But, some blind adorer of the Tennysonian muse may exclaim, this Maud is an allegory; an allegory of what? of the War? So much the worse, because in this case it is so unlike an allegory, that it requires some such explanation as that furnished by the botch painter, who, intending to draw a cock, painted something so unlike the chanticleer, that he was forced to write under,"This is a cock." If it be an allegory,who is Maud? Is she Turkey, "with a sensitive nose;" "only the child of her mother " Are England and France the lover with "a waxen face," "A rabbit mouth that is ever agape?" Is Russia the "big brother?""That oiled and curled Assyrian Bull ?" If Maud be an allegory it is a mistake, wild, aimless, and false as the first line of Locksley Hall, which, though the poem is of our own time and age, tells the comrades of the jilted suitor to "sound upon the bugle horn," when they want him. In truth Maud is not an allegory, it is only a wild, carelessly written poem, "full of sound and fury," but too often "signifying nothing."

But is this the poetry which Alfred Tennyson should present us? In the prime of existence; living as he pleases; with no necessity to fear to-day lest to-morrow may bring its galling struggles of sordid poverty-thus placed in life, with the great field of nature and of the human heart, with all their phases of hope, and love, and ever changing, yet ever living passion— why has he written this Maud? He who has been tender; so deep in pathos; so fierce in the energetic expression of wild and bitter feeling; he who was himself so earnest a lover, and so true a painter of material nature, making her beauties more beautiful by the hues of his own bright, sunny fancy, was Maud the poem for him to write? Heaven knows, the prizes of life are few, and are only attainable after the dust and sweat of the arena have been endured: but, if the prizes of common life be thus difficult to secure, surely the Poet's wreath is, in this age, the most doubtful in attainment of all: why then should he, who has borne it honorably away, be careless of the lustre of its ever sparkling sheen, or forget that if it shine not amongst the great poets of the past,-those "Lights of the world and demi-gods of fame," it shines not at all.

What matters it that Moxon has sold 3,000, or 5,000, copies of this first edition of Maud: 3,000, or 5,000 people who estimated Alfred Tennyson as a Poet have been forced, by Alfred Tennyson himself, to suspend their judgment, and to consider that he may be, after all, but a verse-spinning, prose-in

verting, phrase-monger. What Moxon may sell, or may not sell, is no longer the question: he cannot sell future poems of Alfred Tennyson, if they be not far superior in composition, in fancy, and in thought to Maud; and such a poem as the world now demands the Laureate can never more write unless he keep before his mind the philosophy of Wordsworth's thought, and can cry, addressing Poetry,

"Be mute who will, who can,
Yet will I praise thee with impassion'd voice!
Me didst thou constitute a priest of thine
In such a temple as we now behold,

Rear'd for thy presence; therefore am I bound
To worship, here and every where."

If this be his spirit, Tennyson can once more claim readers by hundreds of thousands; but if the maudlin Maud style be repeated, few will "vex the poet's mind" by criticism- for few will read the poetaster's verses.

LIFE IN FRANCE.

ART. II.-JOHN BANIM.

PART VI.

ILLNESS. LETTERS.

DISPUTES WITH PUB

LISHERS. COMPOSITION OF THE SMUGGLER," AND OF "THE DWARF BRIDE. WRITES DRAMATIC PIECES FOR THOMAS ARNOLD. "THE DEATH FETCH, OR THE STUDENT OF GOTTINGEN," REPRESENTED AT THE ENGLISH OPERA HOUSE: STRICTURES OF "THE TIMES" ON ITS PLOT. LETTERS. ILLNESS OF BANIM'S MOTHER: BEAUTIFUL TRAITS OF HER LOVE FOR JOHN. LETTERS. DEATH OF OLD MRS. BANIM. LETTERS. KINDNESS OF FRIENDS IN BOULOGNE. TROUBLES OF AUTHORSHIP. DISPUTES WITH, AND LOSSES BY, PUBLISHERS. WRITES FOR THE ANNUALS." LETTERS. ILL HEALTH AND PECUNIARY EMBARRASSMENTS. A SON BORN. SICK OF THE CHOLERA; A RELAPSE. PUBLICATION OF THE CHAUNT OF THE CHOLERA. PUBLICATION OF THE MAYOR OF

دو

WINDGAP," AND OF MISS MARTIN'S " CANVASSING," IN NEW SERIES OF TALES BY THE O'HARA FAMILY." LETTERS. VISIT OF MRS. BANIM TO LONDON. DEBT AND EMBARRASSMENT. AFFECTING LETTER. APPEAL ON BANIM'S BEHALF IN "THE SPECTATOR," AND BY STERLING, "THE THUNDERER,' IN THE TIMES." LETTER FROM BANIM TO THE TIMES." MEETINGS IN DUBLIN, CORK, KILKENNY, AND LIMERICK, IN AID OF BANIM. REPORT OF THE DUBLIN MEETING: MORRISON'S LARGE ROOM GIVEN FREE OF CHARGE FOR THE MEETING: THE LORD MAYOR PRESIDES: SHEIL'S SPEECH: THE RESOLUTIONS AND NAMES OF SUBSCRIBERS AND COMMITTEE. COMMITTEE ROOM OPENED AT MORRISON'S HOTEL: P. COSTELLOE AND SAMUEL LOVER APPOINTED HONORARY SECRETARIES. LIBERALITY OF THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL. LETTERS. A SON BORN. REMOVAL TO PARIS. LETTERS. LINES TO THE COLOSSAL ELEPHANT ON THE SITE OF THE

BASTILE. ILL HEALTH; COPY OF OPINION ON HIS CASE

BY FRENCH AND ENGLISH SURGEONS. VIOLENT REMEDIES : THEIR UNHAPPY RESULT. LETTERS. ANXIETY TO RETURN TO KILKENNY. THE JOURNEY FROM PARIS TO BOULOGNE; MISHAPS BY THE WAY: LINES," THE CALL FROM HOME." "Whether Hope and I shall ever become intimate again in this world, except on the pilgrimage to the next, is very doubtful," wrote Robert Southey to Henry Taylor, when grief

and sickness were upon him; so it was now with poor John Banim, praying, amidst strange scenes and ways of life in his French home, that he, and Hope, might once again "become intimate." Like Southey, he never ceased or paused in his labor; it was a sweet labor which duty sanctified, and thus hoping against hope, and working despite physical pain, his first months of residence in Boulogne were passed. And what months of suffering were these! Months in which the whole past of life, with all its griefs and joys; with all its aspirations and longings-come to fruition or to failure-seemed but as the dreams of a fevered sleep, and nothing was, but the present with its woes, nothing to be, but a future at whose entrance frowned sickness, and want, and disappointment. When hope seemed brightest, when fame and fortune were about to bless him, sickness prostrates him, and, in all the bitterness of bitter grief, he felt the truth of Tennyson's thought, and knew

"That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things."

Ill health was not, however, the only misfortune darkening his life at this period. He had, whilst residing at Eastbourne, commenced the composition of a novel entitled The Smuggler. In this work he entered upon new scenes of life, all the characters being English, the action being placed in the neighbourhood of Eastbourne; and the scenery being described from the landscape around his residence. The manuscript of this novel was placed in the hands of the publisher in the month of December, 1829, and the book was to have appeared early in the following year; but Banim was sick and helpless in France; disputes as to terms arose between author and publisher; wearying and violent letters passed between them; no progress as to final terms was made, and so, for a time, the matter rested.

He was not, amidst all these troubles, idle; but it seemed as if Providence had ordered that all his efforts to keep his name before the reading portion of the nation should fail. Whilst the disputes relating to The Smuggler continued, Banim wrote another tale, entitled The Dwarf Bride, but the publisher in whose hands it was placed for publication, became bankrupt before the printing had been commenced, and all efforts to discover the manuscript amongst his papers were

vain.

Thus, twice baffled in the pursuit of fame, and in neither in

stance through his own fault, (and how he felt this forced absence of his name from before the public the reader knows, he feared it as a step towards oblivion) there was yet a deeper source of regret, and one which neither money nor facile publishers could remove his mother was dying-dying, and her own "graw bawn" far away, and never more in life was she to see him. She had been ill during all the year 1829, and at the commencement of 1830, she was only able to move, with assistance, from her bed chamber to a little sitting room adjoining. She loved to linger in this latter room, as in it John used to sit; here he had sketched for her a portrait of himself, which now hung upon the wall, and was so placed that it was the first object on which her eye could rest on entering the apartment. And, in this humble room, daily there might be witnessed one of the most touching scenes that the fancy could form. Moving slowly from her bed chamber, the mother tottered to a chair placed before John's portrait; she sat, and gazed upon it, lost in thoughts-in those thoughts which have been so truly called "bitter sweet," then she bent her head as if in deep communion with God, and gazing still upon the picture, she "blessed herself," and commenced her morning prayer, during which she never moved her eyes from the portrait; and as she prayed, tears rolled down her face; thus, she looked, and prayed, and wept, and exemplified that exquisite reflection of Cowper

"And while the wings of Fancy still are free,
And I can view this mimic show of thee,
Time has but half succeeded in his theft-

Thyself remov'd, thy pow'r to soothe me left."

During the closing months of her life, Mrs. Banim was unable to leave her bed, and then the portrait was placed in her room, where she could look upon it constantly. John longed to see her once more, but his health was not sufficient to enable him to bear the fatigue of the journey, and he wrote to Michael as follows:

My dear Michael,

"Boulogne, May 2nd, 1830.

I am now a paralysed man, walking with much difficulty. I move slowly and cautiously, assisted by a stick, and any good person's arm charitable enough to aid me. It is not to add to your trouble that I thus describe myself, I only tell