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The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartes ou les planches trop grandes pour dtre reproduites an un seul clich6 sont filmdes d partir de Tangle sup6rieure gauche, de gauche d droite et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images n^cessaire. Le diagramme suivant lllustre la m^thode : 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 / w A STUDY. A STUDY WITH CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES, OF ALFRED TENNYSON'S POEM THE PRINCESS. BY S. E. DAWSUX /fT MONTREAL: DAWSON BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS. 18S2. Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canada, in the year 1882, in the office of the Minister of Aijriculture, ■tf t PREFACE. It fell to the lot of the writer, as a member (if a small semi-social, semi-literary society, to prepare a paper on TJy Pr/na;s.s as a sequel to discussions which had previously taken place upon 'flie Lfijlls of fit'' Kh)(j and In Memnriam. In studying the ])oem for this purpose, many passages were found in wliich the allusions seemed very recondite, and others in which the meaning did not lie upon the surface. Other passages were considered worthy of note on account of some peculiarity of diction or of versification. The paper as read, and the notes subsequently pr('])ared, are given in this little book, in the hope that it may suggest the publication of similar monographs upon the poet's other works. A STUDY. Tknnvson's poem of " Tlio Princess "' has been and continues to bo .singularly umieriated. Sehloni, in the universal chorus of admiration, and even adula tion, which for years his work has excited, do wc meet with appreciation of this his longest continu- ous poem. A poem, moreover, pu1)li.shod at the age when a writer usually produces his best work — equally removed from the exuberance of youth and the chill of age, and one which has been altered and re-touched during five successive editions, until the utmost effort has been expended, and, in literary form at least, it stands out unsurpassed in perfect finish by anything in modern literature. In that respect, the " Princess " is to Tennyson's other works what the "Elegy" is to Gray's. In the adverse criticism it has called forth, we are re- minded of Dr. Johnson's attack upon Milton's THE PRISCESS. " Lycidas ; " indeed, otli tlic " rrinccss " and " Lyci- das"havo continuously, and with equal justice or injustice, been reproached for the same fault, that of incongruity of plan. Eoth Milton and Tennyson, moreover, drew their inspiration from ancient art ; but the " Lycidas " is an adaptation of Greek form and method ; while the " Trincess " is a transfusion of the Greek spirit into modern life. Every line of the " Lycidas " breathes of Theocritus ; many are even close imitations, but while long passages of the " Princess " are pervaded by the spirit which inspired Theocritus, only in a few lines can an imitation be traced. " Maud," like the " Princess," was received with great disappointment ; but in the case of " Maud " that feeling passed away, while the " Princess " con- tinues still to be neglected, or to be disparaged— as if it alone were unworthy of the poet's powers. Even Mr. Peter Baync, a devotee almost of Tennyson, omits all reference to this poem in his " Lessons from my Masters." The " Idylls," « In Memoriam," "Maud," and even all the earliest poems, the " Merman " and " Oriana,'' receive from him, at the very least, their due meed of worship ; THE PRINCESS. l)ut tlic " Princess " is silently passed over, as if tlicj, iu the prime of his power, the master'^ skill >ail failed. As to adverse criticism, its nature is uell shown in the following passage from the K(Unhar(jli Ilcvicw, written in 1855, when the jwcm had rccc . , ed its last touches : — " The subject of the ' Princess,' " says tlio re- viewer, " so far from being great in a poetical point of view, is partly even of transitory interest. . . . This piece, though full of meanings of abiding value, is ostensibly a brilliant serio-comic jaii iVcs- prlt upon the noise about 'women's rights,' which oven now ceases to make itself heard anywhere but in the refuge of exploded European absurdities beyond the Atlantic. A carefully elaborated con- struction, a ' wholeness,' arising out of distinct and well-contrasted parts, which is another condition of a great poem, would have been worse than thrown away on such a subject In reading the poem, the mind is palled and wearied with wasted splendour and beauty." It seems difficult to get further astray than this, but the last (1880) edition of Chambers's Cyclopedia of English Literature attempts it ; thus : — THE PRINCESS. " Tho mixture of modern ideas and manners with tliosc of th'" ago of chivalry and romance, the attempted amalgamation of the farcical with the sentimental, renders the ' Princess ' truly a ' med- ley,' and produces an unpleasant grotesque effect." Tho result of criticism is thus summed up by Mr. AVacc in the following passage of his " Study of the life and Works of Tennyson : " — " Although the ' Prnicess ' was admittedly bril- liant, it was thought scarcely worthy of the author. The abundant grace, descriptive beauty, and human sentiment were evident. But the medley was thought somewhat incongruous, and the main web of the talc too weak to p/j.-.Uiir the embroidery raised upon it. D. M. Moir, the amiable ' Delta ' of Blackwood's Mcujazinc, says : — 'Its beauties and faults arc so inextricably interwoven, and the latter are so glaring and many, nay, often apparently so wilful, that as a sincere admirer of Tennyson I could almost wish the poem had remained un- written. I admit the excellences of particular passages, but it has neither general harmony of design, nor sustained merit of execution.' A ver- dict more favourable, but somewhat in the same * THE PRINCESS. 5 strain, may be said to be that now generally accepted.'' The verdict, however, was never unanimous. There have alwa}s been a few critics with a keener sense of appreciation. A writer in the Edlnhurgh RevicAV, in 1849, before the poem had received its present form, and consequently without the advan- tages of the previously quoted writer of 1855, could see unity and purpose in it. To the re- viewer of 1849 the true sphere of woman's activity is not a subject to be contemptuously relegated to America; and although the lyric interludes had not at that time been inserted, he, in the following passage, instinctively touchea the keynote of the pout's meaning : — " Many jjassages in it have a remarkable refer- ence to children. They sound like a perpetual child-protest against Ida's Amazonian philosophy, which, if realised, would cast the whole of the childlike element out of the female character, and, at the same time, extirpate from the soul of man those feminine qualities v/hich the masculine nature, to be complete, must inc]ude." The review is througliout appreciative, and is THE PRINCESS. well worth perusal even at tliis distance of time. Professor Iladlcy of Yale College,^ one of the most elegant of American scholars, and the Kcv. Charles Kingsley,^ are among the few who resisted the general iinfavourahlc criticism, and recognised the " Princess " as a work of art of very high order. As we have already remarked, the poem has undergone great modifications since its first appear- ance in 1847. A second edition was issued in the following year, with a dedication to Henry Lush- ington, and very slightly retouched. In 1850 appeared the third edition, not rc-icrittcn, as the author of " Tennysoniana " would have us think, but with very great additions, among which arc the six intercalarv songs. Re-writing is too strong a term for the searching revision the poem under- w^ent in this edition, because its scope and meaning were not changed, although, by the substitution of words and other minor changes, a higher artistic polish was imparted. The artist's meaning was more fully disengaged, and the poem became sub- ^ Essays, Philological and Critical, selected from the papers of James Hadley, LL.D. ^ In Fraser^s Magazine, reprinted in his "Miscellanies." THE PR IXC ESS. 7 stantially what it is at the present time. The fourth edition was issued in 1S51. In this all the passages relating to the "weird seizures" of the Prince were added ; other changes were very slight. In the fifth edition, published in 1853, a passage of fifteen lines was added to the Prologue, com- mencing with " miracle of women ! " and with this edition the text was definitely settled. All these changes and additions, with the exception of the weird seizures of the Prince, are in reality elucidrtions of the initial purport of the poem. The songs and the interlude between the fourth and fifth books, like choruses in a Greek i)lay, suggest the underlying meaning, and the conclud- ing book, which is all new but the last thirty- eight lines, is an explanation of its form. The great popularity of Tennyson's writings lias been a puzzle to a large number of professional critics. Some have ascribed it to the supposed fact that he is the only living poet, and his suc- cess is due solely to the absence of competitors for popular favour. Prederick W. Eobertson gave the true reason when he said ^ that Tennyson had ^ Lecture II. to Mechanics' Institute at Brighton. ■mMn b> THF. PRINCESS. " vision " or " insight," and was the interpreter of his age. This idea has been pushed too far by others, who wish to discover in his poems incessant allusions to current events. A poet who suilers his thoughts to drift into the eddying currents of passing events, will soon lose his grasp upon the inner and real relations of things. lie must not look too closely. In the mirror of his own poetic insight, the reflections arc the permanent truths which he, like the Lady of Shalott, must weave into the magic web of his poetry, under the penalty of becoming warped and twisted by the transitory influences of his surroundings. A great poet is more than a seer of the things which are; he is a prophet of the things which are beginning to be. He is the exponent of the aspirations and the tendencies of his age. lie reduces into coherent form, and clothes with beauty, the unuttered thoughts of which his age is dimly conscious. His eye is not upon the lower clouds, but, look- ing beyond them, lie tells us which way the upper sky is passing over, for in tliat dirtictiou the wind will sooner or later come down. In lliis way poets THE PRINCI'SS. 9 are true seers ; in advance of their age, they utter its innermost and half-conscious tliouf^lit, Now this poem, " Tlic Princess," contains Tenny- son's solution of the problem of the true position of woman in society — a profound and vital question, upon the solution of which the future of civilisation deiM-nds. But at the time of its publication, the surface thought of England was intent solely upon Irish famines, corn-law^s, and free-trade. It was only after many years that it became conscious of anything being wrong in the position ol women. The idea was not relegated to America, but origin- ated there in tho sweet visions of New Endand transcendentalists ; and, long after, Ijcgan in Old England to take practical shape in various ways, notably in collegiate education for females. No doubt such ideas were at the time " in the air " in England, but the dominant practical I'hilistinism scoffed at them as ideas " banished to America, that refuge for exploded European absurdities." Now, however, we may say with Ida — The little seed they laugli'd at in the dark, lias rism and cleft the soil. lO THE PRINCESS. To these formless ideas Teiiuysoii, in 1847, gave form, and witli poetic instinct, dis;ccrning the truth, lie clothed it with siir],assiiig beauty. He had probably long brooded over the subject. Ilis earlier poems abound in studies of women. No other poet, save Shakespeare, has portrayed female types of such loveliness, purity, and dignity. Ilis devotion to woman is not the lip-service of ^[oore and Lyron, or of the amorous school of recent poetry, but it is a real service and a reverence such as that of a Galahad, moving on a far loftier plane of thouglit and feeling. Later, in the " Idylls of the King," lie teaches us, in Guinevere, the stupendous power of woman for good or for evil. Upon her turned the succes. or failure of the king's noble aims, and with her fall fell the world of which the Round Table was an emblem. IVith such views as to the importance of woman's function in the social order, it was natural that the subject of this poem should early present itself to the poet's mind — but how to treat it ? A didactic poem, an essay on woman — in the formal style of Pope's " Essay on Man " — might have suited the conventional notions of the reviewers better, but would Lave been foreign to Tennyson's THE PRINCESS. ZI , gave truth, iLJGCt. u Ko female . His ^[ooro poetry, that of thought s power ■ turned ins, and ! Round IS to the al order, [n should it how to (man — in " — might reviewers Linnyson's meditative and dreamy mind. It is not his method to cut up moral reflections into two-line lengths, halance them, and drnn them into the mouths of hungry votaries. Clearly with him there must bo a narrative of some kind to string his pearls of thought upon ; and the teaching to be Tennysonian must be in parable. The Prologue and the Epilogue are the setting of the poem. The place — the south of England. The occasion — a festival upon the grounds of a wealthy baronet. The actors — a party of collegians on vacation, who, with a few of the well-born and cultured girls of the Hall and the neighbouring country-scats, had made a select picnic of their own in a ruined abbey. One of the collegians, a dreamy youth — the poet himself — has been rummaging in the library, and his head is full of the knightly deeds of the medieval ancestors of the owners of the stately Hall. He joins the party, taking a volume with him, and keeping his finger in the place where is told a story of a fearless dame who defended her castle against a lawless king, and who, sallying out at the head of her retainers, utterly routed the king and his army. 12 TIUC PRINCESS. ; O miraclo of women, said the book ; O noLlc heart who, being strait besieged r.y this wild king to force her to his wish. Nor bent, nor broke, nor shunned a soldier's death. T}iis is the key of tlio coming story, and this '•miracle of women" is the prototype of the Prin- cess Ida. The question at once arises — arc there such women now? One of the ladies— Lilia— answers : — There arc thousands now Such women, but convention beats them down. Straightway, then, it is agreed that the seven youths should transfer this mediieval miracle of womanhood to modern times in a story, to which each should contribute a chapter. This is after- wards sluiped and polished by the poet, who in the story assumes the character of the dreamy I'rince, and pursues his lady-love through the seven cantos until she blossoms out, through the awakening power of tlie affections, into his ideal of j)orf('ct womanhood. Nothing can be more truth- fully artistic than the gradual transition from the THE PR! \ CESS. 13 1 Lsh, , soldier's and this tlio Priii- -arc there , — Lilia — ow m. down. the seven niracle of , to which s is aftor- ',t, who in iG dreamy rough the irough the lis ideal of [lore truth- 1 from the : setting to the story itself ; but just before tlie Poet- Prince commences, lie playfully remarks upon the incongruities of a ruined abb(5y and a Grecian hall ; a medi.TBval heroine, ladies' rights, and Mechanics' Institute experiments : ho says — This wcrf a medley ! wo should have him back Who told the " AVinter's Tale " to do it for us. This passage, and the second title of the poem, *' A Medley," gave a ready-made theme for critics to dwell upon ; and with wearisome iteration they dilated upon this surface-indication, without, for the most part, examining as to how far the word medley really applied. A North Briti'xh reviewer, in 1848, wrote of " the utter want of interest, unity, and purpose " of the poem, and of " its miserable weakness and want of integrity." Others, who could not go to that length, dilated upon the impro- bability or impossibility of the incidents. Wo would not pretend to argue with any one who declared that he had no interest in any special work of art • but with what show of reason can any critic re- proach "The Princess" for improbability in its incidents, and admire "The Tempest" and the H THE PRINCESS. " MldsiimTTiGr Niglit's Dream ? " Who, in criti- cising " The Jorusalcm Delivered," ever stopped to weigh probabilities about Ann Ida's garden, or the adventures of Tancrcd and Clorinda ? Or wlio ever tried to calculate the dead reckoning of Ulysses in the Odyssey? In estimating a poem the conditions assumed by the poet must be taken for granted ; and we have only to inquire whether, these being assumed, the poem possesses unity, congruity, and a definite and worthy object. AVe have to demand also that the characters are congruous with themselves, and that the treatment of the incidents is poetical. The moment we enter the Forest of Arden in " As You Like It," wc have no right to carry with us the precise rules of our work-a-day world, but wc should resign ourselves to the joyous life of tlie inhabitants of the forest. If we find their society agreeable and improving — if their sentiments are lofty and ele- vating — if their language is beautiful beyond all usual speech — if their characters are consistent with themselves — and if their influence upon us is in- spiriting and ennobling — let us be thankful ; let us not trouble ourselves about the latitude and longi- tude of the abode which has charmed us, nor about THE PKISCI-SS, IS n criti- ppcd to I, or the rho ever lysscs iu inditions granted ; !S0 being ity, and a nand also emselves, ; poetical, n in " As itli us the wo should ihabitants cable and and elc- jcvond all .stent with L us is in- [ul ; let us and longi- nor about ' 3 the year of our Lord when it was discovered. We should apply to "The Princess" the same rules as to other similar works of imagination or fancy. To do otherwise would be as reasonable as to at- tempt to extract the square root of a melody, or to ascertain the cubic contents of a collection of love- songs. On close examination we shall see that the medley consists in the fact that the poem is serio- comic. The first four cantos arc humorous and mock-heroic, the last three serious, touching, and almost tragic. The first four, to suit the wishes of the youths, the last three, to suit the ladies ; and Lilia's song and her earnest appeal call attention to the transition. In the first canto, the Prince is longinc: for the bride affianced to him in childhood. The king, his father, is raging because the Princess, disregarding the betrothal, has taken up new and strange views of the destiny of women. She has founded a uni- versity for women in one of her father's palaces, and from the wide domain around it men are excluded upon pain of death. The king her father cannot control her. The Prince, with two friends, Cyril and Florian, steals away by night from his i,;i. !6 THE riital ; the ladies nurse the wounded knights. The transforming power of love is portrayed in these beautiful lines : — Everywhere Low voices with the ministerincj hand Hung round the sick ; the maidens came, they talked, They sang, they read ; till she not fair began To gather light, and she that was, became Her former beauty double. But the Princess tends her lover in vain. Throucrh long unconsciousness he passes into the delirium of fever, and her name is constantly on his lips. Finally, in the still summer night, consciousness returns, and, nearer death than life, he sees Ida at his bedside. He murmurs — If you be what I think you, some sweet dream, I M'ould but ask you to fulfil yourself ; But if you be that Ida whom I knew, I ask you nothing ; only, if a dream, Sweet dream, be perfect. I shall die to-night. Stoop down, and seem to kiss me ere I die. zo THE PRINCESS. ) 1 1 i The whole canto iimst rank with the very sweetest and most finiBhecl productions of poetic art. Truth of feeling, delicacy of touch, elevation of sentiment, and absolute ^.crfectness of diction, concur to make a climax of beauty. Then follows the epilogue or conclusion, in which, by gradual transition, the reader is brought from the fairy dand of imagina- tion into the prosaic life of the present day with- out a jar or stiain. He is brought back into the festival crowds at the park witi^ which the poem commenced, and his mind is left in that state of satisfaction and quiet repose, which it is the pro- perty of every true work of art to bestow. It will, we trust, be seen by this short sketch that the story, though it may be slight, possesses ade- quate motive ; and proceeds with unity of concep- tion and with gradual increase of interest, to an appropriate and satisfactory crisis and termination. In the concluding book are several passages which throw light upon the method of the poem. Ladies in the world of prosaic life dislike profoundly even the gentlest laugh at their expense. So we find the ladies in the poem, and Lilia their spokeswoman, objected to the banter in the four first cantos — i THE PRINCESS. 21 sweetest Truth itiment, to make iloguc or ion, the imagina- [ay with- . into the :,he poem t state of I the pro- -ctch that hsses aJe- concep- est, to an mination. aes which Ladies ndly even o we find eswoman, itos — :1 " They hated banter, wished for something real, A gallant fight, a noble Princess — wliy Not make ]ier true heroic, — true sublime ? Or all, they said, as earnest as the close ? Which yet," replies the poet, " scarce could be." It could not be — because the practical application of extreme theories of women's rights necessarily leads to thf incongruous ; and the incongruous, combined with kindly feelings, produces the humor- ous — in the minds of men. Women, though quicker and wittier than men, are destitute of humour. They perceive the ridiculous, but never the humorous. They never possess that outside- ncss of mind by which many men can contemplate their own absurdities, as it were from an outside standpoint, and enjoy them with quiet and indul- gent laughter. The advocates of women's rights never seem to imardne that there is no ridicule, no f eling of superiority, in the irresistible smile which their theories provoke. They become angry, and consequently more absurd. The Prince and his two friends in draggled female attire upset the gravity of grey-bearded counsellors, and convulsed with 22 THE PRINCESS. !l' laugliter the young captains, all of whom were loyally devoted to the son of their sovereign, and whose attachment and respect were not shaken by their intense appreciation of the absurdity of the young Prince's position. In the same manner, the light-hearted Cyril shook with inward laughter at the lecture of tlie fair Doctor Psyche, in hood and academic gown, discoursing gravely " de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis," with her baby close at hand in case of need. It is not that men wish to belittle women. Cyril was at the very moment falliuL' in love with that lactiferous Doctor of Philo- O sopliy. It is the incongruity of opposing functions wdiich excites laughter. It has pleased the CroLtor to make — or, to be scientific, it has pleased the environment to evolve a being — woman, beautiful, lovable, and altogether admirable. Certain func- tions are given her to fulfil, towards which the same tyrannous environment has adapted every fibre of her mental and physical nature. "When, turning from these, she aims to play a part to which she has not been adapted, the moment her theories are put into practice she necessarily becomes absurd ; and this, combined with the attractions of her sex, THE PRINCESS. 23 )ni were ign, and lakcn by y of tlie ,nncr, tlie iigliter at liood and 5 omnibus ,y close at en ^visb to •V moment )r of Pbilo- irr functions the CreLlor .leased tbe I, beautiful, ;rtain func- |ch tlic same [ery fibre of .en, turning wliicli sbe theories are lgs absurd; of her sex. excites uncontrollably the jfensc of humour in man. This weakness of manhood, this incapacity for seri- ousness, ought not to excite anger in the hearts of strong-minded ladies. Women's rights advocates insist wearisomely upon what few will dispute, that women are not inferior to men. But they go further, and demand the same education for both sexes, ignoring the difference of physiquf^ and the object of this difference, and dwelling upon the very many points in which both are alike. Xow, if men were to arcjue from an undoubted anatomical identity,^ and if they were to develop their neglected lacteal potentialities, and devote themselves to the alimentation of infants, would any woman be likely to fall in love with a man cultivated in that direc- tion? AVould not the blue-eyed Minerva herself burst into laughter, and woidd not the laughter be mixed with contempt, although, be it observed, the function in (question is the most important and sacred in human society ? Lilia's request, then, is easy to grant. The three following cantos arc serious ; and the ladies become true-heroic, because ^ See Carpenter, "Human Physiology;" Kirke, "Physio- )r identity of structure. 'o«' ) I ,1 I li 24 TIIK PRINCESS. they resume tlic position for which nature has fitted them — And in tlicir own clear clement they move cndoAVcd with grace, beauty, and dignity. (jentle and chivalrous thougli Tennyson alwttys is, tlio early cantos of the poem abound with sly touches of good-natured ])anter, and give evidence of profound inward amusement at the weaknesses of the fair denizens of the female university. The good host who kept the inn on the confines of tlie sacred domain, had an awestruck reverence for his liege lady. lie always made a point to post with mares ; His daughter and his housemaid were tlie boys ; The land, he understood, for miles about Was tilled by women ; all the swine were sows, And all the dogs On entering tlie gates the disguised youths find the grounds and halls full of knick-knacks and kick- leliaws — Clocks and chimes, like silver hammers falling On silver anvils. ve: ].• 1 ai al he 11 cu Idai h: THE riUXCESS. 25 Y move n always ^vitli sly evidence eakncsses Lty. The les of the ce for Ills larcs ; he boys ; lit ere sow5, lis find the aiul kick- iiers falling I The love of precise punctuality, so deeply implanted in the female breast, lias full scope at last, as far as pretty clocks go. Everywhere are busts, and statues, and lutes, and such like hric-d-hrac aids to knowledge — promiscuously strewed about like blue cliina and crockery-ware bull-dogs in a modern draw- ing-room. Instinctively the male reader shrinks tlirough this part of the poem, fearful of upsetting something. Very properly also the path of know- ledge, thorny to the tyrannous male, is made com- fortable there. The ladies drink in science Leanhig deep in broidered down, as is beiitting. Everything matches in that uni- versity. !Xo common pine — the professorial desk is of satin-wood. Due attention is paid to dress also ; the doctors are violetdioodod, ond the girls all uniformly in white — gregarious, though, even there as in the outer world. The Princess, her hair still damp after her plunge in the river, tliough sitting in indignant judgment upon the culprits, has yet a jewel on her forehead. Then her weakness for children is apparent — a very [dangerous one as we shall see. 26 THE PRINCESS. AVc like them well, would they grew Like field iluwers everywhere ! II I III I ijlM The difficulty of replenishing the classes seems thus early to have occurred to tlie Head. Difficult also is it for the august Head to overcome minor weaknesses. Thus, in the middle of a long meta- physical discussion, she makes a sudden irresistible dash to describe the prize in that sul)ject, a golden brooch, this being dwelt on in detail ; after oiiu more digression, she conies back with great men- tal agility to the subject of evolution and the rela- tivity of time. Even the solemn and sonorous despatch which she sends to her brother in the || sixth canto, cannot leave her hand withv>ut the inevitable postscript. On one point, however, the Prince fairly puzzles her. He asks about the study of anatomy, which appears out of place in such an testhetic uest. She replies — It pleased us not ; in truth, "We shudder but to dream our maids should ape Those monstrous males that carve the living hound, THE PRINCESS. 27 3ses seems Diflicult ome niinur long meta- irresistible :t, a golden ; after one great lueii- id the rela- 1(1 sonorous tlier in tliu ^vitLout the owever, the about the of place in ; in truth, should ape the living And cram him with the fragments of the grave. Or, in the dark dissolving human heart, And lioly secrets of this microcosm. Dabbling a shameless hand with shameful jest, Encarnalise their spirits ; yet we know Knowledge is knowledge, and this matter hangs. There is a deal of quiet humour in the reports of the lectures ; the Lady Psyche's, for instance, is a inoJcl of discursiveness and condensation combined. She begins with the primal nebula, evolves the sun and planets ; then the monsters, then the savage, then civilised man ; glances at the Amazons, alludes to Lycia, to the Etruscans, Persians, Romans, Creeks; touches upon the customs of the Mahome- tans, Chinese, and Salian Franks. Then follow excursus into physiology and craniology. She com- pares the Hottentot, Kailir, and Malay with Lacon, Homer, and others ; brings in Sappho, Elizabeth, and Joan of Arc, and winds up in a rapture of prophecy extending to remotest ages. After this caranole through the universe, the young men attend the classical and mathematical lectures. Then they 38 THi: PRINCESS. dipt ill uU That treats of whatsoever is, the state, Tlic total cliroiiicles of man, tlio luiiul, The morals, soiiietliing of the frame, the rock, The star, the bird, the lish, the sliell, tlu' Ihjwiir ; Klectrie, chemie laws, and all the rest, And whatsoever can be taught and known. Mark the effect upon the masculine mind — Till, like three horses that have broken fence, And glutted all night long breast-deep in corn, They issued, (jurged ^^ ith knowledge. Nothin!? could have saved them from an attack of mental indigestion but their female attire. Gentle banter of this kind runs through the earlier part of the poem, with au occasional light touch only in the later books ; but it does not wound, for there is no malice or depreciation in it. It is merely a surface drift ; the real motive power of the poem is deeper. These songs — miracles of workmanship in which consummate art issues in % perfect simplicity ! They must have a bearing, l|-^''^^ and an important one too, upon the theme. The ■'-^^o^ lf!l! THE rRIXCESS. young collegians, who liatl required tliat the .^tory should 1)0 niock-heruic, fult, not only the iiifluenco of the ladies, hut — Something in the hallads which tlioy sang, which jarred with the hurlesquc. AVhat is this domething 1 Will it tell us of the true position and rights of women, and of the meaning of the poem? Let us take theni in order, one by one. Tlioy certainly, in appearance, are foreign to the subject-matter. The first tells of a (piarrel be- tween a man and his wife, and of the reconcilia- tion caused by the memory of their dead child — O there above the little grave "VVg kissed again with tears. An abiding influence, this, of the little one; reach- ing back from the grave. In the next, commencing " Sweet and low," the j keynote is struck in the lines — Rest, rest on mother's breast, Father will come to thee soon. [Far over the rolling waters of the western sea jtliough the father may be compelled to wander, 30 THE PRINCESS. his tliouglits arc ever "vvith his ])aho in the nest, liis Labours antl privations are lightened and cn- nol)lcd by worthy and unsellish purpose. Sweet influence this of tlie babe, reaching far across the ocean, and uniting loving hearts ! The theme of the third is a sharp antithesis, arising out of a surface analogy between the echoes of a bugle on a mountain lake, ard the influ- ences of soul upon soul through growing distances of time. In the case of the *' horns of Elfland " — They die on yon rich sky, They faint on hill, or field, or river. Fainter comes the echo in proportion to the receding distance. But how different with the influences of the soul — Our echoes roll from soul to soul And grow for ever and for ever. The stress of meaning is in the word grow. The song is evidently one of married love, and the growing echoes reverberate from generation to generation, from grandparent to parent and grandchild. Once more it is unity through the family. In the first son^ a unity through the past, in the second a THE PRIMCEHS. unity in Uic present, and in this a unity for the future. How imimrtant, then, does this relation of jarcjitago seem to bo. Tlic next, "Thy voice is lieard through rolling drums," is a song of the influences of home and wedded lovo in nerving a man for the shocks and conflict of life. The face of the wife — across his fancy comes, And gives the battle to his hands. A moment, while the trumpets blow, He sees his brood about thy knee, The next, like lire he meets the foo And strikes him dead— /or thinn and fJiec. For thine and thee — home affection the moving spring of patriotism and heroic effort. Such is the influence of the family — of the child, which is the bond and final cause of the family — upon man. The next song relates to their in- fluence on women ; for the life of a woman is not all sunshine, and the gift of tears is too often her only solace. " Home they brought her warrior dead." Leaden despair settles on the heart of the desolate li 32 THE PRINCESS. wife. Tlie light of lovo is gono from hor life. A maiden with the inexperience of youth lifts the face-cloth from the face of the loved one, but the fountain of tears still refuses to flow ; then Rose a nurse of ninety years, Set hie child upon lier knee, Like summer tempest came her tears, Sweet, my child, I live for thee. How powerfully the influence of childhood re- deems from despair the desert-places of the heart, and supports the lonely mother in her sad life- | work ! Finally, comes the application of these charming parables. Too much for the resolution of the Prin- cess are these influences sweeping under the surface motives of human nature with irresistible sway. All theories are thrown aside, and in an outburst of tenderness, self-renunciation, and faith she yields in the final song — Ask me no more ; thy fate and mine are sealed ; | I strove against the stream, and all in vain ; Let the great river take me to the main ; life. A lifts the . but tlio THE PRINCESS. No more : dear love, for at a touch I yield ; Ask mo no more. Thus, in her apparent defeat does she rise to the supreme height of her womanhood. Woman, as the complement of man, not his inferior, nught exercise, and does exercise, an enormous influence upon society, independently of her influence as mother. This is one of the domin- ant strains of the Arthurian poems. We meet it in the " Coming of Arthur," when he is sndtten by the peerless beautjjr of Guinevere, and dreams — But, were I joined with her. Then might we live together as one life, And, reigning with one will in everything, Have power in this dark land to lighten it, And power on this dead world to make it live. The same chord is struck in the prophecy of Merlin, when in the helpless infant he discerned the glory of the blameless king, and foreshadowed also his failure 3 for could he find r ii A woman in her womanhood as great J T'. f - 34 THE PRINCESS. As he was in his manhood, then, lie sang, The twain togetlier well might change the world. This same strain heightens the intense pathos of the parting scene in " Guinevere." The King dwells not so much upon his own wrongs, but upon the far deeper ruin following upon the faithlessness of the Queen. For thou hast spoiled the purpose of my life, For now tne whole Round Table is dissolved, AVhich was an image of the mighty world. "While this thought largely pervades the Epic of Arthur, the poem of the "Princess" has for its theme another aspect of the influence of woman upon society — her influence as mother — for she, says the Prince — Stays all the fair young planet in her hands. To her, if she will take it, is committed the trust of moulding the coming generations. In her mainly is to be found the accumulated sum of the moral education painfully acquired through many generations. She is the most potent conservative THE PKIXCESS. J3 foice in human society. Let her refuse to play tlie part for M'liich nature lias designed her, and society suffers in its inmost heart. To this fundamental law all theories of blue-stockinged ladies must con- form ; and, therefore, our dear awesome Princess yields, through her innate goodness, to the tendency of the ages, and we kiss her feet in deep abasement that wo ever could have laughed, even in our sleeves, at her vagaries. Having thus reached the central thought of the poem, wc must look for the hero or heroine of tho story , that is, for the one person who comes trium- phant out of tho turmoil. It is not either of the kings, for they arc utterly brought to nought. Xor the battered Cyril, kissing the hem of tho Princess' garment for a boon ; nor Arac, who has interest in nothing but the tournament. It cannot be tho Prince, for ho has been ignominiously thrust out of Ida's ji'ates in dracjiiled female clothes. Xor is it even the grand Princess, for she is vanquished at tho moment of triumph. The poem is a medley in this respect, for the leading characters arc all vanquished. All, save one — Psyche's baby — she is the conquer- ing heroine of the epic. Kidiculous in the lecture- 36 THE PRINCESS. ii^ni room, the babe, in the poem, as in the songs, is made the central point upon which the plot turns ; for the unconscious child is the concrete embodi- ment of Nature herself, clearing away all merely intellectual theories by her silent influence. Ida feels the power of the child. The postscript of the despatch sent to her brother in the height of hur indignation, contains, as is fitting, the kernel of the matter. She says: — I took it for an hour in mine own bed This morning ; there the tender orphan hands Felt at my heart, and seemed to charm from thence The wrath I nursed against the world. Rash princess ! that fatal hour dashed, *' the hopes of half the world." Alas for these hopes ! The cause, the great cause, totters to the fall when the Head confesses — I felt Thy helpless warmth about my barren breast In the dead prime. THE PRINCESS. 37 Whenever the plot thickens the babe appears. It is with Ida on her judgment-seat. In the topmost height of tlie storm tho wail of the " lost lamb at her feet " reduces her eloquent anger into incoher- ence. She carries it when she sings her song oi' triumph. When she goes to tend her wounded brothers on the battle-field she carries it. Througli it, and for it, Cyril pleads his successful suit, and wins it for the mother. For its sake the mother is pardoned. fatal babe ! more fatal to the hopes of woman than the doomful horse to the proud towers of Ilion — for through thee the walls of pride are breached, and all the conquering afifections (lock m. We can see now that tho unity, which runs through the songs, is continuous also throughout the poem ; and that the songs are not snatches of melody, thrown in to diversify the interest, but arc mtegral parts of tho main motive of the piece. Tlio true sphere of woman is in the family. The grand mission of woman is the conservation ;iiid elevation of the human race througli the family. For the family is the molecule of society. It is the one and only stable and divinely appointed institution. €"*= 38 THE PRINCESS. Other creations may fade to shapeless ruin decaying. Tenures of land, forms of government, creeds, thrones, republics, principalities may change and utterly decay ; but, so long as this institution lasts, society can and will re-organise itself in other forms suited to the varying ages. Of this one funda- mental institution, woman is the guardian. The liopes of society hang upon the hearth-altar tended by the sacred mothers of every age. It is their influence which rolls from soul to soul. They work in the coming generation, and they mould it to their will. Hence their seeming weakness ; and hence also their surpassing strength and glory. Having considered the poem with reference mainly to its unity and purpose, it remains to consider, whether each character possesses, separately, that consistency of conception which is demanded in a work of art of high order. The hard old king, rough and violent, is a type recalling the ante-historic times, when marriage was really a capture, of which the ring is a reminiscence and symbol to this day— THE PRINCESS. 39 Look you — Sir ! Man is the hunter ; woman is his game ; The sleek and shining creatures of the chase, We hunt them for the beauty of their skins ; They love us for it, and we ride them down. He has a very hearty contempt for hen-pecked husbands — Look you ! the grey mare Is ill to live with, when her whinny shrills From tile to scullery, and her small goodman Shrinks in his arm-chair ; while the fires of hell Mix with his hearth. He is impatient with the irresolution of Ida's father — The spindling king ; This Gama — swamped in lazy tolerance. • And in his practical and hard-headed manner lays down the principle — "When the man wants weight, the woman takes it up And topples down the scales. The character of the Southern King is a familiar !IMi 40 THE PRINCESS. Olio in every age. The bland smile, the deprecatory air, the garrulous case, the delicate hands, indicate an ease-loving disposition, which no doubt took much quiet satisfaction when the stormy ladies departed to their college. Ly natural selection such a character is attracted by women of strong will, and necessarily dominated by them, lie was as helpless against the two widows, who stuffed his daughter's head with theories, as he doubtless was before Ida's mother in her lifetime. His absolute powerlessness over his children, not only over Ida, but over Arac and his brothers, is manifest when the tournament is arranged in his presence in spite of his timidity. He is ignored, though shrieking t Vainlier than a hen, To her false daughters in the pool, for none Regarded. Upon his character the Prince meditates much — ^ If this be so, The mother makes us most, inclining evidently to the opinion, now generally THE PRINCESS. 41 received, that character is inherited from tlio motlier. The cliaractcr of Florian is drawn in a vague and colourless way. He is the companion of the rrincc, his bosom friend and almost his double. "In Memoviam" was in manuscript when "the Princess" appeared, although it was not published until three years later. What Arthur Ilallam was to the poet, Florian seems to be to the Prince, lie calls him — My other heart, And almost my half self ; for still we moved Together ; twinned as horse's car and eye. This passage suggests the parallel one in the later poem — r>ut thou and I arc one in kind, And moulded like in nature's mint. And hill, and wood, and field did print The same sweet forms in either mind. Cyril's character is strongly and cleaily conceived. ]I(! is the impersonation of clear, healthy, jovial common sense. No dreamer — he must be beside the Prince when the weird seizures come on; for 42 THE PRINCESS. lie, better than Flovian, can laeparato the substanco from the shadow. Good at heart, though given — To starts and bursts Of revel, practical, unspcculativc, full of fun, he loves the fair young mother lecturer; and ho loves her castles — I Flatter myself that always, everywhere, I know the substance when I sec it. "Well, Are castles shadows ? Three of them 1 If not, Shall these three castles patch my tattered coat 'i For dear are these three castles to my wants. And dear is sister Psyche to my heart. Not a very lofty character, but honest and genial. The wooing of the mother through the baby — The mother of the sweetest little maid That ever crowed for kisses, betrays a sound knowledge of female nature ; but then his irresistible love of fun cannot be con- trolled. The sight of the doctors, and the fair alumnge, almost stifle him — ■•' iljll i!-: THE PRISCES'i. 43 to hear The doctors ! to watch the thirsty plants Imbibing. Nothing but the dinner bell checks the current of his mirth. The stately women do not unpress him. The Lady Blanche does not awe him, and he tells the Princess that — Love and Nature, these are two more terrible even than she. A manly and amiable character whom the fair professor will instruct in serious- ness. Naturally we think of the Lady Psyche now — a bright ^.ortrait in Tennyson's gallery of women — carefully and sympathetically drawn. "We see her as the young mother, full of love for her babe, and of attachment to the Princess, taking up the nebu- lar hypothesis in the same way as young women now, with only one child or none, three castles and too much leisure, take up willow pattern china, and ugly furniture, and dignify such pursuits with the name of culture. The loss of the babe reveals the true woman. What is court favour, or reputa- tion, or blue china, or all the spindle-legged centi- mH" 44 THE rUINCESS. pode aljortions of tlio unlovely a^'c of (^uecn Amu compared to her child : — Ah nie, my Ijabo, my blossom, ah my child, ;My OHO Hwcet child, whom I shall sec no more ! Then follows a tijrrenl of self-reproach — 111 mother that I was to leave her there, To lag behind, scared by the cry they made ; The horror of the shame anion t' them all. I>ut I will go and sit beside the doors, And make a wild petition, night and day, Until they hate to heir me, like a wind Wailing for ever, till they open to mo And lay my little blossom at my feet. My babe, my sweet Agliiia, my one child. And I will take her up, and go my way, And satisfy my soul with kissing lier. Alas, dear Lady P.syche, that the ni(jtherdiur.ger cannot b(^ appt^ased by primal ncl)u];e ! Conspicuous by contrast, is tlie Lady Illanche. She is the one thoroughly repulsive woman in all Tennyson's works. " Of faded form and haughtiest THE PRINCESS. 45 lineaments," she stands out as a type of unlovely and unloving women, self-elected elianipions of the cause, who arc its greatest hindrances. Iden- tifying the cause with tlicniselves, not themselves with the cause, tliey fall easy victims to the hateful passions of envy and jealousy — " The green malignant light of coming storm " is ever in their eyes. The Lady lllanche had never felt that unselfishness with which love en- dows the heart, and of which a sweet rendniscenco ofttimes adheres to the character, even when lovo has departed. Her whole soul is centred on her- self ; and hatred of her rival has extinguished any trace of affection which she might have had for her daughter. She pours vitriol on the memory of the husband of her youth, whom she calls a fool ; ])ut whoso character, as we see it reflected in the truthful and sunny-hearted Melissa, is of u higher typo than her own. Happy was he in his early escape from her awful and transcendent capacity for " nagging." Letter, far better, for a man to be bewitched by the woven paces and waving hands of Vivien, or to die heart-broken by the faithlessness of Guinevere, ! 1 3n¥^ ■iO THE PRINCESS. than to live in incessant torment witli a vulture ever gna^ving at his heart. The portrait of the Princess is drawn ■with a hold and Lroad touch. She is terribly in earnest. All through the poem the author has kept his fi. (_,er in the old chronicle at the passage describing the " miracle of women." In the noble enthusiasm of Ida Ave recognise the quality which Guinevere lacked to make her the ideal wife for Arthur. Such a wife could have risen to his clear and lofty aims. She could have understood him, sympathised with him, would have clung to him, not to Launcclot, nor another. ^ She could have sustained him ^ in^ loftiest stretch of his aspirations, and, if he failed, would have gone cheerfully with him to death in the ruin of his hopes. The Poet- Prince never wavers in his estimate of her — True, she errs, Eut in her own grand way ; being herself Three times more noble than three score of men. She sees herself in every woman else. And so she wears her error like a crown. THE PRiyCESS. 47 Like many noble ■women wlio have taken part in the Avomen's rights movement, she thinks not of herself. The richness of the unselfishness of a loving woman has gone forth towards her own sex, with the vehement passion of a maiden for her lover. Lower and colder natures know not, cannot guess How much their welfare is a passion to us. If we could give them surer, quicker proof — Oh ! if our end weru less achievable By slow approaches, than by single act Of immolation ; any phase of death ; "We were as prompt to spring against the pikes, Or down the fiery gulf, as talk of it, To compass our dear sisters' liberties. This enthusiasm of unselfishness adorns all the vagaries of the Princess Ida. Her heart turns to Psyche, rather than to Blanche, because the latter has not the capacity of love even for her own child. When her ideals are shattered, and her sanctuary is inva ed, she clings to Psyche's babe, and at last her devoted care of the wounded Prince gradually turned towards him her affectionate nature. The 48 THE PRINCESS. dawning of love in her heart is told with the most delicately artistic simplicity — Love, like an Alpine hareholl Imng with tears, By some cold morning glacier ; frail at first And feeble, all unconscious of itself. But such as gathered colour day by day. The last canto of the poem, which describes the Princess in the subdued and suljduing sweetness of her womanhood, is the perfection of art and of beauty. The Prince is, in some respects, a personation of the poet, expressing probably the poet's own views, and therefore is not drawn on a grand ideal scale. lie is a foil to the Princess, necessary in order to set forth her character in its full brillianc3^ Many reviewers have complained of the lack of colour in the portraiture of the Prince, with very little reason ; for, to bring out the Prince more strongly, would have detracted from the unity of the poem. The Princess is not overcome by him or by his merits. She is worsted by Nature — by the con- stituted order of things. Ilis character seems to have given the author more trouble than any other THE PRINCESS. 49 ill the poem. It was not until after the fourth edition that he ceased to elaborate it. In that edition all the passages relating to the M'eird seiz- ures of the Prince were added. These additions seem not only unnecessary and uncalled for, but are actually injurious to the unity of the work. They confuse the sinii:)le conception of his character and graft on to his personality the foreign and somewhat derogatory idea of catalepsy ; for in that light does the court doctor regard them. The poet must have had some definite object in inserting them. Can it be that tliey are to indicate the weakness and incompleteness of the poet side of the Prince's character until he has found rest in his ideal 1 Then only can he say — My doubts are dead, ]My haunting sense of hollow shows ; the change. This truthful change, in thee has killed it. The dreamy Prince, haunted by doubts, and living in shadowland, by the healing influence of a happy love, wakes up to the purpose and dignity of life. Such a change is perhaps not very uncommon. Unless a num be endowed with a strong animal D so THE PRINCESS i!iiliiii|:i: nature, or be dominated by some selfish passion such as ambition or avarice, life is very apt to seem purposeless and not worth the tronble of living. For such an unhealthy state of mind a worthy love is the sole remedy. Possibly some such meaning may have been in the mind of the author; but still we must resent the least imputa- tion of catalepsy as inartistic and unnecessar3\ "With regard to the main theme of the poem, the Prince is in full sympathy with Ida. He aims at elevating woman, but ho differs as to means. lie recognises the fact that their ultimate aims must correspond with the diversity of their natures. Ida dreams of intellectual elevation only. The Prince « sees clearly that moral elevation is the higher of the two ; and that it is distinct and separate from knowledge. He sees that women are strong when men are weak. They, he says, are — Not like that piebald miscellany, man ; Bursts of great heart and slips in sensual mire ; But whole and one ; and, take them all in all, AVere we ourselves but half as good, as kind, As truthful, much that Ida claims as right Had ne'er been mooted. THE PRINCESS. 51 Tlic poet is evidently expressing liis own views in the character of the Prince. They are, he urges — Truer to the law witliin, Severer in the logic of a life, Twice as magnetic to sweet influences Of earth and heaven. When the poem was written this was strango to English ears. The Prince / ;S clearly what we all see now, that worn-, lack — jMore breadth of culture ; But he is, from henceforth, enlisted with Ida. Henceforth thou hast a helper — me — that know The woman's cause is man's ; they rise or sink Together. If she be small, slight-natured, miserable How shall man grow ? "Working in unison, he says — " We two " Will clear away the parasitic forms That seem to keep her up, but drag her dov.'n ; ^~^=?J^f^BaBSSm 52 THE PRINCESS. AVill leave her space to burgeon out of all AVitliin her — let her make herself her own, To give or keep, to live and learn to bo All that not harms distinctive womanhood. J\»' icoman is not undevelopt man But diverse. This whole passage is very beautiful, and it is one of the cardinal passages of the poem ; but it is too long to quote in full. He insists that, while gain- ing mental breadth, woman must not fail in child- ward care. This thought is the undertone of the poem. It is like the strain which runs through a grand opera. Struck in the overture it recurs again and again, and haunts us with one dominant melody. In No. 39 of " In Memoriam " the same thought occurs — Her office there to rear, to teach, Becoming, as is meet and fit, A link among the days, to knit The generations — each with eack This is the Bugle Song in another measure. It shows us woman's mission as the preserver of the i ] M 1 i 1 ■III' ;' il i [ ■ |l i i i 1 *K. THE PRINCESS. 53 results of civilisation hardly won by the struggle.^ of men. Upon her lips are the echoes of the ages ; licr true happiness is to transmit them to the com- ing generation. The Princess asks — " What woman taught you this ? " To which the Prince replies, in language whicli appeals to the heart of every man — One Xot learned, save in gracious household -ways ; Not perfect, nay, but full of tender wants ; No angel, but a dearer being, all dipt In angel instincts, breathing Paradise, Interpreter between the Gods and men ; Who looked all nature to her place, and yet On tip-toe seemed to touch upon a sphere Too gross to tread, and all male minds j^c^'fot'Cf' Swayed to her from their orbits as they moved And girdled her with music. Happy he With such a mother ! faith in womankind Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high Comes easy to him, and, tho' he trip and fall, He shall not blind his soul with clay. 54 THE PRINCESS. The man who professes to distrust womankind is a traitor to the memory of liis own mother and is publishing the fact that he has gone into a great deal of very had society. Tlie poem of " The Princess," as a work of art, is the most complete and satisfying of all Tenny- son's works. It possesses a play of fancy, of humour, of pathos, and of passion which give it variety : while the feeling of unity is unbroken throughout. It is full of passages of the rarest beauty and most exquisite w^orkmanship. The songs it contains are unsurpassed in English litera- ture. The diction is drawn from the treasure- houso of old English poetry — from Chaucer, from Shakespeare and the poets of the Elizabethan age. The versification is remarkable for its variety ; while the rliythm, in stateliness and expression, is modelled upon Milton. There are passages, which, in power over language to match sound with sense, are not excelled by anything in " Para- dise Lost " for strength, or in Milton's minor poems for sweetness. The poem abounds also in evi- dences of the prophetic insight which has already been referred to as the mark of a true poet. In THE PRINCESS. 55 the year 1847, long before Darwin had coramenced the present great revolution in scientific thouglit, evolutionary theories were propounded by the poet in the imaginary lialls of his female university. Huxley himself could not have sketched more vividly than the Lady Psyche the progressive development of the world from the primal cosmic vapour. The Princess, with the accuracy taught only recently by the spectroscope, calls the sun "a nebulous star." When she gets her mind oft the brooch, she becomes really profound in her analysis of our notions of creation as stages of successive acts. Our minds, she teaches, are so constituted that wc must of necessity apprehend everything in the form and aspect of successive time ; but, in the Almighty fiat, " Let there he, light, ^' the whole of the complex potentialities of the universe were in fact hidden. Not only is the poem satisfying in these respects. It breathes throughout that faith and hope in the future which make Tennyson the poet of a pro- gressive age. For many excellent persons this universe is moribund. They can take pleasure in thinking that the Creator, once more foiled, is 56 THE PRIMCEFiS. on tlio cvo of angrily breaking up this world and beginning it all over again. Such is not the philosophy of our poet. lie speaks in his own person in the epilogue. lie says — For me the genial day — the happy crowd, The sport half science, fdl me with a faith, This fine old world of ours is hut a child Yet in the go-cart. Patience ! Give it time To learn its limbs : there is a hand that guides. 11 This faith runs througli all his %vorks — nor is it anywhere more beautifully expressed than in his very latest volume, in the second and third stanzas of "The Children's Hospital." Still the poem of " The Princess " is not an ex- haustive solution of the question treated. All men cannot or do not marry. Millions of women pass unwedded through life. In many cases the sweet- ness of their nature overflows in general usefulness to others, in some cases it sours with disappoint- ment. Millions of women have gone to dis- honoured graves — " even God's providence seeming estranged " — victims to an artificial state of society. THE PRINCESS. 57 TTero arc questions for mere favoured ones to con- sider of profounder import tlian sun-flowers or cliiua-pigs. Of wliat avail is mere knowledge be- fore these profound social and moral problems. The ultimate outcome of all knowledge is mystery. The sources of being arc hidden behind an im- penetrable veil. AVe juggle with words and play with them as children with counters, getting out of them such meanings only as we ourselves llrst put in. The intellect is finite, l)ut the affections are infinite. AVe know in part and wq prophesy in part. Our pro!)hecies shall fail and our know- ledge vanish in a clearer dawn, but Love, of which woman is the priestess, abideth for ever. RS I I !■;! ' m\: N T !• S. i lliiiiii i ii ^r. M NOTES. PROLOGUE. Line 63. Or stcep-up spout, whereon the gilded ball Danced like a wisp ! Stccp-up as an adjective is a peculiarly Tennysonian word. It occurs again in Queen Mar)/, Act iii. Sc. 4, "the steep-iqi track of the true faith." Shakespeare, Othello, v. 2, has " steep-doicii gulfs of liquid fire." One is precipitously nji, the other precipitously doion. Line 70. DisUulced with shrieks and laughter. Also in Vivien. " But she dislinked herself at once and rose." The use of dis for un is common in Shakespeare - discompanied for unaccompanied ; discovery for uncovering ; disnatured for unnatural. Vide Abbott's Shakespcarmn Grammar, p. 322. It occurs frequently in Tennyson. Line 80. Othemhere, Pure sport. Otherwhere has become obsolete, while somcichere has been retained in use. It is found in Milton & writings, but not in Shakespeare. Tennyson uses it again in The Ilobj Grail— And now his chai ■ desires him in vain, However they may crown him otherivherc. «" -'^MlBi feMuUdlM^^^^S^SE <-» 7^02^2^ CANTO I. Lino 34. rrnyy-weildcd wlili a l)Ootlcss calf. This is good in poetry but bad in law, as the Princess clearly points out. The ceremony of marriage by proxy was common in the ^Middle Ages, bnt it was a fundamental prin- ciple of can(m and civil law, that consent (intention) was the only basis of marriage. And here we must clear our n)inds of a Protestant confusion between two ceremonies, which in ante-Reformation times were distinct ; viz., Espou- sals and ^Matrimony — Sponsalia et Matrimonium. The two ceremonies are thrown together in the Anglican Prayer- Ijook. Up to the giving away of the bride, the verbs are in the future tense ; it is a promise, " I will " — that is esjiousals. Then the two join hands and the tense changes to the present, that is matriuKjny, that is the essence of the ceremony ; the priest merely declares that God hath joined them, and gives the benediction of the Church. Forasmuch as they, M. and N., have consented, he says, therefore it is a marriage. The Prince and his father are clearly wrong in talking about \)Voxj-xuedded. It was sponsalia, espousals, not matrimonium. There were two kinds of sponsalia and only two : Spon- salia prr verba de 'prcscnte, and sponsalia per verba de futuro. The firs'; was indissoluble, because it was virtual marriage ; for the parties were present giving consent. The second was not n;ore binding than any other contract. If any con- dition was attemjited to be attached to the first it vitiated it, and degraded it to a contract of the second class. The reason is evident. If parties to a contract de fiituro lived together they became indissolubly married, for the consent was implied. The maxim of the civil law was — rbi non ed consensus, non est viatrimoniian. Now the Church always held (and such cases were always settled in Church courts) that espou.sals were not valid matrimony in the cq,se of children espoused to each other by NOTES. 6 parents ; unless both the parties consented \\ hm thoy cjrew up. After seven years there miijfht be sponsiilia, but tliere could not be matrinioniuni until the parties had arrived at years of discretion. It woulil be tedious to state the dif- ferent opinions as to this age, certainly not before fourteen and twelve respectively. Tlie Princess is sound in her law. She says, Book v., that at the aire of eiyht tliere couhl be no consent, and she iiatl given none since. King Uania says there was a "kind of ceremony," and the Prince even does not dare, in tlie pre- sence of the Princess, to call it more than a " precontract,'' that is sponsalia dcfidnro. In that case the ceremony of being proxy-wedded with a bootless calf was a very bootless ceremony ; antl the court lawyers ought to have had their heads cutoff for advising it. Because at that age the Prince and Princess were not cap- able of executing a procuration for that purpose. To make this clear, let us follow the ceremony between Arthur of England and Catherine of Aragon — a wedding fraught with great events. This was an instance of espou- sals, per verba dc prcscnte, by proxy, but we must bear in mind both parties were of full age to contract matrimonimn. Arthur appears in person. For Catherine appears Dr. de Puebla, retinue around them suitable to the occasion. Dr. de Puebla jiroduces a procuration from Catherine, strictly worded and limited to that one thing. People could not marry under a general power of attorney. The proxy is examined, it is signed by Catherine herself, and is in due form. Then Prince Arthur stops out and declares that he consents, then Dr. de Puebla ste})s forward and consents for the Princess ; they join hands and accept each other. The espousals are complete and indissoluble excepting by dis- pensation. A few months after Catherine comes to Eng- land. She publicly ratifies the action of her Jittorney and receives the nuptial benediction, then goes to live with her iiusband ; and after that the Pope himself cannot legally dissolve the marriage. The proxy in the instance in the jioem was invalid, the parties not being able to give one. 64 NOTES. m Of course in Prince Arthur's case there was no " bootlesfi calf." To ehicidate that we must take another case. Maxi- milian, king of the Romans, was esiioused by proxy to Anne, the heiress of Brittany, A.l). 14S9. In this instance the ceremony was performed at the court of the lady ; and the king's ambassador in the presence of the co\u't put his leg, bare to the knee, into the bed of the Princess. But the Princess was a grown woman, and INIaximilian had a mar- riageable daughter at that time betrothed to Charles VIII. of France. And it turned out that Charles VIII. broke his promise and married Anne of Brittany himself, putting double insult on Maximilian, which led to a war. This, as Hallam points out (Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 106), was a gross violation of ecclesiastical law, for the dispensation of the Pope from the first betrothal was not issued until eight days after the marriage of Anne and Charles. This " bootless calf " ceremony, we arc told by some writers, was common in England ; but, as they do not (piote instances, or cite canonical authorities, the statement is doubtful. An extract from Lord Bacon's Ilisiorji of Henry VII. is appended, from which it may be gathered that the ceremony was previously unknown in France. Possibly it was suggested by King Henry VII., who never allowed law to stand between him and his schemes. At that time ques- tions of ecclesiastical law were of paramount importance in Europe. The English Reformation ostensibly originated in a dispute as to the canonical validity of the marriage of Henry YIII. with Catherine of Aragon, the widow of his deceased brother, Prince Arthur. It must be concluded, however, that in the case of the present Princess Ida, the ceremony was very badly advised. "The king having thus ufiheld the reputation of Maxi- milian, advised him now to press on his marriage with Britain to a conclusion, which Maximilian accordingly did ; and so far forth ];revailed, both with the young lady and >vith the principal persons about her, as tiie marriaije was l!lil|;ii NOTES. 65 consummated by proxy, with a ceremony at that time in those parts new. For she was not only publicly contracted, but stated, as a bride, and soleumly bedded ; and after she was laid, there came in Maximilian's ambassador with letters of procuration, and in the presence of sundry noble person- ages, men and women, put his leg stript naked to the knee, between the espousal sheets ; to the end, that the ceremony might be thought to amount to a consummation and actual knowledge."— i^acow, History of Kiri'j Ilenry VII. Line loo. A wind arose and rushed upon the South, And shook the songs, the whispers, and the shrieks Of the wild woods together; and a Voice Went with it, "Follow, follow, thou shalfwin." A passage parallel to this is quoted by Mr. Wace from Shelley. It occurs in Prometheus Unbound, ii, i — A wind arose among the pines ; it shook The clinging music from their boughs, and then Low, sweet, faint sounds, like the farewell of ghosts. Were heard ; " Oh follow, follow, follow me ! " and must have, consciously or unconsciously, dwelt in Tenny- son s memory when writing these lines. Line no. And so by tilth and granga. In this sense, of land which is being tilled, the word is rare. It is found in Milton, Par. Lost, xi. 430— Beheld a field. Part arable and tilth, whereon were sheaves New reaped. E 66 NOTES. In Enoch Ardcn, 676, it is used again — Or withered holt, or tilth or pasturage. Grange — originally the barn or building in wliich grain was stored ; now applied to any group of farm buildings Line III. And hlowiiig hoshs of wilderness. Uncultivated thickets blooming with wild flowers. Milton has "hlowimj banks." Bosk is an abbreviation of boscage, an old French word (now hois). This latter word is a favourite with Tennyson, e.g., Dream of Fair Women, 51 — Thridding the sombre boscage of the wood. And again, in his last volume, in Sir John Ohlcasttc — Rather to thee, green boscage — work of God. Shakespeare's Tempest, iv. i, has — My boshj acres and my unshrubbed down. A passage precisely parallel occurs in Boadicea — Fear not, isle of blowing xooodland, isle of silvery parapets! " Line 115. But bland the smile that, like a wrink- ling wind On glassy water, drove his cheek in lines. These lines are not in the first or second editions. The third edition reads — But bland the smile that puckered up his cheeks. Mr. Wace quotes the following parallel passage from Shelley — Prince Athanasc, part ii. — NOTES. 67 O'er the vision wan Of Athanaso, a ruffling atnioHphore Of dark emotion, a swift shadow ran Like wind upon some forest-bosomed lake Glassy and dark. Line 135. Knowledge, so my dauglitcr held, Was all in all. This is the central point of the Princess' delusion. Some have thought that Tennyson borrowed the idea of his Poem from Johnson's Rassclos. It is a long way from liassehis to The Princess. The following is the only passage upon whieli this theory is based — a very slender support : — " The princess thought, that of all sublunary things, know- ledge was the best : she desired, first, to learn all sciences, and then proposed to found a college of learned women, in which she would preside, that, by conversing with the old, and educating the young, she might divide her time between the acquisition and communication of wisdom, and raise Tip for the next age models of prudence and patterns of piety." — Easselas. Others suppose that the idea was suggested by Love's Labour's Lost, i. I — Our court shall be a little Academe, Still and contemplative in living art. This is far more probable, because the plot of that play turns on the attempted seclusion of a king and his attendants for three years in study, during which time no woman was to approach the court. The disturbing influence of love upon such a plan is the motive of the comedy. This theory is perhaps hinted at in the lines in the Prologue— We should have him back Who told the "Winter's Tale " to do it for us. 68 NOTES. Line 204. Ilim wo gave a costly bribe To guerdon silence. Rare as a transitive verb, but so used by Chaucer, e.g., Court of Love, iv. 30 — But guerdon me liche as I may deserve. And by Shakespeare, 2 Hen. VI., i. 4 — See you well guerdoned for these good deserts. And again by Tennyson in Love thou thy land — It grows to guerdon afterdays. This word guerdon has a curious history. It originated in the old High German widarldn, " recompense," and was cor- rupted, by the aid of the Latin donum, into Low Latin tvidcr- donnm, a half Latin, half Teutonic compound. By the usual change of w into gui this was changed into the Romance verb giiidardonare. Thence the Italian noun guiderdonc, French guerdon, from whence Chaucer took it and made it English. Vide Diez, Romance Dictionary; Skeat, Historical Dictionary. Line 220. And all about us pealed the nightingale Rapt in her song. It is only the male bird which sings. The functions of the sexes are strictly defined in the land of singing birds. But the poets, all of them, keep the old Greek myth in mind, and while scientifically wrong, are poetically and historically correct, for Philomela was a princess who was turned into a nightingale which sang. Even Isaac Walton uses the pro- noun " her." Milton, in 11 Pensersoso, writes "Sweet ckaunt- ress,'" thinking evidently of poor Philomela. Chaucer in the Cuckow and the Nightingale uses always the feminine gender — I thanked her, and was ryght wel apayed ; Yee, quoth she, and be thou not amayed. NOTES. 69 Line 229. Into rooms which gave Upon a pillared porch. So also in the Gardener^ s Baiujhtcr — This, yielding, (jave into a grassy walk. And in Gareth and Lynctte — Now two great entries opened from the hall ; At one end one, that (javc upon a range Of level pavement. The use of gave in this manner is a Gallicism adopted from an idiomatic use of the word donncr. Line 243. The seal was Cupid bent above a scroll, And o'er his head Uranian Venus hung, And raised the blinding bandage from his eyes. The allusion here is to a passage in Plato's Si/mposium : — " And am I not right in asserting that there are two god- desses ? The elder one having no mother, who is called the heavenly Aphrodite — she is the daughter of Uranus ; the yt)unger who is the daughter of Zeus and Dione — her we call Common ; and the Love, who is her fellow- worker, may and must also have the name of common, as the other love is called heavenly." — Jowett, Dialogues of Plato, vol. ii. i I CANTO II. Line 8. Thro' the porch that sang All round with laurel. Laurel — the tree of the god of the lyre. A fragrant tree with abundance of fragrant blossoms, the favourite resort of birds and bees. This porch is suggestive of a passage iu Ariosto, vi. 21 — 70 NOTES. T5mall thickets with the Rcentorl laurel gay, Cedar and oranye, full of fruit and flower. Myrtle and palm, with interwoven Kpray, Pleached in mixed modes, all lovely form a bower, And breaking with their whade the scorchinj^ ray, Make a cool shelter from the noontide hour. And nightingales among those branches wing Tlieir flight, — and safely amorous descants sing. Line •14. Eiiruigcd a billowing fountain. The prefix en was much used by Shakespeare and the older writers where it is now abandoned. Generally it was em- ployed as here, in its proper sense of surrounding, but some- times to add force or intensity to a word as tlie " enrid\it your example pilot, told her all. That is, I did not invent a plausible story ; fair for fair - Sdinin;/, plausible. Used in that sense in the proverb "fair and false." Line 161. Leyond the ilnck-lcawcd jjlatcms of the vale. Platanus, the plane-tree. Line 181. "Went forth in long rc/m?/*^, following up The river as it narrowed to the hilLs. lictlnuc — accented on the penult— also in Aylmer's Field— The dark retinue reverencing death. So Milton, Par. Lost, v. 355 — On princes, when their rich retinue long. And Shakespeare, Lear, i. 4 — But other of your insolent retinue. F 2" NOTES. r>ut Chaucer follows the French rdcnue, accenting on the la.st syllable, Frcrc's Talc, 57— And he had wenches at his retenuo. This is an instance of the constant tendency in Euglisli to throw l)aek tlie accent. Line 21']. "Ala.s! your Iliglincss Lrcallies full East," I said. Koferrinc^f to the dry unpleasant east-winds prevalent in Eiii^land, supposed by the liypochondriac i.slanders to parch \i\t everything. Line 249. Who learns tlio 0110 Pou Sto ■whence after-hands May move the world. The Princess is quoting the celebrated saying of Archi- medes to King Hiero. That philf)sopher was a master of all the arts of applied mechanics, and dwelling on the enor- mous mechanical powers of the lever he exclaimed, " Give me where I may stand (pou sto), and I will move the world," Li?i.e 264. Cramped under worse than South-sea isle taboo. This word was brought home by Captain Cook's expedi- tion. The South Sea islands were under the domination of a, priesthood, which reserved to its own use anything wliich any of the members of its class might fancy, by ujarking it and calling it taboo, or devoted to religious uses. Line 283. ''Dare we dream of tliat," I a.sk(Ml, " AVI licli wrought us, as the workman and his work, "That practice betters." Ncncs. the full Dare wo suppose that tho T,r'in'j; who croatcd us is like a human workman who improvu.s by pn.cticu ? Line 288. Diotinia toaching him that died Of licnilock. Diothna was a wise woman of IVrantinca who instructed Socrates in many things. Lucian ^ twice mentions her nan 10 in company with that of Aspasia, but we should have know 11 nothing about her had it not been that Phito in the Synipo- kiuDb makes Socrates call her his instructress. She was evidently in Athens when Socrates learned of her, for he calls her, "() thou stranger woman." He describes her aa wise in many branches of knowledge, and says that the plague at Athens was deferred ten years by a sacrifice she made. She was his teacher in the art of love, and that of the loftiest kind, for he makes her define love as the " love of the ever- lasting possession of the good." Line 296. These monstrous males that carve the living hound, And cram him M'ith tho fragments of the grave. Referring to the practice of vivisection and th(> brutal irreverence which is charged against those who pi-actise it, as shown by the custom sometimes asserted to exist of feeding dogs with the fragments of the dissecting room. The i)otjt still retains his horror of vivisection. Vide " In the Chil- dren's Hospital ' in his last volume — I could thinic he was one of those who would break their jests on ^lie dead. And mangle the living dog that had loved him and fawned at his knee — Drenched with the hellish oorali— that ever such things should be ! 1 Lucian — Tho Eumicli ; T!:c Portrait. 8/ NOTES. In one of TTocr^rtirs series of The Four Stcif/CH of Criiifti/ is a print which niav h;ive stiL'',Lr<'stitl this |);issaL,'e. It repre- sents Ji dissectin,L;-tiil)le jvt SurLjeons' Hall, upon which a Bubject 18 stretched out, and dogs are eating tliu iuteatiues, which are falling upon the Hoor. Line 328. " For iiulocd tlicsc fields Arc lovely, lovelier not the Elysian huviis, AVliere paced the demigods of old, and saw The soft white vapour streak the crowned towers Liiilt to the sun." The reference here is evidently to the city and plains of Troy, as will appear on reading the first fourteen lines of ^Jnonc. In the same poem the walls of Ilion are pictui'ed as rising and taking shape to the sound of music. As yonder walls Rose slowly to a music slowly breathed, A cloud that gathered shape. The poet has followed Ovid {Ifcroidcs, xv. 179), who makes the walls and lofty towers of Ilion rise to the potent melody of Apollo's lyre. Virgil ascribes the building of Ilion to Xeptune, but the complete story relates that both these deities assisted. Troy was afterwards taken by Hercules, and the hero demigods his companions. Virgil, x. 469, is sugi',ested by this passage. Jupiter, implored by Hercules to rescue Pallas from the spear of Turnus, replies — "Be- neath the tall towers of Troy how many of the sons of the gods fell ? Yea, there fell too Sarpedun, my own sou." llllii!* M NOTES. S: This myth would seem to bi; a favourite one with Ttniiy- 8on. In Tithonas Ih another reference to it — Like that strani,fe .song I heard Apollo sing While llion liku a mist rose into towers. In like manner rosu tlie city of Camelot. See Oardh and Lunette, where it is said of the Fairy (Queens, that They came from out a sacred mountain-cleft Toward the sunrise, each with harp in hand, And built it to the music of their harps. Line 355. A tent of satin elaborately 'wrought With fair Corinna's triumph. Corinna was a Theban poetess, who took the palm five times from Pindar, who is The bearded victor of ten thousand hymns in the following lines. She was very beautiful, and some say, so beautiful that Pindar had no chance of success with the too susceptible judges. /Elian (xiii. 45) says she suc- ceeded because the auditors were ignorant, I'ausanias saw a picture of her binding her head with laurel. CANTO IV. Line 12. Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean. It is difficult to write without enthusiasm of this exquisitely perfect lyric. The rhythm and cadence are so absolutely faultless that the absence of rhyme is not noticed in reading. The thoughts of women naturally dwell much more on the past than in the future ; and Violet the singer IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) Zk ^ /. A fc ^ 1.0 I.I tiiM2» |2.5 ■"IS 2.0 1.8 11.25 ill 1.4 i 1.6 m '/} 7] y /^ ;v '4^ V :\ \ sible growth of "Tears, idle tea,-s." Pee says — " Having made up my niind to a refrain, the division of the poem into stanzas was, of course, a corollary, the refrain forming the close to each stanza. That such a mmm. NOTES. S7 close, to have force, must bo sonorona tmd susceptible of lirotractecl cinpluisis, udiuittud no doubt ; and these consider- ations inevitably lud me to the long o as the moat sonorous vowel, in connection with r as the most producible con- sonant. '■ The sound of the refrain beingthus determined, it became necessary to select a word embodying the sound, and at the same time in the fullest possible keeping with that melan- choly which it had predeterndned as the tone of the porm. In such a search it would have been absolutely impossible to overlook the word 'Nevermore.' lu fact it was the very first which presented itself." It is not credible that poets work consciously in so mechan- ical a way ; or that o and ?• should have been the imcleus of a poem ; but it is credible, that the associations clustering round an organised and musical word such as no more or nevermore should suggest the idea of a poem. Line 39. Let be Their cancelled Babels ; tlio' the rough Jicc break The starred mosaic, and the heard- hlowu goat Hang on the shaft, and the wild fig- tree split Their monstrous idols. Kcx—ihc rough dry husk or stalk of I'anipant growing weeds. i^tYfr(/-Wo/'."/i— bearded with a full beard ; blown in the sense of full grow n. The Princess is cmnbating the vague regretful sentinitJiit which Violet's song, " Tears, idle tears," has stirred in the sus- ceptible minds of her students, She is saying in effect, let the dead past bury its dead— let throne after throne, system after 88 NOTES. Rystem, molt nway in the ocean like icebergs from the North. All things have their day, and it is foolish to moan for them. Act ! act ! in the living present — let the past be past. Let the old unjust world cnuiible like the buildings of ]"5abel once so lofty. Let .. ) rank weeds break the gay mosaics of tliu floors — let the goats clambjr over the ruined arches — let the fig-tree sjilit the marbles with its vigorous roots — imniourned by me ; for tliey tell of a monstrous system of injustice. We will look ft)r\varJ towards that great year of ecjual mights and rights when woman will be the eipial of man. The rending power of the wild fig-tree — Qtprijicus — was a trite theme of lvt think that :uiy rost-lnnl wtuild open at the sinj^'ing of such a nightiuj^^ale as the I'rince. Mai.sh- divers— probably the water-rail, is meant. Meailow-crake— the corn-crake or land-rail. Says \.'ood, "The cry of the corn-crake may be exactly imitated by drawing a (juill or a I)iece of stick smartly over the large teeth of a comb, or by rubbing together two jagged strips of bone." The I'rincess is .severe on the singers. Neither the matter of the one, or the manner of the othei", pleased her. Line 130. AVliolc in ourselves, and oiccd to none. As an intransitive verb in the sense of, to be bound ; a rare use, but found in Chaucer. Line 1S5. Of opon-Avork in Avliich the hunter rued His rash intrusion, manlike, but his brows Had sprouted. The allu.^ion is to the hunter Actseon, who, having come upon Diana and her nymphs when bathing, was turned into a stag. Line 236. lie hiis a solid base of temperament ; Ikit as the waterdily .starts and sHdes Upon the level in little pulls of uind Tho' anehor'd to the bottom, such is he. Tliis is an iniconscious echo of a passage in Wordsworth — /'.irnrtiiuii, book v,, where it is said of Moral Truth that it is — 93 NOTES. A thing Subject, yon deem, to vital .'icc'uknts, And, like tlie water-lily, lives and thrives, Whose root is fix'd in staMo earth, whosu head Floats on the tossinj^^ waved. Wordsworth's i.s the truer picturo. This iiarallel passage has been noticed by Mr. Waco. Line 243. Eiit I Tx-^.^an To tliiid tliG musl-y-cii'dcAl mazes, wind And double in and out tho hules. Musky-circled viazcs, garden walks with fragrant borders. Mu.sky is used by Milton in the sense of fragrant in Conius — And west winds with musky wing, About the cedarn alleys fling Nard and Cassia's bahny smells. Bo^c, the stem of a tree ; a word much used by Tennyson, but not found in Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer. It is fre([Uently heard in the northern and central districts of England, sometimes spelt bull, as thorn-bull, but usually pro- nounced buul. Line 255. Above her drooped a lamp, And made tlio single jewel on her brow JUirn like the mydic fire on a masthead, I'rophet of storm. W^hcn tho atmosphere is in a state of electrical tcnsicMi, brush-shaped or star-like flames are seen on the masts of ships, or on pointed objects on land. Mariners call them St. Klmo's fires. The real name of the saint was Erasmus of Formiu. He is venerated in Southern Italy under the stt thv. Lil III . ^ NOTES. 93 head [ passage L 2S, wind t borders. iLrrant in Tennyson, ctr. It i^ listricts of sually pru- d a lamp, icr brow uastliead, cal tensi(^ii, le masts of 5 call them as Erasmus r under the corrupted name of St. ]]hno. Sailors invoke hijt aid in time of storm, and the appearance of St. Jllnio'.s fires i . th(nii,'Iit to be of <.,'o(hI omen. The (J recks and IJomans a.scribcd these appearances to Castor and I'ollo.v. So Macaulay, JJattlc of Lake lliyillus — Srfe comes tlie ship to haven, Throui^di liillows and tlirouifh yales, If once the (Jreat Twin I'.ruthren Sit bhininn thoir armour as they rode, are vividly realised in this beautiful simile. The passage of Homer referred to is Iliad, v. 5, and is thus rendered by Merivale- Flashed from his helm and buckler a bright incessant gleam, Like summer's star, that burns afar, new bathed in ocean's stream. And by Lord Derby — Forth from his helm and shield a fiery light There flashed, like autumn's star, that brightest shines When newly risen from his ocean bath. The rendering summer star is beyond (piestion the more correct. It is the star which is in the ascendant at the time of ripening, that is, during the dorj-days. The autumn is the time of harvesting the corn which has been ripened. m Line 294. Ilcr that talked down the fifty wisest men ; She was a princess too. St. Catherine of Alexandria, the Catherine usually painted with a wheel, or with a book, or disputing with philosophers. The patron saint of philosophy, a legendary saint, the daughter of King Costis, who was the sou of Constantius Chlorus, the father of Constantine by a first marriage. "TT^ NOTi:s. 90 Costia married Raljinella, Qu'^on of Kpypt, and on his death Catherine became (^ueen. Hhe devoted herself to learning, and would not marry, but was espoused in a visif)n to Jesus Christ. ^Maxentius during his persecution sent fifty of tlit; wisest philosophers to convert her, but she convertetl them out of the Law and Prophets, I'lato, Arist()t!(», and the Sibylline books. Unable to kill her with the wheel, ]\?ax- entius cut off her head, and tlie angels carried her body to heaven. The French say she is the patron saint of ohl maids, because it reciuires so much philosophy to remain an old maid. Line 2,'t']- Of lands in \vliicli at the altar the poor bride Gives her Iiarsh groom for bridal-gift a scourge ] Of living hearts that crack within the fire Where smoulder their dead despots. Allusion is made in the first two lines to Hussian customs in the seventeenth century. One was that the bride, on her wedding day, should present her husband, in token of submis- sion, with a whip made by her own hands. Another was, that on arriving at the nuptial chamber the bridegroom ordered the bride to pull off his boots. In one was a whip, in the other a trinket. If she pulled off the one with the whip first the groom gave her a slight blow. It is worthy of note, that according to Bracton a wife is sub virga, under the rod, and Blackstone says that moderate correction with a stick is lawful. The last two lines refer to the Hindoo Suttee, now abol- ished, in conformity with which widows were burned upon the funeral pyres of their husbands. lOO NOTES. Line 445. "Wlien the man wants weight, the wo- man takes it up, And topples down the scales. The hard old king has stated a fact known to all observers of the genus homo ; but he has also uttered a scientific tnith, which, according to an eminent scientific lady, Dr. An- toinette Brown Blackwell, is applicable to all the animal kingdom. She says (Sexes throwjhout Nature, p. 85) : — " Conversely, among a few species of birds in several orders, the males take upon themselves the duties of incuba- tion and the feeding of the young, and, as it should be upon our hypothesis, the sexes in these cases effect a complete ex- change of many characters. In an Australian species of the Turnix, the females are nearly twice as large as the males. In an Indian species the male wants the black on the throat and neck, and the whole tone of the plumage is lighter and less pronounced than that of the female. The females are more vociferous, more pugnacious, and it is they, and not the males, who are kept like game-cocks for fighting. After laying their eggs, the females associate in flocks and leave the males to sit on them." In the case of these birds it is tVie females who go to the club. The learned lady goes on translating the old king's senti- ments into evo.utionary language thus (p. 96) ; — " Whenever brilliantly-coloured male birds have acquired something of maternal habits, tastes and impulses, conversely, the females seem always to have acquired some counter- balancing weight of male character." (How precise our poet was — his very words !) " They are large in relative size, are brilliantly coloured, are active and quarrelsome, or are a little of all these together. The large majority of birds illustrate this law." Decidedly an unpleasant prospect this, seeing that in a ball-room the fact is evident that already the male portion of our species have lost the gay attire they used to wear in former centuries. The soberly-dressed hum-drum business NOTES. ICI man, furrowed with care of shop and stocks, is outshone everywhere by his partner of the other sex. In truth males of the human species are tendinj,' to follow the sad-coloured males of the cassowaries who hatch the eggs their gadding spouses lay. Mrs. Blackwell seems to be right, but then the dreadful result of the law ! " The females are active, quarrel- some, and pugnacious." This reconciles one to the "ap- proaching end of the age." Line 503. He rode the mellay, lord of the ringing lists. MeUay for the more usual mcUc, from the verb to mell, i.e., to meddle, to mix, used by Spenser. The confused crowd of combatants after the first charge at a to'irnament. CANTO VI. The opening song, Home they brouglit her warrior dead, is probably a later version or adaptation of a song first published in a volume of selections issued in 1S65, ^^^^ which is not found in most of the editions of Tennyson's collected works. Home they brought him slain with spears. They brought him home at even-fall ; All alone she sits and hears Echoes in his empty hall, Sounding on the morrow. The sun peeped in from open field, The boy began to leap and prance, Rode upon his father's lance, Beat upon his father's shield, "Oh hush, my joy, my sorrow." r ':' ;} I02 NOTES. II This song may have been .iiiggested by a passage in Scott — Litij of the Last Minatnl, cunto i. — "But o'er her warrior's bloody bier The Ladye dropped nor flower nor toar ! Vengeance deep-brooding o'er the slain Had locked the source of softer wie, And burning pride and high disdain Forbade the rising tear to flow ; lentil, andd his sorrowing clan, Her son lisped from the nurse's knee — " And if I live to be a man, My father's death revenged shall be." Then fast the mother's tears did seek To dew the infant's kindling cheek. The result is the same, but the motive ascribed by Tenny- .son is more natural and womanly. This passage is an in- stance of unconscious imitation. Line 15. Eiit high upon the palace Ida stood AVitli Psyche's hale in arm. The same exj^ression is used in The Palace of Art — Or the maid-mother by a crucifix, In tracts of pasture sunny warm, Beneath branch-work of costly sardonyx Sat smiling babe in arm. The reviewers of Tennyson's earlier poems ridiculed this expression unmercifully, comparing it with the "lance in rest " of the romances of chivalry. Some of their criticisms the poet seems to have accepted as just, for he modified the passages complained of, but this phrase he not only retained but has repeated. Line 16. Like that great dame of Lapidoth she sang. T- NOTES. 10- . Scott Tenny- !j an in- ood uled this 'lance in criticisms (lifted the J retained doth she Judges iv. 4 ; Deborah the prophetess who judged Israel, and who delivered the chosen people from the army of Sisera. Line 65. Andowcrihemihctreiiiulous isles of light slided. The light fleecy clouds. Slided is an unusual form for slid. Line 122. And reach its f ailing innocent arms And lazy lingering fingers. Failing, a diminutive of fat, as suckliixg of such The word is rare as an adjective. Shakespeare uses the older form of the verb to fit. It is also met with in Luke xv. 23, the fatted calf. To fatten is a later form. Line 126. Ceased all on tremble; piteous was the cry. An early English form. The a in the words alive, afoot, asleep, is a contraction of the Anglo-Saxon on, as on line, on foot. In Chaucer's Dream we find on sleep — Not all wakyng, we fall on sleepe. and in Acts xiii. 36 is another instance— " For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep." Line 185. When I. felt Thy helpless warmth about my barren breast In the dead prime. The hour of prime is at sunrise. If infants have any regular hour of waking it is with the first dawn ; but probably the word here means any hour after midnight. I04 NOTES. Line 194. With an eye that swum in thanks. Shaivespeare writes sicam and even has swain, but Milton always swum. Par. Lust, ii. 753 — Dim thine eyes and dizzy swum In darkness. And Par, Lost, xi. 743 — The floating vessel swum Uplifted, and secure with beaked prow Rode tilting o'er the waves. Line 206. The woman is so hard Upon the woman. This unamiable trait results from woman's mission as the conservator of society. In this respect, woman's character is very narrow, but she feels instinctively that she cannot afford to be lax in offences against social laws. Psyche's weakness had in fact broken up Ida's university, and sins against the family tend to break up society. Line 286. Yourself and yours shall have Free adit. Access. A rare use of the word. As a minin^ term it is common. 'Kip breeds and suthcs. A nd festers in provincial »lnth ! and >/o», That think we soiif/ht to practise on a. life Jiisk'dfnr nnr own and triixted to our hands, IVhat sail }/(>u, .SVr/ i/ou hear us ; deem i/c not 'Tis all too like that cnn nov^ ire scheme, In one broad death confoundimj friend and foc^ To dru;i them all? revolve it : you at man, And therefore no doubt wise; but after this Wc brouk no further insult, but are gone. These two last omissions are the only important ones. They occur in the rrincess Ida's speech before she opens her college as an hospital for the wounded knights. The char- acter of Ida gains by the omission, for it did not become her to enter into a scolding match with such a mistress of tongue- fence as Lady Blanche. The l*]pilogue has been much altered. All the matter re- lating to the French Revolution was inserted. The Poet's mind was no doubt full of the turmoil in France which broke out shortly after the publication of the first edition, but the poem is not improved as a work of art by the inser- tion of what must be called e.\traneous matter. Some lines omitted at the very beginning throw a little light on the plan of the poem. Here closed our compound story, which at first Ilad only meant to banter little maids With mock heroics and with parody : But slipt in some strange way, crost loith burlcsriuc, From mock to earnest, even into tones Of tragic and with less and less of jest To such a serious end. The Epilogue is, however, in reality re-written and ex. panded so much as to be practically new work. The Pro- logue, also, is largely expanded. The Interlude is entirely 112 NOr£S. new, but omissions seldom occur in the poem ; the changes made are substitutions of words, insertions of lines, or of passages to biing out the meaning, and innumerable minute touches to impart finish to the style and rhythm to the verbe'. THE VERSIFICATION OF «'THE PRINCESS." Professor Hadley's essay upon this poem contains some remarks upon its versification which are not only excellent of themselves, but valuable as stimulating to further study in the same direction. He says : — " Mr. Tennyson has evidently taken extraordinary pains with the construction of his verse. He seems to have felt that a single measure running through a long poem must of recessity become monotonous and wearisome, unless great care can be taken to diversify its rhythm Certain it is that in affluence of means and in variety of effects, the blank verse of The Princess surpasses all its author's previous attempts in the same kind of measure ; nor would it be easy to find its equal in these respects since the time of Milton. To the versification of the Paradise Lost, the greatest exemplar of versification in the English language, Mr. Teanyson, it is clear, has given no little attention ; and from Jah poem, and from the older English poetry in general, he has adopted many rhythmical and metrical expe- dients — liberties or licenses, as they are sometimes called — which the too finical taste of later times, and the undue passion for uniformity, have generally discarded. Among these we mention th€ so-called elision — more truly, the blending of a final vowel with the vowel initial of a following word into a single syllable, or at least what passes for such in the rhythm. Thus we have — That made the old warrior from his ivied nook Glow like a sunbeam. NOTES. The violet varies from the lihj as far As oak from elm. 113 O Swallow, Swallow, if I coul.l /o//o«. and liqht Upon her lattice. So, too where the second word begins with a weak conso- nant easily elided in pronunciation :— riy to her, and pipe and w-oo her, and make her mine. You must not slay him; he risked his life for ours. The same fusion occurs often in a sin-le word, and not only m such forms as lovelier, sapience, &c., where all our poets have employed it, but in Uiany instances where the last two centuries ha. renounced its use. Thus in tho followmg Imes the words seeing, erying, highest, go for monosyllables m the rhythm :— ^ » fa And Cyril seeing it, pushed against the prince. Some crying there was an army in the land. And highest among the statues, statue-like. The combinations in the, of the, &c., are often treated as fiUmg but one rhythmical place- Better havo died, and spilt our bones in the flood. Poets, whose thoughts enrich the blood of the world. Wlien the man wants weight, the woman takes it up. In many instances a short syllable is neglected -that is does not count as forming by itself a place in the metre. In thefollov-ing quotation, the words enemy, general, soluble, are treated as dissyllables— Now she lightens scorn At the enemy of her plan, l)ut then would hate The general foe. More soluble is the knot. ]-:specially does this occur when a short final syllable is followed by a word beginning with a vowel— ! 1 I III' '• 114 NOTES. A palace in our own land, where you shall reign. A tent of satin elaborately wrought. We could distinguish other cases, in which a reader unfamiliar with the earlier English rhythms might be offended by supcrnimierary syllables ; but to enter upon long details would perhajis be more tedious than profitable. In none of these instances, if wo may judge of INIr. Tennyson's pronunciation from his way of writing, would he omit a syllable in reading ; nor does the rhythm of the verse (let metrical doctors, like Mr. (^uest, say what they please about it) require of us the use of any such expedient." Many passages also occur of irregular rhythm in which, as in the Paradise Lost, the sound is suited to the sense to a degree not excelled by Milton or Virgil. Such are — Palpitated, her hand shook, and we heard In the dead hush the papers that she held Rustle ; And in th*? blast and bray of the long horn And serpent -throated bugle, undulated The banner ; The dark, when clocks Throbbed thunder thro' the palace floors. Brake with a blast of trumpets from the gate. While the great organ almost burst his pipes, Groaning for power, and rolling thro' the courts A long melodious thunder to the sound Of solemn psalms, and silver litanies. And up we came to where the river sloped To plunge in cataract, shattering on black blocks A breadth of thunder. O'er it shook the woods. And danced the colour. u ■p NOTES. uj And the flood drew, yet I caught her, then Oaring one arm, and bearing in my left The weight of all the hopes of half the world, Strove to buffet to land in vain. Myriads of rivulets hurrying through the lawn, The moan of doves in immemorial elms, And murmuring of innumerable bees. •Who,' asks Kingsley, 'after three such lines, will talk of English as a harsh and clumsy language, and seek in the effeminate and nonotonous Italian for expressive melody of sound? Who cannot hear in them the rapid rippling of the water, the stately calmness of the wood-dove's note, and in the repetition of short syllables and soft liquids in the last line, the murmuring of innumerable beer ? ' It will be observed at once, on reading these and similar passages aloud, that much of their power depends upon alliteration. This, which in the old Saxon poetry stood for modern rhyme, adds a charming variety to the versification of The Princess. It abounds throughout all Tennyson's writings, for his mind is steeped in the older literature of England, but especially in this poem, c.(j. — With prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans, And sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair. And died Of fright in far apartments. Sweet thoughts would swarm, as bees about their queen. The lark Shot up and shrillt j in flickering gyres. It is useless to multiply instances. They pervade the whole poem." ii6 NOTES. 1^1 ■»f, • TENNYSON AS A WORD-rAINTER. :; ' Philip Hamerton, in his Thnuf/Jds ahrnd Art, has written well upon the advantages and limitations of woi'd-painting compared with colour-painting. He places the best modern word-painters in verse in the following order of excellence : Tennyson, Shelley, Byron, Scott, Wordsworth, and Keats. Tennyson he places first, and he quotes Ruskin as saying that no description of his is worth four lines of Tennyson. He shows that word description is infinitely limited in its power over form and colour as compared with the pictorial art, and he thinks that Tennyson understands these limits better than any other modern poet, and therefore never becomes tedious by straining after fidelities imattainable by verbal art. That is no doubt true, but the poet is compen- sated for these limitations by the superior power he possesses of expressing sound and motion. Many passages occur in The Princess, in which both kinds of descriptive power are shown ; for instance — k hll All about his motion clung The shadow of his sister, as the beam Of the east, that play'd upon them, made them glance Like those three stars of the airy gian /s zone, That glitter burnished by the frosty dark ; And as the fiery Sirius alters hue. And bickers into red and emerald, shone Their morions, washed with morning as they came. Fixt like a beacon-tower above the waves Of tempest, when the crimson rolling eye Glares ruin, and the wild birds on the light Dash themselves dead. And spill Their thousand wreaths of dangling water smoke, That like a broken purpose waste in air. NOTES. And then to bed, where half in doze I seemed To float about a gliinmering night, and watch A full sea glazed with nudHed moonlight, swell On some dark shore just seen that it was rich. Reels as the golden autumn woodland reels Athwart the smoke of burning leav 117 es. Morn in the white wake of the morning star Came furrowing all the Orient into gold. Compare the sunset— Till the Sun Grew broader toward his death, and fell, and all The rosy heights came out above the lawns, And s!:9, as one that climbs a peak to gaze O'er land and main, and sees a great black cloud Drag inward from the deeps, a wall of night, Blot out the slope of sea from verge to shore,' And suck the blending splendour from the sand, And quenching lake by lake, and tarn by tarn, ' Expunge the world ! The poem contains many such pictorial descriptions, which If excelled by j) Anting in preciseness of colour, are full of movement unattainable upon canvas. It is impossible to resist givnig a few more descriptive passages. Sees the midsummer midnight, Norway sun Set into sunrise. Woman's love unworthily bestowed is vividly described - Their sinless faith A maiden moon that sparkles on a sty, Glorifying clown and satyr. The three friends early on the first morning in the college — iiS NOTES. ,1? IIi<,'h Above the empurpled champaign, drank the galu That, blown about the foliage underneath, And sated with the innumerable rose, Beat balm upon our eyelids. m THE rOET AS INTERPRETER OF THE AGE. The following extract from F. W. Robertson is perhaps the most justly appreciative criticism of Tennyson which has ever appeared. It is from a lecture upon English poetry, delivered to the working-men of Brighton in 1852: — " I ranked Tennyson in the first order, because with great mastery over his material — words, great plastic power of versification and a rare gift of harmony, he lias also vision or insight ; and because feeling intensely the great questions of the day, not as a mere man of letters, but as a man, he is to some extent the interpreter of his age, not only in its mysticism, which I tried to show you is the necessary reac- tion from the rigid formulas of science and the earthlincss' of an age of work, into the vagueness which belongs to in- iinitude, but also in his poetic and almost prophetic solution of some of its great questions. "Thus in his Princess, which he calls a 'medley,' the former half of which is sportive, and the plot almost too fantastic and impossible for criticism, while the latter portion seems too serious for a story so light and flimsy, he has with exquisite taste disposed of the question which has its bur- lesque and comic as well as its tragic side, of woman's present })lace and future destinies. And if ..ny one wishes to see this subject treated with a masterly and delicate hand, in I)i'otest alike against the theories which would make her as the man, which she could only be by becoming masculine, not manly, and those which would have her to remain the toy, or the slave, or the slight thing of sentimental and frivolous accomplishmeut which education has hitherto aimed NOTES. 119 at making her, I would recommcna him to study the few last pages of The Princess, where the poet brings the question back, as a poet should, to nature ; develops the ideal out of the actual woman, and reads out of what she is, on the one hand, what her Creator intended her to be, and on the other, what she never can or ought to be." — Jiev. F. W. Robertson, Lectures and Addresses, BIBLIOGRArHY OF "THE PRINCESS." It seems appropriate to close this study with a list of the various editions of the poem, and the present prices in the London booksellers' shops. First Edition, pp. 164; published 1847. Priced in original cloth binding, ^i, 15s. Second Edition, pp. 164; published 1848. The dedication to Henry Lushington was added to this edition, and a few verbal changes made. Priced cloth, uncut, 16s. Third Edition, pp. 177; published 1850. This edition was thoroughly revised. Large additions were made in the body of the poem. The songs and the interlude were added, and the poet's thought fully expressed. Priced in original cloth, 7s. 6d. Fourth Edition, pp. 182; published 185 1. In this, all the passages about the weird seizures of the Prince were inserted. The fourth song was altered to what it now is. The second stanza of the first song was omitted, but restored in subsequent editiona. Priced 7s. 6d. I20 NOTES. Fifth Edition, pp. 183; puLli.sliod 1853. In this, the passage in the Prologue commencing " O miracle of woman," and ending—" Ho sang the gallant glorious chronicle," was first inserted. In this edition the text was settled as we now have it. In America The Princess was published by Ticknor & Fields, of Boston, in 1848. It was reprinted fnnn the first edition of 1847. In 1855 the same publishers issued a collected edition of Tennyson's works, containing this poem reprinted from the fifth edition. At the present time the first edition can be bought in Boston for t,s. sterling. THE END. ■»?F^rT5^ -w ■?5T WNW1 ig"0 g the 1. In e it. :nor & rie first sued a s poem me the