or imitated by Tasso, Ariosto, Jacques Gohorry, Spenser, and Jonson, to say nothing of out-and-out translations by others. Byron has the same taste.

Tennyson has used more than once a passage from Homer

"Where falls not hail or rain or any snow

Nor ever wind blows loudly"-1

which he found that Lucretius had used before him; and which Dante has also worn as a gem "a jewel five words long."2 Americans of casual Latinity cannot quite appreciate how vividly the verse of Virgil lingers in the minds of English lads, be they ever so indolent at study.

With the English gentleman, Virgil is a sacred book-verbally inspired. There is nothing in America similar to the reverence hitherto paid it by the Briton of culture, unless, perhaps, the devotion of the oldfashioned, square-shouldered American, in the good days gone by, to the English Bible. (I fancy that it is to the familiarity thereby obtained with the genuine English tongue that we are indebted for any purity of speech left. As for Webster's spelling-book, we may thank it for the metallic phonograph sounds which bewray us all over the world. Why could it not have been fated that some Scotchman or Irishman should have struck the tuning-fork of our American orthoepy?)

I doubt if Virgil would not be the first thought, on the subject of poetry, of every Englishman who went to school fifty years ago. He was almost confessedly Tennyson's, as shown by his summarized judgment of the poet in his Mantuan ode, published the other day. Virgil is the patron saint of our five hundred years of Renaissance, and Tennyson closes the dynasty of its high priests.

From Virgil to Theocritus, so far as idyllic poetry is concerned, is but a step. Virgil's shield is the same as that of Theocritus, only with the difference of a Latin field

1 Morte d'Arthur; see also Lucretius.

2 "Perche non pioggia, non grando, non neve
Non rugiada, non brina piu su cade-"
Purg. XXI.

instead of a Greek one; and what Tennyson failed to find in Virgil, he sought in the "Sicilian Shepherd."

But it would be useless to set forth all the paths of labor which the poet has traveled in his reading to glean material wherewith to enrich his muse. Even in his most fervid and off-hand efforts, he has apparently first racked his memory for a model or a suggestion. The "Charge of the Light Brigade"8 recalls, by a line or two (suppressed, I believe), the ancient Greek revolutionary song of Harmodios and Aristogeiton, showing how Tennyson had cast about him for a precedent in the record. Tennyson's sources of literary culture may principally be found in Greek, Latin, Italian, and English literature. He hardly seems to be attracted to French; and if he does use that tongue, it is probably the form known as Duke-of-Wellington French-a speech which came to be popular after Waterloo.

The Laureate, whatever liberality there may be in his character, is an Englishman. He does not belong to that class of elastic cosmopolites, who, in whatever land they may be, give the impression that they were born elsewhere. He believes thoroughly in British insulation; and in company the other day with a numerous assembly of the nobility and gentry, signed the Channel protest, wishing it to be of record that he for one believed in maintaining those bulwarks of British glory-the Channel fleet and seasickness.

"God bless the narrow seas!

I wish they were a whole Atlantic broad.'

modern hexameter; and he has a sneer Tennyson does not show any faith in the for the German article-probably as found literature: save in "Maud" (and possibly not in Voss. He may not be partial to German there), he indicates no reading in that direction. When he was young, German scholarship in England was meager. It was only when Carlyle, by force and arms, compelled attention to it, that a knowledge in that direction became common. De Quincey, for

8 London Examiner, December 9th, 1854. Maud, and Other Poems, 1855.

philosophical uses, studied the tongue; Coleridge and Shelley took hold of it for poetry's sake; Walter Scott translated Goetz von Berlichingen. But in the early part of the century, besides his unsavory Monk, a knowledge of German was the only recommendation to literary notice that Matthew Lewis could assert. Nowadays, almost any clever English girl (leaving out her brother, Macaulay's school-boy) is supposed to be able to read Schiller.

It would not be wise to contradict an opinion on the subject of verse melody originating with the poet. His ear has been too long in the training of harmonious sounds to be distrusted; but though there is a deal of sibilation in Voss's hexameters, it gives, after all, a seething, swishing spatter to the verse that sounds of the Baltic waves, and remotely of Homer and the Ægæan.

One test of excellence, if it be a test, has been tried again and again upon Tennyson. It is the transferring of his poems by scholars into Latin verse. At this recreation, some of the noted Latinists in England have tried their hands. I noticed, some months since, a translation into Greek of the pretty song in "The Cup."1 Such jeux d' esprit show how affectionately he is regarded by the scholarly portion of the rising generation in England. Tennyson is the only English author besides Shakspere and Milton who has been found worthy of a concordance. Samuel Rogers, with all his wealth to gild his claims as poet, could never have invaded the hearts of artists of brush and pencil as Tennyson has done, nor could he have ever furnished such inspiration for their work.

Tennyson's attitude towards his critics and the public has ever been one of patient humility. It is rare that he shows any restive anger. One or two poems have an indignant sound; and on one occasionnamely, towards Bulwer-he did exhibit temper, which, notwithstanding the provocation, he has since no doubt regretted.

I am nowise sure, however, that Bulwer's

1 The Theatre, June, 1881.

"Moon on the field and foam."

"Miss Alfred"2 was not a beneficial sneer, after all. There was a general tone and perfume of boudoir elegance pervading his then published poems, which, agreeable under certain conditions, might have become too much of a good thing. And, too, some of his early poems-for example, "O Darling Room"-are quite too awfully nice to escape brutal critics. The fact is, that a minstrel's listeners must be mailed knights as well as gentle ladies; and he must sing accordingly, if he would not be relegated to the companionship of the idolized pianist and limp curate-objects of mysterious interest to the feminine heart, but unloved by coarser males.

In response to Bulwer's rasping mention of him, Tennyson gave one deep-chested howl of ire, and then trimmed his style to avoid a similar reproach in the future.

3

He has, in fact, used criticism very much as painters use a mirror, to verify or discover errors in drawing or color.

In the earlier volumes, Tennyson appended exegetical notes, here and there, to bring the reader into better intelligence with the verse. There was too much of it in some instances, and he ultimately veered to the other extreme, and dropped notes of any kind. We all have laughed heartily at Thackeray's burlesque upon Timbuctoo, which was printed in "The Snob" of university days; and one of the most amusing features of the squib is the wealth of exegesis appended. To avoid the error there ́satirized, Tennyson stripped his poems of all prose explanation. I do not know that such a course is always commendable. For my own part, I find it very comfortable to be bolstered up by marginal commentary. There is more wit, philosophy, and information in Byron's autograph elucidation of his own works than in many authors' texts.

And in this connection, would it not be a good idea if some clever American editor, who would not mind being a thief, should publish an edition of Tennyson with a

2 The New Timon, Punch, February 7th, 1846 (Vol. X.). See Dedication of Harold.

3 Punch, February 28th, 1846 (Vol. X.).

running commentary made up with excerpts, more or less apposite or true, from the criticisms which have appeared of our poet, from "Musty, Fusty Christopher" down to the latest date, together with all the parallel passages marked by admirers or foes? It would do Tennyson no harm, and might stir up a closer spirit of examination, and consequent better appreciation of his merit and power. Something in the nature of an annotated edition was at one time contemplated in England.

The author of "A New Study of Tennyson," in Cornhill, wonders why the poet does not give Miss Mitford credit for "Dora," so far as plot is considered. In the 1842 edition there is a note to that effect, also crediting Miss Ferrier (Walter Scott's pet young authoress)2 with the idea of "Lady Clare"; but the rigid suppression of notes carried that one with the rest.

Tennyson has, throughout his career of literary labor, not merely inverted his stilus to rub out a word here and there; but whenever he fancied that a verse or a whole poem were overripe or rotten, he has not hesitated to tear out page after page, and fling whole editions into the fire. But the permanency of print is to him a curse. His older versions have acquired a charm for ghoulish bibliomaniacs; and notwithstanding his suppressive policy, he is impotent in his endeavors, and must sit and suffer pangs while surreptitious and piratic editions of his early poems are being passed about under his very nose.

The "Lover's Tale" (what motive could have induced him to withdraw it from publication?), written when the poet was nineteen, is a specimen of his fastidious anxiety; some freebooting publisher of late years issued it illicitly, and the Laureate "had him up" for the offense, but was finally obliged to yield to his fate, and issue it himself. The London "Times" intimated that theft of that sort would become popular, if publication of a sought-for poem were thereby enforced.

1 Cornhill, 1880.

2 Marriage and Inheritance.

What an unpretentious, winning poem is "The Princess"! Who is there among articulately speaking men that has not been charmed by it? (By articulately speaking men, I mean, of course, English-speaking men.) It is so simple, so easy to understand (one wise critic, however, claims Tennyson's intelligibility to be a defect); and yet it has political, moral, and social philosophy enough in it to furnish up a university or social congress. It appeared in 1847,1 and showed that Wordsworth had not mistaken the merit of his successor to the laurel crown.

Several models may have been used to furnish the form of "In Memoriam." The one nearest in mechanical construction is the latter part of Petrarch's "Rime" (After Laura's Death). Adonais had been adopted by Shelley as his model for the poem on the death of Keats; and Tennyson had the Greek lament in his mind, as also Milton's Lycidas. Ben Jonson and Lord Herbert of Cherbury perhaps furnished the particular versification used.

But if we compare Tennyson's work with the Italian or English poems suggested, we find it infinitely superior both in matter and manner. There is always a hint of mawkishness, when a lover whines bemoaningly over a mistress, whether alive or dead; but a boy's friendship for his fellow is pure and reverential; and in the grandeur of the thoughts strung together, the man of the nineteenth century has by far the advantage in breadth and dignity over him of the fourteenth.

Lycidas, after all, has something of the air of a college exercise gotten up "to improve the occasion" of young King's death; and Shelley was thinking entirely too much. of his Greek model to be completely natural in his verse or grief.

"In Memoriam" is neither more nor less than a careful treasure-house, wherein are stored the best and most affectionate of a man's thoughts for delivery on the joyous

8 British Quarterly Review, 1880.
4 Moxon, 1847.

In 1850,1 Wordsworth died, and Tennyson was appointed to the laureateship2 by Lord John Russell; Palmerston, as great an admirer of Virgil as Mæcenas himself, being of the cabinet.

The "Ode on the Death of Wellington" 3 was the first really important official duty undertaken by Tennyson-if a Laureate can be said to have duties. No appointed task is easy for a poet; and a poem for an occasion is likely to be weak and worthless. Duty gets but mediocre service out of its slaves. Yet if ever there was a man who could come to the task of poetic eulogy of the dead soldier, it was Tennyson. Wellington was nothing if not English—a character in which he claimed the poet's fullest reverence; who could sympathize fully with the Waterloo victor's intense Anglicanism, distrust of Napoleonic ideas, and faith in England's pluck and glory. All of the Laureate's metrical skill was accordingly invoked; and he even went back to the court of the Romano-Byzantine emperors for a poetic title grand enough and glorious enough to inscribe upon the sarcophagus of the Great

quisite passages might be versifications of the German prose, though it may be that Tennyson did not obtain his matter from that source. There is the same brooding introspection; the same impossible ambition to be something, one knows not what; the same sense of apprehension as to the passion of love. The English solution -"a hope for the world in the coming wars" -is better than the German crisis of snuffing out the candle of life altogether. There is the same disgust for the arrogance of wealth. In passing, I wonder how many of us thought of the "oiled and curled Assyrian bull" when the Stalwart leader modified the epithet, the other day, to suit the Stalwart intellect, and nicknamed his faithful Achates, "a prize ox, waiting for his blue ribbon."

I always regarded Thackeray's criticism. of Tennyson's "Welcome to Alexandra" as one of the happiest expressions of literary judgment of record. Indeed, one always feels safe and satisfied when Thackeray ascends the bench. None but the novelist could have likened the Laureate to “a giant showing a beacon torch on a 'windy headland.' [Tennyson, I believe, then lived on the Isle of Wight.] His flaming torch is a pine-tree, to be sure, which nobody can wield but himself. He waves it; and four times in the midnight he shouts mightily, 'Alexandra!' and the pontic pine is whirled into the ocean, and Enceladus goes home." 5 Think of the tall poet as Enceladus waving a flaming pine! Thackeray once said that Tennyson was the wisest man he knew.

The two men were at college together; but it is hardly likely that they were in the same set. The fact is, that Thackeray in those days must have been too wild for the rectory boy poet. We all enjoy the recital. of the tricks and manners of the Steynes, the Cinqbars, the Ringwoods, and the Deuceaces; but, my dear young lady readers, it could hardly be that one should describe them so well without having frequented their society more than was good for a young gentleman

5 On Alexandrines, Cornhill, April, 1863.

with his fortune still to make. It is all right now; but what trouble the perverseness of attaining that sort of knowledge must have given, at the time, to those in family or collegiate authority!

I somehow fancy that we of this generation, who learned our letters before '50 (Eheu fugaces!), and were rather tender calves when the rebellion broke out, who had to read the "Idyls of the King" by piecemeal, have been cheated out of the fullest appreciation of the work which would attend perusal of the entire series as one logical unity. After "Morte d'Arthur," every one believed that Tennyson could write an English epic, if an English epic was to be written at all; and for all practical purposes the "Idyls" constitute an epic; and if the author did not give them the name, it was probably out of respect for some arbitrary tradition, such as that which requires an epic to be limited in narrative, so far as the poet is concerned, to one year in other words, to be the record of a single campaign.

It had been understood for years, before the Arthurian legends, constituting four of the "Idyls," were published, that the Laureate was at work upon a long poem; indeed, two of the "Idyls" had been privately printed, but were being held in suspense, and subject to emendation. For some time before the actual publication there was a buzz of literary expectancy, which pervaded the United States as well as England; and the eagerness to read the poems invaded classes ordinarily cold to the charms of verse. I can remember my own enthusiasm, in a western town, when the librarian handed me the only copy which had come, and which he had saved for me, and I shut myself up to enjoy the marvelous production before the bloom had vanished from the verse or the odor from the printer's ink.

Tennyson, as befitted an Englishman, took an English demi-god for his herothat is, a hero conventionally agreed upon by myth dealers as English; for it is by no means certain that Arthur was not Breton rather than Briton in birth and domicile.

1 Moxon, 1859.

People who look into such matters closely seem to fancy that Flos regum Arthurus is a graft, imported from some Aryan nursery. The material forming the basis of the story was the Morte d'Arthur, of Malory, helped out by other chroniclers-English, French, Welsh, and Irish-in prose and verse; for the story has oozed into the text of nearly all legends of the Romantic literature of Europe. The subject was said to be a favorite one. with the late Prince Consort, whose taste shows itself in a quiet way in so many directions in English art and culture.

Among the sources other than Malory to which Tennyson betook himself for his frame-work of facts was the "The Mabinogion," or Boys' Own Book of Tales, as an English publisher might call it.

There was, half a century ago, down in the "black country" of Wales, a certain man of great financial genius, who "wrought till he crept from a gutted mine, master of half a servile shire," and of every other good thing which wealth can buy; and among these good things, of a noble and brilliant wife, one Lady Charlotte Lindsay. (All women named Lindsey or Lindsay are wonderfully clever; witness, Auld Robin Gray, etc.) This elegant dame took it into her head to publish an edition de luxe of the Mabinogion,2 and to have it printed in Wales. course, it was the bibliographical wonder of the day. Scholars prized it, learned bishops. spoke enthusiastically (and truthfully also) of its merits; while Tennyson, who seems to like the Welsh, appropriated or conveyed from it into his collection of idyls the story of "Geraint ap Erbin," a tale that, whether in the original legend or in the poet's verse, more than rivals the Griseldis of Boccaccio for interest and simplicity of moral.

Of

Tennyson is said to consider the idyl of "Guinevere" the culmination of the epic. I never felt very deeply the force of that idyl. It has somehow seemed to me that the real

2 The Mabinogion, from the Llyfr Coch o Hergest, and other ancient Welsh Manuscripts, with an English Translation and Notes. By Lady Charlotte Guest. London: Longman & Co., and W. Rees, Llandovery. 1840-48.