wretched poetaster published an "Anti-Maud." A defender came forward with a little work entitled: "Tennyson's Maud' Vindicated; an Explanatory Essay. By R. J. Mann, M.D. Jarrold and Sons, St. Paul's Churchyard.” The following extract from a letter of Mr. Tennyson's to Dr. Mann has been made public: "No one with this Essay before him can in future "pretend to misunderstand my dramatic poem, "Maud:' 66 your commentary is as true as it is full." In a small anonymous volume of Poems, entitled 66 Ionica," "3 another defender came forward with some lines of considerable merit, entitled "After reading 'Maud,' September, 1855." The poem of "Maud" was considerably enlarged in the new edition of 1856. In the edition of 1859 it 1 "Anti-Maud, by a Poet of the People" (second edition, enlarged. London: L. Booth, 1856), pp. 30. See also "Vindicia Pacis," addressed to Alfred Tennyson, Esq., in a volume entitled "Modern Manicheism, Labour's Utopia, and other Poems" (London: J. W. Parker and Son, 1857), pp. 145-150. 2 In the latest editions the poem is entitled "Maud: a Monodrama." 3 Smith, Elder, and Co. (1858), pp. 61-64. was divided into two, and subsequently, into three parts. The other contents of the volume are: "The Brook; An Idyl." "The Letters." "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington." "The Daisy," written at Edinburgh. "To the Rev. F. D. Maurice." 1 1 Maurice had already dedicated his "Theological Essays" to Tennyson, as follows: "To Alfred Tennyson, Esq., Poet Laureate. "My dear Sir,-I have maintained in these Essays that a "Theology which does not correspond to the deepest thoughts "and feelings of human beings cannot be a true Theology. "Your writings have taught me to enter into many of those "thoughts and feelings. Will you forgive me the presump"tion of offering you a book which at least acknowledges "them and does them homage? 66 "As the hopes which I have expressed in this volume are "more likely to be fulfilled to our children than to ourselves, "I might perhaps ask you to accept it as a present to one of your name, in whom you have given me a very sacred “interest. Many years, I trust, will elapse, before he knows "that there are any controversies in the world into which he "has entered. Would to God that in a few more he may "find that they have ceased! At all events, if he should ever look into these Essays they may tell him what mean"ing some of the former generation attached to words, which "Will." "The Charge of the Light Brigade." "will be familiar and dear to his generation, and to those "that follow his,—how there were some who longed that the "bells of our churches might indeed "Ring out the darkness of the land 'Believe me, my dear Sir, "Yours very truly and gratefully, CHAPTER IX. THE ARTHURIAN POEMS. THE subject of the Arthurian legends seems to have taken an early hold of our Poet's imagination. In his second volume (1832), we have the first version of "The Lady of Shalott," a story afterwards treated with maturer power in the Idyll of Elaine. We also find in "The Palace of Art" the following stanza: "—that deep wounded child of Pendragon Mid misty woods on sloping greens Dozed in the valley of Avilion Tended by crowned queens." 1 In the new volume of 1842 there were some further 'Poems (1833), p. 74. This stanza has been remodelled since. fragmentary attempts to poetize this story. The "Morte d'Arthur," purporting to be the eleventh book of a juvenile epic, of which the other books had been destroyed; "Sir Galahad," and "Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere." Rumours reached the public from time to time that Tennyson was occupied with a great work, of which the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table was the theme; and at last, in July, 1859, appeared the first instalment of "Idylls of the King.": 1 The Dedication to the Memory of the Prince Consort was added in the edition of 1862, which, with the exception of three or four verbal alterations,2 is an exact reprint of the former edition. For the story of Enid (the first Idyll), the poet is 1 The writer in the "Fortnightly Review states that the first two of these Idylls were privately printed in 1857 (probably printed for publication, and withdrawn for further alterations) under the title of "Enid and Nimue; or the True and the False;" that they form a thin volume of 139 pages, and that a few copies are said to be still in private hands. On June 22, 1858, Clough "heard Tennyson read a third "Arthur poem-the detection of Guinevere, and the last inter"view with Arthur" (Clough's "Remains," vol. i. p. 235). 2 At pp. 49 (last line), 149, 183 (line 1), 240, should any reader wish to note them. |