ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901)

ROBERT BUCHANAN’S SCANDINAVIAN STUDIES

Robert Buchanan published several items concerning Scandinavia in various magazines and books, under a variety of pseudonyms. This is a list of them with the relevant links.

1864

September

Robert Buchanan visits Denmark, accompanied by his father, to report on the Second Schleswig-Holstein War for the Morning Star. Buchanan has been given this assignment because he is familiar with the Danish language. During the visit he meets Hans Christian Andersen.

October

The Athenæum (8th October) review:

Danske Romanzer, hundrede og ti. Samlede og udgivne af Christian Winther. ( Copenhagen, Reitzel.)
Nordens Guder. Et Episk Digt af Adam Oehlenschläger. (Copenhagen, The Society for publishing Oehlenschläger’s Works.
(Anonymous, but assigned to Buchanan in The Athenaeum Index of Reviews and Reviewers: 1830-1870.)

1865

May

Idyls and Legends of Inverburn is published. It includes ‘The Legend of the Stepmother’ (the title is later changed to ‘The Dead Mother’) which is based on a Danish ballad, although possibly a Scottish variant. More inmformation here:

The Origins of ‘The Legend of The Stepmother’ (aka ‘The Dead Mother’)

June

‘Thorvaldsen and his English Critics’ published in The Fortnightly Review.

August

‘The Old Ballads of Denmark’ published in The Fortnightly Review.
(Later included in Master Spirits.)

November

‘Danish Romances’ published in St. James’s Magazine under the pseudonym, Newton Neville.

(Later included in Master Spirits with the following changes:

An initial paragraph is omitted from the Master Spirits version:

IT needed not the recent war to interest us in Denmark, liden Danmark, as the Danes lovingly delight to call her. We are bound to her by many ties; by the affinities of race and character, by the memories of history, and by a certain likeness of language; and lastly, we are bound to her through the future Queen of England, the beautiful Dane who has so speedily become the most popular pet of the British public. Nevertheless we know comparatively little of the Danish people; and the recent manifestations of their courage and endurance in fighting for a principle came upon us with all the brilliance of surprise. We know now how courageous and earnest they are; how deeply the sentiment of liberty is planted in their bosom; how willingly, in defence of that sentiment, they can face all the terrors of carnage and the dread of actual extermination. By nature, however, they are neither aggressive nor quarrelsome. On the contrary, they possess as a people those virtues which manifest themselves best in times of peace. They are as gentle as Laplanders, and as simple as the inhabitants of the Norwegian fjelds. The domestic virtues flourish among them: long ago, seeing the happy results of a lofty marriage code, they hurled celibate priestcraft southward; and now the sweetest ambition of a Dane is to be an honourable husband and father. French immorality, German boasting, and English luxury they alike avoid. They are good patriots; and when they seek inspiration, they think of their Norwegian forefathers, and glow as with new wine; and inspired thus, they have sprung up from their simple firesides to resist overweening tyranny. When the strife is ended, they will retire to their homes, and, drawing the ploughshare through the battle-field, conduct their daily affairs in their usual spirit of Christian quietness. But under foreign yoke they will never rest. So long as the yoke presses, that blue light will flash out of their mild eyes, and they will continue to water the flower of independence with drop after drop of noble blood. They are so gentle, that they hold all tyranny cruel and intolerable; they are so simple, that they must be free.

Paragraph 2:

‘MODERN’ added at start of second paragraph.

‘Carl Yemard’ is replaced with ‘others’. I’ve found no other mention of ‘Carl Yemard’ - if you google him, all that comes up is the Newton Neville essay.

Newton Neville has:
‘It is not our purpose, in the present paper, to attempt an elaborate account of Danish romances; that task may be accomplished on a future occasion.’
Master Spirits omits ‘that task may be accomplished on a future occasion.’

‘We wish now merely to touch lightly on such points of peculiarity as the subject presents,’
Master Spirits omits ‘now’.

‘The Snow Queen’:
v. 3, l. 4: NN: ‘Rides the Snow-Queen high.’ MS: ‘Rides the Snow-Queen by.’

Following the line in the original Danish, NN has ‘possesses a perfect music, which it is quite impossible to convey in English’, changed in MS to ‘difficult to convey in English’.

‘The Gold-Fish’
v. 23, l. 2: NN: ‘On the hook there dangled a shilling of gold.’ MS: ‘On the hook there dangled a guinea of gold.
v. 25, l. 2: NN. ‘Shilling on shilling of precious gold.’ MS: ‘Guinea on guinea of precious gold.’

Following ‘The Mermaid’, NN has ‘After a while these mermen and mermaids become a bore.’ In the MS version, ‘a bore’ is replaced with ‘tiresome’

The next paragraph in NN has ‘such as have been delivered in gorgeous sheaves by the English Muse.’ In the MS version, ‘delivered’ is replaced with ‘garnered’.

The next sentence has ‘Milton and Thomson’ in NN and the latter is changed to ‘Thompson’ in MS. I think Newton Neville is correct here, meaning James Thomson.

The paragraph in NN ends with ‘We regret we cannot find space for one of those romantic ballads in which Oehlenschläger excels.’ and then continues with the Shakspere poem. In MS the sentence is followed by ‘We translate instead the best of his romantic poems, founded on the Scandinavian mythology:—’ and this is followed by the poem, ‘The Gift of Ægir’. Newton Neville published his version of ‘The Gift of Ægir’ in The St. James’s Magazine of March, 1866 and there are several diefference is the text, which are listed below.)

December

‘The Treasure Seeker’ published in St. James’s Magazine. Although there is no translator’s name attached, it is the first in a series of four poems published under the heading ‘Romance From The Danish’ and thus, one presumes they were supposedly the work of Newton Neville. Buchanan included ‘The Treausre Seeker’ in Ballad Stories of the Affections: from the Scandinavian, but the two versions vary quite widely in the translation from the original by Oehlenschlager.

‘Verner Ravn: a Drama’, a short verse play on a Scandinavian subject, was published in The Argosy.

1866

January

‘Romance from the Danish: Old Winkelred and the Dragon’ (by Newton Neville) published in The St. James's Magazine.

February

'Romance from the Danish: Hakon Jarl’ (by Newton Neville’) published in The St. James's Magazine.

March

‘A Danish Romance: The Gift of Ægir’ (by Newton Neville’) published in The St. James's Magazine.

(As mentioned above, this poem was included as part of the essay, ‘Danish Romances’, in the version included in Master Spirits. The difference between the two versions are listed below:

Whence lustres break, (NN)
Whence soft lustres break, (MS)

The red winds melting (NN)
The red wound melting (MS)

And the bowl within is (NN)
And the bowl within was (MS)

In the bottom glitters (NN)
In the bottom glitter’d (MS)

And the fair rim sparkles (NN)
And the fair rim sparkled (MS)

Cried Ægir, “Uove! (NN)
Ægir cried, ‘Uove! (MS)

In the god’s demesne?’ (NN)
In the gods’ demesne?’ (MS)

When, lo! soft music (NN)
When, hark! soft music (MS)

Broke the spell of ever (NN)
Broke the spell of even (MS)

Only these can give ye!’ (NN)
These alone can give ye!’ (MS)

Of every goddess there; (NN)
Of each goddess there; (MS) )

May

‘A Morning in Copenhagen’ (essay ‘by an Idle Voyager’) published in The Argosy.
(Later included in Master Spirits.)

September

The Athenæum (22 September) review:

Arne: a Sketch of Norwegian Country Life. By Björnstjerne Björnson. Translated from the Norwegian by Augusta Plesner and S. Rugeley-Powers.

(Anonymous, but assigned to Buchanan in The Athenaeum Index of Reviews and Reviewers: 1830-1870.)

October

The Athenæum (13 October) review:

Icelandic Legends. (Collected by Jón. Arnason.) Translated by George E. J. Powell and Eiríkr. Magnússon. Second Series. With Notes and Introductory Essay.

November

Agnes (After Oehlenschläger) by R. B. published in The Argosy. Included in Ballad Stories of the Affections. From the Scandinavian.

The Lead-Melting by Robert Buchanan published in The Argosy. Included in Ballad Stories of the Affections. From the Scandinavian where the original is credited to Claudius Rosenhoff. Buchanan seems to have adopted it as his own and reprints it in The New Rome and the 1901 edition of The Complete Poetical Works of Robert Buchanan.

Convent-Robbing by Walter Hutcheson published in The Argosy. This is a complete reworking of the story of ‘Cloister Robbing’ which is included in Ballad Stories of the Affections. From the Scandinavian. ‘Convent-Robbing’ was included in the 1882 collection, Ballads of Life, Love and Humour and also appeared in the ‘Early Poems’ section of The Complete Poetical Works of Robert Buchanan.

December

Ballad Stories of the Affections. From the Scandinavian is published by Routledge and Sons, with illustrations by various artists, engraved byBrothers Dalziel.

Stockholm and the Scandinavian Exhibition (‘by an Idle Voyager’) published in The Argosy.

1869

A cheaper, unillustrated edition of Ballad Stories of the Affections. From the Scandinavian is published by Sampson Low, Son, and Marston in London, and Scribner, Welford and Co. in New York.

November

Dame Martha’s Well published (anonymously) in All The Year Round, reprinted in Good Words (October, 1870) and the Glasgow Herald (4 October, 1870). It is a translation of a poem by the Danish writer, Bernhard Severin Ingemann (1789-1862). Buchanan mistakenly attributes the original to the Danish lyric poet, Christian Winther (1796-1876).

1872

December

‘Björnsterne Björnson’ published in The Contemporary Review.
Later included in Master Spirits as Björnson’s Masterpiece. This omits the final sentence of the version in The Contemporary Review:
‘On some future occasion I purpose to speak in detail of Björnson’s most formidable rival—Henrik Ibsen.’

1873

December

Master Spirits published by H. S. King and Co. It includesa section called ‘Scandinavian Studies’ which has the following four essays: ‘A Morning In Copenhagen’, ‘The Old Ballads Of Denmark’, ‘Björnson’s Masterpiece’ and ‘Danish Romances’.

1877

March - May

Balder The Beautiful published in The Contemporary Review in three parts.

June

Balder The Beautiful: a song of divine death published by William Mullen and Son.

_____

Back to Master-Spirits