but Phorcyas has her own way of stating a fact. She thus commences:

PHORCYAS.

Whoso, collecting store of wealth, at home abides
To parget in due season his high dwelling's walls,
And prudent guard his roof from inroad of the rain,
With him, through long still years of life, it shall be well.
But he who lightly, in his folly, bent to rove,
O'ersteps with wand'ring foot his threshold's sacred line,
Will find, at his return, the ancient place, indeed
Still there, but else all alter'd, if not overthrown.

HELENA.

Why these trite saws? Thou wert to teach us, not reprove.

PHORCIAS.

Historical it is, is nowise a reproof.

Sea-roving, steer'd King Menelaus, brisk from bay to bay; Escutcheons of like sort our heroes also bear:

much altered man since we last met him. Nay, sometimes we could fancy he were only acting a part on this occasion; were a mere mummer, representing not so much his own natural personality, as some shadow and impersonation of his history; not so much his own Faustship, as the tradition of Faust's adventures, and the Genius of the People among whom this took its rise. For, indeed, he has strange gifts of flying through the air, and living, in apparent friendship and contentment, with mere Eidolons; and, being exces sively reserved withal, he becomes not a little enigmatic. In fact, our whole "Interlude" changes its character at this point: the Greek style passes abruptly into the Spanish; at one bound we have left the Seven before Thebes, and got into the Vida es Sueño. The action, too, be comes more and more typical; or rather, we should say, half-typical; for it will neither hold rightly together as allegory nor as matter of fact.

Thus do we see ourselves hesitating on the verge of a wondrous region, "neither sea nor good dry land;" full of shapes and musical tones, but all dim, fluctuating, unsubstantial, chaotic. Danger there is that the critic may require "both oar and sail;" nay, it will be well if, like that other great Traveller, he meet not some vast vacuity, where, all unawares,

Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb down he drop
Ten thousand fathom deep

and so keep falling till

The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud,
Instinct with fire and nitre, hurry him
As many miles aloft

The step is questionable: for is not this Phorcyas a person of the most suspicious character; or rather, is it not certain that she is a Turk in grain, and will almost, of a surety, go how it may, turn good into bad? And yet, what is to be done? A trumpet, said to be that of Menelaus, sounds in the distance; at which the Chorus shrink together in increased terror. Phorcyas coldly reminds them of Deiphobus, with his slit nose, as a small token of Menelaus' turn of thinking on these matters; supposes, however, that there is now nothing for it but to wait the issue, and die with propriety. Helena has no wish to die either with propriety or impropriety; she pronounces, though with a faltering resolve, the definitive Yes. A burst of joy breaks from the Chorus; thick fog rises all round; in the midst of Meaning, probably, that he is to be "blown which, as we learn from their wild tremulous up" by nonplused and justly exasperated Rechant, they feel themselves hurried through view-reviewers!-Nevertheless, unappalled by the air: Eurotas is swept from sight, and the these possibilities, we venture forward into cry of its Swans fades ominously away in the this impalpable Limbo; and must endeavour distance; for now, as we suppose, "Tyndarus' to render such account of the "sensible spehigh House," with all its appendages, is rush-cies," and "ghosts of defunct bodies," we may ing back into the depths of the Past; old Lace- meet there, as shall be moderately satisfactory damon has again become new Misetra; only to the reader. Taygetus, with another name, remains unchanged; and the King of Rivers feeds among his sedges quite a different race of Swans than those of Leda! The mist is passing away, but yet, to the horror of the Chorus, no clear daylight returns. Dim masses rise round them: Phorcyas has vanished. Is it a castle? Is it a cavern? They find themselves in the "Interior Court of the Tower, surrounded with rich fantastic buildings of the middle ages!"

In the little notice from the Author, quoted above, we were bid specially to observe in what way and manner Faust would presume to court this World's-beauty. We must say, his style of gallantry seems to us of the most chivalrous and high-flown description, if, indeed, it is not a little euphuistic. In their own eyes, Helena and her Chorus, encircled in this Gothic Court, appear, for some minutes, no better than captives; but, suddenly issuing from galleries and portals, and descendIf, hitherto, we have moved along, with con- ing the stairs in stately procession, are seen a siderable convenience, over ground singular numerous suite of Pages, whose gay habilienough, indeed, yet, the nature of it once un-ments and red downy cheeks are greatly adderstood, affording firm footing and no unplea-mired by the Chorus: these bear with them a sant scenery, we come now to a strange mixed throne and canopy, with footstools and cush element, in which it seems as if neither walking, swimming, nor even flying, could rightly avail us. We have cheerfully admitted, and honestly believed, that Helena and her Chorus were Shades; but now they appear to be changing into mere Ideas, mere Metaphors, or poetic Thoughts! Faust, too, for he, as every one sees, must be lord of this Fortress, is a

ions, and every other necessary apparatus of royalty; the portable machine, as we gather from the Chorus, is soon put together, and Helena, being reverently beckoned into the same, is thus forthwith constituted Sovereign of the whole Establishment. To herself sucn royalty still seems a little dubious; but no sooner have the Pages, in long train, fairly