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From the London Review.

IDYLLS

0 F THE

KING.*

WITHOUT dispute, the first place among conduct warranted and imposed by the living poets is universally accorded to fitness of things. If the position and Alfred Tennyson; and perhaps he stands powers of some great genius are once atmore decidedly in advance of his contem-tained and recognized, beyond reasonable poraries than did ever English poet of a doubt, it is clear that the ordinary rules former generation. Of course there are of criticism, always to a great extent memany sciolists who affect to depreciate his chanical and formal, are of no further use. style and genius, and some intelligent per- The leading-strings of a child are more sons who from slight knowledge or imper- helpful to a man, the primer and spellingfect sympathy incline to hesitate, or de- book of more service to the hoary and mur; but he has the suffrages of all who illustrious scholar, than the critic's teachrightly and scrupulously exercise the poetic ing to a truly great poet. He has left all franchise. He is Laureate by national as his schoolmasters far behind-and they well as royal favor: raised by deliberate never, first or last, taught him any of the choice of Majesty, his position is almost true inestimable lore with which he is enequally confirmed by critical award and riching all mankind. He has gathered for popular assent. Indeed, there was and is himself all that is essentia., and rare, and no second candidate. No name rising to beyond price. If he comes back to us, the lips makes the hand hesitate in pla- let us sit at his feet and listen. He will cing the honorary wreath upon his fore- enlarge for us the sphere of truth as well head. It is only by an effort of recollec- as the theory of art, and show us in a tion that we can call to mind the names thousand ways how the one may rise in of any possible pretenders to his crown; endless accommodation and growth toand the best (as well as the worst) among wards the illimitable reaches of the other. them exhibit marks of his authority and Thus nobly taught, and richly entertained, influence. we shall learn to repair frequently to the poet's muse, as Numa to the presence of Egeria, that we may see the features of

kingly reason molded by diviner tenderness, and, ever listening with reverence and serious pleasure, find that the genius of nature is charged with lessons of justice, providence, and social virtue.

We might now distinguish ourselves by finding a thousand faults in the Laureate's new production. After so full an admis-truth in the face of beauty, have our sion of Mr. Tennyson's poetic supremacy -not for the first time made to our readers-it would be quite in keeping with the pretensions of modern criticism to put in a handsome qualification of his merits; for how easily may the critic thus magnify his office, or suggest the inference of his own unrivaled penetration! Unfortunately-or fortunately, as the case may be -it is too late for us to avail ourselves of this admirable trick. We have already intimated in a former paper, and we repeat it now with emphasis, that the critic's office practically ceases in the case of poets of the highest order; in such presence all is admitted privilege and prerogative. This is neither blinded homage nor unmeet subservience: it is a conclusion and

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We come then to Mr. Tennyson's volume, not to criticise, but to learn, and to share its lessons with our readers. Much expectation had been raised by its announcement, and an excitement almost popular has attended its immediate issue. When the subject of the new poem became known, the public curiosity was still more busy and alert. It was then remembered that the poet had long brooded on the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table; and that a fine fragment on the mythic hero was conspicuous among his earliest pieces. Some ground for speculation as well as for hope existed. The poem was nearly certain to be a wel

come largess of poetic thought; but was it not also in the nature of a grand experiment? The famous legend of King Arthur was a species of poetic crux. Confessedly beautiful in itself, and dimly associated with the historic muse of England, there remained considerable doubt of its poetic capabilities. It was true that Milton had long cherished the intention of making it the subject of that last effort for which he was "mewing his mighty strength;" but then Milton had himself abandoned the design, and all the critics congratulated him on his prudent resolution.

seen for a moment in its noblest attitude, and thenceforward transfigured by imagination into all that virtue or ambition would set before itself.

Now all these conditions, and many others hardly less essential, are fulfilled by the Arthurian legends in a very marvelous way. The incidents themselves are various and beautiful, as well as most abundant; while the theory of the whole is wonderfully elastic for the poet's special purpose. The features of British scenery, in its most primitive state, afford some appropriate hints of local color. The element of the supernatural is furnished by the stories of Morgane the faery and of Merlin the enchanter. But most available of all are the moral traits which distinguish the prime age of Christian chivalry. In spite of occasional lapse and fault or even more strikingly because of these-King Arthur and his knights are found knit together by sentiments of loyalty and friendship, and banded in the cause of honor and religion. They soverally illustrate all the social types of Christian virtue. The lowest in their

in the code of pagan honor. We have then, in beautiful gradation, Truth, Temperance, Chastity, and Magnanimity which last may be taken as the type of Christian Charity in a rude and violent and haughty age; and as the outward link, if not rather as the crowning grace, of these high qualities, we have the most eminent and knightly gift of Courtesy, summing up all the virtues of Christian gentlehood in a well-nigh perfect manner. Arthur himself was the pink of courtesy; but the peers of his court were only less distinguished than their "blameless king."

In truth, the difficulties to be surmounted in the treatment of this theme were not exaggerated. Nothing could seem less likely, on a first view, to enlist the sympathies of modern Englishmen than a revival, in elaborate poetic frame, of Arthur's shadowy and mysterious court. We must not be tempted into a dissertation on the origin of these fine legends-certainly the finest which the age of chivalry has bequeathed to us-but we may assume that they are beyond the region of authentic history. At the pre-scale is that Courage which ranked highest sent time they have no hold upon the national mind, even as historical tradition. They have not even a local habitat. They are not associated with our laws, like the reign of Alfred, nor with a crisis in our history, like the death of Harold. They may furnish pretty fables and moralities for brief song or ballad measure; but of epic pretensions they have absolutely none. On the other hand, the story of Pendragon asserts itself as the perfection of mythic history; and mythic history is the purest region of poetical romance. No great poet is original in the sense of inventing his own plots; but neither is he content to take his story ready molded and hardened into a fact of history. He borrows material that is yet in a plastic condition. However great a realist he may be, both characters and events are for him mainly typical, or representative; where else would be his power over the sympathies and passions of mankind, and where the value of the lessons which he distills into our hearts? It is evident that the floating legends of a superstitious but heroic age are just the sort of material he requires; something between history and allegory; some incident which fiction has early seized upon, and shaped and improved to its own needs; some character,

"For in those days

No knight of Arthur's noblest dealt in scorn;
But if a man were halt or hunched, in him
By those whom God had made full-limbed and
Scorn was allowed as part of his defect,
And he was answered softly by the King
And all his Table.”—Idylls, p. 227.

tall,

We say that these are the ethical fea tures of the great romaunt of chivalry. But they are to be traced only by a pure mind and patient study. The crude mass of fiction in which they are embedded contains abundance of exceptionable matter. There is much of gross and more of frivolous kind. Many stories occur in

which only gleams of ideal virtues are suffered to break through the cloud of opposing vices, and in which rapine, treachery, and license betray the manners of a lawless age. It is therefore that the highest qualities are demanded in the poet who undertakes to seize the spirit of this myth, and to project it on our hearts in lessons of abiding truth and beauty. Mere gifts of fancy, and light talents of description, will not suffice here. The humorist and the colorist will hardly avoid the abuse of their rich gifts: most likely they will riot in a country which they have not power to rule. Something nobler, something stronger, than the muse of Byron or of Moore is wanted to give reality and meaning to these historic dreams; but genius that is both high and true will do it for us, and do it easily, effectually, and almost necessarily. For the poet whose page does not reflect the changeless morality of social laws-often offended, but never without resistance, and recoil, and virtual triumph-is quite as much at fault as the philosopher who should question or deny the rule of wisdom and benevolence in nature. We may say at once that Mr. Tennyson has passed uuseduced through this enchanted region. The purity of his muse is in admirable keeping with the dignity of his pretensions. No soil of the old licentious trouveres is found upon his robes.

It is high time now to let the poet answer for himself. The Idylls of the present volume are four in number. The first and longest is entitled "Enid," and recounts how Prince Geraint:

"A knight of Arthur's court, A tributary prince of Devon, one Of that great Order of the Table Round:"

won to himself the daughter of Earl Yniol, and then in suspicious mood made trial of her loyalty and temper. The story has some faint resemblance to that of Patient Grissel, celebrated in the pages of Chaucer; and though not so striking and pathetic in itself, we should not hesitate to assign it equal poetic rank. It is almost a sin to change the flowing beauty of the narrative for any summary of ours; but we must briefly connect the few passages which the occasion tempts us to transcribe.

Queen Guinevere, having been "lost in dreams," repairs at a late hour to join the

hunt which Arthur is pursuing; and, standing with her maid upon a little knoll, she is presently joined by Prince Geraint, who:

"Late also, wearing neither hunting dress Nor weapon, save a golden-hilted brand, Came flashing quickly through the shallow ford

Behind them, and so galloped up the knoll."

While they wait together listening for the hunt, a cavalcade goes by, consisting of knight, lady, and dwarf; and the Queen, not remembering to have seen the knight at court, sends her maiden to demand of the dwarf his master's name. The churl flatly denies her, and even strikes at the maiden with his whip. Geraint is furious at this treatment:

"His quick instinctive hand Caught at the hilt as to abolish him : But he, from his exceeding manfulness, And pure nobility of temperament, Wroth to be wroth with such a worm, refrained."

Eventually the prince resolves to follow the insulting party, and takes leave for that purpose:

"Farewell, fair prince,' answered the stately Queen,

'Be prosperous in this journey as in all;
And may you light on all things that you love:
But ere you wed with any, bring your bride,
And I, were she the daughter of a king,
Yea, though she were a beggar from the hedge,
Will clothe her for her bridals like the sun.'

The journey and adventure of the prince are then described-how he followed the insulting three "through many a grassy glade and valley," right through the wood, and over a high ridge behind which they sank, till coming there himself he beheld "the long street of a little town, in a long valley," with a new white fortress and a castle in decay; and how he saw the three enter the fortress, and coming to the town found all the armorers busy for some personage called the Sparrow Hawk; and could obtain no lodging till directed to the old castle, where Earl Yniol nursed in poverty the memory of better days, and vented his spleen upon "this hedge-row thief, the Sparrow Hawk." A hundred delicate traits are lost in this recital: but our readers shall follow closely the next footsteps of the prince, be arrested like him, and listen to the same enchantment:

"And while he waited in the castle court,
The voice of Enid, Yniol's daughter, rang
Clear through the open casement of the hall,
Singing; and as the sweet voice of a bird
Heard by the lander in a lonely isle,
Moves him to think what kind of bird it is
That sings so delicately clear, and make
Conjecture of the plumage and the form;
So the sweet voice of Enid moved Geraint;
And made him like a man abroad at morn
When first the liquid note beloved of men
Comes flying over many a windy wave
To Britain, and in April suddenly
Breaks from a coppice gemmed with green
and red,

And he suspends his converse with a friend,
Or it may be the labor of his hands,
To think or say: "There is the nightingale;'
So fared it with Geraint, who thought and said,
'Here, by God's grace, is the one voice for

me.'

It chanced the song that Enid sang was one Of Fortune and her wheel, and Enid sang:

'Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel and lower the proud;

Turn thy wild wheel through sunshine, storm, and cloud;

Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.

'Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown;

With that wild wheel we go not up or down; Our hoard is little but our hearts are great.

'Smile, and we smile, the lords of many lands; Frown, and we smile, the lords of our own hands;

For man is man and master of his fate.

'Turn, turn, thy wheel above the staring crowd;

Thy wheel and thou are shadows in the cloud; Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.""

The voice ceases on the ear, and Geraint makes acquaintance with the singer. It presently appears that the knight called Sparrow Hawk has wronged the old earl and his family; and the prince may now revenge at one stroke an injury to this fair maid, as well as an insult to his Queen. He soon humiliates the boastful upstart, and claims Enid for his bride. Consent is soon obtained; but the maiden is perplexed at the poor appearance she is like to make at King Arthur's court—

"All staring at her in her faded silk." Her ady-mother comes to her relief with a splendid garment long-lost, and now recovered from the wreck of their fortunes.

"See here, my child, how fresh the colors look, How fast they hold, like colors of a shell That keeps the wear and polish of the wave.

So clothe yourself in this that better fits
Our mended fortunes and a prince's bride;
For though you won the prize of fairest fair,
And though I heard him call you fairest fair,
Let never maiden think, however fair,
She is not fairer in new clothes than old.
And should some great court-lady say, the
Prince

Hath picked a ragged robin from the hedge,
And like a madman brought her to the court,
Then were you shamed, and worse, might
shame the Prince,

To whom we are beholden; but I know, When my dear child is set forth at the best, That neither court nor country though they sought

Through all the provinces like those of old That lighted on Queen Esther, has her match."

Enid gladly assumes this new attire, to the admiration of her lady mother. But

Prince Geraint will not have it so-he entreats that she will ride forth with him in her faded silk. The passage in which he gives the motives of this request is as full of truth as it is of beauty; but we must positively resist the temptation to borrow more, at least from this first idyll. Such a resolution forbids us to proceed with the story, which can only be told one way, the briefest and the best of any: for poetry is the most condensed as well as the brightest form of human lore, and to turn it into prose is to change gold into inferior coin-for added bulk you lose both beauty and compactness. We may add, however, a few general words. The proper subject of the idyll only begins from this point, all the foregoing being included in an episode by way of retrospect. The trial to which Enid is submitted arises from the rumors rife about the Queen, which might be supposed to affect unfavorably one so near and dear to her as Enid; but she proves a true wife and tender woman; and her lord owns it for once and all. The moment of their reconcilement is exquisitely described as the opening of a new and dearer life, by the access of profound sympathy and the dawnings of a perfect confidence:

"And never yet, since high in Paradise
O'er the four rivers the first roses blew,
Came purer pleasure unto mortal kind'
Than lived through her, who in that perilous
hour

Put hand to hand beneath her husband's heart,
And felt him hers again: she did not weep,

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