Tennyson

none the less an original

poet.

Pseudopastoral

verse.

the perfection of that art by which he has wedded his master's method to the spirit and resources of the English tongue. I have written with genuine reverence for Tennyson's work, and with a gratitude, felt by all who take pleasure in noble verse, for the delight imparted through many years by the successive productions of his genius. In study of the Sicilian models he has been true to his poetic instinct, and fortunate in discernment of the wants of his day and generation. Emerson, in an essay on "Imitation and Originality," has said: "We expect a great man to be a good reader; or in proportion to the spontaneous power should be the assimilating power"; and again, “There are great ways of borrowing. Genius borrows nobly. When Shakespeare is charged with debts to his authors, Landor replies: 'Yet he was more original than his originals. He breathed upon dead bodies and brought them to life.""

It must be acknowledged that somewhat of this applies to Tennyson's variations upon Theocritus. To him, also, may be adjudged the credit of being the first to catch the manner of the classical idyls and reproduce it in modern use and being. Before his time Milton and Shelley were the only poets who measurably succeeded in this attempt, and neither of them repeated it after a single trial. Other reproductions of the Greek idyllic form have been by a kind of filtration through the Latin medium; and often, by a third remove, after a redistillation of the French product. The odious result is visible in the absurd pastorals of "standard British poets," from Dryden himself and Pope, to Browne, Ambrose Philips, Shenstone, and Gay. Their bucolics have made us sicken at the very mention of such names as Daphnis and

CLOSE OF THE IDYLLIC PERIOD.

Corydon, soiled as these are with all ignoble use. Tennyson revived the true idyllic purpose, adopting the form mainly as a structure in which to exhibit, with The true idyl. equal naturalness and beauty, the scenery, thought, manners, of his own country and time. Assuming the title of idyllic poet, he made the term “idyl” honored and understood; but carried his method to such perfection, that its cycle seems already near an end, and a new generation is calling for work of a different order, for more vital passion and dramatic power.

233

An era fairly represented by its miscellaneous poets.

T

CHAPTER VII.

THE GENERAL CHOIR.

HE choral leaders are few in number, and it is from a blended multitude of voices that we derive the general tone and volume, at any epoch, of a nation's poetic song. The miscellaneous poets, singly or in characteristic groups, give us the pervading quality of a stated era. Great singers, lifted by imagination, make style secondary to thought; or, rather, the thought of each assumes a correlative form of expression. Younger or minor contemporaries catch and reflect the fashion of these forms, even if they fail to create a soul beneath. It is said that very great poets never, through this process, have founded schools, their art having been of inimitable loftiness or simplicity; but who of the accepted few, during recent years, has thus held the unattainable before the vision of the facile English throng?

The early situation

I.

At the beginning of the present reign Tennyson and outlook. Was slowly obtaining recognition, and his influence Accession of had not yet established the poetic fashion of the Victoria: time. Wordsworth shone by himself, in a serene and

June 20,

1837.

luminous orbit, at a height reached only after a pro

EARLY SITUATION AND OUTLOOK.

235

Wordsworth, Poet

born April

23, 1850.

Motherwell:

1797-1835.

longed career. The death of Byron closed a splendid William but tempestuous era, and was followed by years of reaction, almost of sluggish calm. At least, the Laureate: group of poets was without a leader, and was com- 7, 1770; died April posed of men who, with few great names among them, utilized their gifts, each after his own method or after one of that master, among men of the previous generation, whom he most affected. A kind of interregnum occurred. Numbers of minor poets and scholars survived their former compeers, and wrote creditable verse, but produced little that was essen-william tially new. Motherwell had died, at the early age of thirty-eight, having done service in the revival of Scottish ballad-minstrelsy: and with the loss of the author of that exquisite lyric, "Jeanie Morrison," of "The Cavalier's Song," and "The Sword-Chant of Thorstein Raudi," there passed away a vigorous and The retired sympathetic poet. Southey, Moore, Rogers, Frere, list. Wilson, James Montgomery, Campbell, James and Horace Smith, Croly, Joanna Baillie, Bernard Barton, Elliott, Cunningham, Tennant, Bowles, Maginn, Peacock, poor John Clare, the translators Cary and Lockhart,1 all these were still alive, but had outlived their generation, and, as far as verse was concerned,

Robert Southey, Poet Laureate, 1774-1843; Thomas Moore, 1779-1852; Samuel Rogers, 1763 - 1855; Rt. Hon. John Hookham Frere, 1769–1846; John Wilson, 1785 - 1854; Rev. James Montgomery, 1771 – 1854; Thomas Campbell, 1777 – 1844; James Smith, 1775–1839; Horace Smith, 1779–1849; Rev. George Croly, 1780-1860; Joanna Baillie, 1762 - 1851; Bernard Barton, 1784-1849; Ebenezer Elliott, 1781 - 1849; Allan Cunningham, 1784-1842; William Tennant, 1785-1848; Rev. William Lisle Bowles, 1762-1850; William Maginn, 1793–1842; Thomas Love Peacock, 1785-1866; John Clare, 1793-1864; Rev. Henry Francis Cary, 1772-1844; John Gibson Lockhart, 1794-1854.

236

Leigh Hunt. See page 103.

Hart Mil

man: 1791-1868.

Noon Tal

fourd: 1795-1854.

Fames

DARLEY.—BEDDOES. — TA YLOR.

were more or less superannuated. What Landor, Hood, and Procter were doing has passed already under review. Leigh Hunt continued his pleasant verse and prose, and did much to popularize the Rev. Henry canons of art exemplified in the poetry of his former song-mates, Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats. Milman, afterward Dean of St. Paul's, a pious and conventional poet who dated his literary career from the success of an early drama, “Fazio," still was writing Sir Thomas plays that did credit to a churchman and Oxford professor. Talfourd's "Ion" and "The Athenian Captive" also had made a stage-success: the poets had not yet discovered that a stage which the talent of Macready exactly fitted, and a histrionic feeling of which the plays of Sheridan Knowles had come to be the faithful expression, were not stimulating to the production of the highest grade of dramatic Mary Rus- poetry. Various dramas and poems, by that cheery, versatile authoress, Miss Mitford, had succeeded her 1786-1855. tragedies of "Julian" and "Rienzi." It must be owned that these three were good names in a day of which the fashion has gone by. At this distance we see plainly that they were minor poets, or that the times were unfriendly to work whose attraction should be lasting. Doubtless, were they alive and active now, they would contend for favor with many "Strayed whom the present delights to honor.

Sheridan Knowles: 1784-1862.

sell Mit

ford:

singers."

George Darley: 1785-1849.

Meanwhile a few men of genius, somewhat out of place in their generation, had been essaying dramatic work for the love of it, but had little ambition or continuity, finding themselves so hopelessly astray. Darley, after his first effort, “Sylvia,” a crude but poetical study in the sweet pastoral manner of Jonson and Fletcher, was silent, except for some