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Lear; but this is mere barbarous bedlamite" O go not yet, my love!
jargon, without a vestige of meaning, and it
is a sore humiliation to us to know that it was
written by the Laureate.

At length Misanthropos recovers his senses; principally, in so far as we can gather from the poem, because the British nation has gone to war with Russia; and we expected to learn from Mr. Tennyson that he had enlisted, and gone out to the Crimea to head a forlorn hope, and perish in a hostile battery. It appears, however, that he had no such intention; and the poem closes with the following passage, which bears a singular resemblance to fus

tian:

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The night is dark and vast,
The moon is hid in the heaven above,
And the waves are climbing fast;
Lest that kiss should be the last!
O kiss me, kiss me once again,
O kiss me ere we part-
Grow closer to my heart-

My heart is warmer surely than the bosom of the

main!"

What can be more beautiful, musical, or ex

quisite than that passage? No wonder that it lingers on the mind, like the echo of a fairy strain. But turn to those simple passages in Maud, and you find nothing but namby-pamby. We have already quoted more than one such passage, and perhaps it is unnecessary to multiply instances; but, lest it should be said that lovers' raptures, being often incomprehensible, incoherent, and rather childish in reality, ought to be so rendered in verse, we pray the attention of the reader to the following few lines, which admit of no such plea in justification:

"So dark a mind within me dwells,
And I make myself such evil cheer,
That if I be dear to some one else,

Then some one else may have much to fear;
But if I be dear to some one else,

Then I should be to myself more dear,
Shall I not take care of all that I think,
Yea ev'n of wretched meat and drink,
If I be dear,

If I be dear to some one else?"

It must, we think, have been observed by most readers of Tennyson's poetry, that his later productions do not exhibit that felicity On what possible pretext can lines like these of diction which characterized those of an ear- be ranked as poetry? Why should we conlier period. It seems to us that he formerly tinue to sneer at Sternhold and Hopkins, bestowed great pains upon his style, which was when the first poetical writer of the day is naturally ornate, for the purpose of attaining not ashamed to give such offerings to the pubthat simplicity of expression which is the high-lic?

ciation; and the enigma relating to " Peter Piper,' who "pecked a peck of pepper off a pewter platter," is not more execrably cacophonous than many lines which we could select from the volume before us. Here is one instance, not by any means the strongest :—

est excellence in poetry as in every other kind In his more ambitious attempts, Mr. Tennyof composition. By simplicity we do not son is now wordy, and very often rugged. mean bald diction, or baby utterance; we Some of his later verses bear a strong resemuse the term in its high sense, as expressive of blance to that kind of crambo which was inthe utmost degree of lucidity combined with vented to test the youthful powers of pronunenergy, when all false images, far-fetched metaphors and comparisons, and mystical forms of speech, are discarded. The best of Tennyson's early poems are composed in that manner; but of late years there has been a marked alteration in his style. He gives us no longer such exquisite little gems as Hero and Leander, which was printed in the first edition of his poems, but which seems to have been excluded, through over-fastidiousness, Where if I cannot be gay, let a passionless peace from the subsequent collection. It is many a long year since we read that poem, but we Far off from the clamor of liars belied in the hubknow it by heart sufficiently well to declaim

"Be mine a philosopher's life in the quiet woodland ways,

be my lot,

bub of lies;

it; and we venture from memory to transcribe From the long-neck'd gerse of the world that are ever the opening stanza:—

hissing dispraise

MAUD.

Because their natures are little, and, whether he heed it or not,

Where each man walks with his head in a cloud of poisonous flies."

been compelled against our wish and expectation, to condemn. It may possibly be said that there was no occasion for expressing any kind of opinion; and that if, after perusing Maud, we found that we could not conscienAlso it appears to us that he has become ad- tiously praise it, it was in our option to let it dicted to exaggeration, and an unnecessary pass unnoticed. But we cannot so deal with use of very strong language. The reader Mr. Tennyson. His reputation is a high one; must have already perceived this from the ex- and he has a large poetic following. In jus tracts we have given descriptive of Maud's tice to others of less note, upon whose works brother, and of his friend; but the same vio- we have commented freely, we cannot mainlence of phraseology is exhibited when there tain silence when the Laureate has taken the appears no occasion for hyperbole, and then field. Some of those whom we have prethe effect becomes ludicrous. In former times, viously noticed, may possibly think that our few could vie with Mr. Tennyson in the art judgments have been harsh for when did of heightening a picture; now he has lost all ever youthful poet listen complacently to an discretion, and overlays his subject, whether it honest censor?-but they shall not have an relates to a material or a mental image. We excuse for saying that, while we spoke our might pass over "daffodil skies," " gross mud- mind freely with regard to them, we have alhoney," ashen-gray delights,"" the delicate lowed others of more acknowledged credit to Arab arch" of a lady's feet, and "the grace escape, when their writings demanded conthat, bright and light as a crest of a peacock, demnation. Why should we attempt reviewsits on her shining head." We might, we say, ing at all, if we are not to be impartial in our pass over these things, as mere casual lapses judgments? If the opinion which we have or mannerisms; but when Mr. Tennyson for expressed should have the effect of making the purpose, we presume, of indicating the Mr. Tennyson aware of the fact that he is semorbid tendencies of his hero, makes him give riously imperilling his fame by issuing poems vent to the following confession, we have no so ill considered, crude, tawdry, and objectionbowels of compassion left, and we feel a con-able as this, then we believe that our present siderable degree of contempt for Maud for plainness of speech will be the cause of a having condescended to listen to the addresses of such a pitiful poltroon:

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"Living alone in an empty house,
Here half-hid in the gleaming wood,
Where I hear the dead at mid-day moan,
And the shrieking rush of the wainscot mouse,
And my own sad name in corners cried,
When the shiver of dancing leaves is thrown
About its echoing chambers wide,
Till a morbid hate and horror have grown
Of a world in which I have hardly mixt,
And a morbid eating lichen fixt
On a heart half turned to stone."

But we have no heart to go on further; nor shall we criticise the minor poems appended to Maud, for there is not one of them which we consider at all worthy of the genius of the

author.

A more unpleasant task than that which we have just performed in reviewing this poem, and in passing so unfavorable a judgment, has not devolved upon us for many a day. We hoped to have been able to applaud—we have |

great gain to the poetic literature of the country. If, on the contrary, Mr. Tennyson chooses to turn a deaf ear to our remonstrance, we cannot help it; but we have performed our duty. We have never been insensible to his merits, nor have we wilfully withheld our admiration; and it is from the very poignancy of our regret to see a man so gifted descend to platitudes like these, that we have expressed ourselves so broadly. Fain would we, like Ventidius in Dryden's play, arouse our Anthony to action, but we cannot hope to compass that by sugared words, or terins of indolent approval. We must touch him to the quick. In virtue of the laurel wreath, he is the poetical champion of Britain, and should be prepared to maintain the lists against all comers. Is this a proper specimen of his powers? By our Lady of the Lances! we know half-a-dodozen minor poets who, in his present condition, could bear him from his saddle in a

canter.

UNCERTAIN MEANING OF WORDS. We say precisely the same meaning. "Your news is of a newspaper that it contains "the latest intel- late," means that it is stale; but "He brings all ligence; or, that it has the earliest intelli- the late news," expresses the very reverse of tarNotes and Queries. gence;" both phrases being intended to convey diness.

From Chambers's Journal.

KITCHEN AND PARLOR.

"On, that will do for the servants." "My dear," I observed, as the jagged half-raw remnant of the gigot went down stairs, "what may be the derivation of that word, servant?" "La! aunt, how can you ask such silly questions?

"Servo, servavi, servatum, servare," mused my nephew-in-law, a young divine, with a turn for philology." Servans-literally, a person who serves."

"A definition referring simply to the occupation, and not necessarily extending to the species?

"No-O no!"

isted always, is evidently right to exist, I do not recognize that unnatural system of antagonism which divides a household into two distinct spe cies of humanity, organizes one set of interests for the kitchen and another for the parlor, one code of morals for the server and another for the served.

Let us look at the thing in its root, and consider the origin of "servitude." A household, not sufficient for its necessary work, accepts hired help, in which, as a natural consequence, the practised hand directs the unpractised, and rests from its own labors. Our first hint of this state of society is Abraham, with his "menservants, and maid-servants," his "young men," his" trained servants born in his house "-and probably born of his own kindred, certainly of

"Nor indicating any a priori difference of his own Hebrew race. Doubtless he was a true

race?

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patriarch, a "great father" among them all, and they were free "servants." Not a word find we of bondsmen or bondswomen, save in the case of Hagar the Egyptian.

My pretty niece opened her eyes-as she always did when her aunt was talking nonsense with her husband. But at this minute A servant, then, is originally one who, from outMary-Ann brought in little Johnnie for his pud-ward circumstances or inward organization, finds ding; and of course it was the last thing to be himself incapable of ruling, and is therefore wished that the domestics should suppose our necessitated to obey; to become not the dictator, tsble-talk was about them. So we rushed hur- but the minister-not the head, but the hands. riedly to the subject of Master John's new frock, It may be, he will in time rise out of this infeand left the former question, apropos of the gi-rior position; if not, he gradually settles in its got, to be brought out at leisure.

I have since done so, rather deeply, for I go about a good deal from house to house, and see many people in their intimate domestic relations. And of all such relations, it seems to me there is none which in the present day so much wants remodifying, as that of master-or mistress-and servant. I wonder whether a plain woman may speak a few plain words on this subject?

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for honorable work. But it is my duty to see that the said grate-cleaner, be she who she may, is treated as if she and myself both came from the one blood of the great human family, and is allowed every possibility that fate likewise allows, to raise herself in the scale of society, or become as perfect as she can be in that position for which she is fitted, and to which she was born.

level, grows familiar with its cares, duties, and pleasures, and leaves the same to be inherited by his descendants. My niece Marianna, did it ever strike you that yourself and Mary-Ann might have been sisters', or at least cousins' children? Yet I have known a family, a highly respectable family too, where such was actually the case. One man sinks, another rises-each by his own momentum of character. Am I to Among all matronhood, the universal moan is blame if, while my daughter plays the harp in servants-servants "-"Where shall I get a the drawing-room, my third or fourth cousin has good servant?"-"Oh, I have been in such to clean the kitchen-grate? Not a bit of it-if trouble about my servants!" They are all fortune has reduced her to the position of my alike those servants!" There seems an un-hired maiden and I pay her honorable wages dying feud, or at the best a sort of armed neutrality, existing between above and below-stairs -the powers that be, and the powers that suffer. The "family" and "the servants are quite a different race-as different as the Helots and the Lacedæmonians. If I hinted to Mrs. Marianna, my niece, that Mary-Ann, her parlor-maid, was quite as pretty a woman as herself, and, with one-half her advantages of education, would probably have been twice as intelligent, I should But I am reasoning on special points or genbe scouted indignantly, and never asked to din-eralities. I will come to the practical question ner any more. Yet such is the simple truth, though, luckily, neither party knows it. I am no preacher of "equality;" there is not such a thing in the world. How should man make what Nature does not-not even in a lettuce bed? There will ever be varieties-the tallest, There is Mrs. Smith. You will never once the most delicate, or the earliest plant. When enter that lady's house, without hearing of a you can grow me a bed of vegetables all alike, change in its domestic arrangements; you will then I will grow you a human race whose first hardly knock at the door four successive weeks, principle is equality. To the world's end, there without its being opened by a strange damsel. must be high and low, rich and poor, masters To count the number of servants Mrs. Smith and servants-all must "meet together," and has had since her marriage, would puzzle her we know Who is the Maker of them all." But eldest boy, even though he is just going into his while I recognize this natural and immutable multiplication-table. Out of some scores, surely law of superior and inferior, which, having ex-all could not have been so bad; yet, to hear her,

of why it is that in one-half the families of one's acquaintance, especially in large towns, the grand burden and complaint is-servants.

Let me look around-for examples are necessary, and shall be made quite harmless.

no imps of Satan in female form could be worse womanhood, and would end in the same dust than those with which her house has been and ashes. She is well served, well obeyed; haunted-cooks who sold the dripping, and gave and justly, but-and that is justice too-she is the roast-meat to the policeman; housemaids neither sympathized with nor confided in. Perwho could only scrub and scour, and wait at ta- haps this truth may have struck home to her ble and clean plate, and keep tidy to answer the sometimes; as when her maid, who had been door, and who actually had never learned to sew ill unnoticed for months in waiting on her one neatly, or to get up fine linen! Nurses wickedly morning dropped down, and-died that night; pretty, or thinking themselves so, who had the or when, the day there came news of the battle she sat hour after hour with atrocious impudence to buy a bonnet "just like of Inkermann my straw one," with flowers inside! Poor Mrs. the Times in her lap, in her gloomy, lonely dinSmith! Her whole soul is engrossed in the ser- ing-room-and not a soul came nigh her, to ask vant question. Her whole life is a domestic or learn from her speechless looks "what of the battle of the mean, scratch-and-snap, spit-and-young master?"

snarl kind. She has a handsome house; she In the Jones's highly respectable family, are gives good wages-that is, her liberal husband most respectable servants, clever, quick, attendoes-but not a servant will stay with her. tive, and fully conscious of their own value and

And why? Because she is not fitted to be a capabilities. They dress quite as finely as "the mistress. She cannot rule-she can only order family," go out with parasols on Sundays, and about; she cannot reprove-she can only scold. have their letters directed "Miss." They guard Possessing no real dignity, she is always trying with jealousy all their perquisites and privilegto assert its semblance; having little or no ed-es-from the tradesmen's Christmas-boxes, and ucation, she is the hardest of all judges upon the talk outside the nearly closed front-door ignorance. Though so tenacious of her prerog-wite unlimited "followers," to the dearly prized ative, that she dismissed Sally Bains for imitat-right of a pert answer to missis when she vening missis's bonnet-(Heaven forgive you Mrs. Smith! but do you know where you might find that poor pretty sixteen-year old child now ?)still, the more intelligent of her servants soon find out that she is not a lady;" that, in fact, if one stripped off her satin gowns, and sold her carriage, and made her inhabit the basement story instead of the drawing-room of her handsome house, Mrs. Smith would be not one whit superior to themselves. Her quick-witted parlormaid is fully aware of this, as you may see from the way in which, notwithstanding all occasional airs of authority, she contrives to wind missis round her little-finger, get her own way entirely, and rule the house arrangements from attic to cellar. This being not unprofitable, she will probably outstay many of the other vants-not because she is any better than the rest, but merely cleverer.

ser

tures to complain. And missis-a kind easy soul-is rather afraid of so doing; and endures many an annoyance, together with a few real wrongs, rather than sweep her house with the besom of righteous destruction, and annihilate, in their sprouting, evils that will soon grow up like rampant weeds. This is no slight regret to Mrs. Jones's friends, who see that a little judicious authority, steadily and unvaryingly as serted-a little quiet exercise of will, instead of fidgety or nervous faultfinding, and needless suspiciousness, would make matters all straight, and reduce this excellent and liberal establishment, from the butler down to the little kitchenmaid, to the safe level of a limited monarchy. Instead of which, there is a loose sway, which often borders upon that most dangerous of all governments-domestic republicanism.

This last is the government at Mrs. RobinMrs. Brown's household is on quite a different son's. She long let the reins go-leaned back, plan. You will never hear the small domestic and slumbered. Where her household will drive rows"-the petty squabbles between mistress to, Heaven only knows! The house altogether and maid, injustice on one side and impertinence takes care of itself. The mistress is too gentle on the other. Mrs. Brown would never dream to blame anybody for anything-too lazy to do of quarrelling with "a servant," any more than anything herself, or show anybody else how to with her dog or cat, or some other inferior ani- do it. I suppose she has eyes, yet you might mal. She strictly fulfils her duty as mistress; write your name in dust-tracks on every bit of gives regular wages, very moderate certainly, furniture in her house. She doubtless likes to for her income is much below both her birth and wear a clean face and a decent gown, for she has her breeding; exacts no extra service; and is tastes not unrefined; yet in Betty, her maid-ofrigidly particular in allowing her servants the all-work, both these advantages are apparently Mrs. Robinson can't, or due holidays-namely, to church every other impossible luxuries. Sunday, and a day out once a month. Her believes she can't, afford what is called a "good" house-keeping is economical without being servant-that is, an efficient, conscientious, restingy; everything is expected to go on like sponsible woman, who requires equivalent waclock-work; if otherwise, dismissal follows, for ges for valuable services-therefore she does Mrs. Brown dislikes to have to find fault, even with poor Betty, but it never seems to strike Betty, in her lofty and distant way. She is a conscien- or her mistress either, that though poverty may tious, honorable lady, who exacts no more than be inevitable, dirt and tatters never are-that a she performs; and her servants respect her. girl, if ever so ignorant, can generally be taught But they stand in awe of her; they do not love her. There is a wide gulf between their humanity and hers-you never would believe that they and she shared the same flesh and blood of

-a house, if ever so small and ill furnished, can at least be clean-a dinner, if ever so plain, nay, scanty, may be well cooked and well arranged; and however the servants fall short,

every mistress has always her own intelligent | everything Mrs. Johnson has done, and exactly brain, and has, at the worst, her own pair of ac- how she has looked, for a week past, ending with tive hands. Did you ever consider that last a grave, respectful remark, ventured in right of possibility, my good Mrs. Robinson? Would her own ten years of eldership, that she "is Betty honor you less if, every morning, she saw afraid missis is wearing herself out, and would you dust a chair or two, or hunt out lurking you please to come and see her?" ambushes of spiders-so that she was shamed into knowledge and industry by the conviction, that what she left undone, her mistress would certainly do? Would you be less amiabe in your husband's eyes by the discovery, that it was you yourself who cooked, and then taught Betty to cook, his comfortable dinner? Would he have less pleasure in your dainty fingers for seeing on them a few needle marks, caused by the making of tidy chair-covers, or the mending of clean threadbare carpets, so as to make the best of his plain. quiet home, where Heaven has at once denied the blessing and spared the responsibility of children? But you may be as ignorant as Betty herself. I am afraid you are. Nevertheless, if she can learn, surely you can. Let me give you a golden rule-"Never expect a servant to do that which you cannot do, or, if necessary, will learn to do, yourself."

And missis, on her side, returns the kindly interest. She likes to hear anything and every thing that her damsels may have to tell, from the buying of a new gown to the birth of a new nephew. Any relatives of theirs who may appear in the kitchen, she generally goes to speak to, and welcomes always kindly. She is glad to encourage family affection, believing it to be quite as necessary and as beautiful in a poor housemaid as in a sentimental lady. Love, also. She has not the smallest objection to let that young baker come in to tea on Sundays, entering honestly at the front-door, without need of sneaking behind area-railings. And if, on such Sundays, Jane is rather absent and awkward, with a tendency to forget the spoons, and put hot plates where cold should be, her mistress pardons all, and tempers master's indignation by reminding him of a certain summer, not ten years back, when-etc. Upon which he kisses his little wife, and grows mild.

old maid-servants do pet the children of "the family." Freddy says, she has promised never to leave him; and her mistress, who probably knows as much of Mary's affairs as anybody, does not think it likely she ever will.

Mrs. Johnson, now, will be a very good illus tration of this. I doubt if she is any richer than Mrs. Robinson; and a few years after her mar- Thus the family have no dread of "followers," riage, I know it was very uphill-work indeed no visions of burglarious sweethearts introduced with the young couple; especially for the wife, by the kitchen-window, or tribes of locust" couswho, married at nineteen, was as ignorant as ins" creating a famine in the larder. Having any school-girl. She and her cook are reported always won confidence, Mrs. Johnson has little to have studied Mrs. Glass together. To this fear of being deceived. When pretty Jane can day, I fancy the praise of any special dinner make up her mind, doubtless there will occur would be modestly received as conjointly due to that most creditable event to both parties-the "missis and me." So, doubtless, would any maid being married from her mistress's house. grand effect in household arrangements, though, Of course, Jane would be a great loss, or Mary where all goes on so smoothly and orderly. that either; but Mary is growing middle-aged, and the most sudden visitor would only necessitate is often seen secretly petting Master Fred, as only an extra knife and fork, and a clean pair of sheets in the spare room, there is not much opportunity for any coup d'état in the housemaidline. As for the nursery-staff-but since her boys could walk alone, Mrs. Johnson has abolished the nursery altogether. If she has no The Johnson household is the best example I more children, these two lads will have the in- know of the proper relation between Kitchen finite blessing of never being "managed" by and Parlor. True, Jane and Mary are estimaany womankind save their mother. Of course, ble women, might have been such in any it is a busy, and often hard life for her; and her "place;" but I will do human nature the justice handmaidens know it. They see her employed to believe, that the class of domestic servants from morning till night, happy and merry enough, but always employed. They themselves would be ashamed to be lazy; they would do anything in the world to lighten things to missis. It is a clear but often unrecognized law of soIf little delicate Fred is ailing, Jane will sit up cial advancement, that any reformatory movehalf the night with him, and still get up at five ment must necessarily commence in the higher next morning. Mary, the cook, does not grum-class, and gradually influence the lower. By ble at any accidental waiting, if missis, in her higer and lower, I mean simply as regards moral sewing, has the slightest need of Jane. Both and intellectual cultivation, which, continued would work their fingers to the bone any day to through generations, and become a habit of life, save her the least trouble or pain. Not a cloud makes, and is the only thing that does or ought comes across her path-not a day of illness-her to make, the difference between master and own or her little ones'-shadows her bright servant, patrician and plebeian. I, as Mrs. looks, but is felt as an absolute grief in the Thompson, descended from the clan Robertson, kitchen. Jane's face, as she opens the front-door, a very superior family, have a great deal more is a sufficient indication to all friends as how chance of being a lady than Peg Thompson, my things are with the "family;" and if you. be-nursery-maid, whose father, grandfather, etc., ing very intimate, make any chance inquiry of have been farm-laborers. But if, by any of her Mary in the street, ten to one she will tell you not rare freaks, Dame Nature should have placed

contains many possible Janes and Marys, if only their good qualities could be elicited by a few more Mrs. Johnsons.

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