TENNYSON
POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
STUDIES OF THE LIFE, WORK, AND TEACHING
OF THE POET LAUREATE
BY
J. CUMING WALTERS
AUTHOR OF "IN TENNYSON LAND"
WITH PORTRAIT ON STEEL BY ARMYTAGE
After a Photograph by Mrs Cameron
LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., Ltd.
1S93
\M
s?r/<7$
PREFACE.
LEST misunderstanding should arise, it is perhaps as well
that I should explain at the outset that I have not at-
tempted to supply a biography of the late Lord Tennyson.
I have given prominence to his literary career, and prefer-
ence to those facts which illustrated the literary side of
his character. Believing, as I do, in the far-reaching and
permanent effects of early environment, I have recounted
with some detail the events of Tennyson's youth ; but in
succeeding chapters I have only casually caught up the
main threads of his personal history.
Each chapter is a separate and complete study of some
phase of Tennyson's work, and I have particularly endea-
voured to deal adequately with his religion, philosophy,
and politics. Some doubtful points I hope to have set at
rest by undertaking original investigations and by careful
reference to standard authorities. The criticisms of Tenny-
son's contemporaries, especially those of his youth, are
quoted at some length because of their interest and value.
I have not, however, deemed it necessary in a work of this
kind to repeat for the thousandth time the " small talk " of
which great men are so often the victims ; and I must ask
pardon in advance of those readers who do not find in
these pages a full and true account of Tennyson's sayings
and doings in private life. Nearly every poem he pub-
lished is referred to, and every important public act of his
life is chronicled, while I have not hesitated in some half
5 1 118
PREFACE.
dozen cases to repeat a story which illustrates his methods
and his character. By giving as many specimens of
Tennyson's poetry as would be allowable I have hoped
to re-kindle old enthusiasms and arouse new admirers.
But those who desire to read about the tobacco he smoked,
the hats he wore, and the beer or wine he drank at dinner,'
must turn to those volumes where such unconsidered trifles
are held to be worthy of chronicling. I have excluded
parodies also-even the clever ones of Mr Swinburne, Sir
Theodore Martin, and the late C. S. Calverley ; for I agree
with Sir Arthur Helps, that he who makes a parody lacks
reverence. And it is in love and reverence that these
pages have been prepared, and whatever their demerits,
the pleasure of writing them remains.
August 1893.
CONTENTS.
PREFACE . . rAGE
v
CHAPTER I.
EARLY DAYS : THE " POEMS BY TWO BROTHERS " . r
CHAPTER II.
AT CAMBRIDGE : " TIMBUCTOO "
CHAPTER III.
A LYRICAL PRELUDE .
/ CHAPTER VI.
y>*'lN MEMORIAM": TENNYSON'S RELIGION
CHAPTER VII.
" MAUD " : TENNYSON ON WAR AND PEACE
CHAPTER VIII.
" ENOCH ARDEN " .
CHAPTER IX.
"the idylls of the king"
iS
31
CHAPTER IV.
A " LOFTIER STRAIN " : " THE PRINCESS " ... 56
CHAPTER V.
POET LAUREATE : PATRIOTISM AND POLITICS . . 74
97
135
iSi
CHAPTER X.
TENNYSON AS A DRAMATIST . . . . .166
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XL
LATER BALLADS AND POEMS ..... 198
CHAPTER XII.
SWAN -SONGS ... ... 229
CHAPTER XIII.
TENNYSON AS A STUDENT ..... 243
CHAPTER XIV.
TENNYSON'S HUMOUR ...... 269
CHAPTER XV.
LITERARY CHARACTERISTICS ..... 278
CHAPTER XVI.
LABOR LIMjE : SUPPRESSED AND REVISED POEMS . . 296
CHAPTER XVII.
WAS TENNYSON AN ORIGINAL POET? . . . 320
CHAPTER XVIII.
A NOTE ON TENNYSONIAN VOLUMES AND MSS. . . 34 1
Appendix A .
Appendix B
Tennysonian Chronology
Index
349
3So
354
363
TENNYSON
POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
CHAPTER I.
EARLY DAYS : " POEMS BY TWO BROTHERS."
" What vague world-whisper, mystic pain or joy,
Thrb' these three words would haunt him when a boy
. . Far-far-away ?
' ' ,\ whisper from his dawn of life ? a breath
From some fair dawn beyond the doors of death
Far-far-away ?
"Far, far, how far? from o'er the gates of Birth,
^ The faint horizons, all the bounds of earth,
X . Far-far-away?"
• ■ * » — Far- Far- Away.
• • »
THE poet of jfere was a " maker," a " doer " ; not a seer of
visions or a dreamer of dreams ; not the idle singer of an
empty day. He was a leader of men, standing out pre-
eminent as prophet and sage — a beacon in times of dark-
ness, casting a living light along the path of duty. Such a
man is, in many cases, the sole or central figure in a dark
or shadowy pUtur#looming through the past. His influence
does not die : it is transmitted from bard to bard, each of
whom catches the last notes of melody only to begin anew
and/in deeper tones the long-continued theme. We can
hear these hero-minstijels always above the rush and roar
of battle, the tossing and tumult of years, the changes and
chances of time. When man groaned under tyranny, the
2 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
strains of these sweet singers soothed the madness of des-
pondency, and inspired the combat for redress. When the
rights of a people were menaced, from their midst would
rise the bard to give a tongue to their wrongs and a voice
to their desires. He roused up heroes whom the times
demanded and the wretched sought, and often in the hour
of peril would himself seize axe or sword, and, putting him-
self at the head of hosts he had thrilled, would rush forth
" to strive a happy strife." As soldier and as guide the
man's double nature was asserted. Whilst, as he denounced
oppression, his " words did gather thunder as they ran," he
could attune his lyre to softer strains and higher themes,
teaching of hope and patience in the hour of trial, and
honour in the time of adversity. The poet was the ex-
ponent of national feeling. Legislation is the product of
a high civilisation ; and in a rude and growing state, when
government is unsettled and authority vested in a few, the
wants and aspirations of the multitude can only be revealed
in some huge outburst of long-pent feeling. What wonder
that the poet became " the people's voice " ? Song is often
but history, accurately recording or reflecting predominat-
ing sentiments and popular movements. The poet's mission
is undeniable, and great is he who realises and fulfils it. He
may cull, preserve, and hallow the beauty and sublimity of
the past ; treasure olden forms and ancient saws ; safeguard
the laws which led to good and progress ; prepare the way
for future excellence. Conservative and pioneer, watcher
and adviser, ever to the fore, yet revering the past, he is the
supreme counsellor, sympathiser, guide —
Uower'd with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,
The love of love.
It is the poet who, with the " viewless arrows of his
thought," has
Bravely furnish'd all abroad to fling
The winged shafts of truth,
To throng with stately blooms the breathing spring
Of Hope and Youth.
EARLY DAYS.
Never had poet loftier conception of his duty, never did
poet live up to a higher ideal, than Alfred, Lord Tennyson,
the last and greatest of England's Laureates. With an intui-
tive perception of his destiny he chose and lived his poet-life,
never swerving from his course, never diverting his glance
from the goal, far-off, towards which he journeyed. He
was poet all in all, from his earliest youth unto that dark hour
when, with an open volume of Shakespeare before him, he
passed into the silent land. As his work had been con-
ceived, so had it been wrought. His belief in the poet's
consecration was indisputable ; the end and purpose he was
designed to serve were fully recognised. He compared the
poet's mind first to a crystal river, "bright as light, and
clear as wind," and then to " holy ground," where
Leaps a fountain
Like sheet lightning,
Ever brightening
With a low, melodious thunder ;
It springs on a level of bowery lawn,
And the mountain draws it from Heaven above,
And it sings a song of undying love.
Alfred Tennyson was born on the sixth day of August
1809, a year which is also memorable for giving birth to
Mendelssohn and Chopin, masters in the world of music ;
Darwin, who has left an enduring mark upon the annals
of science ; Gladstone, scholar and statesman ; Abraham
Lincoln, the American president ; Elizabeth Barrett Brown-
ing, unrivalled as poetess ; Edgar Poe, the great strange
genius ; Dr Oliver Wendell Holmes, who stands at the
head of living American poets, and takes rank with the
greatest. Among others born in 1809 were Mary Cowden
Clarke, John Stuart Blackie, Charles Lever,, and Lord
Houghton. Such constellations of genius are not without
parallel ; in fact, nature seems to love to surprise the world
with sudden prodigality and abundance of good gifts. The
annus mirabilis 1809 is almost comparable with that time
4 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
of splendour when Shakespeare was the brightest star in
a wondrous galaxy ; and the Victorian era will most fitly
bear comparison with the lustre of the period associated
with the royal sway of Elizabeth. But none could have
foreseen that the infant child of a Lincolnshire rector living
in a remote hamlet, was destined to contribute so bounti-
fully to the glory of his age. Somersby, the birth-place, was
at that time a sequestered nook, nestling among the wolds,
and containing a population of about one hundred. There
in the white rectory-house opposite an old square-towered
church lived Dr George Clayton Tennyson, a scion of the
house of D'Eyncourt, and his wife, a daughter of the Rev.
Stephen Fytche, of Louth. Their first-born son died, but
two others, Frederick and Charles, had already been born,
and the fourth was baptised and named Alfred three days
after his birth.
Emerson, in his essay on Plato, tells us that great
geniuses have the shortest biographies ; and in his essay
on Shakespeare he adds that " it is the essence of poetry
to spring, like the rainbow daughter of Wonder, from the
invisible, to abolish the past, and refuse all history."
Whether the days of Alfred Tennyson were deficient in
event, or whether his isolation from the world was such that
no real insight into what constituted his life as a man and a
poet could be obtained, is not now capable of determina-
tion. Suffice it that chroniclers have at most times had to
depend upon current gossip and occasional personal revela-
tions. Few indeed are the facts made known by the poet
himself, and the most diligent gleaner will find the harvest
disappointing.. Sir Henry Taylor records in his autobio-
graphy that in the course of conversation the Poet Laureate
told him that he " believed every crime and every vice in
the world were connected with the passion for autographs
and anecdotes and records ; that the desiring anecdotes
and acquaintance with the lives of great men was treating
them like pigs to be ripped open for the public ; that he
knew he himself should be ripped open like a pig ; that
EARL Y DA VS. 5
he thanked God Almighty with his whole heart and soul
that he knew nothing, and that the world knew nothing, of
Shakespeare but his writings : and that he thanked God
Almighty that he knew nothing of Jane Austen ; and
that there were no letters preserved either of Shakespeare's
or of Jane Austen's that they had not ripped open like
pigs." The same extraordinary feeling made itself mani-
fest in more than one of the Laureate's poems, especially
in his lines of congratulation to a friend who had
" miss'd the irreverent doom Of those that wear the Poet's
crown."
For now the Poet cannot die,
Nor leave his music as of old,
But round him ere he scarce be cold
Begins the scandal and the cry :
" Proclaim the faults he would not show :
Break lock and seal : betray the trust :
Keep nothing sacred : 'tis but just
The many-headed beast should know."
Ah shameless ! for he did but sing
A song that pleased us from its worth ;
No public life was his on earth,
No blazon'd statesman he, nor king.
The] bitterness and the morbidness of the stinging lines
are but too apparent ; but though the poet's injunction may
be regarded as too severe, in these pages at least we will
not " tear his heart before the crowd.'y/'
Alfred Tennyson was happy and fortunate in his parents
and surroundings. Of his father and mother nothing but
good is known. The "owd Doctor," as he was not
irreverently called in the locality, was a learned unworldly
man of whom we probably get a portrait in The. Village
Wife. He was " hallus aloan wi' 'is boooks," and if he had
a fault, it was that he " niver loookt ower a bill, nor 'e
niver not seed to owt." We are told that he was "some-
thing of a poet, painter, architect, musician, linguist, and
■
6 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
mathematician." His wife was a gracious and excellent
woman, with a heart of genuine kindness and tenderest
sympathy — "No angel, but a dearer being, all dipt In
angel instincts, breathing Paradise." "A sweet and gentle
and most imaginative woman," is Mrs Ritchie's tribute.
To these two were born in all eight sons and four daughters,
most of whom proved in after years to possess the poetic
temperament more or less developed. Little is known of
the poet's youth, but the perfect harmony of the home life
is attested in many ways. The strongest ties of friendship
seem to have bound the brothers and sisters to one
another, and the references to early days in the poems of
Alfred and of Charles Tennyson are of such warmth and
tenderness that the meaning cannot be mistaken. The
boys had their dreams and desires, the poetic instinct striv-
ing to make itself felt, and leading them to the love of all
beauty. They sang and played together, they told mar-
vellous tales, they loved to dwell upon themes which set
their fancy flying, and in imagination their home became
an enchanted castle and themselves Arthurian knights.
It is recorded that Alfred's first verses were written upon
a slate and shown to Charles who approved them. The
"great artist Memory" pictured in colours most rich and
beautiful those Lincolnshire scenes where the " prime
labour of its early days " was wrought. First there was
the home with its hoard of treasured recollections — the
" well-beloved place Where first we gazed upon the sky,"
where stood the gray old grange, and where might be seen
the lonely fold, the sheep-walk up the windy wold, the
woods that belt the gray hill-side, and
The seven elms, the poplars four
That stand beside my father's door.
How great an influence Lincolnshire scenery had upon
the poet has already been traced. One, knowing nothing
of Alfred Tennyson's origin, but knowing the charac-
teristics of his county, could easily have singled him out
EARL V DA VS.
as a Lincolnshire man. " All great poetry," said Russell
Lowell, " must smack of the soil, for it must be rooted in
it, must suck life and substance from it, but it must do so
with the aspiring instinct of the pine that climbs forever
toward diviner air." If further evidence of the use of
environment were needed, what could be more significant
and appropriate than the unrestrained admission of Charles
Tennyson in the beautiful sonnet which I extract from the
rarest of his volumes ? —
Hence with your jeerings, petulant and low,
My love of home no circumstance can shake,
Too ductile for the change of place to break,
And far too passionate for most to know. —
I and yon pollard-oak have grown together,
How on yon slope the shifting sunsets lie
None know so well as I, and tending hither
Flows the strong current of my sympathy ;
From this same flower-bed, dear to memory,
I learnt how marigolds do bloom and fade,
And from the grove that skirts this garden glade
I had my earliest thoughts of love and spring :
Ye wot not how the heart of man is made,
I learn but now what change the world can bring !
Tennyson, like his two elder brothers, received the first
part of his education at " Cadney's " — a schoolhouse in
Holywell Glen of some repute at that time. It was opened
about 1 815 by Charles Clark, who, on leaving Somersby,
was succeeded by William Cadney. Locally this worthy
is now remembered on account of his placing a Latin
inscription — a mixture of Horace and Virgil — over the
entrance to the Glen, 1 and any particular merit he may
1 William Howitt was the first to describe Tennyson's native place, and his
words are worth quoting : — " The native village of Tennyson is not situated
in the fens, but in a pretty pastoral district of softly sloping hills and large
ash-trees. It is not based on bogs, but on a clean sandstone. There is a
little glen in the neighbourhood, called by the old monkish name of Holywell.
Over the gateway leading to it some by-gone squire [an error : it should be
Cadney] has put up an inscription, a medley of Virgil and Horace ; and within,
a stream of clear water gushes out on a sand rock, and over it stands the old
schoolhouse almost lost among the trees, and of late years used as a wood-
S TEAWYSOX: POET. PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
have possessed, or whatever his special qualification for his
work, cannot be related. Until the Tennyson brothers
were sent to Louth Grammar School their education may
have been partly under the supervision of their father,
though it is not unlikely that no regular or systematic
course of training was entered upon. I have already
disposed of the fiction that Alfred and Charles Tennyson
received the major portion of their education at Louth. 1
As a matter of fact Alfred was only just eleven years old,
and Charles was only thirteen when they returned to
Somersby, and Cadney was entrusted with the care
of them. Their sojourn at Louth had been absolutely
uneventful, and they brought back with them only
bitter recollections of the headmaster's severity.
Cadney's duty was to teach the boys arithmetic, but a
quarrel with the Doctor abruptly terminated the engage-
ment. William Clark, a sharp Bag Enderby boy. only
two years Alfred's senior, was then called upon to act as
tutor, and having a special aptitude for mathematics, he
succeeded in the task. As for Cadney, misfortune appears
to have dogged his steps. He was turned out of his
cottage in the Glen because the boys in his charge dis-
turbed the game, such as there was ; and eventually the
schoolmaster ended his days in Spilsby Union-house at
Hundleby, at the age of eighty-four. William Clark, the
"boy-schoolmaster," is still living at Tetford, near
Somersby : and it is interesting to relate that his brother
Charles was for some time employed at the Hall at
Gantby, which was often regarded as the original of
Dickens's " Bleak House."
house, its former distinction only signified by the Scripture test on the walls,
'Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth.' There ?.re also two
brooks in this valley, which flow into one at the bottom of the glebe field,
and by these the young poet used to wander and meditate." I have given a
full description of these scenes as they present themselves in later times, and
subsequently other " localizers " have done the same. Some interesting facts
about Cadney's school were published in the Pall Mall Gazette of June 19,
1S90. Previously the history of that interesting place was very obscure.
1 See " In Tennyson I.and,' ? pp. 35-37.
EARL Y DA VS.
It can easily be understood that during the interval
between their leaving Louth Grammar School and entering
College, very little restraint was exercised over Dr
Tennyson's sons. They were sturdy, spirited lads, and
appear to have been left to their own devices. We can
imagine them wandering about the Lincolnshire Uplands,
taking long journeys across the wolds, exploring knoll
and copse, and occasionally walking as far as the sea.
Now and then they visited Boston, where a relative lived,
and in the summer they spent a few days at Mablethorpe
in the " lowly " white cottage, whence they could see
StretchM wide and wild the waste enormous marsh,
Where from the frequent bridge,
Like emblems of infinity,
The trenched waters run from sky to sky.
All these scenes were knowledge and inspiration to the
young poets, nor was it long before their thoughts found
expression. It was Charles Tennyson who declared how
good were all things in the poet's eyes, and who, while still
a youth, felt that he and his kin were marked off from the
common race. In his exquisite Book of Sonnets we
read : —
No trace is left upon the vulgar mind
By shapes which form upon the poet's thought
In instant symmetry : all eyes are blind
Save his, for ends of lowlier vision wrought ;
Think'st thou, if Nature wore to every gaze
Her noble beauty and commanding power
Could harsh and ugly doubt withstand the blaze
Or front her Sinai Presence for an hour ?
The seal of Truth is Beauty — When the age
Sees not the token, can the mission move ?
The brow is veil'd that should attach the tie
And lend the magic to the voice of Love :
What wonder then that doubt is ever nigh
Urging such spirits on to mock and to deny ?
The love of Lincolnshire was deeply rooted in the hearts
of these poets, and in truth there is no wonder that it
io TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
should be. For Somersby is an enchanted spot, bright,
luxurious, and beautiful. Wooded hills rise before it and lie
behind it ; a merry brook gleams in the glen, and " swerves
to left and right through meadowy curves," as it draws
Into [its] narrow earthen urn,
In every elbow and turn,
The filter' d tribute of the rough woodland.
All the air is melodious with the songs of birds— the
rapturous lark, the trilling linnet, the joyous thrush, and
the wrangling daw; and the long lonely lanes, like
avenues, are cool and shady, and odorous with many
flowers. How all these scenes and sounds influenced the
mind of Alfred Tennyson, and suggested to him story and
song has already been told. "What oftenest he viewed
He viewed with the first glory," as every poet has done ;
and like a necromancer he has ever caused to pass before
our eyes the lovely tints and golden hues of a glorious
vanished past.
It was during this somewhat unsettled and aimless period
that Alfred and Charles Tennyson composed those poems
which were afterwards to be published as the work of " Two
Brothers." 1 There may be some truth in the curious story
related to me that publication was decided upon in order
that a little money might be obtained to enable the boys
to carry out a long-cherished project of visiting the Lin-
colnshire churches. Suffice it that a selection of the com-
positions was made and taken to Jackson of Louth, who
sometimes risked the printing of books. The Tennysons
would be acquainted with Mr Jackson, or would know him
well by repute, on account of their occasional visits to
Louth, and they could scarcely fail to remark his superior
establishment in the centre of the town. Mrs Tennyson
and her sons had resided for some time in Harvey's Alley,
now known as Westgate Place, the little domicile being
situated close to the church in which the Rev. Stephen
1 Frederick Tennyson was responsible for one poem, The Oak of the North.
EARL V DA VS.
Fytche preached. Alfred and Charles Tennyson found Mr
Jackson kind-hearted and sympathetic. Not only did he
arrange to bring out the poems in book form, but he offered
them £10 for the copyright. To this the boys agreed, but,
with the confidence of youth, afterwards informed the pub-
lisher that £10 was "none too high a price," whereupon
that excellent person considerately doubled it. Twenty-
pounds was the sum actually received by the two lads for
their poems. Already, therefore, they had proved the false-
ness of that disastrous prophecy of their uncle, who, on
giving Alfred a half-sovereign for some verses, declared
that that was the last money he would ever receive for a
like reason. The original manuscript of this interesting
work was sold for £480 last December (1892).
The Poems by Two Brothers made their appearance in a
small drab volume, priced at seven and sixpence, in 1827.
The " copy " had been put into the printer's hands early in
the year, so that Alfred was only seventeen when the last of
his contributions to the pages was made. It was originally
intended that the two brothers' initials, " C. T." and " A. T.,"
should appear upon the title-page ; but while the work was
passing through the press the authors changed their minds,
and told Mr Jackson that this was no part of the agree-
ment, and would " not assist the sale of the book any more
than if there was no signature at all." Thus it happened
that when the book appeared there was no indication of
who the two intrepid poets were.
" Hsec nos novimus esse nihil " was the motto modestly
chosen by the brothers for their first work ; and their
"Advertisement" was written in the same vein. "The
following poems," the public were informed, " were written
from the ages of fifteen to eighteen, not conjointly, but
individually, which may account for their difference of
style and matter. To light upon any novel combination
of images, or to open any vein of sparkling thought un-
touched before, were no easy task; indeed, the remark
itself is as old as the truth is clear ; and, no doubt, if sub-
12 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
mitted to the microscopic eye of periodical criticism, a long
list of inaccuracies and imitations would result from the
investigation. But so it is. We have passed the Rubicon,
and we leave the rest to fate, though its edict may create a
fruitless regret that we ever emerged from ' the shade,' and
courted notoriety." Then follow some forty introductory
lines of no great merit as a whole, though with here and
there a striking line or a flashing image. We are told that
When the mind reflects its image true —
Sees its own aim — expression must ensue ;
If all but language is supplied before,
She quickly follows, and the task is o'er.
Then, with a recollection of November the Fifth festivities,
the youthful poet illustrates his meaning as follows :
Thus when the hand of pyrotechnic skill
Has stored the spokes of the fantastic wheel,
Apply the flame — it spreads as is design'd,
And glides and lightens o'er the track defined.
A rhapsody on poetic pleasures is better.
I know no joy so well deserves the name,
None that more justly may that title claim,
Than that of which the poet is possess'd
When warm imagination fires his breast,
And countless images like claimants throng,
Prompting the ardent ecstasy of song.
Even at this early period we find that the boys, instead
of dashing off their verses in a frenzy, were accustomed to
pace the study " in a dreaming mood," and form " with
much toil the lab'ring lines," a confession which does them
great credit.
Such are the sweets of song — and in this age,
Perchance too many in its lists engage ;
And they who now would fain awake the lyre,
May swell this supernumerary choir :
But ye, who deign to read, forget t' apply
The searching microscope of scrutiny :
EARLY DAYS. 13
Few from too near inspection fail to lose,
Distance on all a mellowing haze bestows ;
And who is not indebted to that aid
Which throws his failures into welcome shade ?
I judge this Introduction to be the work of Charles
Tennyson, being more in conformity with his style. It is
true that the line, " Distance on all a mellowing haze
bestows," finds its echo in In Memortam, but Campbell
had already given currency to the idea in the well-known
" Distance lends enchantment to the view." Of the hun-
dred and two poems which follow it is difficult to say much
either in praise or blame. They are not commonplace,
stilted, or ill-conceived ; but, at the same time, they reach
no great height and excite little real emotion. Above all,
they never seem to come direct from the heart. Whatever
power they possess, and whatever grace they display, are
purely of the intellectual kind, and the cold, carefully-
measured lines are strangely unlike most boyish outbursts
into verse. How curious it is to hear these lads between
fifteen and eighteen gravely discoursing on philosophy, and
from the depths of their experience teaching mankind the
severe duties of life. It is scarcely natural to be tutored
by youth and told that " life is but a scene of fallacy and
woe," that " mortal man " should not " complain of death,"
and that " never from a wither'd heart The consciousness
of ill shall part." The subjects of the poems are always
sombre. Death, sorrow, pain, exile, rage, remorse, and
despair are the most constant of themes. We are told by
these artless juveniles that
! T is a fearful thing to glance
Back on the gloom of misspent years ;
and at another time one of them, as if that gloom could
never be dissipated, devotes a whole poem to explaining
how he " wanders in darkness and sorrow." He asks —
In this waste of existence, for solace
On whom shall my lone spirit call ?
Shall I fly to the friends of my bosom ?
tvt.. r^~j t t l u.._: 1 <.u~— -11 1
14 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
The poet then courts a terrible doom.
Like the voice of the owl in the hall,
Where the song and the banquet have ceased,
Where the green weeds have mantled the hearth,
Whence arose the proud flame of the feast ;
So I cry to the storm, whose dark wing
Scatters on me the wild driving sleet —
" Let the war of the wind be around me,
The fall of the leaves at my feet ! "
Thomson, Scott, and Byron, had up to this time been
the " masters " whom the two poets reverently regarded,
and it is not surprising to find that the influence of all the
three can be detected in their juvenile works. Alfred
Tennyson was but fifteen years of age when he heard of
Byron's death at Missolonghi. The effect of the news
upon the susceptible mind of the lad was such that he
" thought the whole world was at an end." " I thought
everything was over and finished for everyone — that
nothing else mattered," he related long afterwards. " I
remember I walked out alone, and carved, ' Byron is dead '
into the sandstone." In view of this we may conclude that
it was Alfred who wrote the lines On the Death of Lord Byron
in the metre afterwards employed in The Two Voices.
The hero and the bard is gone !
His bright career on earth is done,
Where with a comet's blaze he shone.
He died where vengeance arms the brave,
Where buried freedom quits her grave,
In regions of the eastern wave.
Yet not before his ardent lay
Had bid them chase all fear away,
And taught their trumps a bolder bray.
Thro' him their ancient valor glows,
And, stung by thraldom's scathing woes,
They rise again, as once they rose.
As once in conscious glory bold,
To war their sounding cars they roll'd,
Uncrush'd, untrampled, uncontroll'd !
EARLY DAYS.
Each drop that gushes from their side,
Will serve to swell the crimson tide,
That soon shall whelm the Moslem's pride !
At last upon their lords they turn,
At last the shame of bondage learn,
At last they feel their fetters burn !
Oh ! how the heart expands to see
An injured people all agree
To burst those fetters and be free !
Each far-famed mount that cleaves the skies,
Each plain where buried glory lies,
All, all exclaim — " Awake ! arise ! "
Who would not feel their wrongs ? and who
Departed freedom would not rue,
With all her trophies in his view ?
To see imperial Athens reign,
And, lowering o'er the vassal main,
Rise in embattled strength again —
To see rough Sparta train once more
Her infant's ears for battle's roar,
Stern, dreadful, chainless as before —
Was Byron's hope — was Byron's aim :
With ready heart and hand he came :
But perish'd in that path of fame !
There is a poem on Greece, full of martial vigour, which
no doubt was inspired by Byron's mission, while the better-
known lines On a dead Enemy are in the true Byronic
vein.
I came in haste with cursing breath,
And heart of hardest steel ;
But when I saw thee cold in death,
1 felt as man should feel.
For when I look upon that face,
That cold, unheeding, frigid brow,
Where neither rage nor fear has place,
By Heaven ! I cannot hate thee now !
16 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
Charles Tennyson's was the gentler muse ; and we must
ascribe to him most of the poems of a tender melancholy
and a chastened religious feeling. The pretty stanzas on
Boyhood remind us of the thought pervading some of the
sonnets subsequently published.
Boyhood's blest hours ! when yet unfledged and callow,
We prove those joys we never can retain,
In riper years with fond regret we hallow,
Like some sweet scene we never see again.
For youth — whate'er may be its petty woes :
Its trivial sorrows — disappointments — fears,
As on in haste life's wintry current flows —
Still claims, and still receives, its debt of tears.
Yes ! when, in grim alliance, grief and time
Silver our heads and rob our hearts of ease,
We gaze along the deeps of care and crime
To the far, fading shore of youth and peace ;
Each object that we meet the more endears
That rosy morn before a troubled day ;
That blooming dawn — that sunrise of our years —
That sweet voluptuous vision past away !
For by the welcome, tho' embittering power
Of wakeful memory, we too well behold
That lightsome — careless — unreturning hour,
Beyond the reach of wishes or of gold.
And ye, whom blighted hopes or passion's heat
Have taught the pangs that care-worn hearts endure,
Ye will not deem the vernal rose so sweet !
Ye will not call the driven snow so pure !
Happy boy, that for him, as he wrote these lines, there
still remained the light of sunrise and the rosy hue of
morn — that the sadness was only anticipated and the
pleasure at that moment enjoyed !
I have quoted these poems chiefly because of the index
they constitute of the state of the minds of the two youth-
ful authors. The Poems by Two Brothers plainly reveal
that Alfred and Charles Tennyson were conscious of their
gifts, and that if they had little knowledge of the world and
EARLY DAYS. 17
s ways, they at all events possessed in compensation an
Dtmdance of imagination. Their poems lack humanity
id, even in many cases, spontaneity. They were exer-
ses, tasks, and truly " lab'ring lines," and though the
<ecution of them was worthy, they remained inanimate
id dull. It is perhaps needless to record that the volume
ropped almost unheeded from the press. The Gentlemen's
lagasine for July 1827 contained a brief and kind critique,
. which the verse was commended as " promising." The
iterary Chronicle said the volume exhibited " a pleasing
lion of kindred tastes." Beyond that there was nothing,
ot until it was a relic was that little volume to become
easured and famous, and many years were to pass before
le two brothers were to " emerge from the shade," as in
Dyhood they had dreamed they might do. The literary
irtnership cemented the friendship between them. A
immunity of thought and likeness of temperament had
ready drawn them closely to each other, and how loving
id genuine their attachment was can be learned from the
;autiful tribute which was paid to Charles Tennyson in
1 Memoriam —
Thou and I are one in kind,
As moulded like in nature's mint ;
And hill and wood and field did print
The same sweet forms in either mind.
For us the same cold streamlet cuii'd
Thro' all his eddying coves ; the same
All winds that roam the twilight came
In whispers of the beauteous world.
At one dear knee we proffer'd vows,
One lesson from one book we learn'd,
Ere childhood's flaxen ringlet turn'd
To black and brown on kindred brows.
Charles Tennyson, under the name of Tennyson-Turner,
as yet to win renown as a sonneteer ; but of many happy
lys those were among the happiest when, with his poet-
•other, he roamed about the Lincolnshire wolds, or stood
/ his side listening to the roar of the northern sea.
CHAPTER II.
AT CAMBRIDGE: " TIMBUCTOO."
" Old wishes, ghosts of broken plans,
And phantom hopes assemble ;
And that child's heart within the man's
Begins to move and tremble.
" Thro' many an hour of summer suns,
By many pleasant ways,
Against its fountain upward runs
The current of my days :
I kiss the lips I once have kissed ;
The gas-light wavers dimmer ;
And softly thro' a vinous mist,
My college friendships glimmer."
— Will Waterproofs Lyrical Monologue.
The time came when the two brothers were to leave Lin-
colnshire for the first time. Frederick, the eldest of Dr
Tennyson's sons, had been for two years at Cambridge
University, where he had maintained the reputation won
at Eton for dexterity in Latin and Greek verse-writing. In
1828 Charles and Alfred Tennyson entered Trinity College,
an epoch-marking event in the lives of both. From sleepy,
out-of-the-world Somersby to the centre of intellectual
activity was a change which could not fail to leave its
impress upon the minds of the Lincolnshire rector's sons.
They arrived at Cambridge when, by fortuitous circum-
stances, there were gathered within the University a num-
ber of young men upon whom the seal of a high destiny
had been fixed. The magnetism which draws man to man,
and which causes them to seek their affinities, attracted
into one small circle the Tennysons, Richard Chenevix
Trench, Monckton Milnes (afterwards Lord Houghton, who
towards the close of his life meditated writing the Laureate's
AT CAMBRIDGE. 19
biography), William Makepeace Thackeray, George Ven-
ables (sometimes supposed to be the " George Warring-
ton " of Pendennis), James Spedding, J. M. Kemble, W. H.
Brookfield (" Old Brooks "), and Kinglake the historian.
But above and beyond these was Arthur Henry Hallam,
son of Hallam the historian, of Clevedon Court, Somerset,
who in October 1828 entered Trinity College, being then
in his eighteenth year. Undergraduate life was not a dull
and wearisome round of study, and these kindred spirits
found plenty of opportunity for communication. Tenny-
son was not a resident in the College — he lived first in
Rose Crescent and afterwards at Corpus Buildings — but
Hallam had a room within " the reverend walls," and there
the brilliant young men were wont to meet for interchange
of thought.
In 1829 a number of them were set in friendly competi-
tion for the Chancellor's gold medal for a poem, the subject,
oddly chosen, being Timbuctoo. Hallam and Monckton
Milnes were believed to stand the best chances of success,
and each was fairly confident of the prize. Milnes wrote
with pride to his father to say that his verses were
admired by his own friends, while Hallam boasted that he
had written " in a sovereign vein of poetic scorn for any-
body's opinion who did not value Plato and Milton." His
poem, which was afterwards published among his collected
works, is in the difficult terza rima of Dante. Alfred
Tennyson hung aloof from this contest, but urged by his
father to compete, he revised and adapted a poem on Arma-
geddon, finished some years before, and submitted it for
judgment. This poem was in blank verse, and Tennyson
thus overcame the obstacle of rhyme, which had been viewed
with consternation when the subject was first announced.
A protest had, indeed, been made that there was no rhyme
to Timbuctoo, but Thackeray with ready wit immediately
scribbled down the lines —
In the vale of Cassowary,
By the plain of Timbuctoo,
2o TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
There I ate a missionary,
Body, bones, and hymn-book, too. 1
In the Cambridge Chronicle and Journal of June 12, 1829,
the award was made known in the following words : —
" On Saturday last the Chancellor's gold medal for the
best English poem by a resident undergraduate was ad-
judged to Alfred Tennyson, of Trinity College." There
is a strange story related that Tennyson sent in two
Tzmbuctoos for the medal : one to please the examiners,
and one to satisfy himself, and it was the latter which won
the prize. 2 Sir George Trevelyan, in recording Macaulay's
failure to win the medal ten years before with his poem
Waterloo, somewhat bitterly remarks that " the opening
lines of Macaulay's exercise were pretty and simple enough
to ruin his chance in an academical competition." What
the cynic would have said to that peal of music with which
Tnnbuctoo opens, we can only conjecture. The poet
imagines himself surveying a vast and beautiful domain.
I stood upon the Mountain which o'erlooks
The narrow seas, whose rapid interval
Parts Afric from green Europe, when the Sun
Had fall'n below th' Atlantic, and above
The silent heavens were blench'd with faery light,
Uncertain whether faery light or cloud,
Flowing Southward, and the chasms of deep, deep blue
Slumbered unfathomable, and the stars
Were flooded over with clear glory and pale.
I gazed upon the^sheeny coast beyond,
There where the Giant of old Time infix'd
The limits of his prowess, pillars high
Long time erased from earth : even as the Sea
When weary of wild inroad buildeth up
Huge mounds whereby to stay his yeasty waves. 3
As he gazes upon the wondrous scene, "legends quaint
1 I^give the likeliest of several versions, one of which has been attributed to
Sidney Smith.
- Another story, perhaps the invention of an enemy, is that one of the
examiners marked on the MS. "v. q." (meaning "very queer "), and it was
mistaken for " v. g." ("very good").
3 Cf. " yeasty surges " in The Sailor Boy.
A T CAMBRIDGE.
and old " come to his mind, and he muses upon the time
when Atalantis was " a center'd glory-circled memory," and
when imperial Eldorado was a dream to which " men clung
with yearning hope which would not die."
As when in some great city where the walls
Shake, and the streets with ghastly faces thronged
Do utter forth a subterranean voice,
Among the inner columns far retired
At midnight, in the lone Acropolis,
Before the awful genius of the place
Kneels the pale Priestess in deep faith, the while
Above her head the weak lamp dips and winks
Unto the fearful summoning without :
Nathless she even clasps the marble knees,
Bathes the cold hand with tears, and gazeth on
Those eyes which wear no light but that wherewith
Her phantasy informs them.
The poet, too, finds the desire glowing within him to know
where the vanished splendours are. " The moonlight
halls," the " cedarn glooms," the " blossoming abysses " —
where are they?
Then I raised
My voice and cried, " Wide Afric, doth thy Sun
Lighten, thy hills enfold a city as fair
As those which starred the night o' the elder world ?
Or is the rumour of thy Timbuctoo
A dream as frail as those of ancient time ? "
There was " a curve of whitening, flashing, ebbing light,"
and a rustling of white wings, and a young Seraph stood
beside the questioner.
I looked, but not
Upon his face, for it was wonderful
With its exceeding brightness, and the light
Of the great Angel Mind which looked from out
The starry glowing of his restless eyes.
I felt my soul grow mighty, and my spirit
With supernatural excitation bound
Within me, and my mental eye grew large
With such a vast circumference of thought,
TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
That in my vanity I seemed to stand
Upon the outward verge and bound alone
Of full beatitude. Each failing sense,
As with a momentary flash of light,
Grew thrillingly distinct and keen. I saw
The smallest grain that dappled the dark earth,
The indistinctest atom in deep air.
The Moon's white cities, and the opal width
Of her small glowing lakes, her silver heights
Unvisited with dew of vagrant cloud,
And the unsounded, undescended depth
Of her black hollows. The clear galaxy
Shorn of its hoary lustre, wonderful,
Distinct and vivid with sharp points of light,
Blaze within blaze, an unimagined depth
And harmony of planet-girded suns
And moon-encircled planets, wheel in wheel,
Arched the wan sapphire. Nay— the hum of men
Or other things talking in unknown tongues,
And notes of busy life in distant worlds
Beat like a far wave on my anxious ear.
A marvellous description of mental doubt and perplexity
follows, and then the poet tells how his vision was cleared
and his thought uplifted until he felt " unutterable buoyancy
and strength " to penetrate " the trackless fields of un-
defined existence far and free." The mists passed away,
and in the clear light of a new morn he saw the enchanted
city of Timbuctoo.
Then first within the South methought I saw
A wilderness of spires, and crystal pile
Of rampart upon rampart, dome on dome,
Illimitable range of battlement
On battlement, and the Imperial height
Of canopy o'ercanopied.
Behind
In diamond light up spring the dazzling peaks
Of Pyramids, as far surpassing earth's
As heaven than earth is fairer. Each aloft
Upon his narrowed eminence bore globes
Of wheeling suns, or stars, or semblances
Of either, showering circular abyss
A T CAMBRIDGE.
Of radiance. But the glory of the place
Stood out a pillared front of burnished gold,
Interminably high, if gold it were
Or metal more ethereal, and beneath
Two doors of blinding brilliance, where no gaze
Might rest, stood open, and the eye could scan,
Through length of porch and valve and boundless hall,
Part of a throne of fiery flame, wherefrom
The snowy skirting of a garment hung,
And glimpse of multitude of multitudes
That ministered around it — if I saw
These things distinctly, for my human brain
Staggered beneath the vision, and thick night
Came down upon my eyelids, and I fell.
What the Seraph said to him when he had raised him
up is told in a luxury of language which afterwards was
found perfected in the Idylls of the King. The Spirit had
been sent to sway the heart of man and teach him " to
attain, by shadowing forth the Unattainable." It was he
who with every changing season played about the human
heart, visited man's eyes with visions, " and his ears With
harmonies of wind and wave and wood."
And few there be
So gross of heart who have not felt and known
A higher than they see : they with dim eyes
Behold me darkling. Lo I have given thee
To understand my presence, and to feel
My fullness : I have filled thy lips with power.
I have raised thee nigher to the spheres of heaven,
Man's first, last home : and thou with ravished sense
Listenest the lordly music flowing from
The illimitable years.
The Seraph, too, was the permeating life coursing
through the labyrinthine veins of fable, and with beautiful
impressiveness he told the mortal by his side the doom of
all things glorious and fair.
Child of man,
Seest thou yon river, whose translucent wave
Forth issuing from the darkness, windeth through
24 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
The argent streets o' the city, imaging
The soft inversion of her tremulous domes,
Her gardens frequent with the stately palm,
Her pagods hung with music of sweet bells,
Her obelisks of ranged chrysolite,
Minarets and towers ? Lo ! how he passeth by,
And gulphs himself in sands, as not enduring
To carry through the world those waves, which bore
The reflex of my city in their depths.
Oh city : oh latest throne ! where I was raised
To be a mystery of loveliness
Unto all eyes, the time is well-nigh come
When I must render up this glorious home
To keen Discovery : soon yon brilliant towers
Shall darken with the waving of her wand ;
Darken and shrink and shiver into huts,
Black specks amid a waste of dreary sand,
Low-built, mud-walled, barbarian settlements.
How changed from this fair city !
The poem, good as it is, must chiefly be regarded as an
omen. It was the true gold of morning — the opening of a
long and cloudless day. We could have wished that the
poet had seen fit to include Timbuctoo in his collected
works, but perhaps the incongruity of the subject made
him decide upon its exclusion rather than the defects of
treatment. Hallam and Milnes were among the first to
congratulate their friend upon his triumph, and John
Sterling or Frederic Maurice — it is not certain which —
hailed the dawning genius in the pages of the Athenceum.
After quoting a long passage the critic asked, " How many
men have lived for a century who could equal this ? " The
poem was printed for the first and last time with the
author's consent in the College Magazine ; but in the Ode
to Memory (" written very early in life," but first published
in 1830) two of the lines have been preserved —
Listening the lordly music flowing from
The illimitable years.
The Prize Poem was not to escape the cruel fate of
burlesque, and Thackeray's was the hand to inflict the
AT CAMBRIDGE. 25
blow. In The Snob an anonymous letter appeared with
an enclosure of verses, and the whole is so amusing and
good-natured that I cannot refrain from reproducing a
portion of the skit.
TO THE EDITOR OF "THE SNOB."
Sir, — Though your name be " Snob," I trust you will not refuse this
tiny Poem of a Gownsman, which was unluckily not finished on the
day appointed for the delivery of the several copies of verses on Tim-
buctoo. I thought, sir, it would be a pity that such a poem should be
lost to the world ; and, conceiving The Snob to be the most widely-
circulated periodical in Europe, I have taken the liberty of submitting
it for insertion or approbation. — I am, Sir, yours, &c.
TIMBUCTOO.
THE SITUATION.
In Africa (a quarter of the world),
Men's skins are black, their hair is crisp and curl'd,
And somewhere there, unknown to public view,
A mighty city lies, called Timbuctoo.
THE NATURAL HISTORY.
There stalks the tiger — there the lion roars
Who sometimes eats the luckless blackamoors ;
All that he leaves of them the monster throws
To jackals, vultures, dogs, cats, kites, and crows ;
His hunger thus the forest monster gluts,
And then lies down 'neath trees called cocoa nuts.
THE LION HUNT.
Quick issue out, with musket, torch, and brand !
The sturdy blackamoors, a dusky band !
The beast is found— pop go the musketoons—
The lion falls covered with horrid wounds.
THEIR LIVES AT HOME.
At home their lives in pleasure always flow,
But many have a different lot to know.
ABROAD.
They're often caught, and sold as slaves, alas !
REFLECTIONS ON THE FOREGOING.
Thus men from highest joys to sorrow pass.
Yet though thy monarchs and thy nobles boil
26 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
Rice and molasses in Jamaica's isle ;
Desolate Afric ! thou art lovely yet ! !
One heart yet beats that ne'er thee shall forget.
What though thy maidens are a blackish brown,
Does virtue dwell in whiter breasts alone?
Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no !
It shall not, must not, cannot, e'er be so.
The day shall come when Albion's self shall feel
Stern Afric's wrath, and writhe 'neath Afric's steel.
I see her tribes the hill of glory mount,
And sell their sugars on their own account ;
While round her throne the prostrate nations come,
Sue for her rice, and barter for her rum.
In one portion of his Timbuctoo Tennyson had supplied
an explanatory footnote — a habit to which he was greatly
addicted in his youth. Thackeray, not to be behind, sup-
plied voluminous explanations, such as : " Line I — The site
of Timbuctoo is doubtful ; the author has neatly expressed
this in the poem, at the same time giving us some slight
hints relative to its situation." " Lines 15 and 18 — A con-
cise but affecting description is here given of the domestic
habits of the people. . . . The author trusts the reader will
perceive the aptness with which he has changed his style.
When he narrated facts he was calm ; when he enters on
prophecy he is fervid."
Tennyson had the greatest objection to ridicule of this
sort, and it is not improbable that he resented Thackeray's
playfulness, though, happily, there was no break in their
friendly relations. As a proof of the poet's sensitiveness it
may be related that at a college symposium he read to his
assembled friends the lines on the Kraken, with the fine
conclusion that the monster will not emerge from the sea-
depths " until the latter fire shall heat the deep " —
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.
As the poet finished reading, one of the friends, more ribald
than the rest, exclaimed, " That will be a pretty kettle of
fish ! " Tennyson glared at the speaker in silence, and left
AT CAMBRIDGE. 27
the room. But at the next meeting he produced the poem
beginning —
Vex not thou the poet's mind
With thy shallow wit.
Those who remembered the preceding incident gave the
lines a personal application.
In the copy of Poems, by Alfred Tennyson, 1833, which
is in the Dyce Collection at South Kensington Museum, an
autograph manuscript is inserted containing the following
sonnet : —
Therefore your Halls, your ancient Colleges,
Your portals statued with old kings and queens,
Your gardens, myriad-volumed libraries,
Wax-lighted chapels, and rich-carven screens,
Your doctors, and your proctors, and your deans,
Shall not avail you, when the Day-beam sports
New risen o'er awakened Albion — No !
Nor yet your solemn organ-pipes that blow
Melodious thunders thro' your vacant courts
At morn and eve — because your manner sorts
Not with this age wherefrom ye stand apart —
Because the lips of little children preach
Against you, you that do profess to teach.
And teach us nothing, feeding not the heart.
There is a note appended to this which serves as comment
and explanation : — " I have a great affection for my old
university, and can only regret that this spirit of under-
graduate irritability against the Cambridge of that day
ever found its way into print." This note forbids further
reference to the subject.
There were to be many reminiscences of these college
days — life-long influences of friendship and of sorrow. The
poet had become as close a student of men and manners as
he had formerly been of nature. In volumes which the
future was to bring forth, his love and his scorn were to be
shown for those he knew, though it is gratifying to observe
that his love was for the many and his scorn for the few.
There are the touching lines of consolation to James
28 TEJVNYSOX: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
Spedding, and the stirring sonnet to J. M. Kemble, " a latter
Luther ; " the lines to " Old Brooks, who loved so well to
mouth my rhymes," and the masterly delineation of that
Character who
Canvass'd human mysteries,
And trod on silk, as if the winds
Blew his own praises in his eyes,
And stood aloof from other minds,
In impotence of fancied power.
Who was he ? What was the name of him who
With lips depress'd as he were meek,
Himself unto himself he sold ;
Upon himself himself did feed :
Quiet, dispassionate, and cold,
And other than his form of creed,
With chisell'd features clear ar.d sleek ?
The identity of this person has remained a mystery,
the nearest approach to a discovery being made when a
manuscript note appended by the late Master of Trinity
College to a copy of the poem was found to contain the
information that " the original was a certain eloquent
speaker at the Cambridge Union, of whose subsequent
career little or nothing is known." This is vague and
disappointing, and, like the fool's story, signifies nothing.
A short time ago a beautiful copy of the original edition
of Tennyson's Poems (1830) passed through my hands, and
turning to this poem I saw with astonishment the record
in faded ink, and in the Tennysonian caligraphy, that the
" Character " was none other than " Thomas Sunderland,
M.A. of Trinity College."
Those college-days were full of rare delight and profit.
Who would not have loved to hear Tennyson reading a
new poem, Kemble the " soldier-priest " advancing his
" cross-worded proof," Brookfield, the " man of humorous
melancholy mark," the " kindlier, trustier Jaques," uttering
his words of cheer, and Arthur Hallam drawing all to his
converse with
A T CAMBRIDGE.
Seraphic intellect and force
To seize and throw the doubts of man ;
Impassioned logic, which outran
The hearer in its fiery course ?
How inspiring it must have been to hear that " band of
youthful friends " holding debate on mind and art, labour
and state : —
When one would aim an arrow fair,
But send it slackly from the string ;
And one would pierce an outer ring,
And one an inner, here and there ;
And last the master-bowman, he
Would cleave the mark.
" So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more ! "
Brookfield, who remained a cherished friend of the
poet's, was a clergyman of the Church of England,
a distinguished preacher, Chaplain-in-Ordinary to the
Queen, and one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools.
He was especially favoured in his literary friendships. It
was at his death, in memory of these days, that the
Laureate wrote the sonnet beginning
Brooks, for they calPd you so that knew you best,
Old Brooks, who loved so well to mouth my rhymes,
How oft we two have heard St Mary's chimes !
How oft the Cantab supper, host and guest,
Would echo helpless laughter to your jest !
In later years his friends included many names famous
in the ranks of literature— Carlyle, Kinglake, Lord
Houghton. Miss Thackeray (Mrs Richie) wrote to Lord
Lyttleton that Mr Brookfield was the " Frank Whitestock "
of her father's sketch, The Curate's Walk.
No marvel is it that the doings of those Cambridge
days passed into a cherished memory, that the " dawn-
golden times " lost none of their radiance or beauty as
they were pushed further back into the past. Alfred
3o TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
Tennyson, who, like Thackeray, left without taking his
degree, on one ever-memorable occasion returned to
Cambrid
ge-
I past beside the reverend walls
In which of old I wore the gown ;
I roved at random thro' the town,
And saw the tumult of the halls ;
And heard once more in college fanes
The storm their high-built organs make,
And thunder-music, rolling, shake
The prophets blazon'd on the panes ;
And caught once more the distant shout,
The measured pulse of racing oars
Among the willows ; paced the shores
And many a bridge, and all about
The same gray flats again, and felt
The same, but not the same ; and last
Up that long walk of limes I past
To see the rooms in which he dwelt.
Another name was on the door :
CHAPTER III.
A LYRICAL PRELUDE.
" What be those crown'd forms high over the sacred fountain?
Bards, that the mighty Muses have raised to the heights of the mountain,
And over the flight of the Ages ! O Goddesses, help me up thither !
Lightning may shrivel the laurel of Caesar, but mine would not wither.
Steep is the mountain, but you, you will help me to overcome it,
And stand with my head in the zenith, and roll my voice from the summit,
Sounding for ever and ever thro' Earth and her listening nations,
And mixt with the great Sphere— music of stars and of constellations."
— Parnassus.
ONE of those apocryphal stories, usually related of men
of mark, is to the effect that Alfred Tennyson as a little
boy was asked what he would like to be when he grew up.
" A poet ! " said the child. However much we may be in-
clined to doubt the fact, there is no escape from the con-
clusion that Xgnnyson as a young man had no serious aims
of earning_a_liyelihood. Even in his day, when poetry was
more in demand, and when it was something of a market-
able commodity, no one with a practical mind could have
thought it possible to obtain a satisfactory revenue from
this source. Dr Tennyson was not a rich man, and with
his large family could not have saved money, so that it
seemed a pressing necessity for the elder sons to choose a
business or profession. Charles entered the Church, but
Alfred, after leaving College, had apparently no definite
plans. He had written in 1827-8 The Lover's Tale, which
had been privately printed in 1833 and suppressed, the
author " contenting himself with giving a few copies away."
Thomas Powell, the author of a book on English writers,
thinks the poem " decidedly unworthy " of Tennyson's
reputation at that time — a lamentably rash judgment. Of
32 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
this poem Arthur Hallam possessed a copy, and as the
whole piece was republished in 1879, its merits may be
judged by readers for themselves. It is sufficient to relate
in Tennyson's own words under what circumstances the
long-concealed poem was brought into the light. "The
original Preface to The Lover's Tale" he wrote, " states that
it was composed in my nineteenth year. Two only of the
three parts then written were printed, when, feeling the
imperfection of the poem, I withdrew it from the press.
One of my friends, however, who, boy-like, admired the
boy's work, distributed among our common associates of
that hour some copies of those two parts, without my
knowledge, without the omissions and amendments which I
had in contemplation, and marred by the many misprints
of the compositor. Seeing that those two parts have of
late been mercilessly pirated, and that what I had deemed
scarce worthy to live was not allowed to die, may I not be
pardoned if I suffer the whole poem at last to come into
the light, accompanied with a reprint of the sequel — a
work of my mature life— The Golden Supper ? " It is worth
noting here that The Lover's Talc supplied one line to
Timbuctoo — "A center'd, golden-circled memory" — early
evidence of the poet's economy. The author of Tennysoni-
ana has pointed out that this early work of the Laureate's
bears some resemblance to Browning's Pauline, which was
also published in 1833. The Berenice of Edgar Allen Poe
also treats of the same subject in a more sensational man-
ner. The Lovers Talc was to have been included in the
volume of 1833, and part of it was in type when Tennyson
again decided that it was unworthy in its present condi-
tion to see the light.
At College, as we have seen, Tennyson was in the habit
of reading his poems to a select circle of companions. It
was on one such occasion that Alford, afterward Dean of
Canterbury, heard "some very exquisite poetry of his en-
titled The Hespe rides." The enthusiasm of his friends may
have finally decided the poet on his course, and the judg-
A LYRICAL PRELUDE. 33
ment of Hallam, who was one of his warmest admirers, no
doubt largely influenced him. With this friend he had
journeyed under romantic circumstances to the Pyrenees,
the object of the two zealous youths being to carry succour
to the patriots engaged in a struggle for liberty in Spain.
Mrs Ritchie, who has special information of this incident in
the poet's life, tells a strange story of how, when Tennyson
and Hallam were taking money and letters written in in-
visible ink to certain conspirators who were then revolting
against the intolerable tyranny of Ferdinand, they met,
among others, a Senor Ojeda, who confided to Alfred his
intentions, which were to couper la gorge a tons les cures.
Senor Ojeda could not talk English or fully explain all his
aspirations. " Mais vous connaissez mon cceur," said he,
effusively. "And a pretty black one it is," thought the
poet. The friends were soon convinced that the patriots
were too bloodthirsty to be pleasant companions, so they
took their departure. But two and thirty years later,
when Tennyson saw again the valleys and the flashing
streams, the memory of that time rose up, and
All along the valley, by rock and cave and tree,
The voice of the dead was a living voice to me.
The journey ended prematurely, but left Tennyson un-
exhausted. He was at this time, according to Edward
Fitzgerald, " a man at all points of grand proportion and
feature, significant of that inward chivalry becoming his
ancient and honourable race," and he determined to expend
his superfluous energy in a walking tour through Wales. We
learn that he went one day into a little wayside inn, where
an old man sat by the fire, who looked up, and asked many
questions. " Are you from the army ? Not from the
army ! Then where do you come from ? " said the old
man. "I am just come from the Pyrenees," said Alfred.
" Ah, I knew there was a something," said the wise old man.
About this time Tennyson and Hallam had decided to
issue a volume of their poems jointly, but Hallam's father
34 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
did not favour the project. Consequently, in the year 1830,
a small but well-printed volume made its appearance with
the title, " Poems, chiefly Lyrical. By Alfred Tennyson."
The 154 pages contained fifty-three poems, only thirty of
which were preserved, though, in the latest authorised
edition of the Laureate's works, Supposed Confessions of a
Second-rate Sensitive Mind not in unity with itself, and
Leonine Elegiacs have been restored. Among the best-
known poems which this volume contained were the series
of portraits — Lilian, Isabel, Madeline, and Adeline ; The
Merman and The Mermaid, the Recollections of the Arabian
Nights, the Ode to Memory, Oriana, The Sea-Fairies, and
T/i£ Dying Swan. The volume was received with a chorus
of praise. Coleridge, in his "Table Talk" of April 18,
1830, wrote, "Tennyson's sonnets, such as I have seen,
have many of the characteristic excellencies of those of
Wordsworth and Southey." Arthur Hallam, as might be
expected, found much to applaud, and singling out the
Supposed Confessions (to the lumbering title he objected),
he declared that it was " full of deep insight into human
nature, and into those particular trials which are sure to
beset men who think and feel for themselves at this epoch
of social development." Leigh Hunt thought the poem
might have been written by Crashaw " in a moment of
scepticism, had he possessed vigour enough"; and a much
later critic, after subjecting the poem to minute analysis,
has declared, " It is a fine poem, at whatever period it was
written." Few of the other pieces in the volume were such
a mixture of religion and metaphysics, and the judgment
of John Stuart Mill upon the book stands forth as the
most discerning and impartial of the time. In the West-
minster Review he wrote —
" That these poems will have a very rapid and extensive popularity
we do not anticipate. Their originality will prevent their being
generally appreciated for a time. But that time will come, we hope,
to a not far distant end. They demonstrate the possession of powers,
to the future direction of which we look with some anxiety. A genuine
A LYRICAL PRELUDE.
35
poet has deep responsibilities to his country and the world, to the
present and future generations, to earth and heaven. He, of all men,
should have distinct and worthy objects before him, and consecrate
himself to their promotion. It is thus that he best consults the
glory of his art, and his own lasting fame. Mr- Tennyson has a
dangerous quality in that facility of impersonation on which we have
remarked, and by which he enters so thoroughly into the most strange
and wayward idiosyncracies of other men. It must not degrade him
into a poetical harlequin. He has higher work to do than thatof
disporting hims elf amongst ' mystics and ' flowing philosophers .' He
knows that ' the poet's mind is holy ground,' he knows that the poet's
portion is to be
Dower' d with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,
The love of love.
He has shown, in the lines from which we quote, his own just concep-
tion of the grandeur of a poet's destiny ; and we look to him for its
fulfilment. It is not for such men to sink into mere verse-makers for
the amusement of themselves or others. They can influence the
associations of unnumbered minds ; they can command the sympathies
of unnumbered hearts ; they can disseminate principles ; they can
excite in a good cause the sustained enthusiasm that is sure to conquer ;
they can blast the laurels of the tyrants, and hallow the memories of
the martyrs of patriotism ; they can act with a force the extent of which
it is difficult to estimate, upon national feelings and character, and
consequently upon national happiness. If our estimate of Mr Tenny-
son be correct, he too is a poet ; and many years hence may be read
his juvenile description of that character, with the proud consciousness
that it has become the description and history of his own work."
This candid but complimentary criticism was followed
by one of twelve pages in the Englishman's Magazine,
penned by Hallam, and bearing the daring title " On some
of the Characteristics of Modern Poetry, and on the Lyrical
Poems of Alfred Tennyson." Part of this glorious tribute
deserves to find its place here : — "Alfred Tennyson," wrote
Hallam,
" has yet written little and published less ; but in these
'preludes of a loftier strain' we recognise the inspiring
God. Mr Tennyson belongs decidedly to the class we have
already described as Poets of Sensation. He sees all the forms
of nature with the ' eruditus oculas,' and his ear has a fairy fineness.
36 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
There is a strange earnestness in his worship of beauty which throws
a charm over his impassioned song, more easily felt than described,
and not to be escaped by those who have once felt it. We
think he has more definiteness and soundness of general conception
than the late Mr Keats, and is much more free from blemishes of
diction and hasty capriccios of fancy. He has also this advantage
over that poet and his friend Shelley, that he comes before the public
unconnected with any political party or peculiar system of opinions.
Nevertheless, true to the theory we have stated, we believe his partici-
pation in their characteristic excellences is sufficient to secure him a
share of their unpopularity. The volume of 'Poems, chiefly Lyrical,'
does not contain above one hundred and fifty-four pages ; but it shows
us much more of the character of its parent mind, than many books
we have known of much larger compass, and more boastful preten-
sions. The features of original genius are clearly and strongly marked.
The author imitates nobody ; we recognise the spirit of his age, but
not the individual form of this or that writer. His thoughts bear no
more resemblance to Byron or Scott, Shelley or Coleridge, than to
Homer or Calderon, Furdusi or Calidasa. We have remarked five
distinctive excellences of his own manner. First, his lux uriance of
imagination, and, at the same ti me, his control over i t. Secondly, his
power _of_embodying Jumself in ideal charactervor-jrather moods of
character, with such extreme accuracy of adjustm ent, that the circu m-
stances of the narrative seem to have a natural correspondericejwith
the_jn-eiLominant feeling, and as it were, to be evolved from it by
assimilative force. Thirdly, his vivid, jaicturesque delineation of
objects, and the peculiar skill with which he holds all of them fused,
to borrow_a metaphor froxCL-Science, in a mediunij)f_strong emotion.
Fourthly, the variety of his lyrical measures and exquisite modulation
ofharmonious words and cadences to the swell and fall of the feelings
expressed. Fifthly, the elevated habits of thought, implied in these
compositions, "andT importing a mellow soberness of tone, more im-
pressive^jto our-Jnin.ds^JJian itlhe^author had drawn up a set of
opinions jn^erj^e^_and--souglaLJjQ_inatruct the understanding rather
than to communicate the love of beauty to the heart."
Soon after the appearance of this article the Englishman's
Magazine ceased to appear, and it was this fact which
enabled Professor Wilson — " Christopher North " — to insert
an additional sting in his famous review in Blackwood.
" The Englishman s Magazine','' he said, " ought not to have
died, for it threatened to be a very pleasant periodical.
An essay ' On the Genius of Alfred Tennyson ' sent it to
A LYRICAL PRELUDE,
37
the grave. The superhuman — nay, supernatural — pom-
posity of that one paper incapacitated the whole work
for living one day longer in this unceremonious world.
The solemnity with which the critic approached the object
of his adoration, and the sanctity with which he laid his
offerings on the shrine, were too much for our irreligious
age. The ' Essay on the Genius of Alfred Tennyson '
awoke a general guffaw, and it expired in convulsions. Yet
the essay was exceedingly well written, as well as if it had
been on ' The Genius of Sir Isaac Newton.' Therein lay
the mistake. Sir Isaac discovered the law of gravitation ;
Alfred had but written some pretty verses, and mankind
were not prepared to set him among the stars. But that
he has genius is proved by his being at this moment alive ;
for had he not, he must have breathed his last under that
critique. The spirit of life must indeed be strong within
him ; for he has outlived a narcotic dose administered to
him by a crazy charlatan in the Westminster, and after
that he may sleep in safety with a pan of charcoal."
This ominous note of warning prepared Tennyson for
the reception which his next volume might expect in
certain quarters. Nearly three years elapsed, however,
before the second volume made its appearance. His was
not the mind to reel under buffets however rude. He knew
with Wordsworth that " every author, as far as he is great
and at the same time original, has the task of creating the
taste by which he is enjoyed : so has it been, so will it
continue to be. . . . The predecessors of an original genius
of a high order will have smoothed the way for all that he has
in common with them, and much he will have in common ;
but for what is peculiarly his own he will be called upon
to clear and often to shape his own road ; he will be in the
condition of Hannibal among the Alps." 1 Little could the
veteran Laureate have known, when he penned those words,
how exactly they applied to the man who was to succeed
him.
Dr Tennyson was to know almost nothing of the ripening
1 Essay on Poetry.
38 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
greatness of his son. He died on March 18th, 183 1, at the
age of fifty-two, and was buried in the little Churchyard
opposite the old home. Not long afterwards the brother
of James Spedding died, and Tennyson, "flowing in words"
towards his bereaved College friend, was able tenderly
to touch upon his own loss.
'Tis strange that those we lean on most,
Those in whose laps our limbs are nursed,
Fall into shadow, soonest lost :
Those we love first are taken first.
God gives us love. Something to love
He lends us ; but, when love is grown
To ripeness, that on which it throve
Falls off, and love is left alone .
This is the curse of time. Alas !
In grief I am not all unlearn'd ;
Once thro' mine own doors Death did pass ;
One went, who never hath return'd.
He will not smile — not speak to me
Once more. Two years his chair is seen
Empty before us. That was he
Without whose life I had not been.
This poem was the last of thirty pieces which formed the
volume dated 1833, published by Edward Moxon. The
more noted of the compositions are The Lady of SJialott
(since entirely revised), Mariana in the South, Elcanore,
The Miller's Daughter, Ginone, The Palace of A rt, The May
Queen, The Lotos-Eaters, and A Dream of Fair Women.
Among suppressed poems were The Hesperides, Rosalind,
O Darling Room, and To Christopher North. The publi-
cation of this volume secured for the poet the recognition of
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and oneof the heaviest castigations
on record from the Quarterly Review. Coleridge showed
himself fully aware of the faults as well as the merits of the
young poet, and in reading the criticisms of that time one
must remember that many of the original versions of the
now justly esteemed poems were very different to those
A LYRICAL PRELUDE. 39
now read. Weak lines appeared which have since been
strengthened; awkward words and phrases were actual
blemfshes, and in some cases whole verses, now omitted,
detracted from the effect. For example, four introductory
stanzas to A Dream of Fair Women, contained an image
which is only once removed from the ridiculous—
As when a man, that sails in a balloon,
Downlooking sees the solid shining ground
Stream from beneath him in the broad blue noon-
Tilth, hamlet, mead, and mound :
And takes his flags and waves them to the mob,
That shout below, all faces turned to where
Glows rubylike the far-up crimson globe,
Filled in a finer air :
So, lifted high, the Poet at his will
Lets the great world flit from him, seeing all,
Higher thro' secret splendours mounting still,
Self-poised, nor fears to fall,
Hearing apart the echoes of his fame.
While I spoke thus, the seedsman, memory,
Sowed my deep-furrowed thought with many a name,
Whose glory will not die.
Only the last three lines are worthy of preservation.
Again, the original introductory stanza to The Millers
Daughter was —
I met in all the close green ways,
While walking with my line and rod,
The wealthy miller's mealy face,
Like the moon in an ivy tod.
He looked so jolly and so good-
While fishing in the milldam water,
I laughed to see him as he stood,
And dreamt not of the miller's daughter.
Taking these as specimens of the poet's shortcomings,
we can understand Coleridge's reserve of praise when he
wished to be friendly, and the Quarterly reviewer's excess
of blame when he wished to be hostile. Writing in April
1833, the author of Christabel said—
4o TEXNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
" I have not read through all Mr Tennyson's poems, which have
been sent to me ; but I think there are some things of a good deal of
beauty in what I have seen. The misfortune is, that he has begun to
write verses without very well understanding what metre is. Even if
you write in a known and approved metre, the odds are, if you are
not a metrist yourself, that you will not write harmonious verses ; but
to deal in new metres without considering what metre means and re-
quires, is preposterous.
" What I would, with many wishes for success, prescribe to Tenny-
son, — indeed without it he can never be a poet in act, — is to write for
the next two or three years in none but one or two well-known and
strictly-defined metres, such as the heroic couplet, the octave stanza,
or the octosyllabic measure in Allegro and Penseroso. He would,
probably, thus get imbued with a sensation, if not a sense, of metre
without knowing it, just as Eton boys get to write such good Latin
verses by conning Ovid and Tibullus. As it is, I can scarcely scan
his verses/'
But there was one man who had early recognised all the
inherent power of the young poet. " Some of our readers,
we would fain hope," wrote Charles Kingsley in Eraser's
Magazine in 1850, "remember, as an era in their lives, the
first day on which they read those earlier poems ; how,
fifteen years ago, Mariana in the Moated Grange, TJie
Dying Swan, The Lady of Shalott, came to them as revela-
tions. They seemed to themselves to have found at last a
poet who promised not only to combine the cunning melody
of Moore, the rich fullness of Keats, and the simplicity of
Wordsworth, but one who was introducing a method of
observing nature different from that of all the three, and
yet succeeding in everything which they had attempted,
often in vain." Those who write of Tennyson's early
poems now can only repeat these opinions and confirm
these impressions.
"Alfred Tennyson," wrote Bayard Taylor in May 1877, when he
was able to look back upon these early efforts, and trace the poet's
progress from a promising beginning to assured success, "must be
classed among the most fortunate poets of all time. He discovered
the true capacities of his genius while still in the first freshness and
ardour of youth, overcame doubt and hostile criticism before his
prime, and has already lived to see his predominant influence upon
A LYRICAL PRELUDE. 4 ,
the poetic literature of his day. Whatever judgment may be passed
upon his work, his position and influence are beyond dispute. Pos-
terity may take away a portion of what he has received, but cannot
give him more. We have as yet but little knowledge of his life from
the age of twenty-two to thirty-two ; but that very fact indicates that
this period was marked by no serious vicissitudes of fortune. As far
as the world knows, his days have preserved a singularly even tenor.
What emotional experiences, what periods of spiritual anxiety and
suffering, he has passed through we do not know, and do not need to
know ; but for thirty years we have seen him moderately prosperous
in external circumstances, and leading a quiet life of surrender to his
art. Compared with the resounding platitudes of Heber and Milman,
his poems express an independence of conception remarkable in one
so young. In fact, the lines —
Divinest Atlantis, whom the waves
Have buried deep, and thou of later name,
Imperial Eldorado, roofed with gold ;
Shadows to which, despite all shocks of change,
All onset of capricious accident,
Men clung with yearning hope which would not die, —
might have been written at any later period of his life. They illustrate
the first distinct characteristic of his genius — an exquisitely luxurious
sense of the charms of sound and rhythm, based upon an earnest, if
not equal, capacity for sober thought and reflection. These two
elements co-existed in Tennyson's mind, but were not developed in
the same proportion, and are not always perfectly fused in his poetry.
Take away either, and the half of his achievement, falling, leaves the
other half utterly insecure. The aim of his life has been to correct
and purify a power which he possessed almost in excess at the start,
and to add to its kindred and necessary power by all the aids of study
and science. The volume of 1832-3 is a remarkable advance in every
respect. We see that indifference or ridicule has been powerless to
stay the warm, opulent, symmetrical growth of his best powers. In
the Lady of Shalott, CEnone, the Lotos-Eaters, the Palace of Art, and
the Dream of Fair Women, we reach almost the level of his later
achievement. In some of these the conception suffices to fill out the
metrical form ; the exquisite elaboration of detail is almost prescribed
by the subject ; and the luxuries of sound and movement, while not
diminished, are made obedient to an intelligent melodic law. Rarely
has a young man of twenty-two written such poetry or justified such
large predictions of his future. We may conjecture that more was
written in these years than he has preserved, for when we reach
the volume of 1842, we find every former characteristic of his verse
42 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
heightened and purified, not changed. Only a sportive element,
which does not quite reach the humorous, is introduced ; it is another
chord of the same strain. The fastidious care with which every
image was wrought, every bar of the movement adjusted to the next
and attuned to the music of all, every epithet chosen for point, fresh-
ness, and picturesque effect, every idea restrained within the limits of
close and clear expression, — these virtues, so intimately fused, became
a sudden delight for all lovers of poetry, and for a time affected their
appreciation of its more unpretending and artless forms."
The indiscretion of youthful friends was directly respons-
ible for the ferocious onslaught on Tennyson in the-
Quarterly Review. He had been over-praised at one time,
and now he was to be over-censured. Looking calmly and
dispassionately at the volumes of 1830 and 1833, noting
both the strength and the weakness of the poems, observ-
ing the faults — faults which the poet's subsequent emenda-
tions show he became conscious of — I cannot honestly
declare that the Quarterly strictures were unjustified. They
were severe to cruelty, and not altogether discriminating,
and, as it happened, the sinister prophecies of the critic
were unfulfilled. But the praise lavished by too-ardent
admirers upon Alfred Tennyson was more likely to injure
him than the remorseless exposure of his demerits. It was
the custom in the old " slogging " days to use the sledge-
hammer for crushing butterflies, and the " hang, draw, and
Quarterly " had become specially notorious owing to its
attack on Keats. But Tennyson, after reading the pitiless
satire of the reviewer (supposed to be none other than the
editor, Lockhart), might have thought much the same as
Disraeli in Tancred : "Failure is nothing; it may be
deserved or it may be remedied ; in the first instance it
brings self-knowledge ; in the second it develops a new
combination, usually triumphant."
A copy of the famous critique lies before me as I write.
It abounds in scornful epithets and satiric phrases. The
reviewer adopted the good old-fashioned plan of publishing
every weak line and drawing attention to its defects, easily
distinguishable or otherwise. He ridiculed the sentiments,
A LYRICAL PRELUDE.
43
burlesqued the mannerisms, and did his utmost to make
bad worse. " Our task," he began, " will be little more
than the selection, for our readers' delight, of a few speci-
mens of Mr Tennyson's singular genius, and the venturing
to point out, now and then, the peculiar brilliancy of some
of the gems that irradiate his poetical crown." The "few
selections " consisted of copious extracts from nearly every
poem in the volume. Immaturity and inexperience were
no doubt responsible for the blemishes, the want of accuracy,
the occasional false notes and the imperfect images of the
early poems. Thus, when he wrote in a Dream of Fair
Women of Iphigenia —
One drew a sharp knife through my slender throat
Slowly, mid nothing more,
the poet exposed himself to the critic's gibe : " What
touching simplicity — what pathetic resignation — he cut my
throat — ' nothing more ! ' One might indeed ask what more
she would have ? "
Tennyson never forgave the critics, and to the end of his
life he could not tolerate strictures. It is related that a
promising poet presented his book to Tennyson, accom-
panying it with a letter expressing admiration of his
genius. For reply, the Laureate returned him a cutting
from a newspaper of no recent date, embodying the epitome
of a lecture on one of the Idylls given by the younger poet,
containing some adverse criticisms. " I am like a traveller
in a lonely desert," said Tennyson ; " when suddenly there
appears on the horizon a figure which shoots an arrow that
reaches me, enters the flesh, and remains there. Although
the wound is small, 'tis a smart I cannot forget." To "in-
dolent reviewers," " irresponsible, indolent reviewers " of
" blatant magazines," he dedicated his Experiment in
hendecasyllabics ; in Sea Dreams he declared —
He had never kindly heart,
Nor ever cared to better his own kind,
Who first wrote satire, with no pity in it ;
44 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
and in The Sisters the poet tells how
The critic's blurring comment makes
The veriest beauties of the work appear
The darkest faults. 1
But he profited by criticism, and to what extent was seen
when, in 1 842, after an almost unbroken silence of nine years,
he issued in two volumes his " Poems." In the meantime
he had almost disappeared from public life. The shadow
of his life-sorrow had enveloped him, and only once or
twice had he emerged from his retirement to give the
world a sonnet or such stanzas as Oh, that 'twere possible
and St Agnes. " He moves on his way," said William
Howitt, " heard, but by the public, unseen. Many an
admiring man may have said, with Solomon, ' I have
sought him, but I could not find him ; I called him, but he
answered not.' If you want a popular poet, you know
pretty well where to look for him ; but in few of those
places will you find Alfred Tennyson. You may hear his
voice, but where is the man ? He is wandering in some
dreamland,* beneath the shade of old and charmed forests,
by far-off shores, where
All night
The plunging seas draw backward from the land
Their moon-led waters white ;
by the old mill-dam, thinking of the merry miller and his
pretty daughter ; or he is wandering over the open wolds,
where
Norland whirlwinds blow.
From all these places — from the silent corridor of an
ancient convent ; from some shrine where a devoted knight
recites his vows ; from the drear monotony of the moated
grange, or the ferny forest, beneath the ' talking oak ' —
comes the voice of Tennyson, rich, dreamy, passionate, yet
not impatient ; musical with the airs of chivalrous ages,
yet mingling in his songs the theme and the spirit of
1 See also Poets and Critics in the last volume, The Death of (Enone.
A LYRICAL PRELUDE.
4 5
those which are yet to come." We have it on the author-
ity of Frederick Tennyson, the eldest brother, that so careless
was the poet at this time, that he lost the whole of the
manuscript of his volume, and had to re-write all the poems
from memory. These poems, now gathered under the
head of Juvenilia, found immediate favour with the public
and the critics alike. At a bound he had surpassed most
of the singers of the day. Such poems as A Dream of Fair
Women, CEnone, Tlie Lotos-Eaters, and The Palace of Art,
with their delicious cadences, their dreamy sensuousness,
and their suffusion of exquisite colour, were at once a
revelation and an enchantment. The song-like stanzas
had haunting melodies ; the very words seemed to sparkle
to the eye ; a sense of luxury and rest was borne on the
languorous lines. There had been nothing like this since
the music-laden verses of the Faery Queen gushed from
the soul of Edmund Spenser, and the consummate art of
the new poet could not fail to obtain instant acknowledg-
ment. Among new poems were the Morte d Arthur, The
Gardeners Daughter, St Simeon Stylites, The Talking Oak,
Ulysses, Lockslcy Hall, The Two Voices, and The Golden Year
— all " preludes of a loftier strain." Wordsworth at once
declared, " He is decidedly the first of our living poets,"
and, we may almost take it, saluted his successor. In
those days what a spell the burst of harmony exercised,
what new emotions it stirred !
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies
Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes ;
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.
All Tennyson's poetry is such music, bearing with it an un-
dercurrent of mystical and deep feeling. Who can read the
Lotos-Eaters without seeming to hear the drowsy, murmur-
ous phantom-song that " softer falls Than petals from blown
roses on the grass"? or without seeming to feel the breath
of elfin-winds, when "All round the coast the languid air
46 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
did swoon, Breathing like one that hath a weary dream "?
Even nature is hushed and motionless —
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon,
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream
Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.
Then follows this exquisite verse, with its metrical cadence
and soft syllabic flow of words, descriptive of the strange
enchanted land in which the mild-eyed melancholy lotos-
eaters dwelt —
A land of streams ! some, like a downward smoke,
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn did go ;
And some thro' wavering lights and shadows broke,
Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.
They saw the gleaming river seaward flow
From the inner land : far off, three mountain-tops,
Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,
Stood sunset- flush'd : and, dew'd with showery drops,
Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.
This is the real lotos-music — thin, subtile, dreamy, yet how
wonderfully rich and sweet ! Tennyson fits the melody to
the theme, and his art in onomatopoeia is unexcelled. He
is a master of expression and harmony. His first produc-
tions were melodies in words. Claribel is only a combina-
tion of sweet sounds ; Sea-Fairies is a susurrant wave-like
song, beautiful and alluring, but with no more significance
than the rhythm of the sea ; the Merman and the Mermaid,
companion poems, are suggestive as the murmuring in sea-
shells, and mimic in metre the pulsation of restless waters :
but in none of them is stored the little crystal of thought
to make them more than idle melodies. These were the
notes ringing in the heart of a young man in whose bosom
music in all its power and grandeur was throbbing and
surging like a full tide. The sonnets of Charles Tennyson
also reveal his passionate love of melody and song —
We must have music while we languish here,
Loud music, to annul our spirits' strife,
To make the soul with pleasant fancies rife,
And soothe the stranger from another sphere.
A LYRICAL PRELUDE. 47
The minor poems of Alfred Tennyson belong to four
classes — song, narrative, fancy, sentiment — the products of
various moods, the " random sport of sun and shade." Just
as his music haunts the listener, so do the vividness and
beauty of his pictures enchant the sight. One can never
read Tennyson's poems without a refrain lingering in the
mind or a vision forming before the eyes. In those eight
lines We are Free, light as the breeze, the very words seem
to tinkle and chime, to rise in refrain, to subside in a
murmur. Sometimes the cadence falls into a minor key,
as in that half-wailing poem —
Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,
Thy tribute wave deliver :
No more by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.
A thousand suns will stream on thee,
A thousand moons will quiver :
But not by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.
There is that world-famous lyric, too, familiar to every
heart, which for pregnancy of thought, wealth of sugges-
tion, and undefinable tenderness, is unmatched. It consists
of sixteen lines, each a bar of music — a prelude, a theme, a
passionate burst of agony, a closing cry of anguish and
despair. The poem can scarcely be read in silence and
alone without tears.
Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O sea !
And I would that I could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
O well for the fisherman's boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play !
O well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay !
And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill ;
But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still !
48 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, sea !
But the tender grace of a day that is dead,
Will never come back to me.
In these lines one sees the poet bowed down with an
unnamed woe, watching the continual roll and rush of
waters, hearing anon the laughter of heedless youth, catch-
ing the echoes of a song that speeds over the waves. He
views the disappearing ships as one by one they cross the
line and pass to their haven. Then swells up in the heart
of the mourner a vain hope, a passionate yearning, an all-
consuming desire, to feel once more the touch of a vanished
hand, to hear again the sound of a voice that is still. And
the monotonous waves rise and break and fall impotently
on the stony beach, they exhaust their strength against
the crags : and the despair of truth seizes on the poet's
heart, shutting out every comfort and hope —
The tender grace of a day that is dead,
Will never come back to me.
In many other examples it could be shown how the
poet in these early volumes touched various chords — how
by the happy blending of notes he produced the most
beautiful of effects — how, in Claribel, words broke into
melody, the theme deepening, and then, as if the pedals of
an instrument had been pressed, softening again and ceasing
on the repetition of the first line.
In narrative he had equal skill. Two verses sufficed to
condense all the story of King Cophetua and the Beggar
Maid. It would be impossible to compress the details into
smaller compass, and this poem — which appeared in a later
volume — may be taken as representative of the narrative
style to which Oriana, The Sisters, Lady Clare, the English
Idylls, and even Enoch Arde?i belong. The poet himself
spoke of his own " deep-chested music " while modestly
decrying the worth of his " faint Homeric echoes " ; but the
force, vigour, concentrated strength, and measured power of
A LYRICAL PRELUDE.
49
the style he made his own attest to the genuine merit which
that style possesses. It was not long before his flashed-
out thoughts, his single-line aphorisms, and his couplets
stored with grains of philosophic truth, began to be " current
coin " — the surest sign of acceptability and worth. The
story of The Miller's Daughter won the ear of the Queen,
but perhaps Locksley Hall exercised the greatest influence
and charm over the majority of the poet's admirers. The
splendid passion of the hero, the subtle touches, the alter-
nate scorn and sorrow, produce an emotion which is hard
to define and can never again be wholly suppressed.
Charles Kingsley wrote — " In saying that Locksley Hall has
deservedly had so great an influence over the minds of the
young, we shall, we are afraid, have offended some who are
accustomed to consider that poem as Werterian and un-
healthy. But, in reality, the spirit of the poem is simply
anti-Werterian. It is man rising out of sickness into
h pa Ij^v—nnf^rnn rniereri b y Werteris m, but ron quering Jiis
selfish go^w J __and_the_jTi oral and intellectu al ^ paralysi s
which itproduces, by faith and hope — faith jn the p rogress
of. science and civilisation, hope in the fin a^ triumph of
good? PerEaps I"lnay be pardoned a personal note~Th
"regard to this poem. I was but a boy, just beginning to feel
the stirring of hope and prompting of ambition some twelve
years ago, when a volume of Tennyson's poems was first
put into my hands. By a happy chance I turned to Locks-
ley Hall, and never shall I forget the thrill, the ecstasy,
with which I read and re-read the passionate lines until
they seemed to burn themselves into my memory. New
feelings of ardour were aroused in me, my mind seemed
to open to splendid revelations, and I realised the intense
truth of Keats's declaration on first "looking into" Chap,
man's Homer —
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken.
How are we to account for the magic influence of
D
50 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
Locksley Hall? Surely the explanation lies in the fact
that in ringing lines it proclaims the aspirations and voices
the desires of all youthful natures yearning for action. It
is " the passionate chant in which are so vividly uttered all
the undisciplined thoughts, the wayward fancies, the lofty
but vague aspirations, that effervesce in the spirit of the
cultivated youth of the nineteenth century," says Professor
Ingram, and as such it is not only an inspiration and in-
centive, but it is a revealing to the young of the thoughts
that surge in their expanding minds. The hero of Locksley
Hall was fiery, impulsive, and unrestrained, but his nature
was none the less noble and his ideal none the less worthy
and true.
Another poem which has exercised a great charm upon
all readers is The May Queen, and I cannot refrain from
quoting James Spedding's clever and appreciative com-
ments upon that poem, occupying as it does, a unique place
in the category of Tennyson's works.
" The homely pleasures, the sports, the cares, the vanities of her
little life," he said, " the familiar places she must leave, the familiar
process of the seasons, hitherto bringing to the delighted spirit only a
succession of delights, now sad and sacred because watched for the
last time— all her shining world, as it was when she moved the centre
of it, as it will be when she is no longer there — pass over her mind like
shadows, and are touched with exquisite sweetness and simplicity.
" But the poet saw in the situation materials for a deeper and loftier
strain. Hitherto so full of life, what would she know of death ? A blank
negation it seemed ; the non-existence to her of all that existed ; no
positive image. But as she grows familiar with the thought of total
separation from all she knows, new interests disclose themselves, and
death appears but as the passage to a new life. That life she has long
known of indeed, and looked forward to ; but idly, as a thing far off,
which did not yet practically concern her ; a proposition assented to,
but not comprehended ; a book possessed and known to contain
precious things, but not yet read— or at most read with a truant
attention,
Like words
That leave upon the still susceptive sense
A message undeliver'd, till the mind
Awakes to apprehensiveness, and takes it.
A LYRICAL PRELUDE. 51
" But now the formless void takes shape and substance as she gazes
into it, and draws her whole spirit that way, until already in imagina-
tion death is swallowed up in victory."
For a fancy-picture of utter isolation and dejection we
have but to turn to Mariana in the Moated Grange whose
weary watching and waiting had no end. The poem was
written before Tennyson was twenty, and Bayard Taylor
has the following interesting note upon it : " Mariana is
an extraordinary piece of minute and equally-finished
detail. Tennyson, once, in talking with a fellow-author
about his own reluctance to publish his poems, said,
' There is my Mariana, for example. A line in it is
wrong, and I cannot possibly change it, because it has
been so long published ; yet it always annoys me. I
wrote :
The rusted nails fell from the knots
That held the peach to the garden wall.
/^Now, this is not a characteristic of the scenery I had in
mind. The line should be : ' That held the pear to the
gable-wall.' '.'• Edward Fitzgerald wrote to his friend Allen,
"I have bought A. Tennyson's poems. How good Mariana
is " ; and Carlyle, most impressed with this poem, wrote to
Emerson — " Alfred, you see in his verses, is a native of
moated granges." The Recollections of the Arabian Nights
afford us insight into the poet's more fantastic imaginings ;
and A Dream of Fair Women discloses the luminant beauty
of the phantom shapes of our visions. The grace and
chasteness of Tennyson's ideals are revealed in magic
touches. One by one he leads before us out of shadow
into light Helen of Troy, Iphigenia, Cleopatra, Jephthah's
Daughter, Fair Rosamund, Margaret Roper, Joan of Arc,
and Queen Eleanor. The pellucidness of diction is in this
poem brought to perfection. What could be more stately,
solemn, and befitting than the superb conception of King
Priam's Daughter ? —
I saw a lady within call,
Stiller than chisell'd marble, standing there ;
52 TENNYSON; POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
A daughter of the gods, divinely tall,
And most divinely fair.
Her loveliness with shame and with surprise
Froze my swift speech : she, turning on my face
The star-like sorrows of immortal eyes,
Spoke slowly in her place.
Artist, sculptor, and musician could do no more.
It is when reading such lines that we can appreciate the
outburst in Alton Locke — that fine tribute which the greatest
novelist paid to the foremost poet.
" In a happy day, I fell on Alfred Tennyson's poetry, and found
there, astonished and delighted, the embodiment of thoughts about the
earth around me which I had concealed, because I fancied them
peculiar to myself. Why is it that the latest poet has generally the
greatest influence over the minds of the young ? Surely not for the
mere charm of novelty ? The reason is that he, living amid the same
hopes, the same temptations, the same sphere of observations as they,
gives utterance and outward form to the very questions which, vague
and wordless, have been exercising their hearts. And what endeared
Tennyson especially to me, the working man, was, as I afterwards dis-
covered, the altogether democratic tendency of his poems. True, all
great poets are by their office democrats ; seers of man only as a man ;
singers of the joys, the sorrows, the aspirations common to all
humanity ; but in Alfred Tennyson there is an element especially
democratic, truly levelling ; not his political opinions, about which I
know nothing, and care less, but his handling of the trivial even day
sights and sounds of nature. Brought up, as I understand, in a part
of England which possesses not much of the picturesque, and nothing
of that which the vulgar call sublime, he has learnt to see that in all
nature, in the hedgerow and the sandbank, as well as in the Alp peak
and the ocean waste, is a world of true sublimity — a minute infinite —
an ever fertile garden of poetic images, the roots of which are in the
unfathomable and the eternal, as truly as any phenomenon which
astonishes and awes the eye. The descriptions of the desolate pools
and creeks where the dying swan floated, the hint of the sib ery marsh
mosses by Mariana's moat, came to me like revelations. I always
knew there was something beautiful, wonderful, sublime, in those
flowery dykes of Battersea Fields ; in the long gravelly sweeps of that
lone tidal shore ; and here was a man who had put them into words
for me ! This is what I call democratic art — the revelation of the
poetry which lies in common things."
A LYRICAL PRELUDE. 53
The Gardener's Daughter was another of the perfect
idylls which at once seized the popular fancy, for where shall
we find richer painting or better interpretation of the
feelings of the heart ?
Were there nothing else
For which to praise the heavens but only love,
That only love were cause enough for praise.
Trite enough is the idea, but its beauty of exposition is
fresh. Take this for felicitous imagery —
The heavens between their fairy fleeces pale
Sow'd all their mystic gulfs with fleeting stars,
or this, the most charming of conceits —
Night slid down one long stream of sighing wind,
And on her bosom bore the baby, Sleep.
The volumes contained infinite variety, for greater contrasts
there could scarcely be than those between Will Water-
proofs Lyrical Monologue and The Vision of Sin, St Agnes
and Amphion, Ulysses and The Talking Oak.
It fell to the lot of James Spedding, a year later, to
review the works of the new poet, the article being written,
as he explained in a prefatory note in his volume of
Reviezus and Discussions, " in pursuance of an engage-
ment, made when Mr Tennyson's two first volumes were
out of print, that if he would publish a new edition I would
try to get leave to review it in the Edinburgh. Upon my
assurance that, though an intimate friend and an advanced
believer, I would not commit the Reviezu to any praises or
prophecies that would endanger its reputation, the editor
consented." Spedding began by observing that
" One of the severest tests by which a poet can try the true worth
of his book, is to let it continue for two or three years out of print.
The first flush of popularity cannot be trusted. If, on the other hand,
a new edition be perseveringly demanded, and when it comes, be
eagerly bought, we may safely conclude that the work has something
in it of abiding interest and permanent value ; for then we know that
54 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
many people have been so pleased or so edified by the reading that
they cannot be content without the possession."
Proceeding to consider Tennyson's poems, he said : —
" The book must not be treated as one collection of poems, but as
three separate ones, belonging to three different periods in the devel-
opment of his mind, and to be judged accordingly.
" Mr Tennyson's first book was published in 1830, when he was at
college. His second followed in 1832. Their reception, though far
from triumphant, was not inauspicious ; for while they gained him
many warm admirers, they were treated, even by those critics whose
admiration, like their charity, begins and ends at home, as sufficiently
notable to be worth some not unelaborate ridicule. The admiration
and the ridicule served alike to bring them into notice, and they have
both been for some years out of print. As many of these productions
as Mr Tennyson has cared to preserve are contained in the first
volume of the present edition. The second consists entirely of poems
not hitherto published ; which, though composed probably at various
intervals during the ten intervening years, have all, we presume, had
the benefit of his latest correcting hand. In subject, style, and the
kinds of excellence which they severally attain or aim at, they are
at once so various and so peculiar, that we cannot affect to convey
any adequate idea of the general character of the collection ; unless
we should go through the table of contents, giving as we go
a description and a sample of each poem. . . . The indications of
improving taste and increasing power exhibited not only in the results
of his later labours, but in the omission of some and the alteration of
others among his earlier, lead us to infer that Mr Tennyson's facul-
ties have not yet reached their highest development ; and, even as
they are now, he has not yet ventured upon a subject large enough to
bring them all into play together.
" His earliest published volume — though it contains one or two
poems, as Mariana, for instance, which must always rank among his
very best — is to be referred to rather as a point from which to measure
his subsequent progress, than for specimens of what he is. The very
vigour and abundance of a poet's powers will commonly be in his way
at first, and produce faults. But such faults are by no means unpromis-
ing. Indeed it is better that the genius should be allowed to run rather
wild and wanton during its nonage ; for a poet will hardly have the
free command of his faculties when full grown, unless he allow them
free play during growth. . . . We cannot, however, conclude without
reminding Mr Tennyson, that, highly as we value the Poems which
he has produced, we cannot accept them as a satisfactory account of
the gifts which they show that he possesses ; any more than we could
A LYRICAL PRELUDE. 55
take a painter's collection of studies for a picture, in place of the
picture itself. Powers are displayed in these volumes, adequate to the
production of a very great work ; at least we should find it difficult
to say which of the requisite powers is wanting. But they are dis-
played in fragments and snatches, having no connexion, and therefore
deriving no light or fresh interest the one from the other. If Mr
Tennyson can find a subject large enough to take the entire impress
of his mind, and energy persevering enough to work it faithfully out
as a whole, we are convinced that he may produce a work, which,
though occupying no larger space than the contents of these volumes,
shall as much exceed them in value, as a series of quantities multi-
plied into each other exceeds in value the same series simply added
together."
"The poet's narrow circle of admirers," wrote Bayard
Taylor, " widened at once, taking in so many of the younger
generation that the old doubters were one by one compelled
to yield. I still remember the eagerness with which, as a
boy of seventeen, I sought for the volume ; and I remember
also the strange sense of mental dazzle and bewilderment
I experienced on the first perusal of it. I can only com-
pare it to the first sight of a sunlit landscape through
a prism : every object has a rainbowed outline. One is
fascinated to look again and again, though the eyes ache."
Well might Emerson say — " O cherish Tennyson with
love and praise, and draw from him whole books full of
new verses yet ! " Well might aged Wordsworth with half
prophetic instinct declare that this young poet would " give
the world still better things." Well might Edgar Allen
Poe (" the first American author to welcome Tennyson ")
express a doubt that he was not already the " greatest of
poets." And well might Dickens, with his large-hearted
sympathy and his generous feeling, relate with joy how he
had spent a whole morning on the sea-shore reading the
little volumes, and had seen once more " the mermen and
mermaids at the bottom of the ocean, together with millions
of queer creatures, half-fish and half-fungus, looking down
into all manner of caves and seaweed conservatories." The
new star had arisen, and all eyes were turned to watch its
radiance.
CHAPTER IV.
A "LOFTIER STRAIN": "THE PRINCESS."
"And I too dream'd, until at last
Across my fancy, brooding warm,
The reflex of a legend past,
And loosely settled into form.
And would you have the thought I had,
And see the vision that I saw?"
— The Day Dream.
Alfred Tennyson's history for at least forty years of
his life is fragmentary. Like a comet, he appeared unex-
pectedly upon the horizon, and he mysteriously disappeared
again. Where he was in these dark intervals is now only
partially known. His early life at Somersby and his career
at Cambridge have been already briefly sketched, but after
his father's death, and until the time of his marriage, he
was a wanderer. Dr Tennyson's widow remained at the
old home, for the new rector of Somersby was non-resident.
To the little Lincolnshire village Tennyson returned when
his University life was over, and he was often visited by
Arthur Hallam, who was now more closely linked with the
Tennyson family by reason of his engagement to Miss
Emily Tennyson, the second daughter. It was to Richard
Trench that Hallam wrote in 1 831, announcing — "I am
now at Somersby, not only as the friend of Alfred Tenny-
son, but as the lover of his sister. An attachment on my
part of nearly two years' standing, and a mutual engage-
ment of one year, are, I fervently hope, only the commence-
ment of an union which circumstances may not impair and
the grave itself not conclude." After Arthur Hallam's
death in January 1833, the family appears to have been
separated. Charles became curate at Tealby, and he and
A "LOFTIER STRAIN."
57
Alfred spent part of their time with their great-uncle at
Caistor, the Rev. Samuel Turner, vicar of Grasby, three
miles distant To that living Charles succeeded in 1835 ;
and, finding that Mr Turner had bequeathed to him the
major portion of his property, he assumed his name. Alfred
betook himself to London, where it is on record that he
lived " in poverty, with his friends and golden dreams," and
it was during this period that he experienced, like Will
Waterproof, " that eternal want of pence which vexes public
men." There is probably good reason for believing that
until the publication of the poems of 1842 he was "passing
rich " on seventy pounds a year. But the London sojourn
was rich in the formation of friendships ; for the Cock
Tavern ("to which I most resort") became a veritable
Mermaid Tavern, and as Shakespeare and Ben Jonson and
their friends met of old and " tippled canary wine," so did
Tennyson and Carlyle drink their pint of port, and " look at
all things as they are, But thro' a kind of glory." " Worth
cries out to worth," said Emerson, and it was not long
before a circle was formed by such men as John Stuart
Mill, Thackeray, Sterling, Forster, Landor, and others who
made separate names for themselves. Once or twice he
met Wordsworth, who had been introduced to him by
Moxon the publisher. Emerson records in his English
Traits that he, too, had met Tennyson in London about
this time, and when he interviewed Wordsworth at Amble-
side soon afterwards, their conversation turned upon the
new poet. Tennyson, the philosopher chronicles, was, in
Wordsworth's opinion, " a true poetic genius, though with
some affectation. He had thought an elder brother
[Charles ?] at first the better poet, but must now reckon
Alfred the true one." Dickens, who " never faltered in his
allegiance to Tennyson," was also among the poet's personal
acquaintances. The poet has been somewhat irreverently
described as a " Fleet Streeter," anci "a " Bohemian of Bo-
hemians," noted for "the poetic emphasis of his dress and
the Parnassian width of his hat-brim." He was even known
58 TENNYSON; POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
at that little (and now not very choice) tavern, where the
memory of Dr Johnson is treasured, the " Cheshire Cheese,"
at which place the poet could be seen with a huge meer-
schaum filled with the strongest and most pungent of
tobaccos. In Lord Houghton's Biography there is an
interesting letter in which Spedding begged Monckton
Milnes (as he was then) to subscribe to Carlyle's lectures
on German literature, and the following passages occur : —
" Yesterday I dined with Alfred Tennyson at the Cock
Tavern, Temple Bar. 1 We had two chops, one pickle, two
cheeses, one pint of stout, one pint of port, and three cigars.
When we had finished, I had to take his regrets to the
Kembles ; he could not go because he had the influenza."
From 1844 to 1850 the poet's visits to London must have
been sporadic and casual, for his home was in Gloucester-
shire. Tennyson's residence at Cheltenham is an episode
in his life which has escaped many of those who have
sketched his history. He lived with his mother at 10 St
James's Square — a " tall, old-fashioned villa, built in the
most approved doll's house style of architecture." It is
stated that after the railway station was built, Tennyson
" bribed one of the officials for the temporary possession of
a highly-educated parrot, which was a pet of the railway
men, and was wont to impart unauthorised information to
the passengers. A love of animals was a conspicuous trait
of the Tennyson family ; and Mrs Tennyson, who is re-
membered in Cheltenham as a handsome, bright, sympa-
thetic, and rather unconventional old lady, seldom went
out of doors unless accompanied by two at least of the
three or four dogs which — not to mention a monkey — be-
longed to the establishment." Several unmarried brothers
and sisters were also staying in the house at Cheltenham,
and they drew around them many friends, chief of whom
were Sydney Dobell, Mr Alan Ker (who married Mary
Tennyson), and Robertson. In Memoriam shows traces of
1 This is further confirmation of the fact that the Cock was not in the Strand,
as has been so frequently asserted.
A "LOFTIER STRAIN:'
59
the influence of the country upon the poet's mind. The
Cotswolds are said to be described in the stanzas com-
mencing —
Calm and deep peace on this high wold,
though I prefer to think the picture is Lincolnshire ; but
" the geological changes which have occurred in the Severn
Valley are described with literal exactness." The poet
himself might have demurred to this " localisation," but it
is not possible to dispute the fact that Tennyson through-
out his works described what he saw, and has left us the
best of all pictures of the land in which he dwelt. 1
The lyrical poems had been received with so much
favour that edition after edition had been called for, and it
was only five years later that the contents of the two
volumes were incorporated and the first one-volume edition
issued. Tennyson had been busy all this time not only
with further revisions of the poems, and occasional additions
to their number, but with a work on a far larger scale.
There had been an emphatic call for a great, sustained poem,
and expectation was general that in good time Tennyson
would produce a piece which would at once entitle him to
take his place among the poets of commanding height.
Such a premonition was thoroughly justified : tentative
chords had been struck preluding an outburst of sublimer
music. Yet, after the promise of Locksley Hall, The Two
Voices, and the English Idylls, there was some disappoint-
ment when, in 1847, The Princess, eagerly awaited, was
given to the world. This gorgeous mosaic was deemed a
splendid waste. The power was there, but it had been
misdirected. Only the art of a master-poet could make
the subject inviting ; only the perfection of workmanship
could save so fantastic a story from ridicule ; only the
riches lavished on the lines and the lessons drawn from a
grotesque and unnatural situation could atone for the lack
of human interest alike in the characters and the theme.
1 See Appendix A.
6o TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
Fitzgerald preferred Tennyson's earlier lyrics to The
Princess. " I wish," he said in one of his quaint letters,
" I had secured more leaves from that old ' Butcher's
Book,' torn up in old Spedding's room in 1842, when the
Press went to work with, I think, the Last of old Alfred's
Best." In his eyes The Princess was only "dignified
trifling." " I found A. Tennyson," he said, " in chambers at
Lincoln's Inn, and recreated myself with a sight of his fine
old mug, and got out of him all his dear old stories, and
many new ones. He is re-publishing his poems, The
Princess, with new songs interposed. I cannot say I
thought them like the old vintage of his earlier days."
Again, he asked a friend — " Have you seen The Princess?"
and went on — " I am considered a great heretic for abusing
it ; it seems to me a wretched waste of power at a time
when a man ought to be doing his best, and I almost feel
hopeless about Alfred now — I mean about his doing what
he was born to do." Even when Gareth and Lynette had
appeared, Fitzgerald complained. " A. T.," quoth he,
" was born to do more than idylls." On the other hand,
Sir William Rowan Hamilton, the famous mathematician,
and himself a poet, was once heard to remark, " It deeply
presses on my reflection how much wiser a book is
Tennyson's Princess than my ' Quaternions ' " — the name
given to the method of mathematical investigation which
he had discovered. The comparison was a curious one,
but full of significance.
It has since been generally admitted that The Princess
alone, or its like, could never have supported Tennyson's
claim to rank with the masters ; it serves now as a single
pillar strengthening the tower of fame which has been
upreared. " There comes a time," writes Edmund Clarence
Stedman, " in the life of every aspiring artist, when, if he
be a painter, he tires of painting cabinet pictures — however
much they may satisfy his admirers ; if a poet, he says to
himself : ' Enough of lyrics and idylls ; let me essay a
masterpiece, a sustained production, that shall bear to my
A "LOFTIER STRAIN." 61
former work the relation which an opera or oratorio bears
to a composer's sonatas and canzonets.' It may be that
some feeling of this kind impelled Tennyson to write The
Princess. . . . But not often has a lovelier story been re-
cited. After the idyllic introduction, the body of the
poem is composed in a semi-heroic verse. Other works of
our poet are greater, but none is so fascinating as this
romantic tale : English throughout, yet combining the
England of Cceur-de-Lion with that of Victoria in one be-
witching picture. Some of the author's most delicately
musical lines — 'jewels five words long' — are herein con-
tained, and the ending of each canto is an effective piece of
art." The poet himself in calling the piece "A Medley,"
and in writing the Prologue appears to have been convinced
that an explanation would be required ; but whether the
explanation is sufficient is an open question. The poem
is made —
To suit with time and place,
. A Gothic ruin and a Grecian house,
A talk of college and of ladies' rights,
A feudal knight in silken masquerade.
In spite of gleaming lines and lofty thought, in spite of
the exquisite intercalary songs (an after-thought), and that
miracle of beauty, the " small sweet Idyl " which the
Princess read — the poem never has been, and never will
be, truly popular. It is an exercise rather than a pleasure
to read it, and though it dazzles with brilliancies and is
affluent in thought, it satisfies but little and leaves the
heart untouched. "Faultily faultless, splendidly null" is
the comment one feels disposed to pass when this noble
but inanimate work of art is surveyed. Yet a majestic
truth lies enshrined in this casket.
Woman is not undevelopt man
But diverse : could we make her as the man,
Sweet Love were slain : his dearest bond is this,
Not like to like, but like in difference.
Yet in the long years liker must they grow ;
62 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
The man be more of woman, she of man ;
He gain in sweetness and in moral height,
Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world :
She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care,
Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind.
Till at the last she set herself to man,
Like perfect music unto noble words.
And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time,
Sit side by side, full-summ'd in all their powers,
Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be,
Self-reverent each and reverencing each,
Distinct in individualities,
But like each other ev'n as those who love.
Mrs Ritchie tells us that The Princess was written "among
the fogs and smuts of Lincoln's Inn," an instance of how
little the environment of the moment influences thought
and operates upon the mind. The second edition, called
for in 1848, gave the poet an opportunity of dedicating
The Princess to Henry Lushington, admittedly the most
suggestive of his critics, and not the least ardent of his
admirers from the first. It is said, moreover, that the
mansion, Vivian-place, where
On the pavement lay
Carved stones of the Abbey-ruin in the park,
Huge Ammonites, and the first bones of Time,
was the home of the Lushington family, near Maidstone.
One of the favourite haunts of Tennyson, after the de-
parture of the family for Kent, was the district between
Rochester and Maidstone and over Blue Bell Hill, whence
could be seen
The happy valleys, half in light and half
Far-shadowing from the west a land of peace
'ith the
Gray halls, alone, among their massive groves ;
Trim hamlets ; here and there a rustic tower
Half lost in belts of hop and breadths of wheat ;
The shimmering glimpses of a stream ; the seas
A red sail, or a white ; and far beyond,
Imagined more than seen, the skirts of France.
A "LOFTIER STRAIN:' 63
It was this part of the country which Dickens, writing
to Forster, declared to be " one of the most beautiful walks
in England"; and the famous "Kit's Coty House" (the
" Tomb in the Wood ") dating from Saxon times, which
Dickens knew so well, 1 is believed to have suggested to
Tennyson his similitude of the " eight daughters of the
plough," each " like a Druid rock." The prototype of Sir
Walter Vivian was Edmund Henry Lushington, and his
son, " an Edmund too " (to retain the idea and change the
name), became the husband of Cecilia Tennyson, whose
marriage is the theme of the concluding stanzas of In
Memoriam. The poet's tribute to his brother-in-law, " the
most learned man in England after Thirlwall," will be
immediately recalled :
And thou art worthy, full of power ;
As gentle, liberal-minded, great,
Consistent ; wearing all that weight
Of learning lightly like a flower.
Princess Ida has devoted herself to the task of
Raising the woman's fallen divinity
Upon an equal pedestal with man.
" The statement of this enterprise," says Professor Ingram
in his " Dublin Afternoon Lecture," " brings us face to face
with one of the great practical problems of our age ; and
we find in Tennyson's selection of this theme a new
example of the attraction which draws the eminent natures
of each period towards the questions which are then most
important to Humanity."
' The Princess is particularly important to the student,
affording him as it does an insight into Tennyson's
peculiar, but not erratic, ideas of woman. "She is the
second, not the first" No one reverenced more than he
the daughters and mothers of the race. But at the same
1 Mr W. R. Hughes in his Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land thinks that
Kit's Coty House gave rise to the famous archaeological episode of the stone
with the inscription, " Bill Stumps, his mark," in Pickwick.
64 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
time no one wa^inoxfi^sttottgij^eonvinced than he that
women must not be allowed to usurp the privileges of
men.
When the man wants weight, the woman takes it up,
And topples down the scales ; but this is fixt
As are the roots of earth and base of all :
Man for the field and woman for the hearth ;
Man for the sword and for the needle she ;
Man with the head and woman with the heart ;
Man to command and woman to obey ;
All else confusion.
In his early poems he had given us a series of
skilfully drawn pictures of women of many types of beauty,
pictures upon which we could gaze with delight, but the
prototypes of which we do not yearn to know. But in
The Princess he sets before us woman as she is, declares
what she should aspire to, indicates her duty, informs us of
her limits.
The bearing and the training of a child
Is woman's wisdom.
Tennyson once admitted half regretfully that " the public
did not see that the child was the heroine " of the poem,
not Princess Ida. The fate of Psyche's babe is the pivot
upon which the whole story revolves. It is Psyche's babe
who teaches Ida that she has a woman's heart, and such
influence as a child may exercise, when all other influences
fail, is revealed in the song beginning " Home they brought
her warrior dead." Women are not to be hard and inexor-
able, are not to despise the love of worthy men, are not,
indeed, to trust to themselves in their journeying along
life's rough by-ways. They must yield themselves to the
stronger, trust themselves to the wiser, find support and
protection in the enfolding arms of the mightier. Woman's
part is " sweet humility." Her " cause is man's : they rise
or sink together." Said the Prince —
She that out of Lethe scales with man
The shining steps of Nature, shares with man
His nights, his days, moves with him to one goal,
A "LOFTIER STRAIN." 65
Stays all the fair young planet in her hands, —
If she be small, slight-natured, miserable,
How shall men stow ?
Each fulfils
Defect in each, and always thought in thought,
Purpose in purpose, will in will, they grow,
The single pure and perfect animal,
The two-cell'd heart beating, with one full stroke,
Life.
The Princess wa s a pr otest againsL_tlie__rharjsodical
f alsity of such yi ews_aslShf;11ey held. It showed woman
her proper sphere, it forbade presumpti on and lawlessne ss,
it silenced foolish d iscontent which had its origin in mis-
taken purposes, and it corrected the tendency of "advanced"
womanhood to direct her aims to unprofitable and unap-
propriate ends. Tennyson's argument is that if woman be
the lesser man she must be content with a lesser sphere and
an inferior place — yet not with a sphere or place without
dignity. She is not to be the drudge and slave, she is not
to be " something better than a dog, a little dearer than
the horse," but a being with a soul, a being " dipt in angel
instincts," a being to whom man may be "yoked in all
exercise of noble end."
Tennyson has been greatly misunderstood upon this
subject, especially by those who cannot discriminate
between the false and true ideals of womanhood. As well
treat women as playthings as treat them as divinities. We
have to choose between the extravagant and impossible
and the natural and practical. An ideal is none the
worse for being attainable. The dissolute lyrists of the
seventeenth century sang of women as goddesses and
treated them like slaves. Tennyson takes a perfectly human
view of the sex ; and perhaps in comparison with the views
of many of his predecessors his opinions seem common-
place, lacking in warmth and enthusiasm. He has even
E
66 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
been deemed to hold women in contempt : Mr Salt, with
his mind fixed on Shelleyian ideals, thinks that The Prin-
cess, as a contribution to the discussion of female education,
is " sadly trivial and commonplace, being the merest cari-
cature of the ideas it is supposed to combat, and a repeti-
tion of the immemorial fallacies by which men seek to
divert attention from the real issue, culminating, of course,
in the hypocritically evasive injunction, ' Lay thy sweet
hands in mine and trust to me.' " The poet's aim, as I
conceive it, was to avoid in this, as in other questions, the
falsehood of extremes. He perceived the true office of
woman, and plainly indicated where her duty lay and where
her powers could be best directed. A more glorious-
seeming but utterly impossible ideal would have won for
him unstinted praise, but what was Tennyson if not a plain
dealer ? He abhorred woman'sjwrongs without subscribing
fully to the modern programme of woman's rights. He
had the candour to combat some of her claims and the
courage to deny some of her pretensions. Less as a matter
of principle than as a matter of propriety and expediency
he showed where the impulsive Ida would fail. All men
know, and all women realise, that there are inevitable limi-
tations to the progress of the weaker sex in certain direc-
tions, and if the boundary line is overstepped, it is at the
risk of losing certain womanly attributes and leaving certain
womanly functions unfulfilled. It is not those who talk
most fulsomely of women's destiny who treat women most
kindly. Laon is seldom just to Cythna ; but Ida was not
the sport of a wanton or the slave of a libertine. Tenny-
son's love was pure and unimpassioned ; his type and ideal
of the good and perfect woman was an Edith Aylmer, a
gentle Enid, a Lilia Vivian, and a Dora. These were
gracious, tender, loving, the best to love and the best to
wed — models of English wives and mothers who remain
unexcelled. Those who have gazed long upon the gaudy
foliage of the tropics may at length fail to appreciate the
delicate perfection of a pale pink rose ; and those who have
A "LOFTIER STRAIN." 67
been accustomed to the resplendent beauty and the ardours
of Zuleika, Parisina, Cythna, Zelica, Haid^e, and the other
damsels ravishing as the houri and as remote as they from
human nature, will be dissatisfied with a simple Letty
meeting her lover by the lake, or with Maud who sends her
swain a rose. Tennyson's women are a protest against
the Oriental creatures who are deemed fit for a Sultan's
harem, and who the early poets of the century would have
us believe exceed in charms and character our own English
maids. But reaction has set in, and most of us are now
prepared to echo the song of the Foresters —
There is no land like England
Where'er the light of day be ;
There are no wives like English wives
So fair and chaste as they be.
There is no land like England
Where'er the light of day be ;
There are no maids like English maids
So beautiful as they be.
Let us remember also with gratitude and admiration that
Tennyson A vas a woman's champi on. He sought not only to
save them from themselves by correcting distorted aims and
subduing ambition that was akin to rebellion against law
and their ordained lot ; but he strove most earnestly to
protect them from the awful_wr ongs of a corrup t age.
How often was his voice raised agains^tJovdess_^narriages
and against marriage forbidden when true love was inspired !
No more terrible sermon against the paltry pride that would
sacrifice happiness to selfish, seeking ambition is to be
found than in Aylmer's Field, where the fury of the poet is
so great that he spares not the parents who have broken
the heart of their child, but makes them pay a penalty
heavier than death. So in Romneys Remorse : the man
who obeyed his cynical master's behest and " lost salvation
for a sketch" finds the retribution almost too great to
suffer. What is more pitiable than the broken-hearted
man's last cry to the deserted wife ? —
68 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
I am a trouble to you,
Could kneel for your forgiveness. Are they tears ?
For me — they do me too much grace— for me ?
Mary, Mary !
I have stumbled back again
Into the common day, the sounder self.
God stay me there, if only for your sake,
The truest, kindliest, noblest-hearted wife
That ever wore a Christian marriage-ring.
My curse upon the Master's apothegm,
That wife and children drag an Artist down !
So firm a believer was Tennyson in holy marriage that he
could tell of the happiness of the leper's wife ; he cherished
women so much, felt so deeply for them in their feebleness,
that he could rouse pity for the Magdalene ; l he hated so
fiercely the cruelty of man that he did not scruple to defend
the faithless wife of a vexing and loveless husband ; 2 and
with all the burning scorn of a noble nature he denounced
the iniquity of forcing a pure maiden to wed a rich and
unscrupulous creditor of her needy father. 3 Such a poet
could have no debased and unworthy ideas of women ; and
even if his heroines may half-contemptuously be classed as
" quiet and domestic," they are sweet and pure, faithful and
true, and perfect in beauty because perfect in honour and
virtue. As time goes on and the new light increases, it
will be found that Tennyson's doctrines will bear the
strongest of all tests. As in other matters, he spoke the
plain and honest truth of women, their mission, and their
future, heedless alike of praise and blame, but serenely
confident of ultimate justification.
One of Tennyson's friends (Mr Fields) complained that
the poet had mediaeval ideas of women. Like the "fat
curate," Edward Bull, the poet may have half-believed
that
God made the woman for the man
And for the good and increase of the world,
1 See Forlorn in the Demeter volume.
2 See The Wreck in the Tiresias volume.
3 See The Flight.
A "LOFTIER STRAINS
69
although, when these words were uttered, the expostulation
followed :
" Parson," said I, " you pitch the pipe too low."
So runs the controversy between the Prince and his father,
the rough King Gama, in The Princess.
" Not war, if possible,
O King," I said, " lest from the abuse of war,
The desecrated shrine, the trampled year,
The smouldering homestead, and the household flower
Torn from the lintel — all the common wrong —
A smoke go up thro' which I loom to her
Three times a monster : now she lightens scorn
At him that mars her plan, but then would hate
(And every voice she talk'd with ratify it,
And every face she looked on justify it)
The general foe. More soluble is this knot,
By gentleness than war. I want her love."
And roughly spake
My father, " Tut, you know them not, the girls.
Boy, when I hear you prate, I almost think
That idiot legend credible. 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.
Wheedling and siding with them ! Out ! for shame !
Boy, there 's no rose that 's half so dear to them
As he that does the thing they dare not do,
Breathing and sounding beauteous battle, comes
With the air of the trumpet round him, and leaps in
Among the women, snares them by the score
Flatter'd and fluster'd, wins, though dash'd with death
He reddens what he kisses : thus I won
Your mother, a good woman, a good wife,
Worth winning."
Here is medievalism indeed, but it is not Tennyson's.
The whole poem revolts against the King's low estimate of
woman and the brutality of man. The son does not woo
or win Princess Ida in his father's barbarous style. Pro-
fessor Ingram declares that Tennyson throughout this poem
7o TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
"feels nobly, as well as thinks justly, about woman. Even
whilst we are made to understand the hopelessness of Ida's
project, justice is done to her high aspirations, and to the
cause which she has undertaken to vindicate. He has
managed to suggest to our memories in one way or other
almost all the historic glories of the sex — almost all those
more or less exceptional natures amongst women which
stand out conspicuous on the canvas of the past : Miriam
and Deborah, and the questionable barbaric glory of Jael ;
Judith and Vashti, Sappho and Corinna, Cornelia and the
Spartan Mother, Joan of Arc and Elizabeth. . . . Beauti-
fully has the poet shown the development of the true
womanly elements in her nature. The tender domestic
instincts are first awakened by the care of Psyche's child.
Then, when glorying in the triumph of her champions, she
comes forth to offer hospitality to those who have suffered
in her cause, she sees the old King's haggard face stooped
over the prostrate body of his son — the son who had saved
his life — and she is overwhelmed with a sudden storm of
pity." Pity is akin to love. Out of the gracious acts, the
Lonely listenings to his mutter'd dreams,
And often feeling of the helpless hands,
And wordless broodings on the wasted cheek,
springs up the flower of earnest friendship, quickly yet
coyly maturing into love. Tennyson shows what is the
best office for women, n ot ne cessarily what is the proper
one.
As to The Princess as a whole, opinion may always be
divided upon its merits. A verdict was delivered at the
time of its original publication, which has always seemed
to me to be singularly fair and instinctively correct ; and
it is worthy of recording, inasmuch as it represents very
faithfully the general view taken of a work which is re-
markable alike for its excellences and its faults.
" There is so much to admire in this volume," said the AthencEicm y
" that we cannot wish it unwritten ; but so much also to censure that,
A " LOFTIER STRAIN" ?l
while we could recognise the whole if tendered as a pledge of genius,
we cannot accept it as a due consummation of that faculty. To those
whom occasional revelations of rare and genuine beauty compensate
for much that is marred by affectation, wasted by neglect, or destroyed
by incongruity, The Princess will be welcome ; but it will be read with
some disappointment by all who expected from its author harmony of
design and sustained merit in its exposition.
" We find in these pages little which denotes advance. In many
shorter poems from the same source the aim is as exalted, the insight
as deep, as in this elaborate one. No wholesome severity has dis-
carded former puerilities. Nor does the poet in all cases retain his
admitted and peculiar excellences. That charming modulation which
gave addedeffectto hisfelicitous conceptions, and not seldom substituted
them, is often remorselessly violated in the book before us. False or
deficient quantities occur with a frequency which suggests that they
have been deliberately adopted. If, as we suspect, they have been
introduced for relief, we would caution Mr Tennyson that correct
monotony is less displeasing than awkward and unmusical licence.
The only new attribute of the writer's mind revealed in The Princess
is a certain fertility of incident, — which, however, does not extend to
happiness of combination.
" The absence of this latter quality is, indeed, the chief defect in the
poem. Notwithstanding passages of occasional baldness, harsh or
careless versification, and sentences so inverted or elliptical as fre-
quently to be ambiguous, there is in this production a wealth and pic-
torial beauty and a delicate apprehension of motive and feeling to
which our current poetry can furnish few parallels. The grand error
of the story is the incoherency of its characteristics. Its different
parts refuse to amalgamate. They are derived from standards foreign
to each other. The familiar and conventional impair the earnestness
of the ideal ; and what might else have been appreciated as genial
satire loses its force from its juxtaposition to tragic emotion. Nor are
these opposite elements used as contrasts to each other. It is sought to
identify them ; but in the attempt to fuse both, each parts with its
distinctiveness." — The same critic refused to admit that the conscious-
ness of an eccentric plan — as manifested by the poet's Prologue— could
excuse it. " We fancy," he said, " that the Prologue is in reality an
apologetic supplement. If so, there is hope that an error spon-
taneously discerned and confessed will in future be avoided." He
admitted the plaintive beauty of Tears, idle Tears, and believed that
the "small, sweet Idyl" breathes the very luxury of tenderness, and
floats to us in sighs of music. The critic thus concluded :— " Lecture
rooms and chivalric lists, modern pedantry and ancient romance, are
antagonisms which no art can reconcile. With the power which .Mr
72 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
Tennyson has here evinced for the familiar and the ideal, regarded
separately, it is much to be deplored that by their unskilful combina-
tion he has produced simply— the grotesque."
This judgment stands. Yet, such is the beauty and
power of the poem, we can endorse the high praise awarded
it by Charles Kingsley, whose brief analysis of the poet's
scheme and whose expounding of his meanings have done
so much to make The Princess acceptable and admired
among a larger class of readers.
"The idyllic manner," he said, "alternates with the satiric, the
pathetic, even the sublime, by such imperceptible gradations and
continual delicate variations of key, that the harmonious medley of
his style becomes the fit outward expression of the bizarre and yet
harmonious fairyland in which his fancy ranges. In this work, too,
Mr Tennyson shows himself more than ever the poet of the day. In
it more than ever the old is interpenetrated with the new — the domestic
and scientific with the ideal and sentimental. He dares, in every page,
to make use of modern words and notions, from which the mingled
clumsiness and archaism of his compeers shrinks as unpoetical.
Though, as we have just said, his stage is an ideal fairyland, yet he
has reached the ideal by the only true method — by bringing the Middle
Age forward to the present one, and not by ignoring the present to fall
back on a cold and galvanised Medievalism; and thus he makes his
Medley a m irror of the nineteenth century, possessed of its o wn
new art aricTscience, its own new temptations and aspirations, and vet
grounded on, and continually striving to produce, the forms and ex-
periences of all past time. The idea, ^too, of The Princess is an
essentially modern one. In every age women have been tempted, by
the possession of superior beauty, intellect, or strength of will, to deny
their own womanhood, and attempt to stand alone as men, whether on
the ground of political intrigue, ascetic saintship, or philosophic pride.
Cleopatra and St Hedwiga, Madame de Stael and the Princess, are
merely different manifestations of the same self-willed and proud
longing of woman to unsex herself, and realise, single and self-sus-
tained, some distorted and partial notion of her own as to what the
'angelic "life' should be. Cleopatra acted out the pagan ideal of an
angel ; St Hedwiga, the mediaeval one ; Madame de Stael hers, with
the peculiar notions of her time, as to what ' spiritual ' might mean ;
and in The Princess Mr Tennyson has embodied the ideal of that
nobler, wider, purer, yet equally fallacious, because equally unnatural,
analogue, which we may meet too often up and down England now.
LOFTIER STRAIN." 73
He shows us the woman, when she takes her stand on the false
masculine ground of intellect, working out her own moral punishment,
by destroying in herself the tender heart of flesh : not even her vast
purposes of philanthropy can preserve her, for they are built up, not
on the womanhood which God has given her, but on her own self-will ;
they change, they fall, they become inconsistent, even as she does
herself, till, at last, she loses all feminine sensibility ; scornfully and
stupidly she rejects and misunderstands the heart of man ; and then
falling from pride to sternness, from sternness to sheer inhumanity,
she punishes sisterly love as a crime, robs the mother of her child, and
becomes all but a vengeful fury, with all the peculiar faults of woman
and none of the peculiar excellences of man.
"The poem, being, as its title imports, a medley of jest and earnest,
allows a metrical licence, of which we are often tempted to wish that
its author had not availed himself ; yet the most unmetrical and ap-
parently careless passages flow with a grace, a lightness, a colloquial
ease and frolic, which perhaps only heighten the effect of the serious
parts, and serve as a foil to set off the unrivalled finish and melody of
these latter. In these come out all Mr Tennyson's instinctive choice
of tone, his mastery of language, which always fits the right word to
the right thing, and that word always the simplest one, and the perfect
ear for melody which makes it superfluous to set to music poetry
which, read by the veriest schoolboy, makes music of itself."
When revised and re-written, and with the delicious lyrics
interspersed, The Princess exhibited so much of the poet's
power that, despite the pervading sense of disappointment,
a future of great achievement was confidently predicted for
its author. What form his next work would take was
wholly problematical, but the power of the man was not to
be questioned. His admirers waited and were confident.
CHAPTER V.
POET LAUREATE: PATRIOTISM AND POLITICS.
" For some cry ' Quick ' and some cry ' Slow,'
But, while the hills remain,
Up hill ' Too-slow ' will need the whip,
Down hill 'Too-quick' the chain."
—Politics.
Wordsworth died in 1850, and the question of his suc-
cessor as Poet Laureate aroused considerable interest. The
office was either created under a misconception of a poet's
powers, or it was abused. Its actual origin is uncertain.
Kings in old days had their minstrels just as they had their
fools, and probably the one was esteemed no higher than
the other. Skelton was the first actually to bear the title
" Laureate," but he used the word simply in the sense of
meaning that he had been crowned with bays at the
University. Edmund Spenser heads the list of Laureates
who had an office and duties assigned to them, and who
received payment for writing to order. Samuel Daniel
succeeded him, and thereafter came Ben Jonson, whose
salary was' a hundred marks and a tierce of wine.
Who would be a Laureate bold,
With his cask of sherry
To keep him merry?
asked Sir Theodore Martin in the " Bon Gaultier " parody of
Tennyson's poem on The Merman. As a matter of fact,
the cask of sherry is now a myth, for in the time of the
" poet Pye " the allowance of wine was commuted for £27
a year. Part of the duty of the Laureates was to write an
ode on the monarch's natal day, "his quit-rent ode, his
peppercorn of praise," as Cowper scoffingly termed it ;
POET LAUREATE.
7 5
but in the time of George III. this absurd practice fell
into abeyance. Looking down the list of Laureates one
comes across names quite forgotten, and the inevitable
conclusion is reached that the office, ridiculous in its in-
ception, has been disgraced by many who held it. Who
cares for Whitehead, Pye, Laurence Eusden, Nahum Tate,
or Thomas Shadwell ? — who respects Colley Cibber or
Thomas Warton ? — who reads any of their works save in
a spirit of curiosity ? Yet these are the men who were
crowned Laureate. Men like Spenser, Jonson, Dryden,
Southey, and Wordsworth, were too great for the office,
and the others were too mean. A poet who is willing to
sing to order is in truth no poet at all, and if he is un-
willing he ought not to have the task forced upon him.
Prince Albert's letter to Rogers offering him the Laureate-
ship very cleverly explained why, and under what circum-
stances, the office was to be retained.
"My Dear Mr Rogers, — The death of the lamented Mr Words-
worth has vacated the office of Poet Laureate. Although the spirit of
the times has put an end to the practice (at all times objectionable) of
exacting laudatory odes from the holder of that office, the Queen
attaches importance to its maintenance from its historical antiquity
and the means it affords to the Sovereign of a more personal connec-
tion with the poets of the country through one of their chiefs. I am
authorised, accordingly, to offer to you this honorary post, and can
tell you that it will give Her Majesty great pleasure if it were accepted
by one whom she has known so long, and who would so much adorn it ;
but that she would not have thought of offering it to you at your ad-
vanced age if any duties or trouble were attached to it. — Believe me
always, my dear Mr Rogers, yours truly, Albert."
" Buckingham Palace,
" 8t/i May 1850."
To this letter Rogers replied — " How can you forgive mc,
Sir, for having so long delayed to answer a letter which I
have had the honour to receive from your Royal Highness ?
But I was so affected by it as to be utterly unable to do
justice to my feelings." In the end he declined the honour.
Sir G. C. Lewis proposed that Sir Henry Taylor should be
76 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
appointed Laureate, on the ground that Tennyson was
" but little known." Rogers himself deprecated the ap-
pointment of Tennyson and advocated the claims of Charles
Mackay. Leigh Hunt, " Barry Cornwall," and Browning
all had the suffrages of a section ; but the first-named
wrote in his Journal — " With regard to the Laureateship,
the editor of this journal has particular reasons for wishing
to give his opinion on the subject in his own person ; and
his opinion is, that if the office in future is really to be
bestowed on the highest degree of poetical merit, and on
that only (as being a solitary office it unquestionably ought
to be, though such has not hitherto been the case), then
Mr Alfred Tennyson is entitled to it above any other man
in the kingdom, since of all living poets he is the most
gifted with the sovereign poetical faculty — Imagination.
May he live to wear his laurel to a green old age, singing
congratulations to good Queen Victoria and human ad-
vancement long after the writer of these words shall have
ceased to hear him with mortal ears."
This noble tribute of a brother-bard may have assisted
to bring about the final result ; but Tennyson had an
admirer also in the Queen, whose heart he had won with
The Miller s DaugJiter, and Prince Albert himself took a
conspicuous part in urging Tennyson's claim by merit to the
office. Sydney Dobell told the story that a servant, opening
the door to a visitor when the poet was out, asked what
message she should give. " Merely say Prince Albert
called," was the reply. So far as the Laureateship was
concerned, however, it seemed likely that Tennyson would
have been completely overlooked by the Premier, Sir
Robert Peel, who, on learning from Monckton Milnes that
" Tennyson was certainly the man," replied, " I am ashamed
to say that, busied as I have been in public life, I have
never read a line of Tennyson's. Send me two or three of
his poems." Milnes selected Locksley Hall and Ulysses.
Peel was delighted with both, but especially with Ulysses,
and promptly made the appointment. On March 6th, 1 85 1,
" Mr Tennyson was presented " at Buckingham Palace.
POET LA UREA TE. 77
He wore the same court-costume that Wordsworth and
Southey had worn before him at their installations, and Sir
Henry Taylor in his Autobiography has an amusing story
to tell in connection with this. In 1869, when the veteran
poet was knighted, he was in great difficulty about a fitting
costume in which to do homage, and he wrote, " I have a
new cause to lament the loss of my old friend Samuel
Rogers. Two successive Poets Laureate went to Court on
their appointment in borrowed plumes, and the plumes
were borrowed from him. I well remember (how can I
forget it ?) a dinner in St James's Place, when the ques-
tion rose whether Samuel's suit was spacious enough for
Alfred. The elder poet turned to his man waiting behind
his chair. ' I dare say, Edmund, you remember how Mr
Wordsworth wore them when he went to Court ; I think
it was you who dressed him on the occasion ? ' ' No, sir,
no,' said Edmund, ' it was Mr and Mrs Moxon, and they
had great difficulty in getting him into them.' No such
suit remains for me, nor, if it did, would the same assist-
ance be available."
Monckton Milnes had been Tennyson's best friend, and
the Poet Laureate was soon to be again indebted to him
for timely service. In Mr Wemyss Reid's account of that
remarkable man of letters, an amusing piece of history
may be found as to how Tennyson obtained his pension :—
"'Richard Milnes,' said Carlyle one day, withdrawing his pipe
from his mouth, as they were seated together in the little house in
Cheyne-row, ' when are you going to get that pension for Alfred
Tennyson? 1 'My dear Carlyle,' responded Milnes, 'the thing is
not so easy as you seem to suppose. What will my constituents say
if I do get the pension for Tennyson ? They know nothing about him
or his poetry, and they will probably think he is some poor relation of
my own, and that the whole affair is a job.' Solemn and emphatic
was Carlyle's response. ' Richard Milnes, on the Day of Judgment
when the Lord asks you why you didn't get that pension for Alfred
Tennyson, it will not do to lay the blame on your constituents ; it is
you that will be damned.'
" Nobody knew better than Carlyle that there was not the slightest
danger of Milnes incurring the Divine wrath on this score. As a
78 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
matter of fact, Peel was already in communication with him on the
subject of Tennyson's pension, and very singular were the circum-
stances surrounding the question. Two applications had been made
to Peel for a pension of ,£200. One was on behalf of Tennyson, a
young man in whose glorious future comparatively few in that time
believed, whilst the other came from the friends of Sheridan Knowles,
the dramatic author, on whose behalf age and infirmity, as well as past
services to English literature, were the reasons pleaded. Peel con-
sulted Milnes as to the course which he ought to take, accompanying
the appeal by the statement that for himself he knew absolutely no-
thing either of Mr Tennyson or of Mr Knowles. ' What ? ' said Milnes,
' have you never seen the name of Sheridan Knowles on a playbill ? '
" ' No,' replied Peel.
" ' And have you never read a poem of Tennyson's ? ' ' No,' was
again the answer. Milnes offered the opinion that if the pension were
merely to be bestowed as a charitable gift, Sheridan Knowles, infirm
and poor, and past his prime, was the proper recipient of it ; but that
if, on the other hand, it were to be bestowed in the interests of English
literature and of the nation at large, then, beyond all question, it
should be given to Alfred Tennyson, in order that his splendid
faculties might not be diverted from their proper use by the sordid
anxieties of a struggle for existence. Peel took the public view of the
question, and bestowed the pension upon Tennyson, though it is satis-
factory to know that before very long he was enabled to confer a
pension of the same amount upon Sheridan Knowles."
Of the spiteful letter of Rogers on Tennyson's "unfit-
ness " for a pension nothing need here be said. On a first
view it seems inconsistent on the part of a man who had
expressed himself strongly on the subject of pensions, and
who had exhorted his fellowmen not to
Toil for title, place, or touch
Of pension,
that he should himself accept both title and pension.
But at least the pension was earned, and we know now
that Tennyson only consented to be ennobled at the
earnest and repeated request of his friend the Premier,
Air Gladstone. 1
The new Laureate, immediately on his appointment,
1 See Talks with Tennyson in the Contemporary Review, March 1893.
POET LA UREA TE.
79
composed a dedicatory poem to the Queen which has
since been prefaced to all complete editions of his works.
The lines are apt and graceful ; admiration is expressed
without a taint of sycophancy, and praise is awarded
without fulsomeness. The reference to Wordsworth is
particularly good —
Your Royal grace
To one of less desert allows
This laurel greener from the brows
Of him that utter'd nothing base.
The last three verses, which are now almost familiar as
household words, are models of fine taste and elegant
expression.
Mr Stedman, in his judicious and discriminating
essay, remarks that the Poet Laureate was never at ease
in handling subjects of the day — " To his brooding and
essentially poetic nature such matters seem of no more
moment, beside the mysteries of eternal beauty and truth,
than was the noise of catapults and armed men to Archi-
medes studying out problems during the city's siege."
An additional reason for non-success is to be found in the
fact that Tennyson was not in the busy world, did not
mingle with the crowd, and seldom felt the throbbing of
the heart of great humanity. Yet, though I have spoken
of his non-success, I could not speak of his failure, and in
more than one instance he achieved a positive triumph.
His Ode, sung at the opening of the International Ex-
hibition, 1 with the aspiration that each man should
Find his own in all men's good,
And all men work in noble brotherhood ;
— his Welcome to Alexandra, his Welcome to the Duchess of
Edinburgh; his suppressed poems, The War, Britons,
guard your Own, and Hands all Round; — all these, to the
last lines on the Death of the Duke of Clarence, form no
unworthy addition to our patriotic literature and to his
1 A sonnet on the same subject was written by Charles Tennyson-Turner.
8o TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
own works. But above them all stands the Ode on the
Death of the Duke of Wellington, — one of the six grandest
odes in the English language. Noble in conception, lofty
in language, rich in sentiment, and musical with resonant
lines for which Handel alone could have found the organ-
chords, this Ode was, in its original form, veritably the in-
spiration of the moment. Knowing how slow a worker
Tennyson was, this fact alone is proof of the intensity of
his feeling. The death of the " last great Englishman "
stirred his heart to the depths. He paid not only his
tribute to the great warrior and statesman, but he made
the Ode an appeal to the loyalty of all Englishmen. Since
the poem appeared in the Times, with all the weakness
caused by haste and the blemishes made more conspicuous
by irritating printers' errors, it has been elaborated and
constantly revised. Remarkable to relate, however, the
poem was far from giving satisfaction for some time. Sir
Henry Taylor, the man who might have been Laureate,
was one of the first to send his congratulations to his suc-
cessful rival when the Ode appeared. In reply Tennyson
wrote — " Thanks, thanks ! In the all but universal de-
preciation of my ode by the press, the prompt and hearty
approval of it by a man as true as the Duke himself is
doubly grateful."
Phrases in the Ode have passed almost into by-words,
particularly the ringing refrain —
Not once or twice in our rough island-story,
The path of duty was the way to glory.
The picture of the Iron Duke seems to breathe and live.
The recounting of his deeds has all the energy and pride
with which we can imagine the old bards spake to stimulate
their heroes to mighty deeds. The lines are deep and peal-
ing, and now and then, as swept by some strong gust, they
gather into a warlike thunder, or burst into impetuous
torrent. We seem to hear at times the toll of bells, at
times the clamour and clangour of war, at times the
POET LA UREA TE. 8 1
acclamation of the people, at times the low roll of music
and the wail of the Dead March. The Ode is a triumph of
sounds, and with these sounds come the words we would '
utter in " eternal honour " to the name of the victor at
Waterloo. The Charge of the Light Brigade alone among
the patriotic lyrics can be spoken of in the same breath.
u No writing of mine," said Tennyson in sending a thousand
copies of the poem to the soldiers before Sebastopol, "can
add to the glory they have acquired in the Crimea." Certain
it is that the stirring lines have made that question still
more difficult to answer — " When can their glory fade ? "
As further proof of the poet's practical sympathy with the
Crimean heroes, his " Balaclava Letter " of 1875 may be put
in evidence. " I cannot attend your banquet," he wrote, " but
I enclose £5 to defray some of its expenses, or to be distri-
buted, as you may think fit, among the most indigent of
the survivors of that glorious charge ; a blunder it may
have been, but one for which England should be grateful,
having learnt thereby that her soldiers are the bravest and
most obedient under the sun." This autograph letter was
discovered a year or two ago inserted in a copy of the first
edition of Maud which was offered for sale. It is interest-
ing to know that the manuscript of the whole poem is in
the possession of a Torquay lady, who has stated that the
latter part of the fourth verse originally stood as under —
Right thro' the fire they broke ;
So was the Russian line
Struck by the sabre stroke,
Shattered and sundered.
But the marginal correction gives the present improved
rendering. Two lines following alone formed the fifth
verse —
Then they rode back, but not,
Not the Six Hundred.
The most extraordinary story told in connection with this
memorable poem was published after Tennyson's death.
F
82 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
A New England preacher, it was said, in the middle of a
sermon suddenly began to recite The Charge of the Light
Brigade. The congregation listened breathlessly to the
end, but before the service had concluded elders and people
were loud in their anger at the way in which the chapel
had been profaned. Their murmurs found the minister
wholly unprepared. He had gone into the pulpit intending
to speak about the need for charity, and was wholly un-
conscious of what he had done. Convinced at length by
testimony which he could not withstand, he was filled with
remorse, went sadly to his room that night, and watched
through all the hours till the morning, seeking consolation,
and not finding any. At daybreak they brought him
word that a man, looking like a tramp, wanted to see him
urgently. The minister, half from habit, decided to see
him. The stranger came into the room and said, simply,
" I come to thank the man who has saved my soul." The
minister stood in silence, wondering whether this was some
new mockery of his senses. The stranger went on : "I
was all through the Crimea, and I was in the thick of the
fight at Gettysburg, but never till I heard you recite that
poem in the chapel yesterday did I know what I had to
thank God for. Sir, from that hour I determined to change
my life, and I want to thank the man to whom I owe my
salvation."
A chaplain to Her Majesty's forces has recorded that
after the battle of Balaclava, when the wounded were in
hospital, he read to them The Charge of the Light Brigade,
and their pleasure was so manifest that he could not refrain
from writing to the poet to tell him of the circumstance.
For reply the Laureate sent him two hundred copies
beautifully printed, with an autograph letter, which
unfortunately was lost in a shipwreck before the conclusion
of the war.
In all, Tennyson wrote some thirty patriotic poems. Of
these, there are a number which have a political bearing
and significance, or, at all events, political meanings may be
POET LA UREA TE. 83
strained from them. But Tennyson, while at times exerting
a political influence, held aloof from politics. He detested
partisanship, and in his earliest volumes denounced factions.
So late as 1880, when he had consented to be nominated
for the Rectorship of Glasgow University, he wrote the
following letter directly he heard that he was being " run "
as a Conservative : —
" I only consented to stand for your Lord Rectorship when informed
by the lecter of introduction, which your agreeable deputation brought,
that my nomination was 'supported by a large majority, if not the
totality, of the students of Glasgow.' It now seems necessary that I
should, by standing at your invitation, appear what I have steadfastly
refused to be — a party candidate for the Conservative Club. The mere
fact of a contest between the supporters of a nominee of a Liberal and
that of a Conservative Club leads, I suppose, inevitably to this con-
clusion in the minds of the public, and therefore I must beg to decline
the honour of your candidature. You are probably aware that some
years ago the Glasgow Liberals asked me to be their candidate, and that
I, in like manner, declined ; yet I would gladly accept a nomination,
after what has occurred on this occasion, if at any time a body of
students, bearing no political party name, should wish to nominate
me, or if both Liberals and Conservatives should ever happen to agree
in foregoing the excitement of a political contest, and in desiring a Lord
Rector who would not appear for installation, and who would, in fact,
be a mere rot fainea7tt, with nothing but the literary merits you are
good enough to appreciate."
He only once voted in the House of Lords, his support
then being given to the County Franchise Bill ; and had
his health been better, he intended to vote for the Deceased
Wife's Sister Bill, of which he heartily approved.
Tennyson must be regarded more as gatriot than poli-
tician. Philosophers cannot cramp their minds and stunt
their faculties in order to be partisans. Faction and sect
are too small for men who can think. " Forward, forward,
let_us_range," was ilk cry in Locksley Hall, and " In its
season bring the law," was his only qualification of incen-
tives to progress. He deemed those the best statesmen who
Knew the seasons when to take
Occasion by the hand and make
The bounds of freedom wider yet
- /
84 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
lines which Mr Gladstone once quoted with great effect in
the House of Commons. His dramas gave him the oppor-
tunity of frequently expressing his opinion of statecraft
and policy, and he has compressed many a political truth
into the speeches of the great men who figure in Harold,
Becket, and Queen Mary. Perhaps the clue to his some-
what confusing political position may be found in TJie
Princess, where he says,
Ours elves are full
Of social wrong ; and maybe wildest dreams'
AnTbut the needful prelude of the truth.
We cannot assign Lord Tennyson any definite place in
political parties, but we can truly regard him as a political
thinker. This may be maintained in spite of Sir Henry
Taylor's dictum that Tennyson was scarcely competent to
form opinions on political questions : " I should think he is
too childlike and simple to see them on all sides," said his
brother-bard. But one great principle underlies all the
Laureate's utterances on this subject. His intense patriot-
ism, his love of England as " the land that freemen till," as
" a land of settled government," as
The land where girt with friends or foes
A man may speak the thing he will ; —
this is the predominating sentiment to which all other
considerations are subservient. He knew in a vague and
general way that
Two parties still divide the world —
Those that want and those that have ;
he believed that
For some true result of good
All parties work together ;
but from his high standpoint he failed to perceive the
extent or the importance of diversity and conflict on the
political surface. Being in the world, he realised that
antagonistic forces are ever at work, and that
POET LA UREA TE. 85
Age to age succeeds
Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds,
A dust of systems and of creeds ;
he had learnt that " raving politics " are " never at rest,"
and that " tonguesters " and " rivals of realm-ruining
party "
Pluck the mighty from their seat, but set no meek ones in their place,
—but, though he sometimes doubted whether the worlcL
improves, he always found a refuge in idealism :
My faith is large in Time
And that which shapes it to some perfect end.
All this might seem to militate against the acceptance of
Lord Tennyson as an appreciable factor in practical politics.
He saw visions and dreamed dreams. His hope was that
the Golden Year would speedily dawn when "all men's
good " shall be " each man's rule," when " the kindly earth
shall slumber lapt in universal law,"
When wealth no more shall rest in mounded heaps,
But smit with freer light shall slowly melt
In many streams to fatten lower lands,
And light shall spread and man be like a man.
Here, truly, the fair and shining ideal of the poet seems un-
attainable, and the vast aspiration may be "wild as aught
of fairy lore." But the craving and the hope are legitimate,
though they remain unsatisfied ; and, after all, it is to be re-
membered that the Laureate did not gaze incessantly upon
the desired but too-distant goal. He was no less the poet
of the Present than of the Future ; still more was he the
e^o^is^ofJhe^Past. Whenever a great wave of political
feeling swept over the land he was drawn into the current.
Too little importance is often attached to the part that
poets have played in politics. They have voiced the wishes
of a race, aroused heroes, inspired action, commemorated
deeds. Tennyson could scarcely have escaped the in-
fection of the politics of his time. They enter into most
subjects, temper the thoughts of the age, and excite the
86 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
closest of interests. We have no evidence that the Laureate
ever tried to keep aloof from the controversies which absorb
public attention and affect the national welfare. On the
contrary, he voluntarily entered the arena and made the
might of his pen felt. He satisfied himself of the power of
" one poor poet's scroll." His words have been the lashes
of scorn and the ardent eloquence of praise. His verses
have strengthened resolutions, aided causes, encouraged
projects. " Form ! form ! Riflemen form ! " was the in-
spiriting cry he raised when "the storm in the South
darkened the Day," and he feared it might " roll our way."
Let your Reforms for a moment go,
Look to your butts and take good aims.
Better a rotten borough or so,
Than a rotten fleet or a city in flames.
Form ! form ! Riflemen form !
Ready, be ready to meet the storm !
Riflemen, riflemen, riflemen form !
The same spirit glows in the English War- Song— a
trumpet-call to the brave to crush " an ancient enemy " ;
it animates every quivering stanza of Britons, guard your
Own, and beats in the stirring refrain of Hands all
Round.
First drink a health, this solemn night,
A health to England, every guest ;
That man 's the best cosmopolite
Who loves his native country best.
May Freedom's oak for ever live
With stronger life from day to day :
That man 's the best Conservative
Who lops the mouldered branch away.
Hands all round !
God the tyrant's hope confound !
To this great cause of freedom drink, my friends,
And the great name of England, round and round.
The Laureate did not weary of reminding us that " there is
no land like England," "no hearts like English hearts,"
" no men like Englishmen." This conviction, indeed, lay
POET LA UREA TE. 87
at the root of his political opinions and guided his political
aspirations. No man had a greater confidence than he in
his country. He loved it for its independence, admired
what it had grown to, revered its past, believed in its
future. If he had a fear, it was that
The braggart shout
For some blind glimpse of freedom [may] work itself
Thro' madness, hated by the wise, to law
System and empire ;
or that, with a full recognition of their power, the people
may " wink in slothful overtrust." Wordsworth had spoken
of the same danger which arises from too keen a realisation
of greatness ; confidence begets unreadiness and neglect.
We may be too conscious of our capacity, and deem it
needless to prepare for further effort. Useless is strength
if we are asleep when the enemy comes.
Nor did Tennyson forget in that most impressive epi-
logue to the Arthurian Idylls, the lines to the Queen, to
warn his age of danger from another sourc e. It was a
thought intolerable to him that Britain should ever be a
" sinking land " —
Some third-rate isle half-lost among her seas,
a puny people, and an unheeded voice. Therefore he said —
The loyal to their crown
Are loyal to their own far sons, who love
Our ocean-empire with her boundless homes
For ever-broadening England, and her throne
In our vast Orient, and one isle, one isle,
That knows not her own greatness : if she knows
And dreads it we are fallen.
Unity, growth, power too vast for full comprehension :
these are the essentials for imperial greatness. For the
Colonies he had always a cheering message, and during his
life he ever strove to tighten the bonds of federation.
" One of the deepest desires of his life," wrote the poet's
son to the Council of the Royal Colonial Institute, "was to
88 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
help the realisation of the ideal of an Empire by the most
in timate union of j geryjjart of our British Empire. He
believed that every different member so united would, with
a heightening of individuality to each member, give such
strength and greatness and stability to the whole as would
make our Empire a faithful and fearless leader in all that
is good throughout the world." When Canadian loyalty
was in question some years ago, it was Tennyson who came
to the rescue of the " true North " and gave utterance to
the thought predominant in the minds of those who did not
find " love a burden " or the bonds irksome. " Is this the
tone of Empire ? " asked the Laureate ; " here the faith That
made us rulers ? " A famous Canadian has left on record
how deeply the hearts of the people of the Dominion were
touched by the noble vindication of the poet; and the " true
North " has remained true. The story of how Tennyson
came to write those lines has seldom been told, and is so
little known that no excuse is needed for here setting it
forth. Tennyson himself is the authority for the details.
When articles appeared in the Times affirming that
Canada's loyalty was an illusion, and that the Dominion
itself was too costly an appanage of the Empire, Lady
Franklin, who was then a guest in the Laureate's house, and
felt an intense interest in North American affairs, indig-
nantly remarked upon the injustice of the declarations
made. She urged the poet to " express the true feelings of
Englishmen in the poem he was about to publish," and he,
being in fullest sympathy with Lady Franklin's views,
acted upon the suggestion. Thus we find the unanswer-
able question asked —
This, indeed, her voice
And meaning, whom the roar of Hougoumont
Left mightiest of all peoples under heaven ?
What shock has fool'd her since, that she should speak
So feebly ?
" Slothful overtrust " is no phantom-fear of the alarmist,
no foolish cry of dread, no unworthy aspersion upon some
POET LAUREATE.
party leaders. After Wellington's victories the tendency
of statecraft was to be less active, less resourceful, less
alert. Those passages in Maud which have aroused so
much controversy, were the indignant outbursts of a man
who could see the corruption and stagnation incident to a
prolonged period of peace. " However we brave it out, we
men are a little breed," and only the call to arms can
awaken the dormant powers and arouse the finer emotions
in the large body of aimless, shiftless men who sink into
infamy while peace sits " under her olive, slurring the days
gone by."
Why do they prate of the blessings of Peace ? we have made
them a curse ;
Pickpockets, each hand lusting for all that is not its own :
And lust of gain, in the spirit of Cain, is it better or worse
Than the heart of the citizen hissing in war on his own hearth-
stone ?
It is not for love of war, but for pity of man, that the
Laureate decried unhealthy peace — the breeder of villainy,
cheating, lies, and civil war
The viler, as underhand, not openly bearing the sword.
Men may "preach our poor little army down," but can
they tell
Whether war be a cause or a consequence ?
Better to risk life and limb in the fierce combat against an
invader, than to allow ambition, avarice, pride, jealousy,
and all hateful passions to "make earth Hell." Better
that war should arise in defence of the right than that
"Britain's one sole God be the millionaire" and "Com-
merce be all in all." Better to crush out the " love of a
peace that was full of wrongs and shames," and better " to
fight for the good than to rail at the ill." Such was the
Laureate's line of argument. In the ardour of youth he
had sung the glory and perfection of peace, and eagerly
looked forward to a time when the war-drum should throb
no longer, when the battle-flags should be furled, and when
9o TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
a federation of races and a Parliament of man should grow to
possibility. But the war against supineness and self is more
righteous than the peace which corrodes social life and makes
men forget to cleave to the causes which are pure and true.
Similar feelings have made the Laureate the fierce censor
of tyranny in all its forms and the champion of those who
rebelled against oppression. The Russian invasion of
Poland was "a matter to be wept with tears of blood,"
the successful resistance of Montenegro to the Turks was
celebrated in vaunting lines, the downfall of Buonaparte
was hailed with delight —
He thought to quell the stubborn hearts of oak,
Madman ! — to chain with chains, and bind with bands
The island Queen who sways the floods and lands
From Ind to Ind
We taught him lowlier moods.
In the Laureate's eyes the despot was the most hateful of
beings. He deprecated the least infringement of popular
privileges, and bade the monarch
Keep the throne unshaken still
Broad-based upon the people's will.
At the same time he recognised the futility of extreme
action. Moderation begets moderation, and the same duty
lies before the rulers and the ruled.
He that roars for liberty
Faster binds a tyrant's power,
And the tyrant's cruel glee
Forces on the freer hour.
Conciliation and sympathy are necessary on all sides ;
violence is fatal to every purpose, and spitefulness recoils
upon those who use it for infliction. Lord Tennyson
recognised that each side has its rights and its privileges.
Beware, he says, how you assail them. Neither those who
govern nor those who are governed are to be hastily deprived
of their gains or their inheritance. Here, in spite of his
idealism, in spite of his cry of " Forward, forward," the
POET LA UREA TE. 9 1
poet's inherent conservatism manifested itself. Professor
Dowden has well explained that he " belonged to the party
of movement, but not to the party of revolution. He
gladly accepted change, but he would build the new upon
the bases of the old ; like Bacon he would make the
supreme innovator, Time, our model, which innovates
greatly, yet slowly and by degrees." Again and again he
de precated "raw haste ," which is not true progress, but
" half-sister to delay." To the statesman, to the citizen, to
the king, and to the democrat, he gave the same sage
counsel to avoid the falsehood of extremes.
Not clinging to some ancient saw ;
Not master'd by some modern term ;
Not swift nor slow to change, but firm ;
And in its season bring the law.
There could be no safer rule for legislation. Hurried and
ill-considered reforms may be both unacceptable and use-
less ; therefore —
Statesman, be not precipitate in thine act
Of steering,
but learn a lesson of Ulysses, who sought
By slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
The poet is no enemy to progress and change. But re-
form and destruction are not synonyms ; he would advance
and protect, lop away the mouldered branch, but preserve
the tree. " Perilous is sweeping change, all chance un-
sound," said Wordsworth, and Tennyson's temperate pro-
position was —
So let the change which comes be free
To ingroove itself with that which flies.
There are extreme politicians who know no improvement
but by violent upheavals and general demolition ; the
Laureate saw it in a wise and sure method of amendment,
92 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
in circumspect development and the maturing of plans, in
necessary operations carried out with discretion. Effete
institutions and needless reforms may go, but wholesale
abolition and the ruthless extermination of customs and
means of government are not the policy to safeguard
popular rights or secure the national integrity.
Of many changes, aptly join'd,
Is bodied forth the second whole,
and when self is discarded, place and " touch of pension "
unheeded, watchwords not dealt in overmuch, Law will
assuredly be found
Set in all lights by many minds
To close the interests of all.
With such ideas of policy Tennyson could scarcely
fail to form an ideal of the statesman best calculated to
live and to work up to his standard of excellence. Hating
chicanery, duplicity, subterfuge, tergiversation, and reck-
lessness ; despising weakness and ineptitude ; denouncing
vain-glory and self-aggrandisement — he prayed for
<i
A man with heart, head, hand,
Like some of the simple great ones gone
For ever and ever by,
One still strong man in a blatant land,
Whatever they call him, what care I,
Aristocrat, democrat, autocrat, — one
Who can rule and dare not lie.
If one " simple great one " were more in his mind's eye
than another wheTi he drew the vivid picture we may be
almost certain that it was the Duke of Wellington. The
Ode on that soldier-statesman's death is instinct with the
same passionate feeling of regret that the unconquered
hero, the shameless citizen, the truth-loving statesman
Whose eighty winters freeze with one rebuke
All great self-seekers trampling on the right,
POET LA UREA TE. 93
has gone " for ever and ever by " : —
The last great Englishman is low.
The Iron Duke undoubtedly approached the poet's ideal
of the statesman. He was the model great one who
Cared not to be great
But as he saved or served the State,
the man who found glory in duty, " whose life was work,"
who as state-oracle and statesman-warrior was " whole in
himself, a common good," and " our greatest, yet with least
pretence." It was to such a man the Laureate ever looked
to guard and to guide this Empire. He asked for a
scorner of the party cry, and appealed against the violence
and bitterness of faction. He did not desire wordy dema-
gogues who by clap-trap and sophistry can set class against
class, delude the ignorant, pamper a hasty time, and " feed
with crude imaginings the herd " ; nor did he favour the
rhetoric and grandiloquence which pass for knowledge and
take the place of deeds.
Step by step we rose to greatness — thro' the tonguesters we may
fall.
The test of good legislation is its requisiteness. The
practical statesman must watch what main-currents draw
the years, and while ever heedful of the present be not
unmindful of the Spirit of the years to come " yearning to
mix itself with life." In this the Past, with its multitudin-
ous lights, may be his guide. The consultation of the
popular will is imperative, and that statesman who consults
it oftenest and endeavours to give the best effect to the
judgments of the many has the highest claim to be con-
sidered wise and worthy of a nation's confidence.
Not he that breaks the dam, but he
That thro' the channels of the State
Convoys the people's will, is great ;
His name is pure, his fame is free.
94
TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
The poet s long life was one, however, of disillusion. In
youth a sublime yearning possessed him to rush forward
I he distance beaconed, the future allured. His spirit was
stirred with the visionary ideals of the party of advance
and he joined in the grand but half-meaningless cry of
_ Forward.' But this youthful ferment was to subside and
in the Laureate's later works we notice a deeper, truer
steadier tone. Half the marvels of his morning had been
staled by frequence, shrunk by usage," and he had learnt
that though the heart may be shaped to "front the hour"
it is vain to dream that the hour will last. Sixty years
after ! What a retrospect, what a vista of diminishing
brightness as the cold, grim, realities of the Present rise
and shut out the glory and visions of the Past ! Sixty years
after ! How great, how terrible the change ! Hope turned
to despair, the hot blood languid, the fire of enthusiasm
burnt out, and nothing left but the smouldering embers
the cold gray ashes of age. This is the sorry conclusion
we derive from the Laureate's latest political poem-for
the sequel to Locksley Hall is as largely political as any \
of his works. Mother Age, which he trusted, and which '
appeared to be pregnant with happiness, honour, glory and
greatness, is barren or wasteful. The poet's gleaming vision
fadesmto thegloom of reality. The music that fell upon
his ears becomes the wail of misery or the shriek of crime
The blissful future of yesterday is now the agonising to-
day Lord Tennyson lived long only to see his hopes
wither, only to find his high ideals more remote Yet
such was the confidence within ImnTslIEK was his belief in
the ultimate good of mankind, that he refused to yield to
the temptation of pure pessimism, and dared to the end to
indulge in hopes. From such a man, with such an experi-
ence, his last words have a wealth of splendid suggestion
a ring _ of manly resolve; they avow a sublime faith in
humanity as it is used, influenced, and guided by the
Divine Will; they bring a light of comfort to those who
like the poet, may in dark despair have confused cosmos
POET LA UREA TE. 95
and chaos and feared that "among the glooming alleys
Progress halts on palsied feet." But it is darkest before
dawn, and, as Keats has finely said, there is a budding
morrow in midnight. Thus the poet questioned, not idly
and not without hope —
After madness, after massacre, Jacobinism and Jacquerie,
Some diviner force to guide us through the days shall I not see ?
When the schemes and all the systems, Kingdoms and Republics fall,
Something kindlier, higher, holier ; all for each and each for all.
All the full-brain, half-brain races, led by Justice, Love, and Truth ;
All the millions one at length, with all the visions of my youth.
Earth at last a warless world ; a single race, a single tongue
I have seen her far away — for is not Earth as yet so young
Every tiger-madness muzzled, every serpent-passion kill'd
Every grim ravine a garden, every blazing desert tilPd.
Robed in universal harvest up to either pole she smiles.
Universal ocean softly washing all her warless isles. ^
This is the old dream re-dreamed : how long will it remain
a dream only, or how soon will the vision of peace and
beauty be overclouded? Not,however, that it was particularly
gratifying, in these days of advance, for our premier poet to
be perpetually reminding us that we are the ancients of the
earth and in the morning of the times. If our actions, our
policy, our tendency only prove this, we have indeed little
to be proud of. But were this not an essential part of the
Laureate's creed, his contradictory utterances, his conflict-
ing hopes and fears, would be well-nigh inexplicable and
irreconcilable. His faith was largely rooted in the Past —
the Past which is a silent and undisturbed treasury, not
tomb, of early grandeur, of growing power pregnant with
wealth that is slowly revealed in the process of years — the
Past which contains the first seeds of a national prosperity
whose full fruition is of the future ; the Past in which are
96 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
rooted the people's loyalty, patriotism, religion, and hope.
He had thought for the Future too — the Future that opens
out to us as a promised land ; and, with his hero in The
Promise of May, he thought that
When the tide
Of full democracy has overwhelmed
This Old world, from the flood will rise the New,
Like the Love-goddess, with no bridal veil,
Ring, trinket of the Church, but naked Nature
In all her loveliness.
This is the new dawn for which every poet waits, and which
constitutes at once the essence and the development of his
political creed.
CHAPTER VI.
IN MEMORIAM " : A STUDY OF TENNYSON'S
RELIGION.
" What use to brood? This life of mingled pains
And joys to me,
Despite of every Faith and Creed, remains
The Mystery."
— To Mary Boyle.
" I too would teach the man
Beyond the darker hour to see the bright,
That his fresh life may close as it began,
The still-fulfilling promise of a light
Narrowing the bounds of night."
— T/i€ Progress of Spring.
" Sleep sweetly, tender heart in peace :
Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul,
While the stars burn, the moons increase,
And the great ages onward roll.
Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet,
Nothing comes to thee, new or strange,
Sleep full of rest from head to feet,
Lie still, dry dust, secure of change."
—ToJ.S.
Seventeen years were occupied in the composition of
In Memoriam. The poem made its appearance anony-
mously in the month of June 1850. It could be attributed
to only one living poet, and, despite a rigid silence main-
tained by the author, critics and readers were unanimous
in assigning it to Alfred Tennyson. Apart from its great-
ness as a literary work, In Memoriam is the most interest-
ing of all the Laureate's productions, because it is essen-
tially a personal revelation. Through this poem we
become acquainted with the man himself. He was the less
reserved because originally it was not his intention to pub-
lish to the world those words, which like weeds, were to
G
98 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
" wrap him o'er Like coarsest clothes against the cold."
There was a use in measured language for him. His great
grief needed vent ; the bitter waters of sorrow flowed forth
in verse. Yet words " half reveal And half conceal the soul
within," and the student of In Memoriam, though dis-
covering much, must not delude himself that all the mys-
tery of that clouded life can be learnt. The poem gives
us an understanding of Tennyson as a mourner only, and
we can trace the course of his thoughts during a long
period of darkness and doubt. Those thoughts lead us on-
ward to light, hope, and cheerfulness, and they show how
a great soul was saved from the wreck of despair. As the
poet Coleridge beautifully expresses it —
Sometimes
'Tis well to be bereft of promised good,
That we may lift the soul, and contemplate
With lively joy the joys we cannot share.
^V The Poet Laureate was a type of the age. He touched
„ every note in the gamut of belief. His creed underwent
much modification and change. He alternated between \
denials and affirmations, acceptances and rejections, faith
and despair. But with all his successive hopes and fears,
his dismay and his doubts, his wavering convictions, assents^
and dissents, he was always craving after the highest good
and searching for the surest truth. Man cannot seize the
robes of purity and excellence at once. He will follow
phantoms and be deluded by imposture; and he has to
profit by experience and pass through ordeals before the
best opens unto him. Never to be satisfied until he has
gained the topmost pinnacles and can gaze with purified
"- vision upon the light, is his duty and his privilege. Tenny-
son's training, and the influences to which he was early
M subjected, inclined him from the first towards religion.
\ His father and grandfather were clergymen, his mother was
a woman of simple, fervent piety, his favourite brother was
a man of most orthodox views. Tennyson's own acquaint-
IN MEMORIAM. 99
ance with the Bible was remarkable. His poems contain
upwards of four hundred and fifty Scriptural references
and parallelisms. He was imbued and permeated with
Bible lore and Bible language. Some of his poems are
veritable sermons — Aylmers Field, Sea Dreams, The Two
Voices, Flower in the Crannied Nook. Yet such was his
latitude and such the varying state of his mind that he was
claimed as a Christian and decried as a materialist and
agnostic. This is due to the fact that Tennyson revealed,
not concealed, his progressions from stage to stage ; he —
has left the traces of his wandering along a winding way.
Detesting ready-made dogmas and desjpisjng^se cond-hand
opinions, he threaded his course through a labyrinth of
doubt and bewilderment, and only towards the end found
the clue to happiness and the solution of mystery. Hard ~y
and cold doctrine does not suffice ; the heart must have its
hopes. The Two Voices is an argument so skilfully con-
ducted that to which side the balance inclines is not easy
to determine. The poet saw two roads to travel, and
knew not which to choose. There was a battle royal in
his mind between reason and temptation. Only appeal to
the man's better self bidding him " be of better cheer "
brought him to a decision. He could " see the end and
know the good," a " hidden hope " stirred within him, and
he felt
Although no tongue can prove,
That every cloud that spreads above
And veileth love, itself is love.
Robert Browning lifted the argument into a higher sphere
and gave a richer view of and a fuller insight into the
operations and manifestations of the Divine Will —
There shall never be one lost good ! What was shall live as before ;
The evil is null— is naught — is silence implying sound ;
What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more ;
On the earth the broken arcs, in the heaven a perfect round.
Doubts may be resolved for a while, but they will recur.
ioo TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
To thinking minds this is inevitable. Tennyson convinced
himself that it was a marvel " how the mind was brought
to anchor by one gloomy thought," but in his old age he
still asked —
What is it all but a trouble of ants in the gleam of a million million of
suns?
Lies upon this side, lies upon that side, truthless violence mourn'd by
the Wise,
Thousands of voices drowning his own in a popular torrent of lies
upon lies ;
Stately purposes, valour in battle, glorious annals of army and fleet,
Death for the right cause, death for the wrong cause, trumpets of
victory, groans of defeat ;
Innocence seethed in her mother's milk, and Charity setting the martyr
aflame ;
Thraldom who walks with the banner of Freedom, and recks not to
ruin a realm in her name.
Spring and Summer and Autumn and Winter, and all these old
revolutions of earth ;
All new-old revolutions of Empire — change of the tide — what is all of
it worth ?
What the philosophies, all the sciences, poesy, varying voices of
prayer ?
All that is noblest, all that is basest, all that is filthy with all that is fair ?
What is it all, if we all of us end but in being our own corpse-coffins
at last,
Swallow'd in Vastness, lost in Silence, drown'd in the deeps of a
meaningless Past?
What but a murmur of gnats in the gloom, or a moment's anger of
bees in their hive ?
Questioning is natural and legitimate ; one of man's privi-
leges is to doubtTand, in doubting, to investigate. There
is no virtue in blind acquiescence, no profit in a faith not
understood. Oliver Wendell Holmes has summed up all
in the words, " I claim the right of knowing whom I serve,
Else is my service idle ; He that asks My homage asks it
from a reasoning soul. To crawl is not to worship."
Children may accept dogmas ; men must know why. To
one who told him " doubt was devil-born," the poet re-
plied —
IN MEMORIAM.
I know not ; one indeed I knew
In many a subtle question versed,
Who touch'd a jarring lyre at first,
But ever strove to make it true.
It is a principle in music that the sweetest harmony is
derived from discords. And, on the same principle, we"X
have learnt the wise and comforting truth from Tennyson /
that there is more faith in honest doubt than in half the
creeds. Doubt brings us step by step to the cross-roads,
where we may once and for all choose between darkness
and light. Who never fights can never win ; "who never
doubted never half believed." Whatever form of faith is
rejected or accepted, we have an assurance that " his can't
be wrong whose life is in the right." While " perplext in
faith," we may still be "pure in deed "; but greater still is
the satisfaction and complete is the triumph when purity
of life is fitted to perfection of faith — faith which satisfies
and fortifies, faith which stimulates like a cordial, faith
which is made fruitful by sunshine and dew. Doubt is at
length resolved into steadfast belief like the nebulous mist
which concentrates into the round and shining star.
A score of short, disconnected, and separate poems serve
as prelude to Tennyson's majestic religious work, In Me-
moriam. These, like the prelude to a sonata, hint of the
greater theme to follow, and lead into the proper key. The sA
hatefulness of human pride and the impossibility of human ,
independence are enforced in The Palace of Art ; the holi- ^
ness of mercy is preached in Sea Dreams, while in St
Simeon Stylites we learn that true religion is not fierce, K
and does not bid us live unlovely lives. Aylmers Field "X
exposes the evils of worldliness, and holds up to scorn
those who devote themselves to
Sowing hedgerow texts and passing by,
And dealing goodly counsel from a height
That makes the lowest hate it.
In St Agnes' Eve and Sir Galahad we find invocations to
purity, but in poems which preceded and followed In
102 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
Memoriam the poet taught that man's religious impulses —
like his passions, his intellect, his affection — reqmre_to be
c hastened ^ nd held in subjection. The highestmeTs the
^conscientious discharge of manifest duty, not the search
after t he marvellous and the transcendental. Be pure and
be dutiful, we hear Tennyson constantly saying, and prizes
unexpected and unconceived will be attained. In the
great religious poem which was issued anonymously to the
world in 1850 it was a comparatively easy task to trace
the same mind at work, only its operations were broader
and deeper and its final achievements more triumphant.
There are three, or, at the most, four great elegies in the
English language, each written by a master poet and each
having for its subject a rarely-gifted man snatched
away in youth. Milton's Lycidas commemorates the
drowning of a young genius, Edward King, at Cam-
bridge ; Shelley's Adonais commemorates the early decline
of the richly-endowed poet, John Keats ; Tennyson's In
Memoriam commemorates the sudden death from fever of
Arthur Hallam, the most promising scholar of his time. 1
Lycidas could only have been written by the mightiest
master of metre and one of the few giants in the use and
control of language. It is the "building " of " lofty rhyme,"
flooded with the streaming sunshine of poetry, luminous
with incomparable imagery ; every long-drawn and musical
line of stately beauty and majestic diction. Adonais
is also in its way unapproached. It is a threnody chanted
with passionate mourning, a gush of exquisite sadness
from a bleeding heart. Shelley lamented the death of a
brother-bard as a mother might lament the death of a
favourite child. The lines throb with agony, but comfort
comes in idealism. Both these dirges are specimens of
the finest art, gloriously conceived, suffused with feeling,
skilfully embellished and shaped to perfection. They reach
1 Gray's Elegy is of a more general character, and is not strictly "in
memoriam " at all ; while Coleridge's and Wordsworth's Odes on Chatterton
are inferior.
IN MEMORIAM. 103
the height of picturesque poetry, and are dignified and im-
pressive as monarch-mountains with the stainless snow upon
them, sparkling in the crystalline splendour of sunlight. If
they have a defect it is that their very excellence and
symmetry remind us more of the sculptor-poet than of the
mourner. In this respect Tennyson excels his masters.
In Mentor iam belongs to a nobler range. It is thoroughly
human. It leads us to the towering Alps of thought. The
ascent is perilous ; there are dark ways, yawning chasms,
sunless precipices, overhanging avalanches, and driving
snow and storm — symbols of the terrors and the obstacles
in the way of reaching the sovereign eminence of Faith.
Lycidas and Adonais are, as it were, elaborate monu-
ments carved in marble, cunningly wrought, beautified and
adorned by the chisel of the master-hand. But these
monuments are cold, severe, inanimate. In Memoriam
may better be likened to a tree of deepest root, watered by
the springs of human sorrow, spreading out a hundred
branches, green with multitudinous leaves, casting a far,
thick shadow, exhaling sweet perfume — a living work of
nature awful in its mysteries, pregnant in its meanings.
This is the tree which waves its branches over a grave,
drawing life and vigour from the darkened recess where
the eye of man cannot penetrate. It is better to have
raised the tree than to have designed the monument ; better
to have added to the glory and consecration of life than
to have bemoaned the terrors of death. And thus In
Memoriam achieves the highest purpose and secures the
foremost place. It is an eloquent sermon of life preached
from the text of inscrutable death. It rises from the
depths of despair to the serenity of hope and faith. It
shows the " budding morrow in midnight " ; it points to the
vivid rainbow arched across the storm-darkened firmament.
" In this volume," said Charles Kingsley, " the record of
seventeen years, we have the result of those spiritual
experiences in a form calculated, as we believe, to be a
priceless benefit to many an earnest seeker in this genera-
104 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
tion, and perhaps to stir up some who are priding them-
selves on a cold dilettantism and barren epicurism, into
something like a living faith and hope. Blessed and
delightful it is to find, that even in these new ages the
creeds which so many fancy J:oj3e at their last gasp, are
still the final and highest succour, not merely of the peasant
and the outcast, but of the subtle artist and the daring
speculator. Blessed it is to find the most cunning poet of
our day able to combine the complicated rhythm and
melody of modern times with the old truths which gave
heart to martyrs at the stake ; and to see in the science
and the history of the nineteenth century new and living
fulfilments of the words which we learnt at our mother's
knee. Blessed, thrice blessed to find that hero-worship is
not yet passed away ; that the heart of man still beats
young and fresh ; that the old tales of David and Jonathan,
Damon and Pythias, Socrates and Alcibiades, Shakespeare
and his nameless friend, of ' love passing the love of
women,' ennobled by its own humility, deeper than death,
and mightier than the grave, can still blossom out, if it be
but in one heart here and there, to show men still how,
sooner or later, ' he that loveth knoweth God, for God is
love.' "/
" Have you read In Memoriam ? " wrote Sir Henry
Taylor to Mrs Fenwick in 1850. " It is a wonderful little
volume. Few — very few — words of such power have come
out of the depths of this country's poetic heart. They
might do much, one would think, to lay the dust in its
highways and silence its market towns, but it will not be
felt for a while, I suppose ; and just now people are talking
of the division of last Friday." Fourteen years later Sir
Henry again wrote : — " I met in the train yesterday morn-
ing a meagre, sickly, peevish-looking, elderly man, not
affecting to be a gentleman, and bearing rather a strong
likeness to Nettleton, the ironmonger, and on showing him
the photographs of Lionel Tennyson, which I carried in my
hand, he spoke of In Memoriam, and said he had made a
IN MEMORIAM. 105
sort of churchyard of it, and had appropriated some passage
of it to each of his departed friends ; and that he read it
every Sunday and never came to the bottom of the depths
of it. More to be prized this, I thought, than the criticisms
of critics, however plauditory."/ And Professor John K.
Ingram in his " Dublin Afternoon Lecture " (1866) observed
that In Memoriam brings before us " a priceless but much
neglected means of spiritual improvement, the efficacy of
which not even the most sceptical can deny. I mean
habitual subjective communion with the worthy and
beloved dead, whom we have known with sufficient
intimacy to have appreciated their excellence, and profited
by their converse. We could not fail to reap from such
sacred exercises the fruit of increased purity and nobleness.
But, in our hurry, or pre-occupation, or dull absorption in
material cares, we too often put away from us those blessed
memories, or recall them but fitfully and transiently, instead
of making them by deliberate cultivation an ever-present
influence. And so the best effects of love upon our nature
are lost — love which does but half its work if it be not
stronger than death." r^sr^
Had Tennyson never been a mourner he might never-L a*
have been a great religious teacher. He might, indeed,
never have got beyond those conflicting doubts raised in
his mind by metaphysicians like his friend, Blakesley, of
Trinity College — the " clear-headed friend " addressed in
one of the earlier poems, whose "joyful scorn, Edged with
sharp laughter, cuts atwain The knots that tangle human
creeds." But the central event of his life was the loss of
his gifted friend. He was a young man when the " news
was brought with bier and pall " that Arthur Hallam had
suddenly died :
In Vienna's fatal walls
God's finger touch'd him and he slept.
That raging sorrow was never entirely subdued ; the Marah
was never dry. hi Memoriam was begun to relieve the
lo6 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
burden of a grief-laden heart, with, at first, no intention of
winning the public ear.
For the unquiet heart and brain,
A use in measured language lies ;
The sad mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.
The poet " sang because he must," and his " short swallow-
flights of song," dipping their wings in tears and skim-
ming away, were the outcome of sad hours extending over
a period of many years. It is no doubt true that Tennyson
never designed publishing the tribute to his friend, that the
poems had been put aside as their purpose was served, and
were only rescued by other hands. We are glad to know
this. To make a business of a life-agony is intolerable.
Arthur Hallam was the son of the famous historian, and
very early gave promise of wondrous faculty. Study was a
pastime ; he mastered whatever was put before him with
ease. He was only seventeen when he met Tennyson at
Cambridge ; he afterwards visited him at Somersby,
travelled with him on the Continent, and was the accepted
lover of his sister Emily. The acquirement of languages
was almost a passion with him, and while in Italy he made
himself master of the works of Dante and Petrarch. A
profound original thinker, a deep student, a brilliant
orator, a keen logician, a writer of most ^poetical prose, he
seemed destined to be one of England's greatest. On
leaving college he proceeded to London, where, in his own
words, he " slaved at the outworks of his profession " ; but he
was only too glad to wander down to Somersby and shake
To all the liberal air
The dust and din and steam of town.
He brought an eye for all he saw ;
He mixt in all our simple sports ;
They pleased him, fresh from brawling courts
And dusty purlieus of the law.
His life in London studying for the Bar and dwelling
IN MEMORIAM. 107
in the " long, unlovely street " — 6y Wimpole Street — was
not happy. He disliked the " brawling courts " after the
discussions of the Cambridge Conversazione Society, and
he preferred the scholarly words of youthful tongues to legal
documents. But the " dawn-golden times " of Cambridge
had passed away. Weary and overworked he went abroad
in the autumn of 1833. At Vienna he was seized with fever,
and while every day his friends were expecting to hear
news of his journey he was lying dead. His body was
borne to Clevedon, where the waters of the Bristol Channel
break on the cold gray stones, and laid in English earth —
And from his ashes may be made
The violet of his native land.
Tis little ; but it looks in truth
As if the quiet bones were blest
Among familiar names to rest
And in the places of his youth.
Thus did the Danube to the Severn give " the darken'd
heart that beat no more " ; and thus the rarely-endowed
youth whose life had perished in the green was laid by the
" pleasant shore And in the hearing of the wave." All who
knew Arthur Hallam bore tribute to the beauty and
promise of his life. Monckton Milnes, in dedicating a volume
to the bereaved father, said : — " It has pleased that high
Will, to which we must submit everything, even our lives,
to take him away, in whom the world has lost so much, and
they who knew him so much more. We are deprived, not
only of a beloved friend, of a delightful companion, but of
a most wise and influential counsellor in all the serious
concerns of existence, of an incomparable critic in all his
literary efforts, and of the example of one who was as
much before us in everything else as he is now in the way
of life." The concluding words remind us of Tenny-
son's own confession, " he still outstripp'd me in the race,"
and of that touchingly beautiful remark, " he was on his
way to God and could rest in nothing short of Him."
Alford spoke of the
io8 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
Gentle soul
That ever moved among us in a veil
Of heavenly lustre ; in whose presence thoughts
Of common import shone with light divine,
Whence we drew sweetness as from out a well
Of honey pure and deep ;
and Charles Tennyson-Turner in one of his first sonnets
had singled out this young leader, and said —
When youth is passing from my hoary head,
And life's decline steals brightness from thine eye —
But that it cannot soon, nor quench the red
Upon thy cheek that hath so rich a dye —
Then of what crowns of fame may thou and I
Avow ourselves the gainers ? with what balm
Of Christian hope, devotionally calm,
Shall I be then anointed ? will this sigh,
Born of distempered feeling, still come forth
As thus, unjoyous ? or be left to die
Before the rapid and unpausing birth
Of joyous thoughts succeeding momently ?
What would not such recoil of bliss be worth,
Replacing in our age this early loss of joy?
Mrs Ritchie has also recorded that once, in conversation,
Tennyson declared that Arthur Hallam was as near per-
fection as man might be, thus proving that it was no poetic
excess which led him to speak of
The sweetest soul
That ever look'd with human eyes.
The predominant character of Tennyson's In Me-
moriam is its spirituality and its religious tone, its
questioning and unrest " He seems to wrestle with him-
self like Dante," one critic has said, "sometimes half-
revealing, sometimes expressing his emotions, as the ideas
which ' lie in the lake of his heart ' well up and become,
as it were, materially coloured by the memories he seeks
severally to recall." The poem is full of moods. It starts
with a low, complaining wail ; it has its outbursts of tearful
passion and its seasons of calm. Little by little the con-
IN MEMORIAM. 109
viction strengthens that the Judge of all the earth must
be right, His will is accepted, mysteries begin to disappear,
and the solaced singer at last finds his heart full of thank-
fulness. With faith confirmed, a purer light issuing upon
his chastened spirit, at last even " the grave is bright,"
and death is beautified. Thus, to employ a new figure,
/;/ Memoriam is a symphony on death and immortality,
with tender interludes, rolling harmonies, organ peals, and
glad repetitions of a sweet refrain —
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
It has its rough, agitated passages and its soft flute-like
melodies ; it threads a maze of wonderful intricacy and
variety ; and finally it merges into a grand and triumphant
anthem of praise whose reverberating chords mix with the
happy pealing of wedding-bells.
Briefly put, In Memoriam in its personal, philosophical, ]
and didactic phrases is a lesson on the excellence and
divinity of human loss and disappointment. Sorrow
at the outset generates doubt, and the law of divine
compensation is not realised. The mourner questions,
for a time vainly. He searches and is unrewarded. He
is humbled, and made fit for the reception of great truth.
As a child he is taken by the hand, and experience be-
comes his guide. Sympathy is but a salve for wounds ;
religion is a remedy. Life at first loses its meaning and
death its significance ; but when the power of recognition
returns, meanings have been deepened and truth become
assured. The moral world is reconstructed and its basis
is firmer and truer. Sorrow, in weakening man, makes
him feel his helplessness and casts his dependence upon
a higher power. Step by step he is led upward to a
Ruler. The very inexplicability of bitter grief demands
that man should look beyond himself for reasons ; su-
premacy is not for humanity. Peace is sweeter because
the sting of pain has been felt; light is valued because
no TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
darkness has reigned. Behind the vale of affliction shines
the welcome face of Love. As Russell Lowell says —
" Tis sorrow builds the shining ladder up, Whose golden
rounds are our calamities." And it is at this point that
Tennyson begins to speak.
Men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.
No sorrow is exceptional. Loss is common. " Never
morning wore To evening, but some heart did break."
The poet's friend was great ; he would have been famous ;
the world would have gained by his life. This makes his
doom the more insoluble. Was the Almighty decree just ?
Well may the poet's faith be shaken, if not shattered. He
knew that had Arthur Hallam's life reached the allotted
span he would have been " crown'd with good," and his
prosperous labour would have filled "the lips of men with
honest praise "
Till slowly worn her earthly robe,
Her lavish mission richly wrought,
Leaving great legacies of thought,
Thy spirit should fail from off the globe.
All this was not to be. The promise of splendid
youth was only to delude ; the flower of genius was to
be crushed ere it had expanded. Was not this wanton
waste ? While Hallam lived
but his
Hope could never hope too much,
Leaf has perish'd in the green,
And, while we breathe beneath the sun,
The world which credits what is done
Is cold to all that might have been.
The contemplation of these things quickens the spirit of
rebellion. Death seems to have inflicted wanton injury,
and in his first excess of woe one forgets that the " spectre
fear'd of man " may be a messenger from heaven. When
passion has spent itself the reaction begins, and contrition
IN MEMORIAM.
prepares the way for resignation to^the higher will. " No
lapse~oTlribons can canker love," says the poet, and when
he sorrows most he still feels that
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
These are the " low beginnings of content," and a lesson
is drawn from what has occurred.
My own dim life should teach me this,
That life shall live for evermore,
Else earth is darkness at the core,
And dust and ashes all that is.
What then were God to such as 1 ?
Love for those who are lost is one of the strongest
arguments for immortality. The comfort arrives that the
loss itself is only temporary, that a reunion will be
accomplished, and that after a brief interval friend will
again greet friend —
And love will last as pure and whole
As when he loved me here in Time,
And at the spiritual prime
Rewaken with the dawning soul.
Truth, in the form of solace, has touched the bereaved
man's heart, and he awakens to the blissful knowledge
that
Love 's too precious to be lost,
A little grain shall not be spilt.
It is because human love is so perfect, so enduring, so time-
defying, that we must look beyond death for its crown and
completion. In the brief span of life its struggles may be
greater than its gain. The inexorable laws of nature, and
the inexplicable decrees of fate oppose themselves to our
most ardent desires. The past closes, but the future always
is ours ; love is an imperishable root, and death only trans-
plants it. The change is loss against which humanity may
rebel, but it is gain in which spirituality will triumph..
There are seasons when
U2 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
The sensuous frame
Is rack'd with pangs that conquer trust ;
And Time, a maniac scattering dust,
And Life, a fury slinging flame.
The struggle is intense : our eyes fail in proper perception,
and sorrow fills them with tears, blurring the prospect or
wholly hiding the meaning. A blank is left, a void created ;
there is a pause in life's music, a shutting-out of sunshine.
Resignation may be delayed, and it may rise from the ashes
of despair or proceed from a realisation of the divine purpose.
The death of Arthur Hallam turned, by force, the
thoughts of the poet, his mourner, to the nature of death
and the mysteries of life. The removal of that which was
loved changed the point of view. Sorrow drew the heart
upward, and love which had been materialised became
idealised ; the man was spirit. Death is consecration, and
the Throned Power, who in sovereignty of will, has broken
the round of earthly friendship is a power of Mercy. " Our
wills are ours to make them thine " the poet first learns to
sing, just as Dante had grasped the truth divine — " In his
will is our tranquillity." Men seldom master the meaning
of the word death. " I change, but I cannot die," said
Shelley ; " There is no death, what seems so is transition,"
was the avowal of Longfellow. Of departed Keats it was
written — " He hath awakened from the dream of life. He
is a portion of the loveliness Which once he made more
lovely." And Tennyson, after the first cry of despair, could
murmur —
I wage not any feud with death
For changes wrought on form and face,
and thus is led imperceptibly to the confession that he has
suffered no injury by the removal of his companion. All
loss has its compensation, and
The song of woe
Is after all an earthly song.
Moreover, death " keeps the key of all the creeds," and
unlocks the mysteries of existence. With this awakening
IN ME MORI A M. 113
to knowledge the poet finds the long gloom passing away ;
a dawn of trust and hope is breaking — there is a tremulous
golden light on the eastern horizon, the shadows are dis-
persed, even the looming clouds take a crimson glow, and
presently the blazing forehead of the rising sun will appear.
The day is at hand — a day of radiance and calm. The
voice of the poet grows stronger, for he is no longer filled
with vague apprehensions and hopeless dread.
Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood ;
That nothing walks with aimless feet ;
That not one life shall be destroyed,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete.
Behold, we know not anything ;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last— far off— at last to all,
And every winter change to spring.
But relapse from optimism is inevitable, and while indulg-
ing the " larger hope," the poet still felt inclined from time
to time to believe the darkness impenetrable. Perhaps,
like Voltaire, he may have exclaimed, "First principles
will never be known. The mice that inhabit some little
crannies of a vast building do not know whether that
building is eternal, or whom its architect, or why he built
it. We are such mice, and the divine architect who built
this universe has not yet, so far as I know, told His secret
to anyone." The famous poet-painter, William Bell Scott,
did not believe that " God had revealed to us anything of
the unseen world." "Of course," he said, "people in all
ages have imagined what lies beyond death, but none
know." Tennyson, wondering whether God and Nature
were not at strife, and seeing Nature so " careless of the
single life," must needs confess —
14 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
I falter where I firmly trod,
And falling with my weight of cares
Upon the great world's altar-stairs
That slope through darkness up to God,
I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,
And faintly trust the larger hope.
But " death keeps the keys of all the creeds," and what
creed is there to reconcile man to his fate and prove the
all-wisdom of the decrees of providence ? Pantheism,
scepticism, supralapsarianism, and Buddhism alike leave
him unsatisfied. Tennyson found them " faith as vague
as all unsweet," and the mourner was mocked by the un-
real comfort they offered. Downcast and sorrowing, long-
ing for rest and hungering for solace, he found nothing but
the empty and unsubstantial show of good things — a laid-
out feast of which he could not partake. In his extreme
agony he required actualities, a true and not a visionary
compensation. What religion grants not only the promise
but supplies the balm ? Surely it is that religion, says the
poet, which permits the hope of an universal restoration to
life, which teaches that death has no sting and the grave
no victory, and encourages the belief that
The dead
Are breathers of an ampler day
For ever nobler ends.
While we may begrudge the reaper some of the fair flowers
which he removes with his sickle keen, we can learn the
truth above the power of science to reveal that " nothing
is that errs from law."
We pass ; the path that each man trod
Is dim, or will be dim, with weeds :
What fame is left for human deeds
In endless age? It rests with God.
IN MEMO RI AM. 115
Whatever is, is right, and the " abysmal secrets of per-
sonality " rest with the Omnipotent. Once the poet had
asked why a promising genius should be cut off in his
prime, why he should not have been permitted to fulfil his
august mission, why time was not allotted him to use great
talent for the glory and the good of the world. In a quieter
mood he remembered that fruit may be ripened by frost
as well as by heat, and applying this truth, he reverently
said —
Death returns an answer sweet :
My sudden frost was sudden gain,
And gave all ripeness to the grain,
It might have drawn from after-heat.
Therefore death had been more friend than foe : in a single
hour he brought to perfection the genius which could only
have slowly matured during a life-time on earth. To those
remaining there is always hope.
Eternal process moving on,
From state to state the spirit walks ;
And these are but the shatter'd stalks,
Or ruin'd chrysalis of one.
Nor blame I Death, because he bare
The use of virtue out of earth :
I know transplanted human worth
Will bloom to profit, otherwhere.
The consolation of these words is for all time and for the
whole race. Not only have we the assurance of reunion in
the future, but we have the present knowledge — knowledge
which is only ours, because we have been afflicted — that
"transplanted human worth Will bloom to profit, other-
where." So sublime a truth was worth purchasing even at
the cost of Arthur Hallam's life. The wreck of the poet's
happiness has been the salvation of the multitude. Tenny-
son's life was darkened to the end, but the perpetual cloud
hovering over him did not totally exclude the sunshine.
u6 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
Though a lost friend may not be replaced, the heart is not
left wholly void. Other loves arise, other interests are
aroused, new links are forged, new relationships are formed,
and the heart,
Tho' widow'd, may not rest
Quite in the love of what is gone,
But seeks to beat in time with one
That warms another living breast.
In the same year that In Memoriam was published — annus
mirabilis — Tennyson had married Emily Sellwood, the
daughter of a Horncastle solicitor, and the sister of Charles
Tennyson-Turner's wife. They had long been engaged,
and it was the faithful, unfailing love of a good woman
which saved him from misanthropy. With one so " near,
dear, and true " given to him he could not abandon himself
to despondency or utterly deny divine wisdom. But doubt
is unavoidable. No one has more strongly insisted upon
that than Tennyson. He makes doubt the concomitant of
a wakeful truth-searching mind, and declines to believe
that there is virtue in a faith unshaken. But by manfully
combating temptation and fear, a mighty victory for truth
is possible. The friend lamented had
Fought his doubts and gather'd strength,
He would not make his judgment blind,
He faced the spectres of the mind
And laid them : thus he came at length
To find a stronger faith his own.
K nowl ed g e is not the final goal ; when separated from Love
and Faith, knowledge is headstrong, dangerous, and mis-
taken, " for she is earthly of the mind, but Wisdom heavenly
of the soul." Knowledge without reverence can onlylead
astrayTahd in the day of difficulty the wanderer "cannot
fight the fear of death." And the poet, from this point, is
led to a beautiful explanation of how faith in his Creator
was found. The revelation did not come through science.
IN MEMO RI AM. II?
I found him not in world or sun,
Or eagle's wing, or insect's eye :
Nor thro' the questions men may try,
The petty cobwebs we have spun.
Knowledge did not suffice, and the poet returns a negative
to the query, " By searching can man find out God ? " But
when tempted to forsake religion, when voices whispered
" believe no more " —
A warmth within the breast would melt
The freezing reason's colder part,
And like a man in wrath the heart
Stood up and answer'd " I have felt."
__j£aowledge, science, culture, were phantoms beside the
reality of experience. In the heart that had felt was stored
memajestic truth which neither learning nor logic can give
or take away. Words and symbols are nothing when the
heart has its inspiration, life its instinct, and the spirit its
vision. The fool may say that death ends all, and that
after life comes darkness. The heart which has grown
strong by suffering cannot be dismayed, knowing that
sorrow only makes "hope look through dimmer eyes,"
that after doubt we " find a stronger faith our own," and
that
All is well, tho' faith and form
Be sunder'd in the night of fear.
The human view is foreshortened ; we cannot see " behind
the veil." But " all is well." The broken and bleeding
heart, feeling the touch of a healing hand, and filled with
ineffable peace, beats to that refrain, and life henceforth is
a psalm of gratitude and thanksgiving. "All is well."
Even suffering to come has no terror. The divine will is
vindicated, the divine lesson approved. Sorrow is the angel
pointing the way to the desired goal. Love isjupre me ; it
reigns in the heart, it dominates life, it forgesgolden bonds
between man and man, it links earth with heaven. Now
18 TENNYSON; POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
can we understand that lofty prelude which some years
later the poet added to his work — a hymn and a prayer
preparing the mind for the reception of the truths that
follow. It is " immortal love " which we " by faith alone
embrace " —
Believing where we cannot prove.
It is the God of Love who made both Life and Death, and
is master of the dominion of each.
Thou wilt not leave us in the dust :
Thou madest man, he knows not why ;
He thinks he was not made to die ;
And thou hast made him, thou art just.
Thou seemest human and divine.
The highest, holiest manhood, thou :
Our wills are ours, we know not how ;
Our wills are ours, to make them thine.
In Memoriam is not a long monotone of grief. It is
a pasan of praise, growing more and more confident, and
concluding with an outburst of rapturous thanksgiving.
What undertone of sadness it possesses belongs to all human
joy — " There 's a pang in all rejoicing, And joy in the heart
of pain," said Bayard Taylor long ago. But the best to be
said of In Memoriam is in Charles Kingsley's words :
" The poem enables us to claim one who had been hitherto
regarded as belonging to a merely speculative and peirastic
school, as the willing and deliberate, champion of vital
Christianity, and of an orthodoxy the more sincere because
it has worked upward through the abyss of doubt ; the
more mighty for good because it justifies and consecrates
the aesthetics and the philosophy of the present age." The
eminent Christian concluded by declaring that In Memo-
riam was " the noblest Christian poem which England has
produced for two centuries." Stedman's tribute is equally
emphatic. " This work stands by itself," he wrote ;
IN ME MORI AM. 119
" none can essay another upon its model without yielding
every claim to personality at the risk of an inferiority that
would be appalling. The strength of Tennyson's intellect
has full sweep in this elegiac poem — the great threnody of
our language, by virtue of unique conception and power.
. . . The grave, majestic, hymnal measure swells like the
peal of an organ, yet acts as a break on undue spasmodic
outbursts of discordant grief. . . . In Memoriam is a
serene and truthful panorama of refined experiences ; filled
with pictures of gentle scholastic life, and of English scenery
through all the changes of a rolling year ; expressing, more-
over, the thoughts engendered by these changes. When too
sombre, it is lightened by sweet reminiscences ; when too
light, recalled to grief by stanzas that have the deep
solemnity of a passing bell. . . . The wisdom, yearnings,
and aspirations of a noble mind are here ; curious reason-
ing, for once, is not out of place ; the poet's imagination,
shut in upon itself, strives to irradiate with inward light the
mystic problems of life. At the close, Nature's eternal
miracle is made symbolic of the soul's palingenesis, and the
tender and beautiful marriage-lay tranquillises the reader
with the thought of the dear common joys which are the
heritage of every living kind." Mr Robert Buchanan aptly
described In Memoriam as a " rainbow on a grave."
Not the least interesting parts of the poem are those in
which Tennyson has supplied us with fragments of his
autobiography and glimpses of the old home and the places
he loved. 1 Whatever awakened the memory of his lost
friend was doubly dear to him ; yet, when he left Somersby
in 1837, and took a last glance at the " pleasant fields and
farms," seeing them from afar
Mix in one another's arms
To one pure image of regret,
— he was little disposed ever to renew accquaintance
with them. The scenes were blotted out of his vision,
1 See In Tennyson Land, cap. v.; also Appendix A.
120 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
but were enshrined in his memory. Let Charles Tenny-
son-Turner express in words why the old home was not
revisited.
In the dark twilight of an autumn morn
I stood within a little country town,
Wherefrom a long acquainted path went down
To the dear village haunts where I was born ;
The low of oxen on the rainy wind,
Death and the past came up the well-known road,
And bathed my heart in tears, but stirred my mind
To tread once more the track so long untrod.
But I was warned, " Regrets which are not thrust
Upon thee, seek not : for this sobbing breeze
Will but unman thee ; thou art bold to trust
Thy woe-worn thoughts among these roaring trees,
And gleams of by -gone playgrounds. Is 't no crime,
To rush by night into the arms of time ? "
But to the pilgrim there can be no more hallowed spot
than the " dear village haunts " which breathe of that event-
ful past. Here one of the great dramas of life was acted
out. Here came Arthur Hallam and read the Tuscan
poets on the lawn ; here wandered the friends ; here the
lovers plighted their troth ; here were the day-dreams
dreamed and the vast hopes hoped ; and here was the
devastation wrought and the life-long sorrow begun when
with bier and pall came the revelation of irreparable
loss.
No literary work has done more than In Memoriam
to resolve doubt and "justify the ways of God to man."
No one can rise from the study of it without feeling
strengthened, cheered, and refreshed. It is the history
of a soul's struggle and of the victory of life and its Giver.
It is the passage from darkness to light, from mystery to
revelation, from fear to faith, from rebellion to resignation,
and from reproof to praise. Shelley sang in rapture —
The splendours of the firmament of time
May be eclipsed, but are extinguished not ;
Like stars to their appointed height they climb,
IN MEMORIAM.
And death is a low mist which cannot blot
The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought
Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair,
And love and life contend in it for what
Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there,
And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air.
To this exquisite thought Tennyson has imparted a larger
significance. He reaches a higher and more refined sphere,
from which he points upward to the most blessed of truths,
the realisation of
That God, which ever lives and loves,
One God, one law, one element,
And one far-off divine event,
To which the whole creation moves.
CHAPTER VII.
"MAUD": TENNYSON ON WAR AND PEACE.
" I would the old God of war himself were dead,
Forgotten, rusting on his iron hills,
Rotting on some wild shore with ribs of wreck,
Or like an old-world mammoth bulk'd in ice,
Not to be molten out."
— The Princess.
" I would that wars should cease,
I would the globe from end to end
Might sow and reap in peace,
And some new spirit o'erbear the old,
Or Trade refrain the Powers
From War with kindly links of gold,
Or Love with wreaths of flowers."
— Epilogue (to the Charge of the Heavy Brigade).
In the preceding chapter I have given an analysis of In
Memoriam, touching in turn upon the personal parts, the
vein of philosophy, and the religious teaching, and showing
the synthetical character of the whole poem. The year
which saw its publication was the year of the poet's
marriage and of his appointment to the Laureateship.
Shiplake Church was the scene of his wedding — " a large
and beautiful pile," wrote Mary Russell Mitford, " the tower
half-clothed with ivy, and standing with its charming vicar-
age and pretty vicarage-garden on a high eminence over-
hanging one of the finest bends of the river Thames. A
woody lane leads from the church to the bottom of the
chalk-cliff, one side of which stands out from the road
below like a promontory, surmounted by the laurel-hedges
and flowery arbours of the vicarage garden, and crested by
a noble cedar of Lebanon." While in this neighbourhood
the poet composed Rifllemen,form, for the Berkshire Volun-
teers ; but directly after his marriage he went abroad, and
MAUD. 123
the record of his enchanted journey with his wife "in lands
of palm and southern pine," may be read in that most
delightful of picture-poems, The Daisy. Returning home,
and having to mourn the loss of his first child, Tennyson
took up his residence in London, his house being in Mont-
pelier Row, Twickenham. There he stayed until November
1853, seeing in that time his Poems pass through an eighth
edition, The Princess through a fifth edition, and hi Me-
moriam through a fourth edition. All these were still
being subjected to rigid revision, while additions were
made or former pieces omitted at the poet's discretion.
He contributed a number of miscellaneous poems to the
papers, writing them more as Laureate than as poet com-
pelled to utterance, and few of these he afterwards deemed
worthy of preservation. The note struck in such verses as
Hands all Round, the Ode on Wellington, The Charge of the
Light Brigade, and The Third of February 1852, was to
ring through the greater work then in preparation. The
Fifties were a time of mad excitement. Everywhere was
heard the clamour of arms. The European nations were
locked in a deadly struggle. All thoughts were of war,
and all eyes were fixed upon the battle-ground of the
Crimea, where the destiny of England and Russia was to
be decided by cannon and sabre. In 1855 the Laureate
published Maud, little thinking perhaps of the torrent of
vituperation which would be poured upon him from some
quarters in consequence. Whether anticipated or not, the
powerful drama, showing the curse of a corrupting peace,
excited a controversy which will never entirely subside as
long as the old question remains unanswered — " Is war a
cause or a consequence ? "
So far back as 1836, Tennyson, then known only as
the author of the Poems, chiefly Lyrical which had failed
to produce any sensation beyond his own circle of friends,
had been petitioned by the Marquis of Northampton to
contribute to an Annual, which was to be published for
charitable purposes. A copy of this publication, which I
124 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
have by me, bears the title of The Tribute : a Collection of
Miscellaneous unpublished Poems by Various Authors. The
proceeds of the sale were to be devoted to assisting the Rev.
Edward Smedley, and " spare him the necessity for those
arduous literary labours which threatened his sight or his
life." Before the book came out in 1837, Smedley had died,
but the volume was prepared and sold to relieve the wants
of his family. In response to Lord Northampton's applica-
tion, Tennyson wrote — (and the letter casts a side-light
upon this obscure portion of his life) — " Three summers
back, provoked by the incivility of editors, I swore an oath
that I would never again have to do with their vapid books,
and I broke it in the sweet face of Heaven when I wrote for
Lady What 's-her-name Wortley. 1 But then her sister
wrote to Brookfield, and said she (Lady W.) was beautiful ;
so I could not help it. But whether the Marquis be beauti-
ful or not, I don't much mind ; if he be, let him give God
thanks, and make no boast. To write for people with pre-
fixes to their names is to milk he-goats ; there is neither
honour nor profit." This ungracious letter (addressed to
Monckton Milnes) did not, in the end, prevent Tennyson's
contributing those exquisite stanzas beginning " Oh that
'twere possible After long grief and pain." The poet was
in fairly good company, for though among the crowd there
were some whom we have willingly forgotten, there were
also those who deserve to be remembered — his brother
Charles, Milnes, Wordsworth, Venables, Trench, Aubrey de
Vere, Henry Taylor, Landor, Doyle, Milman, Alford,
Bowles, Southey, Joanna Baillie, Agnes Strickland, Mont-
gomery, and Lord John Russell. Milnes had evidently
informed Tennyson that these had promised to write for
the Annual, for we find the poet asking, " Kow should
such a modest man as I see my small name in collocation
with the great ones, and not feel myself a barndoor fowl
*He had contributed three poems to The Gem, a sonnet to The Englishman 's
Magazine, another to the Yorkshire Literary Annual, and a third to Friend-
ship's Offering.
MAUD. 125
among peacocks ? " When the Stanzas were published, a
sapient reviewer, while "not professing to understand
them," decided that " amidst some quaintness, and some
occasional absurdities of expression, it is not difficult to de-
tect the hand of a true poet." Among Tennyson's friends
was Sir John Simeon, who had been introduced to him by
Carlyle. It is he who is referred to as the last of three
loved men in the touching lines, entitled In tlie Garden at
Sivainston. We know, on the authority of Mrs Ritchie,
that it was a remark of Sir John's, that " it seemed as if
something were wanting to explain the story " suggested
by the stanzas, which led so many years afterwards to their
elaboration into the monodrama Maud.
Maud is a series of songs in many metres and many keys
— " a chaplet of lyric pearls," as Bayard Taylor said — songs
which, with more or less change, have been sung since love
was born, and will be sung until love b^ no more. These
songs form a slight story in which an English girl, Maud,
and a nameless lover, who is the speaker throughout, are the
central figures. Two others, Maud's brother and his friend,
flit phantom-like across the scene, but they are speedily lost.
Maud is the one sacred name, and the one character, who
without appearing, is a real presence, and without speaking
is heard. In the poem we find combined all those charms
and attributes so characteristic of Tennyson's writing.
There is the beauty of woman gleaming as in the portrait
of Adelaide or Eleanore ; there is the purity of purpose as
displayed in Sir Galahad, the passionate fervour of Fatima,
the pathos and frenzy of Locksley Hall. Over all this
wondrous combination is cast a magic fascinating light,
while every line has a haunting rhythm, instinct with un-
born melody. The witchery is complete. One seems to
follow the story half in a trance, and to live in a dream of
exquisite charm and mystery. It has been urged that
Maud is unreal, and that the declamations are sound and
fury signifying nothing. On the contrary, it is replete
with sincerity, and abounds in confidences. The poet is
126 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
never constrained, hesitating, and repressed. Sometimes
the words seems to glow with fire, and hot anger or hot
love has the intensity of madness. The parts of the poem
are excellently balanced, and so far as its mechanism
can be detected, it is without a flaw. Although in three
divisions, the piece is really in two parts. The first is that
of hope, which grows brighter and brighter until its promise
is all but fulfilled : the second is that of despair, which
deepens and darkens until the end comes.
The hero, Maud's lover, is not as some quibblers would
have us believe, a madman with long periods of rationality,
but a rational man with short periods of madness. He is
a man with deep emotions and of strong passions, easily
moved to wrath — a man of violent extremes, alternately
swayed by tempests of joy and sorrow. His life began in
gloom, and his sensitiveness and embittered feeling caused
him to shrink from companionship, and to bury himself in
himself. Too much of introspection, too long a nursing of
grief, too acute a gazing upon the disappointments of the
past have made him a pessimist philosopher convinced of
universal fraud and unrighteousness. Man and Nature are
alike cruel, base, tormenting, working to evil ends and ulti-
mate doom. His own life becomes inexplicable, and when
reverse of fortune separates him from the only creature he
loved — the girl to whom he was vowed at his birth — the last
light vanishes, and he resigns himself to unceasing despond-
ency. His existence is inmeshed with perplexities. He
has no refuge from himself, no relief from corroding thought.
Scorned, as he imagines, shunned and shunning, restless,
loveless, hopeless — what wonder that he becomes a fatalist,
a Timon in his silent retreat, a social leper, a man with
"neither hope nor trust"? He beholds in ghastly pro-
cession all the horrors, the crimes, the impostures, the
roguery of the age which has prated of the blessings of
Peace and made them a curse — when each man lusts for
all that is not his own, and "when only the ledger lives,
and when only not all men lie." True in his own heart,
MAUD. 127
unselfish in his own desires, he feels that the world has
made itself his enemy. Men are lost in iniquity, and
having no foe to compel them to draw the sword, they
wage civil war with each other, and " the spirit of murder
works in the very means of life."
When a Mammonite mother kills her babe for a burial fee,
And Timour-Mammon grins on a pile of children's bones,
Is it peace or war ? better, war ! loud war by land and by sea,
War with a thousand battles and shaking a hundred thrones.
Dr Mann, whose splendid vindication of Maud was ap-
proved by the Laureate himself, explains that as war exists
in the great drama of Nature, it " could not be shut out
from the little drama, which treats, under the suggestion
of the wider plan, of the meaning and purpose of moral
conflict." Tennyson's hero, the man with a mind strangely
wrought upon, served as a convenient mouthpiece for those
sentiments which the student of humanity is bound to ex-
press.
Nature is one with rapine, a harm no preacher can heal ;
The Mayfly is torn by the swallow, the sparrow spear'd by the shrike,
And the whole little wood where I sit is a world of plunder and prey.
So is it with " Man in his pride, and Beauty fair in her
flower." There is no mercy, no toleration, no friendship in
the world.
We whisper, and hint, and chuckle, and grin at a brother's shame ;
However we brave it out, we men are a little breed.
Here, then, is a problem to be mastered and solved. The
" drift of the Maker is dark." Did He intend man to be the
prey of man and war incessant, or has man departed from
the track marked out and begun to creep backward to the
beast ? " He now is first, but is he the last ? Is he not
too base ? "
If there be power to redeem the world, that power is
Love — the love that has already imperceptibly entered the
young man's heart and alleviated his sorrow. The scales
fall from his eyes, and the beauty of the world expands
128 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
before him. The future is not unlit, and the present is not
heavy with clouds.
If she were not a cheat,
If Maud were all that she seem'd,
And her smile were all that I dream'd,
Then the world were not so bitter
But a smile could make it sweet.
Love has brought with it the hope of betterment and re-
generation, it has sweetened and warmed the river of life,
Calming itself to the long-wished for end,
Close to the banks, close on the promis'd good.
The world is brighter. In his happiness he sees all things
with clearer vision, and Nature participates in his joy.
A livelier emerald twinkles in the grass,
A purer sapphire melts into the sea.
All would be well, and the conquering beauty of life would
be manifested, if love were not perishable. But that which
was to regenerate was itself destroyed. Happiness cul-
minated in a few rapturous moments and then gave way to
lasting sorrow and despair. There seems to be but one
answer to Matthew Arnold's saddest cry —
Oh, must the cup that holds
The sweetest vintage of the wine of life
Taste bitter at the dregs ? Is there no story,
No legend, no love-passage, which shall end
Even as the bow which God hath bent in heaven,
O'er the sad waste of mortal histories,
Promising respite to the rain of tears ?
The dark undercurrent of woe which in the day of his
greatest hope Maud's lover had realised as still flowing was
henceforth to pervade his life and cast great tides of bitter-
ness and regret against his heart. He fell from the height
to which soaring dreams had raised him ; he was prostrate
with pain and grief. Hopeless of ever seeing Maud again,
save in transient dreams, madness like a devil possessed
his spirit, and drove a blade deeper into his open wounds.
MAUD. 129
The beautiful garden of roses where Maud was queen had
become a wilderness in which thronged the avenging spirits
of those whom he had hurt In darkness, in misery, in
desperation he reverts to the philosophy of old. There is
but one way to save himself, to prove his manhood, to
benefit his race. The spectral bride of his dreams points
the way to his redemption.
Like a silent lightning under the stars
She seem'd to divide in a dream from a band of the blest,
And spoke of a hope for the world in the coming wars —
" And in that hope, dear soul, let trouble have rest,
Knowing I tarry for thee," and pointed to Mars
As he glowed like a ruddy shield on the Lion's breast.
And it was but a dream, yet it yielded a dear delight
To have look'd, tho' but in a dream, upon eyes so fair,
That had been in a weary world my one thing bright ;
And it was but a dream, yet it lighten'd my despair
When I thought that a war would arise in defence of the right,
That an iron tyranny now should bend or cease,
The glory of manhood stand on his ancient height,
Nor Britain's one sole god be the millionaire.
Thus the lover, just aroused to the reality of life, becomes,
not a recluse and critic, but a fellow-worker with other men.
He and his race have a common aim ; their hands meet in
a sacred cause. Though he may not avert the dark im-
pending doom, he can meet it nobly.
It is better to fight for the good than to rail at the ill ;
I have felt with my native land, I am one with my kind,
I embrace the purpose of God, and the doom assign'd.
There is nothing in the proposition or in the working out
of the plan to justify the anti-Maud jeremiads which soon
made themselves heard. However terrible war may be,
we must look at it, not only as an existent evil, but, under
present conditions, as inevitable. None ever prayed more
ardently for peacelhah Tennyson, and none loved it more.
He wished the war-drums to throb no longer, the battle-
flags to be furled, in the Parliament of man, the Federation
T
3o TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
of the world ; he longed for the Golden Year to dawn when
all men's good should be
Each man's rule, and universal Peace
Lie like a shaft of light across the land,
And like a lane of beams athwart the sea.
But if peace is to be a synonym for waste and corruption,
better, he said, the war which brings forth man's valour and
gives him a mission to fight the foe that would enslave
or degrade us. Dr Mann has put the explanation in these
words — " As the open and declared war, which is waged at
intervals between nation and nation, is far less base and
horrible than the secret and marked war of personal violence
and fraud which is waged unceasingly between man and
man, it may possibly be that the All-Mighty and All-Wise
Designer of Creation has intended it to be a beneficial escape
for fierce humours, which turn human life into a fever when
they are pent up and accumulative." Tennyson deemed
that one of two alternatives must be accepted, man being
an aggressive and belligerent creature : open war with
sword and spear, or secret war with poison and knife. In
an early poem he had manifested his feeling as to the inevi-
tability of war. In the present stage of the world Prin-
ciples will be " rain'd in blood " ; a disastrous feud will rage
between New and Old, and Nature's evil star will
Drive men in manhood, as in youth,
To follow flying steps of Truth
Across the brazen bridge of war.
Yet, said the poet, let the world go onward, for one thing
is certain :
If knowledge brings the sword,
Knowledge takes the sword away.
The Epilogue to the Charge of the Heavy Brigade is the
poet's own vindication. Irene blames him —
You praise when you should blame
The barbarism of wars.
MA UD.
But he explains that he would that wars should cease ;
that he counts the Slav, Teuton, and Kelt his " friends and
brother souls " ; but, since evil was known in the world,
man
Needs must fight
To make true peace his own,
He needs must combat might with might,
Or Might would rule alone.
But is a man therefore to love bloodshed ? No —
Who loves War for War's own sake
Is fool, or crazed, or worse ;
yet the patriot-soldier who fights well deserves praise, even
if the cause be wrong.
In Maud, Tennyson showed that the temper of men
unfitted them for peace. They are yet in the lower stage,
and beneath the veneer of civilisation are barbarian still.
Better war than social depravity and degeneration. If the
poet's argument is wrong it is because he misunderstood
man, but there is little evidence that the human race loves
peace or can play an unselfish part When ambition,
avarice, pride, and jealousy have been exterminated from
men's nature, when the springs of anger and fear have been
closed, when the evil tongue is still, and the evil ear deaf,
the war with mankind can cease. Tennyson did not advo-
cate war. He was the apostle of peace, the bearer of the
lily and the palm. But in Maud he demonstrated that war
was unavoidable while every instinct of mankind drove them
to rapacity. " Assigning in Maud the exaggerated denuncia-
tion of social wrong to a speaker of morbid temperament,"
said Professor Dowden, " Tennyson expressed through the
hero of his monodrama fears and doubts which assailed his
own heart and the hearts of many thoughtful men. He,
who had dreamed of peace and a federation of races, finds
in the battle ardours of a righteous war deliverance from
the selfishness and supineness of spirit which had made
social life no better than an internecine strife during days
• 132 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
\that were styled days of peace." And, since conflict there
must be, a thousand times better that the clarion should
sound for Sebastopol or Waterloo than that the by-
lanes should ring " to the yell of the trampled wife,"
!'' " chalk and alum and plaster be sold to the poor
jr bread."
.J'Like/w Memoriam, Maud is strongly reminiscent of the
poet's early life and environment. Begun during his sojourn
irfflLincolnshi^e, it retained the hue of that county, although
the major portion of it must have been written in London
and Farringford. The scenery is always near
The silent woody places
By the home that gave me birth,
and Holywell Glen, just beyond the poet's house, with its
" dreadful hollow," its " red-ribb'd ledges," and its tumbled
rocks suggested the story. 1 The coast and the sea are of
Lincolnshire also, where the eternal conflict between the
waves and the land rages most violently. And the lover
from his " own dark garden ground " could hear the inces-
sant tumult, and he listened alternately to
The tide in its broad-flung shipwrecking roar,
and then to
The scream of a madden'd beach dragged down by the wave.
Maud must rank as a great poem if only because it
sweeps over so large a range, touches so many chords,
mingles so many harmonies, and reaches so pregnant a
conclusion. It is both human and heroic. It shows man
in his strength and weakness, nature in its horror and
its sublimity. Perhaps too it confirms the thought of
fatalism, stamps us as puppets, blind and resistless as
we are
Moved by an unseen hand at a game
That pushes us off from the board, and others ever succeed.
Yet in teaching the redeeming power of pure love the poem
1 See the Chapter on Holywell Glen in In Tennyson Land.
MAUD. 133
reaches a height of grandeur. Maud is the most beautiful
of Tennyson's conceptions —
Maud with her exquisite face,
And wild voice pealing up to the sunny sky,
And feet like sunny gems on an English green,
Maud in the light of her youth and her grace,
Singing of Death, and of Honour that cannot die.
She is veritably the " queen rose of the rosebud garden
of girls," and there is " none like her, none." Yet Maud is
but a shadow cast across the path of a man, and she can
only pass away in silence as she came. She is but the
music of a man's soul, audible only to the ears of love.
She is but a vision of peace and splendour visible to the
consecrated eyes of the faithful and the pure. She is but the
starry hope of yearning, ardent youth, which glows like a fire
for a brief season, and sinks into ashes and dust as the ideal
fades, and the world is conqueror.
The monodrama, with its martial vigour, its purity and
strength of purpose, came like a waft of fresh air in a spot
reeking with pollution. Its lesson was as potential as it
was praiseworthy. But these things apart, Maud remains
one long exquisite sonata with delicious snatches of melody
and pealing harmonies, ever changing in key and time,
now soft and lutelike in sweetness, now agitated, stern, and
grand in storm, then again subdued, and sinking into
cadences beautiful almost beyond realisation. Again, it is
the story of a heart — of a heart lacerated with sorrow, and
for a time soothed with love, then tortured into madness,
and finding hope and salvation eventually in valiant deeds.
Said Charles Dickens in one of his many confidences with
his readers — " I am a fond parent to every child of my
fancy, and no one can love that family as dearly as I love
them. But, like many fond parents, I have in my heart of
hearts a favourite child. And his name is David Copper-
field!' And if Tennyson had cared to take the world into
his confidence it is not unlikely that he would have con-
134 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
fessed — as we have good reason for believing was the fact
— that in his heart of hearts he had a favourite child, and
that child's name was Maud. 1
1 Hain Friswell said : " Tennyson believes Maud to be, as he told certain
friends, the best thing he has ever written, and which " (the severe critic
added), "certainly has in it more passion of the kind felt by the Baker Street
and Westboume Grove classes than any other of his pieces." — Modern Men of
Letters Honestly Criticised (1870).
CHAPTER VIII.
ENOCH ARDEN.
" To look on noble forms
Makes noble thro' the sensuous organism
That which is higher."
— The Princess.
TENNYSON'S tranquil life during these, years supplies the
biographer with very few details. He was zealously living
up to his ideal and striving to miss
The irreverent doom
Of those that wear the Poet's crown.
The revision of old poems and the composition of new
appears to have been his chief occupation, though " troops
of unrecording friends " helped to make time pleasant at
Farringford. His son Hallam was born in 1852, and two
years later a second son, Lionel, was added to the family ;
and it was at this time that the celebrated invitation to the
Rev. F. D. Maurice was sent. The lines conveying that
invitation have attracted a large share of attention, because
they supply us with one of the rare revelations of the poet
in his private life — a privacy which we have no desire to
invade save with his sanction. But the picture of the
home in the Isle of Wight is too valuable to be excluded.
" Come," wrote the poet,
Come, when no graver cares employ,
Godfather, come and see your boy,
Where, far from noise and smoke of town,
I watch the twilight falling brown
All round a careless-order'd garden
Close to the ridge of a noble down.
136 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
You '11 have no scandal while you dine,
But honest talk and wholesome wine,
And only hear the magpie gossip
Garrulous under a roof of pine :
For pines of grove on either hand,
To break the blast of winter, stand :
And further on the hoary Channel
Tumbles a billow on chalk and sand.
Come, Maurice, come : the lawn as yet
Is hoar with rime, or spongy-wet ;
But when the wreath of March has blossom'd,
Crocus, anemone, violet,
Or later, pay one visit here,
For those are few we hold as dear.
The character of this chosen friend, the Rev. Frederick
Denison Maurice, is sketched in the same poem. He was
one of " that honest few Who give the Fiend himself his
due," and anathemas had been thundered at him for his
candour and his freedom of thought. He had been one of
the earliest to recognise Tennyson, and being himself a
Trinity man, he was proud of his fellow-collegian. He had
been godfather with Henry Hallam, the historian, to the
poet's eldest surviving son, and Maurice soon afterwards
dedicated to the Laureate his volume of "Theological
Essays." " I have maintained in these Essays," he wrote,
" that a Theology which does not correspond to the deepest
thoughts and feeling of human beings cannot be a true
Theology. Your writings have taught me to enter into
many of those thoughts and feelings. ... As the hopes
which I have expressed in this volume are more likely to
be fulfilled to our children than to ourselves, I might per-
haps ask you to accept it as a present to one of your name,
in whom you have given me a very sacred interest. Many
years, I trust, will elapse before he knows that there are
any controversies in the world into which he has entered.
Would to God that in a few more he may find that they
had ceased ! At all events, if he should ever look into
ENOCH ARDEN. 137
these Essays they may tell him what meaning some of the
former generation attached to words, which will be familiar
and dear to his generation, and to those who follow his —
how there were some who longed that the bells of our
churches might indeed
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be."
Maurice was the friend and fellow- worker of Mr Ruskin,
and in the latter's account of his relations with the Working-
Men's College (Prceterita, vol. iii.) he makes the following
remarks upon the gifted, free-thinking theologian : — " I
loved Frederick Maurice, as everyone did who came near
him ; and have no doubt he did all that was in him to do
of good in his day. But Maurice was by nature puzzle-
headed, and, though in a beautiful manner, wrong-headed ;
while his clear conscience and keen affections made him
egotistic, and in his Bible-reading as insolent as any infidel
of them all. I only went once to a Bible lesson of his ;
and the meeting was significant and conclusive. The sub-
ject of lesson, Jael's slaying of Sisera, concerning which
Maurice, taking an enlightened modern view of what was
fit and not, discoursed in passionate indignation ; and
warned his class, in the most positive and solemn manner,
that such dreadful deeds could only have been done in cold
blood in the Dark Biblical ages ; and that no religious and
patriotic Englishwoman ought ever to think of imitating
Jael by nailing a Russian's or Prussian's skull to the ground
— especially after giving him bitters in a lordly dish. At
the close of the instruction, through which I sat silent, I
ventured to inquire why then had Deborah, the prophetess,
declared of Jael, ' Blessed above women shall the wife of
Heber the Kenite be ? ' On which Maurice, with startled
and flashing eyes, burst into partly scornful, partly alarmed
denunciation of Deborah the prophetess as a mere blazing
Amazon, and of her song as a merely rhythmic storm of
battle-rage, no more to be listened to with edification of
138 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
faith than the Norman's sword-song at the Battle of
Hastings. Whereupon there remained nothing for me —
to whom the Song of Deborah was as sacred as the Magni-
ficat — but total collapse in sorrow and astonishment, the
eyes of all the class being also bent upon me in amazed
reprobation of my benighted views and unchristian senti-
ments. And I got away how I could, and never went
back." This glimpse of F. D. Maurice, one of the closest
of Tennyson's friends, enables us to understand how the
two at their meeting would discuss strange and solemn
matters, " dear to the man that is dear to God," and turn
at length to the social schemes in which Maurice was most
deeply interested —
How best to help the slender store,
How mend the dwellings, of the poor ;
How gain in life, as life advances,
Valour and charity more and more.
Sir Henry Taylor, who was Tennyson's neighbour at this
time, and often saw him, recorded that the house at Farring-
ford was " the most beautifully situated he ever beheld."
Its park, grove, and pastures in particular won his admira-
tion, and at a later date (i860) he wrote — " In the midst of
all this beauty and comfort stands Alfred Tennyson, grand,
but very gloomy, whom it is sadness to see ; and one has
to think of his works to believe that he can escape from
himself, and escape into regions of glory and light." When
the poet paid his neighbour a visit the best that Taylor
could record of him was that he " grumbled agreeably for an
hour or two." Fitzgerald was surprised whenever Tenny-
son was agreeable in the morning : " his agreeable moods
are generally in the evening," he said. Lest this, and other
like sayings, should be misunderstood, I may fitly say a
word here on Tennyson's relations with his contemporaries.
The publication of the poem called The Dead Prophet in
1885, drew forth the following note : " The verses are sup-
posed to refer to somebody who lived, and to something
that took place, in the reign of George the Fourth. The
ENOCH ARDEX. 139
Dead Prophet is represented as making the world heed his
Word, as being loved by his friends and by his children, and
as being a loss to his country. But one comes by who calls
herself Reverence, and in the name of Truth, must find out
all the weaknesses of the hero, that he may be sent stark
naked through the world. The poem recalls Tennyson's
previous protest against permitting the ' many-headed
beast ' to know the foibles of great men. But the critics
want to know who the Prophet was. They are searching
in their dictionaries of biography for the man of George the
Fourth's reign who was a sage, and had wife and family.
Tut, tut. The date and the parental point are mere blinds.
Tennyson's protest refers to Thomas Carlyle, and is directed
against Mr Froude's Life of him. That is the riddle hard
to read, which our men of great insight have found so
puzzling."
The friendship between Tennyson and Carlyle and his
wife had been of the most intimate and enduring character.
An entirely false impression is abroad that the poet was
a man of few friendships, that he was a gruff recluse,
of cold and forbidding manners, that it was a matter of the
utmost difficulty for strangers to approach him or for
acquaintances to obtain courteous treatment. It is true that
the poet had a scorn (with which we must all sympathise)
for the idle and vulgar curiosity of the masses ; but the
whole history of his life testifies to the fact that he was a
most sincere though properly discriminating companion and
friend. His nature was capable of the most intense affec-
tion, and, as is always the case, of the most bitter preju-
dices. Once he hated he always hated, once he despised
he always despised, but once he loved he loved most
deeply, most tenderly, most beautifully. Assuredly he
himself was dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of
scorn, the love of love.
Although the great friendship of Tennyson's life was
early severed and remained a perpetual sorrow, and al-
though he was sufficiently a recluse to draw upon himself
the charge of personal pride, contemning his fellow-men,
i4o TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
yet throughout his long life the poet was always surrounded
by a circle of more than acquaintances and admirers.
Friendships begun at College continued, friendships spring-
ing from like labours and enthusiasms strengthened, friend-
ships slowly growing from exchange of thoughts, and inter-
change of sympathies ripened and matured. Tennyson's
soul went forth unto all that was worthy, and he was willing
to accept voluntarily as a friend the man whose work was
his recommendation. Thus a visitor like Dr Oliver Wen-
dell Holmes had no difficulty in penetrating the reserve in
which the Laureate half-concealed himself; and equally
he was in spiritual accord, if not in physical contact, with a
score of others whose labours and learning had won his
praise. At one time and another the circle of friends,
broken only by departure or death, included Carlyle,
Longfellow, Lord Houghton, Landor, Fitzgerald, Sir
Henry Parkes, Whitman, Spedding, Lear, Woolner, Sir
Henry Taylor, Palgrave, Rogers, Dickens, Thackeray,
Sydney Dobell, Dean Alford, Brookfield, Browning, Gari-
baldi, Ruskin, Sir John Simeon, Bayard Taylor, Maurice,
Lushington, and other leaders of thought in England and
America ; to say nothing of that inner circle of friends
whose privacy we may respect. Innumerable anecdotes
might be adduced for the purpose of showing how genial
and happy was the poet's intercourse with these brother-
workers and kindred spirits'; but surely enough is revealed in
In Memoriam, in the lines to his brother Charles, in the
sonnet upon Brookfield, in A Dead Prophet, in the words of
sympathy to "J. S.," in the sonnet to " J. M. K.," in the
stanzas to " E. L.," in the invitation to the Rev. F. D.
Maurice, in the beautiful poem to Mary Boyle — surely, I
say, enough is revealed in these poems, fresh from a heart
warm with sympathy, to vindicate the poet from the charge
of frigid exclusiveness and unamiability. Tennyson was
no misanthrope. His greeting was always "men my
brothers " ; his aim was always to better the race ; his ideal
was universal federation, social purity, and complete happi-
ENOCH ARDEN. 141
ness, wrongs redressed and right triumphant, the ushering-
irTof the Golden Year. How could such a man fail to be
" one with his kind " ? He, like Abou Ben Adhem, could
be written down in the book of gold as
One that loved his fellow-men.
Longfellow left a record of his visit to Tennyson in a
beautiful sonnet ; Tennyson reminded us of the visit of
Garibaldi in the lines To Ulysses, addressed to W. G.
Palgrave, who died at Monte Video before he had read the
poem of thanks for " tales of lands I know not." In this
poem Tennyson contrasted his friend's experience " basking
below the Linej" with his own — "soaking here in winter wet,"
and thus described himself in his English home :
I, tolerant of the colder time,
Who love the winter woods, to trace
On paler heavens the branching grace
Of leafless elm, or naked lime,
And see my cedar green, and there
My giant ilex keeping leaf
When frost is keen and days are brief —
Or marvel how in English air
My yucca which no winter quells,
Although the months have scarce begun,
Has push'd toward our faintest sun
A spike of half-accomplish'd bells —
Or watch the waving pine which here
The warrior of Caprera set
A name that earth will not forget
Till earth has roll'd her latest year.
A footnote to these verses refers to the allusion to the
warrior of Caprera thus : — " Garibaldi said to me, alluding
to his barren island, ' I wish I had your trees.' " The
pine which Garibaldi planted still flourishes amain, a con-
spicuous feature in one of the most delightful gardens that
poet could have loved to call his own.
It was about the time that Tennyson was in his " grand,
142 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
but very gloomy " state that Edward Fitzgerald made an
interesting record. -'Alfred," he wrote, "seems to be
independent of weather. In one of the great storms of
this year, he walked all along the coast to the Needles,
which is six miles off. With all his shattered nerves and
weary gloom, he seems to have some sort of strength and
hardihood. His tenderness is genuine as well as his sim-
plicity; and he has no hostilities, and is never active, as
against people. He only grumbles. He wants a story
to treat, being full of poetry with nothing to put it in."
The story was found (I use the word " found " advisably,
for Tennyson did not invent the plot), and in 1864 Enoch
Arden appeared. In the nine years which had elapsed
since the publication of Maud, he had written Enid and
Nimue, or, The True and the False (1857), which was
suppressed as soon as printed ; the Idylls of the King
(1859), to which I shall refer later; The Grandmother's
Apology (now known as The Grandmother), to which
Millais supplied an illustration (1859) ; Sea Dreams and
Tithonus (i860) ; and an Ode, a Welcome, several small
lyrics, an Epitaph, and the Experiments in classic metres.
Opinions of Enoch Arden differ widely. Bayard Taylor
curtly dismissed it in his essay as Tennyson's "poorest
narrative poem." Others have hailed it as his most
masterly production, and there is no question that it is
the most "popular" of all his sustained work — though
Heaven forbid that this should be accounted conclusive
testimony of its value. The Rev. George Dawson, whose
knowledge and love of Tennyson was only exceeded by
his knowledge and love of Shakespeare, unhesitatingly
declared that Enoch Arden was "the noblest and best" of
Tennyson's productions. " I find in it," he said, " almost
every quality of the poet — true sympathy and all the rest.
There is not a fine word in it. The conceits and affecta-
tions, and ringlet-within-ringlet of the earlier poems of
Tennyson, are all gone. Some of his poems are too
elaborate. Most people require to read them several
ENOCH ARDEN.
H3
times to understand what the poet means, and then they
are not certain ; but in Enoch Arden is brought to perfect
clearness the last lesson of the true-hearted. It is the
perfection of even narrative — neither break, nor flaw, nor
pause — but calmly and quietly on goes the flow of verse —
fit things in few words, and these words most apt. It is
the last triumph of art to be perfectly simple and natural.
In Enoch Arden we have an heroic soul in a simple dress,
and a tale of love stronger than death, told in matchless
language. It is an idyll of the noblest heroism, told by
simplest people in simple circumstances, and in daily
life. ... I account it a far higher achievement to show
this generation the deep things of the human soul in the
dress of this generation, than to show the great things of
humanity under the dress of knights, monks, and nuns.
The one is an easy task ; the other a very difficult one.
Therefore I deliberately prefer those poems which treat of
modern times, as Hood's Song of the Shirt. I account
Enoch Arden a far greater poem than the Idylls of the King.
These were grand beyond all description, but this is nobler
because it finds the q ualities of King Arthur in the rough
and hjambJe_^rb_^jth^„saiIor f ,the mitter^and the sailor's
wife."
The story of Enoch Arden was familiar before Tennyson's
time, and Enoch Ardens in real life have been abundant
since. Adelaide Proctor had dealt with the same character
and the same crisis in a man's life in one of her lyrics,
Homeward Bound ; but at the point when the hero sees his
wife " seated by the fire, whispering baby-words and smil-
ing on the father of the child," Tennyson departed from
the main lines of the previous narrative. Miss Proctor
made the three recognise each other, and the hero, after
blessing her, departed again to roam " over the restless
ocean." Tennyson's conception was still finer, for he made
the broken-hearted man depart without a word. Said
George Dawson in vindicating Enoch Arden for telling his
story to the landlady just before his death, — " The conduct
144 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
may be questionable, but the great beauty of the poem is
this : here is a sailor, and a little dull town, and a miller,
and a miller's wife ; and in that poor sailor's heart there
beats the whole depth of passionate human love. Every-
thing self-denial can do is done, the sorest stress ever laid
on human heart is laid on his. The circumstances are almost
too terrible to contemplate. God grant that you and I may
never come anything near such a crisis of the soul."
Standing midway between the shorter and detached
idylls and the massive work represented by the Idylls of
the King, the idyll of Enoch Arden, purely English in tone
and sentiment, and dealing with a humble drama of the
day, specially appealed to a larger class of readers and
students than those which had gone before or came after.
The poem has its heights and its depths, yet it can
always be understanded of the people. Enoch Arden is
himself a sublimely heroic and intensely pathetic figure
— at once so masterful and so helpless, so strong and
so weak, so resolute and so incapable. The whole poem
is full of casuistry. The giant is defeated, the feeble
man prevails, the victor is vanquished, the defeated
is triumphant. There is no comparison between Enoch
and his rival Philip. The one is headstong, impetuous,
undaunted, unyielding ; the other is patient, submissive,
gentle, and complaisant. The one can brook no delay,
tolerate no doubt — he is full of manly passion and ardour,
and until he has won his wife is unsatisfied. The other,
though never reluctant or hesitating, can always wait,
always subdue his feelings, always remain faithful and
believe in the faith of others. Both men are heroes, both
are men to admire, both are men of true heart and pure
purpose, and yet they " stand off in difference so mighty."
Both men had their victory and their defeat, and, knowing
the spirit of each, who shall say which triumphed the more ?
— Philip, with his wife won by years of waiting, or Enoch,
knowing his power, and dying in secret to save the woman
he loved from a moment's regret ?
As a poetical composition Enoch Arden is notable for its
ENOCH ARDEN. 145
compression, its concentrated force, its word-simplicity —
all in keeping with the story told and the characters
delineated. It opens with a description, clear and accu-
rate as a photograph, of the little seaport Deal, where foam
and yellow sands are seen in the chasm-broken cliffs, where
red roofs cluster about a narrow wharf ; —
Then a moulder'd church ; and higher
A long street climbs to one tall-tower'd mill ;
And high in heaven behind it a gray down
With Danish barrows ; and a hazel wood
By autumn nutters haunted, nourishes
Green in a cuplike hollow of the down.
In this hazelwood, Philip Hay, the miller's son, Enoch
Arden, " a rough sailor's lad Made orphan by a winter ship-
wreck," and Annie Lee, " the prettiest little damsel in the
port," unconsciously worked out the drama of their later
life. The boys quarrelled as to who should wed her,
and Enoch " stronger made was master " ; but Annie would
bid them cease disputing, " and say she would be little wife
to both." This was the faint adumbration of what was yet
to pass. When the boys became men, Enoch won Annie for
his wife, and Philip, too shy to speak and too late, " in their
eyes and faces read his doom." But when Enoch was cast
away on an island, and unheard of for many years, Philip,
deeming him dead, asked for Annie's love. She, faithful
to the man who had first won her, yet unable to speak
harshly to the man who had been her best friend through
years of sorrow and poverty, could only ask Philip to wait
a little ; and he, with the lifelong hunger in his heart,
said —
" Annie, as I have waited all my life
I well may wait a little."
Convinced at last that Enoch was dead, and persuaded by
Enoch's children to marry Philip, she became the miller's
wife — and then Enoch, rescued after many years, returned
from the island, " the loneliest in a lonely sea." His had
been a hard fate : for years cut off from the world of life,
K
146 TENNYSON; POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
parted by the seas from home and wife, and waiting wearily
and vainly day by day, year by year, for the sight of a sail.
And when " his lonely doom Came suddenly to an end,"
when the
Long-hair'd, long-bearded solitary,
Brown, looking hardly human, strangely clad,
Muttering and mumbling, idiotlike it seem'd,
With inarticulate rage —
was taken aboard and brought to his home, what worse
doom awaited him ? He went home — home to the wife
and babes he had left years before.
Then down the long street having slowly stolen,
His heart foreshadowing all calamity,
His eyes upon the stones, he reach'd the home
Where Annie lived and loved him, and his babes
In those far-off seven happy years were born ;
But finding neither light nor murmur there
(A bill of sale gleam'd thro' the drizzle) crept
Still downward thinking " dead or dead to me " !
At last he found his way to Philip's dwelling, hearing first
from the good and garrulous hostess of the inn all the
changes which time had brought. A thousand memories
" unspeakable for sadness " rolled upon him as he reached
the old loved haunts, and
By and by
The ruddy square of comfortable light,
Far-blazing from the square of Philip's house,
Allured him, as the beacon-blaze allures
The bird of passage, till he madly strikes
Against it, and beats out his weary life.
He had longed to see his wife again and know that she was
happy, and so he stole like a thief to the place where she
lived, and there he saw " that which he better might have
shunn'd."
For cups and silver on the burnish'd board
Sparkled and shone ; so genial was the hearth :
And on the right hand of the hearth he saw
Philip, the slighted suitor of old times,
ENOCH ARDEN. H7
Stout, rosy, with his babe across his knees ;
And o'er her second father stoopt a girl,
A later but a loftier Annie Lee,
Fair-hair'd and tall, and from her lifted hand
Dangled a length of ribbon and a ring
To tempt the babe, who rear'd his creasy arms,
Caught at and ever miss'd it, and they laugh'd :
And on the left hand of the hearth he saw
The mother glancing often toward her babe,
But turning now and then to speak with him,
Her son, who stood beside her tall and strong,
And saying that which pleased him, for he smiled.
Enoch's sacrifice — his silent departure, and his holding of
" his purpose " till he died — was the sacrifice of a strong
heroic soul. The last two lines of the poem may jar upon
sensitive minds, and seem to be in discord with the tone of
the whole poem. The gewgaws of showy pageantry and a
costly funeral are in such a case more of a hollow mockery
than a sterling tribute to the inborn greatness of the humble
sailor whose life was one long combat with hostile fortune.
The volume containing Enoch Arden and other poems
was dedicated to the poet's wife. —
Dear, near and true— no truer Time himself
Can prove you, though he make you evermore
Dearer and nearer, as the rapid of life
Shoots to the fall— take this, and pray that he
Who wrote it, honouring your sweet faith in him,
May trust himself.
The more important of the poems included in the volume
were Aylmer's Field, the stern, dark story of which had
been related to Tennyson by his friend Woolner, the
sculptor ; Sea Dreams, Tithonus, which Thackeray had
previously published in Cornhill Magazine ; The Grand-
mother, one of Tennyson's favourite poems, and selected
by him for recitation on several important occasions ; and
the first of the semi-humorous dialect poems, the Northern
Farmer. The last was a revelation to many of the poet's
admirers. Except in the punning song of The Owl, he had
not revealed a faculty for dry humour, but the Northern
148 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
Farmer, displayed capacity of an original kind. The pro-
totype of the worldly-minded man who thought his son a
fool to marry for " luvv " instead of for " munny " was John
Baumber, a famous old character who dwelt in the Grange
next to the Rectory at Somersby. But the "old style"
Northern Farmer, whose boast was —
I 've 'ed my point o' yaale ivry noight sin' I bean 'ere,
And I 've 'ed my quart ivry market-noight for foorty year —
is a general type, perhaps, rather than an individual study.
The volume contained a poem entitled The Ringlet, which
was omitted afterwards — a vivacious set of verses, not of a
very high order, but pleasant enough to read in spare
moments. Among smaller pieces were The Sailor Boy, The
Islet, and The Flower — the last a protest against the crowd
of imitators of his style who had risen up and threatened
to detract from the honours of the original poet. The
flower he had sown had at first been called a weed, but
when it grew and wore a crown of light, thieves took it
from him and sowed it far and wide.
Most can raise the flowers now,
For all have got the seed.
Tennyson has seldom, however, had occasion for jealousy.
Those who flattered him by their imitations were not able
to reproduce the richness and luxury of Tithonus, the epic
power of Sea Dreams, the passionate intensity of scorn and
censure of Aylmer's Field. Nor had they the art to excel
the master who gave the fanciful description of a wild,
aimless voyage, full of unreality and designed exag-
geration, crowded with charming pictures and flushed
with the suggestive lights of a vivid but uncontrolled
imagination. The Voyage is so entrancing that we could
wish it were not a dream, and with the pursuers of the ideal
we would sail evermore round the merry world. Such
magic visions as came to the bewitched crew come but
once, and are seen by enchanted eyes.
ENOCH ARDEN. 149
How oft we saw the Sun retire,
And burn the threshold of the night,
Fall from his Ocean-lane of fire
And sleep beneath his pillar'd light.
How oft the purple-skirted robe
Of twilight slowly downward drawn,
As thro' the slumber of the globe
Again we dash'd into the dawn.
New stars all night above the brim
Of waters lighten'd into view ;
They climbed as quickly, for the rim
Changed every moment as we flew.
And one fair Vision ever fled
Down the waste waters day and night,
And still we followed where she led,
In hope to gain upon her flight.
Her face was evermore unseen,
And fixed upon the far sea-line ;
But each man murmur'd, " O my Queen,
I follow till I make thee mine ! "
One of the chief effects of the 1864 volume was to de-
monstrate Tennyson's versatility and his deep human
feeling. He had been charged in early life with a pre-
ference for unrealities and the toys of romance, and until
the publication of In Memoriam he had done little to rebut
the charge. But in that great poem his own grief had been
the theme. In Enoch Arden, Sea Dreams, Ay Inzer's Field,
and The Grandmother the griefs of others commanded his
attention. He had forsaken dreams for the dramas of life ;
he had " felt with his kind," and expressed their sorrows,
hopes, and emotions. No longer was he the cold and
passive observer of men, but their actiye_^ympathiser,
finding words for their passions, giving voice to their
wrongs. No longer was he the philosopher standing apart
and drawing morals from intellectual problems ; the pro-
ble ms of hum anit y day by day engag ed his attention. The
poor sailor-hero, the humble city-clerk and his wife, the
broken-hearted youth, Leolin, and his brother, — desolate
150 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
homes of rich and poor, sundered lives of gentle and
simple, sorrows and disasters of mankind all the world
over : these supplied themes in the place of dreams and
fancies and the simulated frenzies of youth. Poet has
given us no tenderer views of women than Annie Lee,
Edith Aylmer, and the city-clerk's wife. They stand out
in their natural beauty and their true womanliness above
all the Adelines and Margarets, and Lilians with their
sudden pallors, their flushes, their curved frowns, and their
faint smiles. Taine had said what could now be said no
longer — that Tennyson had supplied the world with " keep-
sake characters from the hand of a lover and an artist."
Now he had given us quivering flesh and blood, and the
very glory and utter pathos of life itself.
CHAPTER IX.
THE IDYLLS OF THE KING.
" With a melody
Stronger and statelier,
Led me at length
To the city and palace
Of Arthur the King ;
Touch'd at the golden
Cross of the churches,
Flash'd on the Tournament,
Flicker'd and bicker'd
From helmet to helmet,
And last on the forehead
Of Arthur the blameless
Rested the Gleam."
— Merlin and the Gleam.
THERE are great gaps in Tennyson's history. We travel
along an ill-defined track, his works serving as guides and
signs ; but the space between is oft-times dark and seem-
ingly nothing but waste. Whether the blanks will ever
be filled is now more than doubtful. The periods which
apparently were uneventful were in reality times of great
preparation. The results of strenuous toil, and of hard
work performed in semi-seclusion, were to be seen later.
Tennyson, it may safely be said, was never idle. He was
always at a task, and however silent he may have been, he
was eventually to be heard in strains as deep and sweet as
ever. No year of his life was barren and unproductive.
Though the world saw nothing of his work, he was ever
sowing seed, tending, maturing, and perfecting flowers of
poesy, though his patience, slowness, and persistency ill-
suited the expectation and desire of his eager admirers.
His industry was, indeed, marvellous. He was devoted to
152 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
his work, scheming new and improving old designs, study-
ing deeply — for he was a wise man, always learning — and,
regardless of the world and indifferent to its counsel,
pursuing a course entirely his own as a poet and as
a man.
Tennyson had been attracted to the Arthurian legend
very early in life, as a boy having read Malory's romances.
In 1837 Landor recorded that "a Mr Moreton, a young
man of rare judgment, read to me a manuscript by Mr
Tennyson, very different in style from his printed poems.
The subject is the death of Arthur. It is more Homeric
than any poem of our time, and rivals some of the noblest
parts of the Odyssea." The poem, with its introduction
The Epic, appeared first in the 1842 volume, and in the pre-
lude to it we gain, perhaps, a hint of the writer's opinions
and intentions.
" You know," said Frank, " he burnt
His epic of King Arthur, some twelve books " —
And then to me demanding why ? " O, sir,
He thought that nothing new was said, or else
Something so said was nothing — that a truth
Looks freshest in the fashion of the day :
God knows : he has a mint of reasons : ask.
It pleased me well enough." " Nay, nay," said Hall,
" Why take the style of those heroic times ?
For nature brings not back the Mastodon,
Nor we those times : and why should any man
Remodel models ? these twelve books of mine
Were faint Homeric echoes, nothing-worth,
Mere chaff and draff, much better burnt."
There can be slight question that the publication of the
Mort d? Arthur was tentative. But Tennyson was brimful
of the romances of Malory. In the 1832 voluma he had
printed The Lady of Shalott, a version of the Elaine
legend, and an allegory with meanings manifold, chief of
which is that as the facts of human life and history are
revealed idealism perishes, the mirror of poetry is shattered,
and the gleaming threads of which romance is woven are
THE IDYLLS OF THE KING. 153
tangled and snapped. Then, in the next edition, had been
added the splendid ballad of the only perfect knight, Sir
Galahad, who
Kept fair through faith and prayer
A virgin heart in work and will.
And in the same volume there was the magic fragment
of enchanting verse describing the meeting of Sir Lance-
lot and Queen Guinevere, the suffused colour of the scene
described being as rich, and pure, and vivid as in the pic-
tures of Raphael. A stanza in the Palace of Art should
also be noted. These were the preludes to the Idylls of the
King, but seventeen years were to pass before the vibra-
tions of the chords of that mighty symphony were first to
be heard. In the interval had come The Princess, In
Memoriam, and Maud, three masterpieces all different in
style and tone ; but the fourth, in some ways greater and
better than all, was to be begun. Said George Dawson —
" Almost all great writers may be divided into two great
classes — those that leap into fame at once, whose first book
is their best, whose first air is their only air, and all whose
subsequent writings are variations more or less excellent
upon the old and original theme ; others that climb slowly
to fame, whose early work gives promise of after excellence.
Tennyson's genius is slow to exhibit its fulness. Tennyson
climbs slowly to fame, and it is easy to trace the progressive
labour, the constantly accumulating success, and the con-
stantly diminishing faults of all that he has written. Some
of his earlier poems were feeble, the elaboration was over-
done, and the meaning obscure. But he has since learned
to clothe lofty thoughts in simple words. . . . Why did
Tennyson choose the Idylls of the King ? Probably from
that deep-seated feeling which makes men take refuge in a
far-off time, a far-off place, and far-off people from the
vulgarity and meanness and commonplace of the hour in
which they themselves live ; for there is no denying that
every hour whilst present is a vulgar hour. ... In thinking
154 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
of old times, the meanness and vulgarity are all gone.
Time and the grave take the coarse and the common sooner
than the noble. . . . I would rather have a romance of King
Arthur than the most precious book of antiquity. The
same feeling probably led Tennyson to King Arthur. . . .
He knew the vulgarity of wealth, the offensive obtrusive-
ness of the poor, the indifference of the well-born, the
sneakishness of the low-born ; and chilled, indignant,
repelled, he fled from the vulgarity and impurity and cor-
ruption of modern times, to the nobler times of old."
Poets have in many ages hovered round the Arthurian
legend, and some have alighted upon the subject, only
perhaps to leave it again feeling that it was beyond their
scope.
The mightiest chiefs of British song
Scorn'd not such legends to prolong ;
They gleam through Spenser's elfin dream,
And mix in Milton's heavenly theme ;
And Dryden in immortal strain,
Had raised the Table Round again.
Scott, Warton, Gray, the now forgotten or contemned
Blackmore, Lytton, Arnold, Morris, and Swinburne felt
the influence of the legend with " its dim enchantments,
its fury of helpless battle, its almost feminine tenderness
of friendship, its fainting passion, its religious ardours, —
all at length vanishing in defeat, and being found no
more." Tennyson lifted the romance into the highest and
purest region of poetry, impregnated the stories with
great meanings and suggestions, illuminated the history
with rich interpretation. The Idylls are of lofty grandeur,
of sweetest purity, of intensest and most radiant splendour.
Malory wrote perfect prose ; Tennyson transmuted that
prose into perfect poetry.
Nearly forty years ago a stranger went to Caerleon, and
without giving his name or stating his errand, took up his
abode at the Hanbury Arms, one of the oldest hostelries
in the kingdom. It faces the Usk, and originally stood
THE IDYLLS OF THE KING. 155
at a point in the road commanding three approaches to the
ancient city. Its low-browed windows with the stone
mullions of unusual thickness, and the square hooded
dripstones above, indicate that the house must date from
the fourteenth or fifteenth century. Accommodation for
travellers can only be obtained at this place, and the
stranger was therefore compelled to take up his abode
therein. I visited Caerleon in 1890, and in the Hanbury
Arms read an account by a local chronicler of the visitor.
"Quiet and unobtrusive to a degree," he said, "he soon
attracted attention from his very reserved and seclusive
habits. Day after day passed, and his figure was seldom
seen. Frequently he would leave the house early in the
morning, and go no one knew whither, and on his return
partake of slight refreshment, and retire to his room until
next morning. It was soon recognised that the stranger
was fond of long walks, and there was not a hill in the
neighbourhood up whose sides he did not climb. For a
time no companion or friend seemed to notice him, but
occasionally a letter arriving at the post-office was delivered
to him. At first the name attracted no attention, but at
length ' Alfred Tennyson ' inscribed on successive missives
seemed to have a special interest for the local post-master.
He repeated the name until its familiarity led him to
suspect that the stranger was no other than the Poet
Laureate, and this ultimately proved correct. On the fact
becoming generally known that Tennyson was staying
at Caerleon visitors frequently called upon him, but he
endeavoured to maintain his seclusion to the last."
Tennyson afterwards became the guest of Mr John
Edward Lee of the Priory. In 1S59 the result of his
sojourn at " the City of Legions " was seen when he
produced the first of the Idylls. The room which the
poet occupied remains in the same state as it was on
Tennyson's visit. It was allotted to myself, and the
landlord, with a touch of pride, pointed to the chair and
table which Tennyson had used. Enterprising Americans
156 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
had offered large sums for them, but the landlord, with a
creditable sentiment of reverence for the old associations,
had declined to sell. Tennyson's favourite walks were
shown to me, and I was able to obtain evidence of the
fidelity and the scrupulous care with which he had
described the scenery of the locality. The Laureate
can also be traced to Cornwall. As early as 1848 he had
been to Truro, where he was the guest of Mr Henry
Sewell Stokes, himself a man of letters. Tennyson was
then preparing In Memoriam for publication, and it is
stated that some portion of the elegy was written during
this journey. At Mor wen stow, a primitive and picturesque
sea-village between Clovelly and Kilkhampton, he was the
guest of his friend the Rev. R. S. Hawker, one of the
most remarkable of clergymen, best of men, and truest
of poets ; and he was frequently to be met about the
rugged country between Bude and Tintagel. The scenery
could not fail to inspire him, and he must have felt that
the real Arthur-land, in spite of the demonstrations of
antiquaries to the contrary, is to be found in Cornwall and
South Wales. Tennyson accepted the current tradition,
and he has described the wild and imposing scenery
of the south-west country as he alone was capable of
doing.
The story of Tennyson's visit to Cornwall has seldom
been related, and the following extracts from an interview
with the poet's host at Truro (Mr Stokes), may be read
with interest, though I am bound to say that some parts of
it strike me as apocryphal : —
" Once in Cornwall lie lost his pipe, but the lady who found it so
treasured her prize that she would not restore it. His habits were of
the simplest, though strange. He would be down to dinner punctually
at three o'clock of an afternoon, and he was visible from that time
until he went to bed early or late the next morning. Meanwhile he
would be discussing all subjects that appealed to his active and
imaginative brain. When he bade farewell for the night he entered
his room, and was not seen again until dinner next day. So his stay
in Cornwall was passed. He drank sherry, and he smoked continuously.
THE IDYLLS OF THE KING. 157
He was never without the black dudeen, which his friends have come
to recognise as part and parcel of the man. Whilst thus quietly, lazily
lying on the stream of life, being gently carried forward, he was en-
gaging in writing that grand eulogy to his dead friend, Arthur Hallam.
Though engaged on this mastership, he was the best of company. He
was always ready for discussion. Curiously enough, he was some time
in doubt as to Robert Browning's claims as a great poet ; or if he had
made up his mind, his opinion was not favourable. On one occasion
he asked Mr Stokes, 'What do you think of Browning ?' To which
he got answer, ' I would rather suspend judgment. What do you
think?' ' I would rather not say,' answered the future Laureate, and
added, 'What's your opinion of my Princess f His friend did not
answer, and Tennyson remarked, ' I know ; you do not like it.' He
was a great admirer of Burns and Gray. He once said the latter's Elegy
in a Churchyard — that hackneyed task work of the elementary scholar
— he would rather have written than any poem in the language. He
had, indeed, a strong liking for Gray, and classed him and Burns as
the two greatest lyric poets of any age or country. He much loved
some of Burns's poetry. He would linger affectionately over the recital
of Ye Banks and Braes of Bonny Boon, and was delighted with some
of the Scotch poet's songs which the late Mrs Stokes used to sing.
But before all Tennyson placed his Bible. He had also a great liking
for Dante's Inferno, and knew it line for line. He would boast in his
pleasant way that if anyone read one line he could give the next from
memory. And he invariably did it. He had a marvellously retentive
memory. He was a good German scholar, though apparently in-
different to French, and could recite whole passages from Goethe's
Faust. His memory, he always said, was too strong to prove as useful
as it might were it of a more ordinary character. He remembered so
distinctly all that he read that he eschewed the perusal of new books,
and browsed on the old pasturage of literature. He knew every stage
play, it seemed, and could name every species of seaweed. What has
perhaps been most widely noted relative to the Laureate's person is
his beautifully-balanced head, the finest head in Europe, his enthusi-
astic admirers have often chimed. Once Mr Stokes said to him,
'You have the finest head I ever saw.' 'No,' answered the Laureate,
' it is defective behind. I shall never write a good drama. I have not
enough passion.' What a strange commentary is this treasured re-
mark of 1848 on events in later years, during which the Laureate has
more than once proved the truth of his own words. He was of a
somewhat (!) scientific leaning presumably, for he then carried with
him Mary Somerville's book, in addition to the Odyssey?
For thirteen years, from 1859 to 1872, Tennyson was
158 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
engaged in producing his sequence of stories from the
"noble hystorye" of King Arthur. The ten pieces were
considered to form a perfect whole until, in 1885, in the
Tiresias volume, the episode of Balin and Balan was
added. This piece was intended to be read as an intro-
duction to Merlin and Viviefi, and only by so reading it
can its use and purpose be recognised. The poem also
served as a link between preceding lines where there was
a faint whisper of Guinevere's imperfection, and those in
which Vivien denounced the scandals of the Court
Polluting, and imputing her whole self.
Defaming and defacing, till she left
Not even Lancelot brave, nor Galahad clean.
What is an Idyll ? Many have doubted whether Tenny-
son was justified in using this term for his cycle of Arthur-
poems. " Idyllic " is scarcely the name to apply to the
guilty loves of Lancelot and Guinevere, or the scandal-
mongering of Vivien and the doting frailty of Merlin. An
idyll is a picture of rustic peace, of sylvan beauty, of primi-
tive simplicity — "a picture-poem, Nature in the back-
ground, and in the foreground men and women of primitive
manners and simple nobleness." Few of the Arthur-
poems, as Tennyson wrote them, are therefore idylls at all
in the strictest sense ; but the poet no doubt felt himself
fully justified in using the term because he presented to us
in a series of scenes the leading incidents in what, after all,
is a great drama. The meaning and object of the poems
are on the surface apparent ; but below the surface there
are not unlikely mysteries of significance which few think
of resolving or even of searching for. Thus a New York
critic has contended that the Idylls are not to be taken
literally or historically, but allegorically — that Arthur
typifies the Soul ; the Round Table, the Body ; Merlin,
Wisdom ; the Lady of the Lake, Religion ; and the three
Queens, Faith, Hope, and Charity. What is more, this
same critic received an autograph letter from Tennyson
THE ID YLLS OF THE KING. 1 59
accepting his interpretation. On the other hand, Bayard
Taylor, in a somewhat carping and querulous mood,
declared that the Idylls were " an example of a lofty poetic
theme weakened in exact proportion as it is carried beyond
the limits of the first conception." He thought that all
after the first four were an afterthought, and had lost
freshness, resonance, and fluency. " There is more for us,"
we are surprised to hear him saying, " in the early ballad of
Sir Galahad than in the later ballad (!) of The Holy Grail,
for this, like a modern Madonna compared with those of
Fra Angelico or Raphael, gives us technical imitation
instead of unthinking faith." He found fault with the
style : — " Tennyson's verse moves more cautiously in these
added Idylls : the lines no longer beat, sharp-smitten with
the dint of armed heels, as in the Morte a" Arthur ; his
Muse takes heed to her feet, picks her way, is conscious of
her graceful steps and repeats them." And so forth.
Edmund Clarence Stedman has called the Idylls unhesi-
tatingly the Laureate's "master-work." "Nave and tran-
sept, aisle after aisle, the Gothic minster has extended
until, with the addition of a cloister here and a chapel
yonder, the structure stands complete. ... It is the epic
of chivalry — the Christian ideal of chivalry which we have
deduced from a barbaric source — our conception of what
knighthood should be, rather than what it really was ; but
so skilfully wrought of high imaginings, fairy spells, fan-
tastic legends, and mediseval splendours, that the whole
work, suffused with the Tennysonian glamour of golden
mist, seems like a chronicle illuminated by saintly hands,
and often blazes with light like that which flashed from the
holy wizard's book when the covers were unclasped."
Henry Elsdale's Studies in the Idylls (1878) supplies us
with the most exact and detailed account of the whole of
the series, constituting in reality an epic. A rapid survey
of each poem is taken in turn, and the complete set is then
examined as " a single work of art." " This examination,"
it was claimed, " tended to bring fairly before us the lofty
i6o TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
and noble purpose which underlies the whole work, and its
essential unity, so that the various poems are but the differ-
ent acts in one great drama. It showed us the artistic
agreement and harmony between the action and progress
of this drama, in the successive poems, and the attendant
scenes and operations of outward nature. These again
will be seen to be influenced by those changes of time,
seasSn, and weather, which the progressively unfolding
cycle of a single complete year will bring before us, side by
side with the progressively unfolded action of the general
drama. We shall discern, as we proceed, more and more
clearly, that these Idylls constitute essentially one long
study of failure. They bring before us that sad doom
of vanity, of disappointment, of blighted promises and
withered prospects, which, here as elsewhere, is seen to
await many bright hopes and noble enthusiasms. And they
show us the secret of this failure, the dread working of that
mystery of iniquity which mars and ruins the fairest of pro-
spects. The Evil comes first ; but, following ever upon it,
with slow and tardy, as it would appear, but certain and
irresistible steps, we recognise the noiseless and stealthy
tread of the avenging Nemesis of Retribution."
The flaw in the Idylls has been pointed out by Professor
Ingram, among others. " The poet appears to have sacri-
ficed Arthur to Launcelot. The warm and varied colour
which plays about the latter is brought out more vividly by
comparison with the white radiance in which the former is
clothed. Perhaps a pure, cold exaltation seemed best to
accord with the saintliness attributed to Arthur. But if
such was the thought of the poet he was certainly in error.
This kind of tenuity and colourless pallor is by no means
essential to sanctity, which can quite well accord with
hearty life and vigorous personality." Arthur's perfection,
in short, supplies the excuse for Guinevere's frailty.
The Epic of King Arthur is divided into four portions,
in each of which the characteristic of the four seasons of the
year gives the clue to the tone of the poem. In the Spring
THE IDYLLS OF THE KING. 161
comes the King and makes a realm and reigns. His Noble
Order is founded ; the Knights joust, champion the weak
and suffering, and display their valour ; Gareth wins the
hand of Lynette. In the Summer King Arthur and his
Knights are at the height of their power. Foes have found
them irresistible. Their prowess and courtesy win for them
the love of good and true .women, though that love itself
may be akin to pain for some. Geraint proves the con-
stancy of Enid ; Launcelot is loved with that love which was
her doom by Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat. The quest
for the Holy Grail begins. In the Autumn the first stage
in decline is reached. Vivien is loud in her slanders ;
Ettarre is false to Pelleas ; the Knights begin to return from
a fruitless journey, hopeless, baffled, realising their imper-
fections and weakness. And in the Winter the King'foresees
his doom. The last tournament is fought ; the bowers of
Camelot are deserted ; Mordred the usurper has arisen ;
the Queen is false ; and the last battle is fought at night
beside the winter sea. And thus could the last Knight, Sir
Bedivere, lament —
The true old times are dead,
And now the whole Round Table is dissolved
Which was an image of the mighty world,
And I, the last, go forth companionless,
And the days darken round me, and the years,
Among new men, strange faces, other minds.
The stories as related are all to be found in Malory (the
text of which is sometimes very closely followed), with the
exception of Geraint and Enid, which is to be found in
Lady Charlotte Guest's Mabinogion, from the Welsh of the
Llyfr Cock o Hergest (The Red Book of Hergest). In the
original the story is long and somewhat involved, and
Tennyson has followed it very literally where it suited his
purpose, but introduced new elements and suppressed
some of the old episodes. It was at the private press of Sir
Ivor Bertie Guest, the son of Lady Charlotte Guest, that in
1867 the cycle of songs written for Dr Arthur Sullivan,
L
1 62 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
was printed under the title of The Windozu ; or the Loves of
the Wrens. The poet said — " These little songs, whose
almost sole merit — at least till they are wedded to music —
is that they are so excellently printed, I dedicate to the
printer." We thus have evidence of the personal as well as
literary friendship existing between the poet and the
translator of the Mabinogion.
The first four of the Idylls were — Enid, Vivien, Elaine,
and Guinevere, and it is generally conceded by the critics
that these have a truer Homeric ring than those which fol-
lowed. The first of these pieces, Enid and Nimue ; or the
True and the False, had been privately printed in 1857, and
never permitted to get into the hands of other than a very
few friends ; while in 1858 Arthur Clough recorded that he
had listened to Tennyson's reading of King Arthur's last
interview with the faithless Queen. When Bayard Taylor
visited Tennyson, " I spoke," he said, " of the Idyll of Guine-
vere as being perhaps his finest poem, and said that I could
not read it aloud without my voice breaking down at certain
passages. ' Why, I can read it and keep my voice ! ' he
exclaimed, triumphantly. This I doubted, and he agreed
to try, after we went down to our wives. But the first
thing he did was to produce a magnum of wonderful sherry,
thirty years old, which had been sent him by a poetic wine-
dealer. Such wine I never tasted. ' It was meant to be
drunk by Cleopatra or Catharine of Russia,' said Tennyson.
We had two glasses apiece, when he said, 'To-night you
shall help me drink one of the few bottles of my Waterloo
— 18 1 5.' The bottle was brought, and after another glass
all round, Tennyson took up the Idylls of the King. His
reading is a strange, monotonous chant, with unexpected
falling inflexions, which I cannot describe, but can imitate
exactly. It is very impressive. In spite of myself I be-
came very much excited as he went on. Finally, when
Arthur forgives the Queen, Tennyson's voice fairly broke.
I found tears on my cheeks, and Mr and Mrs Tennyson
THE IDYLLS OF THE KING. 163
were crying-, one on either side of me. He made an effort
and went on to the end, closing grandly. ' How can you
say,' I asked (referring to the previous conversation), ' that
you have no surety of permanent fame ? This poem will
only die with the language in which it is written.' Mrs
Tennyson started up from her couch. ' It is true ! ' she
exclaimed ; ' I have told Alfred the same thing.' "
In 1869 four new Idylls were published — The Coming
of A rthur, The Holy Grail, Pelleas and Ettarre, and The
Passing of Arthur, the original Morte dA rthur fittingly
being interwoven into the last of these, and forming the
finale. Two years later the Contemporary Review printed
The Last Tournament, and this with Gareth and Lynette
was published in the volume of 1872. "It is probable,"
writes the author of Tennysoniana, " that these additional
idylls were an afterthought, and that the first four were all
that were originally contemplated." Carlyle found this
fare unsatisfying, and complained that the poet was treating
his readers " so very like infants, though the lollipops were
superlative." Among the earliest and most discriminating
of Tennyson's admirers was Prince Albert, and the Idylls
heightened his opinion of the Laureate. He read the
poems to the Queen, and to the Empress Frederick when
she came to England in i860, pointing out to his daughter
at the same time what suitable subjects were suggested to
her for pictures. Writing to the poet himself, he said —
"Will you forgive me if I intrude upon your leisure with a request
which I have thought some little time of making — viz., that you would
be good enough to write your name in the accompanying volume of
your Idylls of the King? You would thus add a peculiar interest to
the book containing those beautiful songs, from the perusal of which I
derived the greatest enjoyment. They quite rekindle the feeling with
which the legends of King Arthur must have inspired the chivalry of
old, while the graceful form in which they are presented blends those
feelings with the softer tone of our present age. — Believe me, always
yours truly, "Albert."
"Buckingham Palace, May 17, i860."
1 64 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
Soon afterwards it was fated that the " blameless Prince,"
Wearing the white flower of a blameless life,
should pass away ; and Tennyson wrote the touching Dedi-
cation which serves as elegy and monument to one who
seemed " scarce other than his own ideal knight." Twelve
years later, when the series was closed, the concluding lines
To the Queen were added, and her Majesty was asked, for
the sake of the undying love borne to the dead Prince, to
accept
This old imperfect tale
New-old, and shadowing Sense at war with Soul.
Perhaps the greatest compliment which Tennyson ever
received was that conveyed to him by an old Breton
woman, under the following circumstances : —
Renan (who, by the way, died but a few days before the
poet) and Tennyson were friends, and the former a few
years ago, on the visit of the Welsh archaeologists to
Brittany, related to them an anecdote which had much
pleased him. Tennyson had told him that he once stayed
a night at Lannion, the birthplace of Renan's mother.
Next morning he asked for his bill, but the landlady re-
fused to accept anything. " You are the man," she said,
" who has sung our King Arthur, and I cannot charge you
anything."
Nothing so tender, so powerful ; nothing so vigorous, so
rich ; nothing so alluring, so stimulating, can be found in
any literature as in the legendary history of Arthur — a
history which trembles with human passions and glows
with spiritual fires, which unites the real and the ideal by
links so subtle and so strong — which, like a jewel of rarest
workmanship, gathers and clusters the lights of day and
emits them again in flashes of tripled splendour. Every
student finds new meanings in the theme : for those who
seek there are ever bright truths lying beneath the vesture
of romance. Stage by stage these wonderful idylls rise to
THE IDYLLS OF THE KING. 165
a climax of majestic height. Tennyson has made King
Arthur of a greatness and nobility which causes him to
stand forth as epochal — a pillar, a guide, a vision sublime,
a reality intense, a faith and a religion for ever. From the
shadows and the mists of the past he emerges, and before
him spreads a track of light — a path towards that fair ideal
we strive to attain.
CHAPTER X.
TENNYSON AS A DRAMATIST.
" The Voices of the day
Are heard across the Voices of the dark."
— The Ring.
It has been the ambition of most of the successful lyrical
poets to attempt dramatic work ; why, it would be difficult
to explain. They have courted failure in this exacting
department of literature with a persistency which, if other-
wise directed, might have added greatly to their fame.
Love of variety, anxiety to excel in new directions, the
craving for public acclamation, the burning desire for life
and reality to be given to their conceptions — these may be
among the causes which induced poets like Byron, Shelley,
Dryden, Coleridge, and Longfellow to leave for a while the
Study for the Stage. As it happened, they only succeeded
in producing poems cast in the dramatic form, though in
justice to Byron it should be stated that he never desired
his Manfred to obtain representation. Lord Tennyson's
first dramas proved that he possessed the dramatic instinct
but not the dramatic faculty. Queen Mary is incompar-
ably ponderous and dull, Shakespearean in its antique garb,
but lacking the Shakespearean vitality and spirit — a drama
wholly classical in style, but cold, dry, and dead within as
the Classics never were. Tennyson in drawing from the
stores of the past neglected to give them an attraction
for the present. There is no animation in Queen Mary:
the men and women do not live and breathe again, but are
phantoms of the dead long-ago. We gaze, not upon the
mirroring of the past as it was, but upon the past revealed
as it is. Instead of beholding- the semblance of life we
TENNYSON AS A DRAMATIST. 167
peer into a charnel-house. Harold and Becket possess the
same faults, though happily not in the same degree.
Becket and Rosamund are more human in guise, and there
is something of the intensity of life in Harold and Edith.
But even here we have studies and clever portrayals of
character instead of men and women endued with warmth,
invested with potentiality, vitalised and re-incarnated by
the poet's art. As for The Falcon, its triviality of treat-
ment and its staleness of subject would render it unmeet
for serious criticism, even if it were redeemed by a single
passage worthy of remembrance. These four dramas
form a. class'by themselves, and the most devout Tenny-
sonian would scarcely regret the disappearance of the
greater portion of most of them. Yet, without being
antilogous, I may add that the historical plays contain
some of Tennyson's best thoughts, and they possess a
high interest, for they reveal the progress, slow as it was,
which the Laureate made in an important branch of litera-
ture ; they mark the gradual development of his power
in a given direction, and they prepare us for the reception
and the understanding of those later dramas in which
he came near achieving absolute success. The Cup is
an exquisite poem ; its characters are distinct, its arrange-
ment effective, its climax powerful ; and The Promise of
May is a true drama shaped and contrived by a poet's
hand. As for The Foresters, the last and the best of its
class, though one of the least ambitious, it is almost a
flawless piece of workmanship — an idyll glowing with
colour, a poem sparkling and spontaneous, a drama skilful
and impressive. An antique legend flowered out anew
and put forth luxuriant blossoms ; the unfolded leaves
were odorous and bright with the sunlight and dew of
morning upon them. In spite of a mournful undertone,
in spite of hovering shadow, the play (or, more fittingly,
the pastoral) ripples with gaiety and gleams with radiance.
Prince John may scowl and conspire, but he cannot banish
the merriment of the freedom-loving Foresters, or stifle the
168 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
devoted affection of the outlaw Earl of Huntingdon and
Marian, his " Maiden-wife." It was gratifying to the
poet's admirers that his labours to produce an English
play were not all in vain. Failure had followed many
of his attempts, but success, long-awaited, came to cheer
the last hours of his life.
Tennyson had only produced two dramas in 1877 when
Bayard Taylor, in his enlightened critique, advanced the
following judicious opinions : —
" Tennyson's two recent dramatic poems {Queen Mary
and Harold) have been a surprise to all who have simply
enjoyed his previous works without perceiving the nature of
his dominant intellectual passion. In the elaboration of
poetic detail he had already reached the limit of his
powers, — nay, whether conscious of the fact or not, he had
passed the limit drawn by the higher law of proportion.
He was compelled to turn to an untried form ; and, having
made the selection, a true instinct next compelled him to
acquire an untried manner. He comes back to the simple
language through which human character must express
itself in the drama, resists (we cannot doubt) the continual
temptations of metaphor and all other graces of his lyric
genius, studies sharper contrasts and broader effects, and so
narrowly misses a crowning success that his failure becomes
a relative triumph. The dramatic faults of Queen Mary
have been generally recognised : they are partly inherent in
the subject, into which no single, coherent tragic element
can be forced, and partly in overweighting each one of the
many characters with his or her own separate interest.
Harold is constructed with more skill, and we do not
readily see why it should not be regarded as a great dra-
matic poem. It is full of strong and vivid passages ; the
characters are carefully studied, the blank verse is admir-
able, and the gleams of pure poetry which brighten it are
sobered to the true tone. In execution it is almost wholly
free from the faults which I have indicated. The heroic
pitch is maintained throughout, based upon that heroism
TENNYSON AS A DRAMATIST. 169
in the author's nature which impels him to conquer the
world's doubt. Its only defect is that of composition, in the
sense used by painters — in the grouping of characters and
the disposition of scenes, which should gain in action and
intensity as they approach the overhanging doom. Thus,
the closing description of the Battle of Hastings, a masterly
piece of work, would quite destroy the effect of the tragedy
if it were represented upon the stage. It is written for the
brain and the ear, not for the eye."
However opinions may differ (and we must always expect
controversy on this point) as to the value of Tennyson's
plays and the place to be assigned them, we must not forget
that George Eliot said they " run Shakespeare's close." *
George Henry Lewes, who heard this, agreed with the
remark, and after reading Becket, he prophesied that " the
critics of to-morrow will unanimously declare Alfred
Tennyson to be a great dramatic genius." Emphatic testi-
mony to the value of the play was forthcoming also from
another, and an unexpected, quarter, Mr J. R. Green the
historian declaring that with all his researches into the
annals of the twelfth century he had never arrived at so
vivid a conception of the characters of Henry the Second
and his Court as was embodied in Tennyson's Becket.
These, however, are opinions, not judgments.
Tennyson wrote a drama when a boy. His friends relate
that he had no mean knowledge of the histrionic art.
" You are a good actor lost," one of Mr Irving's company
said to him in 1879 when he went to the Lyceum Theatre
to see Hamlet performed, and, at the conclusion of the play
(as Mrs Ritchie records) " explained the art, going straight
to the point in his own downright fashion, criticising with
delicate appreciation, by the simple force of truth and con-
viction carrying all before him." His love for the stage,.
1 In Smalley's Letters (1 891) we read : " I chanced to sit next to George
Eliot on the first night of Tennyson's Queen MaryaX the Lyceum. The acting
of the piece did not please her, and she favoured me with a running commen-
tary on the performance, which was more brilliant than either the play or the
acting. Her criticisms disclosed a singular talent for sharp pleasantries."
i?o TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
and particularly his love for Shakespeare, may supply
reasons for his own determined efforts to become an
acknowledged playwright, though he had mournfully told
a friend in Cornwall that he knew he would never write a
great drama. " I have not passion enough," he said. At a
time that the decline of the drama is so frequently discussed
we could have wished that his had been the privilege, as it
would have been the pride and glory, of restoring the best
traditions of the stage, and elevating the public taste.
That Tennyson was very much in earnest we learn in
many ways, and Mr T. H. S. Escott's interesting gossip on
the Laureate's plans at this period is too good to be lost.
He related that in 1883 the poet rented for six weeks a
smart house in a fashionable quarter of London, where he
entertained the Prime Minister, the Dean of St Paul's, and
Mr Jowett, the Master of Baliol, together with divers lumi-
naries of statesmanship, letters, and theology, at dinner.
He went out and permitted himself to be entertained by
others. " He was the central ornament of the garden parties
at Clapham," continued Mr Escott, " and it was upon one
of these occasions that he sat together with Mr Browning
and Lord Houghton for an entire hour under a spreading
mulberry tree, while the whole company, drawn around,
gazed in mute admiration upon this trinity of veteran
wielders of the plectrum, deeply occupied the while in their
oral symposium. Lord Tennyson soon began to find the
conventionalities of London society insufferably tedious and
cramping. When he appeared in public it was still in the
picturesque wide-awake of the Italian bandit, with which
his portraits have familiarised the world. However warm
the weather his shoulders were enveloped by the poetic
cloak. Everyone noticed him as he drove by in a carriage
of decidedly dowdy aspect, and obviously hired at so much
per week. Many people recognised him and touched their
hats respectfully. Had the Laureate not placed a curb
upon his inclination he would most certainly have lit his
pipe. It was even rumoured that he once did so.
TENNYSON AS A DRAMATIST. 171
" The explanation of the august apparition which, when
the season of 1883 was at its zenith, flashed upon the
London world, is that Lord Tennyson was seized with an
ambition of adding new laurels to his wreath, and that he
wished not only to write plays that will live for ever, but to
see them acted. He had a notion that if he was to be suc-
cessful in his role he ought to be en evidence in London
himself. Tennyson also frequently received visitors beneath
his roof from Saturday till Monday, and among this class
of guests none was more frequent or welcome than Henry
Irving. Some of the social usages of the Laureate's house
are peculiar, and are never departed from. When dinner is
over the company adjourn to another room for dessert — in
the same way that at Oxford and Cambridge the ' dons ' of
the high table quit the dining hall when the meal is dis-
posed of, to sip their wine in what is called on the Isis the
Common Room, and on the Cam the Combination Room.
Lord Tennyson is fond now of a glass of sound port.
Upon one occasion he pressed Mr Irving to take a glass of
the precious liquid. Mr Irving did as he was desired, but
not being a port wine drinker, sipped it very slowly. Before
he had finished it the decanter from which the bard had
been automatically replenishing his goblet was empty.
Lord Tennyson bade the butler bring a fresh supply, and,
turning to his guest, said drily, ' Do you always drink a
bottle of port, Mr Irving, after dinner ? ' "
Queen Mary, the first, and in some respects the most
ambitious of the dramas, was published in 1875, and pro-
duced the following year at the Lyceum Theatre by Mr
Irving, who had suggested that the piece, if condensed,
would make a " magnificent play." In spite, however, of
brilliant acting and splendid stage accessories the piece
enjoyed but a short run. The story as told by Tennyson
follows closely upon the Tozver of London of Harrison
Ainsworth in its purely historical portions, though, no
doubt the poet went, as usual, to first sources for his facts.
Queen Mary is a sombre figure throughout, disappointed
172 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
and bitter, yet with a truly regal dignity ; Philip of Spain is
a dark character continually meditating ill for the English
race, while Simon Renard is a conspirator almost aban-
doned enough for transpontine melodrama. The play
lacks relief. It is all gloom, and even the fine portrayals
of gallant and patriotic noblemen of the age are not suffi-
cient to bring distinguishable light into the dark and
troubled scenes. We are continually reminded of the
horrors of Mary's reign —
A hundred here and hundreds hang'd in Kent
The tigress had unsheath'd her nails at last,
And Renard and the Chancellor sharpen'd them.
In every London street a gibbet stood.
They are down to-day. Here by this house was one ;
The traitor husband dangled at the door,
And when the traitor wife came out for bread
To still the petty treason therewithin,
Her cap would brush his heels.
Yet there are passages of wondrous power and beauty to
be found. Bagenhall's account of the death of Lady Jane
Grey is full of tender pathos, and the diction is perfect.
Stafford. Did you see her die ?
Bagenhall. No, no ; her innocent blood had blinded me.
You call me too black-blooded — true enough
Her dark dead blood is in my heart with mine.
Seventeen — and knew eight languages — in music
Peerless — her needle perfect, and her learning
Beyond the churchmen ; yet so meek, so modest,
So wife-like humble to the trivial boy
Mismatch'd with her for policy ! I have heard
She would not take a last farewell of him,
She fear'd it might unman him for his end.
She could not be unmann'd — no, nor outwoman'd —
Seventeen — a rose of grace !
Girl never breathed to rival such a rose ;
Rose never blew that equall'd such a bud.
Stafford. Pray you go on.
Bagenhall. She came upon the scaffold,
And said she was condemn'd to die for treason ;
TENNYSON AS A DRAMATIST. 173
She had but follow'd the device of those
Her nearest kin : she thought they knew the laws.
But for herself, she knew but little law,
And nothing of the titles to the crown ;
She had no desire for that, and wrung her hands,
And trusted God would save her thro' the blood
Of Jesus Christ alone.
Stafford. Pray you go on.
Bagenhall. Then knelt and said the Miserere Mei —
But all in English, mark you ; rose again,
And when the headsman pray'd to be forgiven,
Said, " You will give me my true crown at last,
But do it quickly " ; then all wept but she,
Who changed not colour when she saw the block,
But ask'd him, childlike, " Will you take it off
Before I lay me down?" "No, madam," he said,
Gasping ; and when her innocent eyes were bound,
She, with her poor blind hands feeling — "Where is it?
Where is it ? " — You must fancy that which follow'd,
If you have heart to do it !
If there is a scene comparable with that between Griffith
and Queen Katharine, surely it is this. The dialogue
which follows almost immediately when the childless
Queen, pathetically happy in her delusive hope of mother-
hood, endeavours to " thaw the bleak manners " of her hus-
band, must also be regarded as evidence of true dramatic
skill, and of a subtlety infrequently discovered in modern
plays. On the other hand, the poet gives us no very
pleasing or (to my thinking) careful delineation of the
character of the Princess Elizabeth, who, from first to last,
instead of being a foil to Mary, is herself either a suspicious
intriguante or a frivolous dame. No doubt Philip was right
when he declared —
She troubles England ; that she breathes in England
Is life and lungs to every rebel birth
That passes out of embryo ;
but this scarcely justifies the poet in presenting her as a
somewhat weak plotter and a vain coquette. His very last
174 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
words are words of doubt as to Elizabeth's fitness for the
crown and her reliability as a monarch —
Bagenhall. God save the Crown ! the Papacy is no more.
Paget {aside). Are we so sure of that ?
In the light of history this is a needless question, and an
unwarranted aspersion upon the great Protestant Queen.
There are choice thoughts in the drama, brightening out
like gems, and illuminating many a dull discourse. Renard
reminds us that
Whether
A wind be warm or cold, it serves to fan
A kindled fire ;
and that " The folly of all follies Is to be love-sick for a
shadow." Here is a lesson for statesmen : —
Statesmen that are wise
Shape a necessity, as a sculptor clay,
To their own model ;
and, better still —
Statesmen that are wise
Take truth herself for model.
Bagenhall supplies a striking picture of the cravens of
Mary's time : —
These spaniel-Spanish English of the time,
Who rub their fawning noses in the dust,
For that is Philip's gold-dust, and adore
This Vicar of their Vicar. Would I had been
Born Spaniard ! I had held my head up then.
I am ashamed that I am Bagenhall,
English.
A more scathing and scornful denunciation of the dastards
would be hard to discover. The long speech of Cranmer
is finely conceived and worthy of the man ; while the
utterances of Sir Thomas Wyatt are truly those of a soldier
and poet. When bidden to tear up " that woman's work,"
his verses, he replies —
TENNYSON AS A DRAMA TIS T. 175
No ; not these,
Dumb children of my father, that will speak
When I and thou and all rebellions lie
Dead bodies without voice. Song flies you know
For ages.
It is a fact of great interest that Queen Mary, though a
failure on the English stage, achieved a great success in
Australia, where it was produced by Miss Augusta
Dargon, a talented Irish actress. Not only did the piece
have a long run in the Melbourne Theatre Royal, but
when reproduced at the Bijou Theatre in the same city, it
enjoyed a second lease of public favour.
After the experience with Queen Mary, a feeling of
surprise and, perhaps, of dismay was created when it was
known in the following year that the Laureate had com-
pleted and meditated publishing a second historical drama,
Harold. The work, however, duly saw the light in 1877,
and was dedicated to Lord Lytton, Viceroy and Governor-
General of India, in the following terms : " My dear Lord
Lytton — After old-world records — such as the Bayeux
tapestry and the Roman de Rose, — Edward Freeman's
History of the Norman Conquest and your father's His-
torical Romance treating of the same times, have been
mainly helpful to me in writing this Drama. Your father
dedicated his Harold to my father's brother ; allow me to
dedicate my Harold to yourself." The reference to Lord
Lytton's father revived the history of the only literary
squabble in which Lord Tennyson was provoked to take
part. In early years Tennyson's childish poem, O Darling
Room, had given the envious and malicious an opportunity
of decrying the young poet. Lord Lytton was among
those who resented the rapid popularity of the new-comer,
and with all the venom of personal rivalry he recom-
mended people to read O Darling Room in order to see
"to what depth of silliness the human intellect could
descend." He was just publishing The New Timon : a
Roma?ice of London, and inserted the following malignant
passage : —
176 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
Not mine, not mine (O Muse forbid !) the boon
Of borrowed notes, the mock-bird's modish tune,
The jingling medley of purloin'd conceits,
Outbabying Wordsworth, and outglittering Keats,
Where all the airs of patchwork-pastoral chime
To drowsy ears in Tennysonian rhyme !
Am I enthralled but by the sterile rule,
The formal pupil of a frigid school,
If to old laws my Spartan tastes adhere,
If the old vigorous music charms my ear,
Where sense with sound, and ease with weight combine,
In the pure silver of Pope's ringing line ;
Or where the pulse of man beats loud and strong
In the frank flow of Dryden's lusty song?
Let School-Miss Alfred vent her chaste delight
On "darling little rooms so warm and bright" !
Chaunt " I 'm aweary," in infectious strain,
And catch her "blue fly singing i' the pane."
Tho' praised by Critics, tho' adored by Blues,
Tho' Peel with pudding plump the puling Muse,
Tho' Theban taste the Saxon's purse controuls,
And pension Tennyson, while starves a Knowles, 1
Rather be thou, my poor Pierian Maid,
Decent at least in Hayley's weeds array'd,
Than patch with frippery every tinsel line,
And flaunt, admired, the Rag Fair of the Nine !
There is no denying the severity of the attack, and the
retort might be pardoned if it were equally personal and
merciless. Tennyson had not hitherto been regarded as a
"fighting" poet, but, choosing the suggestive name of
Alcibiades he gave vent to his fury in the following lines
which appeared in Punch : —
THE NEW TIMON AND THE POETS.
We know him, out of Shakespeare's art,
And those fine curses which he spoke ;
The old Timon, with his noble heart,
That, strongly loathing, greatly broke.
So died the Old ; here comes the New :
Regard him : a familiar face :
I thought we knew him ; what, it 's you,
The padded man — that wears the stays —
1 These lines allude to the circumstances related on page 77.
TENNYSON AS A DRAMATIST. 177
Who killed the girls, and thrilled the boys
With dandy pathos when you wrote.
O Lion, you, that made a noise,
And shook a mane en papillotes.
And once you tried the Muses too ;
You failed, Sir : therefore now you turn,
To fall on those who are to you
As Captain is to Subaltern.
But men of long enduring hopes,
And careless what this hour may bring,
Can pardon little would-be Popes
And Brummels, when they try to sting.
An artist, Sir, should rest in Art,
And waive a little of his claim ;
To have the deep poetic heart
Is more than all poetic fame.
But you, Sir, you are hard to please ;
You never look but half content ;
Nor like a gentleman at ease,
With moral breadth of temperament.
And what with spites and what with fears,
You cannot let a body be ;
It 's always ringing in your ears,
" They call this man as good as me ! "
What profits now to understand
The merits of a spotless shirt —
A dapper boot — a little hand—
If half the little soul is dirt ?
You talk of tinsel ! — why, we see
The old mark of rouge upon your cheeks.
You prate of Nature !— you are he
That spilt his life about the cliques.
A Timon you ! nay, nay for shame ;
It looks too arrogant a jest —
The fierce old man — to take his name,
You bandbox. Off, and let him rest.
We can scarcely pity the man who had invited this terrible
onslaught and suffered by it so dreadfully. But Tennyson
himself was inclined to magnanimity ; he was the first to
M
178 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
regret his own denunciation ; and within a week of the
infliction of the punishment he had written the poem which
still appears among his works —
Ah God ! the petty fools of rhyme
That shriek and sweat in pigmy wars
Before the stony face of Time,
And look'd at by the silent stars :
Who hate each other for a song,
And do their little best to bite
And pinch their brethren in the throng,
And scratch the very dead for spite :
And strain to make an inch of room
For their sweet selves, and cannot hear
The sullen Lethe rolling doom
On them and theirs and all things here :
When one small touch of Charity
Could lift them nearer God-like state
Than if the crowded Orb should cry
Like those who cried Diana great :
And I too, talk, and lose the touch
I talk of. Surely, after all,
The noblest answer unto such
Is perfect stillness when they brawl.
The "Afterthought" was nobly conceived ; and the dedica-
tion of Harold to Lytton's son gave practical effect in the
most graceful manner to the old expression of regret and
the wish for greater charity.
Harold was not written for the stage, though there are
scenes capable of strong and effective representation. The
character of the daring and not sinless Harold is full of
power, while the rivals for his love, passionate Aldwyth
and the gentle Edith, are admirably pourtrayed. There
are fine passages, high thoughts, ringing lines, firm and
clear delineations of famous personages. Count William,
the fiery Tostig, and Edward the Confessor, are real
enough ; and the history they made is traced with pre-
cision.
All things make for good
TENNYSON AS A DRAMATIST. 179
we read in the prefatory lines — an echo of the truth
arrived at in In Memoriam — and though English sym-
pathy will always be with the last great Saxon who fell
at Hastings, his victory would not have been greatly the
better for this land. Yet England might have had a milder
fate than to be governed by the men whose dictum was —
The voice of any people is the sword
That guards them, or the sword that beats them down.
Tennyson has described with the utmost skill how the wily
and ruthless Norman made Harold a victim, and few scenes
are more impressive than those in which the Confessor's
heir is tempted to lie, sell his honour, and take oaths of
falseness to his beloved country, for the sake of reaching
England again. Harold was tempted, and he fell ; he
vowed treason, never meaning to keep the vow. Terrible
retribution followed. To his love, Edith, he said—
Tho' somewhat less a King to my true self
Than ere they crown'd me one, for I have lost
Somewhat of upright stature thro' mine oath,
Yet thee I would not lose, and sell not thou
Our living passion. . . .
Oh God ! I cannot help it, but at times
They seem to me too narrow, all the faiths
Of this grown world of ours, whose baby eye
Saw them sufficient. Fool and wise, I fear
This curse, and scorn it.
Edith's situation is equally distressful.
The King hath cursed him, if he marry me ;
The Pope hath cursed him, marry me or no !
God help me ! I know nothing— can but pray
For Harold — pray, pray, pray — no help but prayer,
A breath that fleets beyond this iron world,
And touches Him that made it.
The struggle with Tostig, the constant striving with
Aldwyth and Edith, the weird prophecies of Hugh Margot
the Monk, the imprecations of the Normans, all hurry
on the fate of the unhappy King. Yet, with battle-axe
i So TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
in hand, he gave a good account of himself when enemies
thronged round him.
How their lances snap and shiver
Against the shifting blaze of Harold's axe !
War-woodman of old Woden, how he fells
The mortal corpse of faces. There ! and there !
The horse and horseman cannot meet the shield,
The blow that brains the horseman cleaves the horse,
The horse and horseman roll along the hill,
They fly once more, they fly, the Norman flies.
But this was not to be, and when the battle was over, two
desolate heart-broken women were seeking the king they
loved, who lay among the dead with an arrow in his
heart The conclusion of Tennyson's drama is full of
solemn grandeur.
Best in construction, most dramatic in tone, strongest
in character, Becket, the third of Tennyson's historical
dramas, will probably prove to be the piece upon which
his fame as a playwright chiefly depends. It is not so
ambitious in some respects as either Queen Mary or Harold,
but it has the compensating merit of being more skilfully
designed. The plot is one of intense interest, the situations
are striking and well-conceived, the dialogue is crisp, the
action fairly rapid, the climax powerful. Becket was
specially written for stage representation, with Mr Irving
as the proud prelate ; though Tennyson himself informed
Lord Selborne in a brief dedicatory epistle that in its
present form it might not meet the exigencies of the
modern theatre. Curiously enough, where the poet this
time hesitated the actors were more confident. Lawrence
Barrett, whose untimely death was mourned a short time
ago, intended to produce Becket in America, and had
written that he " foresaw a great success " ; and Mr Irving
always regarded the play as full of possibilities. Tennyson
found an agreeable subject in the "mitred Hercules" of
Henry Plantagenet's time, just as in the gloomy character
of Lucretius he found (as Mr Stedman puts it) a brooding
TENNYSON AS A DRAMA TIST. i S i
character with which he was quite in sympathy. Thomas
a Becket is, indeed, a fit hero for a great drama, a giant,
a man of supreme intellectual force, an epoch-maker, whom
Shakespeare himself might have portrayed as grandly as
his Coriolanus. Tennyson was bold to undertake the
task, but he was justified. He has helped us to realise
the greatness of the prelate who ruled England and made
a monarch tremble. Becket moves, a stately and imposing
figure, fearless, daring, resolute, among friends, enemies,
and rivals ; he leads vast enterprises, forms high designs,
and only falls at last when the King himself stoops to
envy his power.
Interwoven with the main story are the threads of the
romance associated with the name of Fair Rosamund.
It was, indeed, the poet's original intention to make the
fortunes of the King and Rosamund de Clifford of para-
mount interest ; but he probably found that once Becket
was introduced he was compelled, in order fitly to repre-
sent the character, to assign him a commanding position.
Becket rules all ; and just as easily as he could vanquish
the King at chess, so could he defeat his plans of State.
As Chancellor he was mighty ; as Archbishop supreme.
Said he —
This Canterbury is only less than Rome,
And all my doubts I fling from me like dust,
Winnow and scatter all scruples to the wind,
And all the puissance of the warrior,
And all the wisdom of the Chancellor,
And all the heap'd experiences of life,
I cast upon the side of Canterbury —
Our holy mother Canterbury, who sits
With tatter'd robes.
The time soon came for the prelate to prove his independ-
ence, his courage, and his zeal. He braved the anger and
the friendship of the King, defied the lords, subdued all men,
and vauntingly exclaimed —
If Rome be feeble, then should I be firm.
1 82 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
Had he been the Holy Father, he
Would have made Rome know she still is Rome ;
but, as it was, he made Rome a power in England, and
acted as Pope to people and the King.
Tennyson has idealised the loves of Henry and Rosa-
mund, and sublimated the fate of the wife unwed. The
scene between outraged Queen Eleanor and Fair Rosa-
mund is of thrilling intensity, and the sudden intervention
of Becket to prevent murder, if not warranted by history, is
for dramatic purposes magnificent. Rosamund in return
is sole mourner when her saviour is himself slain. The
haughty prelate lies silent in death in the darkened cathe-
dral. A terrific storm rages ; flashes of vivid lightning
weirdly illuminate the scene ; and beside the dead man
kneels Rosamund, bowed in sorrow and in prayer. Becket
fell nobly. When the murderous horde surrounded him he
cried—
Ye think to scare me from my loyalty
To God and to the Holy Father. No !
Tho' all the swords in England flash'd above me
Ready to fall at Henry's word or yours —
Tho' all the loud-lungM trumpets upon earth
Blared from the heights of all the thrones of her kings,
Blowing the world against me, I would stand
Clothed with the full authority of Rome,
Mail'd in the perfect panoply of faith,
First of the foremost of their files, who die
For God, to people heaven in the great day
When God makes up his jewels.
He was no craven. Knowing his fate — it had been fore-
told in a dream — he went forth with stateliness, unperturbed
and unvexed, to meet it. " I am readier to be slain than
thou to slay," he cried to one of the assassins, and, com-
mending himself tojiis Creator, he knelt and received his
death-stroke. Tennyson's Becket is worthy to rank with
Shakespeare's Wolsey : what higher praise could be wished
or awarded ?
Purely from the literary point of view the drama is one
TENNYSON AS A DRAMATIST. 1S3
of singular power. In the earlier scenes Becker, is simply
the keen adventurer struggling for political power ; but once
he is made the Pope's ambassador and hierophant he
changes, and his devotion to Church and Faith is devo-
tion which the King himself cannot shake. The conflict
between the monarch and the prelate is severe ; powers
league themselves against the man who feeds beggars to
show his humility and defies Henry Plantagenet to prove his
fearlessness. Almost his last utterance is one of defiance
to all who would make him swerve from loyalty to the
Church ; and he exemplified, as he preached, that
Valour and holy life should go together.
When in his hour of supreme danger, while he can hear the
roar of the avenging Knights, and the battering of the great
doors, his companions urge him to fly and hide in the
darkened crypt, he calmly turns to them with the words —
Oh, no, not either way, nor any way
Save by that way which leads thro' night to light.
Not twenty steps, but one.
And fear not I should stumble in the darkness,
Not tho' it be their hour, the power of darkness,
But my hour too, the power of light in darkness !
I am not in the darkness but the light,
Seen by the Church in Heaven, the Church on earth —
The power of life in death to make her free !
And when he falls prone and receives his death-stroke none
are more appalled than the four Knights who hurriedly
ride out into the storm and bear to their revengeful master
the tidings which he had so bitterly to regret.
The drama was produced at the Lyceum Theatre by Mr
Irving on February 6th, 1893, and at the close of the per-
formance on the first night he said to an enthusiastic
audience : " It has been to us a great privilege, a great
honour, as we all feel, to produce this work, a work which
we are assured will remain a lasting ornament to the stage
and to English literature. For my comrades and myself I
may say that we have laboured with all our hearts — it has
1 84 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
been to us a labour of very great love — to endeavour to add
one more laurel wreath to the brow of the master, who was
so lately with us. I can only thank you all once more for
the hearty, enthusiastic, ungrudging cordiality with which
you have accepted our efforts to-night."
Mrs Kendal accepted a play from the Laureate's pen,
and in 1879 produced The Falcon at the St James's Theatre,
the talented actress herself appearing as the Lady Gio-
vanna. Of this drama it is impossible to speak with any
favour. The subject is unfortunate, and its treatment almost
unavoidably unsatisfactory. The story of Ser Federigo and
his falcon, as told by Boccaccio and Longfellow, is pre-
eminently poetical, but does not easily lend itself to being
dramatised. It is a story to tell or to read, not a story to
resolve itself into form and connection by the words and
actions of dramatis persona ; not one to see acted. As the
drama stands, the Laureate seems to have done his best to
impart and sustain interest in it by the introduction of a
humorous foster-brother to the hero, and a loquacious nurse.
The former is unnatural, the latter is not original. Further-
more, such characters lower the poetical tone of the piece,
and when it is remembered that the chief scene represents
Lady Giovanna dining on Count Federigo's favourite bird,
it will be conceived that the piece appealed more to the
mirth than to the sympathy of an audience. The Count
converses, the lady eats, the foster-brother interposes his
quips, and the nurse rambles. Amid all this the familiar
story is slowly unravelled. There are few of those charm-
ing lines, those warm touches, or those suggestive phrases
which contribute so much to make Longfellow's poem
successful. Nor even is that sentiment expressed by Lord
Tennyson which, it seemed to us, the story was intended
to illustrate : " All things come round to him who will but
wait."
The Cup and The Falcon are not dramas of such high
aim as Queen Mary, Harold, and Becket, and cannot be
compared with them. Of the two, the former is infinitely
TENNYSON AS A DRAMATIST. 185
superior to the latter. The Cup is a short and somewhat
impressive tragedy founded on a Roman story. Camma, a
Galatian, the wife of Sinnatus, a Tetrarch, is beloved by
Synorix, an ex-Tetrarch, who does not scruple to murder
Sinnatus in order to gain his ends. Refusing to espouse
her husband's murderer, Camma becomes a Priestess in the
temple of Artemis ; but owing to the persistency with which
Synorix urges his suit, allows the marriage ceremony to
take place. It was the
Ancient custom in Galatia
That ere two souls be knit for life and death,
They two should drink together from one cup,
In symbol of their married unity,
Making libation to the goddess.
Camma poisons the wine in the drinking cup, partakes of
it herself, bids the newly-crowned Galatian king
Drink, and drink deep — our marriage will be fruitful ;
Drink, and drink deep, and thou wilt make me happy,
and by the success of her design saves herself from a union
she loathes, and revenges the husband she loved. This
little drama, which contains all the elements of pathos,
lacks what is essential in all works designed for successful
representation on the stage — warmth and incident. It is
not until the final words are being spoken and the last
deeds being enacted that one is really moved by what is
occurring. The scenes of the first act are colourless and
somewhat laboured, but happily relieved and redeemed by
outbursts of genuine poesy. In one, and perhaps the finest,
of these the nobility and patriotism of Camma are demon-
strated, when, responding to the invidious suggestion of
Synorix, that
To submit at once
Is better than a wholly hopeless war,
she says —
Sir, if a state submit
At once, she may be blotted out at once,
And swallow'd in the conqueror's chronicle.
iS6 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
Whereas in wars of freedom and defence
The glory and grief of battle won or lost
Solders a race together — yea— tho' they fail,
The names of those who fought and fell are like
A bank'd-up fire that flashes out again
From century to century, and at last
May lead them on to victory — I hope so-
Like phantoms of the gods.
Camma is, in fact, a truly beautiful conception. In her
purity, in her devotion, and in her beauty, she stands out
in marked contrast to the sensual ex-Tetrarch who seeks
her for his wife. Her life was good, her death is calm and
hopeful ; she justifies her last act — tragic and pathetic — by
her constancy to the dead Sinnatus. Rising with outspread
arms, she exclaims —
There — league on league of ever-shining shore,
Beneath an ever-rising sun — I see him —
" Camma, Camma ! " Sinnatus, Sinnatus !
and thus uttering his name expires in the arms of the
Priestesses.
The drama was produced at the Lyceum Theatre by Mr
Irving and Miss Terry, with magnificent scenery, in 1881,
and was a legitimate success, running for over a hundred
nights.
The task of criticising The Promise of May, produced
by Mrs Bernard Beere at the Globe Theatre in 1882, is
beset with difficulties. The piece revealed the Laureate's
progress in stage-craft, and there are characters in the
drama worthy of deep study. Tennyson was for almost
the first time seen as a prose-writer, and it cannot be
doubted that in The Promise of May his terseness and
epigrammatic brightness show to considerable advan-
tage. There are four or five distinct and subtle studies
of character, and the management of dialect is as skilful
as in the poems. The theme is painful, at times almost
revolting, and it is not surprising to find that on the stage
The Promise of May was no greater success than Queen
Mary had been. Quite recently Mrs Beere in an inter-
TENN YSON AS A DRA MA TIS T. 187
view declared that had she not been a novice in theatrical
management at that time she would never have accepted
the piece at all. She said that the production of The
Promise of May was " an artistic success," but " an experi-
ence of two weeks was enough to convince me that I was
on the wrong tack." One reminiscence of those days is
worth preserving, " Lord Tennyson," Mrs Beere related,
" was very amusing at rehearsals, and evinced the greatest
interest in the way things were conducted on the stage.
He came to most of the rehearsals, and, though against
the rules, would sit in the pit smoking his pipe." The
production of The Promise of May was fated to arouse
curiosity and even excitement of not the most healthy or
desirable character. Philip Edgar, the most important of
the dramatis persona, was the poet's conception of " a
surface man of theories, true to none." He is an agnostic,
cynical and heartless, and having seduced and basely
deserted his pretty country sweetheart (whom he has
bewildered with his high-sounding philosophy), he returns
after a long interval, under another name, and woos her
sister. On the night of November 14, 1882, a scene
occurred in the Globe Theatre which has thus been
described by the nobleman who caused it, the Marquess
of Queensberry : " Towards the close of the first act when
the gentleman representing the character of Edgar appeared
on the stage, I instantly became deeply interested when I
perceived the character he, Edgar, had come to represent,
or rather, as I took it, most grossly to misrepresent. After
listening a few minutes to the sentiments expressed by
this gentleman freethinker and atheist of Mr Tennyson's
imagination, I became so horrified and indignant that,
rising in my stall, I simply, in a loud voice, made the
following remarks apropos of Edgar's comments upon
' Marriage ' : ' These are the sentiments that a professing
Christian (meaning Mr Tennyson) has put into the mouth
of his imaginary freethinker, and it is not the truth.'
My statement of the facts will, I presume, explain my
1 88 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
motives. I am a secularist and a freethinker, and, though
I repudiate it, a so-called atheist ; and, as president of the
British Secular Union, I protest against Mr Tennyson's
abominable caricature of an individual who, I presume,
he would have us believe represents some body of people,
which, thanks to the good of humanity, most certainly does
not exist among freethinkers."
The comments upon marriage in the mouth of Edgar,
from which the Marquess of Queensberry so strongly dis-
sented, are as follow : —
The storm is hard at hand will sweep away
Thrones, churches, ranks, traditions, customs, marriage,
One of the feeblest ! Then the man, the woman,
Following their best affinities, will each
Bid their old bond farewell with smiles, not tears ;
Good wishes, not reproaches ; with no fear
Of the world's gossiping clamour, and no need
Of veiling their desires.
Conventionalism,
Who shrieks by day at what she does by night,
Would call this vice ; but one time's vice may be
The virtue of another ; and Vice and Virtue
Are but two masks of self ; and what hereafter
Shall mark out Vice from Virtue in the gulf
Of never-dawning darkness ?
And when the man,
The child of evolution, flings aside
His swaddling-bands, the morals of the tribe,
He, following his own instincts as his God,
Will enter on the larger golden age ;
No pleasure then taboo'd : for when the tide
Of full democracy has overwhelm'd
This Old world from the flood will rise the New,
Like the Love-goddess, with no bridal veil,
Ring, trinket of the Church, but naked Nature
In all her loveliness.
An American critic of considerable discernment has
expressed the opinion that in the The Promise of May is to
be found the supreme illustration of the influence of Theo-
TENNYSON AS A DRAMA TIST. 1S9
critus upon Tennyson— an influence which he pronounces
to be more or less visible in all the productions of the
Laureate. He draws a comparison between The Promise
of May and Renan's terrible story UAbbesse de Jouarre,
and declares that the conclusions of the English play are
" miserable, hopeless, and immoral." This, and like criti-
cisms, proceed from an imperfect understanding and
appreciation of the character of Edgar, and from an abso-
lute misconception of the Laureate's own intentions. What
the poet thought, and what his Edgar is said to have
thought are entirely different matters, and ought never to
have been confused. The finest explanation of the poet's
meaning appeared in the lucid article from the pen of a
scholar now dead, published in the St James's Gazette in
December 1886. He says :
" Edgar is not, as the critics will have it, a freethinker, drawn into
crime by his Communistic theories. Edgar is not even an honest
Radical, nor a sincere follower of Schopenhauer ; he is nothing
thorough and nothing sincere. He has no conscience until he is
brought face to face with the consequences of his crime ; and in the
awakening of that conscience the poet has manifested his fullest and
subtlest strength.
At our first introduction to Edgar, we see him perplexed with the
haunting of a pleasure that has sated him. ' Let us eat and drink, for
to-morrow we die ' has been his motto ; but we can detect that his appe-
tite for all pleasure has begun to pall. He repeats wearily the formulae
of a philosophy which he has followed because it suits his mode of life.
He plays with these formula? ; but they do not satisfy him. So long as
he had on him the zest of libertinism he did not, in all probability,
trouble himself with philosophy. But now his selfishness compels him
to take a step of which he feels the wickedness and repugnancy. He
must endeavour to justify himself to himself. The companionship of the
girl he has betrayed no longer gives him pleasure ; he hates her tears
because they remind him of himself— his proper self. He abandons
her with a pretence of satisfaction ; but the philosophical formulas he
repeats no more satisfiy him than they satisfy the poor girl whom he
deserts. Her innocence has not, however, been wantonly sacrified by
the dramatist. She has sown the seed of repentance in her seducer,
though the fruit is slow in ripening. Years after he returns, like the
ghost of a murderer, to the scene of his crime. He feels remorse. He
rgo TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
is ashamed of it ; he battles against it ; he hurls the old formulae at it ;
he acts the cynic more thoroughly than ever. But he is changed. He
feels a desire to ' make amends.' Yet that desire is still only a form
of selfishness.
He has abandoned the ' Utopian Idiocy ' of Communism. Perhaps,
as he says with self-mockery that makes the character so individual
and remarkable, ' because he has inherited estates.' His position of
gentleman is forced on his notice : he would qualify himself for it —
selfishly and without doing excessive penance. To marry the surviv-
ing sister and rescue the old father from ruin would be a meritori-
ous act. He sets himself to perform it. At first everything goes well
for him ; the old weapons of fascination that had worked the younger
sister's ruin now conquer the heart of the elder. He is comfortable in
his scheme of reparation, and lays ' that flattering unction to his soul. 5
Suddenly, however, the girl whom he had betrayed, and whom he thought
dead, returns ; she hears him repeating to another the words of love
she herself had heard from him and believed. ' Edgar ! ' she cries,
and staggers forth from her concealment, as she forgives him with her
last breath, and bids him make her sister happy.
Then, and not till then, the true soul of the man rushes to his lips ;
he recognises his wickedness, he knows the blankness of his life that is
his punishment. He feels then, and will always feel, aspirations after
good which he can never, or only imperfectly fulfil. The position of
independence on which he prided himself is wrested from him ; he is
humiliated. The instrument of his selfish repentance turns on him
with a forgiveness that annihilates him ; the bluff and honest farmer
whom he despises triumphs over him, not with the brute force of an
avenging hand, but with the pre-eminence of superior morality. Edgar
quits the scene ; never again, we can believe, to renew his libertine
existence, but to expiate with long life-contrition the monstrous
wickedness of the past."
The Promise of May deserved a much better fate than
to be misunderstood or regarded as a literary curiosity.
Farmer Dobson and Farmer Steer, to say nothing of the
labourers and servants who come upon the scene, are
genuine specimens of the hearty, honest, plain-spoken,
well-meaning men whom rural England still produces.
Dora and Eva Steer are sweet and pathetic girls, and one
cannot but feel a pang that a ravager like Edgar should take
the happiness and sunshine from their lives. The villagers'
views of the man who has " no respect for the Queen, or
TENNYSON AS A DRAMATIST. 191
the parson, or the justice o' peace, or owt," are quaintly
expressed with that touch of humour of which Tennyson
was master. The air of Lincolnshire pervades the whole
drama, and one cannot help thinking that the poet found
his theme in a past experience or a tradition of his native
place. The result of Communistic doctrines in a quiet
Lincolnshire " -by " can easily be imagined. Beauty is
betrayed, the wiseacres are bewildered, manly hearts are
broken, and hopes are blasted. Edgar, a self-avowed
" bundle of sensations," has n o desire bey ond self-grati-
fication_.when first he is introduced, and like Faust, seeking
a moment's delight, he ruthlessly spoils the fair and spot-
less flower which he finds. As time passes and he feels
that the good he should have loved is irrevocably lost,
he is filled with a morbid regret, and makes the horrible
proposal to marry his victim's sister for a reason which we
cannot believe to be genuine even if it is not deliberately
fraudulent. Take Edgar's own argument, and see what it
comes to in the end : a selfish apology for misdeeds.
If man be only
A willy-nilly current of sensations — ^ v * t ^
Reaction needs must follow revel — yet —
Why feel remorse, he, knowing that he must have
Moved in the iron grooves of Destiny.
Remorse then is a part of Destiny,
Nature a liar, making us feel guilty
Of her own faults.
That Edgar largely lacks the sense of personal responsi-
bility is evident from the first. He believes himself the
toy of fortune, the sport of chance, the victim of capricious
fate, swayed hither and thither by the wind, carried neither
willing nor unwilling by currents — a man without volition,
whose " mortal house "
Is haunted by
The ghosts of the dead passions of dead men ;
And these take flesh again with our own flesh
And bring us to confusion.
192 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
When the man is freed from his Utopian dreams he is
still despicable; his motives are doubtful, his desires
base. Beside this dark character how splendidly shows
Dobson, the sturdy, devoted, ignorant, but ever-noble
lover of the two sisters ! And how tender, the one in
her trusting, the other in her love and honour, are Eva
and Dora. Eva in her shame is not to be scorned,
Dora in her crystalline purity of spirit is a type of the
best of womankind.
In October 1891, Mr Theodore Watts announced that
Lord Tennyson had written a new play which could be
best described as " a woodland poem," and in a series of
daintily-written though discursive articles prepared the
public for The Foresters. We learnt that the comedy had
been "written for some time," that "several titles were
under discussion," and that the hero of the piece was
Robin Hood. " As a Midlander," said Mr Watts (though
Lincolnshire is not usually included in the Midland Coun-
ties), " Lord Tennyson could not fail to be in very especial
sympathy with the spirit of those ballads which recount
the doings and the glories of the Midland hero, Robin
Hood, that prince of robbers, whose exploits under the
greenwood tree have been impudently stolen by Northern
ballad-mongers." Before the formal announcement had
appeared, the fact was generally known that the Daly
Company, with Miss Ada Rehan, intended to produce a
new play by the Laureate. Mr and Mrs Daly and Miss
Rehan had visited the poet and heard the play read, and
it is said that Tennyson very minutely explained certain
passages, and stated how the parts should be played. On
one occasion Miss Rehan expressed the hope that the poet
would be present when the play was first produced. " No,
my dear," said Tennyson ; " I am far too old to look into
the future, and can promise nothing." And, to emphasise
his meaning, he forthwith recited Crossing the Bar. The
play was staged in America with complete success, and on
the publication of the work early in 1892, the critics were
TENNYSON AS A DRAMATIST. 193
almost unanimous that the Laureate had succeeded in
producing a Pastoral full of freshness, vigour, and sweet-
ness. The love of Robin Hood and Maid Marian is the
love of two ardent and noble natures. What says the
typical English girl when her lover, the Earl of Hunting-
don, is banished and outlawed, and becomes plain Robin
Hood ?—
Forget him— never— by this Holy Cross
Which good King Richard gave me when a child—
Never !
Not while the swallow skims along the ground,
And while the lark flies up and touches heaven !
Not while the smoke floats from the cottage roof,
And the white cloud is rolled along the sky !
Not while the rivulet babbles by the door,
And the great breaker beats upon the beach !
Never —
Till Nature, high and low, and great and small,
Forgets herself, and all her loves and hates
Sink again into chaos.
Lord Tennyson has not departed to any extent from the
main lines of the legend which lives in that fine English
ballad, " A Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode " ; but his slight
deviations are thoroughly justified, for they lead to the
disclosure of new beauties. The only regret can be that
the lively, daring, reckless outlaw has an occasional tend-
ency to moralise like a melancholy Jaques ; yet the fol-
lowing passage, whether it be in accord with the character
of the speaker or not, is a fine piece of writing :—
My lonely hour !
The king of day hath stept from off his throne,
Flung by the golden mantle of the cloud,
And sets, a naked fire. .
It is my birthday.
I have reign'd one year in the wild wood. My mother,
For whose sake, and the blessed Queen of Heaven,
I reverence all women, bad me, dying,
Whene'er this day should come about, to carve
One lonely hour from it, so to meditate
Upon my greater nearness to the birthday
N
194 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
Of the after-life, when all the sheeted dead
Are shaken from their stillness in the grave
By the last trumpet.
Am I worse or better ?
I am outlaw'd. I am none the worse for that.
I held for Richard, and I hated John.
I am a thief, ay, and a king of thieves.
Ay ! but we rob the robber, wrong the wronger,
And what we wring from them we give the poor.
I am none the worse for that, and all the better
For this free forest-life, for while I sat
Among my thralls in my baronial hall
The groining hid the heavens ; but since I breathed,
A houseless head beneath the sun and stars,
The soul of the woods hath stricken thro' my blood,
The love of freedom, the desire of God,
The hope of larger life hereafter, more
Tenfold than under roof.
An excellent bit of philosophy follows —
I believe there lives
No man who truly loves and truly rules
His following, but can keep his followers true.
I am one with mine. Traitors are rarely bred
Save under traitor kings.
In.Jhis loneliness Robin Hood passionately desires to see
Marian again —
Gone, and it may be gone for evermore !
would that I could see her for a moment
Glide like a light across these woodland ways !
Tho' in one moment she should glance away,
1 should be happier for it all the year.
O would she moved beside me like my shadow !
O would she stood before me as my queen,
To make this Sherwood Eden o'er again,
And these rough oaks the palms of Paradise !
The wish is fulfilled, and Maid Marian reigns — but not be-
fore she has come disguised and tested her lover's fidelity.
But this sovereignty of the glades perturbs the Queen of
Fairyland, and a delightful fairy interlude follows like a
TENNYSON AS A DRAMATIST. 195
passing dream — the whole stage lights up, and fairies are
seen swinging on boughs and nestling in hollow trunks.
Titania and her elfs sing in the moonlight —
We must fly from Robin Hood
And this new queen of the wood.
The fairies have many plaints to make of the intruders.
The lusty bracken has been beaten flat, the " honest daisy
deadly bruised," the " modest maiden lily abused," and the
" beetle's jewel armour crack'd." So the chorus swells —
We be scared with song and shout.
Arrows whistle all about.
All our games be put to rout.
All our rings be trampled out.
Lead us thou to some deep glen,
Far from solid foot of men,
Never to return again,
Queen.
And Titania acquiesces in tripping and melodious lines
with the refrain —
Up with you, out of the forest and over the hills and away.
The Laureate has next depicted the forest life of Robin
Hood, his merry men, and his " maiden-wife." The greedy
friars, the merchants, and the beggars pass by in procession,
and Friar Tuck, Little John, Much, and Scarlet live up to
their reputations and disport themselves jovially. It is a
gay and gallant life, yet the Outlaw Chief often yearns for
King Richard to come and restore him to a better and
nobler career. The valiant Crusader returns at last, and
good men get their own. But, with remembrance of happy
days surging in their breasts, it is half with regret that the
merry men turn from the glades. Then says Robin Hood,
Earl of Huntingdon once more, —
Our forest games are ended, our free life,
And we must hence to the King's Court. I trust
We shall return to the wood. Meanwhile, farewell
Old friends, old patriarch oaks. A thousand winters
196 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
Will strip you bare as death, a thousand summers
Robe you life-green again. You seem, as it were,
Immortal, and we mortal. How few Junes
Will heat our pulses quicker ! How few frosts
Will chill the hearts that beat for Robin Hood
And Marian takes up the theme —
And yet I think these oaks at dawn and even,
Or in the balmy breathings of the night,
Will whisper evermore of Robin Hood.
We leave but happy memories to the forest.
We dealt in the wild justice of the woods.
All those poor serfs whom we have served will bless us,
All those pale mouths which we have fed will praise us,
All widows we have holpen pray for us,
Our Lady's blessed shrines throughout the land
Be all the richer for us. You, good friar,
You Much, you Scarlet, you dear Little John,
Your names will cling like ivy to the wood.
And here perhaps, a hundred years away,
Some hunter in day-dreams or half asleep
Will hear our arrows whizzing overhead,
And catch the winding of a phantom horn.
To which Robin Hood tenderly adds —
And surely these old oaks will murmur thee
Marian along with Robin. I am most happy —
Art thou not mine ? — and happy that our King
Is here again, never I trust to roam
So far again, but dwell among his own.
The curtain falls while harmonious voices are singing
joyously, " Now the King is home again."
Lord Tennyson did nothing in its way better than this.
He produced a Pastoral or Masque, for which, for a com-
parison, we must go back to Milton's Covins. He has
done for Sherwood what Shakespeare did for Arden, and
has written a pure idyllic English play where we seem to
breathe the free gladsome air and smell the rich rare per-
fume of our matchless glades. And while the admired
heroes and the winsome heroines of romance tread the
sunlit stage, we listen to the quaint old-time speech and
TENNYSON AS A DRAMATIST.
197
hear the haunting measures of songs which almost set them-
selves to music. Of these intercalary lyrics nothing but
the highest praise can be said. The magic slumbrous
lines, To sleep ! to sleep ! had seen the light before ; and
There is no land like England was one of the Laureate's
early pieces re-vestured and re-introduced. But the
following stanzas were new : —
Love flew in at the window
As Wealth walk'd in at the door.
" You have come for you saw Wealth coming," said I.
But he flutter'd his wings with a sweet little cry,
I '11 cleave to you rich or poor.
Wealth dropt out of the window,
Poverty crept thro' the door.
" Well now you would fain follow Wealth," said I.
But he flutter'd his wings as he gave me the lie,
I cling to you all the more.
Considering Lord Tennyson's age, The Foresters was a
wonderful performance. In the winter of his life the laurels
grew greener on his brow.
CHAPTER XL
THE LATER BALLADS AND POEMS.
" I have climb'd to the snows of Age, and I gaze at a field in the Past."
— By an Evolutionist.
" Deed and song alike are swept
Away, and all in vain
As far as man can see, except
The man himself remain.
The man remains, and whatsoe'er
He wrought of good or brave
Will mould him thro' the cycle year
That dawns behind the grave."
— Epilogue to the Charge of the Heavy Brigade.
TENNYSON'S literary activity continued to the end. His
pen was never idle, and his voice rang out clearly and
sweetly in song until the moment that death commanded
silence. Sometimes, at the close of a long dull day, the
sun as it is about to sink crimsons all the west and makes a
glory in the sky : so the Poet Laureate, at the end of his
long day, and after a sombre interval, flashed out thoughts
of beauty and passed from among us while we were con-
templating the radiant glory of his work. Some of his last
lines will be the best remembered. The world will not
willingly let die such poems as Crossing the Bar and T/ie
Silent Voices, or forget the assuring message of hope in
The Dawn, Faith, and God and the Universe. After a life
of doubt, of questioning, the poet heard the answer and
received the promise —
Spirit, nearing yon dark portal at the limit of thy human state,
Fear not thou the hidden purpose of that Power which alone is great,
Nor the myriad world, His shadow, nor the silent Opener of the Gate.
Tennyson had already formally recanted of some of the
THE LATER BALLADS AND POEMS. 199
heresies of his youth. He had learnt that ideals could
not be attained, that dreams must fade, that visions must
die, and that a divine purpose was manifesting itself even
through darkness and the ways of evil. In his youth he
had despaired of many things, he had been rebellious, and
he had turned pessimist. In his old age he saw that right
slowly conquered wrong, that truth gradually overcame
error, that the best of all things ultimately survived and
grew in strength, and that the red of the dawn is ever
turning " a fainter red," and may at last become the white-
ness and purity of " a hundred thousand, a million summers
away." He who had doubted, mourned, and despaired so
much, cried with a last strong breath —
Doubt no longer that the Highest is the wisest and the best,
Let not all that saddens Nature blight thy hope or break thy rest,
Quail not at the fiery mountain, at the shipwreck, or the rolling
Thunder, or the rending earthquake, or the famine, or the pest.
He who had revolted against destiny, who had questioned,
protested, and even denied the wisdom of over-ruling Pro-
vidence, could at the last pray to " My Father, and my
Brother, and my God " —
Steel me with patience ! soften me with grief !
Let blow the trumpet strongly while I pray,
Till this embattled wall of unbelief
My prison, not my fortress, fall away !
The right note was struck in Locksley Hall Sixty Years
After, a poem which drew from Walt Whitman one of the
finest appreciations of the Tennyson both young and old
whom he had known. Said the venerable author of
Leaves of Grass : —
" Beautiful as the song was, the original Locksley Hall of half-a-
century ago was essentially morbid, heart-broken, finding fault with
everything, especially the fact of money's being made (as it ever must
be, and, perhaps should be) the paramount matter in worldly affairs —
Every door is banM with gold, and opens but to golden keys.
2oo TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
First, a father having fallen in battle, his child (the singer)
Was left a trampled orphan and a selfish uncle's ward.
Of course, love ensues. The woman in the chant or monologue proves
a false one ; and, as far as appears, the ideal of woman, in the poet's
reflections, is a false one— at any rate, for America. Woman is not
' the lesser man.' (The heart is not the brain.) The best of the piece
of fifty years since is its concluding line : —
For the mighty wind arises roaring seaward, and I go.
Then for this current 1886-7 a just-out sequel, which, as an apparently
authentic summary says, ' reviews the life of mankind during the past
sixty years, and comes to the conclusion that its boasted progress is of
doubtful credit to the world in general, and to England in particular.
A cynical vein of denunciation of democratic opinions and aspirations
runs through the poem, in marked contrast with the spirit of the poet's
youth.' Among the most striking lines of this sequel, are the
following : —
Envy wears the mask of Love, and, laughing sober fact to scorn,
Cries to Weakest as to Strongest : ' Ye are equals, equal-born.'
Equal-born ? O yes, if yonder hill be level with the flat.
Charm us, Orator, till the Lion look no larger than the Cat,
Till the Cat, thro' that mirage of overheated language loom
Larger than the Lion, — Demos end in working its own doom.
Tumble Nature heel o'er head, and, yelling with the yelling
street,
Set the feet above the brain and swear the brain is in the feet.
Bring the old dark ages back without the faith, without the hope,
Break the State, the Church, the Throne, and roll their ruins down
the slope.
I should say that all this is a legitimate consequence of the tone and
convictions of the earlier standards and points of view. Then some
reflections, down to the hard-pan of this sort of thing.
The course of progressive politics (democracy) is so certain and
resistless, not only in America, but in Europe, that we can well afford
the warning calls, threats, checks, neutralisings, in imaginative litera-
ture, or any department, of such deep-sounding and high-soaring voices
as Carlyle's and Tennyson's. Nay, the blindness, excesses of the
prevalent tendency— the dangers of the urgent trend of our times — in
my opinion, need such voices almost more than any. I should, too, call
THE LATER BALLADS AND POEMS. -or
it a signal instance of democratic humanity's luck that it has such
enemies to contend with — so candid, so fervid, so heroic. But why do
I say enemy ? Upon the whole, is not Tennyson — and was not
Carlyle (like an honest and stern physician)— the true friend of our age ?
Let me assume to pass verdict, or perhaps momentary judgment, for
the United States on this poet — a removed and distant position giving
some advantages over a nigh one.
What is Tennyson's service to his race, times, and especially to
America ? First, I should say, his personal character. He is not to
be mentioned as a rugged, evolutionary, aboriginal force — but (and a
great lesson is in it) he has been consistent throughout with the native,
personal, healthy, patriotic spinal element and promptings of himself.
His moral line is local and conventional, but it is vital and genuine.
He reflects the upper crust of his time, its pale cast of thought — even
its ennui. Then the simile of my friend John Burroughs is entirely
true, ' His glove is a glove of silk, but the hand is a hand of iron.' He
shows how one can be a royal laureate, quite elegant, and ' aristo-
cratic,' and a little queer and affected, and at the same time perfectly
manly and natural. As to his non-democracy, it fits him well, and I
like him the better for it. I guess all like to have (I am sure I do)
some one who presents those sides of a thought, or possibility, differ-
ent from our own — different, and yet with a sort of home-likeness— a
tartness and contradiction offsetting the theory as we view it, and
construed from tastes and proclivities not at all our own. To me,
Tennyson shows more than any poet I know (perhaps has been a
warning to me) how much there is in finest verbalism. There is
such a latent charm in mere words, cunning collocutions, and in the
voice ringing them, which he has caught and brought out beyond all
others — as in the line " And hollow, hollow, hollow, all delight,"
in The Passing of Arthur, and evidenced in The Lady of Shalott,
The Deserted House, and many other pieces. Among the best (I often
linger over them again and again) are Lucretius, The Lotos-Eaters,
and The Northern Farmer. His mannerism is great, but it is a
noble and welcome mannerism. His very best work, to me, is con-
tained in the books of The Idylls of the King, all of them, and all
that has grown out of them, though, indeed, we could spare nothing of
Tennyson, however small or however peculiar — not " Break, Break,"
not " Flower in the Crannied Wall," nor the old, eternally-told
passion of Edward Gray —
Love may come, and love may go,
And fly like a bird from tree to tree ;
But I will love no more, no more
Till Ellen Adair come back to me.
Yes, Alfred Tennyson, is a superb character, and will help give
202 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
illustriousness, through the long roll of time, to our nineteenth century.
In its bunch of orbic names, shining like a constellation of stars, his
will be one of the brightest. His very faults, doubts, swervings, doub-
lings upon himself, have been typical of our age. We are like the
voyagers of a ship, casting off for new seas, distant shores. We would
still dwell in the old suffocating and dead haunts, remembering and
magnifying their pleasant experiences only, and more than once im-
pelled to jump ashore before it is too late, and stay where our fathers
stayed, and live as they lived. Maybe I am non-literary and non-
decorous (let me, at least, be human, and pay part of my debt) in this
word about Tennyson. I want him to realise that here is a great and
ardent nation that absorbs his songs, and has a respect and affection
for him personally, as almost for no other foreigner. I want this word
to go to the old man at Farringford as conveying no more than the
simple truth ; and that truth (a little Christmas gift) no slight one
either. I have written impromptu, and shall let it all go at that.
The readers of more than fifty millions of people in the New World
not only owe to him some of their most agreeable and harmless and
healthy hours ; but he has entered into the formative influences of
character here, not only in the Atlantic cities, but inland and far West,
out in Missouri, in Kansas, and away in Oregon, in farmer's house
and miner's cabin.
Best thanks, anyhow, to Alfred Tennyson — thanks and appreciation
in America's name." —
One of the most striking facts in Whitman's strange
poetic career was his intense love for the songs of his con-
temporaries, who were in more than one sense his rivals.
Though he himself disdained " dulcet rhymes " he admired
the minstrelsy of others. The friendship existing between
him and Lord Tennyson was altogether remarkable.
Their styles were so opposite that they seemed almost
to be warring against each other. Whitman hewed his
rugged lines out of granite ; Tennyson fashioned his dainty
verse from all things bright and fair. Yet each found in
the other's works great truths and manifold beauties. Nor
did they fear to express their feelings, and one of the rare
instances on record of the Laureate's acknowledging a
public criticism was occasioned by the " word sent to the
old man at Farringford." The cordial friendship existing
between the two was the more noteworthy for the reason
THE LATER BALLADS AND POEMS. 203
that in 1855 when Leaves of Grass was published Whitman
compared his work with Tennyson's Maud, to the dis-
advantage of the Laureate. But the comparison was not
intended to be offensive, nor was it ever resented. The
message of 1887 was welcomed ; though the "old man at
Farringford " not only outlived its sender, but a day after
the death of the " good, gray poet " issued his new work
The Foresters. The Laureate's response has a deep pathetic
interest. " Dear Walt Whitman," he wrote ; " I thank
you for your kind thoughts of me. I value the photograph
much, and I wish that I could see not only this sun-
picture, excellent as I am told it is, but also the living
original. May he still live and flourish for many years to
be. The coming year [1888] should give new life to every
American who has breathed a breath of that soul which
inspired the great founders of the American Constitution
whose work you are to celebrate. Truly, the mother
country, pondering on this, may feel that how much soever
the daughter owes to her, she, the mother, has nevertheless
something to learn from the daughter. Especially I would
note the care taken to guard a noble Constitution from
rash and unwise innovators." Lord Tennyson's kindly
expressions went far to compensate Whitman for the
unexpected attack which had just been made upon him
by Mr Swinburne. But the Laureate gave a more practical
token of his esteem for the poet in poverty by subscribing
to the Christmas gift sent to him by English friends. In
1890, Whitman wrote again — " I have already put on
record my notions of Tennyson and of his effusions ; they
are very attractive and flowery to me — but flowers, too,
are at least as profound as anything ; and by common
consent Tennyson is settled as the poetic cream-skimmer
of our age's melody, ennui, and polish — a verdict in which
I agree, and should say that nobody (not even Shakes-
peare) goes deeper in those exquisitely touched and half-
hidden hints and indirections left like faint perfumes in
the crevices of his lines."
204 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
The most morbid, beclouded, and desponding of Tenny-
son's poems are De Profundis and Vastness, tinctured as
they are with the melancholy of a life darkening at its
close. Happily, the poet recovered from his gloomy con-
templation of the shadows of " the deep " ; and " sunset
and evening star " had no sadness for him. De Profundis,
perhaps, was the product only of a mood, not of confirmed
convictions, for at the time it was written the old poet was
giving the world those stirring ballads which kindled the
enthusiasm of Carlyle. Of this series it is difficult to say
which is best, though the wonderful power of Rizpah has
struck every reader, and excited the admiration of every
critic. Mr T. A. Trollope in his What I Remember (1887)
relates that he was taken by the Leweses to see the Laureate
just as he had finished this grand poem. Tennyson read
the lines to his visitors, but " laid strict injunctions on us to
say no word to anyone of what we had heard, adding with
a smile that was half naif, half funning, and wholly comic :
' The newspaper fellows, you know, would get hold of the
story, and they would not do it as well.' " Surely there
was never woman's wail which sounded so fierce, so terrible,
so pitiful, as the wail of the woman for the son " hang'd in
chains for a show."
God 'ill pardon the hell-black raven and horrible fowls of the air,
But not the black heart of the lawyer who kill'd him and hang'd him
there.
There is a wail also, more subdued, not defiant, but utterly
sad, in the widow's account of The First Quarrel — the first
quarrel that was the last, for
The boat went down that night — the boat went down that night.
But what is the sound we hear in The Revenge, a ballad
of the fleet ? A sound of triumph from brave lips and
dauntless men who fought the Spaniard knowing that " to
fight is but to die," — who scorned to fly from the enemy
though the little Revenge had but a " hundred fighters on
THE LA TER BALLADS AND POEMS. 205
deck and ninety sick below," and the whole Spanish fleet
was massed against them.
Half of their fleet to the right and half to the left were seen,
And the little Revenge ran on thro' the long sea-lane between.
Thousands of their soldiers look'd down from their decks and laugh'd,
Thousands of their seamen made mock at the mad little craft
Running on and on,
but Sir Richard Grenville had never turned his back on
Don or devil —
And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the summer
sea,
But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty-three.
Long as Britain's glory shall be remembered the story of
the little Revenge will be recounted.
God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before ?
Sir Richard Grenville's name will live in the imperishable
ballad of the Laureate. Macaulay sang the praise of the
Roman who " kept the bridge," but Tennyson found an
English Horatius crying " Fight on, fight on," when his
vessel was a wreck, riddled with shot and shell, and when
his own wounds were almost too great to be borne. But all
round the little ship lay " the Spanish fleet with broken
sides," and the little Revenge having done her best, yielded,
though the Captain would have had her split in twain that
he and his men might
Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of Spain.
But " the lion there lay dying."
And the stately Spanish men to their flagship bore him then,
Where they laid by the mast, old Sir Richard caught at last,
And they praised him to his face with their courtly foreign grace ;
But he rose upon their decks, and he cried :
" I have fought for Queen and Faith like a valiant man and true
I have only done my duty as a man is bound to do ;
With a joyful spirit I, Sir Richard Grenville, die ! "
And he fell upon their decks, and he died.
The Laureate might have sought in vain for a sublimer
;o6 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
hero ; the hero might have longed in vain for a better min-
strel to sing his praise. The ballad of The Revenge is one
that will live, one that will fire many an earnest spirit, and
one that will ever make a people proud of their valiant
sons in the brave days of old. To the same category
belong the Laureate's Defence of Lucknow, and The Charge
of the Heavy Brigade at Balaclava, a noble tribute to
Scarlett's three hundred men who charged thousands of
Russians in the valley and on the heights.
Scarlett was far on ahead, and he dashed up alone
Thro' the great gray slope of men,
And he wheel'd his sabre, he held his own
Like an Englishman there and then ;
And the three that were nearest him follow'd with force,
Wedged themselves in between horse and horse,
Fought for their lives in the narrow gap they had made,
Four amid thousands ; and up the hill, up the hill,
Galloped the gallant three hundred, the Heavy Brigade.
Lord Tennyson possessed the faculty in an eminent degree
of identifying himself with the heroes — seeming to feel the
thrill of martial ardour, to experience the exhilaration of
valiant deeds, and to understand the pain and the glory of
battle. No one has sung of soldiers' deeds as he ; no one
has so filled his verses with trumpet tones ; the clash of
weapons, the clangour of arms, we hear them resound in his
ringing lines, in the breathless rush of his verse ! He should
be known as the soldiers' poet as well as the elogist of
heroes, for he was often at his best when making " a martial
song like a trumpet call " and
Singing of men that in battle array,
Ready in heart and ready in hand,
March with banner and bugle and fife
To the death, for their native land.
His lines to General Hamley attest his admiration of the
hero, and in the Epilogue to the Charge of the Heavy
Brigade, after telling of his hatred of war for war's own
sake, he exclaimed —
THE LA TER BALLADS AND POEMS. 207
But let the patriot-soldier take
His meed of fame in verse ;
Nay — tho' that realm were in the wrong
For which her warriors bleed,
It still were right to crown with song
The warrior's noble deed.
Contrasted with these passionate ballads, how stately
seem pieces like Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cob/iam, or even
Columbus ; while The Sisters is an exquisite sonata in words,
and the lyrics commencing " O diviner air " and " O diviner
light " can only be matched to the melodies of Mendelssohn.
The whole poem is in Tennyson's finest strain, the diction
superb, the current of thought rich, the story strange and
moving. In the Voyage of Maeldune Tennyson found a
weird Irish legend to his liking, and he has enriched it
with many a bright and glowing detail. But the story of
Emmie, told /// the Children's Hospital, was provocative of
controversy ; and though the poem has force and beauty,
it is more than doubtful whether it does not cast un-
warranted blame upon a body of men whose humanity,
devotion, and tenderness are worthy of recognition. The
rough doctor is an uncommon type ; the burly sceptic is
still rarer ; while the " ghastly tools " of the surgeon are
surely not to be regarded as useless horrors. On the
publication of the poem a storm of disapprobation and
protest arose, and however we may admire the poet's lines,
we cannot but feel that their censure, direct or implied, is
unjust.
When the Tiresias volume was published late in 1885, it
was hailed as evidence of the sustained power and un-
quenched fire of the poet's spirit Full of melody and
inspiration, the volume was a proof (as one critic said) that
at seventy-seven Tennyson's muse still " mingled the fire of
youth with the tenderness of age." " Never," wrote another,
" did he touch the keys of passionate utterance with a firmer
hand ; never did he clothe in more vividly poetic form the
conceptions of a masculine intelligence. So splendid an old
>o8 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
age is a welcome feature in the literary annals of our time."
" Here, in Tiresias itself, and in many of the other poems,"
said a third, whom I take to be no other than Mr Lang,
though I am quoting from an anonymous article, " are the
same potent influences of style, and the music and charm
of words, which have delighted fit ears ever since Timbuctoo,
though a prize poem, gave the world assurance of a poet.
Custom has not staled nor imitation debased the rich
Tennysonian measure which haunts us as
The rich Virgilian rustic measure
Of Lari maxime all the way,
haunted the Laureate among the lakes of Italy. The new
poems have, besides and above this, almost as personal a
note as In Memoriam. The poet now and again speaks
plainly of himself and for himself. Standing on the inner
threshold of age, he looks back across more than seventy
years, remembering friends, remembering griefs and sorrows,
and still happy and fortunate in an old age, nee cithara
degentem, and not uncheered by hope." There had been
a fear that the sweet flow of verse had been embittered,
and that in his declining years Tennyson would have been
prone to dwell upon the tenebrous gathering of cloud and
the threatenings of death. But a cheerful note was struck
in the opening lines to " Old Fitz," the friend of former
days, with whom he had once tarried and " tried the table
of Pythagoras " ; to whom he paid the hearty tribute of a
true admirer of his literary gifts, and of whom he could say
— thinking of " two voices heard on earth no more " —
But we old friends are still alive,
And I am nearing seventy-four,
While you have touch'd at seventy-five,
And so I send a birthday line
Of greeting.
With that greeting was enclosed the poem of Tiresias \
rescued from the " sallow scraps of manuscript " of a for-
gotten book. Tiresias is akin in style, in theme, and in
THE LATER BALLADS AND POEMS. 209
treatment to Tithonus and Ulysses, those unapproachable
English classics which best enable English readers to under-
stand the luxury and splendour of Greek masterpieces.
Tiresias was a blind Theban soothsayer, a prophet who
with clear eye read the scroll of the future ; and he foretold
that if Menceceus would sacrifice himself Thebes would be
victorious against Seven. The prophet's blindness is
variously accounted for, but Tennyson accepted the legend
that his sight was destroyed by Pallas Athene, at whom
the presumptuous mortal had dared to gaze while she
bathed. He has wandered in all lands ; his wont, he says,
Was more to scale the highest of the heights
With some strange hope to see the nearer God.
Searching, craving for beauty, for a glimpse of the divine,
he journeyed on, until the day came when his eyes rested
upon a forbidden scene, and forthwith their light was
extinguished. Here is the picture — as chastely sensuous,
as vivid, yet as free from voluptuousness, as brilliant and
beautiful, as the poet's art coud reveal it.
One naked peak — the sister of the sun
Would climb from out the dark, and linger there
To silver all the valley with her shafts —
There once, but long ago, five-fold thy term
Of years, I lay ; the winds were dead for heat ;
The noonday crag made the hand burn ; and sick
For shadow — not one bush was near — I rose
Following a torrent till its myriad falls
Found silence in the hollows underneath.
There in a secret olive-glade I saw
Pallas Athene climbing from the bath
In anger ; yet one glittering foot disturb'd
The lucid well ; one snowy knee was prest
Against the margin flowers ; a dreadful light
Came from her golden hair, her golden helm
And all her golden armour on the grass,
And from her virgin breast, and virgin eyes
Remaining fixt on mine, till mine grew dark
For ever, and I heard a voice that said
O
2io TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
" Henceforth be blind, for thou hast seen too much,
And speak the truth that no man may believe."
Son, in the hidden world of sight, that lives
Behind this darkness, I behold her still,
Beyond all work of those who carve the stone,
Beyond all dreams of Godlike womanhood,
Ineffable beauty, out of whom, at a glance,
As it were, perforce, upon me flash'd
The power of prophesying. . . .
The old prophet, who has prophesied and been unheeded, is
full of ripe wisdom ; and Menoeceus, his companion, hears
many a pregnant word fall from his lips. " To cast wise
words among the multitude Was flinging fruit to lions,"
had been the seer's experience.
Who ever turn'd upon his heel to hear
My warning that the tyranny of one
Was prelude to the tyranny of all ?
My counsel that the tyranny of all
Led backward to the tyranny of one ?
Here the Laureate found his opportunity of once more
uttering a warning to democrats — a lesson from the past to
the present. And is not this applicable now, as then ? —
Virtue must shape itself in deed, and those
Whom weakness or necessity have cramp'd
Within themselves, immerging, each, his urn
In his own well, draw solace as he may.
The words impelling Menoeceus to the sacrifice came from
a noble mind — a mind that esteems no duty so high, no
privilege so great, as serving the State by life or death.
My son,
No sound is breathed so potent to coerce,
And to conciliate, as their names who dare
For that sweet mother land which gave them birth
Nobly to do, nobly to die. Their names,
Graven on memorial columns, are a song
Heard in the future; few, but more than wall
And rampart, their examples reach a hand
Far thro' all years, and everywhere they meet
THE LATER BALLADS AND POEMS. 211
And kindle generous purpose, and the strength
To mould it into action pure as theirs.
Could heroes have greater, purer inspiration than this ?
Could their fate be more honourable, their victory more
glorious, than for their names to be a song, and their deeds
to be both example and monument ? Tennyson's words
are stimulating as a cordial ; they impart strength to the
faltering, and fire the ambition of the brave.
The golden lyre
Is ever sounding in heroic ears
Heroic hymns.
The poem is followed by a reference to Fitzgerald's death,
touching, sincere, kind, as all Tennyson's tributes to his
friends were.
Three powerful narrative poems were included in the
Tiresias volume — The Wreck, Despair, and The Flight. The
first and last of these portrayed the effects of a marriage
without sympathy and love. In the one case the husband
was indifferent to his sensitive wife.
He would open the books that I prized, and toss them away with a
yawn,
Repell'd by the magnet of art to the which my nature was drawn,
The word of the poet by whom the deeps of the world are stirr'd,
The music that robes it in language beneath and beyond the word !
My Shelley would fall from my hands when he cast a contemptuous
glance
From where he was poring over his tables of trade and finance ;
My hands when I heard him coming would drop from the chords or
the keys,
But ever I fail'd to please him, however I strove to please.
The result of this misalliance is easily foreseen. The
woman wanted warmth and sympathy, and when her hus-
band denied it, she "threw herself all abroad," played her
part " by the low footlights of the world," " caught the
wreath that was flung" — and fell. The Flight is equally
painful. It is the story of a woman who is to be purchased
as a slave, under the name of wife and with the consent of
212 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
holy church, by a man whom she loathes. The marriage
morning has come, but unable to face her dreadful fate — a
fate, it is to be feared, not so uncommon in society as to
make the Laureate's stern denunciation unnecessary — she
flies.
Shall I take him ? I kneel with him ? I swear, and swear forsworn
To love him most whom most I loathe, to honour whom I scorn ?
The Fiend would yell, the grave would yawn, my mother's ghost would
rise —
To lie, to lie — in God's own house — the blackest of all lies !
The curse of such unions, the horrors of such customs in
the marriage-market of modern Babylon, called for the lash
of the Laureate's scornful words. For these abuses do
exist, and were there no Mammonite parents in these days
of advance, the foul wrong would not be done. But fathers
" pay their debts " with the honour and happiness of their
daughters ; and mothers obtain their recompense and re-
ward by securing a buyer for their beloved children in the
monster who seeks only the gratification of the basest
passion.
It is not Love but Hate that weds a bride against her will.
Despair tells the story of a man and his wife who, having
lost all faith in God and a future, resolve to drown them-
selves. The woman dies ; the man is rescued by a minister
of the sect he had abandoned. In the poem the man re-
lates to his preserver the history of his struggle against
infidelity ; and he is not grateful that his life was saved.
Death to him was less terrible than the agony of living.
" Why," he asks,
Should we bear with an hour of torture, a moment of pain,
If every man die for ever, if all his griefs are vain,
And the homeless planet at length will be wheel'd thro' the silence of
space,
Motherless evermore of an ever-vanishing race,
When the worm shall have writhed its last, and its last brother-worm
will have fled
From the dead fossil skull that is left in the rocks of an earth that is
dead?
THE LATER BALLADS AND POEMS. 213
Practically the questions are unanswered, and to men who
will not " believe where they cannot prove," no answer is
possible. This infidel had had a glimmer of " a God behind
all," but the scanty, unsatisfying light, had only maddened
him the more. Though the problem was unsolved in the
poem, a possible solution might have been found in one
that followed, a poem of wonderful beauty and bright with
golden truths. The Ancient Sage is one of the best poems
of its kind. The vexing doubts of youth are recalled only
that the experience of life — a life of work and thought —
may for ever lay these spectres of the mind. The perfection,
the necessity of Faith, is the sermon preached and the
lesson enforced. As if catching up the threads of the old
argument in In Memoriam the poet says —
Thou canst not prove the Nameless, O my son,
Nor canst thou prove the world thou movest in,
Thou canst not prove that thou art body alone,
Nor canst thou prove that thou art spirit alone,
Nor canst thou prove that thou art both in one :
Thou canst not prove thou art immortal, no
Nor yet that thou art mortal — nay, my son,
Thou canst not prove that I, who speak with thee,
Am not thyself in converse with thyself,
For nothing worthy proving can be proven,
Nor yet disproven : wherefore thou be wise,
Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt,
And cling to Faith beyond the forms of Faith.
In this poem we seem to get glimpses of the poet's own
religion and its adaptation, and there is a hint of that form
of " spiritualism " which has led more than one to believe
that he was convinced of the invisible but tangible union
between the material and immaterial worlds. Whether
Tennyson was a " Spiritualist " or not in the ordinary or
esoteric sense cannot be safely judged. His well-known
letter of May 1874, referring to his "waking trance," and
the fading away of his individuality into " boundless being,"
with the loss of personality ; his mysterious allusions in In
Memoriam ; his sonnet on that condition of body or mind
when
214 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
We muse and brood,
And ebb into a former life, or seem
To lapse far back in some confused dream
To states of mystical similitude ;
and the declaration in The Ancient Sage —
More than once when I
Sat all alone, revolving in myself
The word that is the symbol of myself,
The mortal limit of the Self was loosed,
And past into the Nameless, as a cloud
Melts into Heaven. I touch'd my limbs, the limbs
Were strange not mine — and yet no shade of doubt,
But utter clearness, and thro' loss of Self
The gain of such large life as match'd with ours
Were Sun to spark— unshadowable in words,
Themselves but shadows of a shadow-world :
— all these seem to favour the view that Tennyson believed
the spirit could escape the fetters of the body for a while,
and pass into higher stages, enjoy communion with higher
beings, and hold converse, perhaps, with angels of song
and light
Star to star vibrates light: may soul to soul
Strike thro' a finer element of her own ?
" I believe," he told Miss Weld, " that beside our
material body we possess an immaterial body. I do not
care to make distinctions between the soul and the spirit, as
men did in days of old, though perhaps the spirit is the best
word to use of our higher nature, that nature which I believe
in Christ to have been truly divine, the very presence of
the Father, the one only God, dwelling in the perfect man.
We shall have much to learn in a future world, and I think
we shall all be children to begin with when we get to
Heaven, whatever our age when we die, and shall grow on
there from childhood to the prime of life, at which we shall
remain for ever. My idea of Heaven is to be engaged in
perpetual ministry to souls in this and other worlds." So
we understand the meaning of those passionate lines of a
grief-stricken man in Maud —
THE LATER BALLADS AND POEMS. 215
Ah Christ, that it were possible
For one short hour to see
The souls we loved, that they might tell us
What and where they be.
In The Ancient Sage the poet found the means of sending
forth a message to the world to hope on and have Faith,
to cleave to the belief in "the Nameless," to trust that
despite our feeble wills, our veiled eyes, our stumbling
steps, under guidance we were being led onward and upward
for some grand and divine end. Darkness must not dismay :
" the clouds themselves are children of the Sun." Life must
be well used, all evil abstained from, the beast within
curbed ; and thus men, laying their " uphill shoulder to the
wheel," will " climb the Mount of Blessing." Men will
inquire, but all mysteries will not be revealed —
The key to that weird casket, which for thee
But holds a skull, is neither thine nor mine,
But in the hand of what is more than man,
Or in man's hand when man is more than man.
Infinite trust, boundless confidence, are demanded by the
Ruler of all from his subjects ; and in the giving of that
trust, the submission to the Higher Will, lies all satis-
faction. Faith
Reels not in the storm of warring words,
She brightens at the clash of " Yes " and " No,"
She sees the Best that glimmers thro' the Worst,
She feels the Sun is hid but for a night,
She spies the summer thro' the winter bud,
She tastes the fruit before the blossom falls,
She hears the lark within the songless egg, 1
She finds the fountain where they wail'd " Mirage! "
One other poem in the volume calls for remark ; a sad
and moving story bearing the title of To-morrow. It is
the only poem of the Laureate's in the Irish dialect, and,
unlike his other dialect poems, it is tragic. The heroine is
a Molly Magee whose " batchelor " was Danny O'Roon.
1 Cf. " The music of the moon Sleeps in the pale eggs of the nightingale."
— Aylmers Field.
216 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
Her lover went away over the sea, telling her he would see
her to-morrow ; but he never came back. Others told her
that she had been deserted, and that Danny had taken
another wife; but Molly remained staunch, true, and
trusting —
I 'd his hand-promise, an' shure he '11 meet me again.
Her mind gave way at last, and then "To-morra, to-
morra, machree," became her incessant, dolorous cry.
Danny was found at last — forty years after the parting.
He had fallen into a bog after drinking, and had died
there. The body was laid by the chapel-door. None of
the new generation could recognise it.
But Molly kem limpin' up wid her stick, she was lamed iv a knee,
Thin a slip of a gossoon call'd " Div ye know him, Molly Magee ?"
An' she stood up strait as the Queen o' the world — she lifted her
head—
" He said he would meet me to-morra ! " an' dhropt down dead an
the dead.
The poet's aftermath had all the richness and luxury of
the harvest. No one contributed so long and so well to
the " Renascence of Wonder " or to the philosophy of the
times ; no one so pitilessly indicted the evils of the age,
or so sublimely sang its hopes. He was one of the great
buttresses of religion despite the doubts which ever in-
truded, and will ever intrude. Like Clough he could have
said — " Let us ascend the clouded hill and expect the voice
of him who entered into the cloud. Perhaps he will
descend the mount with sacred light shining from his
countenance, bearing the tables of the new law ; mean-
while, let us not turn back to Egypt, not dance at the
bidding of the first priest around a Golden Calf." This
seems to have been Tennyson's attitude, and tempted
as he was to forsake the stronghold of religion from time
to time, he remained steadfast, faintly trustful of the
THE LATER BALLADS AND POEMS. 217
" larger hope." " Poetry will die with Tennyson," said Mr
Augustine Birrell ; while Mr Froude has delivered the
opinion that of all great men of the past century Tennyson
and Carlyle are alone likely to live. If this be true, it
must be for a better reason than that supplied by a critic
who, while admitting that Tennyson was great as a singer,
denied that he was a teacher. " It would have been better
for him and for all of us," wrote Mr Salt, "if he had
thought it "well to follow the wise example of Gray, and
Collins, and Keats, and restrict himself to that art of
poetry in which he has so few rivals. For if ever a poet
has come near to perfection in his work, Lord Tennyson
has done so in those poems where a great but simple
thought had to be expressed, and where there was no
room for the introduction of any controversial matter.
For example, in Ulysses we have a splendid representa-
tion of the indomitable energy of the will ; in the Lotos-
Eaters, of rest ; in St Agnes" Eve, of purity and resig-
nation ; in Rizpah, of horror, and pity, and love. But,
unfortunately, the Poet Laureate was not content with this
simplicity of subject ; he has deliberately descended into
the arena of strife, and must be judged accordingly. In-
deed, it was so obviously useless to attempt to exonerate
him from this criticism, that his earlier and more enthusi-
astic admirers boldly took the bull by the horns, and
claimed for him the position of a great teacher and thinker.
It will be found, I fear, that his thoughts, when sifted, are
light as chaff; and that his philosophical system is a mix-
ture of opportunism and shallow optimist theories."
Mr Arthur Galton, too, believes that " Tennysonian
lasciviousness of style is to disguise poverty of thought
and. to conceal the absence of virility and vigour"; but
while it is admitted that Tennyson said little absolutely
new, it is false to state that his poetry was not weighted
with thought and illuminated with the most radiant of
truths. His were no " barren commonplaces," but fruitful
lessons, no matter how or whence derived. Novelty is not
2i8 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
necessarily a charm or a virtue, and the fact remains that
but for Tennyson many a pearl of wisdom would have been
lost, or, untouched by his consummate art, would have
been esteemed of little worth. " Tennyson is the one
supreme poet of the day," said Mr Swinburne, and the
tribute came not only from a fellow-poet and an acute
critic, but from one who might have been his rival. The
judgment of the age was certainly in concurrence with this
verdict : the " one supreme poet " without a successor, the
peerless craftsman whose "jacinth work of subtlest jewelry"
will fascinate the eyes of wondering witnesses to be.
It was thought that a period was put to Tennyson's
work with the issue of the Tiresias volume, but he had
other poems in reserve, and his productiveness had not
ceased. Locksley Hall Sixty Years After, which drew forth
the tribute from Whitman, followed in a twelvemonth, and
perhaps on account of its association in name and character
with an old favourite, no less than on account of its merits,
achieved a remarkable and immediate popularity. What-
ever apprehension had existed as to the Laureate's powers,
or as to the nature of his experiment, with its obvious risks,
was dispelled the moment the new Locksley Hall was read.
Like Anacreon of old, the Laureate was able to prove that
though winter was on his brow spring was in his heart.
Ancient founts of inspiration still welled through his fancy,
and he could fittingly conclude at seventy-seven what he
began at seventeen. Locksley Hall was the adumbration
of a drama full of the passion, the bluster, and the frenzy
of hot youth ; the Sixty Years After was an epilogue in
which the events of intervening years were recalled in the
serenity and wisdom of age. Said one discerning critic : —
Taken together, the two pieces will remain a marvellous picture
of the chastening power of time on the impulses and hopes of an
ardent soul. There is not the smallest incongruity between the two
portraits. Life has not quelled the spirit or quenched the hope ; but
it has taught the madness alike of wild hope and sheer despair.
The same problems press upon the mind of the veteran which fired
THE LATER BALLADS AND POEMS. 219
the spirit of the young man ; but the superstitious confidence in this
or that solution has been dissipated, and all the rancour bred of pur-
blind enthusiasm has passed away. If there ever was any excuse for
the notion, religiously held by many a votary of Tennyson, that the
hero of Locksley Hall was none other than the poet himself, there is
surely the fullest warrant for the belief that in this pendant to the
masterpiece we have on record the ripe life-thoughts of the Laureate.
If he was not the disappointed lover and the wild dreamer, he at any
rate entered with dramatic intensity into all the emotions and aspira-
tions of his hero ; and now, ' sixty > r ears after,' when experience and
disillusionment, it may be, have done their work, when it is possible
to contemplate with clear eyes the condition of the world after it has
spun for half-a-century ' down the ringing grooves of change,' we are
invited to hear what false hopes have vanished, and, in their stead,
what true and firm grounds of assurance, undiscerned, or, at least
undescribed, in the hot, fanciful days, remain to us."
The experience which brought the lover of Amy so
much sorrow is now an old man's dim memory ; the
persons who played their part in a life-drama are phan-
toms ; only one man lives to close the story and tell of
those who are dead. If there are no retractions there are
repentances, and Sixty Years After is less a palinode
than a development. What was Amy's fate ? What her
husband's ?
Dead — and sixty years ago, and dead her aged husband now,
I this old white-headed dreamer stoopt and kissed her marble brow.
Gone the fires of youth, the follies, furies, curses, passionate tears,
Gone like fires and floods and earthquakes of the planet's dawning
years.
Gone the tyrant of my youth, and mute below the chancel stones,
All his virtues — I forgive them — black in white above his bones.
In Locksley Hall a young disappointed lover, frantic,
jealous, despairing, spoke in sorrow and hate. His is a
thoroughly human outburst, which commands, in spite of
its fury and false reasoning, in spite of its dogmatism and
bias, the genuine sympathy and compassion of his hearers.
The interest is human. The poet sways the reader at
will ; his irony is appreciated, his foolish braggartism
applauded. All this is changed sixty years after. The
22o TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
old man has disowned the young, remodelled his phil-
osophy, and reconciled himself to his destiny. The
memory of Amy shines star-like through the mist of time
and sorrow ; but the broken chain that bound the mourner
to his kind has been linked again by an Edith —
She with all the charm of woman, she with all the breadth of man.
He possesses a heart of charity. No longer are his feel-
ings stirred by the tumult of passion ; no longer is he an
impossible idealist. Sixty Years After is full of whole-
some sentiment and honest feeling, and the thoughts are
enshrined in word-caskets such as only could be wrought
by the Laureate. "The writer of the second Locksley
Ha//," said Professor Dowden, " has again given back as
a river that which he received from men about him as
a vapour — the fears of faith in presence of a revolu-
tion inspired by selfish greeds, the fears of art in presence
of a base naturalism which only recognises the heart in
man."
The sequel to Locksley Hall had been prophesied more
than twenty years before by Professor Japp, and the
vaticination is worth recalling, for it proves that the after-
thought was a natural and logical process. " Upon his
scathed heart dawns the glory of a great moral truth, that,
though the individual withers under limitation and wrong,
the world still progresses. The poet has here carried the
poem to the strict limit of his experience at the time it was
written. It closes but it does not cease. It abounds with
suggestions as to a higher result in prospect. It points to
a region of lofty possibility. If the poet ever again wrote
on a kindred theme it would test at once his insight and
fuller experience whether he would conduct his hero to a
more worthy goal." x Mr Gladstone's learned review of the
two Locksley Halls is a separate study, and it forms a most
interesting and valuable footnote to the poems.
" No greater calamity could happen to a people than to
1 " Three Great Teachers of Our Age," by A. H. Japp (1865).
THE LATER BALLADS AND POEMS. 221
break utterly with its past," wrote the veteran statesman.
" Our judgment on the age that preceded us should, how-
ever, be strictly just ; but it should be masculine, not
timorous. This rule particularly applies to the period
which precedes our own." Again, he declared that "each
generation or age of men is under a two-f61d mistake — the
one to overrate its own performances and prospects, the
other to undervalue the times preceding or following its
own." Mr Gladstone asked whether it was just on the
part of the poet, or even needful, to " open so dark a pro-
spect for the future," or to pronounce so " decided a
censure on the past " ? While reserving his judgment on
the changes in the world of thought and of inward convic-
tion, the statesman declared that in the main the business
of the half-century had been " a process of setting free the
individual man that he might work out his vocation with-
out wanton hindrance, as his Maker would have him do."
After all, Mr Gladstone's conclusions are not unlike the
conclusion at which Tennyson ultimately arrived —
All things make for good.
Three years of almost complete silence followed the
publication of Locksley Hall Sixty Years After, though
there were rumours from time to time that the poet was
preparing another volume. It was again in the month of
December that the new work saw the light, the December
of 1889. The slim volume with the familiar green covers
bore the title of Demeter, and contained twenty-eight
poems, of which number four had previously been
published — On the Jubilee of Queen Victoria, Vastness, The
Throstle, and the lines on W. G. Ward. None of these
chips from the poet's workshop had excited enthusiasm, but
the volume contained superior material. " Illustrious and
consummate " had been the words applied to the Laureate
by the greatest of his brother-poets, Browning, and these
words seemed most befitting at this period with the new
evidence of the poet's capacity presented. The opening
222 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
lyric to the Marquess of Dufferin and Ava possessed a
pathetic interest from the fact that it was an expression of
thanks from a bereaved father to the friend of his dead
son, Lionel. Lady Dufferin had written on March 30,
1886 — "We left Calcutta very early this morning. Poor
Mr Tennyson's bed was pulled to the window that he might
see us off. He is still very ill, but as the hot weather is
coming on he must go home, and he is to start on Sunday.
He has had a long, sad illness, borne most patiently." He
died on the homeward journey, and was buried at sea.
It was not only to the statesman that the poet did
honour, but that
You and yours may know
From me and mine, how dear a debt
We owed you, and are owing yet
To you and yours, and still would owe.
Then comes the sad but proud reference to the beloved
son whose sudden death occasioned such deep regret —
A soul that, watch'd from earliest youth,
And on thro' many a brightening year,
Had never swerved for craft or fear,
By one side-path, from simple truth :
Who might have chased and claspt Renown
And caught her chaplet here — and there
In haunts of jungle-poison'd air
The flame of life went wavering down.
Dying, Lionel Tennyson spoke of the kindness of Lord
Dufferin ; and the father delivered thanks for the son. It
is a poem written in all tenderness of feeling, and the
closing lines —
To question, why
The sons before the fathers die,
Not mine ! and I may meet him soon —
were an outburst such as had seldom come in late years
from the most reserved and restrained of men.
The story of The Ring served to remind us that Lord
Tennyson's love-stories have mostly the same plot If
THE LATER BALLADS AND POEMS. 223
Locksley Hall be analysed, it will be found to contain the
germ of the story told in Lady Clara Vere de Vere, Maud,
Aylmer's Field, The Sisters, and several others, the main
idea existing in each case, and the theme varying but
slightly. ,/
The "Ring bears more than a casual resemblance to the
story of The Sisters (Edith and Evelyn), which was pub-
lished ten years or more before. In that poem a father
tells to his prospective son-in-law the story of his own
wooing — of how he was betrothed to Edith, and afterwards,
seeing her twin-sister, fell more violently in love with her
and married her. The young wife died within two years,
and the deserted sister had in the meantime pined away.
In TJie Ring a father and his daughter (Muriel) converse
on the eve of the latter's wedding, and the father is induced
in this case also to tell the story of his own marriage.
There is a legend connected with the ring which he is
about to present to his daughter.
Long ago
Two lovers parted by a scurrilous tale
Had quarrell'd, till the man repenting sent
This ring " Io t'amo" to his best beloved,
And sent it on her birthday. She in wrath
Return'd it on her birthday, and that day
His death-day, when, half frenzied by the ring
He wildly fought a rival suitor, him
The causer of that scandal, fought and fell ;
And she that came to part them all too late,
And found a corpse and silence, drew the ring
From his dead finger, wore it till her death,
Shrined him within the temple of her heart,
Made every moment of her after life
A virgin victim to his memory,
And dying rose, and rear'd her arms, and cried
" I see him, Io t'amo, Io t'amo."
Muriel's father, becoming possessed of the ring, intended
to present it to Miriam, but by mistake her sister Muriel
received it,
And flaunted it
Before that other whom I loved and love.
!24 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
The man was obliged to undo the error, and Muriel fled,
after giving up the ring to the sister for whom it was
intended. The end of the episode seems almost to be in
the identical language of Lord Tennyson's previous poem,
with which I have already instituted the comparison.
Miriam loved me from the first,
Not thro' the ring; but on her marriage-morn
This birthday, death-day, the betrothal ring,
Laid on her table overnight, was gone ;
And after hours of search and doubt and threats,
And hubbub, Muriel enter'd with it. " See ? —
Found in a chink of that old moulder'd floor ! "
My Miriam nodded with a pitying smile,
As who should say " that those who lose can find."
Then I and she were married for a year,
One year without a storm, or even a cloud ;
And you, my Miriam, dead within the year.
I sat beside her dying, and she gaspt :
" The books, the miniature, the lace are hers ;
My ring, too, when she comes of age, or when
She marries ; you — you loved me, kept your word.
You love me still ' Io t'amo.' — Muriel — no —
She cannot love ; she loves her own hard self,
Her firm will, her fix'd purpose. Promise me
Miriam not Muriel — she shall have the ring."
And there the light of other life, which lives
Beyond our burial and our buried eyes,
Gleam'd for a moment in her own on earth.
I swore the vow, then with my latest kiss
Upon them, closed her eyes, which would not close,
But kept their watch upon the ring and you.
Your birthday was her death-day.
The sequel, too, is not unfamiliar to students of the poet's
works, but the interwoven incident of the ring allows of
pleasing variations and developments, and the close of the
poem has a weird intensity. The daughter herself expresses
this in describing a half-fantastic fear that a ghost
Had floated in with sad reproachful eyes,
Till from her own hand she had torn the ring
In fright, and fallen dead. And I myself
Am half afraid to wear it.
THE LATER BALLADS AND POEMS. 225
The story was a fit companion to those that the Laureate
had previously written, and it was one more significant in-
stance of the continuous dwelling of his thought upon a
series of melancholy incidents that almost suggested a per-
sonal acquaintance or experience.
The poems Happy and Forlorn must be classed with the
previous narrative pieces of which The Wreck and The
Flight are types. The former poem consists of the mono-
logue of a leper's bride, eager to rejoin her afflicted hus-
band, and not unwilling to share his irremediable fate.
I shall hardly be content,
exclaims the impassioned and devoted wife —
Till I be leper like yourself, my love, from head to heel.
O foolish dreams, that you, that I, should slight our marriage oath :
I held you at that moment even dearer than before ;
Now God has made you leper in His loving care for both,
That we might cling together, never doubt each other more.
The Priest who joined you to the dead, has joined our hands of old ;
If man and wife be but one flesh, let mine be leprous too,
As dead from all the human race as if beneath the mould ;
If you be dead, then I am dead, who only live for you.
This is the woman's " happiness," — a terrible but beautiful
idea of devotion. In Forlorn a very sad note is also
touched, and the speaker, half-delirious with pain and shame,
tells of the nameless wrong done to a trusting woman. The
awful thoughts that pass through the mind of an injured and
distracted mother, not wife, in her hour of agony, are ex-
pressed with tragic power. Tennyson had treated a like
subject in his early volume in the grim poem on The Sisters,
with its weird refrain " O the Earl was fair to see." But
Forlorn is not a story of revenge ; it is of the dark fears
which haunt a guilty mind, and the dread of a helpless
woman in the most pitiable state.
Of Demeter and Persephone, which gives the title to the
volume, it need only be said that it is a poem of that
P
226 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
luxurious nature which makes everyone revel in (Enone.
What could be better than
The sun
Burst from a swimming fleece of winter gray ?
or such " cunning collocutions " as " A league of labyrinthine
darkness " ? or such happiness of imagery as is contained in
this delightful passage ? —
A sudden nightingale
Saw thee, and flash'd into a frolic of song
And welcome ; and a gleam as of the moon,
When first she peers along the tremulous deep,
Fled wavering o'er thy face, and chased away
That shadow of a likeness to the King
Of shadows, thy dark mate.
The legend is a familiar one, but as treated by the Laureate
it has a freshness and beauty — ay, and a splendour also —
which makes it doubly dear. Could lines like these fail to
impart life and charm to the ancient myth ?—
So in this pleasant vale we stand again,
The field of Enna, now once more ablaze
With flowers that brighten as thy footstep falls,
All flowers,— but for one black blur of earth
Left by that closing chasm, through which the car
Of dark Aidoneus rising rapt thee hence.
And here, my child, tho' folded in thine arms,
I feel the deathless heart of motherhood
Within me shudder, lest the naked glebe
Should yawn once more into the gulf, and thence
The shrilly whinnyings of the team of Hell,
Ascending, pierce the glad and songful air ;
And all at once their arch'd necks, midnight-maned,
Jet upward thro' the midday blossom. No !
For, see, thy foot has touched it ; all the space
Of blank earth-baldness clothes itself afresh,
And breaks into the crocus-purple hour
That saw thee vanish.
Beautiful indeed were the lines on The Pi-ogress of
Spring which the poet had rescued from his half-forgotten
manuscripts —
THE LATER BALLADS AND POEMS. 227
Found yesterday— forgotten mine own rhyme
By mine own self,
As I shall be forgotten by old Time,
Laid on the shelf —
A rhyme that flower'd betwixt the whitening sloe
And kingcup blaze,
And more than half-a-hundred years ago.
The poem was written at the time when the war between
capital and labour was at its fiercest, and the burning of
the farmers' ricks was the easiest way for the labourers to
manifest their hostility. All this time of riot and trouble
came back to the poet's recollection, and he remembered
That red night
When thirty ricks,
All flaming, made an English homestead Hell —
These hands of mine
Have helpt to pass a bucket from the well
Along the line,
When this bare dome had not begun to gleam
Thro - ' youthful curls.
In these lines To Mary Boyle the poet dedicated "this
song of Spring." It is almost a pity to make extracts
from the exquisite lyric, and one fears to hear a cry of
pain as when Dante broke a branch from the living trees.
Let this one stanza suffice :
She floats across the hamlet. Heaven lours,
But in the tearful splendour of her smiles
I see the slowly-thickening chestnut towers
Fill out the spaces by the barren tiles.
Now past her feet the swallow circling flies,
A clamorous cuckoo stoops to meet her hand ;
Her light makes rainbows in my closing eyes,
I hear a charm of song thro' all the land.
Come, Spring ! She comes, and Earth is glad
To roll her North below thy deepening dome ;
But ere thy maiden birk be wholly clad,
And these low bushes dip their twigs in foam,
Make all true hearths thy home.
228 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
Miss Boyle, a life-companion of the poet's, died very
shortly after these verses to her had been published. She
could claim among her close and honoured friends, Landor,
Browning, and Dickens, and was both a novelist and
poetess herself, some verses of hers in the Tribute, entitled
Our Father's at the Helm, having exceeded in popularity
the contribution of Tennyson himself to that miscellany.
The poem, which was of the didactic order, with a very
obvious " moral," is not one which would be likely to suit
the taste of readers now. Mary Boyle will owe her fame
to the monument fashioned for her in exquisite verse by
the Laureate, who remembered her when she was
A lover's fairy dream,
His girl of girls,
and to whom he could then say —
Close are we, dear Mary, you and I
To that dim gate,
though how close the one was he knew not.
CHAPTER XII.
THE SWAN-SONGS.
"Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me !
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.
Twilight and evening bell
And after that the dark !
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark."
— Crossing the Bar.
It is recorded that when Tennyson heard Byron was dead
he "thought the whole world was at an end." " I thought,"
he said, " everything was over and finished for everyone —
that nothing else mattered. I remember I walked out
alone and carved ' Byron is dead ' into the sandstone."
In October 1892 came the news that Tennyson was dead,
and we too felt that there was a void, a gap, a " something
lost " so great, so commanding, that for the moment every-
thing seemed over and finished, nothing mattered, the
impenetrable darkness of night enveloped us. " Tennyson
is dead " were words that carved themselves upon many
a heart. The sweetest singer, the purest poet, had passed
into the silent land, and left us longing in vain for the
touch of a vanished hand, craving in despair for a sound
of the voice that is still. The " spectre fear'd of man "
came in no dread guise to the aged poet, whose greatest
work was to prove the glory and the excellence of death.
Fitting indeed was it for him who had sung the psalm
of triumph In Memoriam that the grave should have no
terrors. The silvery light of the moon fell upon the dying
230 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
poet's face ; now and then a smile flitted across his tran-
quil features ; an open volume of Shakespeare lay in his
hand ; and as the gray October morning broke " God's
finger touched him, and he slept." The flood had borne
him onward, and, crossing the bar, he saw his Pilot face
to face. For forty-two years he had worn the laurel
crown, receiving it " greener from the brows Of him who
uttered nothing base." Scholar, philosopher, idealist as
he was, he had still been the poet of the people, voicing
their hopes and fears, espousing their cause, expressing
their sorrows, proclaiming their joys, finding fitting words
for all emotions. The foremost fact in Tennyson's long
life was his consistency. He pursued one ideal, and he
might have said with the voyagers of whom he sang —
One fair Vision ever fled
Down the waste waters day and night,
And still we follow'd where she led,
In hope to gain upon her flight.
Her face was evermore unseen,
And fixt upon the far sea-line ;
But each man murmur'd, " O my Queen,
I follow till I make thee mine."
The poet never doubted his mission and never swerved
from his purpose. Known or unknown, rich or poor,
courted or neglected, he was a poet always, feeling within
himself something of a sacred designation and distinction.
Carlyle discovered that he was " a true human soul to
whom your soul can say Brother." When his triumph
came — the triumph over prejudice, indifference, and all
those other obstacles which the world loves to place in the
path of genius — it was unequivocal. His songs, with their
delicious cadences, their dreamy sensuousness, and their
suffusion of exquisite colour, were at once a revelation and
an enchantment. The stanzas had a haunting melody ;
the very words seemed to sparkle to the eye ; a sense of
luxury and rest was borne on the languorous lines. There
had been nothing like it since the music-laden verses of
THE S IVAN-SONGS. 231
TJie Faery Queen gushed from the soul of Edmund
Spenser, and the consummate art of the poet could not fail
to obtain acknowledgment. Yet the lyrics were no more
than the promise of spring: the glory of summer, the
abundant autumn harvest, and even the splendour of a
long and genial winter, were to follow. Upon which of
Tennyson's works will his fame last ? Perhaps on all, for
he wrote little that was unworthy, though In Memoriam,
Maud, and the Arthurian series will stand out as the most
conspicuous pillars. These poems are as much for the
future as the present, and the pinnacle of the poet's fame
will gleam, high and shining, through the ages. The great
magician is dead, and the temple of his body deserted.
Life and Thought have gone away
Side by side.
Leaving door and windows wide —
Careless tenants they !
and we can only cry out with the poet —
Life and Thought
Here no longer dwell ;
But in a city glorious —
A great and distant city — have bought
A mansion incorruptible.
Would they could have stayed with us !
Three weeks after Tennyson's death his last collection
of poems was published — The Death of CEnone, Akbar's
Dream, and other Poems. This posthumous volume excited
the highest interest, and no doubt the pieces included in
it will always claim a special attention. They were full of
reminiscences, and awakened old memories ; they touched
anew the sweet familiar chords and gave out the gathered
harmony of the minstrel's life. The delight felt when the
music of the early lyrics, sixty years before, cast a spell
upon the soul stole to us again, and we were amazed and
charmed to find that the skill of the minstrel and the fresh
ness of the voice of the singer remained unimpaired. We
232 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
do not pretend that those hundred odd pages, containing
but twenty-three poems, would have made any poet's
fame, or that they can add to the Laureate's. The writer
of them, whoever he might have been, would not have
escaped recognition ; but as the last gift of the octo-
genarian poet who had given us so much, the volume has
a value, a pleasure, and a pathos all its own. And if this
can be said for the world in general, how much more must
these words apply to that lone companion of his life to
whom the poems are dedicated! In 1864 Tennyson
dedicated Enoch Arden to one who was "near, dear, and
true," and could be made no truer "by Time itself"; and
with Romney he might have said, " The world would lose,
if such a wife as you Should vanish unrecorded." Eight-
and-twenty years later we find him saying that as he
looked at the high blue of a June sky and the bright
bracken and brown heather at his feet —
I thought to myself I would offer this book to you,
This, and my love together,
To you that are seventy-seven,
With a faith as clear as the heights of the June-blue heaven,
And a fancy as summer-new
As the green of the bracken amid the gloom of the heather.
Could anything be more tender, more delicate, and more
beautiful ?
When Tennyson was a young man, only recognised as
a genius among a small circle, Carlyle introduced Sir John
Simeon to him at Bath House with the uncouth observa-
tion — "There he sits upon a dung heap, surrounded by
innumerable dead dogs." The "dead dogs" were the
translations and adaptations from the classics, chief among
which was CEnone, a long blank-verse poem published in
the volume of 1832. The Quarterly Review, in its famous
onslaught on Tennyson, specially attacked this poem, and
with shafts of stinging ridicule assailed the form in which
the subject was treated, the long descriptions of inanimate
beauties, and the refrain, " sixteen times repeated " —
THE SWAN-SONGS. 233
Dear Mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
Tennyson ten years later republished the piece with many
amendments and some remarkable elaborations, and CEnonc
took its place as an English classic. It is, in fact, an
incomparably beautiful composition, as purely Greek in its
grace and chasteness as the Greek-fashioned masterpieces
of Keats. CEnone, the rarely beautiful goddess, addresses
a soliloquy to Mount Ida, in which she relates how she
has been deserted by Paris for the rival whom he judged
to exceed all others in beauty. Edgar Allen Poe, most
exacting of critics, declared that " by the enjoyment or
non-enjoyment of CEnone he would test anyone's ideal
sense." Just sixty years after the first lines on CEnone
saw the light, we had given to us a volume treating of
CEnone's death. " Oh, Mother Ida, hearken ere I die "
was the haunting refrain of the first piece, and in the last
we find the goddess sinking into the arms of death. She
is alone in a cave, and the vines " which on the touch of
heavenly feet had risen" had long ago withered. And
while she gazed at the desolate scene and the changed
landscape
Her Past became her Present, and she saw
Him, climbing toward her with the golden fruit,
Him, happy to be chosen Judge of Gods,
Her husband in the flush of youth and dawn,
Paris, himself as beauteous as a God.
Then, from out the long ravine below a wailing cry reaches
her, a cry that
Seem'd at first
Thin as the batlike shrillings of the Dead
When driven to Hades, but, in coming near,
Across the downward thunder of the brook
Sounded " CEnone" ;
and then Paris, the deceiver, once the pride of men, but
now " no longer beauteous as a God," appeared before his
deserted wife " like the wraith of his dead self." He had
234 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
been struck by a poison'd arrow, and now, not in repent-
ance but in deadly fear, the wanton had come to beseech
the woman he had wronged to save his life. He had no
allegiance to his first love, but he was dying, and she had
learnt the secret —
Taught by some God, whatever herb or balm
May clear the blood from poison, and thy fame
Is blown thro' all the Troad.
His life is in her hand, and he appeals to her, nay, he
demands her assistance.
The Gods
Avenge on stony hearts a fruitless prayer
For pity. Let me owe my life to thee.
But CEnone is unrelenting, unforgiving, obdurate.
I am poison'd to the heart,
wailed Paris.
" And I to mine," she said. " Adulterer,
Go back to thine adulteress and die ! "
Paris could bear no more. He knew his fate.
He groan'd, he turn'd, and in the mist at once
Became a shadow, sank and disappear'd,
But, ere the mountain rolls into the plain,
Fell headlong dead.
Shepherds on Ida raised him, and " forgetful of the man
whose crime had half unpeopled Uion," built him a funeral
pile, kindled it, and called upon his name. But CEnone
sat within the cave " like a creature frozen to the heart
Beyond all hope of warmth " ; then, sleeping, she heard a
ghostly murmur, " Come to me ! "
She rose and slowly down
By the long torrent's ever-deepen'd roar,
Paced, following, as in trance, the silent cry.
She waked a bird of prey that scream'd and past ;
THE SWAN-SONGS. 235
She roused a snake that hissing writhed away ;
A panther sprang across her path, she heard
The shriek of some lost life among the pines,
But when she gain'd the broader vale, and saw
The ring of faces redden'd by the flames
Enfolding that dark body which had lain
Of old in her embrace, paused— and then asked
Falteringly, "Who lies on yonder pyre?"
But every man was mute for reverence.
At last she was told that the corpse was of him whom she
would not heal, and even as the words were uttered
The morning light of happy marriage broke
Thro 1 all the clouded years of widowhood,
and with an exulting cry of " Husband " she leapt into the
flames
And mixt herself with him and past in fire.
The poem has not the jewelled splendour of the first which
Tennyson wrote on CEnone, for it is less ambitious, more
subdued in colour, less ornate and more chaste in design.
It contains ringing lines and lofty images, and the same
limpidity yet strenuousness of speech which is so char-
acteristic of all his " faint Homeric echoes." The Death
of CEnone was dedicated in a poem cast in classic mould
to the Master of Balliol, who was bidden —
To-day, before you turn again
To thoughts that lift the soul of men,
Hear my cataract's
Downward thunder in hollow and glen,
Till, led by dream and vague desire,
The woman, gliding toward the pyre,
Find her warrior
Stark and dark in his funeral fire.
Among Tennyson's ethico-theological poems I am in-
clined to rank Akbar's Dream very high. The poet's hatred
of dogmas, bigotry, sectarianism, and religious forms which
236 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
take the place of religion itself and all true worship, is well
known to every student of his life and works. He had tolera-
tion for all, and it was he who sang the praise of honest doubt.
Righteousness is to be found more in works than in faith,
and those who live well can scarcely hold a false creed. So
thought Akbar, the great Mogul Emperor of the sixteenth
century, whose " abhorrence of religious persecution put our
Tudors to shame." He invented " a new eclectic religion
by which he hoped to unite all creeds, castes, and peoples :
and his legislation was remarkable for vigour, justice, and
humanity." In this person Tennyson found a man well-
suited for his purpose of teaching the people of to-day to
display a truer spirit of love and charity, and to trust more
to the results of a man's life than to external forms and
empty professions. Lip-worship and genuflections may
be no worship at all — may be mere heathenism, hypocrisy,
and irreverence. Let us listen to Akbar as he speaks of
the beginning of all mysteries and the cause of all dissen-
sions — " The Alif of thine alphabet of Love," which we
" scarce can spell "
He knows Himself, men nor themselves nor Him,
For every splinter'd fraction of a sect
Will clamour " fflxn on the Perfect Way,
All else is to perdition."
Shall the rose
Cry to the lotus " No flower thou " ? the palm
Call to the cypress " I alone am fair " ?
Look how the living pulse of Alia beats
Thro' all His world. If ever single star
Should shriek its claim " I only am in heaven,"
Why that were such sphere-music as the Greek
Had hardly dream'd of. There is light in all,
And light, with more or less of shade, in all
Man-modes of worship.
Akbar, who permitted freedom and decreed that each
philosophy and mood of faith might hold its own, listened
apart to the contentions of men blurting " their furious
THE SWAN-SONGS. 237
formalisms," but that rage of words was simply to his
ears
The clash of tides that meet in narrow seas, —
Not the Great Voice, not the true Deep.
Therefore he hated the "rancour of their castes and creeds,"
and prayed for a time when "the mortal morning mists of
earth" shall " fade in the noon of heaven,"
When creed and race
Shall bear false witness, each of each, no more,
But find their limits by that larger light.
And overstep them, moving easily
Thro' after-ages in the love of Truth,
The truth of Love. ....
I can but lift the torch
Of Reason in the dusky cave of Life
And gaze on this great miracle, the World,
Adoring That who made, and makes, and is,
And is not, what 1 gaze on — all else Form,
Ritual, varying with the tribes of men.
Ay but, my friend, thou knowest I hold that forms
Are needful : only let the hand that rules,
With politic care, with utter gentleness,
Mould them for all his people.
And what are forms ?
Fair garments, plain or rich, and fitting close
Or flying looselier, warm'd but by the heart
Within them, moved but by the living limb,
And cast aside, when old, for newer, — Forms !
There are many fine passages in lines which follow, but I
must forbear to quote them. A more powerful plea for
indulgence and patience among professing religious nations
cannot be read. It is a rebuke to all bigots, and a
glorious example to all liberal-minded men who fear not
to believe that men of all race and creed
In some way live the life
Beyond the bridge, and serve that Infinite,
Within us, as without, that All-in-all,
And over all, the never-changing One
138 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
And ever-changing Many, in praise of Whom
The Christian bell, the cry from off the mosque,
And vaguer voices of Polytheism
Make but one music, harmonising " Pray."
Akbar's " dream " is a vision of things to come, when the
good he has established shall be overthrown and the rules he
has ordained be violated. He saw with prophetic eye his
son and those who followed " loosen, stone from stone, all
my fair work," and he heard from the ruin that arose the
"shriek and curse of trampled millions." This was to be ;
yet, the Monarch saw the dawn of another era, when an
alien race in the west should fit stone to stone again and
make a Temple wherein Truth, Peace, Love, and Justice
might reside. But how far has this prophecy of things to
come been fulfilled ? Akbar's Dream is a poem to be
treasured because it undoubtedly gives us Tennyson's own
cherished faith — his abundant reverence without orthodoxy,
and his firmness of belief without dogmatism. He was the
better Christian for being no bigot, and his fervour was not
to be questioned because he refused to be fanatical.
St Telemachus would serve as a companion picture to
St Simeon Stylites. Again the poet tells of a saint
who served God with fasting, prayer, and mortification
of flesh. He did not chain himself to a pillar, but he was
a haggard anchorite who "never changed a word with
men," and haunted a desolated fane. At length he heard
a call to Rome, and turning to the west he followed
A hundred sunsets, and the sphere
Of westward-wheeling stars ; and every dawn
Struck from him his own shadow on to Rome.
Only Tennyson could have described the westward journey
thus. Telemachus reached the Christian city, and saw
men fight with lions and gladiators in the arena —
And eighty thousand Christian faces watch
Man murder man.
Is not this phrase as good as Byron's " butchered to make
THE SWAN-SONGS.
!39
a Roman holiday " ? Telemachus called upon them to
forbear in the name of Christ Jesus.
For one moment afterward
A silence follow'd as of death, and then
A hiss as from a wilderness of snakes,
Then one deep roar as of a breaking sea,
And then a shower of stones that stoned him dead,
And then once more a silence as of death.
But his death was not in vain : " His dream became
a deed that woke the world," and Honorius the Emperor
decreed
That Rome no more should wallow in this old lust
Of Paganism, and make her festal hour
Dark with the blood of man who murder'd man.
The Bandifs Death is dedicated to Sir Walter Scott in
four commonplace lines only removed from triviality by
their heartiness. The poem is adapted from a story
narrated in Scott's last Journal, and is gruesome in the
extreme. There is power in the poem, but it is only the
power which we expect from fifth-rate singers who provide
amateur reciters with verses for undiscriminating audiences.
The average man who believes in Mr Sims will think
Tennyson has done well, and The Bandifs Death would
be highly popular at a Penny Reading. One can imagine
the sensation that would be caused when, with proper
dramatic action, an ambitious amateur rendered the final
verse, supposed to be spoken by the bandit's wife —
And the band will be scatter'd now their gallant captain is dead,
For I with this dagger of his — do you doubt me ? Here is his head !
It is a relief and a delight to turn to the next poem,
Charity, which, is a woman's wail at man's baseness; but
the widow of the man who had wronged her — " The tenderest
Christ-like creature that ever stept on the ground " — was
her salvation. Kapiolani, a short ode on a great chieftain-
24o TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
ess, is another proof of what Tennyson might have done,
had he cared, as a writer of classical verse — Greek, Latin,
and Anglo-Saxon. The Dawn is something of a diatribe
and a lament. Its tone reminds us of the opening lines of
Maud and the furious outbursts in Locksley Hall against
the iniquities of the day.
Dawn not Day,
While scandal is mouthing a bloodless name at her cannibal feast,
And rake-ruin'd bodies and souls go down in a common wreck,
And the press of a thousand cities is prized for it smells of the beast,
Or easily violates virgin Truth for a coin or a cheque.
There are other doubtful or wholly pessimistic poems, like
some with which we are already familiar — Vastness, Despair,
and De Profundis. But in the end Tennyson has presented
us with a sublime incitement to have faith, and these strong
words, uttered almost from the grave, will fortify and
stimulate many a faltering pilgrim and many a trembling
heart.
Doubt no longer that the Highest is the wisest and the best,
Let not all that saddens Nature blight thy hope or break thy rest,
Quail not at the fiery mountain, at the shipwreck, or the rolling
Thunder, or the rending earthquake, or the famine, or the pest !
Neither mourn if human creeds be lower than the heart's desire !
Thro' the gates that bar the distance comes a gleam of what is higher.
Wait till death has flung them open, when the man will make the
Maker
Dark no more with human hatreds in the glare of deathless fire.
One or two of the final poems in the volume formed the
poet's own dirge, and undoubtedly The Silent Voices has
taken its place with Crossing the Bar as one of the purest
of hymn-like poems. It was fittingly chanted when the
poet was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey, and it would
not be surprising to find that it is in future used on similar
occasions, for it has beauty of diction, consolation, and
sweetness of sentiment.
When the dumb Hour, clothed in black,
Brings the Dreams about my bed,
THE SWAN-SONGS. 241
Call me not so often back,
Silent Voices of the dead,
Toward the lowland ways behind me,
And the sunlight that is gone !
Call me rather, silent voices,
Forward to the starry track
Glimmering up the heights beyond me,
On, and always on !
The poem entitled God and the Universe is a questioning
and an answering. " Will my tiny spark of being wholly
vanish in your deeps and heights ? " is the characteristic
query of the poet. Once he might have confessed a
mystery, but the " sunset of life gave him mystical lore,"
and he could say triumphantly to his spirit " nearing yon
dark portal,"
Fear not thou the hidden purpose of that Power which alone is great.
Tennyson sang in many keys and many moods, but an
undercurrent of melancholy was always audible, and served
as accompaniment to his lays. If ever his joyousness
seemed unrestrained, it was in some of those brief mellow
preludes in which he first made his charm and power
known. But even his earliest work gave forth sad and
weary sounds which prepared the listener for the great
threnodies to come. A poet who in his youth could com-
pose Mariana and CEnone was already master of the art of
transmuting the heart's deepest sorrow into language which
itself glistened like tears. But his faith in the future of
man and the divine righteousness grew firmer, and his last
words are an assurance that life is not vain, and that after
death all is not dark.
" He has worthily fulfilled his mission," said a critic. " He
has devoted himself to his art, and striven with honest
effort to give us the best he could. He has ever sought, by
presenting high ideals, and inspiring pure sentiments, to do
the noblest work — to raise us above ourselves, above vulgar
aims, and selfish narrowness, and low-thoughted cares."
Tennyson took his farewell of us with a cry of joy and
Q
»42 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
triumph, and now that he has passed from among us "to
where beyond these voices there is peace," those last jubi-
lant words will ring in our ears and echo down the ages.
We hear the poet and we see the hero, and we rejoice that
his last words were as good and true, and his teaching as
plain and pure, as ever they were. He fitly finished his
work: revealing to us his surpassing strength and grandeur
to the close, and departing with a cherished message of
hope and trust.
CHAPTER XIII.
TENNYSON AS A STUDENT.
' ' I hear a charm of song thro' all the land,
Across my garden ! and the thicket stirs,
The fountain pulses high in summer jets,
The blackcap warbles, and the turtle purrs,
The starling claps his tiny castanets."
— The Progress of Spring.
" A full-cell'd honeycomb of eloquence."
— Edwin Morris.
THACKERAY once said to Bayard Taylor, " Tennyson is the
wisest man I know." His wisdom was of no common
order. It manifested itself in surprising ways, lurking in
unexpected expressions, and taking a sudden turn in un-
looked for directions. Tennyson was a linguist, naturalist,
geologist, astronomer, theologian, and skilled in the sciences.
Nor did he neglect the lighter forms of literary study, for
he was an assiduous novel-reader, like Macaulay, and could
delight in the masterpieces of fiction whether English or
French. But, like his great predecessor Wordsworth, he
was above and beyond all the lover of nature, knowing by
instinct the wonder and beauty of tree and star, and realis-
ing the miracle alike of the " flower in the crannied wall,"
which could be plucked and held " root and all " in the hand,
and of the vast evolutionary changes in the world's history.
I believe it is a fact that nowhere among his multitude of
allusions to nature in all her varying forms and emanations
is there a single false statement. His word can always be
accepted whether he simply name the colour of a leaf, the
plumage of a bird, or the characteristic of a mountain.
Apparently he delighted in minutiae, but this was because
244 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
his knowledge was deep and founded on personal investi-
gation. " The meanest flower that blows " had for him a
charm, a significance, a wonder all its own. Scores of
poems contain lines which in a perfectly casual manner
convey striking scientific facts. Tennyson was so full of in-
formation that he was quite unpretentious in his use of it ;
and he has cast into the most attractive poetic shape many
a hard dry truth. Nothing, perhaps, could be more won-
derfully expressed than that somewhat curious discovery
that water, when exposed to cold more than enough to
freeze it, may still retain liquidity if kept still, while the
slightest motion will set the particles in motion, and, by
helping their molecular change of position, instantly cause
the water to solidify. What I have tried to explain in this
involved sentence Tennyson has condensed into the magic
lines —
Break, thou deep vase of chilling tears
That grief hath shaken into frost.
" Shaken into frost " is worthy to be accepted as a
chemical formula.
"Yes, Tennyson is a great student of Nature," wrote
William Cullen Bryant. But Charles Kingsley had dis-
covered the fact before, and in his now famous essay had
written —
"This deep simple faith in divineness of Nature as she appears,
which, in our eyes, is Mr Tennyson's differentia, is really the natural
accompaniment of a quality at first sight its very opposite, and for
which he is often blamed by a prosaic world ; namely, his suhiecj:ive
and transcendental mysticism. It is the mystic, after all, who will
describe Nature most simply, because he sees most in her ; because
he is most ready to believe that she will reveal to others the same
message which she has revealed to him. Men like Behmen, Novalis,
and Fourier, who can soar into the inner cloud-world of man's spirit,
even though they lose their way there, dazzled by excess of wonder —
men who, like Wordsworth, can give utterance to each subtle anthro-
pologic wisdom as the Ode on the Intimations of I/nmortality, will for
that very reason most humbly and patiently ' consider the lilies of the
field, how they grow.' And even so it is just because Mr Tennyson
TENNYSON AS A STUDENT. 245
is, far more than Wordsworth, mystical, and what our ignorant and
money-getting generation, idolatrous of mere sensuous activity, calls
' dreamy,' that he has become the greatest naturalistic poet which
England has seen for several centuries. The same faculty which
enabled him to draw such subtle subjective pictures of womanhood as
Adeline, Isabel, and Eleanor, enabled him to see, and therefore
simply to describe, in one of the most distinctive and successful of
his earlier poems, how
The creeping mosses and clambering weeds,
And the willow-branches hoar and dank,
And the wavy swell of the soughing reeds,
And the wave-worn horns of the echoing bank,
And the silvery marish-flowers that throng
The desolate creeks and pools among,
Were flooded over with eddying song.
The same faith in Nature, the same instinctive correctness in melody,
springing from that correct insight into Nature, ran through the
poems inspired by mediaeval legends. The very spirit of the old
ballad writers, with their combinations of mysticism and objectivity,
their freedom from any self-conscious attempt at reflective epithets or
figures, runs through them all."
Hain Friswell, on the other hand, in his captious criti-
cism, affected to scorn this fidelity to Nature, just as in
the days gone by the Quarterly reviewer had ridiculed the
" gummy " chestnut-trees and the " four-handed " mole.
" It is enough for Mr Tennyson's truly English spirit,"
said the cynic, " to see how
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky ;
And through the field the road runs by
To many-tower'd Camelot ;
or how
In the stormy east wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining,
Heavily the low sky raining
Over tower'd Camelot.
Give him but such scenery as that which he can see in
246 I TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
every parish in England, and he will find it a fit scene for
an ideal myth, subtler than a casuist's questionings, deep
as the deepest heart of woman." But it may fairly be
asked whether the very capacity complained of was not a
merit, and in itself demonstrated the highest quality which
goes to the making of a true poet. Had not Tennyson
been a keen observer and deeply versed in nature-lore, he
could never have written Amphion and talked with such
ease of the " gouty oak," the " pirouetting ashes," the
"stiff-set sprigs," and the "scirrhous roots and tendons."
Never could he have related the grotesque effect of
Amphion's fiddling, when
The birch-tree swang her fragrant hair,
The bramble cast her berry,
The gin within the juniper
Began to make him merry,
The poplars in long order due,
With cypress promenaded,
The shock-head willows two and two
By rivers gallopaded.
Came wet-shot alder from the wave,
Came yews, a dismal coterie ;
Each pluck'd his one foot from the grave,
Poussetting with a sloe-tree :
Old elms came breaking from the vine,
The vine stream'd out to follow,
And, sweating rosin, plump'd the pine
From many a cloudy hollow.
Take every adjective in turn, and you find the distinctive
characteristic of the tree ; take every verb, and you find
the only possible act of the timber fiddled into motion !
No dull reader of
Botanic Treatises,
And Works on Gardening through there,
And Methods of transplanting trees,
To look as if they grew there,
was giving us his facts and fancies in this poem. No lover
TENNYSON AS A STUDENT 247
of " arbours dipt and cut," faded alleys, and the " garden-
squirt " was he :
Better to me the meanest weed
That blows upon its mountain,
The vilest herb that runs to seed
Beside its native fountain.
When Oliver Wendell Holmes visited the poet at
Farringford, he gained evidence of the Laureate's love
of trees — a love so great that he refused to allow them to
be cut, but liked to see them in all their luxuriance of
growth. " He took delight," wrote Dr Holmes, " in point-
ing out to me the finest and rarest of his trees, and there
were many beauties among them. In this garden of
England, where everything grows with such a lavish extra-
vagance of green, I felt as if weary eyes and over-taxed
brains might reach their happiest haven of rest." In the
" careless-order'd garden " could be seen the " dry-tongued
laurel " and " the waving pine which here The warrior of
Caprera set," while around the lawn blossomed crocus,
anemone, and violet. Tennyson's early love for trees was
displayed in A Dream of Fair Women, when he spoke with
such joy of the enchanted forest of his dream :
Enormous elm-tree boles did stoop and lean
Upon the dusky brushwood underneath
Their broad carved branches, fledged with clearest green,
New from its silken sheath ;
and again in Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere, when he
spoke of the May morning when
Drooping chestnut-buds began
To spread into the perfect fan
Above the teeming ground,
And, far in forest-deeps unseen
The topmost elm-tree gathered green
From draughts of balmy air.
Of how many trees has Tennyson sung ? We might
248 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
take them in alphabetical order, and thus find almost every
tree in turn from ash to yew. At night he saw the trees
" lay their dark arms about the field " ; and at dawn he
first perceived that the breeze trembled o'er " the large
leaves of the sycamore,"
And gathering freshlier overhead,
Rock'd the full-foliaged elms, and swung
The heavy-folded rose, and flung
The lilies to and fro.
The " hoary knolls of ash and haw " helped to make up the
Somersby scene which breathed " some gracious memory
of my friend " ; and when the old home was left, his fear
was that
Unloved, the beech will gather brown,
The maple burn itself away.
The beech is a favourite tree. " The winds were in the
beech," sweeping the winter land that sad Christmas when
" one mute Shadow " watched over all. We read of " the
leavy beech " and the " serpent-rooted beech," each descrip-
tion being true to nature. The statement of an acute
observer is found in The Princess, when Ida is asked why
she lingers " to clothe her heart with love " —
Delaying as the tender ash delays
To clothe herself, when all the woods are green.
The " witch-elm " of the Lincolnshire flats — the " windy tall
elm-tree " where rooks build — and the larch with its " rosy
plumelets " — the " perky larch " also of " formal cut " — are
often referred to ; but the lime, " a summer home of mur-
murous wings " is more tenderly loved. The " large lime
feathers low " ; 1 "a million emeralds break from the ruby-
budded lime"; — how exquisite is the description! Then
we learn of the " towering sycamore," and, better still, of
1 No one has made a choicer use of the verb "feathers" than Tennyson.
See the repeated line in Enoch Ardtn :
"The prone edge of the wood began
To feather toward the hollow."
TENNYSON AS A STUDENT. 249
The pillar' d dusk of sounding sycamores,
forming a fit avenue to Audley Court. The oak, " stub-
born-shafted," the giant of the woods, has been invested
by Tennyson almost with animate charms. It is the
garrulous talker — " a babbler in the land " — who told
Walter of his Olivia, and swore
By leaf, and wind, and rain,
That, tho' I circle in the grain
Five hundred rings of years —
Yet, since I first could cast a shade,
Did never creature pass
So slightly, musically made,
So light upon the grass.
The descriptions of this veteran of the Chace are most
happy. His " knotted knees " are half hidden in fern ;
he is " so broad of girth " that he " could not be embraced" ;
but, when Olivia strove to span his waist —
I wish'd myself the fair young beech
That here beside me stands,
That round me, clasping each in each,
She might have lock'd her hands.
The poem abounds with delicate humour, and yet it is
mingled with the wisdom of the scholar. What subtle
touches are here ! —
Her kisses were so close and kind,
That, trust me on my word,
Hard wood I am, and wrinkled rind,
But yet my sap was stirr'd :
And even into my inmost ring
A pleasure I discern'd,
Like those blind motions of the Spring,
That show the year is turn'd.
I, rooted here among the groves,
But languidly adjust
My vapid vegetable loves
With anthers and with dust :
!5o TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
But could I, as in times foregone,
From spray, and branch, and stem,
Have suck'd and gather'd into one
The life that spreads in them,
She had not found me so remiss ;
But lightly issuing thro',
I would have paid her kiss for kiss
With usury thereto.
The hollow oak in which Merlin, by the wicked arts of
Vivien, found his living tomb, and the giant oak furrowed
by a bolt from heaven, the forecast of his doom, need only
this scant reference. But how prominent is the part which
the poet has assigned to that most solemn of trees, the
" world-old yew," reputed to last for thousands of years and
to be the emblem of sorrow. It was in a " yew-wood black
as night," the warrior-hero of Oriana met his death ; it was
a "black yew" which "gloom'd the stagnant air" when
the desponding lover in The Letters looked forth for an
omen ; and in In Memoriam the solemn tree stands forth
in a weird picture, the central and most impressive feature.
Old Yew, which graspest at the stones
That name the under-lying dead,
Thy fibres net the dreamless head,
Thy roots are wrapt about the bones.
O not for thee the glow, the bloom,
Who changest not in any gale,
Nor branding summer suns avail
To touch thy thousand years of gloom.
The poet was the cornrnynicarit with Nature, not the
book-scholar. His sense was keen enough to know where
hidden violets lay; he detected the odour and recognised
the hue of all that bloomed ; he even perceived, as it were,
the spirit of the flowers, and could give to rose and lily,
acacia and jessamine, a sensibility and a voice. The ex-
quisite stanzas Come into the garden, Maud, are almost
wholly a flower-song. The waiting lover alone at the gate
TENNYSON AS A STUDENT. 251
feels the influence of the woodbine spices wafted abroad
and the musk of the roses blown. It is the roses which
heard through the night the harmony of flute, violin,
bassoon ; and it is the casement jessamine which has
"stirr'd to the dancers dancing in tune." It is to the lily
that the lover confesses his hopes, to the rose that he
reveals his faith. His tender thoughts fly to the meadow
where he and Maud have walked, and where the March-
wind has
Set the jewel-print of your feet
In violets blue as your eyes ;
and it is Maud herself who is " Queen rose of the rosebud
garden of girls" — "Queen lily and rose in one."
There has fallen a splendid tear
From the passion-flower at the gate,
She is coming, my dove, my dear ;
She is coming, my life, my fate ;
The red rose cries " She is near, she is near" ;
And the white rose weeps, " She is late" ;
The larkspur listens, " I hear, I hear" ;
And the lily whispers, " I wait."
The beautiful imagery is continued to the end, for, like a
flower crushed to earth, the lover's heart would, at Maud's
coming,
Start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red.
Who but the naturalist could have written such a song of
flowers ?
Often, however, Tennyson is more subtle, or, at all
events, his design is not so easily perceived. He could tell
of the " lines of green that streak the white Of the first
snowdrop's inner leaves " ; of the
Foxglove spire,
The little speedwell's darling blue,
Deep tulips dash'd with fiery dew,
Laburnums, dropping-wells of fire.
252 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
He knew " the smell of violets, hidden in the green," he
knew the red anemone as it burned "at the root thro*
bush green grasses," and he knew
The tearful glimmer of the languid dawn
On those long, rank, dark wood-walks drench'd in dew
Leading from lawn to lawn.
A Tennyson Flora could easily be compiled, 1 and the
excellence and e xactne ss of the descriptions would be
serviceable to the enthusiasts in botany. Bayard Taylor
was surprised that all forms of knowledge should have been
pursued by Tennyson for the sake of poetry, but surely no
higher purpose could be wished. If the Muse was not
worthy, where shall worth be found ? Yet Taylor himself
did not weary of pointing out how elegantly the knowledge
had been applied, how profusely its riches were lavished,
how aptly its suggestions had been employed. "All
objects," he wrote, " present themselves to Tennyson with
such distinctness of illustration that he forgets the un-
familiarity of the reader with their qualities. When he
writes of ' a clear germander eye,' how many are there who
know or remember that a germander is a wild plant with a
blue flower ? He speaks of hair ' more black than ash-
buds in the front of March,' and we are obliged to pause
and consider whether ash-buds are black." A newspaper
correspondent recently gave an instance of the poet's acute-
ness of observation. Tennyson and the Rev. Stenton
Eardley spent a month together in Switzerland, and once,
when rambling over the mountains, the poet was seen by
his companion on his hands and knees intently looking at
something in the grass. " Look here," he exdaimed, " I
can see the colour of the flower through the creature's
wings." The creature was a dragon-fly, and the flower an
Alpine rose. The dragon-fly, I may here incidentally
mention, was a favourite with the poet, who beheld this
insect as he flew —
1 See Leo H. Grindon's Essay.
TENNYSON AS A STUDENT 253
With his clear plates of sapphire mail,
A living flash of light.
What a study the fly must have been before such a
description could be given !
There is a veritable anthology in The Gardener's
Daughter, and on the May morning of the lover's journey
he traversed a fairy-land of flowers.
A well-worn pathway courted us
To one green wicket in a privet hedge ;
This, yielding, gave into a grassy walk
Thro' crowded lilac-ambush trimly pruned ;
And one warm gust, full-fed with perfume, blew
Beyond us, as we enter'd in the cool.
The garden stretches southward. In the midst
A cedar spread his dark green layers of shade.
The garden grasses shone, and momently
The twinkling laurel scatter'd silver lights.
The May Queen, The Miller s Daughter, The Talking
Oak, and others of a like character would each supply a
dainty bouquet ; while we may pick up the withered leaves
and drooping flowers of autumn in the Song of the Spirit
who haunts the yellowing bowers —
Heavily hangs the broad sunflower
Over its grave i' the earth so chilly;
Heavily hangs the hollyhock,
Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.
But^the poet is happier still in his allusions to the coming
of Spring, when first
The tented winter-field is broken up
Into that phalanx of the summer spears
That soon should wear the garland.
In 1885 the Youth's Companion, an American magazine
for young people, published a delightful poem called The
Progress of Spring, for which it declared it had paid Tenny-
son £2 a line. The poem is one of great natural beauty,
and showed that the poet's eye was keen to behold the
marvels of the season, and his voice sweet and clear to sing
254 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
its praise. It is indeed a glorious burst of melody, telling
how
Once more the Heavenly Power
Makes all things new,
And domes the red-plow'd hills
With loving blue ;
And blackbirds have their wills,
The throstles too.
Opens a door in Heaven ;
From skies of glass
A Jacob's ladder falls
On greening grass,
And o'er the mountain walls
Young angels pass.
Before them fleets the snow
And burst the buds,
And shine the level lands,
And flash the floods ;
The stars are from their hands
Flung thro' the woods.
All the eight verses seem almost to be a musical prelude
to that poem, with its magic cadence and gleaming lines,
called also The Progress of Spring, and telling how
She comes ! The loosen'd rivulets run ;
The frost-bead melts upon her golden hair ;
Her mantle, slowly greening in the Sun,
Now wraps her close, now arching leaves her bare
To breaths of balmier air.
Up leaps the lark, gone wild to welcome her,
About her glance the tits, and shriek the jays,
Before her skims the jubilant woodpecker,
The linnet's bosom blushes at her gaze,
While round her brows a woodland culver flits,
Watching her large light eyes and gracious looks,
And in her open palm a halcyon sits,
Patient — the secret splendour of the brooks.
The poet's birds would be subject for a chapter them-
selves. His ears had been early familiarised with ; the
incessant cawing in the "wrangling rookery," for the copses
TENNYSON AS A STUDENT. 255
round about the Somersby home are the domain of the
" black Republic." I need scarcely tell again Mrs
Ritchie's story of the half-amused scorn of the poet when
a lady ventured to suggest that it was nightingales who
called " Maud, Maud, Maud." " What a Cockney you
are," he exclaimed. He had been thinking of the rooks
with their incessant "Caw, Caw, Caw." Let us contrast
their harsh notes with
The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
the onomatopceous line which haunts the ear with its low-
toned music ; or even with the " Tuwhoo, tuwhit " of the
white owl. There is the wild carol of the dying swan —
the " death-hymn," the coronach, " with a music strange
and manifold " ; and there is a nest of birds piping their
sweetest and loudest in the lyrics gathered under the
name of The Window. Tennyson knew something of the
mysteries of bird-life also. We read in In Memoriam,
When rosy plumelets tuft the larch,
And rarely pipes the mounted thrush ;
Or underneath the barren bush
Flits by the sea-blue bird of March.
What is " the sea-blue bird of March " ? The kingfisher,
whose blue in spring is more vivid than at other periods,
Spring being the pairing season. So in Locksley Hall —
In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast ;
In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest ;
In the Spring a livelier iris glows upon the burnish'd dove.
Mrs Ritchie tells this story : " Once when Alfred
Tennyson was in Yorkshire — so he told me — as he was
walking at night in a friend's garden he heard a nightin-
gale singing with such a frenzy of passion that it was
unconscious of everything else, and not frightened though
he came and stood quite close beside it ; he could see its
eye flashing, and feel the air bubble in his ear through the
vibration. Our poet, with his short-sighted eyes, can see
further than most people. Almost the first time I ever
256 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
walked out with him he told me to look and tell him if the
field-lark did not come down sideways upon its wing."
Yet he has told us that the poet's song exceeds the
nightingale's. It is a song which
Made the wild swan pause in her cloud,
And the lark drop down at his feet ;
The swallow stopt as he hunted the bee,
The snake slipped under a spray ;
The wild hawk stood with the down on his beak,
And stared, with his foot on the prey ;
And the nightingale thought, " I have sung many songs,
But never a one so gay ! "
And was it not the sweet voice of Enid which made
Geraint feel like a man abroad at morn ? —
When first the liquid note beloved of men
Comes flying over many a windy wave
To Britain, and in April suddenly
Breaks from a coppice gemm'd with green and red,
And he suspends his converse with a friend,
Or it may be the labour of his hands,
To think or say, " There is the nightingale."
None but a poet country-bred could have written these
lines — lines full of beauty and conveying a familar truth
to the mind. The voice of the sweet singer flying over
the wave to Britain, and suddenly, in April, breaking upon
the ear from a coppice bright in its hues of Spring ; the
man ceasing his work, looking up in pleasure as the
rapturous melody reaches him, and exclaiming, " There is
the nightingale " : — these are small and precise details
which, to my mind, are more convincing of the poet's
knowledge than any formal display of learned information.
Tennyson has told of the clear-voiced mavis, of the lark
that becomes a " sightless song," of the pealing and chirrup-
ing of the nightingale, of the blackbird and thrush, of the
trilling linnet, of the tender moan of the dove, of the
swallow winging south, , of the calling curlew and the
clamouring daw, and of all birds that slide o'er lustrous
TENNYSON AS A STUDENT. 257
woodland, and that warble " liquid sweet." Nor did he
love small animals less, but watched the field-mouse and
the hedgehog, the mole, the rabbit, and the weasel, the
mouse, the lizard, and the grasshopper. Few lines are
more impressive in their pathos than those which describe
the final ruin in Ay liner's Field:
The great Hall was wholly broken down,
And the broad woodland parcell'd into farms ;
And where the two contrived their daughter's good,
Lies the hawk's cast, the mole has made his run,
The hedgehog underneath the plantain bores,
The rabbit fondles his own harmless face,
The slow-worm creeps, and the thin weasel there
Follows the mouse, and all is open field.
An animate picture of desolation complete ! The mouse,
again, in Mariana was the symbol of ruin and regret —
The mouse
Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek'd,
Or from the crevice peer'd about ;
while in Maud we find the disconsolate lover listening to
"The shrieking rush of the wainscot mouse." When
sorrowing GEnone grew weary of life and lay down as it
were to die upon Mount Ida in the silence of noon, how
silent we realise that noon to have been, when even —
The grasshopper is silent in the grass,
The lizard with his shadow on the stone
Rests like a shadow, and the cicala sleeps.
But when the scene was to be one of destruction or of
remorseless rapacity, the smallest creatures could be made
to suggest a truth.
Nature is one with rapine.
The Mayfly is torn by the swallow, the sparrow spear'd by the shrike,
And the whole little wood where I sit is a world of plunder and prey.
The miracle of minute life is also to be revealed. The
expatriated lover of Maud on the Breton strand is not
moved by the roll of the breakers so much as by the
R
258 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
Lovely shell,
Small and pure as a pearl,
Lying close to my foot,
Frail but a work divine,
Made so fairily well
With delicate spire and whorl,
How exquisitely minute,
A miracle of design !
"What is it?" he asks, and we have the researches of
science explained to us, its speculations expressed, in the
dainty stanzas which follow.
The tiny cell is forlorn,
Void of the little living will
That made it stir on the shore.
Did he stand at the diamond door
Of his house in a rainbow frill ?
Did he push, when he was uncurFd,
A golden foot or a fairy horn
Thro' his dim water-world ?
Slight, to be crush'd with a tap
Of my finger-nail on the sand,
Small, but a work divine,
Frail, but of force to withstand,
Year upon year, the shock
Of cataract seas that snap
The three-decker's oaken spine
Athwart the ledges of rock,
Here on the Breton strand !
— The_ ability tojurn science to such poetical account has
been possessed by few, and the additional gift of transmut-
ing hard scientific factsTinto gleaming lines of verse is rare
indeed. Tennyson never seems constrained or pretentious
in this use of learning ; the burden of knowledge to him
was " light as a flower," and his happiest illustrations were
those derived from the lore of nature's own book. He
drew on the resources of geology in writing of
Dragons of the prime
That tare each other in their slime,
and again when he asked, beholding the seeming waste of
nature, —
TENNYSON AS A STUDENT. 259
So careful of the type ? But no !
From scarped cliff and quarried stone
She cries, "A thousand types are gone !
I care for nothing — let them go."
He has condensed in a few lines the nebular theory of the
origin of the solar system, and the Darwinian theory of
human evolution. In Maud we read —
A monstrous eft was of old the Lord and Master of Earth,
For him did the high sun flame, and his river billowing ran,
And he felt himself in his force to be Nature's crowning race.
As nine months go to the shaping an infant ripe for his birth,
So many a million ages have gone to the making of man :
— He now is first, but is he the last ? is he not too base ?
In In Memoriam the summing-up is this :
They say,
The solid earth whereon we tread,
In tracts of fluent heat began,
And grew to seeming-random forms,
The seeming prey of cyclic storms,
Till at the last arose the man ;
Who throve and branch'd from clime to clime
The herald of a mightier race,
And of himself in higher place,
If so he type this work of time
Within himself, from more to more :
Or, crown'd with attributes of woe,
Like glories, move his course, and show
That life is not as idle ore,
But iron dug from central gloom,
And heated hot with burning fears,
And dipt in baths of hissing tears,
And batter'd with the shocks of doom
To shape and use.
And he has summed up the world's changes in the course of
geological periods in those fine and impressive lines on
mutability —
There rolls the deep where grew the tree.
O earth, what changes hast thou seen !
26o TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
There where the long street roars, hath been
The stillness of the central sea.
The hills are shadows, and they flow
From form to form, and nothing stands ;
They melt like mist, the solid lands,
Like clouds they shape themselves and go.
Among Lord Tennyson's acquirements was a knowledge
of astronomy. None but a " silent watcher of the skies "
could have so beautifully turned to account the phenomena
represented by the ever-varying constellations, and the
appearance and disappearance of the planets.
Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest,
Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West.
Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade,
Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.
The beautiful picture presented by the autumn sky could
not be more poetically described. The grand constellation
of Orion was a favourite one with the poet. The lover in
Maud, wandering all the night in his frenzy and doubt,
Walk'd in a wintry wind by a ghastly glimmer, and found
The shining daffodil dead, and Orion low in his grave,
— a fact which at once informs us of the season and of the
hour of the journey. In one of the early poems we find
the following verse, which almost reaches sublimity : —
Each sun which from the centre flings
Grand music and redundant fire,
The burning belts, the mighty rings,
The murmurous planets' rolling choir,
The globe-filled arch that, cleaving air,
Lost in its own effulgence sleeps,
The lawless comets as they glare,
And thunder through the sapphire deeps
In wayward strength, are full of strange
Astonishment and boundless change.
In The Hcspcrides we find the reference to Hesper and
Phosphor —
TENNYSON AS A STUDENT. 261
Hesper hateth Phosphor, evening hateth morn
— which afterwards was turned into so beautiful a simile in
In Memoriam.
Sad Hesper o'er the buried sun
And ready, thou, to die with him,
Thou watchest all things ever dim
And dimmer, and a glory done :
The team is loosen'd from the Wain,
The boat is drawn upon the shore ;
Thou listenest to the closing door,
And life is darken'd in the brain.
Bright Phosphor, fresher for the night,
By thee the world's great work is heard
Beginning, and the wakeful bird ;
Behind thee comes the greater light :
Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double name
For what is one, the first, the last,
Thou, like my present and my past,
Thy place is changed ; thou art the same.
The allusion is to the evening and the morning star,
Venus. The first of the Poems by Tzvo Brothers opens
with a reference to the evening star which " beams mildly
from the realms of rest," and in the same volume references
to the stars are numerous, the most striking and im-
portant being the following —
The stars of yon blue placid sky
In vivid thousands burn,
And beaming from their orbs on high,
On radiant axes turn :
The eye with wonder gazes there,
And could but gaze on sight so fair.
But should a comet brighter still,
His blazing train unfold,
Among the many lights that fill
The sapphirine with gold ;
More wonder then would one bestow
Than millions of a meaner glow.
262 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
Take again these lines from the ode on Sublimity —
I love the starry spangled heav'n, resembling
A canopy with fiery gems o'erspread,
When the wide loch with silvery sheen is trembling,
Far stretch'd beneath the mountain's hoary head.
The rapture of the boy remained the rapture of the man.
How often the planets and the stars are mentioned in the
Idylls ("the seven clear stars of Arthur's Table Round ");
how fine a part they play in The Voyage, and what a
pleasant reference to Charles's Wain may be found in The
May Queen ! x The poet's ideas are not commonplace. It
would have been easy enough for him to speak of stars in
the casual and indefinite manner adopted by most men,
but his references gleam with intelligence and abound in
information. " I well remember," says a friend, " one par-
ticular night on which there was a total eclipse of the
moon, when he was so much struck by the number of
constellations rendered visible to the naked eye through
the veiling of the moon's light that he insisted on his
youngest son being got out of bed to look at the sight."
It is also recorded that when the Laureate paid his last
visit to London he sent for Mr Norman Lockyer in order
to discuss with that famous astronomer the temperature of
the sun. Mr Lockyer left the poet's presence with the
impression that he knew as much about astronomy as he
did himself. Tennyson's poem to the Princess Beatrice
on the occasion of her wedding is altogether in the astro-
nomical vein, and though involved and somewhat obscure,
contains the superb image of a
Conjectured planet in mid-heaven
Between two Suns,
which,
Sway'd by each Love, and swaying to each Love
draws from both
The light and genial warmth of summer day.
1 See also The Two Voices, The Princess, and other poems for many striking
allusions and illustrations.
TENNYSON AS A STUDENT. 263
The somewhat curious attempt, however, to expound how
" two Suns of Love make day of human life " called forth
the criticism that " the poet assumed a truly thauma-
turgical role by presenting awe-struck humanity with a
boon to which we must go back even into the era of
creation to find a parallel. . . . Two suns, according to this
sublime poetical postulate of his, make up the day of which
he sings. Poetry, however closely allied it may be to the
faculty of fancy, must not violate any condition which it
may have voluntarily prescribed for itself." In his daily
conversation Tennyson loved to have science, philosophy,
and metaphysics for his theme ; his mind ever seemed to
dwell upon the wonders of the universe, the teachings of
Nature, and the baffling questions of the hereafter. He
speculated much, and in the end was forced to confess that
"all was mystery." Geology and astronomy were in par-
ticular delightful to him ; their wondrous secrets, as dis-
closed, filled him with awe, and he declared that the
„" freedom of the human will and the starry heavens were
the two greatest marvels which come under human obser-
vation." " When I think," he said (according to Miss Weld,
his kinswoman), " of all the mighty worlds around us, to
which ours is but a speck, I feel what poor little worms we
are, and ask myself, What is greatness ? " (Of his wonder-
ing, faltering faith in religion I have already spoken, but
though he doubted much, he never lost anchorage in the
belief of a Creator and His goodness. " I do not like," he
v said, " such a word as design to be applied to the Creator
of all these worlds, it makes Him seem a mere artificer. A
certain amount of anthropomorphism must, however, neces-
sarily enter into our conception of God, because, though there
may be infinitely higher beings than ourselves in the worlds
beyond ours, yet to our conception man is the highest form
of being. Matter, time, and space are all illusions, but
above and beyond them all is God, who is no illusion. We
can readily understand the existence of spirit much better
than that of matter, which is to me far more incomprehen-
264 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
sible than spirit. We see nothing as it really is, not even
our fellow-creatures." " My love for Nature is as old as I,"
said the man who was
A full-celFd honeycomb of eloquence
Stored from all flowers ;
and we are tempted to think that the poet was giving an
unconscious portrayal of himself, or of his alter ego, when
he wrote the lines. The acquisition of knowledge was with
him a life-craving. He might have said —
I knew the flowers, I knew the leaves, I knew
The tearful glimmer of the languid dawn,
and have felt the thrill of joy when a voice whispered
The wood is all thine own,
Until the end of time.
Yet, early he had recognised that " knowledge comes but
wisdom lingers," and in his great life-sorrow he had felt
how unsatisfying was learning and how vain was intellectual
power.
Who loves not Knowledge ? Who shall rail
Against her beauty ? May she mix
With men and prosper ! Who shall fix
Her pillars ? Let her work prevail.
But on her forehead sits a fire ;
She sets her forward countenance
And leaps into the future chance,
Submitting all things to desire.
Half-grown as yet, a child, and vain,
She cannot fight the fear of death.
What is she, cut from love and faith,
But some wild Pallas from the brain
Of Demons? fiery-hot tc burst
All barriers in her onward race
For power. Let her know her place ;
She is the second, not the first.
A higher hand must make her mild,
If all be not in vain.
TENNYSON AS A STUDENT. 265
Again —
Let Knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell ;
That mind and soul according well,
May make one music as before,
But vaster.
"The poet's sympathy with science," said Professor
Dowden, " is ardent in an age when science reaches forth
her arms to feel from world to world ; and yet once or
twice his spirit is vexed by doubts as to the possibility of
reconciling scientific observations with his spiritual faiths
"and hopes. Happily as yet science has not grown the re-
morseless antagonist of faith, undermining by her reasonings
the very conscience and the religious sentiment, therefore
it suffices the heart, in Tennyson's poems, should stand up
as the champion of the soul : —
A warmth within the breast would melt
The freezing reason's colder part,
And like a man in wrath the heart
Stood up and answered, " I have felt ! "
Largely viewed, science cannot but minister to human wel-
fare if only its freedom be in harmony with spiritual order.
The ' crowning race,' as conceived by Tennyson, is one
that shall look, eye to eye, on knowledge ; holding the
earth under command, reading nature like an open book ;
possessing majestic order in a system of vast federations
which shall bind nation to nation in peace, and having
a reverent faith in
One God, one law, one element,
And one far-off divine event,
To which the whole creation moves."
It has been said that to Shelley Nature was Love ;
to Wordsworth she was Thought ; but to Tennyson she
was neither : yet it seems to me that Tennyson was almost
as much a Nature-worshipper as both. He knew all the
beauty, all the miracle, and as much as any of the meaning
of "all things great and small," and if he restrained himself
266 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
it was because of his firm faith in " Nature's God," who
demanded his highest reverence. He was more artist than
interpreter, but what a faithful, inspiring, enlightening
artist he was ! He was veritably the Meissonier of poets,
giving us in microscopic detail and with marvellous fidelity
the photograph, rather than the picture, of things as they
are. He was not the first to observe them, but he was the
first to present many perfect scenes in words and repro-
duce impressions which we deemed to be beyond adequate
explanation in language. Thus we get —
A fiery dawning, wild with wind,
the
Little clouds, sun-fringed,
a
Death-dumb, autumn-dripping gloom,
and like gleams which in a single flash reveal wonders of
views. Splendid revelations come in longer passages.
A moon, just
In crescent, dimly rained about the leaf
Twilights of airy silver ;
the morning drives
Her plough of pearl
Far-furrowing into light the mounded rack,
Beyond the fair green field and eastern sea.
King Arthur, gazing
O'er the illimitable reed,
And many a glancing plash and sallowy isle,
saw the glare of
The wide-wing'd sunset of the misty marsh
upon a huge machicolated tower ; and an intent watcher
of the sea observes
The crest of some slow-arching wave
Heard in dead night along the table-shore,
Drop flat, and after the great waters break
Whitening for half a league, and thin themselves,
TENNYSON AS A STUDENT. 267
Far over sands marbled with moon and cloud,
From less and less to nothing.
The thunder-clouds
Floating thro' an evening atmosphere,
Grow golden all about the sky ;
or, at night, a rising cloud may-
Topple round the dreary west,
A looming bastion fringed with fire.
The succession of pictures in St Agnes, Sir Galahad, Sir
Launcelot and Queen Guinevere, The Two Voices, The
Daisy, and all such pieces, are too familiar to need dis-
closing anew.
M At the root of most of his excellence," said Professor
Ingram, " lies his keen sense and exquisite enjoyment of
every species of beauty — of all that is lovely in form, or
graceful in movement, or rich in colour, or harmonious
in sound. His finely-tuned organisation seemed trem-
blingly alive to those more delicate shades and tones of
external nature which are scarcely distinguished by obtuser
sensibilities. Connected with this gift is his power of
painting the appearances of the outer world, not merely
with general truthfulness, but with an almost magic
reality of detail. Yet he does not fall — at least in his
mature works — into pre-Raphaelite excess. He is saved
from this by his practice of presenting every aspect of
nature, not simply as it is in itself, but in relation to
human feeling. He shows us the landscape as it is se en
by the actors in his poems, and the features he exhibits
are selected with relation to their dominant emotions.
His moral sensibilities are not less fine than his physical —
he notes with accuracy the subtle play of feeling, and those
minor involuntary indications which are its natural lan-
guage. And often he brings out most effectively the
character — or, might I say ? the soul — of a situation by
some slight fugitive trait — some evanescent touch of atti-
tude, or gesture, or expression. He is a master of orderly
268 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
and lucid narrative ; nothing is left hazy or indistinct in
the stories he tells — everything is adequately prepared by
previous explanations, everything is maturely worked out
to its natural close."
Tennyson's poems open unto our eyes a matchless
gallery where we are fascinated, tranced, dazzled, and ever
delighted as in brightest dreams. His art is high and noble,
his skill superb, his touch true. If he transports us into
fairyland and brings visions before us, if, like the necro-
mancer of old, he bids us gaze upon what never was and
never will be, it is only because his scenery is too rich, his
subjects too ideal, his colours too pure. He is never
grotesque, never wholly artificial ; luxurious fancy casts a
glamour over realities, and like Will Waterproof we
Look at all things as they are,
But thro' a kind of glory.
The charm is complete. All grossness disappears, and
under the poet's spell the scales fall from our eyes and we
catch a glimpse of heaven.
CHAPTER XIV.
TENNYSON'S HUMOUR.
"Something so mock-solemn."
— The Princess.
" The Muse, the jolly Muse it is !
She answer'd to my call,
She changes with that mood or this,
Is all-in-all to all."
— Will Waterproof ' s Lyrical Monologue
The attempts at humour in the dramas I consider to be,
without exception, failures. The by-play of words is trivial,
the situations are unprovoking, and the jests mirthless.
Some of the Shakespearean clowning is unintelligible, but
it is possible to believe that we are at fault, not the drama-
tist, and that what a former age could understand and
enjoy we in later times fail to appreciate. But it is
not so with Tennyson. H e mistook uncouthn ess for
humour, and bad burlesque for wit. The lighter passages
in his dramaTare intoTerable7and nothing is more depress-
ing than the fooling in The Falcon. All this is the more
remarkable because Tennyson was at heart a genuine
humourist, or rather, he had a vein of genuine humour
by no means easily exhausted. He was dry, grim, and
subtle ; and if his wit did not bubble over it was at least
spontaneous in its flow and sparkling. Its unexpectedness
was not the least of its good qualities, for, like a sudden
light, it surprised, amazed, and seemed doubly brilliant.
Tennyson never lost dignity, never indulged in persiflage,
never wrote a nonsense rhyme. His was an amusing
cleverness, and, after all, taking the humourous pieces
by turn, we can only conclude that they were studies or
270 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
experiments in a style, just like the experiments in metre.
We can imagine that Tennyson was quite serious when
he sat down and began the task of writing his dialect
poems. He chose his motif, he selected his type of
character, he prepared his points. He did not, like the
genial Dr Holmes, begin a poem in a light-hearted and
haphazard way ; he accomplished a set task. And when
The Northern Farmer, Will Waterproof's Lyrical Monologue,
Owd Rod, and The Churchwarden and the Curate were
duly finished, they would need revising, polishing, amend-
ing, their effects heightening, and all the rest of it, before
they would be ready for the public. What I wish to make
clear is that Tennyson was always the man with a purpose,
whether grave or gay, and that even in his humourous
moments he did not forget his office. And it is for this
very reason that his failure in writing light dramatic
scenes can be understood. Whether he was in the mood
or not he knew that the "relief" must be given — and his
resources were not equal to the demand.
Strictly speaking, Tennyson's humourous poems are very
few in number. Passing by the Second Song on The Owl,
with its word-play on " tuwhoo " and " tuwhit," the list
begins with The Talking Oak, which is written in a glee-
some, light-spirited manner, and contains some cleverly-
amusing lines. The poem as a whole, however, scarcely
comes under the heading, and in the volume of another
poet might have been classed as altogether serious. Am-
phion, too, with all its frolicsome fancies, is far too ingenious
to be called amusing, but in Will Waterproof's Lyrical
Monologue we get such delightful confessions and quaint
conceits that it is only human to smile at them. The
legend of the Cock and the Head Waiter is a happy
conception, and when the fanciful Will, drinking his pint
of port, exclaims —
I ranged too high : what draws me down
Into the common day ?
Is it the weight of that half-crown,
Which I shall have to pay?
TENNYSON'S HUMO UR. 11 x
the change is too ludicrous to be other than irre-
sistible.
The first of the dialect poems was published in 1864,
and the poet's old neighbour, John Baumber, of Somersby
Grange, served as the prototype of the Northern Farmer.
Git ma my aale, fur I beant a-gooin' to break my rule,
was the cry of Tennyson's rare old character ; but it is not
unlikely that the poet (as was usual with him) obtained the
suggestion for his story from a once popular book in which
the following passages occur : " One of the strongest in-
stances I have seen of such a deliberate practice of the
Dum vivimus, vivamus, was mentioned by the clever and
humourous surgeon, Mr Wadd. He was called to a
respectable lusty farmer who had indulged in his strong
home-brewed ale till a serious illness came upon him.
After some attendance his medical friend told him that
it was clear that unless he gave up his favourite beverage
he would not live six months. ' Is that your serious
professional opinion ? ' 'I am certain of it.' The farmer
thought a few minutes, tears came into his eyes ; he sighed
heavily, and at last said, ' I am sorry for it — very sorry ;
it's very sad, but I cannot give up my ale." So with the
old Lincolnshire farmer.
I 've 'ed my point o' aale ivry noight sin' I bean 'ere,
An' I 've 'ed my quart ivry market-noight for foorty year,
and he " weant break rules fur Doctor." The Northern
Farmer, new style, is the selfish, grasping man of a later
period, obstinate and worldly-minded, greedy for gain and
a despiser of sentiment. To his lovesick son, who has
committed the heinous offence of becoming " sweet^on
Parson's lass," when she " 'ant nowt, an' she weant 'a nowt
when 'e's dead," the old man explains his " noations."
His morality is summed up in
Proputty, proputty sticks, an' proputty, proputty graws,
and he reminds his offspring that he can
272 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
Luvv thy lass an' 'er munny too,
Maakin' 'em goa togither as they've good right to do.
Could'n I luvv thy muther by cause o' 'er munny laa'id by ?
Naay — fur I luvv'd 'er a vast sight moor fur it : reason why.
Taking the humourous poems in turn, for convenience,
we come next to The Northern Cobbler, the plot of which
was undoubtedly plagiarised. But the inimitable Tenny-
sonian style, the language, and the quaint observations,
make the piece the poet's own. Only Tennyson could
have put into the mouth of the reformed drunkard the
lines —
An' then I minded our Sally sa pratty an' neat an' sweeat,
Straat as a pole an' clean as a flower fro' 'ead to feeat :
An' then I minded the fust kiss I gied 'er by Thursby thurn ;
Theer wur a lark a-singin' 'is best of a Sunday at mum,
Couldn't see 'im, we 'eard 'im a-mountin' oop 'igher an' 'igher,
An' then 'e turn'd to the sun, an' 'e shined like a sparkle o' fire.
" Doesn't tha see 'im," she axes, "fur I can see 'im," an' I
Seead nobbut the smile o' the sun as danced in 'er pratty blue eye ;
An' I says, " I mun gie tha a kiss," an' Sally says " Noa, thou moant,"
But I gied 'er a kiss, an' then anoother, an' Sally says " doant ! "
Even more felicitous in its phrasing and curious ideas is
The Village Wife ; or, The Entail, in which an inquisitive
and talkative dame tells the story of the " owd Squire's "
ruin. The matter-of-fact woman chatters on and on, vain
of her knowledge of the affairs of other folks, vain of her
"butter an' heggs," and vain of her dealings "wi' the
Hall." It is needless to say that the busybody and gossip
considers herself a highly superior person, and that she is
the self-constituted critic of the misguided man who lived
in his books and antiquities, and to the horror of all good
Christians " bowt owd money, es wouldn't goa, wi' good
gowd o' the Queen."
I have before expressed the opinion, and time and
further investigation have done much to confirm me in it,
that there was something more than a reminiscence of
Tennyson's own father, " the owd Doctor," in the portrait
of the " owd Squire " who
TENNYSON'S HUMOUR. 273
Niver loookt ower a bill, nor 'e niver not seed to owt,
An 'e niver knawd nowt but boooks, an' boooks, as thou knaws, beant
nowt.
Occasional lines in the poem are slyly humorous. Says
the gossip —
Hoffens we talkt o' my darter es died o' the fever at fall :
An' I thowt 'twur the will o' the Lord, but Miss Annie she said it wur
draains.
The old dame was decidedly muddled as to what an "entail"
meant, and her opinion was divided as to whether it was
some dread legal formality or an appendage which could be
" cut off-
Squire were at Charlie agean to git 'im to cut off 'is taail ;
and when Charlie broke his neck —
Theer wur a hend o' the taail, fur 'e lost 'is taail i' the beck.
The superior wisdom of the village wife is manifested in
her cool criticism of all the Squire's "gells," especially of
the one who was " stuck oop." And
Molly the youngest she walkt awaay wi' a hofficer lad,
An' nawbody 'eard ori 'er sin', sa o' coorse she be gone to the bad !
An' Lucy wur laame o' one leg, sweet-'arts she niver 'ed none —
Straange an' unheppen Miss Lucy ! we naamed 'er " Dot an' gaw
one ! "
An' es fur Miss Annie es call'd me afoor my awn foalks to my faace
" A hignorant village wife as 'ud hev to be larn'd 'er awn plaace,"
Hes fur Miss Hannie the heldest lies now be a-grawing sa howd,
I knaws that mooch o' shea, es it beant not fit to be towd !
What revenge is crowded into the two last lines, and made
emphatic with repeated aspirates. One can imagine the
spiteful woman worked up into frenzy at the thought of
Miss Annie's unjust aspersion, and retaliating with all the
force in her nature — " I knaws that mooch o' shea, es it
beant not fit to be towd ! "
The pleasantry in The Spinster's Sweet-arts is altogether
of another kind, and when published in the Tiresias volume
S
274 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
of 1885 revealed new capacity on the part of the poet.
The spinster's "Sweet-arts" are a number of cats named
" arter the fellers es once was sweet upo' me " —
Tommy the fust, an' Tommy the second, an' Steevie an' Rob.
They remind the dame of the characteristics of her old
lovers, and in her prattling to them we discover the humour
and the pathos of her past history. The Spinster had
had " two 'oonderd a-year," and Rob was the first to angle
for the prize —
Niver wur pretty, not I, but yeknaw'd it wur pleasant to 'ear,
Thaw it warn't not me es wur pretty, but my two 'oonderd a-year.
The dame espied the man's flattery, and though once she
was " nigh saayin' Yis," the clumsy man spoilt her carpet,
and she gave him " a raatin " that " sattled his coortin'."
Then came Steevie, but he was a widower, and the parti-
cular maid could not have taken to the "bouncin' boy
an' a gell." " I hevn't naw likin' fur brats," she says —
" A haxin' me hawkard questions, and saayin' ondecent
things." Then her thoughts revert to the two quarrelsome,
fighting Tommies, and she has no regret that she declined
to become their slave — " Horder'd about, an waaked, when
Molly 'd put out the light " by a man " coomin' in wi' a
hiccup " —
An' the taable stain'd wi' 'is aale, an' the mud o' 'is boots o' the stairs,
An' the stink o' 'is pipe i' the 'ouse, an' the mark o' 'is 'ead o' the chairs.
So she remained a spinster, sitting in her " oan little
parlour," doing her little charities, and being held in more
esteem than a " graater Laady " who would have " alius to
hax of a man how much to spare or to spend."
The dialect poem of Ozvd Rod can only be included in
the category of humorous poems on account of incidental
passages. The sleepy farmer thinking of Free Trade, and
wondering
TENNYSON'S HUMOUR. 275
Howiver was British farmers to stan' agean o' their feeat,
is a capital study.
An' I slep' i' my chair agean wi' my hairm hingin down to the floor,
An' I thowt it was Roaver a-tuggin' an' tearin' me wuss nor afoor,
An' I thowt 'at I kick'd 'im agean, but I kick'd thy Moother istead.
" Whatarta snorin' theere fur ? the house is afire," she said.
Thy Moother 'ed bean a-naggin' about the gell o' the farm,
She offens 'ud spy summut wrong when there warn't not a mossel o'
harm ;
But Moother was free of 'er tongue, as I offens 'ev tell'd 'er mysen,
So I kep i' my chair, fur I thowt she was nobbut a-rilin' ma then.
But the house was on fire — " An' I wasn't afeard, or I thinks
leastwaays as I wasn't afeard " ; but the general panic was
intense, and " Moother was naggin' an' groanin' an' moanin'
an' naggin' agean." Old Rover the dog was the hero of
that night, and saved the life of a child to whom the story
is told ; but " Moother " " cotch'd 'er death o' cowd that
night, poor soul, i' the straw."
The last of this delightful series of poems appeared in
the volume of Swan-songs, The Death of (Enone and other
Poems. In The Churchwarden and the Curate we are pre-
sented exactly with the same type of character as the
Northern Farmer, and the dialect is confessedly "that
which was current at Spilsby and in the country about it " in
the poet's youth. Spilsby is a small market town about
seven miles across the wolds from Somersby, Tennyson's
birthplace ; and it was here that Sir John Franklin was
born, the uncle of Tennyson's wife. The poet has written
few stories which are more delightful than this of the old
churchwarden turned from being a Baptist —
I can't abear 'em, I can't, fur a lot on 'em coom'd ta-year—
I wur down wi' the rheumatis then — to my pond to wesh thessens
theere —
Sa I sticks like the ivin as long as I lives to the owd church now,
Fur they wesh'd their sins i' my pond, an' I doubts they poison'd the
276 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
The joke is not original — it is told by Julian Young in his
Memoirs, of a farmer's wife who laboured under the same
delusion. But the churchwarden is an excellent type.
He recognises in the new curate an audacious lad who was
wont to steal his apples and take fish surreptitiously out of
Howlaby beck — but he was not going to be severe on the
" Parson's lad." He can now give him some good worldly
advice, and we detect in it the satire against certain of the
clergy which is thoroughly characteristic of Tennyson : —
An' I reckons tha '11 light of a livin' somewheers i' the Wowd or the
Fen,
If tha cottons down to thy betters, an' keeaps thysen to thysen.
But niver not speak plaain out, if tha wants to git forrards a bit,
But creeap along the hedge-bottoms, an' thou '11 be a Bishop yit.
Naay, but tha mun speak hout to the Baptises here i' the town,
Fur moast on 'em talks agean tithe, an' I 'd like tha to preach 'em
down,
For they 've been a-preachin' viea down, they heve, an' I haates 'em
now,
Fur they leaved their nasty sins i' my pond, an' it poison'd the cow.
The old man's advice to the curate is exquisite in its way,
and his explanation as to how he himself " coom'd to the
top o' the tree " is too good to be quoted in fragments. It
is incomparable in its quaintness and its worldly wisdom,
and is in Tennyson's best style.
Saw by the graace o' the Lord, Mr Harry, I ham wot I ham
is the boast of the sly old fellow, and there is a sting of
satire in the poet's explanation of how the words came to
be uttered.
Within limits, and in his special domain, we must regard
Tennyson as a humourist of a genuine and uncommon
order. As in other things, he was punctilious even in his
merry-making, and in consequence it was only when really
inspired that he was seen to advantage. The triviality or
dullness which passes for humour in the dramas is the
TENNYSON'S HUMOUR. 277
obvious result of a set task being formally carried out.
The contrast is great indeed when the grim and subtle
humour of the poems is turned to; and The Northern
Fann er series alone would support Tennyson'^ reputation
f or kee n__wit_,and the — m asterly deline ation of quaint
characters.
CHAPTER XV.
SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF TENNYSON.
" One whom the strong sons of the world despise ;
For lucky rhymes to him were scrip and share,
And mellow metres more than cent for cent ;
Nor could he understand how money breeds,
Thought it a dead thing ; yet himself could make
The thing that is not as the thing that is."
— The Brook.
" Tennyson has re-made the English language," wrote Mr
Galton. Although there are undoubtedly mannerisms and
conceits in Tennyson's verse — taking " conceits " in Kings-
ley's sense to mean an image not true and abiding" but for a
mood and occasion only — yet, even in these details, he was
consistent and correct. What at first seemed to be purely
affectation, proved to be part of a deep-laid plan, and we
have to thank the poet who was originally described as
artificial for bringing back into use simple, strong Saxon
words which had fallen into desuetude or been held up to
contempt. No finnicking poet, after all, was the writer
of album verses, the minstrel of fair women, and the rhymer
of the boudoir. Enoch Arden is a vigorous Saxon poem;
so are the Idylls one and all. For the sake of compactness
all words with Tennyson are contracted as much as pos-
sible. He was no lover of polysyllables and sesquipedalian
adjectives. In his earlier volumes he wrote each word
fully, but when he commenced revising, every "though"
was shortened to " tho'," every past participle ending in
" ed " was written " 'd " or "t"; the word " toward " became
in every place a monosyllable, and wherever an abbrevia-
tion could be allowed it was made. Consequently there
is no waste in the lines ; there is no sense of profusion,
SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF TENNYSON. 279
but every passage seems exact, concentrated, crisp, com-
pressed. False display was abhorrent to the. poet ; his
pruning-knife was always in use, cutting away every need-
less part, clipping and trimming in every possible place.
How pregnant short passages became in consequence of
this ! Take the description of Enoch Arden's life on the
desert island —
No want was there of human sustenance,
Soft fruitage, mighty nuts, and nourishing roots ;
Nor save for pity was it hard to take
The helpless life so wild that it was tame.
There in a seaward-gazing mountain-gorge
They built, and thatch'd with leaves of palm, a hut,
Half-hut, half native cavern. So the three,
Set in this Eden of all plenteousness,
Dwelt with eternal summer, ill-content.
How many pictures are crowded upon this morsel of canvas,
and each picture is complete, precise, worthy of microscopic
examination. Here, again, is a scene displayed in a flash
of light—
I saw the spiritual city and all her spires
And gateways in a glory like one pearl
— a scene which no elaboration could make more resplen-
dent and no further vision render more entrancing. Who
could explain all the suggestiveness, all the beauty and
fullness, of the revelation conveyed in this short passage? —
I found a mighty hill,
And on the top, a city wall'd : the spires
Prick'd with incredible pinnacles into heav'n,
And by the gateway stirr'd a crowd.
To depict this the artist would need abundant scope for
the vast scene of the wall'd city, the " incredible pinnacles,"
and the swarming crowd. Yet these twenty odd words
disclose everything. Tennyson had the art of revealing
scenes rather than describing them. There is no laborious
delineation or colouring in any of his scenes, yet those
28o TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
scenes are wonderfully vivid, beautiful, and finished. In
Mariana he suggests the desolation instead of depicting it,
and we understand how lonely and ruinous was the moated
grange when we read that
The broken sheds look'd sad and strange ;
Unlifted was the clinking latch ;
Weeded and worn the ancient thatch.
No picture could more perfectly realise than these words
a louring Autumn noon —
In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining,
Heavily the low sky raining
Over tower'd Camelot ;
or than these words realise the tropical splendour of
evening —
There all in spaces rosy-bright
Large Hesper glitter'd on her tears,
And deepening thro' the silent spheres
Heaven over Heaven rose the night.
But a whole volume would be needed to treat the subject
properly. Tennyson was always an artist — an artist by
nature and by training — and though his hand was not
unfamiliar with the brush, it is his pen-pictures, glowing
and beautiful, which will always fascinate the eye.
Tennyson's scenery is mostly typical English ; his char-
acters are typical English ; his names are typical English.
In his Lincolnshire dialect poems it is worthy of noting
that the names of places always end in " by," this termina-
tion being most common in the county. Thus we have
"Thurnaby," " Wrigglesby," " Thursby," " Harmsby,"
"Hutterby," " Gigglesby," and " Howlaby," the last-named
occurring in two of the poems. So far as the names of
people go, Tennyson was careful to select favourite and not
uncommon ones. We get no more Chloes and Dorindas,
Strephons and Florizels, but charming and simple names
SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF TENNYSON. 281
with a homely English music of their own, such as Ellen
Adair, Emma Moreland, Laurence Aylmer, Edward Morris,
and Enoch Arden. Tennyson was seemingly fond of the
names of Edith and Alice for girls, Edward and Lionel for
men, as he uses these several times. Then, without count-
ing the Claribel, Adeline, and Rosalind of early days, we
have Letty, Clara, Evelyn, Ida, Dora, Amy, Olivia, Annie,
and Maud — all with a pleasant ring and a familiar sound.
It is this which adds to the human interest we feel in
Tennyson's characters. Amaryllis and Damon and Celia
are not akin ; but one recognises Tennyson's men and
women as real flesh and blood, from the wealthy miller,
with his double chin and portly size, to Edith Aylmer,
whose
fresh and innocent eyes
Had such a star of morning in their blue ;
or Lilia, "a rosebud set with little wilful thorns, And
sweet as English air could make her."
In Tennyson's first volume his bias was detected, and
his characteristics noticed by his friend Spedding, who
found, however, that the bias was likely to prove profitable,
and that the characteristics were uncommon and decidedly
worthy.
" The human soul, in its infinite variety of moods and trials, is his
favourite haunt," wrote Spedding ; " nor can he dwell long upon any
subject, however remote apparently from the scenes and objects of
modern sympathy, without touching some string which brings it within
the range of our common life. His moral views, whether directly or
indirectly conveyed, are healthy, manly, and simple ; and the truth
and delicacy of his sentiments is attested by the depth of the pathos
which he can evoke from the commonest incidents, told in the simplest
manner, yet deriving all their interest from the manner of telling.
See, for instance, the story of Dora, and The Lord of Burleigh.
What is there in these that should so move us ? Quarrels and recon-
ciliations among kindred happen daily. Hopeless affection, secretly,
without complaint, cherished to the end, is a grief commoner than we
know of. Many a woman marries above her natural rank, and after-
wards dies of a decline. How is it that we do not pass these stories
by as commonplace — so like what we see every day that we want no
282 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
more of them ? It__is_because they are disclosed to us, not as we
are in the habit of seemg sucti things, through the face they
present to the outward world— but as they stand recorded in the
silent heart, to whose tragic_theatre none but itself (and the poet)
may be admitted as a spectatorTTT^rHut tKeTe-are^oirr poems in
which Mr Tennyson has expressly treated of certain morbid states
of the mind ; and from these we gather, not indeed his creed, but
some hints concerning his moral theory of life and its issues,
and of that which constitutes a sound condition of the soul.
These are the Palace of Art, the St Simeon Stylites, the Two Voices,
and the Vision of Sin. ... As the Palace of Art represents the pride
of voluptuous enjoyment in its noblest form, the St Simeon Stylites
represents the pride of asceticism in its basest. ... In the Two
Voices we have a history of the agitations, the suggestions and counter-
suggestions of a mind sunk in hopeless despondency, and meditating
self-destruction ; together with the manner of its recovery to a more
healthy condition. . . . The Vision of Sin touches upon a more awful
subject than any of these ;— the end, here and hereafter, of the merely
sensual man. The picture is of the youth, the winged steed, and the
palace — the warm blood, the mounting spirit, and the lustful body —
now chilled, jaded, and ruined : the cup of pleasure drained to the
dregs ; the senses exhausted of their power to enjoy, the spirit of its
wish to aspire : nothing left but ' loathing, craving, and rottenness.'
His mental and moral state is developed in a song, or rather a lyric
speech, too long to quote ; and of which, without quoting, we cannot
attempt to convey an idea ;— a ghastly picture (lightened only by a
seasoning of wild inhuman humour) of misery and mockery, impotent
malice and impenitent regret ; ' languid enjoyment of evil with utter
incapacity to good.' "
It was only to be expected that Tennyson's verse,
having undergone so much revision, should be free from
verbal flaws and in technique well-nigh perfect. His
rhyming is excellent, and he speedily overcame that want
of exactness in rhythm for which Coleridge rebuked him.
It is therefore rather surprising to find so obvious a defect
as has been permitted to remain in The Palace of Art,
where a clumsy device is adopted in order to complete the
scansion of a line. The poet speaks of a traveller in a
strange land who hears the " moan of an unknown sea,"
And knows not if it be thunder, or a sound
Of rocks thrown down, or one deep cry
SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF TENNYSON. 283
Of great wild beasts ; then thinketh, " I have found
A new land, but I die."
At the risk of being considered hypercritical I must also
point out one small irregularity in Come into the garden,
Maud. Maud is addressed in the second person plural,
" you," throughout the poem, except in one line when, it
would seem, the task of finding a rhyme to " me " caused
the poet to resort to an expedient scarcely allowable. We
therefore get this medley :
But the rose was awake all night for your sake,
Knowing your promise to me ;
The roses and lilies were all awake,
They sigh'd for the dawn and thee.
A trifle, truly ; but a false note is struck.
Sir Edward Hamley in an article on False Coin in Poetry
declares that a favourite passage in The Princess is " re-
markable for confusion." We are told of
jewels five words long
That on the stretched forefinger of all Time
Sparkle for ever.
" No doubt," says Sir Edward, " Time, who has always
possessed a forelock, may also possess a forefinger ; but
all time — that is, time not figurative but abstract — cannot ;
the word ' all ' annihilates the personification, and with it
all claim to the digit. But, granting the forefinger, why
are the jewels to be placed on it ? True, the forefinger is
used for pointing — but it cannot point at the rings upon
itself. Moreover, the forefinger can hold but a very limited
number of jewels ; yet the novel office assigned to Time is
that of perpetually holding out the member, to the neglect
of his established duties with his scythe, hour-glass, &c, in
order to exhibit these favoured vocables. Lastly, to fill up
the tale of slips in the passage, ' sparkle for ever ' is wrong
in referring to a circumstance of time, and unnecessary as
an indication of duration, after the phrase ' all Time.' "
The criticism seems to me to be arbitrary, but the favourite
passage certainly has its defects as a metaphor.
'.84 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
Tennyson had one or two favourite ideas, and he re-'
peated them several times. One was the idea of a coming
time when
The war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd,
In the Parliament of man, the federation of the world.
There the common-sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.
Thus in Locksley Hall ; and we get a repetition in The
Golden Year :
Ah ! when shall all men's good
Be each man's rule, and universal peace
Lie like a shaft of light across the land,
And like a lane of beams athwart the sea,
Thro' all the circle of the Golden Year ?
The thought again occurs in the Ode sung at the opening
of the International Exhibition :
O ye, the wise who think, the wise who reign,
From growing commerce loose her latest chain,
And let her fair white-wing'd peacemaker fly
To happy havens under all the sky,
And mix the seasons and the golden hours ;
Till each man find his own in all men's good,
And all men work in noble brotherhood,
Breaking their mailed fleet and armed towers,
And ruling by obeying Nature's powers,
And gathering all the fruits of earth and crown'd
with all her flowers.
And the echo is repeated once more in Locksley Hall Sixty
Years After, when the poet dreams of
Earth at last a warless world, a single race, a silent tongue,
I have seen her far away — for is not Earth as yet so young ? —
Robed in universal harvest up to either pole she smiles,
Universal ocean softly washing all her warless Isles.
" Is not earth as yet so young ? " That, also, is an echo
from the past. In the concluding portion of The Day Dream
we learn that
SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF TENNYSON. 285
We are Ancients of the earth,
And in the morning of the times.
In The Princess we are told,
This fine old world of ours is but a child
Yet in the go-cart,
and in the last volume of all, " Dawn not Day " is a theme
in itself —
Is it shame, so few should have climb'd from the dens in the level
below,
Men, with a heart and a soul, no slaves of a four-footed will ?
But if twenty million of summers are stored in the sunlight still,
We are far from the noon of man, there is time for the race to grow.
The doctrine of evolution is taught throughout Tennyson's
works, and the old question is often discussed of man's
rising from the beast and reeling back into the beast again.
Another idea which recurs is that most succinctly expressed
in The Coming of Arthur — " Man's word is God in man " ;
a condensation of the thought in Enoch Arden, "Where
God in man is one with man in God."
Next to his hatred of Napoleon, Tennyson hated all
" tonguesters," and girded at them with might and main.
Wild talk, specious phrases, deceptive watchwords, irre-
sponsible chatter, and mob-oratory he regarded as positive
diseases. " Through the tonguesters we may fail." A
dozen similar expressions will occur to the mind of every
student. Peace J "Rrofhe.rh.ood. Pu rity. Honesty in thought
and deed, Truth, and Sincerity — these are the leading points
in Tennyson's doctrines, and form the most frequent of his
allusion i Hatred^oT^Despotism, Deception, and Unman-
liness in all its insidious phases, flashes out in many a
burning line and scornful word. "Every sophister can
lime " the " wild hearts and feeble wings " of the herd ; the
" dogs of Faction " can always bay ; but the wise man will
always striv e for pea ce, settled government, freedom, and
the extension" of knowledge — loving
The gleams of good that broke
From either side, nor veil his eyes.
i
286 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
Profusion of rhyme is the prevailing characteristic of
some of the poems, especially the earlier ones. The Lady
of Shalott consists of nine-lined verses ; the first four rhyme
successively ; the fifth and last lines end in Camelot (once
only in Lancelot) and Shalott respectively ; and the re-
maining three rhyme with each other. The length of the
poem makes this feat more remarkable. It is repeated in
Fatima and Sir Launcelot and Guinevere. Triple rhymes
are the characteristic of The Two Voices ; rhymes clever
and uncommon, yet used with elegance, surprise and delight
in Amphion and The Brook. There are some ingenious
alternations in Maud, a sort of regular-irregularity indica-
tive of the poet's skill. The fourth section of Part I. con-
sists of ten six-line stanzas, the first line rhyming with the
fourth, the second with the fifth, and the third with the sixth,
throughout the poem. There are minor variations of this
style in succeeding sections, but in the second section of
Part II. the placing of the rhymes is a refinement of art.
The ear, too, can detect the sweetest of ripples and tender
repetitions in the flow of such lines as —
Tis a morning pure and sweet,
And a dewy splendour falls
On the little flower that clings
To the turrets and the walls •
'Tis a morning pure and sweet,
And the light and shadow fleet ;
She is walking in the meadow,
And the woodland echo rings ;
In a moment we shall meet ;
She is singing in the meadow
And the rivulet at her feet
Ripples on in light and shadow
To the ballad that she sings.
Dr Mann has shown in his Maud Vindicated how the poet
has made rhythm expressive of passing moods : how it
becomes abrupt when the lover refers to Maud's brother,
and how, " when the song passes on from this rough and
disagreeable topic to the more pleasing theme, the verse at
once softens into a sweetly flowing stream that makes one
SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF TENNYSON. 287
or two little contracted leaps, and then glides on with the
most absolute smoothness." Doubtless this was all de-
signed, though I think the poet's emotion rather than his
art was responsible for it. Dr Mann also has pointed out
that in the opening stanzas word-painting and word-music
are combined to produce a most notable effect, and he
quotes —
I remember the time, for the roots of my hair were stirr'd
By a shuffled step, by a dead weight trail'd, by a whisper'd fright,
And my pulses closed their gates with a shock on my heart as I
heard
The shrill-edged shriek of a mother divide the shuddering night.
" Here the steps that bear the stiff burthen are shuffled "
(we read), " the dead weight is trailed, and the fright is
whispered to the scared boy's soul, in the very sounds that
are embodied in the words. Any one who has ever seen
some massive flood-gate flung back by the regurgitant
stream with a shock, will at once recognise the symbolising
power of this language. Every one who catches the com-
plete rhythm of the tones in the concluding line of the
stanza will be helped to the conception of what the shrill-
edged shriek is which can divide the shuddering night."
The two Locksley Halls supply similar examples of the
Laureate's masterly use of rhythm to aid his effects and
emphasise or symbolise his sentiment. Such poems are
to be entirely dissociated from pure experiments in
quantity, such as the "barbarous hexameters" which were
"the strong-wing'd music of Homer," the Miltonic alcaics,
the fantastical and dainty " metrification of Catullus," and
the lines of the poems Boadicea, Battle of Brunabicrh,
Merlin and the Gleam, and Kapiolani.
Tennyson's metres are worthy of some consideration,
though they do not afford much scope for special study.
In the early poems his stanzas were noted for their
daintiness of construction, but, without supplying any-
thing actually original, he newly adapted olden forms and
improved upon them. Occasionally he was able to sur-
288 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
prise the ear with a delightful turn, either by transposition
of rhymes, or by the unexpected suppression or addition
of a syllable. Mr Venables, in his Memoir of Henry
Lushington, records that one day when he had read aloud
The Daisy and the lines To the Rev. F. D. Maurice,
Lushington said — " How the simple change in the last
line from a dactyl to an amphibrachys changes a mere
experiment into a discovery in metre." Tennyson was
very happy in this discovery, and used it with excellent
effect. There is something almost enchanting in the three
rhymed lines and the one, ending in a double syllable,
unrhymed :
How faintly-flush'd, how phantom-fair,
Was Monte Rosa, hanging there
A thousand shadowy-pencilPd valleys
And snowy dells in a golden air.
A modification of this form of verse is found in the dedi-
catory Lines To the Master of Balliol —
Dear Master in our classic town,
You, loved by all the younger gown
There at Balliol,
Lay your Plato for one minute down,
And read a Grecian tale re-told,
Which, cast in later Grecian mould,
Ouintus Calaber,
Somewhat lazily handled of old.
The metre of In Memoriam, simple as it is, has at all
times excited mnch attention. The wonder is, not that
Tennyson made it his own, but that it was not in common
use before. That Tennyson deliberately chose it as best
suited for his purpose cannot be questioned. In Memoriam
was the work of seventeen years, written at divers times
and in sundry places, some of it at Somersby, some at
Barmouth, some in Cornwall, some in London, some at
Clevedon, some at Cheltenham. 1 The metre was not
1 A small volume has been published bearing the title The Golden Decade of
a Favoured Town. The town is Cheltenham, and the golden decade was
1843 to 1853, during which time Tennyson, his mother, and several brothers
SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF TENNYSON. 289
actually new, for Ben Jonson had written an Elegy in the
same form, the first verse running thus :
Though beauty be the mark of praise,
And yours, of whom I sing, be such
As not the world can praise too much,
Yet is 't your virtue now I raise.
In Smollett's translation of Don Quixote there are two
stanzas formed similarly, and it is even said that Prior
originally wrote a portion of a poem in like manner.
These, however, constitute the only instances known of
the use of the metre which will evermore be associated
with Tennyson's In Memoriam. That this choice was
both wise and happy all are agreed. Charles Kingsley
said : — " The poems seem often merely to be united by
the identity of their metre, so exquisitely chosen, that
while the major rhyme in the second and third lines of
each stanza gives the solidity and self-restraint required
by such deep themes, the mournful minor rhyme of each
first and fourth line always leads the ear to expect some-
thing beyond, and enables the poet's thoughts to wander
sadly on, from stanza to stanza and poem to poem, in an
endless chain of
Linked sweetness long drawn out."
Mr Stedman added his tribute. " The author's choice of
the transposed-quatrain verse was a piece of good fortune,"
he said. " Its hymnal quality, finely exemplified in the
opening prayer, is always impressive, and, although a
monotone, no more monotonous than the sounds of nature
— the murmur of ocean, the soughing of the mountain
pines. Were In Memoriam written in direct quatrains, I
think the effect would grow to be unendurable." In spite
and sisters, lived there. "He was often in the habit of walking in Jessop's
gardens, and no doubt many of the stanzas of In Memoriam were either born
there or frequently subjected to that labor lima which brought it into a state
of almost absolute perfection. . . . What is still more interesting is that
the local scenery helped to suggest and furnish some of the thoughts and
images of the poems themselves." See ante, page 58.
290 TENNYSON: POET PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
of its length In Memoriam is never tedious. If the poet,
to avoid monotony, had changed the metre from time to
time the whole sombre, quiet, calm, and even effect of the
poem would have been irreparably ruined. As it is, we
pass on from hymn to hymn, and follow without weariness
the
Short swallow-flights of song that dip
Their wings in tears, and skim away.
In regard to Tennyson's blank verse, I am disposed to
accept the statement of Mr Stedman, that it "surpasses
other blank verse in strength and condensation," and that
it was " the poet's own invention, derived from the study of
Homer and his natural mastery of the Saxon element in
our own language." The Homeric echoes are audible-
enough in the Arthurian idylls, from first to last, and in
eclogues like Edwin Morris and Ulysses they are only
fainter because of their sweetness. Of the latter poem Mr
Stedman said it had no equal for "virile grandeur and
astonishingly compact expression ; conception, imagery,
and thought are royally imaginative, and the assured hand
is Tennyson's throughout." Equally beautiful and equally
perfect, each in its way, is Tithonus, St Simeon Stylites, and
The Gardener s Daughter. Love and Duty, Audley Court,
and Dora do not reach so high a level, and Walking to the
Mail does not pass the average. The blank verse of the
dramas is much looser, is less polished, and lacks that
strenuousness and concentration with which the earlier
poems were replete. In The Princess Tennyson seems, at
times, almost too economical of his words. He disdained
to make plain that "he said" or "she replied" and omitted
the verb, with the result that the abrupt " Then he : " and
" And she : " at first grate upon the ear. The imitation of
Tennyson in mannerisms of this sort has been far from
successful, and has exposed both the poet and his flatterers
to ridicule. Much as I object to parody, I cannot refrain
from quoting a few inoffensive pages from Dr Oliver
SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF TENNYSON.
291
Wendell Holmes's novel, The Guardian Angel, in which
the Tennysonian school is ironically dealt with. Gifted
Hopkins, the village poet, may be taken as a rude disciple
of the Laureate's, reproducing all his mannerisms without
making them the vehicle for wisdom. Thus, in Vol. ii.
p. 21, we get —
"'Perhaps you will like these lines,' he said, 'the style is more
modern : —
Oh daughter of the spiced South
Her bubbly grapes have spill'd the wine
That staineth with its hue divine
The red flower of thy perfect mouth.'
And so on, through a series of stanzas like these, with the pulp of
two rhymes between the upper and lower crust of two others."
So much for the In Memoriam style of the Laureate.
But The Princess is travestied more openly in Gifted
Hopkins's Triumph of Song.
I met that gold-haired maiden, all too-dear ;
And I to her : Lo ! thou art very fair,
Fairer than all the ladies in the world
That fan the sweetened air with scented fans,
And I am scorched with exceeding love,
Yea, crisped till my bones are dry as straw.
Look not away with that high-arched brow,
But turn its whiteness that I may behold,
And lift thy great eyes till they blaze on mine,
And lay thy.finger on thy perfect mouth,
And let thy lucent ears of carven pearl
Drink in the murmured music of my soul,
As the lush grass drinks in the globed dew ;
For I have many scrolls of sweetest rhyme
I will unroll and make thee glad to hear.
Then she : Oh shaper of the marvellous phrase
That openeth woman's heart as doth a key,
I dare not hear thee — lest the bolt should slide
That locks another's heart within my own.
Go, leave me — and she let her eyelids fall,
And the great tears roll'd from her large blue eyes.
Then I : If thou not hear me, I shall die,
Yea, in my desperate mood may lift my hand
And do myself a hurt no leech can mend ;
292 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
For poets ever were of dark resolve,
And swift stern deed —
That maiden heard no more,
But spake : Alas ! my heart is very weak,
And but for— Stay ! And if some dreadful morn,
After great search and shouting through the wold,
We found thee missing — strangled — drowned i' the mere —
Then should I go distraught and be clean mad !
O poet, read ! read all thy wondrous scroll !
Yea, read the verse that maketh glad to hear !
Then I began and read two sweet, brief hours,
And she forgot all love save only mine !
For the elegant trifles of verse Tennyson had never much
affection. In later life he almost entirely neglected the
sonnet ; while he was guiltless of the composition of
ballade, kyrielle, pantoum, rondeau, sestina, triolet, vil-
lanelle, and all the artificial forms of verse adopted more
for fantasy and pastime than for serious purpose. On the
other hand, he displayed a capacity for reproducing the
" riddling triplets of old time," and he could imitate to a
marvel the Mantuan poet, " lord of language," and " wielder
of the stateliest measure ever moulded by the lips of man."
His love of alliteration never became a craze. It was effec-
tive because it was not strained and laboured, and it was
used just often enough to display the poet's power, just
seldom enough to please the reader's taste. Tennyson, on
the other hand, made a speciality of double-words, and
excelled even his master, Spenser, in the number and rich-
ness and power of his combinations. Freely admitting the
mannerisms and peculiarities of the poet, I still find it
extremely difficult to understand the criticism of Hain
Friswell who in his Men of Letters honestly criticised con-
fined himself to sweeping denunciation of the poet's work.
" An age," he said, " that calls Dickens deep reading, and picks up
the sixpences, will appreciate Alfred Tennyson. Look at his photo-
graph. Deep-browed, but not deep-lined ; bald, but not grey ; with a
dark disappointment and little hopeful feeling on his face ; with hair
unkempt, heaped up in the carriage of his shoulders, and with his
figure covered with a tragic cloak, the Laureate is pourtrayed, gloomily
SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF TENNYSON.
293
peering from two ineffective and not very lustrous eyes, a man of sixty,
looking more like a worn and a more feeling man of fifty. His skin is
sallow, his whole physique not jovial nor red like Shakespeare and
Dickens, but lachrymose and saturnine ; lachrymose ! and yet as re-
gards fame and reward, what a successful man he has been ! At an
age at which Shakespeare was holding horses, he was a pensionary of
the Court. When he was very young the critics killed a far greater
poet, John Keats, so that they might shower down repentant and self-
recalcitrant praise on the successor. When he was but young, an old
worn-out poet — a true prose man, but a poet still — contended for the
Laureateship after years of toil and pen labour, but the young singer
was crowned, and received the Laureate's wreath, the Laureate's fame
and pension — the glory of which wreath was made purer and higher
from that of his predecessor, Wordsworth. Tennyson's access to fame
was sudden. ' Lorsque Tennyson publia ses premiers poemes,' says
M. Taine, ' the critics spoke mockingly of them,' and let us say the
critics were right. ' He was silent,' continues the French author,
'and for ten years no one saw his name in a review, nor even in a
catalogue, his books had burrowed their way alone (' avaient fait leur
chemin tout seuls et sous terre '), and on the first blow Tennyson
passed for the greatest poet of his country and his age.' It was be-
cause the age had been sinking in verve and true poetic feeling that
Tennyson, great as he is in some points, at once rose to the level of
its highest appreciation. It has cost long years for Tennyson to free
himself from the drawing-room style of poetry. Indeed the ' Keep-
sake' and ' Book of Beauty' haunt him for ever, and have effectually
forbidden him to be a great poet. And yet he had something of a
chance that way once. There is the divine afflatus perceptible, but he
has been educated too much, and is too careful and too timid. They
write of him as of one who lies on the sofa all day, and smokes cigars.
Tennyson's popularity, as a poet, grew down from the higher classes.
A few young people of high life began to admire him, and Moxon
sold his books slowly ; then the next stratum of society under these
took ;the fever, and found in the Laureate's poems easy things to
understand ; and then again, and again, a wider but a commoner
circle took up his songs. By his books he made at last much money.
His brothers, Charles and Septimus, 1 both singers, were at one time
rivals, but he soon distanced them and others. It was whispered that
the Queen admired and that Prince Albert read his poems, and then
with the loyal English-speaking people his fame was made. Moxon
died, and the house paid Tennyson all that his books brought, save a
percentage of fifteen per cent. ; so that for some years the poet found
his lines golden. When Macmillan and the Comhill magazines were
1 An error — Frederick is no doubt meant.
294 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
started, their proprietors wanted names to attract, and they paid the
Laureate a guinea a line for some weak kickshaws :
I stood on a tower, in the wet,
When the old year and the new year met,
and a weak story about a City clerk, which were hardly worth print-
ing. The magazines did themselves good as regards advertising, but
much harm to the Laureate. In 1830 the Laureate published poems,
chiefly lyrical, with prose notes full of egotism, which were properly
laughed at, and since then, it is said, Tennyson has abandoned prose
for ever. Yes, Tennyson is a grea tly successf ul, but he is not a g reat
PQ£L. The next age will surely reverse the verdict of this. Re"is
sugar-sweet, pretty-pretty, full of womanly talk and feminine stuff.
Lilian, Dora, Clara, Emmeline 1 — you can count up thirty such pretty
names, but you cannot count any great poem of the Laureate's. No,
he is no great poet. Mr Tennyson has been very discreet, and a very
good Court poet, — for a manufactured article really none better ; but
he is like the lady who did not want to ' look frightful when dead,'
and so put on the paint and the fucus, and he will take no deep hold
of the world. What did sweet Will Shakespeare do ? Did he not
say that he had
gored mine own thoughts ;
Sold cheap what is most dear,
And made myself a motley to the view.
Did he not give us blood and passion with his poetry ? But says
Tennyson: 'Nor can it suit me to forget' that I am admired by all
young ladies, and am a Laureate. Further he adds,
I count it crime
To mourn for any overmuch.
And posterity will count it folly to place a half-hearted and polished
rhymster amongst her shining great ones, who were fellows with
poverty and disrespect in this life, and who learnt in suffering that
they might teach in song."
Tennyson could afford to disregard " criticism " of this
character. His best answer to such censors was "silence
when they rave " ; yet such outbursts taught him that
Sing thou low or loud or sweet,
All at all points thou canst not meet,
Some wiil pass and some will pause.
1 Adeline is no doubt intended.
SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF TENNYSON. 295
What is true at last will tell :
Few at first will place thee well ;
Some too low would have thee shine,
Some too high — no fault of thine —
Hold thine own and work thy will !
These lines from the last volume might almost be the
poet's answer to the critics, who could not "place him
well " at the beginning, who misunderstood him at many-
stages of his life, but who found in the end that the man
who " held his own and worked his will " was the victor
over all.
CHAPTER XVI.
LABOR LIM/E: SUPPRESSED AND REVISED POEMS.
" And here the Singer for his art
Not all in vain may plead,
' The Song that nerves a nation's heart,
Is in itself a deed.'"
— Epilogue.
TENNYSON'S suppressed poems, and his constant revision,
curtailment, and extension of those retained and published,
are a study in themselves. He composed slowly and
laboriously, and as a rule had a verse completely shaped in
his mind before he committed it to paper. Once it was
written out he set about polishing it, finding new places
for words, new words for places, and making change upon
change until not infrequently the original disappeared
entirely, and the whole verse was recast. His favourite
mode of composition was to walk about in his garden,
smoking vigorously, and revolving his ideas until they took
shape. At such times he was unapproachable. When
engaged on a sustained work he would lock himself in his
study, and neither be heard nor seen for days at a time.
His love of revision was almost a mania, and it was one of
the tasks of his life to
Add and alter, many times,
Till all be ripe and rotten.
His caligraphy was quaint and neat, the letters being dis-
tinct, small, and Greek- like, and to the expert revealing the
love of exactness, minuteness, and care of the writer. No
hurried, passionate, excitable man could have written every
word with such evident control and restraint. Byron, who
always composed in a fever, sent illegible scrawls to the
LABOR LIM.E.
297
printer, but Tennyson's manuscripts were models of pictur-
esque neatness and legibility. The interpolations and cor-
rections were not very numerous ; alterations were usually
made at a much later period. Yet even at this stage the
labor limes was sometimes evident, as, for example, in the
manuscript of the cycle of songs The Window. In the
" copy " there is a verse of eight lines scored through which
has never appeared in any published edition, and there are
also autograph corrections of seventeen lines, while six, left
untouched, now differ from the printed form. Whether
this is true art or not need not now be discussed. Tenny-
son, at all events, could claim as an example Virgil, who
Would write ten lines, they say,
At dawn, and lavish all the golden day
To make them wealthier in his readers' eyes.
It is known that the ALneid was once twenty times
longer than Virgil left it, and it was by years of paring,
erasure, and condensation that it was brought to perfection ;
and Virgil spent three whole years, not in composing, but
in revising the five or six hundred verses of his Pastorals.
After this we need not blame Tennyson for spending more
years in improving his poems than in writing them.
But the deviations in text are full of suggestion and
interest, and give us an insight into the poet's methods,
his self-criticism, and his development. No one profited
more by criticism than Tennyson, and if the harsh strictures
of the Quarterly reviewer and Christopher North need any
justification, that justification will best be found in Tenny-
son's own amendments. The poet wrote at one time and
another positive absurdities. I doubt whether more
ridiculous lines could be found than The Skipping Rope, or
more childish lines than Darling Room. Not only were
there incongruities of thought in these early compositions,
but in not a few the rhymes were bad and the metre imper-
fect. Remembering how careful Tennyson was in after
years, and that not a defective rhyme or a false quantity
exists in his poems as we now know them, we can simply
29S TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
view with amazement the stupidities and blunders of which
he was once guilty.
" Regarded as a crop of wild oats," said Spedding, " Mr Tennyson's
first collection of poems, as originally published, cannot but be
accounted a production of unusual promise. The natural faults of
youth — exuberance, prodigality, lightness of heart and head, ingenuity
wasted upon nothing, the want of sustained effort and a determined
course, together with some vanities and fopperies — it may well afford
to be charged with. The untried genius needed to be assured of its
powers by putting them forth— to feel itself alive through all its capa-
cities by living acts of creation. Hence his early efforts are, many of
them, rather exercises than works — gymnastic exercises for the fancy,
the intellect, the imagination, the power of language, and even for the
feelings — valuable, as the games and tasks of schoolboys are valuable,
not for the thing done, but for the practice, strength, and dexterity
acquired in doing it. Here we have a succession of vague melodies,
in which the power of musical expression tries how far it can go ; there
a group of abstract ideas, turned, for the satisfaction of the creative
genius, into shape ready for the sculptor — here a conceit, in which the
fancy admires its own ingenuity ; there a thought, of no great worth or
novelty perhaps, but expressed with curious felicity : — presently we
find ourselves surrounded by a bevy of first loves — Adelines, Madelines,
and Lilians, more than we can remember — phantoms of female grace
in every style, but all belonging to the land of shadows ; then again
come delineations of every state of mind, from that of the mystic who
has nearly reached the highest circle, to the ' second-rate sensitive
mind not in unity with itself ; and of every variety of untried being, on
earth or in water, or on the earth under the water, from the grasshopper
with his ' short youth, sunny and free,' to the Kraken sleeping for ages
in the central depths, among millennial sponges and giant-finned
polypi : whilst at intervals we recognise a genuine touch of common
humanity — a Character, a Circumstance, or a sketch truly drawn from
homeliest nature, which needs, however, no fancy dress to make it
beautiful, but will remain for ever fresh when all that ' airy stream of
lively portraiture' has faded before the increasing daylight.
The superiority of his second collection of poems lay not so much
in the superior workmanship (it contained perhaps fewer that were
equally perfect in their kind), as in the general aim and character.
If some of the blossom was gone, it was amply repaid by the more
certain promise of fruit. Not only was the aim generally larger, the
subjects and interest more substantial, and the endeavour more
sustained, but the original and distinctive character of the man
appeared more plainly. His genius was manifestly shaping a peculiar
LABOR LIM.-E. 299
course for itself, and finding out its proper business ; the moral soul
was beginning more and more to assume its due predominance— not
in the way of formal preaching (the proper vehicle of which is prose) —
but in the shape and colour which his creations unconsciously took, and
the feelings which they were made insensibly to suggest. Consider-
able faults, however, still remained ; a tendency, for example, arising
from the fullness of a mind which had not yet learned to master its
resources freely, to overcrowd his composition with imagery ; a habit
also (caused by that dissatisfaction with himself, which, so long as it
does not depress the spirits too much, a poet ought to cultivate rather
than to repress) of adding, altering, and retouching, till in trying to
improve the form he lost the spirit and freshness of his work, and
blurred the impression ;— to which may be added an over-indulgence
in the luxuries of the senses— a profusion of splendours, harmonies,
perfumes, gorgeous apparel, luscious meats and drinks, and such
' creature comforts,' which rather pall upon the sense, and make the
glories of the outward world a little too obscure and overshadow the
world within. The poems originally published in 1832, are many of
them largely altered, generally with great judgment, and always with a
view to strip off redundances— to make the expression simpler and
clearer, to substitute thought for imagery, and substance for shadow.
The Lady of Shalott, for instance, is stripped of all her finery ; her
pearl garland, her velvet bed, her royal apparel, and her 'blinding
diamond bright,' are all gone ; and certainly, in the simple white robe
which she now wears, her native beauty shows to much greater
advantage. The Miller's Daughter, again, is greatly enriched by the
introduction of the mother of the lover ; and the following beautiful
stanzas (which many people, however, will be ill satisfied to miss) are
displaced, to make room for beauty of a much higher order : —
Remember you the clear moonlight
That whiten'd all the eastern ridge,
When o'er the water, dancing white,
I stepp'd upon the old mill-bridge ?
I heard you whisper from above,
A lute-toned whisper, ' I am here ! '
I murmur'd 'Speak again, my love,
The stream is loud ; I cannot hear ! '
I heard, as I have seem'd to hear
When all the under-air was still,
The low voice of the glad new year
Call to the freshly-flowered hill.
3co TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
I heard, as I have often heard
The nightingale in leafy woods
Call to its mate, when nothing stirr'd
To left or right but falling floods."
The Poems by Tivo Brothers contained nothing so foolish
and, seemingly, so hopeless as some of the now-excluded
verses which were given a place in the Poems chiefly Lyrical.
If such verses were included in any volume again the com-
poser would justly expose himself to the sternest censure
or to killing ridicule ; and because Tennyson afterwards
scaled so great a height there is no need to protest, as has
been often done, against the crushing comments of Lock-
hart and Wilson. Tennyson practically admitted the
justice of their criticisms when he amended all the faults
he could of which they had spoken, and rigidly suppressed
those pieces which he found irremediable.
The discarded poems number no fewer than sixty, with-
out including Tennyson's share in the Poems by Two
Brothers. In some half-dozen instances pieces, suppressed
for many years, have been permitted to reappear. The
Supposed Confessions of a Second-rate sensitive mind (1830),
Nothing will Die (1830), All Things will Die (1830), The
Kraken (1830), We are Free (183c), Mine be tlie strength of
Spirit (1833), Buonaparte (1833), TJie Third of February
(1852), Literary Squabbles, The Bridesmaid, and other
occasional pieces, belong to this category. They may all
be found now in the authorised editions ; yet at one time
or another they had been excluded. Tennyson appeared
to have a particular aversion to republishing, or even
acknowledging, his patriotic poems, probably because they
were written rather in his official capacity as Lauieatethan
from personal choice. Yet in the last of his volumes TJie
Death of CEnone he rescued Riflemen, Form, from the
neglect in which it had long lain, and thus set at rest for
ever the doubt as to whether he or Trench was the writer
of the stirring lines. It would have been still more grati-
fying had a place been found for Hands all Round, which
LABOR LIMjE.
Lady Tennyson had set to music, and for Britons, guard
your own. We would also have willingly substituted either
of these for the Jubilee Ode, but Tennyson could be capri-
cious in his own choice as well as discriminating-.
There was good reason for the omission of The " How "
and the " Why" for the final verse is not good poetry even
if it is good sense.
Why the life goes when the blood is spilt ?
What the life is ? where the soul may lie ?
Why a church is with a steeple built ?
And a house with a chimney-pot ?
Who will riddle me the how and the what?
Who will riddle me the what and the why ?
If the poet had wished to burlesque his own poem he
could not have done better than this. But we must regret
the loss of The Burial of Love, which, if not uniformly
excellent, is a poem of great tenderness and rare diction.
His eyes in eclipse,
Pale cold his lips,
The light of his hopes unfed,
Mute his tongue,
His bow unstrung
With the tears he hath shed,
Backward drooping his graceful head,
Love is dead :
His last arrow is sped ;
He hath not another dart ;
Go— carry him to his dark deathbed ;
Bury him in the cold, cold heart-
Love is dead.
Oh, truest love ! art thou forlorn,
And unrevenged ? thy pleasant wiles
Forgotten, and thine innocent joy ?
Shall hollowhearted apathy,
The cruellest form of perfect scorn,
With languor of most hateful smile,
For ever write,
In the withered light
Of the tearless eye,
302 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
An epitaph that all may spy ?
No ! sooner she herself shall die.
For her the showers shall not fall,
Nor the round sun shine that shineth to ail ;
Her light shall into darkness change ;
For her the green grass shall not spring,
Nor the rivers flow, nor the sweet birds sing,
Till Love have his full revenge.
The stanzas " To ," commencing " Sainted Juliet ! "
contain the pretty image, or conceit, —
Love unreturned is like the fragrant flame
Folding the slaughter of the sacrifice
Offered to gods upon an altar-throne.
A song, beginning —
I' the glooming light
Of middle night
So cold and white,
Worn Sorrow sits by the moaning wave,
is in that vein of melancholy which we find in A Spirit
haunts the year's last hours and similar dirge-like pieces.
The whole poem is powerful, and the deathlessness of
despair is cunningly explained.
Death standeth by ;
She will not die ;
With glazed eye
She looks at her grave : she cannot sleep
Ever alone
She maketh her moan :
She cannot speak : she can only weep,
For she will not hope.
The thick snow falls on her flake by flake,
The dull wave mourns down the slope,
The world will not change and her heart will not leap.
Another song, The LintwJiite and t)ie TJirostlecock, has less
claim to attention. It is archaic and affected in style, and
unless it is a deliberate imitation of the old-fashioned
ballad it has little merit of its own. The third verse is
best.
LABOR LIMsE. 303
Fair years, with brows of royal love,
Thou comest, as a king,
All in the bloomed May.
Thy golden largess fling,
And longer hear us sing ;
Though thou art fleet of wing,
Yet stay.
Alas ! that eyes so full of light
Should be so wandering !
This is followed by a third song —
Every day hath its night :
Every night its morn ;
with a refrain — " Ah ! welaway ! " The piece is scarcely
beyond the level of a drawing-room ballad.
Very different is the workmanship in Hero and Leandcr,
a poem with many bright lines and truly poetic in its
conception.
Oh go not yet, my love,
The night is dark and vast ;
The white moon is hid in her heaven above,
And the waves climb high and fast.
Oh ! kiss me, kiss me once again,
Lest thy kiss should be the last.
Oh kiss me ere we part ;
Grow closer to my heart.
My heart is warmer surely than the bosom of the main.
O joy ! O bliss of blisses !
My heart of hearts art thou.
Come bathe me with thy kisses,
My eyelids and my brow.
Hark how the wild rain hisses,
And the loud sea rolls below.
Thy heart beats through thy rosy limbs,
So gladly doth it stir ;
Thine eye in drops of gladness swims.
I have bathed thee with the pleasant myrrh.
Thy locks are dripping balm ;
Thou shalt not wander hence to-night,
I '11 stay thee with my kisses.
To-night the roaring brine
Will rend thy golden tresses ;
304 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
The ocean with the morrow light
Will be both blue and calm ;
And the billow will embrace thee with a kiss as soft as mine.
No Western odours wander
On the black and moaning sea,
And when thou art dead, Leander,
My soul must follow thee !
Oh go not yet, my love,
Thy voice is sweet and low ;
The deep salt wave breaks in above
Those marble steps below.
The turret-stairs are wet
That lead into the sea.
Leander ! go not yet.
The pleasant stars have set :
Oh ! go not, go not yet,
Or I will follow thee.
A slight piece, The Grasshopper — described as " The
Bayard of the meadow" for no very obvious reason — and
two verses on Love, Pride, and Forgetfulness, call for no
particular notice. Following these is a Chorus, to which
is prefixed a note that it formed part of an unpublished
drama " written very early," a statement which is worth
bearing in mind, as it casts a light upon the poet's later,
and almost hopeless, infatuation for writing dramatic pieces.
Perhaps the predilection was a much earlier one than has
been supposed. The Chorus itself has a fine ring. Take
the second verse —
The day, the diamonded night,
The echo, feeble child of sound,
The heavy thunder's griding might,
The herald lightning's starry bound,
The vocal spring of bursting bloom,
The naked summer's glowing birth,
The troublous autumn's sallow gloom,
The hoarhead winter paving earth
With sheeny white, are full of strange
Astonishment and boundless change.
There are several small poems, some only consisting of
LABOR LIMjE. 305
eight lines, which have no particular value and can easily
be spared. Such are Lost Hope, The Tears of Heaven, To
a Lady Sleeping, and Love and Sorrow — the last-named
yielding the single thought that " They never learned to
love who never knew to weep." But this was scarcely
an original discovery. Tennyson has preserved so few
sonnets that it might be considered he had seldom
attempted that form of composition, in this way present-
ing a contrast to his brother Charles, who preferred the
"poet's humble plot of ground." 1 Yet at one time Alfred
Tennyson was a sonneteer, but his productions are very
uneven. Four sonnets appeared in the 1830 volume which
were afterwards excluded. The second of these, descrip-
tive of night, is the best. What could be better than these
two lines ?
All night through archways of the bridged pearl,
And portals of pure silver, walks the moon.
The poet bade his soul so to " walk on," —
Turn cloud to light, and bitterness to joy,
And dross to gold with glorious alchemy,
Baring thy throne above the world's annoy.
In another sonnet we find a flow of words which after-
wards turned into more familiar music.
The wise, could he behold
Cathedralled caverns of thick-ribbed gold
And branching silvers of the central globe,
Would marvel from so beautiful a sight
How scorn and ruin, pain and hate, could flow.
The fault of these sonnets is that the constant straining
after effect is visible. Strange and uncouth words and
combinations are introduced. We read of " The
wan dark coil of faded suffering," of "sheeny snakes,"
1 Archbishop Trench said in one of his Lectures on Literature and Art,
delivered in 1867, that "Tennyson never seems to have cared much for the
Sonnet ; at least, he has very rarely clothed his own thoughts in this verse."
The Archbishop knew only two of the poet's sonnets, but there were then
fully a dozen in existence.
U
3o6 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
of "woven glooms," of "an honourable eld," of "salient
blood," of " blastborne hail," of " heated eyne," and of
"pallid thunderstricken sighs." Words like "pleached,"
"yronne," "blosmy," " evanisheth," "bloomed," " empery,"
" pleasaunce," show the influence of Shelley upon the poet,
but they are not employed with the ease and spontaneity
necessary to make them acceptable.
A long poem on Love, in spite of many mannerisms, is
so far removed from the commonplaces written on the
subject by a young man that it scarcely deserved its fate.
Thou foldest, like a golden atmosphere,
The very throne of the eternal God,
wrote the poet, and in a still finer strain he continued —
Passing through thee the edicts of his fear
Are mellowed into music, borne abroad
By the loud winds.
One wonders how a youth of twenty, or perhaps younger,
could have written —
To know thee is all wisdom, and old age
Is but to know thee.
As dwellers in lone planets look upon
The mighty disk of their majestic sun
Hollowed in awful chasms of wheeling gloom,
Making their day dim, so we gaze on thee.
The first volume contained two patriotic songs — the
English War-Song, exuberant and vaunting in tone, and
the National Song, which, after sixty years of neglect,
suddenly reappeared in the pastoral drama of The For-
resters. Both pieces manifest the poet's pride in his
country, and his unshaken belief that "there is no land
like England."
Come along ! we alone of the earth are free,
he exclaimed exultingly, and picked out the French as the
most enslaved and contemptible of men. The poems will
be read with more amusement than admiration.
LABOR LIM^E. 307
The poem entitled Dualisms appears to have been after-
wards condensed into the nine fine lines entitled Circum-
stance — the history in brief of two lives' beginning and
ending undivided : " So runs the round of life from hour to
hour." Here is the original thought in its original garb :
Two bees within a crystal flowerbell rocked,
Hum a lovelay to the westwind at noontide.
Both alike, they buzz together,
Both alike, they hum together,
Through and through the flowered heather.
Where in a creeping cove the wave unshocked,
Lays itself calm and wide.
Over a stream two birds of glancing feather
Do woo each other, carolling together,
Both alike they glide together,
Side by side :
Both alike, they sing together,
Arching blue-glossed necks beneath the purple weather.
Two children lovelier than Love adown the lea are singing,
As they gambol, lily garlands ever stringing :
Both in blossomwhite silk are frocked :
Like, unlike, they roam together
Under a summer vault of golden weather ;
Like, unlike, they sing together
Side by side,
Mid May's darling golden locked,
Summer's tanling (sic) diamond eyed.
The poems omitted from the edition of 1833 were
numerically smaller, but the list contains at least one
poem of greater importance than any others. We could
willingly forego the pleasure, if such it be, of reading the
diatribe on Buonaparte, but the long lyrical poem on The
Hesperides, with its ringing musical lines, ought not to have
been consigned to oblivion. A few of its passages are en-
shrined in other poems of a later date, and there are
references which will easily be recognised. The allusion to
Hesper and Phosphor, to the dragon older than the world,
and to the full-faced sunset, are repeated elsewhere. The
conclusion of the song sung by the three daughters of
Hesperus is instinct with music.
3o8 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
Every flower and every fruit the redolent breath
Of this warm sea-wind ripeneth,
Arching the billow in his sleep ;
But the land wind wandereth,
Broken by the highland-steep,
Two streams upon the violet deep :
For the western sun and the western star,
And the low west wind, breathing afar,
The end of day and beginning of night
Make the apple holy and bright ;
Holy and bright, round and full, bright and blest,
Mellowed in a land of rest ;
Watch it warily day and night ;
All good things are in the west.
Till mid noon the cool east light
Is shut out by the tall hillbrow ;
But when the full-faced sunset yellowly
Stays on the flowering arch of the bough,
The luscious fruitage clustereth mellowly,
Golden-kernelled, golden-cored,
Sunset-ripened above- on the tree
The world is wasted with fire and sword,
But the apple of gold hangs over the sea.
The poem serves as a preparation for The Lotos-Eaters.
The writer of the one could only have been the writer of the
other. There are weaknesses in The Hesperides, but only
the hypercritical would have deemed them fatal. Tenny-
son was too severe upon himself when he rejected lines in
which others could scarcely fail to find genuine delight.
Two portraits, Rosalind and Kate, were suppressed,
because they obviously fell short of the standard set in the
series to which Lilian, Margaret, and Eleanore belong.
Yet both are graceful and pretty poems despite their
imperfections. " My falcon Rosalind," however, with
" wild eyes " and " bitter words " is not a very attractive
lady. Angry Kate is preferable.
I know her by her angry air,
Her bright black eyes, her bright black hair,
Her rapid laughters wild and shrill,
As laughters of the woodpecker
LABOR LIMsE.
309
From the bosom of a hill.
'Tis Kate— she sayeth what she will :
For Kate hath an unbridled tongue,
Clear as the twanging of a harp,
Her heart is like a throbbing star.
Kate hath a spirit ever strung
Like a new bow, and bright and sharp
As edges of the scymetar.
Whence shall she take a fitting mate ?
For Kate no common love will feel ;
My woman-soldier, gallant Kate,
As pure and true as blades of steel.
Kate saith " the world is void of might."
Kate saith " the men are gilded flies."
Kate snaps her fingers at my vows ;
Kate will not hear of lovers' sighs.
I would I were an armed knight,
Far famed for well-won enterprise
And wearing on my swarthy brows
The garland of new-wreathed emprise ;
For in a moment I would pierce
The blackest files of clanging fight,
And strongly strike to left and right,
In dreaming of my lady's eyes.
Oh ! Kate loves well the bold and fierce ;
But none are bold enough for Kate,
She cannot find a fitting mate.
Of the two sonnets on the Polish Insurrection, with
which Tennyson had the warmest sympathy, it is difficult
to understand why the one should be taken and the other
left; but there was good reason for not reproducing the
lines on Christopher North, and the " Darling Room "
might most fitly remain unhonoured and unsung. No
More, an echo from Shelley, and the Anacreontics (both
originally published in the Gem of 183 1) are merely trifles ;
but the Fi'agment which appeared in the same annual
might have been redeemed from obscurity.
Where is the Giant of the Sun, which stood
In the midnoon the glory of old Rhodes,
A perfect Idol with profulgent brows
Farsheening down the purple seas to those
3io TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
Who sailed from Mizraim underneath the star
Named of the Dragon — and between whose limbs
Of brassy vastness broadblown Argosies
Drave into haven ? Yet endure unscathed
Of changeful cycles the great Pyramids
Broadbased amid the fleeting sands, and sloped
Into the slumbrous summer noon : but where,
Mysterious Egypt, are thine obelisks
Graven with gorgeous emblems undiscerned ?
Thy placid Sphinxes brooding o'er the Nile ?
Thy shadowing Idols in the solitudes,
Awful Memnonian countenances calm
Looking athwart the burning flats, far off
Seen by the high-necked camel on the verge
Journeying southward ? Where are thy monuments
Piled by the strong and sunborn Anakim
Over their crowned brethren On and Oph ?
Thy Memnon when his peaceful lips are kist
With earliest rays, that from his mother's eyes
Flow over the Arabian bay, no more
Breathes low into the charmed ears of morn
Clear melody flattering the crisped Nile
By columned Thebes. Old Memphis hath gone down :
The Pharaohs are no more : somewhere in death
They sleep with staring eyes and gilded lips,
Wrapped round with spiced cerements in old grots
Rock-hewn and sealed for ever.
The mystical sonnet, " Me my own fate to lasting sorrow
doometh," was a contribution to Friendship 's Offering in
1833, in the pages of which also appeared that sonnet
which seems like a page from the poet's history —
Check every outflash, every ruder sally
Of thought and speech ; speak low and give up wholly
Thy spirit to mild-minded melancholy ;
This is the place. Through yonder poplar valley
Below the blue-green river vvindeth slowly :
But in the middle of the sombre valley
The crisped waters whisper musically,
And all the haunted place is dark and holy.
The nightingale, with long and low preamble,
Warbled from yonder knoll of solemn larches,
And in and out the woodbine's flowery arches
LABOR LIMsE. 311
And all the white-stemmed pinewood slept above —
When in this valley first I told my love.
I have too much reverence for Tennyson to quote a
single line of the poem entitled The Skipping Rope. The
marvel is that he could have written it ; the greater marvel
that he could have ever permitted it to be published. It is
not even clever nonsense ; it is ridiculous without gaiety-
vapid, foolish, dull. The verses were omitted from the
edition of 1842, and should never see the light again. The
Farewell to Macready, a sonnet read by John Foster at a
dinner given to the actor on his retirement, the stanzas
contributed to the Keepsake so late as 1851, " What time I
wasted youthful hours," and the two additional verses to
God Save the Queen, written for the marriage of the Princess
Royal of England with the Crown Prince of Prussia (the
Emperor Frederick) in 1858, call for no attention. Tenny-
son appears to have sent his inferior wares to the periodicals,
and the fact that he deemed them unfit for preservation and
acknowledgment goes far to show that he had scant respect
for such means of publication. Even late in his life he often
acted on a plan which can only be open to this explanation.
At one time it seemed likely that all the patriotic poems
would be lost — even the best of them, Britons, guard your
Own and Hands all Round. They were worth saving if only
to give posterity the opportunity of understanding how
vigorous the Laureate could be in dealing with the events of
the day ; and many would have been well pleased had the
appeals to Englishmen to save their land and unite their
forces not have been allowed to die away in silence.
Another poem dating from early days the world should
not " willingly let die "—the poem on The Mystic, in a strain
with which we afterwards became familiar, but which seems
remarkable in one so young.
Angels have talked with him, and showed him thrones :
Ye knew him not, he was not one of ye,
Ye scorned him with an undiscerning scorn :
Ye could not read the marvel in his eye,
The still serene abstraction : he bath felt
312 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
The vanities of after and before ;
Albeit, his spirit and his secret heart
The stern experiences of converse lives,
The linked woes of many a fiery change
Had purified, and chastened, and made free.
Always there stood before him, night and day,
Of wayward vary-coloured circumstance
The imperishable presences serene,
Colossal, without form, or sense, or sound,
Dim shadows, but unwaning presences
Fourfaced to four corners of the sky : l
And yet again, three shadows, fronting one,
One forward, one respectant, three but one ;
And yet again, again and evermore,
For the two first were not, but only seemed,
One shadow in the midst of a great light,
One reflex from eternity on time,
One mighty countenance of perfect calm,
Awful with most invariable eyes.
For him the silent congregated hours,
Daughters of time, divinely tall, beneath
Severe and youthful brows, with shining eyes
Smiling a godlike smile (the innocent light
Of earliest youth pierced through and through with all
Keen knowledges of low-embowed eld)
Upheld, and ever hold aloft the cloud
Which droops lowhung on either gate of life,
Both birth and death : he in the centre fixt,
Saw far on each side through the grated gates
Most pale and clear and lovely distances.
He often lying broad awake, and yet
Remaining from the body, and apart
In intellect and power and will, 2 hath heard
Time flowing in the middle of the night,
And all things creeping to a day of doom.
How could ye know him ? Ye were yet within
The narrower circle : he had wellnigh reached
The last, which with a region of white flame,
Pure without heat, into a larger air
Upburning, and an ether of black blue,
Investeth and ingirds all other lives.
1 Compare with the Ode on Wellington.
2 These three lines favour the poet's idea of spiritualism.
LABOR LIMJE.
313
Tennyson's process of refining his poems, of incessantly
polishing and improving lines, is one to which we scarcely
like to accord praise ; and yet its effects were so wonder-
fully good that we cannot regret the labour which produced
them. Whether a poet writes in a frenzy, or whether he
toils tediously and mechanically to produce something
worthy, it is the actual result which must be ultimately
regarded, and upon that, and that alone, judgment will
be passed. The end always justifies the means. A pleas-
ant fancy may be destroyed when we see the poet or the
artist or the inventor in his workshop, and watch his many
devices to bring to perfection a poem with ringing lines, a
picture of glowing colour, a novelty to make time or dis-
tance of no account. But, after all, the composer and the
inventor are but workmen, and we must permit them to
labour at their schemes like others who are busy with
hand and brain. Shakespeare was a great refiner, and had
he not engaged in alteration and revision the world would
have lost the richness and beauty of much that he wrote.
There is a common but entirely erroneous idea that poets,
in a fit of inspiration, " dash off" sublime compositions in a
complete condition needing no further amendment or ela-
boration. Yet Wordsworth was not ashamed to tell a young
friend that he often spent three weeks over a few lines, and
Mr Russell Lowell declared that the poet revised his early
work so frequently that he destroyed all its interest as
a juvenile production. 1 If Gray was seven years writing
his Elegy, has not the world the advantage ? Genius is "an
infinite capacity for taking pains," and we need not be sur-
prised when we learn that Tennyson re-wrote Come into tJie
Garden, Maud, over fifty times, or that Locksley Hall cost
him six weeks' continuous labour. Tennyson was a hard
and a slow worker — almost a drudge. He devoted hours
1 When Emerson first visited Wordsworth he told the poet "how much the
few printed extracts had quickened the desire to possess his unpublished poems.
He replied he never was in haste to publish ; partly, because he corrected a
good deal, and every alteration is ungraciously received after printing. —
English Traits.
314 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
and hours to the smallest details. A good example is sup-
plied by the short dedicatory poem To the Queen, every
verse of which has been altered — almost every line — and
one verse, originally published, suppressed. Colonel John
Hay, who possesses the original manuscript, says — "The
first verse is completely transformed by subsequent inter-
lineations and erasures, being erected by magic touches from
a quatrain of commonplace prose, such as you or I or any-
body might write, into the radiant jewel of poetry that it is.
The first two words in the original version are ' Revered
Victoria,' a weak salutation indeed. In another verse we
have a touch of sycophancy as well as of commonplace,
both of which disappear under revision, the first reading —
And if your greatness and the care
That yokes with splendour yield you time
To seek in this, your Laureate's rhyme,
For aught of good that can be there,
and the amended copy reading, very much improved,
And should your greatness and the care
That yokes with empire yield you time
To make demand of modern rhyme,
If aught of ancient worth be there."
When the original manuscript of this poem was sold in June
1889 two verses were found not published in the revised
edition. The first of these (No. 3 in the MS.) ran thus —
Nor should I dare to natter state,
Nor such a lay would you receive
Were I to shape it, who believe
Your nature true as you are great.
The second verse refers to the Crystal Palace, and has lost
much of its significance. The last line, also, is weak.
She brought a vast design to pass
When Europe and the scatter'd ends
Of our fierce world were mixt as friends
And brethren in her halls of glass.
In the first edition, "were mixt as friends" appeared as
" did meet as friends." It was this manuscript which con-
LABOR LIM^E. 315
tained a concluding note to the publisher asking if the
"yous and yours and hers" ought not to be in capitals. 1
The manuscript of The Daisy contained very few altera-
tions, but the stanzas to the Rev. F. D. Maurice had been
much improved, while several verses had been obliterated
from Maud. One of those deleted verses ran —
What use for a single mouth to rage
At the rotten creak of the State machine,
Though it makes friends weep and enemies smile
That here in the face of a watchful age
The sons of a gray-beard-ridden isle,
Should dance in a round of old routine,
While a few great families lead the reels,
And pauper manhood lies in the dirt,
And Fawn and Wealth with gilded heels
Trample service and tried desert.
The verse might not have strengthened the poem, but it
would have been thoroughly in keeping with the tone of
despair and vexation in the opening portions.
How, by re-casting a poem, Tennyson could make it
more animated and beautiful, can be seen in the two fol-
lowing examples. The lyric in The Princess commencing
Thy voice is heard through rolling drums
That beat to battle where he stands,
originally was in this form —
When all among the thundering drums
The soldier in the battle stands,
Thy face across his fancy comes,
And gives the battle to his hands.
Yet another version was —
Lady, let the rolling drums
Beat to battle where thy warrior stands ;
Now thy face across his fancy comes,
And gives the battle to his hands.
Lady, let the trumpets blow,
Clasp thy little babes about thy knee :
Now their warrior father meets the foe,
And strikes him dead for thine and thee.
1 See page 347.
[6 TENNYSON: POET PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
Neither of these versions is worthy to rank beside that
which now appears. Take again the famous song, also
from The Princess, " Home they brought her warrior dead."
The original poem stood thus —
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 peep'd in from open field,
The boy began to leap and prance,
Rode upon his father's lance,
Beat upon his father's shield —
" O hush, my joy, my sorrow."
How infinitely superior was the afterthought. Both the
poet and his readers were gainers by such excisions and
emendations as were made time after time.
Poets lose half the praise they should have got,
Could it be known what they discreetly blot,
said Waller, and Tennyson deserves thanks for ever striving
to give the world his best, even at the risk of drawing too
much attention to his process of workmanship. The first
drafts of a poem may be rough and crude, and it is decidedly
interesting to observe how a mere hint may be caught up
and used with powerful effect, how a colourless detail
assumes shape and hue under the master's hand, how the
nugget of thought is made to gleam as the refiner fits it
into place and prepares it for use. A year or two ago Mr
Aubrey de Vere sent to the State Library of Iowa a Tenny-
sonian manuscript containing sixteen stanzas of the Two
Voices. The chirography was described as "very clear,
correct, and beautiful," and the number of corrections was
small. But " distant " in the line, " The distant battle fiasht
and rung," was originally " swaying," and the words " a
merely selfish " in the line " Nor in a merely selfish cause,"
were " an honourable." A more important alteration had
LABOR UMjE. 317
been made midway between these two lines, for the
stanza —
To search thro' all I felt and saw
The springs of life, the depths of awe,
And reach the law within the law,
was a substitution for, and transformation of,
To search the law within the law,
The soul of what I felt and saw,
The springs of life, the depths of awe.
There had also been a change in the order of the verses,
for the stanza had originally preceded the one it now
follows. Only Tennyson himself could have realised the
necessity of this.
In regard to minor changes, the alteration of single words
and single lines, the excellent work done by the author
of Tennysoniana can scarcely be bettered. It is almost
a tedious task to trace the multitudinous revisions, yet to
the student such labour has its compensations and advan-
tages. Whoso cares to read the original Lady of Shalott
side by side with the present version will have some con-
ception of the extraordinary pains Tennyson must have
taken in choosing and rejecting mere words, in pruning
lines, and in introducing new stanzas. No fewer than
seventy lines are new or changed. The last verse is an
addition, and takes the place of one much inferior. —
They crossed themselves, their stars they blest,
Knight, minstrel, abbot, squire, and guest ;
There lay a parchment on her breast,
That puzzled more than all the rest —
The well-fed wits at Camelot.
" The web was woven curiously,
The charm is broken utterly ;
Draw near and fear not, this is I,
The Lady of Shalott."
On several occasions the poet changed his mind again and
again, and re-inserted poems which he had previously re-
jected, or re-admitted lines in their original form and
318 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
abandoned a later revision. He excluded, for instance, the
second verse of the lyric, " As thro' the land at eve we
went," —
And blessings on the falling out,
That all the more endears,
When we fall out with those we love,
And kiss again with tears !
and after some years suddenly and unexpectedly included
it again. The re-admission secured popular approval. On
the other hand, we should be sorry to find the introduction
to A Dream of Fair Women or The Miller's Daughter
inserted afresh, and we can dispense with those portions of
the Palace of Art which only served to enrage the Quarterly
reviewer.
Although hi Memoriam was the work of so many years
it was only long after its publication that it was brought
to its present condition of verbal excellence. There are
something like forty minor corrections and improvements,
some of them only consisting of a change of tense, or an
altered preposition or conjunction, but nevertheless deemed
essential by the nice sense of the poet. There were also
additions to be made, sections xxxix. and lix. (as now
numbered) not appearing in the original edition. No poem
was too small for the poet's attention, and no poem was
too great to escape his further consideration. He inserted
new lines, erased old ones, chose better words, amended
phrases, and thus did all that skill and art could accom-
plish to make the work of his life flawless and enduring.
How marvellous was the change wrought may be best
understood by comparing the opening lines of CEnone,
published in the 1833 volume, with those which appeared
in the volume of 1842. Originally the first passage was —
There is a dale in Ida, lovelier
Than any in Ionia, beautiful
With emerald slopes of sunny sward, that lean
Above the loud glen river, which hath worn
A path thro' steep-down granite walls below,
Mantled with flowering tendril twine.
And this has sinre been pynanHpH info —
LABOR LIMjE.
3*9
There lies a vale in Ida, lovelier
Than all the valleys of Ionian hills.
The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen,
Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine,
And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand
The lawns and meadow ledges midway down
Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars
The long brook fall'n thro' the cloven ravine
In cataract after cataract to the sea.
Take another instance of scrupulous care in polishing what
was written. In the Morte (T Arthur, 1842, appeared the
two lines —
Then went Sir Bedivere the second time,
Counting the dewy pebbles, fix'd in thought.
In the eighth edition, 1853, the line had been added, and
placed between —
Across the ridge and paced beside the mere,
simply a luxury supplied out of the poet's affluence. But
Tennyson could be no less painstaking in his excisions. It
may have been something of a sacrifice to him to withdraw
those five powerful lines from the Ode on Wellington
which run —
Perchance our greatness will increase ;
Perchance a darkening future yields
Some reverse from worse to worse,
The blood of men in quiet fields,
And sprinkled on the sheaves of peace.
Boswell, quoting Johnson, said that " amendments are
seldom made without some token of a rent," but so skilful
and judicious a workman as Tennyson was not likely thus
to impair the fabric which he wrought His revisions may
best be likened to the addition of ornaments or to the
placing of original beauties in a clearer light. He had
a keen eye for the radiance, and a sensitive ear for the
melody, of words. This is why the poems are magically
bright and mystically musical. Well might Emerson
declare that no one had a finer ear, nor more command
of " the keys of language " than Alfred Tennyson.
CHAPTER XVII.
WAS TENNYSON AN ORIGINAL POET ?
" He thought that nothing new was said, or else
Something so said 'twas nothing — that a truth
Looks freshest in the fashion of the day."
— The Epic.
READERS of the Poems by Two Brothers, published by-
Alfred and Charles Tennyson in 1827, cannot have failed
to observe that the youthful poets were particularly sus-
ceptible to the influences of those ancient and modern
writers whom they admired. They had brooded over the
works of Horace, of Virgil, of Lucretius, of Cicero, and of
Juvenal ; of Byron, of Cowper, of Beattie, of Milton, and
of Gray. Out of the hundred and three poems, no fewer
than sixteen are prefaced with mottoes from Homer,
while scholiast-wise, the two brothers had supplied in an
abundance of footnotes the classical authority for their
statements, and explanations of their allusions. Thus the
faculty of imitation was speedily developed, and the boy-
poets who had admitted in their preface that " it were no
easy task to light upon any novel combination of images,
or to open any vein of sparkling thought untouched
before," were content to adopt styles and methods from
which they had derived pleasure, and which they deemed
worthy of perpetuation. They plucked a few pinions from
the wings of others wherewith they themselves might soar,
and they succeeded in making a very respectable though
in nowise a noteworthy first flight. By examining the
Poems by Two Brothers, we learn with some exactness the
course of reading the writers had pursued, and we discover
under whose spell they had fallen. And this little volume
WAS TENNYSON AN ORIGINAL POET? 321
supplies a clue to the whole of the Laureate's literary-
work. Like Montaigne he could say, " I number not my
borrowings, but I weigh them." It is evidence of his dis-
position to trust to others, to seek suggestion, to gather
the threads of olden thought and weave them into new
and. brighter patterns of truth. Lord Tennyson worked
from well-recognised models. He invented but little ; his
was not the gift of creating but of reproducing. No one
can surpass him in literary workmanship, and the stamp of
his individuality is impressed upon all that he did. He
uttered old thoughts, but the utterance is new. It rings
out clearly, and surprises the ear with its delightful
cadence. Often when he re-introduced an ancient truth
he adorned it with the jewellery of magic words, and
vestured it in sumptuous apparel. But the fact remains
that he never told a new story or constructed an original
plot ; his wisdom was centuries old, and his imagery
would be deemed trite but for its splendour and its
charm.
Shadows haunting fairily
The brain, new stuffed in youth, with triumphs gay
Of old romance,
as Keats sang, have always been the Laureate's stock-in-
trade.
" I assume," wrote Bayard Taylor, " that Tennyson's
studies in literature have been very thorough and general,
for I have been surprised by suggestions of his lines in the
most unexpected places. Every author is familiar with
the insidious way in which old phrases or images, which
have preserved themselves in the mind, but forgotten their
origin, will quietly slip into places where the like of them
is needed." I do not think Tennyson ever wished to be
considered an original thinker. May he not have been
expressing a secret conviction when he wrote The Epic ?
He thought that nothing new was said, or else
Something so said 'twas nothing— that a truth
Looks freshest in the fashion of the day.
X
322 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
The most casual reader will speedily recognise that
Tennyson, as Socrates said of himself, was " but the mid-
wife of men's thoughts." The longest prose letter he is
ever known to have written was penned to defend himself
from a charge of plagiarism. 1 But Tennyson is not a
plagiarist, and those who understand him best will be the
last to consider him such. From first to last he confined
himself to the task of casting truth into new moulds, of
enduing it with new significance, of bringing it into a
purer light. He coins delicious phrases, which pass into
current speech ; he vivifies ancient wisdom, rescues thoughts
in danger of perishing in a dead tongue, and restores in
richer beauty the crumbling fabrics of past philosophy.
This is no unworthy mission. The truth which in its
primitive state existed in a rough but serviceable shell he
presented in a golden casket, and the whole world, attracted,
hastened to accept it. We welcome the gift that Tennyson
offered, not because it was new, but because it enchanted
the sense either with delicate gleams of light or the ripple
of delicious melody. The novelty in literature is, as Pope
defined it, " what oft was thought but ne'er so well
expressed." Judged by this standard we might even
rank Tennyson, had he desired it, among the archetypal
chiefs.
But whoso has the advantage of a complete set of the
Laureate's works will be able, picking up each volume in
turn, to say — " This shows the influence of Spenser, this
of Keats, this of Shelley, this of Byron, this of the classical
Greek and Roman writers." It will be remembered that
Lytton in his furious and afterward-regretted onslaught
on his young rival for the laurel crown, caustically wrote —
Not mine, not mine (O Muse forbid ! ) the boon
Of borrowed notes, the mock-bird's modish tune,
The jingling medley of purloi?ied conceits,
Out-babying Wordsworth, and out-glittering Keats,
Where all the airs of patchwork-pastoral chime
To drowsy ears in Tennysonian rhyme.
1 See ADDendix E.
WAS TENNYSON AN ORIGINAL POET?
3?3
The " purloin'd conceits " were not an imagined fault upon
which to indict the poet. At that time Tennyson had
published two volumes. One of the best-known and most
admired of the poems was Mariana with its mournful
refrain. The motif of that poem (putting aside the single
line in Measure for Measure) may surely be found in
Robert Henryson's From the Testament of Cresseid, be-
ginning—
Thus chiding with her dreary destiny,
Weeping, she woke the night from end to end,
But all in vain : her dole, her careful cry,
Might not remeid, nor yet her mourning mend.
Tennyson was fond of the lyrics of old English writers
in those days. In Skelton's lsabell and To Mistress
Margaret Hussey he appears to have found at least a hint
for his poem-pictures of female beauty. " His early
poems showed a considerable amount of intellectual
struggle," wrote Bayard Taylor. " We find in them traces
of the influence of Milton, Shelley, and Barry Cornwall,
but very rarely of Keats, of whom Tennyson has been
called singularly enough, the lineal poetical child. 1 Indeed
he and Keats have little in common except the sense of
luxury in words, which was born with both, and could not
be outgrown. But the echoes of Shelley, in the poems
afterwards omitted from the volume which Tennyson
published in 1830, are not to be mistaken. Take this
stanza as an example : —
The varied earth, the moving heaven,
The rapid waste of roving sea,
The fountain-pregnant mountains riven
To shapes of wildest anarchy,
By secret fire and midnight storms
That wander round their windy cones,
The subtle life, the countless forms
Of living things, the wondrous tones
1 In 1889 a correspondent, in reply to an inquiry, received an autograph
note from Tennyson — "Keats and Horace were great masters, but not my
masters."
324 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
Of man and beast, are full of strange
Astonishment and boundless change.
The sign-manual of Barry Cornwall is even more distinctly-
set in the following : —
When will the stream be aweary of flowing
Under my eye ?
When will the wind be aweary of blowing
Over the sky ?
When will the clouds be aweary of fleeting ?
When will the heart be aweary of beating,
And nature die ?
Never, oh ! never, nothing will die :
The stream flows,
The wind blows,
The cloud fleets,
The heart beats :
Nothing will die.
The poems from which these stanzas are taken, as well as
The Burial of Love, Hero and Leander, and Elegiacs are
written from the inspiration which dwells in melody and
rhythm : the latter is not a wholly unsuccessful attempt
to add rhyme to the classic elegiac metre : —
Creeping through blossomy rushes and bowers of rose-blowing
bushes,
Down by the poplar tall, rivulets babble and fall.
Barketh the shepherd-dog cheerly ; the grasshopper carolleth clearly ;
Deeply the turtle coos ; shrilly the owlet halloos ;
Winds creep : dews fall chilly : in her first sleep earth breathes stilly :
Over the pools in the burn water-gnats murmur and mourn.
Sadly the far kine loweth : the glimmering water outfloweth :
Twin peaks shadowed with pine slope to the dark hyaline.
Low-throned Hesper is stayed between the two peaks : but the Naiad
Throbbing in wild unrest holds him beneath in her breast.
Here the conception, as a picture, is so obscure that two
different landscapes are suggested. Yet in the fragment
we seem to discover the seed out of which Swinburne's
poetry might have germinated. Where, then, shall we
look for the seed of Tennyson's ? I do not refer
to imitation or even to unconscious influence ; but
there is usually something in each generation of poets —
WAS TENNYSON AN ORIGINAL POET? 325
often some slight, seemingly accidental form of utterance
— which, in the following generation expands into a char-
acteristic quality. Examples of poetry written for pure
delight in sound and movement are rare before Shelley's
day ; and his influence upon Tennyson was very transient.
Before him no poet dared to use sound and metre in the
same manner as the architect and sculptor use form, and
the painter form and colour."
Mr Churton Collins in his Illustrations of Tennyson, a
work of the most scholarly character, finds traces of Shelley
in the Laureate's Isabel, but they are very slight. Thorough
as Mr Collins's work is, and valuable as every student will
find it, there are — as was inevitable — omissions which
another traversing the same path will be sure to remark.
Mr Collins had set himself a great task, and he fulfilled it
with infinite credit to himself. Every page bears evidence
of his rare scholarship and his indefatigable zeal. He has
left but_ little for others to do, especially in tracking
Tennyson along devious ways to the classical source of
his inspiration. But, if anything, Mr Collins has over-
looked the importance of the Laureate's English reading,
and this portion of Mr Collins's works can be supplemented.
I can but hope, however, to assist in completing what
perhaps can never be complete.
Starting with the assumption that Tennyson's mastery
is in assimilative skill, Mr Collins has devoted many pages
to proving that the poet chose Virgil for a guide. But his
English model was Edmund Spenser, and, through him,
his two best disciples, Shelley and Keats. Recent com-
mentators have shown to what an extent the Laureate has
been indebted to Shakespeare for words, allusions, and
thoughts ; and the Rev. George Lester in his volume 1 has
given no fewer than four hundred and fifty Biblical parallels.
Mr Collins, it will be found, entirely ignores this part of
his subject, and he deals inadequately with Spenser and
Shelley.
1 Tennyson and the Bible. By the Rev. George Lester.
326 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
In that section of the Laureate's works known as
Juvenilia, there are several pieces of which Mr Collins has
failed to detect the prototypes, and he has not allowed for
the all-pervading influence of the author of Prometheus
Unbound. That Tennyson had absorbed the beauties, and
some of the mannerisms, of this matchless poem, a hundred
instances, seeming trifles in themselves, could be made to
prove. Here and there only a word or a line, a hint subtly
conveyed in passing, or a casual allusion, has sufficed for
the poet in search of a theme. These minutiae cannot be
considered now, and they only serve, when accumulated,
to signalise a discovery which can be made by a more
direct process.
Tennyson conceived the Kraken " battening upon huge
sea-worms in his sleep," but Shelley had spoken of " the
dull weed some huge sea-worm battens on." The sea-
fairies with their " Sweet faces, rounded arms, and bosoms
prest To little harps of gold," were surely kin to
The Nereids under the green sea
Their white arms lifted o'er their streaming hair,
With garlands pied and starry sea-flower crowns.
The now-suppressed poem, " Oh sad No More ! Oh sweet
No More," seems to have had its central idea drawn from
Shelley's Lament ; while the leaping fountain, in the
Poet's mind,
Like sheet lightning
Ever brightening,
might have been the fountain of Shelley's which
Leaps . . . with an awakening sound,
And there is heard the ever-morning air
Whispering without from tree to tree, and birds
And bees.
Again, " bright as light and clear as wind " is reminiscent
of Shelley's " light and wind within some delicate cloud " ;
while the Laureate's Eleanore is but a beautiful elaboration
of Shelley's stanzas To Constantia.
WAS TENNYSON AN ORIGINAL POET?
3=7
On the other hand, it is worthy of note that a poet and
a poetess of the first rank are indebted to Tennyson for
themes and thoughts from this early volume of his lyrics,
Mr Russell Lowell having closely followed him in The
Sirens, and Mrs Browning having crystallised the ideas of
The Ode to Memory in her sonnet on The Poet. And, in
regard to Mrs Browning, it is fair to ask whether she has
not annexed the idea of Tennyson's Palace of Art in her
House of Clouds.
I would build a cloudy House
For my thoughts to live in,
When for earth too fancy loose
And too low for heaven,
is but a slight variation in thought and treatment of the
Laureate's " sort of allegory." But Tennyson cannot com-
plain, for Mr Collins finds " the framework " of the poem
was fashioned in the Book of Eccleslastes, while his pictures
are copies, not inferior to the originals, but copies notwith-
standing.
One of the most hackneyed of Tennysonian lines is
'Tis only noble to be good,
which of course is old as virtue itself, and has found ex-
pression a thousand times. Mr Collins traces it to
Menander, but surely it is more likely that the poet was
only repeating a line in the Percy Reliques —
And to be noble we'll be good.
As for the " claims of long descent," has not the dramatist
Rowe made one of his characters scorn them in the
words ? —
Were honour to be scann'd by long descent
From ancestors illustrious, I could claim
A lineage of the greatest.
It will always be more or less a matter of speculation to
328 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
whom Tennyson is most indebted for the ideas and the
style of The Lotos-Eaters. Mr Collins finds four operative
influences, the most potent being those of Spenser and
Thomson. To these may be added Shelley ; while Dr
Bayne believes that the poet derived his suggestion from
The Songs of the Fates, repeated by Iphigenie at the end of
the fourth act of Goethe's drama. " The gods," he says,
" are therein described as sitting at golden tables, in
everlasting feast, or striding along from peak to peak
of the mountains, while up through gorge and chasm
streams to them, like clouds of altar-smoke, the breath
of strangled Titans." This is going too far afield, as well
as overstraining the facts. Reference to Thomson and
Spenser is perfectly conclusive ; and as Mr Collins has
quoted from The Castle of Indolence, I will confine my
illustration to a single verse from the Faery Queen — a verse
which is itself a key to Tennyson's lyrical style :
And, more to lull him in his slumber soft,
A trickling stream from high rock tumbling down
And ever drizzling rain upon the loft,
Mixt with the murmuring wind much like the soun [sound]
Of swarming bees did cast him in a swoon,
No other noise, nor people's troublous cries,
As still are wont to annoy the walled town,
Might there be heard : but careless quiet lies
Wrapt in eternal silence far from enemies.
Spenser has been constituted " the poet's poet." Milton
did not disdain to learn from him, and Jonson wrote in his
praise. His influence extends over a wide range of litera-
ture, and his lyrical effluence percolates through the poetry
of the centuries that followed him. He gave words, dignity,
sentiment, and form to the many who were not ashamed to
be called his disciples. To read the poetry of the seven-
teenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, is to read in
varied style what Spenser inspired and what Spenser ex-
emplified. It is an old saying that all began in Homer,
and certainly we can trace back point by point the succes-
WAS TENNYSON AN ORIGINAL POET?
3=9
sion of thought, as the traveller can trace back peak
by peak the extent of a mountain-chain. We need not
take into account the smaller pinnacles ; the towering
heights mark with unbroken regularity the wonder we
would know. Giant intellects uplifted above the level of
everything that lacks genius rise in stately progression, and
we trace with ease the connection of Chaucer and Spenser,
Milton and Shakespeare, Dryden and Wordsworth,
Keats and Shelley, and the heir of all those ages — Tenny-
son. Spenser himself was a great borrower. In his
methods as well as in his life the poet of our time
who has just passed away resembled him. The poet-life
lived apart, the poet-necromancy, with " heavenly alchemy"
transmuting the real into the ideal, the poet-mystery cloth-
ing life with the strange and beauteous robes of wonder and
fancy, the poet-wealth glorifying every theme, illuminating
every text, and stringing pearls of truth and jewels of wit
on old tradition : — are not these the character and attributes
alike of the singer who won the praise of Elizabeth, and of
the singer who won the laurel from Victoria ? Each is a
consummate artist ; each has given us truths in allegory ;
each has enriched the language with majestic words, each
has taught that beauty is holiness and that purity is joy.
Yet neither possesses fundamental ideas, and they devoted
themselves to brightening truths that had grown dull or had
never shone with sufficient lustre. The object of the Faery
Queen was " to fashion a gentleman of noble person in vir-
tuous and gentle discipline."
Abroad in arms, at home in studious kind,
Who seeks with painful toil shall Honour soonest find.
The object of the Idylls of the King was to restore the old
chivalry, to make men faithful and pure-hearted, haters of
wrong —
To break the heathen and uphold the Christ.
Tennyson never invented a plot. The stories he tells are
all old — Dora, Godiva, Lady Clare, Enoch Arden, The
33o TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST
Lover's Tale, Voyage of Maeldune, and the dramas, with
perhaps the exception of the Promise of May. Then there
are familiar love-pieces requiring no definite plot. Such
are the Millers Daughter, Edwin Morris, Locksley Hall, and
Edward Gray. Even in a simple song the poet still pre-
ferred a theme chosen by another. " Home they brought
her warrior dead " is merely a paraphrase of Scott's lines,
but Scott had taken the idea from an Anglo-Saxon frag-
ment. 1 Mr Collins has found a trace of Homer in Love
thou thy Land, but he does not appear to know that this
poem, along with You ask me why thd ill at ease is merely
a speech of James Spedding's cast into rhyme ! In like
manner Tennyson laid the speeches of Arthur Hallam
under contribution, and thus Sir Henry Taylor was led to
remark that he doubted Tennyson's competency to form
opinions on political questions.
The English Idylls are admittedly "faint Homeric
echoes." But this is not all. The echoes come from all
sides. Mr Collins traces them back to a score or more of
the world's great singers, but he does not exhaust the list.
In Ulysses we read —
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use !
As tho' to breathe were life.
The idea is old enough. Massinger wrote in The Maid of
Honour —
Virtue, if not in action, is a vice.
And, when we move not forward, we go backward ;
Nor is this peace, the nurse of drones and cowards,
Our health, but a disease.
In the same poem Tennyson writes — " I am a part of all
that I have met," which is identical with an expression of
Byron's ; and to this poet he is also indebted for the thought
— " Strange good that must arise from out Its deadly op-
posite." Certain lines in Locksley Hall have been the subject
of much contention, and with all diffidence I must confess
1 See The Lay of the Last Minstrel, canto i. part ix.
WAS TENNYSON AN ORIGINAL POET? 331
that I cannot agree with some of the conclusions arrived at.
The germ of the slight story may, perhaps, be found in
Shelley's Stanzas, April 18 14 — a wild, passionate outburst
with a dark suggestion of hopeless love and bitter estrange-
ment. But it is to individual lines that I wish more
particularly to direct attention.
Gold . . . gilds the straitened forehead of the fool,
though common as a thought, is evidently refined by
Tennyson from the observation of Feltham — ■" Gold is the
fool's curtain, which hides all his defects from the world."
The pretty conceit, " Whom to look at was to love," may
have been abstracted from Burns's lines To Nancy, but it
must not be forgotten that Rogers and Scott also used the
phrase. Mr Collins has found a parallel to
Our spirits rush'd together at the touching of the lips
in Guarini's Pastor Fz'do, which I should not be surprised
to hear was unknown to Tennyson. Is it not more likely
that the poet once more had recourse to Shelley, or was
unconsciously reproducing the thought in that charming
line —
When soul meets soul on lovers' lips ?
There is another line in Locksley Hall which merits atten-
tion on account of its suggestiveness. Mr Collins is prob-
ably justified in attributing
I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race,
to Beaumont's Plulaster, although this is not a new and in-
dependent discovery. The line in question, however, seems
to have formed a text for Thackeray's Esmond. In one of
the last chapters the hero says—" I am thinking of retiring
into the plantations, and building myself a wigwam in the
woods, and perhaps, if I want company, suiting myself
with a squaw. ... I may find a place for myself in the
New [World] and found a family there. When you are a
mother yourself, and a great lady, perhaps I shall send
you over from the plantation some day a little barbarian
332 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
that is half Esmond half Mohock, and you will be kind to
him for his father's sake, who was, after all, your kinsman,
and whom you loved a little." Is not Esmond's hopeless
pursuit of his kinswoman Beatrix like the Locksley Hall
lover's hopeless pursuit of Cousin Amy ? Does not failure
arouse in each the same spirit of despair ? — are not their
circumstances of hope and disappointment the same ?
The story of Locksley Hall is surely the story of Esmond
without its details. That fine expression,
A sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things,
is only Tennyson's own by reason of its excellence, for the
idea has faltered through Chaucer, Dante, Boethius, and
half-a-dozen others. Mr Collins can generally be depended
upon to find what is both recondite and remote ; but while
directing his telescope to far-off objects, he not infrequently
forgets that there are objects close at hand worthy of his
attention. Tennyson tells us that he was indebted to a
poet for the truth he sang again. To Dante, therefore,
must be ascribed the honour of supplying the thought
which he re-fashioned and beautified. But Tennyson was
not the first Englishman who had clothed the idea in
English speech, for Henry Brooke in his History of the
Man of Letters had anticipated him with the following
rendering — " I imagine that the recollection of past happi-
ness rather heightens than alleviates the sense of present
distress." There is one other passage which has also
become Tennyson's by merit, but which has experienced
endless permutation —
I held it truth, with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.
The poet alluded to is Goethe," says Mr Collins, "though
there is no reference to any particular passage, but to his
general teaching." For this curious declaration Mr Collins
has the authority of Lord Tennyson himself, who wrote to
WAS TENNYSON AN ORIGINAL POET?
333
a correspondent — " As far as I can recollect, I referred to
Goethe." But let us look at the history of the thought.
It seems to have originated, or at all events to have taken
concrete form, in one of the sermons of St Augustine—
"De vitiis nostris scalam nobis facimus si vitia ipsa cal-
caneus." In the Sanskrit, line 1085 of the Hit'opadesa, the
same idea occurs —
By their own deeds men ascend, and by their own deeds men do fall,
Like the diggers of a well, and like the builders of a wall.
Longfellow acknowledges St Augustine as his authority
for writing —
Of our vices we can frame
A ladder, if we will but tread
Beneath our feet each deed of shame.
Coventry Patmore, in the Angel in the House, has slightly
varied the thought in the words —
One dead joy appears
The platform of some better hope.
Mr Russell Lowell, following the original more closely, has
written —
'Tis sorrow builds the ladder up,
Whose golden rounds are our calamities.
Instances might be multiplied, and we have therefore to
decide whether we can trust to Tennyson's vague " recol-
lection," or whether we should not decide for ourselves
that the poet, as others have done, was recalling the
passage which can be identified and with which he must
have been familiar.
Lord Beaconsfield wisely said in LotJiair, that the
"originality of a subject is in its treatment." Con-
sequently no apology is needed for showing how the
Laureate, like the Stephen of one of his later poems,
" coined into English gold some treasures of classical
song." It is commonly supposed that the idea of The
Princess was suggested in the concluding portion of
Rasselas, but if so (as Mr Collins thinks) Tennyson con-
334 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
structed his masterpiece upon a very poor and frail basis.
It is said that in 1662 the Duchess of Newcastle aired the
idea of a university with " prudes for proctors, dowagers
for dons." But putting this aside as being probably un-
known to the poet, I venture to think that in The Princess
he was catching up some of the wild, plausible doctrines
expounded in the Revolt of Islam, and that his object was
to enforce their impracticability. 1
Woman ! she is a slave, she has become
A thing I weep to speak — the child of scorn,
The outcast of a desolated home
This need not be.
Princess Ida is engaged in a struggle against convention.
" You men have done it : how I hate you all ! " is the cry
of Lilia. And the poet's aim is to teach that
In the long years liker must they grow ;
The man be more of woman, she of man.
Ida was but the Cythna of a later day. And whereas
the Princess asked —
If she be small, slight-natured, miserable,
How shall men grow ? —
Cythna had put the question in another form —
Can men be free if woman be a slave ?
This, indeed, was a text from which both Tennyson and
Shelley preached, and I cannot resist the conclusion that
one poem resolves itself into a sequel of the other. Mr
Collins points out, and my own notes, if reproduced, would
supply confirmation, that throughout The Princess there
are reminiscences of Shelley. The same images are
employed, the same thoughts are introduced and re-
discussed ; only, while Shelley always soars away into
idealism, Tennyson, in his materialistic way, strives after
sober sense.
1 See ante, pages 65, 66.
WAS TENNYSON AN ORIGINAL POET.' 335
One of the most noteworthy of Tennyson's borrowings
— and in this case I had almost ventured to use the
obnoxious word plagiarism — is to be found in connection
with the curious little story related in The Northern Cobbler.
Five years before this poem appeared, Mr Robert Cromp-
ton published some verses in the Irish dialect entitled
" Facing the Inimy." The story was of a cobbler, and
of how he
Hammered and stitched and hammered away,
Whilst, labelled " Potheen,"
A bottle was seen
On his small window-shelf, that was
Painted green.
" That's the Inimy ! " Micky Muldoon would say :
" May its shadow be never
A jot less, for ever ! "
And I noticed the spirit from day to day —
It never grew less, no, never !
The explanatory story which follows is exactly, to a
detail, the story that Tennyson has re-told in Lincolnshire
dialect. The Rev. F. Langbridge has pointed this out
in his Ballads of the Brave, in which volume Crompton's
verses can be read. Tennyson was charged with plagiarism
when he published Columbus. A very strong prima facie
case was made out, but I can fortunately give a simple
explanation. The fact is, Lord Tennyson and Mr Ellis
(the poet from whom the Laureate is assumed to have
stolen his ideas) both went to a common source for
inspiration — the diary of Columbus !
The Charge of the Light Brigade was modelled upon
Drayton's Agincourt ; the chess-playing scene x in Becket
is apparently a close imitation of the chess-playing scene
in Lessing's Nathan the Wise, the same trickery with
moves and in the use of names being employed. Tennyson
wrote of "the herd" —
Wild hearts and feeble wings
That every sophister can lime ;
1 Tennyson himself was an accomplished chess-player.
336 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
and Milton had proclaimed the people —
But a herd confused,
A miscellaneous rabble, who extol
Things vulgar ....
They praise and they admire they know not what,
And know not whom, but as one leads the other.
" The little rift within the lute," is obviously Cowper's
Breach, though small at first, soon opening wide
In rushes folly with a full-moon tide,
and the same poet seems to have supplied more than
the theme of St Simeon Stylites in the lines beginning —
What is all righteousness that men devise ?
What but a sordid bargain for the skies ?
and followed by that picture of the anchorite —
His dwelling a recess in some rude rock,
Book, beads, and maple dish his meagre stock ;
In shirt of hair and weeds of canvas dress'd,
Girt with a bell-rope that the Pope has bless'd ;
Adust with stripes told out for every crime ;
And sore tormented, long before his time.
See the sage hermit, by mankind admir'd,
With all that bigotry adopts inspir'd.
Wearing out life in his religious whim,
Till his religious whimsy wears out him.
Mr Collins allows very little for Wordsworth's influence in
the lyrical portion of The Brook. The key-note seems to
have been struck in the quatrain —
Down to the vale this water steers,
How merrily it goes ;
'Twill murmur on a thousand years,
And flow as now it flows.
Tennyson's lines have a more perceptible ripple, but both
the poets have tried to " match the water's pleasant tune."
Burns did the same, but Wordsworth in one of his sonnets
WAS TENNYSON AN ORIGINAL POET? 337
had given Tennyson another idea when he tracked the
streamlet " dancing down its watcrbreaksT In the Ode on
the death of the Duke of Wellington we find the man
praised who
Gain'd a hundred fights,
Nor ever lost an English gun,
forcibly reminding us of Massinger's hero, whose " fights
and conquests hold one number."
Not once or twice in our rough island-story
The path of duty was the way to glory,
was a crystallising of the Iron Duke's own remark on being
told that the word " glory " never occurred in his despatches.
" If glory had been my object," he said, " the doing my
duty must have been the means." Again, in the same
poem, the Laureate puts words into the lips of the dead
Nelson —
Who is he that cometh, like an honour'd guest,
With banner and with music, with soldier and with priest,
With a nation weeping, and breaking on my rest ?
Tickell, writing of Addison's interment in Westminster
Abbey, had written —
Ne'er to these chambers, where the mighty rest,
Since the foundation came a nobler guest.
Coming to In Memoriam, I again find that all the coin-
cidences have not been noted.
Tears of the widower when he sees
A late-lost form which sleep reveals,
And moves his doubtful arms and feels
His place is empty ....
irresistibly reminds one of Milton's pathetic lines—
Methought I saw my late espoused wife
But oh ! as to embrace me she inclined,
I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night.
Campbell, in a well-worn phrase, has told us that distance
Y
338 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
lends enchantment to the view ; Tennyson informs us that
"the past will always win A glory from its being far."
Thackeray twice over wrote that 'twas better to have loved
and lost than never to have loved at all ; the second of the
references is usually overlooked — "To love and win is
the best thing, to love and lose is the next best" (Pen-
dennis, vol. ii. cap. ii.). The beautiful stanzas commencing
" Calm is the morn without a sound " is Wordsworth's
sonnet with exquisite variation —
Calm is all nature as a resting wheel.
Now, in this blank of things, a harmony,
Home-felt, and home-created, comes to heal
That grief for which the senses still supply
Fresh food ; for only then, when memory
Is hush'd, am I at rest.
Next come the well-known lines —
There lives more truth in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.
The most likely parallel is from Bailey's Festus —
Who never doubted, never half believed,
Where doubt, there truth is— 'tis her shadow. 1
Lastly, there is the section dealing with the mutability of
the things of earth :
There rolls the deep where grew the tree.
O earth, what changes hast thou seen !
There where the long street roars, hath been
The stillness of the central sea.
Tennyson might have come fresh from the reading of
Beattie's lines —
Art, empire, earth itself to change are doomed ;
Earthquakes have raised to heaven the humble vale,
And gulfs the mountain's mighty mass entombed,
And where the Atlantic rolls wide continents have bloomed.
1 Tennyson was a great admirer of Festus. He said he dare not trust him-
self to express all that he thought of it.
WAS TENNYSON AN ORIGINAL POET?
339
Two parallels with Emerson's writings are rather striking.
Thirty years before Tennyson had stored a mighty truth in
those compact lines —
Little flower ... if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is, —
the transcendental philosopher had written —
Through a thousand voices
Spoke the universal dame :
Who telleth one of my meanings,
Is master of all I am.
The Laureate has told us
We are ancients of the earth,
And in the morning of the times.
Emerson in his essay on Politics had quite as strikingly
expressed a like opinion — " We think our civilisation near
its meridian, but we are yet only at the cock-crowing and
the morning star."
There is danger in pushing these conclusions too far, and
were it not that Tennyson's method of working was well
understood, there would doubtless be more hesitation in
proclaiming the discovery of a " parallel " when probably
there is only a mere coincidence. " Are not human eyes
all over the world looking at the same objects, and must
there not consequently be coincidences of thought and
impressions and expressions ? " The shells upon the shore
of the ocean, Knowledge, are free to all who will gather
them ; it is only the pearls of the great deep which the
mighty can find, and which to them must belong when
found. Tennyson's mission has been to seize upon good
ideas conceived in other times, and impart to them a modern
aspect. He recommends to our understanding what other-
wise we might ignore, and presents in favourable form what
in its original state we might have been loth to receive. In
his hands ancient dogmas appear as shining truths, he gives
splendour to uncouthness, and makes melodious the harsh
34o TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
utterance of bygone ages. His spell is irresistible. Passed
through the Tennysonian sieve the coarse ore of literature is
refined, the dull hue disappears, and touched by his fingers
sparkles with animating fire. Surely that service is not
small or to be contemned which rescues treasures from the
dust in which they are buried, and skilfully fashions them
into images of rarest beauty. 1
1 While this work was passing through the press Mr Harold Littledale's
Essays on Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King was published. I am disposed
to think that the chief value of the essays will be found in the numerous
parallelisms which Mr Littledale has discovered in the Idylls. He shows
that the poet was specially indebted to Spenser, Milton, Wordsworth, and
Shelley. ( Vide pp. 184-191, 235, 297, &c.) See also Literary Coincidences,
by W. A. Clouston (p. 93) ; Alfred Tennyson, by Walter E. Wace (cap. xiv.) ;
and Tennysoniana, by R. H. Shepherd (cap. xi.). I ought to add that my
own chapter does not traverse the ground aLready covered in these volumes.
CHAPTER XVIII.
A NOTE ON TENNYSONIAN VOLUMES AND MANUSCRIPTS.
" Sallow scraps of manuscript,
Dating many a year ago."
— ToE. Fitzgerald.
ALTHOUGH Lord Tennyson spoke slightingly of the " love
of letters, overdone," and seemed to regard bibliography as
an abused art, he had no reason to regret the interest dis-
played in the various editions of his works. Enthusiastic
collectors have had to pay very dearly for their hobby.
The value of the first editions of Tennyson's poems has
been constantly rising, and what would seem to the man of
the world an extravagant price has been willingly paid to
procure those rare slim green volumes which were issued
before " popular " editions were contemplated. Possessors
of Poems by Two Brothers, Poems chicfiy Lyrical, in two
volumes, In Memoriam (noted for its dark binding), and of
copies of those earliest productions, Timbuctoo and The
Lovers Tale, must deem themselves extremely fortunate.
These are the prizes. Not long ago a collection of Tenny-
soniana was offered for 12 guineas, this being almost at the
rate of a guinea a page. There were the original proof-
sheets of The Window; or, the Loves of the Wrens, with
numerous corrections and addenda in the Laureate's own
writing. It was doubtless the latter circumstance that
made the 1 3 pages so precious, for the poet's autograph was
seldom seen, and even the contents of his waste-paper
basket were not permitted to pass into vulgar hands.
An edition of Tennyson's poems for 1833 once fetched
£26, 10s. ; the Poems chiefly Lyrical, in two volumes, 1S42,
342 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
£64 j 1 and the Poems by Two Brothers, £21, 10s. Some
years ago Charles Tennyson's own copy of the last-named,
with pencilled notes as to the authorship of each poem, was
offered to a gentleman in Birmingham for £7. It would be
interesting to know into whose hands this valuable copy
has fallen. In 1887, when the library of the late Master of
Trinity (Dr Thompson) was sold, some editions of Tenny-
son found their way into new quarters, among those dis-
persed being a copy of The Lovers Tale, purchased for £64
by Mr Quaritch for a well-known poet ; and there were
copies of the volumes for 1827, 1830, 1833, 1842, all of
which obtained high prices. Curious to relate, the copy of
The Lover's Tale (a booklet of 60 pages) was bound at the
end of another Tennysonian volume, and had escaped the
notice of the cataloguer. Who among Tennyson collectors,
however, possesses a copy of the privately-printed edition
of In Memoriam (1849)? This is probably the rarest of
all editions of the Laureate's works, except Enid and Nimuc;
or, The True and the False, which was printed in 1857, but
never actually published.
Now that " complete " editions of Tennyson's works may
be expected — that is, as complete as the poet would allow
them to be — it may be interesting to place on record a few
facts relating to previous issues. The Poems by Two
Brothers, containing 228 pages, saw the light in 1827, and
the volume was never republished, nor was the authorship
formally admitted. It was my privilege in 1890 to be the
first to describe the original manuscript of these poems, con-
sisting of about 90 pages covered closely with the " screwy "
Greek-like caligraphy characteristic of the Tennysons.
Jackson of Louth paid £20 for the manuscript : after the
poet's death it was sold for £480. A full account of this
manuscript is supplied in In Tennyson Land, and need
not be repeated here. Timbuctoo, the Cambridge prize
poem, was published in 1829, and was declared to be
1 These prices are altogether exceptional, and must not be taken as the
market value. See page 346.
A NOTE ON TENNYSONIAN VOLUMES AND MSS.
343
" By A. Tennyson, of Trinity College," while two lines from
Chapman prefaced it —
" Deep in that lion-haunted inland lies
A mystic city, goal of high emprise."
Poems chiefly Lyrical, a thin volume of 154 pages, in a
buff cover, was issued from the press by Effingham Wilson,
in 1830. It was almost unheeded, save by the poet's
friends, but three years later the re-issue of the poems gave
the Quarterly reviewer his chance. In after years the poems
were rigidly revised ; others were suppressed, and of these
a few were not permitted to be re-inserted until Messrs
Macmillan published an eight-volume edition of the poet's
works in 18S7. The "afterthought" so often exercised by
the Laureate in regard to the publication of doubtful pieces
was represented by the inclusion of the Leonine Elegiacs,
The Confessions of a second-rate sensitive mind, Rosa-
lind, and a few others which have only intermittently
appeared. The series of " portraits " in the first volume
is still incomplete by reason of the omission of Kate —
Kate who is known by her " angry air," who " sayeth what
she will " — the " woman-soldier, gallant Kate, As pure and
true as blades of steel." The " note " originally affixed to
Rosalind has disappeared too — thirty-three lines that are
decidedly worth reading, though " manifestly improper " as
part of the text.
Anyone who has examined the several editions of Tenny-
son cannot but have been struck with the extremely modest
way in which they made their appearance. The set of these
green-covered volumes looks so unobtrusive that it stands
revealed that no art of the printer or binder was employed
to make its poetic merit known. " Poems, by Alfred
Tennyson, in two volumes," runs the title of the famous
edition issued by Edward Moxon in 1842. Turning another
leaf we simply find the announcement, " Poems (published
1830)." It was this edition of 1842 which secured Tenny-
son's recognition as a poet. Nevertheless it contained
some weak verses, notably The Skipping Rope, happily
344 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
now suppressed. At the end of Volume I. is the following
note: — "The second division of this volume was published
in the winter of 1832. Some of the poems have been
considerably altered, others have been added, which, with
one exception, were written in 1833." In 1848 the first one-
volume edition of the poems was published, and in the same
year The Princess, published in 1847, passed through a
second edition. This gave the Laureate an opportunity of
dedicating that noble work to Mr Henry Lushington, and
of making a few emendations in the text.
The style in which Moxon published the successive
works of Tennyson was followed by the firms to whom the
poet afterwards transferred his publications. Mr Moxon,
we have it on the authority of Miss Mitford, thought
Tennyson " a great torment, keeping proofs a fortnight to
alter, and then sending for revises." Nevertheless, he de-
clared that Tennyson was the only poet by whom he had
never lost money. It was he who printed The Lover's
Tale in 1833 ; he saw the Poems, published in 1842,
pass through eight editions ; and he published in turn
The Princess, in Memoriam, Maud, and The Idylls of
the King. Then, after Sir Ivor Bertie Guest (now Lord
Wimborne) had printed The Window at his private press,
Strahan and Co. became Tennyson's publishers, and his
connection with them is chiefly notable on account of
their assistance in bringing to justice the American
"pirates." In 1872 Messrs Strahan published a handsome
library edition of the poet's works, bound in green, and
printed on superb paper in large type. In the first of the
volumes it is stated that the edition would be complete " in
five volumes," but on the title page of the fifth is the
correction, " in six volumes." Six volumes there are,
accordingly, although no doubt only five were originally in
contemplation. Such instances of printers' miscalculations
are exceedingly rare, although it is probable that in this
case the poet's " afterthought " may have been responsible
for the error. Tennyson's connection with this firm lasted
A NO TE ON TENNYSONIAN VOL UMES AND MSS. 345
until 1875. He had published very little in the meantime,
being occupied with his first drama, Queen Mary. This
was published by Henry S. King & Co., whose business
was afterwards taken over by Kegan Paul & Co. To the
last-named firm is due the praise of bringing the Laureate's
works within reach of the people. They published an
" Author's Edition," in six volumes ; an " Imperial Library
Edition," in seven volumes ; a " Cabinet Edition," in twelve
volumes ; and a " Miniature Edition," pocket size, in
thirteen volumes. In 1878, when the shilling volumes
made their appearance, the issue of cheap books had not
begun, and the fact that Messrs Paul felt justified in
venturing to lead the way with the works of Tennyson, is a
significant commentary on the growing demand at that
time for his poems. It is reported that at this time he was
receiving £4500 a year from the sale of his books. Later
on Lord Tennyson again changed his publishing house, and
Messrs Macmillan acquired the privilege of taking charge
of the Laureate's business arrangements. As we have seen,
Jackson of Louth published the Poems by Two Brothers;
Timbuctoo was printed in the Cambridge Chronicle, and
thereafter never saw the light in any authorised form ;
Effingham Wilson published the first edition of the Poems,
chiefly Lyrical, and various magazines, periodicals, and
newspapers have had the advantage of first printing some
of the shorter pieces, half of which, however, have never
been acknowledged.
Undoubtedly the most interesting, and at the same time
the most audacious, edition of Tennyson is that which was
published by Messrs Harper of New York, in 1878. It is
actually, as opposed to nominally, " complete." The various
English editions are complete only in a Tennysonian sense
— perfect as a garden may be when the weeds have been
extirpated and the trees pruned. Messrs Harper have left
the flowers and the weeds, and have introduced some
worthless additions in the way of illustrations. It is an
unfair book, although it indirectly testifies to the interest
346 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
that is taken in the whole of the Laureate's disjecta membra.
It contains several portraits of the poet, who, in the frontis-
piece, is represented surrounded by the characters in the
Idylls. All his known productions, up to the date of the
publication of the book, are given, the number (including
the Poems by Two Brothers) being 315. Deducting
the latter, we have 203 pieces, as compared with about
1 50 poems printed in the authorised editions of that date.
Among the more notable pieces printed in the American
edition are the following, only with the titles of which
English readers are, at the most, familiar: — The Ringlet ;
two versions of songs now published in Tlie Princess
— " Lady, let the rolling drums " " and Home they brought
him slain with spears" — Timbuctoo complete, and sixty-
two other pieces, to which is prefixed the note that they
are printed exclusively in this work. The poems are not
all revised, and in the song, We are free, occurs the line,
" Leaning upon the winged sea." The adjective now reads
"ridged." The sour verdict of Hain Friswell, " It was
because the age had been sinking in verve and true poetic
feeling that Tennyson rose to the level of its highest
appreciation," has never been regarded as a just one. The
admirers of the Laureate have increased steadily year by
year, and few of them escape the infection for obtaining
rare editions.
For the convenience of collectors I may briefly summarise
the rare volumes of Tennyson's with the highest prices they
have fetched : — Poems by Two Brothers, 1827, ^"28-^32 ;
Timbuctoo, 1829, £6, 10s.; Poems, diiefly Lyrical, £^ ; The
Lovers Tale, 1833, £<±i; Poems, 1833, £16 ', Poems,
1842,^9, ios.; Poems, 1843 (2nd edition), £4, 12s. 6d.; and
so on down to £1, ios. or a little less; The Princess,
£6, ios.; In Memoriam (anonymous), £% ; Poems, 1857,
illustrated by Mulready and others, £5 ; Ode on the Death
of the Duke of Wellington (id. leaflet), £2, 5s.; Poems,
1862, £4, 4s.; The Window, £16; The Victim, £$2 ; the
two latter having been privately printed.
A NOTE ON TENNYSONIAN VOLUMES AND MSS. 347
Tennysonian manuscripts, as might be expected, have
fetched very high prices. His autograph alone has been
valued at £2, though Sir Henry Taylor records 1 in his
autobiography that the Laureate was " very violent with
the girls on the subject of the rage for autographs. He
said he believed every crime and every vice in the world
were connected with the passion for autographs and anec-
dotes and records." Late in his life, to his intense disgust,
the manuscript of a number of his poems was thrown upon
the market, and there was very keen competition to obtain
possession of it. In June 1889 half-a-dozen of these manu-
scripts were offered for sale. The first was that of the
Dedication to the Queen, and it was found that the MS.
varied in many lines and words from the published version.
One entire verse had not been printed, and a second had
ceased to appear in later editions. To add to the interest
of the MS. there was a footnote at the end of the page
addressed to Mr Moxon the publisher — " I send you the
three last stanzas of the Dedication. Ought not all the
yous and the yours and the hers to be in capitals? — A.
TENNYSON. Send the revises." This MS. was purchased
for £30. The MS. of that favourite poem, The Daisy,
occupying four and a half pages octavo, and containing
several lines which were omitted in the published version,
fetched £24, 10s.; while the copy of The Letters was valued
at £18, 1 os. The Lines to the Rev. F. D. Maurice, covering
two pages, and differing from the published poem in several
small details, went for £23. The MS. of The Brook, as
might be expected, was deemed worthy of a higher price,
and it was eventually secured for £5 1. Lastly came Maud.
The MS. was incomplete, but by way of some compensa-
tion it contained a few unpublished verses. The price paid
for this literary treasure was no less than £m. The auto-
graph MSS. had previously been valued at £200; they
actually realised £248. If these veritable scraps are so
precious, what would be the value of the autograph copy,
1 See page 4.
348 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
say, of In Memoriam or The Idylls of the King ? In regard
to the sale just mentioned, it is worthy of note that the
Hon. Hallam Tennyson wrote to the Times as follows : —
" Sir, — With reference to the recent sale of my father's
manuscripts, he desires me to express his surprise and
indignation that unpublished verses of his have been made
public, and the manuscripts sold without his leave. Some
of the corrections, moreover, appear not to be his." This
protest did not, however, prevent a further sale taking
place in the following year, when most of the songs of The
Princess were purchased for 20 guineas. Soon afterwards
a brief letter written by Tennyson was sold for £7, ys.
Tennyson wrote very little prose which has been made
public, and his communications on plagiarism and sugges-
tion alone can be deemed important. In regard to his
poems, however, there seems no likelihood at present of his
fears being realised that the printed leaves
May bind a book, may line a box,
May serve to curl a maiden's locks.
APPENDIX A.
LOCALISING THE LAUREATE'S POEMS.
/\1
It is far from my wish to raise controversy in this volume, but inas-
much as the Laureate's letter, as well as my own motives, have been
greatly misunderstood, and as whatever Tennyson wrote must be
regarded as having some historical value, I venture to reproduce his
communication to me on the question of " localising." Lord Tenny-
son (through the medium of his son) informed me that "however
pleasant my volume [" In Tennyson Land "] might be, he thought
I had ridden my hobby to death. The Ode to Memory and In
Memoriam alone of his poems contain any reference to Somersby.
All the poems quoted . . . have nothing of Lincolnshire about them
and are purely imaginative inventions." To which I venture to reply :
No poet can be accepted as a judge of his own characteristics. The
cumulative evidence against the Laureate's assertion is convincing,
and it is remarkable that if the Lincolnshire element in the poems is
an " imaginative invention," the poet waited until he was eighty years
old before declaring it. Forty years previously Charles Kingsley had
stated that the poems showed the colour and tone of Lincolnshire, and
Tennyson did not correct him. The Rev. Drummond Rawnsley,
Tennyson's particular friend, and himself a native of the same county,
wrote seventeen years before — "As a Lincolnshire man, and long
familiar with the district in which Mr Tennyson was born, I have
often been struck with the many illustrations of our county's scenery
and character to be found in his poems. What Wordsworth has
done for the English Lakes and Scott for the Highlands, our poet has
done for the homelier scenes of his boyhood and early manhood in
Mid-Lincolnshire. They live for us in his pages, depicted with all
the truth and accuracy of a photograph." Dr Peter Bayne, in
Lessons from the Masters says — " The poems of the first volume
bear curiously vivid marks of the Lincolnshire birth-land of the
poet. . . . We seem as we read these early verses of Tennyson's to
be actually transported to the scenes. ... He trusts nothing to
random strokes. ... He sees the landscape, and details its features.
He localises the moated grange for us by minute specific touches."
The Rev. J. W. Dawson asserts that "Wordsworth never drew a
55o TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
picture of mountain solitude or lake scenery more simply' true than
the Lincolnshire poet gives of the great open spaces of the Fen
country. His scenery is specially characteristic of Lincolnshire."
So said Edmund Clarence Stedman, and many others ; in short, there
seems to have been a conspiracy upon the part of those who knew
Lincolnshire to " localise " the Laureate's poems. I fail to see that
the practice is pernicious. Tennyson's letter was honest : he was un-
conscious to what a great extent Lincolnshire entered into his poetry ,
But what can be said of the few so-called students of his works who
accepted his denial and also declared that they could find no such
evidence in support of my contention ? Happily their number was
extremely small ; and I have to thank the many who readily and spon-
taneously came to my aid and justified me in my work. We must
have heroes and be allowed to worship them, and there are few modes
more disinterested and less obnoxious than that of making their homes
classic shrines. If authors and poets consciously or unconsciously
describe the scenery of a locality, or if the spirit of a place is infused
into their work and recognisable, what harm can come of identifica-
tion ? Scenes are the more inspiring for their associations, and there
can be no more elevating pursuit than tracing their influence upon
gifted minds. Nor can it be urged that we detract from a poet's
merits by believing in his fidelity to nature and his ability to pourtray
its beauty. We do not ask or expect the poet to be hard and
restrained, and we do not deny him imagination ; we only search for
truth in fairest and purest guise, and discovery wrongs no one.
Great artists in words and colours have bequeathed to us real
pictures of visible things— Shakespeare, Milton, Scott, Thomson,
Keats, Shelley, Byron, Wordsworth, and Tennyson, and the legacy to
be treasured must be fully understood.
APPENDIX B.
TENNYSON'S LETTER ON PLAGIARISM AND SUGGESTION.
The following important letter on Plagiarism is referred to in the
chapter on Tennyson's originality. It was addressed to Mr S. E.
Dawson, author of A Study of" The Princess? published at Montreal.
ALD WORTH, HASLEMERE, SURREY, Nov. 21, 1882.
Dear Sir,— I thank you for your able and thoughtful essay on The
Princess. You have seen, among other things, that if women ever
were to play such freaks the tragic and the burlesque might go hand
in hand. I may tell you that the songs were not an afterthought.
APPENDIX B. 35 1
Before the first edition came out, I deliberated with myself whether I
should put songs in between the separate divisions of the poem ;
again, I thought, the poem will explain itself ; but the public did not
see that the child, as you say, was the heroine of the piece, and at last
I conquered my laziness and inserted them. You would be still more
certain that the child was the true heroine, if, instead of the first song
as it now stands,
As thro' the land at eve we went,
I had printed the first song which I wrote, The Losing of the Child.
The child is sitting on the bank of the river and playing with flowers
— a flood comes down — a dam has been broken through — the child is
borne down by the flood— the whole village distracted — after a time
the flood has subsided — the child is thrown safe and sound again
upon the bank, and all the women are in raptures. I quite forget the
words of the ballad, but I think I may have it somewhere.
Your explanatory notes are very much to the purpose, and I do not
object to your finding parallelisms. They must always recur. A man
(a Chinese scholar) some time ago wrote to me saying that in an un-
known, untranslated Chinese poem there were two whole lines of mine
almost word for word. Why not ? Are not human eyes all over the
world looking at the same objects, and must there not consequently
be coincidences of thought and impressions and expressions ? It is
scarcely possible for anyone to say or write anything in this late time
of the world to which in the rest of the literature of the world a
parallel could not somewhere be found. But when you say that this
passage or that was suggested by Wordsworth or Shelley or another,
I demur, and, more, I wholly disagree. There was a period in my
life when, as an artist— Turner, for instance— takes rough sketches of
language, &c, in order to work them eventually into some great
picture, so I was in the habit of chronicling, in four or five words or
more, whatever might strike me as picturesque in nature. I never
put these down, and many and many a line has gone away on the
north wind, but some remain, e.g. : —
A full sea glazed with muffled moonlight.
Suggestion : The sea one night at Torquay, when Torquay was the
most iovely sea village in England, though now a smoky town j the
sky was covered with thin vapour, and the moon was behind it.
A great black cloud
Drags inward from the deep.
Suggestion : A coming storm seen from the top of Snowdon.
352 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
In the Idylls of the King'.—
With all
Its stormy crests that smoke against the skies.
Suggestion : A storm which came upon us in the middle of the
North Sea.
As the water-lily starts and slides.
Suggestion : Water-lilies in my own pond, seen in a gusty day with
my own eyes. They did start and slide in the sudden puffs of wind
till caught and staved by the tether of their own stalks — quite as true
as Wordsworth's simile, and more in detail.
A wild wind shook —
Follow, follow, thou shalt win.
Suggestion : I was walking in the New Forest. A wind did arise
and —
Shake the songs, the whispers, and the shrieks
Of the wild wood together.
The wind, I believe, was a west wind, but because I wished the
Prince to go south, I turned the wind to the south, and naturally the
wind said "Follow." I believe the resemblance which you note is just
a chance one. Shelley's lines are not familiar to me, though, of course,
if they occur in the Prometheus I must have read them.
I could multiply instances, but I will not bore you ; and far indeed
am I from asserting that books, as well as nature, are not, and ought
not to be, suggestive to the poet. I am sure that I myself and many
others find a peculiar charm in those passages of such great masters
as Virgil or Milton where they adopt the creation of a bygone poet,
and reclothe it, more or less, according to their own fancy.
But there is, I fear, a prosaic set growing up among us, editors of
booklets, bookworms, index hunters, or men of great memories and no
imagination — who impute themselves to the poet, and so believe that
he, too, has no imagination, but is for ever poking his nose between
the pages of some old volume in order to see what he can appropriate.
They will not allow one to say " Ring the bells," without finding that
we have taken it from Sir P. Sydney, or even to use such a simple
expression as the ocean " roars " without finding out the precise verse
in Homer or Horace from which we have plagiarised it. (Fact !)
I have known an old fishwife who had lost two sons at sea clench
her fist at the advancing tide on a stormy day and cry out, " Ay, roar ;
do ! How I hates to see thee show thy white teeth \" Now, if I had
adopted her exclamation, and put it into the mouth of some old woman
APPENDIX B. 353
in one of my poems, I daresay the critic would have thought it original
enough, but would most likely have advised me to go to nature for my
old woman, and not to my imagination ; and, indeed, it is a strong
figure. Here is another little anecdote about suggestion. When I
was about twenty or twenty-one I went on a tour to the Pyrenees.
Lying among these mountains before a waterfall that comes down
iooo feet or 1200 feet, I sketched it (according to my custom then) in
these words : —
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn.
When I printed this a critic informed me that "lawn" was the ma-
terial used in theatres to imitate a waterfall, and graciously added,
" Mr T. should not go to the boards of a theatre, but to nature herself,
for his suggestions."
And I had gone to nature herself. I think it is a moot point
whether, if I had known how that effect was produced on the stage, I
should have ventured to publish the line.— I beg you to believe me, &c,
A. Tennyson.
P.S.— By the by, you are wrong about " the tremulous isles of light " ;
they are isles of light, spots of sunshine coming through the eaves, and
seeming to slide from one to the other, as the procession of girls
"move under the shade." And surely the "beard-blown goat" in-
volves a sense of the wind blowing the beard on the height of the
ruined pillar
A TENNYSONIAN CHRONOLOGY.
PRINCIPAL FACTS IN, AND CONNECTED WITH, THE LIFE
OF THE POET LAUREATE.
1778. George Clayton Tennyson born at Market Rasen (December
10).
1 78 1. Elizabeth Fytche born.
1805. Rev. G. C. Tennyson married at Louth to Elizabeth Fytche
(August 6).
1806. George Tennyson born (died in infancy).
1807. Frederick Tennyson born.
1808. Charles Tennyson (afterwards known as Rev. Charles Tenny-
son-Turner) born (July 4).
1809. Alfred Tennyson born (August 6).
1810. Mary Tennyson born (died 1884).
181 1. Arthur Hallam born (February 1).
Emily (or Emilia) Tennyson born (died 1887).
18 13. Edward Tennyson born (died 1890).
1814. Arthur Tennyson born.
181 5. Alfred Tennyson goes to Clark's School.
Septimus Tennyson born (died 1866).
1 8 16. Alfred Tennyson enters Louth Grammar School.
Matilda Tennyson born.
1817. Cecilia Tennyson born.
1 819. Horatio Tennyson born.
1820. Alfred Tennyson leaves Louth Grammar School.
1826-7. Poems by Two Brothers published at Louth.
1827-8. Frederick Tennyson gained the Bronze Medal for a Greek
Ode on the Pyramids.
1828. Alfred Tennyson enters Trinity College, Cambridge (October
28).
Meets Arthur Hallam.
Writes The Lover's Tale.
1829. Wins Chancellor's Gold Medal for poem on Timbuctoo.
Poem is criticised in Athenczzwi (July 22).
1830. Poems chiefly Lyrical published (London : Wilson).
Tennyson and Hallam visit Pyrenees.
Sonnets published by Charles Tennyson (Cambridge).
A TENNYSONIAN CHRONOLOGY. 355
1831. Poems criticised in Westminster Review (January), in
Englishman's Magazine (August) by Hallam, in Tatter
by Leigh Hunt.
Tennyson leaves Cambridge University.
Rev. G. C. Tennyson died (March 16), aged 52.
Miscellaneous poems published in magazines : — Cheek every
Ontflash, No More, Anacreontic, and Fragment.
1832. Poems criticised in Blackwood'' s Magazine by Wilson (May).
Hallam leaves Cambridge, and proceeds to London.
Tennyson publishes several sonnets.
Edward Tennyson contributes a sonnet to the Yorkshire
Literary Afinual.
1832-3. Poems published (Moxon).
1833. Quarterly Review critique appears (April).
Hallam proceeds to the Continent with his father.
Hallam dies at Vienna (September 15).
The Lover's Tale printed and suppressed.
1834. Hallam buried at Clevedon (January 3).
1835. Charles Tennyson-Turner becomes Vicar of Grasby.
Tennyson's poems criticised in London Review (July).
Tennyson goes to Cumberland.
1836. The Rev. Charles Tennyson-Turner marries Louisa Sellwood
of Horncastle.
1837. St Agnes published in The Keepsake.
The Tennyson family depart from Somersby, and reside at
Beech Hill House, High Beech, Essex.
' 1838. Tennyson joins the " Anonymous " Club, and resides part of
his time in London.
1840. Mrs Tennyson leaves High Beech, and resides at Tunbridge
Wells.
1 84 1. Mrs Tennyson removes to Boxley, near Maidstone, and
meets the Lushingtons.
1842. Poems published in two volumes (Moxon).
Criticised by James Spedding in the Edinburgh Review, by
John Sterling in the Quarterly Review, and by R. Monck-
ton Milnes in the Westminster Review.
Cecilia Tennyson married to E. L. Lushington (October 10).
Tennyson introduced to Carlyle.
1843. Tennyson meets Wordsworth.
Second edition of Poems (revised).
1844. Mrs Tennyson (mother) removes to 10 St James's Square,
Cheltenham ; stays until 1850.
Edgar Allan Poe criticises Tennyson in "Marginalia" of
New York Dramatic Review.
356 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
1845. Third edition of Poems published.
Pension of ,£200 granted.
Lytton attacks Tennyson in The New Timon.
B011 Gaidticr Ballads published, containing parodies of, and
references to, Tennyson.
The poet is a guest at Holland House.
1846. Fourth edition of Poems {The Golden Year first included).
Tennyson replies to Lytton in Punch : — The New Timon and
The Poets (February 28), and Afterthought (March 7).
James Russell Lowell criticises Tennyson in Conversations
on the Poets.
1847. The Princess published (September 23).
1848. Poems issued in one volume, fifth edition.
Second edition of The Princess, dedicated to Henry Lush-
ington.
Review of The Princess in Quarterly Review, by Sara Cole-
ridge.
Tennyson goes to Cornwall ; stays at Truro, Tintagel, and
Morwenstow.
1849. Lines in Examiner (March 24), "You might have won the
poet's name."
1850. (Annus Mii-abilis).
Tennyson publishes In Memoriam (June 1). Three
editions called for.
Marries Miss Emily Sellwood of Horncastle at Shiplake
Church (June 13).
Appointed Poet Laureate (November 19).
Sixth edition of Poems, and third edition of The Princess —
songs added, and the poem entirely re-written.
Kingsley criticises Tennyson in Eraser's Magazine (Sep-
tember).
Lines contributed to Manchester Athenccum Album — " Here
often, when a child."
Tennyson takes up his residence at Chapel House, Twicken-
ham.
1 85 1. Tennyson presented to the Queen (March 6).
Seventh edition of Poems, containing dedicatoiy lines To the
Queen.
Lines to Macready in The Keepsake, and "What time I
wasted youthful hours."
Tennyson and his wife live abroad, chiefly in Italy. Death
of their first child.
Fourth edition of The Princess (altered), and fourth edition
of In Memoriam, with the section now numbered LIX.
added.
A TENNYSONIAN CHRONOLOGY. 357
1 85 1. Gerald Massey criticises The Princess in the Christian
Socialist.
1852. Britons, guard your own, by "Merlin,'' in Examiner
(January 31); The Third of February and Hands all
Round in Examiner (February 7).
Tennyson returns to England ; stays at Malvern with Carlyle
and others.
Hallam Tennyson born at Twickenham (August 11).
Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington published in the
Times.
Tennyson meets Bell Scott and other Pre-Raphaelites at
Coventry Patmore's.
1853. Tennyson removes to Freshwater.
Eighth edition of the Poems; fifth edition of The Princess.
Tennyson visits the Highlands.
1854. The Charge of the Light Brigade published, and copies sent
to the soldiers before Sebastopol.
Rev. F. D. Maurice dedicates his volume of Sermons to
Tennyson.
Lionel Tennyson born at Freshwater (March 16).
Frederick Tennyson publishes Days and Hours (Parker and
Sons).
Dr Kane names an Arctic landmark after Tennyson.
1855. University of Oxford confers on Tennyson the D.C.L.
degree.
^ Maud published (July 25), and severely criticised for its
" war passages."
1856. Maud re-published with additions.
Dr Mann's Maud Vindicated issued. Tennyson writes letter
of thanks.
1857. Bayard Taylor visits Tennyson at Freshwater.
Tennyson goes to Manchester, and encounters Nathaniel
Hawthorne.
Enid and Nimue; or, the True and the False printed
privately and withdrawn.
1858. Two verses added to the National Anthem on the occasion
of the Princess Royal's marriage.
Tennyson visits the Duke of Argyll at Inverary.
1859. Idylls of the King published (July 1 1)— four in number
(Moxon).
The War printed in the Times, signed " T " (for some time
attributed to Trench).
Tennyson goes to Portugal with F. T. Palgrave (August).
The Grandmother published in Once a Week (July 16).
358 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
1859. Frederick Tennyson settles in Jersey.
i860. Sea Breams printed in Macmillaiis Magazine (January).
Tithonus printed in Cornhill Magazine (February).
Tennyson goes to Cornwall.
1861. Tennyson revisits the Pyrenees ; also stays at Mont-les-Bains
Cauteretz, &c, with his wife and children.
The Sailor Boy printed in Victoria Regia (Christmas).
1862. Idylls of the King dedicated to the late Prince Consort.
The Exhibition Ode published.
Analysis of hi Memoriam by Robertson published.
Tennyson travels in Yorkshire and Derbyshire.
1863. A Welcome published (March 7), on the arrival of Princess
Alexandra.
u Attempts at Classic Metres in Quantity," printed in Corn-
hill Magazine (December).
1864. Garibaldi visits Tennyson.
Enoch Arden published (August 1).
Epitaph on the late Duchess of Kent published in the Court
Journal (March 19).
Taine's Histoire de la Litterature Anglaise published, con-
taining criticisms of Tennyson.
The Rev. Charles Tennyson-Turner publishes a volume of
sonnets dedicated to Alfred Tennyson.
1865. Mrs Tennyson (mother) died, aged 84, at Hampstead ;
buried at Highgate.
Baronetcy offered to Tennyson and declined.
Selections from Works published, containing several new
poems (January 24).
Tennyson visits Weimar and Dresden.
1866. Tennyson subscribes to Governor Edward John Eyre's
testimonial.
1867. Tennyson purchases Sussex estate.
The Windows or, the Loves of the Wrens privately printed
by Sir Ivor Bertie Guest ; set to music by Sullivan, and
published in 1871.
Tennyson visits Dartmoor.
1868. Longfellow visits Tennyson at Farringford.
Tennyson contributes a number of short pieces to magazines :
— The Victim to Good Words (January) ; On a Spiteful
Letter to Once a Week (January) ; Wages to Macmillan's
Magazine (February) ; " 1 865-6" to Good Words (March) ;
and Lucretius to Macmillarts Magazine (May).
1869. Tennyson elected Honorary Fellow of Trinity College, Cam-
bridge ; and his bust by Woolner placed in the Library.
A TENNYSONIAN CHRONOLOGY. 359
1869. Tennyson sojourns in North Wales.
Frederick Tennyson contributes a poem to a magazine,
Grave and Gay.
1 870. Tennyson takes legal proceedings against American " pirates/'
The Holy Grail published ; 40,000 copies ordered before
publication.
1871. The Last Tournament printed in the Contemporary Review.
1872. Gareth and Lynette published.
" Library edition " of Tennyson's works issued in six volumes
(Strahan & Co.).
1873. Charles Tennyson-Turner publishes his last volume of
sonnets.
1874. A Welcome to the Duchess of Edinburgh published.
"Cabinet Edition" of works issued (H. S. King & Co.).
J l8 75- Queen Mary published (H. S. King & Co.).
" Author's Edition " of works issued.
1876. Queen Mary produced at the Lyceum Theatre (April).
Tennyson again visits the Pyrenees.
1877. Harold published.
Bayard Taylor's critique of Tennyson published in the Inter-
national Review.
Lines on Sir John Franklin, and sonnet on the death of the
Rev. W. H. Brookfield published.
Victor Hugo, Introductory Sonnet, Montenegro, and Achilles
over the Trench appear in Nineteenth Century.
1878. Becket published.
The Revenge printed in Nineteenth Century (March).
Mr Lionel Tennyson marries Miss Eleanor M. B. Locker.
Studies in the Idylls by Elsdale published (H. S. King & Co.).
Tennyson spends some time in Ireland.
1879. Charles Tennyson-Turner died at Cheltenham (April 25).
Tennyson writes elegy, Midnight (June 30).
The Lover's Talc re-published.
The Falcon produced at St James's Theatre (December).
Tennyson proceeds against the Christian Signal for publish-
ing some of his suppressed poems.
1880. Ballads and Poems published (Kegan Paul & Co.).
Tennyson declines to be nominated for the Lord Rectorship
of Glasgow.
Charles Tennyson-Turner's Poems collected in one volume,
with memoir.
1 88 1. The Cup produced at the Lyceum Theatre.
Tennyson becomes Vice-President of the Welsh Nat.onal
Eisteddfod.
360 TENNYSON: POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST.
1 88 1. Despair published in the Nineteenth Century,
1882. The Charge of the Heavy Brigade published in Macmi Harts
Magazine (March).
Tennyson goes to Lombardy.
Tennyson meets Sir Henry Parkes.
Writes letter to Teetotalers.
Santley sings Hands all Round, music by Mrs Tennyson.
The Promise of May produced at the Globe Theatre
(November). The Marquess of Oueensberry protests.
Tennyson writes letter on Plagiarism and Suggestion to Mr
S. E. Dawson (November 21).
1883. Tennyson takes sea trip with Mr Gladstone, and meets the
King of Denmark, the Czar and Czarina, the King and
Queen of Greece, and the Princess of Wales at Copen-
hagen. By request recites several poems, including
The Grandmothier.
Tennyson rents a house in Lower Belgrave Street, London,
and entertains distinguished company.
1884. Tennyson is raised to the Peerage as Baron Tenny-
son OF Aldworth (January iS).
Takes seat in the House of Lords, March 1 1.
The Cup and The Falcon published.
Complete Works, revised, issued.
The Hon. Hallam Tennyson marries Miss Audrey G. F.
Boyle, granddaughter of Admiral Hon. Sir Courtney
Boyle.
1885. Tiresias published.
Vastness published in MacmiUarts Magazine (November).
Tennyson writes to Mr Bosworth Smith on Disestablishment,
which he believes would " prelude the downfall of much
that is greatest and best in England."
The Hon. Lionel Tennyson writes a poem, Sympathy; the
Hon. Hallam Tennyson contributes anonymously to
Macmillarts Magdzine a sonnet, Orange-blossom.
1886. Locksley Hall Sixty Years After published (December 14).
Lionel Tennyson died at sea (April 20).
Tennyson writes Ode on Princess Beatrice's marriage (June).
1887. Mr Gladstone writes on Tennyson's Retrospect in the Nine-
teenth Century (January).
Tennyson publishes a Jubilee Ode in Macmillan's Magazine
(April) under the title of Carmen Seculare — universally
condemned.
Tennyson visits the Channel Islands.
1888. New edition of Poems, containing several at one time sup-
Dressed, issued in eieht volumes (Macmillan).
A TENNYSOMAN CHRONOLOGY. 361
1889. Demeter published (December 12); 20,000 copies sold in a
week.
Tennyson writes to the Times on railways (April).
His eightieth birthday commemorated (August 6).
Early MSS. sold for ,£250 — invokes protest from the
Laureate (June).
A "Tennyson Colony" founded in South Africa by Mi-
Arnold White.
Tennyson sends greetings to Russell Lowell on his seventieth
birthday.
The Throstle published in the New Review (October).
1890. More MSS. sold (May).
Tennyson's friend, Miss Mary Boyle died.
Frederick Tennyson publishes The Isles of Greece.
1891. Tennyson is elected an honorary member of the Spalding
Gentlemen's Society.
MSS. and rare volumes sold (March).
Lines To Sleep published in the New Review (March).
Swinburne writes a Birthday Ode on Tennyson (August).
Tennyson condemns the Russian persecution of the Jews .
(October 1).
Mr Daly and Miss Rehan visit the Laureate (October).
Frederick Tennyson publishes Dap/me and other Poems.
Tennyson revisits Devonshire.
1892. The Foresters published. Produced in New York by the
Daly Company in March.
Lines on the Death of the Duke of Clarence published in
the Nineteenth Century.
Tennyson died, October 6 ; buried in Westminster Abbey,
October 12.
The Death of (Enone, Akbar's Dream, and other Poems, pub-
lished October 28.
The manuscript of Poems by Two Brothers sold for £4^0.
INDEX.
[Reference is not made in this index to individual poems, except
where they give their title to a volume. Nearly all the Laureate's
poems are mentioned, and will be found in the chapters chiefly in
chronological order.]
Abbreviations, Tennyson's, 278,
290.
Advertisement, the, to Poems of
Two Brothers, 1 1 .
" Aftermath, the Poet's," 216.
Akbar, delineated bv Tennyson,
236.
Albert, Prince, offers Laureateship
to Rogers, 75 ; anecdote of,
76 ; letter to Tennyson, 163 ;
the poet's reference to him,
164.
41 Alcibiades," Tennyson's nom de
plume, 176.
Alton Locke, quotation from, 52.
Annuals, Tennyson's contributions
to, 123, 311.
Annus mirabilis, 3. See Chron-
ology.
Antipathies, the poet"s, 285.
Arnold, Matthew, quoted 128.
Arthur, King, too perfect for
humanity, 160.
Arthurian legend, Tennyson's
early love of, 152 ; treated by
other poets, 154.
Artist, Tennyson as an, 279.
Astronomer, Tennyson as an,
260-3. •
Atheism, the poet's views of, 187.
At he/he inn. The, criticises Tim-
buctoo, 24 ; criticises the
Princess, 70.
Autographs, 4, 81 ; value of, 346.
Bailey's Festus, 338.
Balaclava Charge, The, 81, 82.
Ballads, Tennyson's, 204
Baumber, John, prototype of the
Northern Farmer, 148, 271.
Beattie quoted, 338.
Beere, Mrs Bernard, produces The
Promise of May, 1 86.
Bible, Tennyson's knowledge of
the, 99, 325.
Biography, Tennyson's dislike of,
4-
Birds, Tennyson's knowledge of,
254.
Blackwood's Magazine, quoted, 36.
Blakesley, of Trinity College, 105.
Bluebell Hill, 62.
" Bon Gaultier " ballads, 74.
Borrowed ideas, Tennyson's, 335-
339-
Boston, Tennyson at, 9.
Boyle, Mary, 22S.
Brooke, Henry, quoted, 332.
Brookfield, W. H., at Cambridge,
19 ; his humour, 28 ; his
friends, 29 ; sonnet to, 29.
Browning, Robt., quoted, 99, 221.
Browning, Mrs, her debt to Tenny-
son, 327.
Burial, Tennyson's, in Westmin-
ster Abbey, 240.
Byron, Tennyson and, 14, 229,
33°-
" Cadney's," 7.
Caerleon-on-Usk, Tennyson visits,
1 54.
Caistor, Alfred and Charles
Tennyson at, 57.
364
INDEX.
Cambridge, Tennyson at, 18 ; his
friends, 19 ; college-life, resi-
dences, prize poem, 19 ; son-
net on the University, 27 ;
revisited, 30.
Canadian loyalty, the lines on, 88.
Carlyle on Tennyson's poems, 5 1 ;
his views of Tennyson's pen-
sion, 77; Tennyson's allusions
to, 139 ; is dissatisfied with
the Idylls, 1 63 ; praises
Tennyson, 230.
Character, A, the original of, 28.
Cheltenham, the Tennyson family
at, 58, 289 note.
" Christopher North," 36.
Clark, Wm., the boy-schoolmaster,
8.
Clough, Arthur, 162, 216.
Cock Tavern, The, 57.
Coleridge, criticisms by, 34, 38, 40.
Collectors, hints to, 346.
Collins, Churton, on Tennyson's
masters and models, 325 etseq.
Colonies, Tennyson and the, 87.
Composition, Tennyson's method
of, 296.
Compression in Enoch Arden, 144,
279.
Contractions, 278.
Conversation, Tennyson's favourite
themes of, 263.
Consistency, Tennyson's, 230.
Cornwall, the poet in, 156, 288.
"Cornwall, Barry," 76, 324.
Cotswolds, The, 59.
Court, Tennyson at, 77.
Cowper, 336.
Crimean heroes, Tennyson and the,
81.
Criticism of Poems by Two
Brothers, 13, 17; of early
volumes, 34, 40, 292, 300.
Critics, Tennyson's censures of, 43.
Critiques and comments on Tenny-
son's poems by Athenceum,
24, 70 ; Blackwood's Maga-
zine, 36 ; Carlyle, 163 ; Cole-
ridge, 34, 38, 40 ; Churton
Collins, 325 ; Dawson, Geo.,
142, 153 ; Dowden, 131 ;
Edinburgh Review, 53 ; Eng-
lishman's /Magazine, 3 5 ; Fris-
well, 292 ; Gladstone, 220 ;
Hallam, 34; Hunt, 34; Ingram,
50, 70, 105, 160; Japp, 220;
Kingsley, 40, 52, 72, 103, 118 ;
Lockhart, 42 ; Mann, 127,
130 ; Mill, 34 ; " North, Chris-
topher," 36 ; Poe, 55, 233 ;
Powell, 31 ; Quarterly Re-
view, 42; Salt, 217; Sped-
ding, 53, 281, 298 ; Stedman,
61/ 118, 159, 289; Taylor,
Bayard, 40, 142, 159, 168, 321 ;
Westminster Review, 34 ;
Whitman, 199.
Crompton, Richard, his Facing the
Inimy, 335.
Dante, 332.
Dawson, Rev. George, on Enoch
Arden, 142, 143; on The
Idylls of the King, 153.
Deal, the seaport, described in
Enoch Arden, 145.
Death of Tennyson, 229.
Demeter volume, published, 221.
Democrats, Tennyson's warning
to, 2IO.
Dialect, poems in, 274 et seq.
Dickens, Chas., 55, 57.
Discarded poems, 300 et seq.
Disillusion, Tennyson's political,
94.
Dobell, Sydney, 58, 76.
Doctors, Tennyson's criticism of,
207.
Dogmas, Tennyson's dislike of,
99, ^35-
Doubts, Tennyson's, 113, 199,213,
240, 265.
Dowden, Professor, on Tennyson's
politics, 91 ; on the war pas-
sages in Maud, 131 ; on
Locksley Hall, 220 ; on Tenny-
son's science, 265.
Dramas, Tennyson's political
opinions in the, 84 ; character
of, 166 et seq. ; analysis of,
171 et seq. ; the humour in the,
269.
Durferin, Lord, Tennyson's poem
of thanks to, 222.
INDEX.
365
Early lyrics, Tennyson's, 45-55 ;
revised and suppressed, 305.
Edinburgh Review, Spedding's
article in, 53.
Elegies, English, of Milton and
Shelley, compared with In
Memoriam, 102.
Eliot, George, on Tennyson's
dramas, 169.
Elsdale, Henry, on the Idylls of
the King, 158.
Emerson, R. W., quoted, 4, 55, 57,
313, 319, 339; meets Tenny-
son in London, 57.
Enoch Arden, \\i et seq.
England, Tennyson's love of, 67,
84, 86, 280, 306.
Englishman's Magazine, The,
quoted, 35.
Errors, Tennyson's, 263, 282.
Escott, T. H. S., his account of
Tennyson's life in London,
170.
Evolution theory, the, in Tenny-
son's poems, 259, 285.
Exactness, Tennyson's, 243.
" Fair Women," Tennyson's, 51.
Faith, Tennyson's, 240.
Farringford, 135, 138, 247.
Faults in early poems, 297.
Favourite ideas and expressions,
284.
Fields, Mr, on Tennyson's
" Medievalism," 68.
Fitzgerald, Edward, on Tennyson's
poems, 51 ; his opinion of
The Princess, 60 ; describes
the poet's character, 138, 142 ;
Tennyson's poem to, 208 ; his
death, 211.
" Fleet-strteter, A," Tennyson de-
scribed as, 57.
Flowers, Tennyson's descriptions
of, 250.
Flower-song, A, 251.
Forms, Tennyson's hatred of, 236.
Forster, John, 57.
Fragmentary history, Tennyson's,
56.
Franklin, Lady, 88 ; Sir John,
275.
Friendships, Tennyson's, 139 ;
poems on, 139, 208, 211, 222.
Friswell, Hain, quoted, 134 note,
245 ; his attack on Tennyson,
292, 346.
Froude, Mr, on Tennyson and
Carlyle, 217 ; Tennyson's pro-
test against his Life of Carlyle,
139-
Galton, Mr Arthur, on Tennyson's
"poverty of thought," 217.
Garibaldi's visit to Tennyson, 141.
Geology, Tennyson's poetic use of,
258.
Gladstone, Mr, on Sixty Years
After, 220.
Glasgow University, Tennyson
and, 83.
Globe Theatre, scene at, 1S7.
Goethe, 328, 332.
Green, J. R., on Becket, 169.
Grenville, Sir Richard, an English
hero, 205.
Guest, Lady Charlotte, her Ma-
binogion, 161 ; her friendship
with Tennyson, 161.
Hallam, Arthur Henry, meets
Tennyson at Cambridge, 19 ;
competes for Chancellor's
medal, 19 ; his eloquence,
29 ; criticises Poems chiefly
Lyrical,34.,3$; visitsSomersby,
and is engaged to Tennyson's
sister, 56 ; his death, 105 ;
sketch of his career, 106 ;
burial, 107 ; tribute by Milnes,
107 ; sonnet by Charles
Tennyson-Turner, 108. See
chapter on In Memoriam.
Hamilton, Sir W. R., and The
Princess, 60.
Hamley, Sir E., and Tennyson's
metaphor, 283.
Hawker, Rev. R. S., of Morwen-
stow, 156.
Heroes, Tennyson's admiration of,
205, 206.
Holmes, O. W., quoted, 100 ; visits
Tennyson, 247 ; burlesques
Tennyson's style, 291.
366
INDEX.
Holywell Glen, 7 ; Howitt's de-
scription of, 7 note; described
in Maud, 132.
Houghton, Lord (Monckton
Milnes), at Cambridge, 18 ;
competes for Chancellor's
medal, 19 ; with Tennyson in
London, 58 ; as Laureate-
maker, 76 ; gets pension for
Tennyson, 77 ; tribute to
Hallam, 107.
Howitt, Wm., describes Holywell
Glen, 7 ; on Tennyson's ex-
clusiveness, 44.
Humour, Tennyson's, 147, 269 et
seq.
Hunt, Leigh, on Tennyson's poems,
34 ; commends Tennyson for
the Laureateship, 76.
Ida, Princess, and Shelley's
Cythna, 334.
Idealism, Tennyson's, 3, 85, 93,
230.
Idyll? What is an, 158.
Idylls of the King, The, 152;
spiritual meanings of, 158.
Imitations of Tennyson, 148.
Ingram, Professor, on Locksley
Hall, 50 ; on The Princess,
70 ; on In Memoriam, 105 ;
on the flaw in the Idylls of the
King, 160.
In Memoriam, 97 et seq. ; illus-
trates Tennyson's religion,
103 ; opinion of Kingsley, 103,
118 ; of Taylor, 104 ; of In-
gram, 105 ; of Stedman, 118 ;
its lessons, 109 et seq. ; local
and personal references in,
119 ; its metre, 288.
Invention, Tennyson's small power
of, 321, 329-
Irish poem, Tennyson's only,
215.
Irving, Henry, and Tennyson's
dramas, 171, 183, 186.
Japp, Professor, on Locksley Hall,
220.
"Jewels of all Time"— is it an
error? 283.
Jonson, Ben, a notable metre of,
289.
Juvenilia, 34 et seq., 305.
Keats, 321,325, 329.
Kendal, Mrs, produces The Falcon,
184.
Kemble, J. M., at Cambridge, 19 ;
Tennyson's sonnet on, 28.
Ker, Mr Alan, 58.
Kinglake, 19.
Kingsley, Chas., his opinion of the
early poems, 40 ; on Locksley
Hall, 50 ; quotations from his
Alton Locke, 52 ; defends The
Princess, 72 ; on In Me-
moriam, 103, 118 ; on Tenny-
son's scholarship, 244 ; de-
scribes the metre of In
Memoriam, 289.
Kit's Coty House, 63, note.
Knowledge, Tennyson's wide, 243,
et seq. ; the abuse of, 264.
Landor, W. S., anecdote by, 152.
Language, Tennyson's, 278.
Laureate, Tennyson appointed, 76;
his duties as, 79.
Laureates, English, 74.
Letters, Tennyson's, 81, 83 ; on
Plagiarism and Suggestion,
see Appendix B.
Lincolnshire, Tennyson's love of,
9 ; its influence on the poems,
119, 132, 191, 248.
" Localisation," 59 ; see Appen-
dix A.
Lockhart reviews Tennyson's
poems, 42.
Lockyer, Norman, discusses as-
tronomy with Tennyson, 262.
Locksley Hall, its influence, 49 ;
Kingsley on, 49 ; Professor
Ingram's opinion of, 50 ; the
sequel, 218 ; Professor Japp's
prophecy, 220; Mr Glad-
stone's criticism, 220.
London, Tennyson's life in, 57,
123, 170.
Longfellow's visit to Tennyson,
141.
Louth Grammar School, 8.
INDEX.
367
Lovers Tale, The, republished, 32.
Lowell, Russell, 7, 327.
Loyalty, Tennyson's, 87.
Lushington, Henry, 62 ; home of
the family, 62 ; on Tennyson's
metres, 288.
Lyrics, the early, 34, 305.
Lytton, Lord, Tennyson's quarrel
with, 175-8,322.
Mablethorpe, the "lowly" house
at, 9.
Malory, Tennyson's use of, 152,
154, 161.
Mann, Dr, and Maud Vindicated,
127, 130; on Tennyson's
metres, 286.
Manuscripts, Tennyson's, 316.
Marriage, Tennyson's, 116, 122.
Marriages, loveless, Tennyson
denounces, 67, 211 ; the com-
ments in The Promise of
May, 188.
Massinger, Philip, quoted, 330, 337.
Masters, Tennyson's, 322.
Maud, its history, 123 ; meaning,
125; the poet's favourite,
134-
Maurice, Rev. F. D., 135 ; his
books, 136; Ruskin's anec-
dotes, 137.
Medievalism, the poet's, 68.
Melancholy, Tennyson's, 241.
Metaphor, a defective, 283.
Metres, Tennyson's, 286.
Mill, J. S., criticises Tennyson's
first volume, 34.
Milnes, Monckton. See HOUGH-
TON.
Milton, 102, 336, 337.
Minor Poems, Tennyson's, ex-
amined, 47.
Mission, the poet's, 2, 241.
Mitford, Miss, 122, 344.
Morbid poems, 204, 240.
Mouse, The, an omen of ruin, 257.
Music and Pictures, Tennyson's,
45 et seq.
Names, English, in Tennyson's
poems, 281.
Napoleon, hatred of, 285.
Nature, Tennyson's fidelity to,
243 et seq., 264, 266.
Nebular theory, the, in Tennyson's
poems, 259.
New Timon, The, Lytton's, 175 ;
the quarrel occasioned by it,
176.
Nightingale, Tennyson's love of
the, 255.
"North, Christopher" (Professor
Wilson), 36.
Northampton, Lord, and The
Tribute, 123.
Oak, Tennyson's references to the,
249-
Odd words used by Tennyson, 305.
Old age, productiveness of Tenny-
son's, 207, 231.
"Old Brooks." See Brook-
field.
Originality, Tennyson's, discussed,
321.
Orion, described in the poems,
260.
Palgrave, W. G., 141.
Parallels in poetry, 339.
Partisans, Tennyson's distrust of,
85, 93-
Patriotism, Tennyson's, 79, 82, 84,
3ii-
Peace, Tennyson's ideal of, 89.
Peel, Sir R., appoints Laureate, 76.
Pension, Tennyson's, 77.
People's Will, The, Tennyson's
belief in, 93.
Periodical publications, 311.
Plagiarist, Tennyson no, 322, 335.
Plots, Tennyson's repetitions in,
222 ; not new, 271, 272, 276,
329-
Poe, E. A., on Tennyson, 55, 233.
Poems by Two Brothers, The,
10 ; published by Jackson,
1 r ; original intentions of the
authors, 1 1 ; the " Advertise-
ment," 1 1 ; poems analysed,
12 et seq.; criticisms of, 17 ;
astronomical referencesin, 261.
Poems chiefly Lyrical, 34 et seq.
Poet, The, his mission, 1, 2, 230.
368
INDEX.
Politics, Tennyson's, 83 et seq.
Posthumous volume, Tennyson's,
231.
Powell, Thos., his opinion of The
Lover's Tale, 31.
Prices of rare volumes and MSS.,
341 et seq.
Princess, The, 59 et seq. ; how
written, 62 ; how suggested,
333 ; dedicated to Henry
Lushington, 62 ; meaning of,
65 ; critiques of, 70, 72.
Proctor, Adelaide, her Enoch
Arden story, 143.
Publishers, Tennyson's, 343 et seq.
Punch, Tennyson's contributions
to, 176, 178.
Pyrenees, Journey to the, 33.
Quarterly Review, quoted, 42,
232, 297.
Queen, The, admires The Miller's
Daughter, 76 ; Tennyson's
dedicatory poem to, 79 ; dedi-
cation of the Idylls to, 164.
Oueensberry, the Marquess of,
and The Promise of May,
187; discussion on Tenny-
son's view of atheism, 187.
Quotations, classical, in Poems by
Two Brothers, 320.
Rare editions, 342.
Recurring ideas in Tennyson's
poems, 284.
Rehan, Miss, and The Foresters,
192.
Religion, Tennyson's, 98, 198, 216,
235, 263.
Religious poems, Tennyson's
99, 101.
Renan, anecdote by, 164.
Revisions, Tennyson's, 296 et seq.;
specimens of, 313.
Rhymes, Tennyson's, 286.
Ridicule, Tennyson's dislike of,
26, 43.
Ritchie, Mrs, quoted, 62, 255.
Robertson, 58.
Robin Hood, 192.
Rogers, W., and the Laureate-
ship, 75.
Rowe, the dramatist, quoted, 327.
Sale of manuscripts, 347.
Salt, H. S., condemns Tennyson's
views of women, 66 ; denies
that Tennyson is a thinker.
217.
Scenery, English, in Tennyson's
Poems, 280.
Science, Tennyson's use of, 258,
265.
Scott, Sir W., 239 ; Tennyson
borrows from him, 330.
Seasons, Tennyson's descriptions
of, 160, 253.
Shelley's influence on Tennyson,
65, 323, 326, 331, 334.
Shiplake Church, 122.
Simeon, Sir John, 125, 232.
Somersby, 4, 288 ; described, 10 ;
the trees at, 248 ; the rooks
at, 255.
Sonnets, Tennyson's, 305, 310.
Spedding, James, at Cambridge,
19 ; Tennyson's lines to, 28,
38 ; his critique of early
poems, 53 ; on the poet's
characteristics, 281, 298.
Spenser, Edmund, Tennyson's
master, 231, 325, 328.
Spilsby, 275.
Spiritualist, Tennyson a, 213.
Stage, Tennyson's love of the, 169.
Stars, Tennyson's allusions to the,
260.
Statecraft, the poet's views of, 84,
91.
Stedman, E. C, criticises The
Princess, 61 ; In Memoriam,
118, 289; the Idylls of the
King, 159.
Sullivan, Dr A., sets Tennyson's
songs to music, 161.
Suppressed poems, 39, 305-312.
Swan-songs, Tennyson's, 231.
Switzerland, the poet in, 252.
Taylor, Bayard, on the early
poems, 40, 55 ; on Mariana,
51 ; on EjiocJi Arden, 142;
his curious judgment of the
Idylls of the King, 1 59 ; hears
INDEX.
369
Tennyson read Guinevere,
162 ; opinion of the Dramas,
168 ; on Tennyson's wisdom,
243, 252 ; on Tennyson's
originality, 321, 323.
Taylor, Sir Henry, quoted, 4 ;
suggested for Laureate, 75 ;
anecdote of, 77 ; congratulates
Tennyson on his Ode, 80 ;
on Tennyson's politics, 84 ;
anecdotes by, 138.
TENNYSON, Alfred, Lord, his ideal,
3 ; birth, 3 ; contemporaries,
3 ; objection to biography,
4, 5 ; his youth, 6, 31 ; friend-
ship with Charles, 6 ; first
verses, 6 ; love of Lincoln-
shire, 6, 9 ; education, 7 ; the
Poems by Two Brothers, 10 et
seq. ; tribute to Charles in In
Memoriam, 1 7 ; at Cambridge,
18 et seq.; meets Hallam, 19 ;
competes for Chancellor's
medal, 19 ; Timbuctoo, 20 et
seq. ; writes The Lover's Tale,
31 ; publishes Poems chiefly
Lyrical, 34 ; second volume,
38 ; life in London, 57 ;
resides in Cheltenham, 58 ;
publishes The Princess, 159;
his ideal of womanhood, 64 et
seq.; appointed Laureate, 76 ;
obtains pension, 77 ; his Ode
on Wellington, and tribute to
Balaclava heroes, 81 ; de-
clines to be a party candidate,
83 ; political and patriotic
views, 83-96 ; writes I?i
Memoriam, 98 ; his marriage,
116, 122; publishes Maud,
123 ; his Enoch Arden, 142 ;
lines to his wife, 147 ; his
poetic development, 149 ;
publishes the Idylls of the
King, 158 ; the Dramas, 166-
197 ; his later ballads, 198 ;
Swan-songs, 231 ; death, 229.
See Chronology.
Tennyson, Dr G. C, 4, 32 ; his death,
38 ; his character, 5, 272.
Mrs (Elizabeth Fytche), 4, 6,
56 ; at Cheltenham, 58.
2
Tennyson, Frederick. 4; his share
in Poems by Two Brothers,
10 note ; at College, 18 ;
anecdote of Alfred by, 45.
Charles. See Tennyson-
Turner.
Cecilia, her marriage, 63.
Mary, 58.
Lady (Emily Sellwood), 116,
122, 163, 232, 301.
Hallam (the Hon.),letter from,
87.
Lionel (the Hon.), his death,
Tennyson-Turner, Rev. Charles,
4 ; boyhood, 6 ; his sonnets,
7, 9, 79 notej his share in the
Poems of Two Brothers, 10 et
seq. ; Alfred Tennyson's tri-
bute, 17; at Cambridge, 18;
assumes his uncle's name and
becomes vicar of Grasby, 57 ;
sonnet on Hallam, 108 ; son-
net on Home, 120.
Thackeray, W. M., at Cambridge,
19; his rhyme for "Timbuctoo,"
19 ; burlesques Tennyson's
poem, 25 ; hisdebt to Tennyson
in Esmond, 331 ; quoted, 338.
Thinker ? was Tennyson a, 2 1 7.
Tickell, 337.
Timbuctoo, Tennyson's prize poem,
19 et seq. j burlesqued, 25.
Tiresias volume published, 207.
Title, Tennyson's, 78.
Trees, Tennysonian, 246.
Trench, R. C, at Cambridge, 18 ;
lines wrongly attributed to
him, 300 ; on Tennyson's son-
nets, 305 note.
Trevelyan, Sir G. O., on academic
poems, 20.
Trtoute,TAe,itshistory, 1 23; Tenny-
son's contribution to, 124.
Trollope, T. A., anecdote by, 204.
Tyrants, Tennyson's hatred of, 90.
VALUE of rare editions and manu-
scripts, 341 et seq.
Vegetarian, Tennyson becomes,
208.
Venables, George, 19, 2S8.
37o
INDEX.
Versatility, Tennyson's, 148.
Virgil, 290, 297, 325.
■" Vivien-place," original of, 62.
Voltaire, quoted, 113.
Volumes, rare, and MSS., 342.
Votes, Tennyson's, in the House
of Lords, 83.
WALES, Tennyson's Tour in, 33, 1 64.
War, Tennyson's ideas on, 89, 129-
132.
Watts, Theodore, on The Foresters,
192.
Weld, Miss, on Tennyson's creed,
214 ; on his astronomy, 263.
Wellington, Duke of, Tennyson's
tributes to, 80; his ideal states-
man, 92, 337.
Westminster Review, quoted, 34.
Whitman, Walt, on the two Locks-
ley Halls, 199; Tennyson's
correspondence with him, 203.
Wight, Isle of, 135.
Wilson, Professor. See " Chris-
topher North."
Wisdom, Tennyson's, 243 et seq.
Workmanship, character of Tenny-
son's, 321.
Women, Tennyson's views of, 63
etseq.; his ideal, 66 ; champion-
ship of, 67 ; sympathy with,
225.
Woolner, 147.
Wordsworth on original poets, 37 ;
opinion of Tennyson, 45, 55,
57 ; death of, 74; his influence,
336, 338.
Yew, Tennyson's references to the,
250.
Yorkshire, the poet in, 255.
Young, Julian, his story of the
Baptists, 276.
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