Silence, beautiful voice! Be still, for you only trouble the mind Still I will hear you no more, For your sweetness hardly leaves me a choice When we read the above passage we had good hope that the Laureate had emerged from the fog, but he again becomes indistinct and distorted. However, the worst is past, for we verily believe it would be impossible for ingenuity itself to caricature the commencement. Maud begins to smile upon Misanthropos, who is, however, still suspicious; for her brother has an eye to a seat for the county, and the young lady may be a canvasser in disguise. We should like to know what gentleman sate for the following sketch: "What if tho' her eye seem'd full Of a kind intent to me, What if that dandy-despot, he, It seems, however, that a young member of the peerage, who owes his rank to black diamonds, is an admirer of Maud; whereupon the misanthropic lover again becomes abusive: 'Sick, am I sick of a jealous dread? What, has he found my jewel out? But, after all, Misanthropos proves too much for the titled Lord of the Mines, for he and Maud have a walk together in a wood, and the courtship commences in earnest : "Birds in our wood sang I kiss'd her slender hand, She took the kiss sedately; Maud is not seventeen, But she is tall and stately. Look, a horse at the door, And little King Charles is snarling. You are not her darling." O dear, dear! what manner of stuff is this? But that Assyrian Bull of a brother is again in the way, and treats Misanthropos cavaliely; notwithstanding which he proposes to Maud, and is accepted. We make every allowance for the raptures of a lover on such an occasion, and admit that he is privileged to talk very great nonsense; but there must be a limit somewhere; and we submit to Mr. Tennyson whether he was justified, for his own sake, in putting a passage so outrageously silly as the following into the mouth of his hero : "Go not, happy day, From the shining fields, Till the maiden yields. Rosy is the West, Rosy is the South, And a rose her mouth. Falters from her lips, Over blowing seas, Over seas at rest, Blush it thro' the West. Rosy is the South, Roses are her cheeks, And a rose her mouth." It seems to us a splendid piece of versification, but deficient in melody and passion, and much too artificial for the situation. Others, however, may think differently, and therefore we extract the conclusion : "Is that enchanted moan only the swell Blest, but for some dark undercurrent woe Then follows some namby-pamby which we shall not quote. There is to be a grand political dinner and dance at the Hall, to which Misanthropos is not invited; but he intends to wait in Maud's own rose-garden until the ball is over, when he hopes to obtain an interview for a moment. Then comes a very remarkable passage, in which Mr. Tennyson gives a signal specimen of the rhythmical power which he possesses. The music of it is faultless; and we at least are not disposed to cavil at the quaintness of the imagery which is almost Oriental in its tone. We treasure it the more, because it is the one gem of the collection— the only passage that we can read with pure unmixed delight, and with a perfect conviction that it is the strain of a true poet. Other passages there are, more ambitious and elaborate, studded all over with those metaphors, strange epithets, and conceits which are the disfigurement of modern poetry, and which we are surprised that a man of genius and experience should persist in using: but they all seem to us to want life and reality, and surely the ink was sluggish in the pen when they were written. Only in this one does the verse flash out like a golden thread from a reel; and we feel that our hands are bound, like those of Thalaba, when the enchantress sang to him as she Mr. Halliwell some years ago published a collection of Nursery Rhymes. We have not the volume by us at present; but we are fully satisfied that nothing so bairnly as the above is to be found in the Breviary of the Innocents The part which follows this is ambitiously and elaborately written, and we doubt not will find many admirers. It is eminently rhetorical, and replete with graceful imagery, but some- "Come into the garden, Mand, how there is not a line in it which haunts us. For the black bat, night, has flown, spun:- And the soul of the rose went into my blood, As the music clash'd in the hall; And long by the garden lake I stood, For I heard your rivulet fall Little more of story is there. The lovers are surprised in the garden by the Assyrian Bull and Lord Culm and Coke, and the former smites Misanthropos on the face. A duel ensues, when "procumbit humi bos.” Misanthropos betakes himself to France, returns, finds that his love is dead, and goes mad. Mr. Tennyson has written a mad passage, but we must needs say that he had better have spared himself the trouble. Seven pages of what he most accurately calls "idiot gabble," are rather too much, more especially when they do not contain a touch of pathos. We weep over the disordered wits of Ophelia-we listen to the ravings of Misanthropos, and are nervous as to what may happen if the keeper should not presently appear with a strait-jacket. The case is bad enough when young poetasters essay to gain a hearing by dint of maniacal howls; but it is far worse when we find a man of undoubted genius and wide-spread reputa From the lake to the meadow and on to the tion, demeaning himself by putting his name wood, Our wood, that is dearer than all; From the meadow your walks have left so sweet That whenever a March-wind sighs He sets the jewel-print of your feet In violets blue as your eyes, To the woody hollows in which we meet, The slender acacia would not shake One long milk-bloom on the tree; The white lake-blossoms fell into the lake, Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls, Shine out. little head, sunning over with curls, There has fallen a splendid tear, to such absolute nonsense as this: "Not that gray old wolf, for he came not back From the wilderness full of wolves, where he used to lie ; He has gather'd the bones for his o'ergrown whelp to crack; Crack them now for yourself, and howl, and die. Prophet, curse me the blabbing lip, I know not whether he came in the Hanover ship, But I know that he lies and listens mute Except that now we poison oar babes, poor souls! It is all used up for that." Can Mr. Tennyson possibly be laboring under the delusion that he is using his high talents well and wisely, and giving a valuable contribution to the poetic literature of England, by composing and publishing such gibberish? We are told that there is method in madness, and Shakspeare never lost sight of that when giving voice to the ravings of King Lear; but this is mere barbarous bedlamite 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: And noble thought be freer under the sun 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 now by the side of the Black and the Bal-That if I be dear to some one else, tic deep, And deathful-grinning mouths of the fortress flames The blood-red blossom of war with a heart of fire." Then some one else may have much to fear; Then I should be to myself more 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? vented to test the youthful powers of pronun- Here is one 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 energy, 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, from the subsequent collection. It is many a long year since we read that poem, but we know it by heart sufficiently well to declaim it; and we venture from memory to transcribe the opening stanza: land ways, "Be mine a philosopher's life in the quiet woodWhere if I cannot be gay, let a passionless peace be my lot, Far-off from the clamor of liars belied in the hubbub of lies: From the long-neck'd gerse of the world that are ever hissing dispraise 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 conscien Also 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 vent to the following confession, we have no bowels of compassion left, and we feel a considerable degree of contempt for Maud for having condescended to listen to the addresses of such a pitiful poltroon: 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| riously imperilling his fame by issuing poems so ill considered, crude, tawdry, and objectionable as this, then we believe that our present plainness of speech will be the cause of a 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 terms 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 "He brings all of a newspaper that it contains "the latest intel- late," means that it is stale; but 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. |