After a silence of nearly ten years—­characteristic of Mr Taylor’s deliberative and disciplined mind—­he produced (1842) Edwin the Fair, of whose story the little that was known, he observes, was romantic enough to have impressed itself on the popular memory—­the tale of Edwy and Elgiva having been current in the nursery long before it came to be studied as a historical question.  In illustrating this tale he borrows from the bordering reigns ’incidents which were characteristic of the times,’ though some are of opinion, that his deviation from historical truth has rather impaired than aided the poetical effect of the drama.  With artistic skill, and often with sustained energy, he develops the career of the ‘All-Fair’ prince, and his relation to the monkish struggle of the tenth century; the hostile intrigues and stormy violence of Dunstan; the loyal tenacity and Saxon frank-heartedness of Earl Leolf and his allies; the celebrated coronation-scene, and ‘most admired disorder’ of the banquet; the discovery and denunciation of Edwin’s secret nuptials; his imprisonment in the Tower of London; the confusion and dispersion of his adherents; the ecclesiastical finesse and conjuror-tricks of Dunstan; the king’s rescue and temporary success; the murder of Elgiva, and Edwin’s own death in the essay to avenge her.  It is around Dunstan, the representative of spiritual despotism, that the interest centres.  The character of this ‘Saint,’ like that of Hildebrand and a Becket, has been made one of the problems of history.  Mr Taylor’s reading of the part is masterly, and we think correct.  His Dunstan is not wholly sane; he believes himself inspired to read the alphabet of Heaven’s stars, and to behold visions beyond the bounds of human foresight; one of the few to whom, ’and not in mercy, is it given to read the mixed celestial cypher:  not in mercy, save as a penance merciful in issue.’  His mischievous influence over the popular mind is sealed by the partial and latent degree of his insanity, for ’madness that doth least declare itself endangers most, and ever most infects the unsound many.’  His great natural powers are tainted by the one black spot; his youth has been devoted to books, to the study of chemistry and mechanics; his manhood to observing ’the ways of men and policies of state’ in the court of Edred; ’and were he not pushed sometimes past the confines of his reason, he would o’ertop the world.’  Next to him in interest comes Earl Leolf, from whose lips proceed some of the finest poetry in the play, especially that exquisite soliloquy[8] on the sea-shore at Hastings.  Athulf, the brother of Elgiva, is another happy portrait—­a man bright and jocund as the morn, who can and will detect the springs of fruitfulness and joy in earth’s waste places, and whose bluff dislike of Dunstan is aptly illustrated in the scene where he brings the king’s commands, and is kept waiting by the monks during Dunstan’s matutinal flagellation:—­