The Princess; a Medley. By Alfred Tennyson. Moxon.
That we are behind most even of our heaviest and slowest contemporaries in the notice of this volume, is a fact for which we cannot satisfactorily account to ourselves, and can therefore hardly hope to be able to make a valid excuse to our readers. The truth is, that whenever we turned to it we became, like the needle between positive and negative electric poles, so attracted and repelled, that we vibrated too much to settle to any fixed condition. Vacillation prevented criticism, and we had to try the experiment again and again before we could arrive at the necessary equipose to indicate the right direction of taste and opinion. We will now, however, note our variations, and leave them to the public judgment.
The first lines of the prologue were repulsive, as a specimen of the poorest Wordsworth manner and style—
"Sir Walter Vivian all a summer's day
Gave his broad lawns until the set of sun
Up to his people: thither flock'd at noon
His tenants, wife and child, and thither half
The neighbouring borough with their Institute
Of which he was the patron. I was there
From college, visiting the son,—the son
A Walter too,—with others of our set."
The "wife and child" of the tenants is hardly intelligible; and the "set" is but a dubious expression. Nor can we clearly comprehend the next line and a half—
"And me that morning Walter show'd the house,
Greek, set with busts:"
Does this mean that Sir Walter Vivian inhabited a Greek house, and that the college "set" were guests in that dwelling "set with busts"? To say the least, this is inelegant, and the affectations proceed—
"From vases in the hall
Flowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their names,
Grew side by side."
Persons conversant with the botanical names of flowers will hardly be able to realize (as the Yankees have it) the idea of their loveliness; the loveliness of Hippuris, Dolichos, Syngenesia, Cheiranthus, Artocarpus, Arum dracunculus, Ampelopsis hederaca, Hexandria, Monogynea, and the rest.
A good description of the demi-scientific sports of the Institute follows; but the house company and inmates retire to a ruined abbey:—