on the piteous entreaty of Queen Louisa, and they took Alicant, after a most brilliant resistance, the last place in the kingdom of Valencia that had not yet submitted to Philip.

A battle on the Portuguese side of Spain was likewise gained against poor Lord Galway, always unfortunate, at Lazudina, and it became more and more plain that Philip reigned by the good will of all the Spaniards except the Catalonians; but Louis XIV. was reduced to such distress that his desire was more and more to purchase peace by making his grandson renounce the crown so eagerly seized; but as this proved unpracticable, support was still afforded to him.

He begged for the Duke of Vendôme to lead his army, but the rout of Oudenarde was not forgiven, and this was refused. Philip then set forth on a personal campaign with the brave Marquis of Villadarias as General, and on the other side, Charles had taken the field with Stanhope and Staremberg, so that the two rivals for the first time were together in a battle.

The place was Almenara, where the tardiness of Charles and Staremberg was such that they would have let the whole opportunity go by if Stanhope had not assured them that if they did so, he should consider it his duty to withdraw the English troops and leave them to shift for themselves. So the battle began a quarter of an hour before sunset on the 23rd of July, 1710, and when once engaged, they showed themselves quite brave enough, and there was a complete victory, only checked by the darkness. Indeed, Philip would have been made prisoner, but for a last desperate charge of Villadarias to cover his flight.

He was in a manner paralysed by his alarm, and it was difficult to stir him up to exertion, till the Allies were at the gates of Zaragoza. There was then another battle on the 20th of September on the deep barranca or ravine, called already, from a conflict in the Moorish times, Barranca de los Muertos.' Again Staremberg could with difficulty be induced to fight, but when he did so, fought admirably, and another victory was gained, 63 colours and 6000 prisoners taken, and 5000 men left on the field.

Charles entered Zaragoza the same night, and was warmly welcomed. Stanhope wished to march on Madrid, but the German general and his prince were hard to move, considering it an axiom that conquests should be made step by step, not by bounds, and though Stanhope did prevail, and wrote to Lord Galway to move forward and meet him at Madrid; but Charles only felt jealousy, and wrote to his wife at Barcelona, 'If this plan of the English succeeds, all the glory will be theirs; if it fails, all the loss will be mine.'

Philip had been forced to retreat to Madrid and prepare for flight, consoled, however, by the ardent affection of the people, who flocked after him when he carried off his wife and her infants to Valladolid. The road was blocked with carriages, and even ladies of high rank

followed on foot, the populace who could not leave the city watching them with tears and prayers.

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When Charles entered the city a few days later, all was silent, there was not a voice to cry Viva,' except those of a few street children, to whom coins were thrown; all the shops were shut, and Charles, exclaiming, 'The city is a desert,' turned his horse, rode out, and took up his quarters at a country house, where he issued decrees in hopes of conciliating the people. One old nobleman, the Marquis of Mancera, a hundred years old, had been too infirm to leave the city, and Stanhope was sent to persuade him to acknowledge Charles.

'Sir,' the old man said, 'I have but one God and one king, and I am resolved to be faithful to both.'

However, Philip's need had obtained at last from his grandfather the presence of the Duke of Vendôme. Eager to retrieve his fame, he brought new life and vigour into his councils. Charles, perceiving the danger of being cut off from Catalonia, retreated from Madrid, which Philip entered a week or two later. He was received with ecstacy, and showed his gratitude warmly. He went himself to the bedroom of the old Mancera to thank him for his fidelity, the first time it is said that a dying subject had been visited by a King of Spain since Philip II. had gone too late to see the Duke of Alva.

The tide had turned. Vendôme followed up the retreating army and obtained the surrender of Brihuega, though obstinately defended by Stanhope himself, who was made prisoner, and taken with his officers to Valladolid.

Without him and his English, there was little chance for the German and Catalonian army, who were overtaken at Villa Viciosa on the 10th of December, 1710, and suffered terribly in spite of the brave resistance of Staremberg. Night came on, and the old German with far inferior forces still held the ground, though his loss had been terrible, and so many standards had been taken, that when the Spaniards rested on the heights above, Vendôme told Philip he should have the most glorious bed that ever monarch had slept upon, and made him a couch of the enemy's colours.

Both sides called Villa Viciosa a victory; but the fruits were Philip's, for Staremberg had to retreat the next day, and was so harassed by the enemy, as to lose many men before he reached Barcelona, and fortress after fortress fell before the arms of the Dukes of Vendôme and Noailles.

SKETCHES OF OLD NORSE LITERATURE.

VI.

THE SAGAS OF ICELAND.

WHILE heroic and historical poetry, legend, and chronicle are common to all literatures, the Sagas are peculiar to that of Iceland alone; that is, the stories of the Saga ages, as distinguished from what are sometimes called Sagas, such as historical chronicles, spurious Sagas, and later prose versions of ancient poems. Iceland is the home of the Sagas, and they have risen out of the conditions of life in that curious country.

In the 9th century it needed much daring to sail to Iceland, and much endurance to settle there. So the inhabitants were energetic and strong in character even beyond the average Norsemen elsewhere. The configuration of the island, consisting of many almost isolated valleys lying between dangerous mountains and stormy seas, gave to the inhabitants of each little valley a character and history of their own. In summer there was a good deal of contact with other people at home or beyond seas, and often the excitement of the ride to the Althing, where all Iceland gathered for business ordiversion; but in winter each little circle of neighbours was isolated from the rest of the world, and thrown on its own mental resources. It is different in Norway, where people speed about in sledges or on snow-shoes; but the fierce winds and snow-drifts make the ways in Iceland so impassable, that even now there are many who hardly move beyond their byres and sheepcotes, and perhaps their church, all the long winter through. To say of a man that he was 'out' (uti), sufficiently tells that he has lost his life on a winter journey, to this day only too common a death.

now.

Winter life appears in old times to have been much the same as The household are up with the grey of the dawn; all outdoor work is done during the few hours of sunshine or partial daylight. Often, when the winter twilight darkens, the people of the farms. take a siesta, and are roused again when the darkness is profound and the night advanced. Then is the time of the Kveikja, or kindling of the lights; then the women weave and spin and knit, and the men carve wood and work at carpentry, jewelry, or repairs. Under the best lamp the reader sits and reads from poem, saga, or history, or now, maybe, from a novel of Scott's or Bulwer. But in VOL. 20.

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PART 115.

former days it was, as still sometimes, the sayer of the saga or the poem who wiled away the winter night. Towards midnight, perhaps, the lights are put out, and the real night's rest begins, to last till the earliest dawn.

Iceland is a poor country now, though the inhabitants are so cultivated as to show that it is possible to combine the frugality of a simple state of life with the intelligence of an advanced one. But formerly it was more on an equality with other nations. If the winter night was long, there was plenty of oil to burn, and in trade the oil meant wealth before the days of gas. The chief men of Iceland were then often wealthy, clever, far-travelled, and the winters were what they are now. We see the influence of such energies pent in such narrow limits in the Sagas. They are the family histories of the inhabitants of the different valleys, the events being often grouped round some central character, the hero of the story. True stories they are, of real men and women, but told, not written, handed down by tradition through two or more generations, so that additions in the spirit of the times have crept in, and also some stock stories are told of different persons. What the Icelanders call the Saga age-when the events told in these Sagas happened—is, roughly speaking, from A.D. 870 to 1050. From that date till A.D. 1250 many were written down by unknown authors. Many, we know, are lost. We have some evidently written as they were said, in a brief, archaic form. Four or five of the longest Sagas have gone through a further process of editing, and appear to be collections of several smaller local Sagas welded together into a developed and dramatic whole-such are Njala, Egil Skallagrimson, Laxdæla, etc. We have every reason to believe the events recorded really happened; but the various details of dress and manners are often of the period of the writer in the 13th century rather than of the heroes of the 10th century. About forty of these authentic family histories survive, and the names of many others, of which the MSS. have been lost.

When we open the Saga book it is like drawing back a curtain and looking out of an old Gothic window on the very life of the early Middle Ages moving and acting before us. We have it, indeed, described by graphic eye-witnesses. There are few attempts to analyse character, though the men and women spoken of stand out as marked people that one would know again anywhere, but through their own words and actions, which the author only narrates as truly as he can. The frequent little repetitions and events constantly happening, which served to keep the listeners' attention on the alert, indicate that they were originally told, not read, histories. Then there is often much idiomatic and pointed dialogue, sarcastic and humourous, and interspersed with bits of Old-World wisdom. The Norsemen loved renown, but also truth, and one feels the essential trustworthiness of the historic Sagas. It was not till the race had declined from its original strength that spurious Sagas and

the poetic but impossible romances of southern Europe became popular, that Tristram, Lancelot, and Cyrus replaced as heroes the historical champions of the North.

The great defect of the Sagas is the extraordinary carelessness of human life which underlies their morals; their heroes are often as destructive as Nature herself. This was, we think, only partly owing to the law of the blood feud which is common to all the ancient Teutonic nations: the Norse laws were especially indulgent to the slayer. Only unconfessed slaying was counted murder; the laws then withdrew their protection from the murderer in Iceland, leaving the duty of killing him to the family of the slain person; and it was a duty usually undertaken with pleasure. If a man killed another, even by an unprovoked assault, and declared it at the next farm, the law found it only manslaughter, to be atoned by a fine. Every one's life had its price, according to social position; and, as it was divided between the next of kin, the slaughter of a not very popular member of a family might be felt as no great loss. Thus a turbulent fellow could buy the privilege of slaughtering man after man, though of course it was expensive, and generally ended by his becoming the follower of some powerful chief, who paid his fines and protected him from outlawry. Latterly ambitious chiefs thus collected bands of reckless men, which enabled them to defy the laws and overawe the councils of the freemen at the Althing. But in cases of manslaughter the family was not bound to accept an atonement; they might prefer revenge, and slay the slayer, who then would fall unatoned or one of his kindred; in which case one blood-feud might bring half-a-dozen others in its train, and be a clear example of the wrong which avenges wrong.' In vain Christianity strove with this spirit of violence and revenge, for, in spite of splendid exceptions, it seemed as a national vice to increase, till the strength of the Norse aristocracy was broken by King Sverre, and the independence of Iceland was sacrificed to the quarrels of her chiefs in the reign of his son King Hakon, in the 13th century. Retribution lingers for the sins of nations, but it came indeed when Norway and Iceland, losing for long the spirit of enterprise and independence which had been their glory, became the oppressed and neglected provinces of Denmark, itself of little account among the nations of Europe. Better times dawned by degrees, and the old dauntless spirit of the North still shows itself in the enterprise and endurance of her sons.

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The other national fault of drinking comes out in the Sagas; but then, as now in the North, it was rather wild carousals at high festivals, and marriage, funeral, and heirship gatherings, than the ruinous, modern, and British habit of daily drinking that is described. The ale was brewed before the feast, drunk very new, and probably finished when the guests departed, and, as still in Norway, a week of revelry was followed by months of abstinence.