things, however, are merely exotic, strange specimens; one may class with them his charming stanzas that string together names of flowers for the mere love of the sounds: All among the gardens, auriculas, anemones, A more excellent feat, and one which might be imitated, though only by a finished artist, is the metre of his Daisy, used also in the Invitation to F. D. Maurice. A friend points out to me that the suggestion for this curious quatrain almost certainly came from FitzGerald's famous Persian measure. Here at all events is the same arrangement of rhymes with the third line blank. But Tennyson, with a fine subtlety, lightens and quickens the movement of that solemn metre by introducing a two-syllabled ending in the third verse, which gives to the eight-syllabled iambic a feminine ending, and by altering the run of the fourth line by a dactyl somehow cunningly let in among the iambics. Altogether it is a very dainty piece of craftsmanship, and gives a special character to the two exquisite poems written in it. Another in vention which will scarcely be let drop is the metre used first in Wages, and later, with the addition of another member to the verse, in Vastness, a strange swinging rhythm that scans only by accent. Finest of all his occasional inventions, however, is perhaps the long trochaic line devised for the Ode To Virgil, which is simply the metre of Locksley Hall with one more trochee added after the cæsura. But the most important of all Tennyson's contributions to the riches of English metre is probably his blank verse, regenerating that metre from the lamentable condition to which Wordsworth had reduced it. From his earliest essays in it—from Enone onwards-he proved himself capable of drawing from the measure a sustained charm which no one since Milton had achieved. The verse of Shelley's Alastor had, indeed, great and beautiful qualities; it had throughout a rush and flow that Tennyson only occasionally could match; but it had not the haunting quality which marks the best work in all poetry-in Shelley's as well as the rest. Shelley's blank verse, it is true, has the great merit of being built, not of lines, but of paragraphs; yet, upon analysis, this appears to be due less to an effect of art than to the breathless character of Shelley's mind and imagination. He has the qualities of his great defect. Ideas do not present themselves to him clearly; but they do not present themselves in detachment; they have always the charm of continuity. Line flows into line, thought into thought, image into image; and pauses are far between. Now Tennyson was a very definite thinker, a very clear-eyed observer, and he had a singular gift of terse expression. The result is that he tends perhaps unduly to detach his thoughts in single lines and short phrases; the long verseparagraph is found, of course, as, for instance, in a beautiful passage at the end of The Princess describing the growth of love; or many times in the Idylls; or in so noble an example as the ten lines of Ulysses that begin— There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail. Yet the most characteristic passages in Tennyson are those where each line is singly beautiful, a model of harmony and expression, but a unit, not a part, in the integral whole of a verse structure: for instance, these lines from Tithonus Why should a man desire in any way Where all should pause, as is most meet for all? Compared with Milton, the great master in this art, he falls short in this faculty of verse architecture; falls short also in the variety of cadences which he elicits from the instrument. Here is a passage from Paradise Regained: So spake the Eternal Father, and all Heaven Here it is noticeable, in the first place, that Milton suggests in the few words that I have italicised the stately rhythm of the dance, but, unlike Tennyson, does not carry the suggestion to any considerable length; secondly, that the choric chant of the angels assumes a character totally different from the rest of the verse. The sound of harps and voices singing is in it; though all that is done in the first line is to substitute a dactyl for the first iambus. Tennyson never contrives or never attempts to wrest the verse thus completely from its iambic character; and herein he resembles Shakespeare; it must be said also that if he lacks Milton's variety and grandeur, he avoids his frequent roughnesses. It deserves also to be noted that he has contrived to give, on occasion, a purely lyric quality to blank verse, so that his blank-verse songs (for instance, Tears, idle tears) distinguish themselves as lyrics from their blank-verse narrative setting. Grace, clearness, and felicity; those seem to be the leading characteristics of Tennyson's style; harmony and expression of his verse. Other men perhaps inferior to him have contrived to give a greater impression of force; other men have suggested deeper thoughts; but none has combined so much thought with so perfect lucidity; none has been apter in the choice of the exact epithet to flash a picture on the mind; none has shown a greater skill in making the metre answer to the emotion expressed, and even suggest the physical sensation that accompanies it. Chapter XI. Conclusion. What has been said of Tennyson's style is true in a more general way of his whole poetical achievement. We are still too near to estimate justly either him or Browning. Their fame is undoubtedly passing into that period of eclipse which almost invariably follows the waning of a great popularity-the eclipse from which Dickens has only of late emerged, and whose full shadow rests upon George Eliot. In twenty years we shall see better, or at least we shall see how Tennyson looks to our sons. For the moment all that one can do is to evoke other images and set them beside that one which has grown, like a face that is all our life beside us, so familiar as to be scarcely distinct. With Chaucer there is obviously no analogy, and, I think, no comparison; if the best verdicts go for anything, Chaucer stands next after Shakespeare and Milton. Spenser affords a better standard by which to measure our modern. And it must be said at once that a review of this kind makes one feel the extraordinary extent and variety of Tennyson's genius. One need not put Tennyson's lyrics into the scale as a make-weight: the Idylls alone will very fitly stand comparison with The Faery Queen. Allegory for allegory, I prefer the Idylls; for the human interest of the story, for the adventure, and for the romance, Tennyson seems to me to surpass easily Spenser's swan-song of chivalry. There are unquestionably many passages of great beauty in The Faery Queen; but the beauty is always one that can be paralleled from the Idylls-the beauty of high-wrought literary workmanship, of a somewhat languid grace of style, and of a fine sense of the romantic value of landscape. Nothing could be more characteristic of Spenser than this verse: For round about the walls yclothed were As faining to be hid from envious eye; It showed itself, and shone unwillingly, Like to a discoloured snake whose hidden snares Through the green grass his long bright burnished back declares. Compare with that, for instance, the description of Arthur's seat at the tournaments: So spake Lavaine, and when they reach'd the lists Run thro' the peopled gallery which half round I do not say that Tennyson outdoes Spenser in his |