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axfftament . Mr . Tennyson has resorted to King Arthur and his Table Round , and presented us with certain contributions towards thedue execution of such a theme , for which * e ha * been indebted to the Mabinogian of the Welsh bardsthe spirit of which is reintroduced into these idylls . The term idylls appears to have been chosen m preference to eposfV account of the " middle style" m which they have been written . Mr . Tennyson is essentially a l ynepoet , and little skilled in the long resounding line demanded lby blank verse in the recognised epic style . Me Has nothing of the Miltonic grandeur . His verses are set ibr the piano , not the organ . These idylls have more of Virg il ' s pastorals than of his . ^ neia .
And bow men slur Mm , saying . Is melted Into mere effeminacy ? O me , I fear that I am no true wife . r ,. . These hist words are heard by Geraint as he wakes up ; and they are so misinterpreted by him that he believes his worst fears realised . He therefore bestirs himself , and rides forth with her into the wilderness , where he meets with bandits whom he duly slays , until he himself gets wounded in the strife , and the lady in the hall of a former lover is exposed to insult . Geraint is supposed to to be dead ; fortunately however , for her , he is not , but , starting up at the proper moment , he kills the recreant and discourteous Limours . The incidents of this narrative are well-conceived and described , with here and there touches of loveliness and sentiment that are exquisite . ¦ . ¦
^ While these events are passing , Geraint has convinced himself that his suspicions were unfounded ; and now he is anxious to make atonement . They ride forth together upon the same steed . Let us look at them awhile in this interesting position—¦ "Yea , " said Enid , " let us go . " And moving out they found the stately horse ,. Who now no more a vassal to the-fluef . But free to stretch his limbs in lawful fig-nt . Neigh'd with all gladness as they came , and stoop d With a low whinny toward the pair : and she Kiss'd the white star upon his noble front , Glad . alBoVthen Geraint upon the horse Mounted , and reaeh'd a hand , and on his foot She set her own and climb'd ; he turn * d his faee And kiss'd her climbing-, and she cast her arms About him , and at once they rode away .
And never yet , sincehigh in Paradise O ' er the four rivers the first roses blew , Came purer pleasure unto mortal kind _ Than liv'd thro' her , who in that perilous hour Put hand to hand beneath her husband s heart , And felt him her ' e again : she did not weep , But o ' er her meek eyes came a happy mist Like that which kept the heart of Eden green . Before the useful trouble of the rain : Yeinot so misty were her meek blue eyes As not to see before them oil the path , ; Sight in the gateway of the bandit hola , A knight of Arthur ' s court , who laid his lance In rest , and made as if to fall upon him . The knight proves to be Edyrn , son of Nudd , once rather wild and fast , but now properly reformed in Arthur ' s court ; from whom there is therefore now nothing really to dread . By him they are conducted to the king hard by and the poem concludes in a gentle and fine cadence . The second idyll relates the well known story of Vivien and Merlin , how she , beguiled him to tell his secret to her , by which she took him captive , weaving a charm about him , within the four walls of the hollow tower , in the wild woods of Broceliande . Her winning ways are drawn out at great length , and her temptation is conducted with the utmost subtlety . There is a classical beauty in this idy ll , which tempers the voluptuousness of the sentiment . There arc sections of it which are delicious . Here , too , is a l yric , which may serve as a sample of many such scattered among these eclogues : — In Love , if Lovo be Lovo , if Love be ours , Faith and unfaith can ne ' er bo equal powers : Unfajth in aught is want of faith in all . It is the little rift within the lute , That by and by will make tho music muto . And over widening- slowly silence all . The little rift within the lover ' s lute . Op little pitted spook in garner'd fruit . That rotting lnwurd slowly moulders all . It is not worth tho keeping : lot It go : But shall it ? answer , darling , answer , no . And trust not at all all in all trust not at ait in :
, me or . , And me au or au . Tho third idyll is entitled " Elaine , " a maiden who fell ii * love with Lancelot . But Lancelot , with a heart pre-engaged by the queen , had no room in it for an honest love , and therefore the maiden , to whom he was indebted in a great debt of gratitude , was left to pine unloved , until she perished . This is the outline of the story ; but there is much of minute and graceful tracery in tho development of it which can find no place in limited columns . In tho course of it the characters of Arthur and j ; , 1 '
Guinevere are brought out into relief . Tho fourth idyll is devoted to the queen , whoso adulteries have beoolno too notorious ;—whence both she and the too-courteous Lancelot take to flight . Not till then had the blameless Arthur suspected her ; but now , her guilt is known , he pursues , her to the convent in which ahe hod sought refuge , and of which she afterwords became the abbess . The king ' s magnanimous forgiveness of her fault * and hoi' repentanoe , oloso the volume gracefully , and leave tho reader ' s mind in a state of pious sentiment . There can be no doubt that this volume is cal-; ' I 4 £ r * * t i * {
To a certain extent this amounts to a considerable disqualification . Mr . Tennyson has no pretensions to the sublimity of the epic muse ; but the beauty that lives in nature , and forms the soul of the contemplatist—beauty , both spiritual and natural , has stamped Tennyson for her own , and steeps bis poems in the atmosphere of sweetness , simplicity , and truth . The idylls contained in this volume amount to four . The first is , perhaps , the most charming , and is likel y to become the favourite with the poet ' s admirers . It is entitled " Enid , " the wife of the brave Geraint ; and contains the story of his wooing and his wedding , his jealousy and its cure . The fault of Geraint is too much love—he loved Enid as he loved the light of
Heaven . And as the light of Heaven varies , now At sunrise , now at sunset , now by night With moon and trembling stars , so loved Geraint To make her beauty vary day by day , Jh-crtmsohaand in purples and in gems . And Enid , but to please her husband ' s eye . Who first had found and loved her in a state Of broken fortunes , daily fronted him _ , „ In some fresh splendour ; and the Queen herself Grateful to Prince Geraint for service done , Iioved her , and often with her own Tyhite hands Array'd and deck'd her , as the loveliest , Next after her own self , hi all the court . We must suppose the reader acquainted with Arthur ' s queen , Guinevere , and her misplaced love of Lancelot ; if so , he will not wonder that Geraint should fear the influence of the queen , and wish to remove his young and lovely wife beyond the sphere of her example . He therefore raade excuses to the royal Arthur ; and , having gained his consent , rode forth with his lady and fifty knights to the shores Of Severn , and they past to their own land : Where , thinking-, that if ever yet was wife True to her lord , mine shall be so to me . He compassed her with sweet observances And worship , never leaving her , and grew Forgetfnl of his promise to the king , Forgetful of the falcon and the hunt ,
Forgetful of the tilt and tournament , Forgetful of his erlory and his name , Forgetful of his princedom and its cares . And this forgetfulness was hateful to her . And by and by tho people , when they met In twos and tfirccB , or fuller companies . Began to scoff and jeer and babbfe of him Ap of a prince whose manhood was all gone , Arid molten down in mere uxoriousness . And this she gathered from the people ' s eyes : This too the women who attired her head , '* To plca , se her , dwelling ou his boundless love . Told Enid , and they saddon'd her tho more : Apd day by day she thought to tell Gerulnt . But could not out of bashful delicacy ¦ , While he that watoh'd her sadden , was the more Suspicious that her nature had a taint . At last It chanced that on a summer morn ( They sleeping each by other ) tho now sun Beat throughlho Mindless casement of the room , And hoatea tho Strong warrior in his tlrenms : Who , moving , oaBt tho coverlet aside , And bared tho knotted column of his throat , " The massive square of his heroic brenst , And arms on wliloh tho standing muscle eloped , As slopes a wild brook o ' er a littio Btono , Running too voliompatly to break upon it . . And Enid woke and oat beside tho couob Admiring him , and thought within herself , Was over man so grandly made as ho ? Then , like a shadow , past the people ' s talk And accusation of uxoriousnosa Aoroaa her mind , and bowing over him , Low to hor own heart pltoously she said : " O noble broaat and aU-puiusant urme . Am I the caufly , I tho poor cause that men Ropronoh you , Baying itf 1 Y * b r 0 ° is SO " I qm the causo because I unro not eponk And toll him what I think and what thoy Bay . And yet I hiito that ho should linger hero : I cannot lovo my lord and not his umno . Par Hover had T . gird his hnmosa on him , And rldo wltfy him to battlo and stand by . And watch his mlghtful hand striking ff / oat blows At caltlflfr and at wrongora of tho world . ' Far bettor , wcro I laid m tho dark oartl ) , Not hearing nay jmoro hlB npblo voice , , JSot to bo jtoldoa more in those dear arms , ' And darkon'd from tho high light In his oyos , Than that my lord thro * mo should suffer shamo . Am X so bold " , and could I eo stand by , . And soo my dear lord wounded in thu strife Or may bo picrcod to death before mine cyce , And yot not daro to toll htm what X tlUnk , '
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THE LIFE AND TIMES OF CHARLES JAMES FOX . By the Right Hon . Lord John Russell , M . P- Vol II . — Richard Ben tley . We have again to congratulate the political public on the appearance of a volume of this work , which , though claiming no great credit for its technical authorship , at least puts us in possession of its author ' s state of mind on important political topics , as one of . the leading statesmen of our country . If ; in the former volume , we had to complain of having more of the times of Fox than of Fox himself , the complaint is intensified in the present—a defect for which , indeed , the noble writer is himself eager to enter an apology . We must await the third volume for the biographical ; the second is devoted to history . _
... It opens with an account of the Coalition Ministry—a ministry little to the liking of the wily king , who regarded the ministers as his " new tyrants , " and treated them with a cold and sullen reserve . They were in a precarious position . The Irish question was of itself a great difficulty ; the Indian was another . Was it expedient to recall Hastings from the government of Bengal ? Lord John looks on Clive and Hastings as the . Cortes and Pizarro of our Indian empire ; but if , adds he , " like the Spanish adventurers , they had a mild and unwarlike race to contend against , they had obstacles to overcome which did not embarrass the conquerors of Mexico and Peru . They had the fieldand
to meet European enemies in , they had to satisfy a corrupt and craving corporation at home . They accomplished both these objects ; they defeated the foreign enemy and bribed , the domestic master ; but in doing so they tarnished the good name of England . " On the question of the Indian Bill , Mr . Fox risked and lost his power as a minister . The king was taught to believe by Lord Thurlow and Lord Temple that it involved " a plan to take more than half the royal power , and by that means disable the King for the rest of his reign . " Court intrigue and treachery could be carried no further . Mr . Fox was dismissed from officeand Mr . Pitt succeeded to it .
, The debates that immediately followed on this transaction turned principally on the unconstitutional use that had been made of his Majesty ' s name * but Mr . Fox managed the point weakly and indiscreetly , and failed to displace his more prudent rival . Mr . Pitt maintained his difficult position with the utmost tact and prudence . In describing the Parliamentary proceedings , Lord John Russell is quite at home . He enters into them and their details with discrimination and animation . It is a panorama in the exhibition of which ho triumphs and delights . O _ _ — ¦ _ •*• m W"fc 11 A . _ . Russell to
It here falls in the way of Lord John notice the •* Rolliad , " or , as it is more properly called , " Criticisms on the Rolliad ; " the best verses in wliich were written by Mr . George Ellis . Dr . Lawrence , Colonel Fitz-Patrick , Richardson , Lord John Townshend and Tickell were likewise contributors . Lord John quotes amply from it . The questionalso of the High Baliff of Westminster not having returned the writ is also discussed . Mr . Fox made a very eloquent speech on the occasion . The whole affair , in Lord Russell ' s opinion , was discreditable to tho minister , who showed h" ™?" Aa . rrn \ A rif miumnnimitv . find disffraCClil * tO tUC
Grown lawyers , who endeavoured to substitutechicanery for law . The question , too , of tlic sniKing fund is argued at large . We next come to the impeachment of Warron Hastings . Xlio sud-JQct has been exhausted ; ft paeaing "J " ? ' ^ " ^ that it demands . Space is aW occupied with the question of Parliamentary Reform , winch was then ax its infancy , and excited but lit . tfeatte ntion Tho marriage of the Prince of Wales , vho was much attached * to Mr . Fox , naturally oomumnda in . extended canvass . Mr . Fox ' s fetter to . tho Prince on tho subject is oxtant , and ono from the latter in reply . # «* the Prince was practising on the honest oredulity of the statesman , and secretly dovisincr tho means of doing what he disclaimed . On the 21 st of Dec , 178 ^ 5 , Mrs . I ^ itzhcrl ) ort was married by a protestant clergyman to tho Prince of Wales . Her uncle , Harry Errington , her
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culated to increase the reputation of the Poet Laureate , and to raise the taste of the publictoward some appreciation of higher forms of poetry than it has recently been satisfied with . The general argument is treated as a myth , and , for those who can detect it , a mystical allegory is involved in the general scheme of the King ' s Idylls . l . l . J X ^ v inAMAnOA + riA l *^ T ^ it + O + lrtT * { XT . + r * £ * I ' aq' * 1-
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all his force w . ¦' ;« - Tmv ^ 18 S 0 T THE LE ADER , $ 69 2 vo . 487- JtTLY , 2 , 3 t l « o ^ . J i ———^^^ M ^ WiW ^^ B ^^ W ^^^^^^^ T i ^ . i _ . _ _ . . . _ . . . . — ¦¦ . , ¦
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Leader (1850-1860), July 23, 1859, page 869, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2304/page/17/
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