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THE publication of the "Golden Legend,' by Longfellow, seems to have awakened curiosity, and excited interest, for legendary lore-a branch of literature usually considered obsolete in Protestant countries, and which, we think, has never held its due rank, being placed either too high or too low Roman Catholics too often assigning to legends the respect due to articles of religion, and Protestants too often condemning them in the aggregate as a farrago of rubbish. Yet in this case, as in most others, "in medio tutissimus ibis "—the truth lies between the two extremes. While legends do not deserve the authority with which they are invested by one party, they do not deserve the obloquy cast upon them by the other, who overlook their original utility, and the good intention of their promulgators; and while observing only the blots in the collection, ignore entirely the many beauties. We speak of Christian, religious legends. True, there are some legends that transgress orthodoxy, common sense, and even delicacy; and some that are irreverent, if not profane, in the manner in which they introduce the Almighty; and are thus critically bad, violating the Horatian rule of composition

"Nee Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus
Inciderit ;"

and violating it far more reprehensibly than ever Horace contemplated, seeing that the Deity, whose providential interference is so unwarrantably introduced into some Christian legends, is so ineffably and immeasurably above the fabled gods of the heathen.

But notwithstanding the existence of faulty legends, there are very many that enlist themselves in the service of divine faith and social virtues, that have much solemnity and pathos, and much poetic beauty, and that array truth in a becoming and attractive garb. Legends were originally intended to convey instruction in a concise and easily-remembered form; and were thus of great utility at a time

when printing was unknown, and manuscripts were scarce and costly. The root of the legend was oral tradition; but as scribes multiplied (especially in the cloister), and subsequently after the invention of printing, the short narrative was transferred from the lip to the parchment or the paper, for its preservation, and thus changed its name to legend, ad legendum.

Legends are of two classes: the didactic, for instruction in faith and morals; and the historical. The latter are often exaggerated or distorted, and have much encumbered the historian's path; but there is scarcely an historical legend in which a nucleus of truth is not discovered or discoverable under its adventitious integuments. And to

this class of tradition we are indebted for the preservation of many an event and many a character, which now give interest to the historic page. It was the design of this species of legend to inculcate patriotism, valour and fidelity; and herein lies the merit of heathen (especially classic) legendary lore; for, as didactics, the religious or mythic legends signally fail. Mythology is but a chain of Pagan religious legends; but how extravagant! how puerile! how shocking to morals! These legends place their gods below humanity; but the historic heathen legend endeavours to place its heroes above it. Take up Valerius Maximus, for instance a book full of legendary anecdotes in the historical parts there is much that is noble and admirable; but look at his mythic legends (see the chapter De Miraculis), how childish and how aimless. And in the speaking images, who does not perceive the palpable trick of the Pagan priest, and marvel at the state of the popular mind to be so easily cheated.

But it is not of heathen legends we would speak; our business is with the didactic legends of a more truthful and better faith. In early times, when teachers had but little aid from books, they sought to instruct in the mode best suited to the understanding and

the memory of their hearers, and the most likely to attract their attention; and accordingly chose the form of short narrative, of which fable seems to have been the earliest species, for this purpose. A characteristic of fable is, that the actors and speakers represented in it are of the inferior creation-animals, birds; even trees and plants.

Later,

to fable succeeded parable-which is of higher rank, because its personages are higher not animals, or inanimate things, but human beings; and because the parable became, in the hands of the worshippers of the true God, a vehicle for instruction in religious faith and moral duties. The fable appears to us to aim chiefly at the maxims of worldly wisdom and prudence: even Jotham's fable of the trees electing a king (Judges, ix.), the oldest we believe extant, only teaches a lesson of policy. Parable, though using human personages, leaves them anonymous and indefinite, saying only, "A certain householder," "A certain king," &c.; and this is one mark of distinction be. tween parable and its younger relative, the didactic legend, which assigns special and definite names to its dramatis persona; choosing, of course, some saint or devout person for its hero, either to give a greater appearance of reality, or to invest it with more authority: : nay, there can be no reason to doubt that some, at least, are founded on fact. But we think it probable that many legends were not originally intended to be believed literally, but only to be received in the same manner as parables; as true in conveying some sound axiom of faith and morals, but

So

as figurative and imaginative with regard to the action and the actors. we recognise and embrace the teachings in our Lord's parables; but we are not required to believe that a real vineyard was let to husbandmen, who literally and actually murdered the son of the proprietor; or that a real king made a feast, and literally sent out into the highways to bring in all the wayfarers for guests.

The oldest legends are generally the simplest and purest, as the rivulet is purest at its spring: as it flows onward it gathers rubbish on its course, though still the stream often runs clear beneath. When the tide of legendary literature has rolled through a dark and corrupt age, then, of necessity, it becomes the more sullied. Of late years, since Scriptural light has been more diffused, modern pens have produced some beautiful and edifying legends, either purified from old originals, or written from ideas caught up at the ancient source.

Having said thus much by way of preface, we proceed to offer to the reader a few legends from amongst the limited number to which we have access, trusting by our selection from the grave, the earnest, and the poetically conceived, to prove the truth of what we have ventured to assert of the merits of legendary literature. The first we present is one, the conception of which we think very beautiful. Kosegarten, a Protestant divine of Mecklenburg (who died 1818), has clothed it in German blank verse, from which we translate it :—

THE STRANGE PREACHER.

It happened once in Padua, that a Minorite friar was appointed to preach the Lent Sermons in the Cathedral of St. Anthony. The subject of his discourses was, the Pains of Hell. One day, however, when in the pulpit, he found himself indisposed, and obliged to discontinue; but he promised the congregation to resume the discourse on the following morning. The morning came, and found the friar so much worse, that the physician of the convent forbade him to leave his bed; and the invalid sent for the brethren, and begged that some one of them would take his place in the pulpit, and resume the interrupted discourse; but they, each and all, excused themselves, alleging the want of time for due preparation. Our sick friar fretted exceedingly at the idea of disappointing the congregation, and was beginning to grow feverish from vexation, when one of the Minorites, on recollection, observed, that a foreign brother, from France, had arrived at the convent the night before, on his way to the shrine of Our Lady of Loretto; and that he had the appearance of an intellectual man; he was tall, had black eyes and beard, and high black eyebrows; doubtless, he would be able to preach extempore. The invalid sent for the stranger, told him his dilemma, and requested his good offices. After some hesitation the foreign friar consented; went to the cathedral, ascended the pulpit, and preached on the given subjectthe Pains of Hell. Never before had such a sermon been heard in Padua. He showed forth, in the most glowing colours, the enormity of sin, and the danger of trampling under foot the holy commandments: but especially in describing the miseries of hell, he spoke with such a fiery and overpowering eloquence, that he seemed to set before the eyes of the astonished and terrified people,

When man his heart

not so much a vivid picture, as an awful reality. They felt their hearts pierced, as with a sword, by his intense earnestness, and could not refrain from weeping and sobbing aloud, making mentally a thousand vows of reformation and newness of life. When the preacher descended from the pulpit, the people retired in tears, and the Minorite brethren expressed their warmest thanks to the stranger for the manner in which he had exerted his extraordinary talents, and expressed their delight at the great benefit the hearers had evidently received. Then, as he wished to take his leave of the brotherhood, and proceed on his pilgrimage, they all attended him, with proper courtesy, to the outer gate of the convent.

But as they were walking on, an aged and very devout friar, whose eyes were often enlightened to see things beyond the perception of ordinary mortals, espied a clovenfoot under the monastic habit of the stranger, and immediately discovered that it was no Minorite brother, but an incarnate fiend of hell. The old man summoned up his courage, and adjured him in the name of the great Creator of all things, to confess was he not a devil? why, then, had he unworthily assumed that holy habit, and come thither to preach and teach the way of salvation, to which he himself could never attain, and from which it had ever been his aim to turn away mankind! The fiend thus adjured, confessed in the presence of the brotherhood, and of some laymen who were in company, that he was in truth a devil (then the expression of his face became too hideous to look upon, and his eyes blazed forth flames of lurid light); he said that his desire for the perdition of men was as great as ever, and that the sermon he had preached to the people that day would be so far from turning them to the way of salvation, that, on the contrary, it would tend to their condemnation, for he had preached to them awful truths, and they had owned the force of those truths by their tears and their penitence. But those tears were dried when they left the church-door, and that penitence lasted no longer than till they found themselves at home, amid their usual occupations and pleasures, and their acknowledged, but soon stifled

conviction, was but an increase of sin. "At the last day," he continued, "I myself will appear as a witness against these people, and will say to the Judge upon the throne, 'O thou Mighty One! behold these men! how can they accuse me of tempting them to sin? Have I not warned them in a voice of thunder of the consequence of sin-I, who knew it so well? have I not described to themforcibly described-the agonies of hell? and who knows them as I do, or can paint them as I can ? Have they not owned for a moment that I preached awful truths, and then turned away, dried their tears, and forgot to repent?-how shall they justify their sins by accusing me as their tempter ?'"

Thus saying, he vanished out of their sight, leaving them mute with terror and astonishment. The devout old friar was the first to speak. "Woe!" he said, "woe to those men who will not be persuaded to heaven by the mild and gracious invitations of their God, nor scared from hell by the solemn warnings with which Satan himself admonishes them."

In

This tale may have been the origin of the proverb "The devil rebukes sin." It teaches a fearful and solemn truth, of which the world has daily experience. For what preacher can so powerfully demonstrate the danger of sin, and its frightful consequences, as sin itself does, when walking through the world incarnate in human forms, in all their loathsomeness and anguish! This is one of the few legends we have seen, in which a fiend makes his appearance in an appropriate and impressive manner. most monkish legends, the devil is introduced in a ludicrous manner, not as a mighty, implacable and tremendous power, but as a mere blockhead buffoon, easily overreached, filling the same part as "the vice," in the ancient miracle-plays and mysteries, like the Pantaloon of modern pantomime, duped and buffeted by all. Such legends must have been incalculably injurious to the popular mind in olden times, tending to place Satan in a false light, and leading men to estimate too meanly their danger from their great spiritual enemy.

As a relief from this gloomy subject, we will turn to one more gracious, a legend of St. Augustine (the celebrated Bishop of Hippo), referring to him in the early period of his life, before his conversion from the perverted learning and too daring researches of

the Manichean heresy, in which he was entangled from A.D. 373 to 384, when struck, probably, by some such thought as is suggested in the following legend, he went to Milan, to hear the preaching of St. Ambrose, by which he was converted. It was at the baptism of his great convert, that St. Ambrose is said to have sung that sublime hymn, commonly styled the Te Deum. The legend has been clad by Aloysius Schreiber in a poetic garb, from which we translate it :

SAINT AUGUSTINE.

Along the shore of summer sea
Walked Saint Augustine thoughtfully:
Too deeply did he seek to scan
The nature of the Lord of man.
Nor was the task abstruse, he thought-
His mind with Scripture texts was fraught;
He deemed to his presumption given
To learn the mysteries of Heaven.
Then, suddenly descried he there
A boy of aspect wondrous fair,
Who, bending forwards o'er the strand,
Scoop'd out a hollow in the sand,
And filled it, with a limpet shell,
From out the ocean's briny well.

Augustine spake-"My pretty boy,
What is thy play, or thy employ"
"Look, sir! within this little hole,
The sea, with all the waves that roll,
For sport I'll put." Augustine smiled-
"Thy sport is all for nought, my child;
Thy utmost labour is in vain-
Thine aim thou never can'st attain."
"Let him to whom such power's denied,
Content in his own path abide:
Much to the loving heart is dear,
That to the brain doth dark appear."
So spake the boy: then to the light
His wings display'd, of glistening white,
And, like an eagle, soared away,
Lost in the sun's resplendent ray.

Long after him Augustine gaz'd,
And said, with heart and eyes uprais'd-
"The truth he spake; the human mind
Is still to time and space confined,
And cannot pass beyond; but he
Who lives in faith and righteously,
So much of God shall he discern
As needeth man on earth to learn."

We proceed to a legend, in which the rash enthusiasm for the ascetic life, that was so prevalent in the fourth century, is sensibly and feelingly rebuked. We translate from the German of the poetic version by Herder :