Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/105

 9* S. HI. FEB. 4, '99.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

99

generally accepted Aryan in favour of " Arian," a word already pre-engaged for ecclesiastical pur- poses.

The Traditional Poetry of the Finns. By Domenico Comparetti. Translated by Isabella M. Ander- ton. (Longmans & Co.)

THIS work places a critical account of the popular songs of Finland in the hands of English readers. The volume ought to be favourably received by all folk-lorists, for, in the first place, it explains the origin and development of the brief lyrics from which Lonnrot pieced together the composition known as the ' Kalevala.' Secondly it sets forth the practical impossibility of any great epic ever being formed out of a mosaic of folk rimes, even w r hen the rimes all run in the same metre and have a certain uncultivated poetry of their own. The ' Kalevala ' is so deftly fashioned that no critic ignorant of the songs from which it was made can separate it into its component parts by inductive analysis ; yet, skilfully as the work has been done, the result is futile. The whole is, after all, no heroic narrative ; it is merely a mechanical collection of episodes lacking coherent connexion with each other. The true epic may be founded on popular tradition, but it is nevertheless the offspring of one brain. Whatever modifications it may subsequently undergo at the hands of foster-parents, its life, its corporate unity, was bestowed on it by the gestation of one mind. In songs of the people such unity is necessarily lacking. Its want is detected im- mediately we ask ourselves what is the subject of the 'Kalevala.' "If we put such a question with regard to the ' Iliad,' the ' Odyssey,' the ' Niebelungen,' the 'Chanson de Roland,' urges Prof. Comparetti, "we have an immediate, positive, single answer ready. For the 'Kalevala' the answer is not so easy, and it is given differently by

various authors A long poem created by the

people does not exist, cannot exist ; epic popular songs, such as could be put together into a true poem, have never been seen, and are not likely to be seen, among any people. Every long poem, without exception, anonymous or not, is the work of an individual, is a work of art. The art may be lofty, noble, and perfect, like that of the Homeric poems ; it may be pedestrian and lowly, like that of the poems of the Middle Ages ; but art it always is." On the contrary, such a poem as Lonnrot manufac- tured is a shapeless medley. It has no framework or skeleton to support it. Although formed of verses which have not infrequently a wild-wood suggestiveness of their own, it is a failure. A troop of the ablest dwarfs in the world could never be drilled into wielding the sword of a giant, and the finest folk-songs ever imagined will never have the force and unity of an epic.

The Pre- and Proto- Historic Finns. By the Hon.

John Abercromby. 2 vols. (Nutt.) MB. ABERCROMBY'S work ought to have a place on the same shelf with Prof. Comparetti's book, giving as it does a careful description of the gradual social evolution of the Fimio-Ugrian races, with translations of the magic-songs of the Western Finns. The dog seems to have been the first animaJ domesticated by these Northern nations, who would apparently have remained in the condition of poverty-stricken savages had not traders from lands of less rigorous climate than their own sup- plied them with the means of self -improvement in

xchange for the furs to be procured by trapping nd snaring. Considering what the general con- dition of Europe must have been some three housand years ago, it is astonishing how readily the nations within its borders have adapted them- selves to change of circumstances. The capacity of
 * he average man has been educated by the pressure

of " things as they are" in a manner which borders on the marvellous. From the physiological point of view, how few generations link the peoples of to-day with a set of ancestors whose knowledge and whose ideals appear almost childlike ! These an- cestors had, however, great aptitude for taking opportunity by the forelock. They made the most ot every occasion to seize on new means and new methods ; and if the more cautious and conservative among them argued that it was safer to follow the trusty old ways hallowed by past experience, there were always bolder spirits ready to welcome inno- vation. The second volume of Mr. Abercromby's book is filled with English versions of charms, magic- songs, spells of healing, prayers, and chants de- scribing the origins of animals, plants, diseases, and so on. Though obscured by its foreign dress, the poetic sensitiveness which occasionally manifests itself in the original is to be detected. The Finns, like some other races which have fared badly in the struggle for national pre-eminence, have retained a susceptibility which shows but rarely in the verse of nations given over to material prosperity. Reason with them has not yet attempted to overmaster feeling. They sing their impressions of wind and woodland, water and waste, because the thoughts and the words come to them, and with no other motive. Hence the charm which clings to their unstudied lays.

Peveril of the Peak. By Walter Scott. Edited by

Andrew Lang. (Nimmo.)

' PEVERIL OF THE PEAK,' now added to the reissue of the "Border" edition of the Waverley novels, is the thickest volume of the series, and includes fifteen illustrations. It stands in little need of the apologies with which it has been the fashion to usher in a fresh edition. We first read it as a boy in the 1847 and 1849 reissues of the first collected edition, with the author's notes, and it was then, as it now is, one of our favourites. How many times we had reread it before the present perusal, which must needs be the last, we are afraid to say, but we never found it too long. Now even, though we admit having skipped here and there a page, we sighed when we came to the last, and could have been content to have had more. Quite ready are we to take Fenella as in the main a failure ; her mysterious appearances do not very greatly interest us, nor do we care much for her until she gives herself away, and screams on hearing that her father has slain Julian Peveril. We will not admit, however, that Julian Peveril is one of Scott's worst heroes. He is, on the contrary, one of the best, worth a score Tressilians, Levels, Nigels, Waver- leys, or Mortons. Scott himself is, through his heroes, a little too worthy and law-abiding, and lie makes his young men too wise and too sweetly reasonable. But Julian is none of these. He is a man of action. Alice Bridgenorth is, moreover, a great favourite, and she is not too "bright and good," considering her Puritan extraction. Sir Geoffrey has a good many ail-but doubles, but he has a character of his own ; and if we did not cotton to him, Lady Peveril would reconcile him to cis