ere is no reason for regret. At any rate
his poem was published--the precursor by more than twenty years of any
other portion of the trilogy of "Christus." The public, and even his
friends, knew but little of his larger project, but "The Golden Legend"
on its publication in 1851 showed more of the dramatic quality than
anything else he had printed, and Ruskin gave to it the strong praise of
saying, "Longfellow in his 'Golden Legend' has entered more closely into
the temper of the monk, for good or for evil, than ever yet theological
writer or historian, though they may have given their life's labor to
the analysis."{96} It is to be noted that the passage in the book most
criticised as unjust is taken from a sermon of an actual Italian
preacher of the fifteenth century. But its accuracy or depth in this
respect was probably less to the general public than its quality of
readableness or that which G. P. R. James, the novelist, described as
"its resemblance to an old ruin with the ivy and the rich blue mould
upon it." If the rest of the long planned book could have been as
successful as for the time being was the "Golden Legend," the dream of
Longfellow's poetic life would have been fulfilled.

In view of such praise as Ruskin's, the question of anachronism more or
less is of course quite secondary. Errors of a few centuries doubtless
occur in it. Longfellow himself states the period at which he aims as
1230. But the spire of Strassburg Cathedral of which he speaks was not
built until the fifteenth century, though the church was begun in the
twelfth, when Walter the Minnesinger flourished. "The Lily of Medicine,"
which Prince Henry is reading when Lucifer drops in, was not written
until after 1300, nor was St. John Nepomuck canonized until after that
date. The Algerine piracies did not begin until the sixteenth century.
There were other such errors; yet these do not impair the merit of the
book. Some curious modifications also appear in later editions. In the
passage where the monk Felix is described in the first edition as
pondering over a volume of St. Augustine, this saint disappears in later
editions, while the Scriptures are substituted and the passage reads:--

"Wherein amazed he read
A thousand years in thy sight
Are but as yesterday when it is past
And as a watch in the night;"

and in the next line "downcast" is substituted for "cast down," in order
to preserve the rhyme. A very curious modification of