Alfred Tennyson

tiful Tithonus, a fit pendant to the Ulysses, and composed about the same date (1833–35). "A quarter of a century ago," Tennyson dates it, writing in 1860 to th

nd him recommending Mr Browning's Men and Women to the Duke, who, like many Tennysonians, does not seem to have been a ready convert to his great contemporary. The Duke and Duchess urged the Laureate to attempt the topic of the Holy Grail, but he was not in the mood. Indeed the

At Cauteretz in August, and among memories of the old tour with Arthur Hallam, was written All along the Valley. The ways, however, in Auvergne were "foul," and the diet "unhappy." The dedication of the Idylls was written on the death of the Prince Consort in December, and in January 1862 the Ode for the opening of an exhibition. The poet was busy with his "Fisherman," Enoch Arden. The volume was published in 1864, and Lord Tennyson says it has been, next to In Memoriam, the most popular of his father's works. One would have expected the one volume containing th

wooded to the

des high up lik

co's drooping

flash of insec

f the long c

und the stately

imit of the l

the broad bel

aw; but what h

see, the kind

a kindly voi

riek of wheel

roller thunder

per of huge tre

in the zenit

pitous rivule

ore he ranged,

the seaward

sailor, wait

day to day,

broken into

ms and ferns

on the water

pon his isl

on the water

rs that globed the

bellowing oce

afts of sunris

s too gloomy to be a fair specimen of Tennyson's art. In Sea Dreams (first published in 18

the North

m'd, of lumino

it a low m

ied; and, as it

ued from the b

rowing note, an

underous fulness

h awful light (

the belt) wh

nes of cliffs wer

edral fronts

stern, as far a

and then the gr

the lessening

the belt and

usic: ever

ing or saint o

gaps and chasm

omen in dark c

t them up! they

them lie, for t

rove and wrangled

dream, she knew

wailings nev

note; and ever

p the gamut,

e none mark'd i

awful light, and

ssionate looks,

h and blood, an

ste deeps

n I

eyes on two

h stars and high

ther standing

of those dark

n to totter,

mother, and s

little Margare

d me:-well-but w

mood of Arthur, in the Idylls, than for the

t madness, or fever of the brain drugged by the blundering love philtre, is not more cunningly treated in the mad scenes of Maud. No prose commentary on the De

sing and instructive: he had an easy game to play with the Yankee-doodle metre of F. W. Newman, the ponderous blank verse of Cowper, the tripping and clipping couplets of Pope, the Elizabethan fantasies of Chapman. But Mr Arnold's hexameters wer

on of hexameters as an Englis

ers the strong-wing

ere intended to follow the Greek rather than the Horatian model, and resulted, at all events, in a poem worthy of the "mighty-mouth'd inventor of harmo

h vapour far in

es the voice and trick of the English

aven the stars

, when all the

ht comes out,

nd the immeas

heir highest, a

Shepherd gladde

between the s

zed before the

the plain; and

the blaze of

ry grain and p

cars, waited t

te rendering of the Iliad into verse, and prose translations do not pretend to be adequate. When parents and dominies have abolished the study of Greek, something, it seems, will have b

breaketh his tether, and dasheth thro' the plain, spurning it, being wont to bathe himself in the fair-running river, rioting, and reareth his head, and his mane flieth back on either shoulder, and he glorieth in his beauty, and h

mother whose portrait he drew in Is

Johnson, Victor Hugo, Théophile Gautier, and some other poets. Nay, he liked Beethoven, which places him higher in the musical scale than Scott, who did not rise above a Border lilt or a Jacobite ditty. The Wren songs, entitled The Window, were privately printed by Sir Ivor Guest in 1867, were set to music by Sir Arthur Sullivan, and published by Strahan in December 1870. "A puppet," Tennyson

h, Mr Knowles being the architect. In autumn Tennyson visited Lyme Regis, and, like all other travellers thither, made a pilgrimage to the Cobb, sacred to Louisa Musgrove. The poet now began the study of Hebrew, having a mind to translate th

anything, 'Pucks, not the spirits of dead men, reveal themselves.'" This was Southey's suggestion, as regards the celebrated disturbances in the house of the Wesleys. "Wit might have much to say, wisdom, little," said Sam

these years of apparent inactivity. At this time (August 1868) Tennyson left his old publishers, the Moxons, for Mr Strahan, who endured till 1872. Then he was succeeded by Messrs H. S. King & Co., who gave pl

Tennyson. Meanwhile "Old Fitz" kept up a fire of unsympathetic growls at Browning and all his works. "I have been trying in vain to read it" (The Ring and the Book), "and yet the Athen?um tells me it is wonderfully fine." FitzGerald's ply had been taken lon

antial rough-spun nature I knew," to all the visionary knights in the airy Quest. To compare "-" (obviously Browning) with Tennyson, was "to compare an old Jew's

t ultimate things two men could not vary more widely, but each delighted in the other's society. In the spring of 1872 Tennyson visited Paris and the ruins of the Louvre. He read Victor Hugo, and Alfred de Musset, whose comedies he admired. The little that we hear of his opinion of the other great poet runs to this effect, "Victor Hugo is an unequal genius, sometimes sublime; he reminds one that there is but one step

nous honey stol

lin and Balan was introduction sufficient had it been the earlier written. But the Idylls have already been discussed as arranged in sequence. The completion of the Idylls, with the patriotic epilogue, was followed by the offer of a baronetcy. Tennyson pref

d them. Shakespeare and his contemporaries, Molière and his contemporaries, had lived their lives on the boards and in the foyer, actors themselves, or in daily touch with actors and actresses. In the present day successful playwrights appear to live much in the world of the players. They have practical knowledge of the conventions and conditions which the stage imposes. Neither Browning nor Mr Swinburne (to take great names) has had, it seems, much of this practical and daily experience; their dramas have been acted but rarely, if at all, and many examples prove that neither poetical genius nor the genius for prose fiction can enable men to produce plays which hold their own on the boards. This may be the fault of public taste, or partly of public taste,

ger with the enterprise and intelligence of Sir Henry Irving, it is impossible to say how much he might have done to restore the serious drama. But we cannot regret that he was occupied in his prime with other things, nor can we expect to find his noblest and most enduring work in the dramatic experiments of his latest years. It is notable that, in his opinion, "the conditions of the dramatic art are much more complex than they were." For example, we have "the star syst

h is a pattern to her sex, and her lord is a clement and sagacious ruler. The witches are ruled out of the piece. Difficulties arise about the English aid to Malcolm. History, in fact, declines to be dramatic. Liberties must be taken. In his plays of the Mary Stuart cycle, Mr Swinburne telescopes the affair of Darnley into that of Chastelard, which was much earlier. He makes Mary Beaton (in love with Chastelard) a kind of avenging fate, who will never leave the Queen till her head falls at Fotheringay; though, in fact, after a flirtation with Randolph

er to be praised, if we overlook her erroneous opinions in religion," says Godwin. She had been grievously wronged from her youth upwards. In Elizabeth she had a sister and a rival, a constant intriguer against her, and a kinswoman far from amiable. Despite "the kindness and attention of Philip" (Lingard), affairs of State demanded his absence from England. The disappointment as to her expected child was cruel. She knew that she had become unpopular, and she could not look for the success of her Church, to which she was sincerely attached. M. Auguste Filon thought that Queen Mary might secure dramatic rank for Tennyson, "if a

heir way, as, earlier, Latimer had preached against sufferers at the stake. To the stake, which he feared so greatly, Cranmer had sent persons not of his own fleeting shade of theological opinion. These men had burned Anabaptists, but all that is lightly forgotten by Protestant opinion. Under Mary (whoever may have been primarily responsible) Cranmer and Latimer were treated as they had treated others. Moreover, some two hundred poor men and women had dared the fiery death. The persecution was on a scale never forgiven or forgotten, since Mary began cerdonibus esse timenda. Mary was not essentially inclement. Despite Renard, the agent of the Emperor, she spared that lord of fluff and feather, Courtenay, and she spared Elizabeth. Lady Jane she could not save, the girl who was

ft of prominence. The interest as regards him is indicated, in Act I. scene v., by Mary's kissing his miniature. Her blighted love for him is one main motive of the tragedy, but his own part appears too subordinate in the play as published. The interest is scattered among the vast crowd of characters; and Mr R. H. Hutton remarked at the time that he "remains something of a cold, cruel, and sensual shadow." We are more interested in Wyatt, Cranmer, Gardiner, and others; or at least their parts are more interesting. Yet in no case

yson's history is almost critical and scientific. Points of difficult and debated evidence (as to Elizabeth's part in Wyatt's rebellion) are discussed. There is no contest of day and darkness, of Truth and Error. The characters are in that perplexed condition about creeds which was their actual state after the political and social and religious chaos produced by Henry VIII. Gardine

ide me lest I

Eliz

ts weather'd, ma

rbour opens;

need fine stee

d, nor bigot

talk, or dream

ngs about her

sunk rocks; no p

e-balance an

ne to the heart

shadow of deat

ss the Tudor-

lizabeth whom English loyalty created, lived for, and died for. Mr Froude wrote, "You have given us the greatest of all your works," an opinion which the world can never accept. "You have reclaimed one more section of English History from the wilderness, and given it a form in which it will be fixed for ever. No one since Shakespeare has done that." But Mr Froude had done it, and Tennyson's reading of "the section" is ma

strange thing happi

hine happ

nce. I wil

race forget you

hallow brook a

, where the blac

ound and babb

were happy. I

king with the

ut I thought I

silent, lettin

ll he stoop'd a

d of thick fo

d sweet at me,

o' I did not

my bosom, an

ms about me,

have been too s

ospellers even

d not touch. W

t, workmen, and w

ue, fever, stor

d the coward; bu

Philip's lead

ice here-gar

ares with unqu

welcome which Mr Browning gave both to the published work and to the acted play-"a complete success": "conception, execution, the whole and the parts, I see nowhere the shadow of

th and the claims of his country. His ruin comes from what Aristotle would call his ?μαρτ?α, his fault in swearing the oath to William. The hero himself; recking little, after a superstitious moment, of the concealed relics over which he swore, deems his offence to lie in swearing a vow which he never meant to keep. The persuasions which urge him to this course are admirably presented: England, Edith, his brother's freedom, were at stake. Casuistry, or even law, would have absolved him easily; an oath taken under duresse is of no avail. But Harold's "honour rooted in dishonour stood," and he cannot so readily absolve himself. Bruce and the bishops who stood by Bruce had no such scruples: they perjured themselves often, on the most sacred relics, especially the bishops. But Harold rises

G. H. Lewes called them, seem to have been unfriendly. In fact (besides the innate wretchedness of all critics), they grudged the time and

er's Tale, which has been treated here among his earliest works. His hours, and (to some extent) his meals, were regulated by Sir Andrew Clark. He planted trees, walked, read, loitered in his garden, and kept up his old friendships, while he made that of the great Gordon. Compliments passed between him and Victor Hugo, who had entertained Lionel Tennyson in Paris, and wrote: "Je lis avec émotion vos vers superbes; c'est un reflet de gloire que vous m'envoyez." Mr Matthew Arnold's compliment was very like Mr Arnold's humour: "Your father has been our most popular poet for over forty years, and I am of opinion

n poets nineteen h

is probably the finest of the patriotic pieces, and keeps green the memory of an exploit the most marvellous in the annals of English seamen. The Village Wife is a pendant worthy of The Northern Farmer. The poem In the Children's Hospital caused so

ng of the protagonists are not easily to be forgotten. The play ran for a hundred and thirty nights. Sir Henry Irving had thought that Becket (then unpublished) would prove too expensive, and could only be a succès d'estime. Tennyson had found out that "the worst of writing for the stage is, you must keep

much complexity; and Tennyson thought that his subtle blend of Roman refinement and intellectuality, and barbarian, self-satisfied sensuality, was not "hit off." Synorix is, in fact, half-Gree

ost inspire the

read within the

bs, then air, an

his father-Th

to robe our bi

our vales with

golden oceans

ng grape-bunche

arts with fatne

e me happy in

dramatically, a mood like another, a human mood not so very uncommon. A man ruined in this world's happiness curses the faith of his youth, and the unfaith of his reading and reflection, and tries to drown himself. This is one conclusion of the practical syllogism, and it is a free country. However, there were freethinkers who did not think that Tennyson's kind of thinking ought to be free. Other earnest persons objected to "Firs

le girl of fifteen, and later, by way of making amends, proposes to commit incest by marrying her sister. There have been evolutionists, to be sure, who believed in promiscuity, like Mr Edgar, as preferable to monogamy. But this only proves that an evolutionist may fail to understand evolution. There be also such folk as Stevenson calls "squirradicals"-squires who say that "the land is the people's." Probably no advocate of promiscuity, and no squirradical, was present at the performances of The Promise of May. But people of advanced minds had got it into their heads that their doctrines were to be attacked, so they we

not live to see the delightful poem which Tennyson had written for him. In almost his latest letter he had remarked, superf

r Gladstone, in an interesting speech, compared the relative chances of posthumous fame of the poet and the politician. Pericles is not less remembered than Sophocles, though Shakespeare is more in men's minds than Cecil. Much depends, as far as the statesmen

make smooth the lives of his descendants. But he concluded, "Why should I be selfish and not suffer an honour (as Gladstone says) to be done to literature in my name?" Politically, he thought that the Upper House, while it lasts, partly supplied the place of the American "referendum." He voted in July 1884 for the extension of the franchise, and in November stated his views to Mr Gladstone in verse. In prose he wrote to Mr Gladstone, "I have a strong conviction that the more simple the dealings of men with men, as well as of ma

a poet is always regarded as unpractical, and is even apt to injure the cause which he advocates. Happily there cannot be two

y too costly to be produced with more than a succès d'estime; but in 1891 he put it on the stage, where it proved the most successful of modern poetic dramas. As published it is, obviously, far too long for public performance. It is not easy to understand why dramatic poets always make their works so much too long. The drama seems, by its very nature, to have a limit almost as distinct as the limit of the sonnet. It is easy to calculate how

lity. A "chronicle play" has the privilege of wandering, but Becket wanders too far and too long. The political details of the quarrel between Church and State, with its domestic and international complexities, are apt to fatigue the attention. Inevitable and insoluble as the situation was, neither protagonist is entirely sympathetic, whether in the play or in history. The struggle in Becket between his lov

was out with H

oved me, and

itting on her

d and touch'd; s

rozen round he

on a heap of

ove, this mother

made-even the

Ay, still a lover o

men-will you n

rce De Brocs from

Holy Mother

is hard egg, the

's heat into it

els. Pray you,

s a little fair-

ther's house:

e, as her name

world'

bury. Ay, and

he died o

the Archbishop himself. The opportunities for scenic effects are magnificent throughout, and must have contributed greatly to the success on the stage. Still one cannot but regard the published Becket as rather the marble from which the statue may be hewn than as the statue itself. There are fine scenes, powerful and masterly drawing of character in Henry, Eleanor, and Becket, but there is a want of concentration, due, perhaps, to the long period of time covered by the action. So, at least, it seems to a reader who has

En

f war again

d, from Pope to Po

ash her level

e Pope be