With a few exceptions, the minor poems published in 1855 and 1864 are of similar character; and it may be said that “The Princess,” “Maud,” “Enoch Arden,” and most of the Arthurian stories are in much the same vein. None of these works, when viewed as an organic whole, can be called great. In all of them, manliness is at a discount, and there is withal a dearth of ideas. Sentiment and ornament are overdone, and there is not enough of life. They can be described as a chaos of pretty fancies and idle reveries. Such are not the strains that shape a nation’s destiny and are treasured in its heart. In the centuries agone, such a songster would have been a first-class troubadour, much sought and praised in princely circles.
But former estimates of Tennyson must be revised. The slurs at the euphonious jingler and effeminate Alfred are in place no more. He has abandoned the domain of the legendary and the fantastic. Romance has given way to history, and dreams to reality. Sensuous effects are now subordinate. His verse no longer cloys with sweetness. It is simple, natural, impassioned.
“Queen Mary” and “Becket” certainly rank foremost among the few powerful plays that have appeared since Shelley wrote “The Cenci.” There are some Bulwer-Lyttonish passages in “Becket,” but they are more than redeemed by the imperial magnificence of other passages in the same tragedy. The ballads and other lyrics published within the last dozen years display a rugged virility that was quite foreign to the labored “Idyls of the King.” “Rizpah” and “The Revenge” have the ring of genuine metal. There is no hollow sound in the manly tributes to E. Fitzgerald and to his ancient Mantuan master. The introspective poet of “The Two Voices” has grown to fuller intellectual stature in “The Ancient Sage.” The music and majesty of “Tiresias” and “Demeter” are unsurpassed in “Ulysses” and “Tithonus.” “Romney’s Remorse” excels “Sea Dreams” in portraying the better instincts of humanity on the domestic side, and its tender lullaby—“Beat upon mine, little heart!”—almost equals the incomparable “Sweet and low.” While “Vastness” and “Crossing the Bar” repeat the lyrical triumphs of his palmiest days.
Time has dealt gently with the venerable harper, whose hands sweep the strings with surer touch and greater compass than before. Age has brought more forceful speech and clearer vision. Some of his senile efforts betray less of conscious effort, as though long practice in using metrical language as a vehicle of thought and imagery had made it a pure mirror of the poet’s mind. His worn-out mannerisms appear occasionally, also his subtleties of expression and feeling. There is the same imaginative sorcery as of old, and the same consummate style, but the studied elegance and artful devices of earlier productions are less noticeable. There is less of minute finish in form and more of epic grandeur in tone and spirit. A healthier inspiration has visited him in the evening of life. His genius has gradually ripened. The full cup of advanced years was needed to bring out what was best in him, to effect his complete development.
Since the hysterical explosion of “Locksley Hall Sixty Years After,” the Laureate seems to have attained the calmness of soul which belongs to the true poetical spirit. He is no longer the fretful author of “The New Timon,” “The Spiteful Letter,” and “Literary Squabbles,” who lacked the restraint of entire self-possession. A more serious tone pervades the personal poems—“To Ulysses,” “To Mary Boyle” and others in his 1889 volume. A wiser man wrote the stately measures of “Happy” and “By an Evolutionist,” one who looked down upon past follies from spiritual heights never before reached. There is a touch of Miltonic loftiness in his “Parnassus,” and the philosophic resignation of Gœthe in “The Progress of Spring.” His is the tranquil, fruitful old age that crowns a well ordered career.
MISTAKES CONCERNING TENNYSON.
A STUDY IN CONTEMPORANEOUS BIOGRAPHY.
“Alfred Tennyson was born August 5, 1809, at Somersby, a hamlet in Lincolnshire, England, of which, and of a neighboring parish, his father, Dr. George Clayton Tennyson, was rector. The poet’s mother was Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. Stephen Fytche, vicar of Louth. Alfred was the third of seven sons—Frederick, Charles, Alfred, Edward, Horatio, Arthur, and Septimus. A daughter, Cecilia, became the wife of Edmund Law Lushington, long professor of Greek in Glasgow University. Whether there were other daughters, the biographies of the poet do not mention.”