[BURPEE] CHARLES HEAVYSEGE 43 
more nearly approaches Saul in the grandeur and dignity of both sub- 
ject and treatment. The irtensely tragic situation created by the inevit- 
able fulfilment of Jephthah’s vow, has been finely worked out, the only 
fault one is disposed to find with it being the poet’s persistent prolixity. 
Supremely tragic moments do not, in real life, give birth to long 
flowery speeches from the main actors, but rather simple, forcible intense 
phrases, hammered out in the stress and agony of the moment. One 
cannot help feeling that Heavysege might have made some of the pas- 
sages in his poem more natural, and therefore more effective, by the use 
of sterner repression in his choice of words and phrases. But in other 
respects one may unreservedly approve the dignity, music, and inter- 
pretative value of the language, and also the skilful manner in which 
the story is worked up to its dramatic climax. Heavysege is pre- 
eminently an interpreter of moral impulses. He is never so successful 
as when dealing with a subtle moral situation, or tracing the develop- 
ment of character. This latter point is well illustrated in the growth 
of the soul of Jephthah’s daughter, from the natural weakness of her 
first pitiful protest against a seemingly unjust fate: 
“O think how hard it is to die when young: ” 
to her final heroic acquiescence in the divine decree. While at first she 
almost upbraids her father for cruelty, in the end she becomes eager to 
accept martyrdom for her country’s good, and instead of seeking sympa- 
thy, comforts her father and mother in their intolerable grief. 
The poem opens in these words: 
*Twas in the olden days of Israel, 
When, from her people, rose up mighty men 
To judge and to defend her; ere she knew 
Or clamoured for, her coming line of kings ; 
A father, rashly vowing, sacrificed 
His daughter on the altar of the Lord ;— 
"Twas in those ancient days, coeval deemed 
With the song-famous and heroic ones, 
When Agamemnon, taught divinely, doomed 
His daughter to expire at Dian’s shrine A 
Two songs with but one burden, twin-like tales. 
Sad tales, but this the sadder of the twain. 
Jephthah’s daughter comes dancing to meet him, with her maidens, 
welcoming him home from his victorious campaign, but instead of the 
joy she expected to see on her father’s face, she reads there horror and 
despair. Jephthah thrusts her from him, and she returns in bewilder- 
