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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Critics are not zhe legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Review .
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The week has been decidedly flat . Gossip forsaking the amenities of Literature has hovered over the Hippopotamus , the Nepaulese , and the Greek question ; the last-named topic having all the attraction of the omne ignotum pro Pacifico principle . In vain has a certain publisher industriously circulated the rumour that one of the books he advertises is " dreadfully immoral "; want of faith in the announcement prevents even a vulgar succes du scandale .
Some little curiosity exists as to Evelyn ' s History of Religion , whether it will be pedantic , orthodox , and trimming like the author , or whether it will contain any of the Chubb and Toland spirit . If the work turn out to be of any importance , we shall bestow on it due attention . While on this subject , let us mention two new and important works just issued ; the one in France , called Qu ' est-ce que la Religion , d ' apres la Nouvelle Philosophie Allemande , wherein Feuerbach ' s daring evolutions of Hegel ' s principles are translated for the benefit of those who cannot read German ; the other called , The Progress of Intellect ,
showing the various developments of religious ideas through history—a work weshall notice hereafter . A passing word of commendation on the manner in which Household Words fulfils its promise of treating social questions , is called for by the excellent paper in this week ' s number on the Sunday Screw , wherein the exasperating absurdity and hypocrisy of those who drivel and vote for the better observance of the Sabbath by stopping the Sunday Post are plainly and forcibly indicated . The one great influence of Household Words , will be its carrying wisdom and honest utterance into the families of thousands who would never read the social questions treated in a newspaper .
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tennyson ' s new poem . In Memoriam . E . Moxon . Sacred to the memory of one long loved and early dead , this tablet bears neither the name of the deceased nor of the affectionate hand that raised it . Our readers have already been informed that it is erected by our greatest living poet—Alfred Tennyson —to the memory of Arthur Ilallam . On first announcing the volume we stated our belief that it was unique in the annals of literature . The only poems that occurred to us as resembling it were the Lament
of Bio ? i , by Moschus ; Lycidas , by Milton ; and Adonais , by Shelley ; but these are all distinguished from it both by structural peculiarities , and by the spirit which , animates them . They may fitly be compared with each other , because they arc all rather the products of sorrowing Fancy than of genuine sorrow . Herein note a fundamental difference from In Memoriam , which , is the iterated chant of a bereaved soul always uttering one plaint , through all the varying moods of sorrow . There is iteration in Moschus , and it is effective ; but this ever-recurring burden ,
apxere HiKc ' MKCti ru TtevQeoq , afxjere Monrai , is not the " trick of grief" but the trick of art . The unity and recurrence in Tennyson lie deeper—they are internal , not external . Tennyson does not , like Moschus , Milton , and Shelley , call upon the woods and streams , the nymphs and men , to weep for his lost Arthur ; he weeps himself . He does not call upon his fancy for images of woe ; he lets his own desolate heart break forth in sobs of music . The three great poets are superior to him in what the world vulgarly calls poetry , in the graceful arabesque
of fancy , when the mind at ease plays with a grief that is just strong enough to stimulate it , not strong enough to sombre it ; but they are all three immeasurably below him in strength , depth , and passion , consequently in the effect produced upon the minds of others . To read Moschus is a critical delight ; beautiful conceits aro so beautifully expressed , that our admiration at the poet ' s skill is intense ; but who believes in tho poet ' grief ? who is saddened by his mournfulness , or solaced by his hope ? The first twelve lines are exquisite , and even the conceit ,
' Now , Hyacinth , give all thy letters voico . And more than over call Alas ! alas 1 '" vvv CdcKivde XaXei ret . tree ypeiyi-fAara , kuI lihiov cct eci / . dfAfiotve < roi <; ncruKoiffi ,
is felt to be in proper keeping with the spirit of the whole ; and so is the beautiful line wherein he says that Echo , hidden among the reeds , fed on Bion ' s songs : — "A % a > ¥ iv $ ova . Kecr < ri reotq im ^ oa-Ker' aotSdq . But from first to last you feel that he is playing with his subject , and si vis me flere , &c . Milton , again , has nobly imitated his favourite classics , and drawn from the wealthier stores of his own capacious mind , images which , will live for ever ; but the only passage recurring to memories of friendship is that famous one , — Together both , ere the high lawns appeared Under the opening eyelids of the morn , We drove afield , " Sec . Every one knows the " beauties " of this poem : the passage about Amary llis in the shade , and that about Alpheus , set to noble music ; but there is one passage we have not seen quoted , and as , in our estimation , it is the most beautiful in the poem , we will give it here : — There entertain him all the saints above In solemn troops and sweet societies , That sing , and , singing , in their glory move . And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes . " What potency of language , image , rhythm ! The reader sees it is not lightly , or irreverently to Milton ' s genius , that we have placed Lycidas below In Memoriam . The comparison is not here of genius , but of feeling . Tennyson sings a deeper sorrow , utters a more truthful passion , and , singing truly , gains the predominance of passion over mere sentiment . In mere amplitude In Memoriam differs from all its predecessors . It is not one expression of bereavement ; it is the slow gathering of seventeen years , and bears within it the varying traces of those varying moods which a long-enduring sorrow would necessarily assume . Our criticism need not be long . The elegiac mournfulness bears the impress of genuine feeling ; it is the musical utterance of a noble loving heart . Instead of criticising , let us suppose the reader has an observing pencil , and that we are looking over his shoulder exchanging remarks . We first bid him notice—perhaps we are fanciful , but the remark comes spontaneously—how exquisitely adapted the music of the poem is to its burden ; the stanza chosen , with its mingling rhymes , and its slow yet not imposing march , seems to us the very perfection of stanzas for the purpose . We then bid him notice how free from . " conceits" ( and what magazine poets call " poetry ") the whole volume is , and yet how abundant the felicities of diction and image , painting by one energetic word a picture which fills the mind , —as in this sea-burial " His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud Drops in his vast and wandering grave' * Never was the wild , mysterious , indefinite idea of sea-burial more grandly pictured than in the incomparable felicity of those words , " vast and wandering grave , " wherein the rhythm partakes of the feeling of the image , and seems to bear away the corpse into infinity . Then , again , " Calm on the seas and silver sleep , AHd waves that sway themselves in rest , And dead calm in that noble breast Which heaves but with the heaving deep . " Or such , touches as The rooks are blown about the ekies . Or as this of " Some dead lake That holds the shadow of a lark Hung in the shadow of a heaven . " Or this : — " And hush'd my deepest grief of all , "When fill'd with tnars that cannot fall , 1 brim with sorrow drowning song . " Or this : — " Her eyes are homes of silent prayer . " Or this larger landscape : — " Till now the doubtful dusk reveal'd The knollfl once more , where , couch'd at ease , The white kino glimmer'd , and the trees Laid their dark arms about the fi eld ; " And , suck'd from out the distant gloom , A breeze began to tremble o ' Tho largo leaves of the sycamore . And fluctuate all the Btill perfume ; " And gathering freshlier overhead , Kock'd the full-foliaged elms , and swung The heavy-folfled rose , and flung The lilies to and fro , and said , M The dawn , the dawn ! ' and died away ; And Kast and West , without a breath , AJixt their dim liglitH , like liJ « aud death , To broaden into boundless day . " While you , reader , are pencilling in this way with so much love , do not forget to place a mark of
disapproval against the insufferable rhymes which three times mar the beauty of the page : again , to rhyme with , then , must be vulgarized into agen ; and Christ , to rhyme with , mist , and elsewhere with Evangeftrf , can only be accepted upon a total change in our pronunciation . Certain prosaisms and obscurities may be better defended ; false rhymes admit of no defence . But how beautiful , how simple , and how touching are the poems when you read them uncritically , giving full sway to the feelings which , that music rouses in you ! Who does not feel with him : — " I sometimes hold it hal f a sin To put in words the grief 1 feel ; For words , like nature , half reveal And half conceal the Soul within . " But , for the unquiet heart and brain , A use in measur'd language lies ; The sad mechanic exercise , Like dull narcotics , numbing pain . " In words , like weeds , I ' 11 wrap me o ' er . Like coarsest clothes against the cold ; But that large grief which these enfold Is given in outline , and no more . " All who have loved will answer for this : — " A happy lover who has come To look on her that loves him well , Who lights and rings the gateway bell , And learns her gone and far from home , " He saddens , all the magic light Dies off at once from bower and hall . And all the place is dark , and all The chambers emptied of delight ; " So find I every pleasant spot In which we two were wont to meet , The field , the chamber , and the street . For all is dark where thou art not . " Tet as that other , wandering there In those deserted walks , may find A flower beat with rain and wind . Which once she foster'd up with care ; " So seem 3 it in my deep regret , 0 my forsaken heart , with thee And this poor flower of poesy Which , little cared for , fades not yet . " , since it pleased a vanish'd eye , 1 go to plant it on his tomb , That , if it can , it there may bloom . Or , dying , there at least may die . " Or this : — " I hear the noise about thy keel ; I hear the bell struck in the night ; I see the cabin-window bright ; I see the sailor at the wheel . " Thou bringest the sailor to his wife . And travell'd men from foreign lands ; And letters unto trembling hands ; And , thy dark freight , a vanish'd life . " So bring him : we have idle dreams : This look of quiet flutters thus Our home-bred fancies : O to u « , The fools of habit , sweeter seems « To rest beneath the clover sod , That takes the sunshine and the rains . Or where the kneeling hamlet drains The chalice of the grapes of God ; Than if with thee the roaring wells Should gulf him fathom deep in brine ; And hands so often clasp'd in mine Should toss with tangle aud with shells . " Very pathetic is the opening image of this poem : *—•• Tears of the widower , when he sees A late-lost form that sleep reveals . And moves his doubtful arms , and feels Her place is empty , fall like these ; " Which weep a loss for ever new , A void where heart on heart reposed ; And , where warm hands have prest and closed , Silence , till I be silent too . " Which weep the comrade of my choice . An awful thought , a life removed . The human-hearted man I loved , A spirit , not a breathing voice . Come , Time , and teach me many years I do not suffer in a dream ; For now , so 8 trance do these things seem . Mine eyes have leisure for their tears . " Here is one of a totally different cast : — " Jtisest thou thus , dim dawn , again . So loud with voices of the birds . So thick with lowings of the herds , Day , when I lost the flower of men ; " Who tremblest thro * thy darkling red On yon swoll ' n brook that bubbles fast By meadows breathing of the past , And woodlands holy to tho dead ; " Who murmurest in the foliaged eaves A song that Blights the coming care , And Autumn laying here and thero A fiery finger on the leaves ; " Who wakenest with thy balmy breath . To myriads on the genial earth . Memories of bridal , or of birth . And unto myriads more , of death . " O , wheresoever those may bo , Betwixt the slumber of the poles , To-day they count as kindred souls ; They , know mo not , but mourn with me . " How sweet and gentle , like the pealing bells it speaks of , is this : — " The time draws near the birth of Christ ; The moon is hid , the night is still ; A single church below the hill Is pealing , folded in the mist . " A single peal of bells below , That wakens at this hour of rest A single murmur in the breast . That hese are not the bells J know .
Kihtnuxxt
Xihtainxt .
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June 22 , 1850 . ] © & £ ^ Lta'HtV . 303
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 22, 1850, page 303, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1843/page/15/
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