_Thirdly_, as a poetical composition, the Lay of the Niebelungen will not bear comparison for a moment with the two great Greek works of the same class; it is even, in our opinion, inferior to its nearest modern counterpart, the _Cid_. The author of the _Iliad_ possessed a soul as sunny and as fiery as those lovely island-fringed coasts that gave him birth; and in describing battles he rushes on himself to the charge, like some old French-eating Marshal Blucher, the incarnation of the whirlwind of battle which he guides. Our German minstrel takes matters more easily, and, while his pen revels in blood, sits all the while in his easy chair, rocking himself delectably, and, like a true German, smoking his pipe. His quiet serene breadth is very apt to degenerate into Westphalian flats and sheer prosiness. When, again, he would be sublime and stirring, as in the bloody catastrophe, he is apt to overshoot the mark, and becomes horrible. His heroes are too gigantic, and do things with a touch of their finger which no Homeric hero would have dreamt of without the help of a god. The fancy, also, of the old German is very barren and monotonous, as compared with the wealthy Greek. His similes are few; he has no richness of analogy. Nevertheless, the Niebelungen Lay remains for all Europe a very notable poem--for all lovers of popular poetry an indispensable study. Whatever else it wants, it has nature and health, simplicity and character about it; and these things are always pleasurable--sometimes, where a taint of vicious taste has crept in, your only curatives. FOOTNOTES: [14] _The Fall of the Niebelungers_; otherwise the Book of Kriemhild: a translation of the _Niebelunge Nôt_, or _Niebelungen Lied_. By WILLIAM NANSON LETTSOM. London: Williams and Norgate, 1850. _Ueber die Iliade und das Niebelungen Lied._ Von KARL ZELL. Karlsruhe: 1843. [15] _Das Niebelungen Lied_; in's hoch Deutsche übertragen. Von AUGUST ZEUNE. Berlin: 1814. [16] These Burgundians are, in the second part of the poem, also called the _Niebelungen_, which epithet, however, in the first part, is applied to certain distant Scandinavian vassals of Siegfried. The origin of this name has caused much dispute amongst the learned. [17] In the year 436, Gundicarius, king of the Burgundians, was destroyed with his followers by the Huns; and this event is supposed to be represented by the catastrophe of the Niebelungen.--LETTSOM, Preface, p. 4, and ZELLE, p. 370. [18] The translation by _Birch_, published at Berlin in 1848, follows Lachmann's mangled text, and is otherwise very inferior to Mr Lettsom's. ADDITIONAL CHAPTERS FROM THE HISTORY OF JOHN BULL. CHAPTER I. HOW DICK DEVILSDUST WENT UPON HIS TRAVELS; HOW THE JUGGLER MADE A PACTION WITH MOSES; AND HOW HE KEPT IT.