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elaborately applied them to poetry; and, of course, it is his perfection as an artist that has enabled him in most cases to conceal his art; so that the reader, while enjoying the exquisite result, is generally unconscious of the way in which it has been brought about. Naturally it was most evident in his earlier poems, before his hand had acquired its full cunning. Thus the tentativeness of the artist comes out in the " Dream of Fair Women" and in "Enone;" in the "Palace of Art" and in "Ulysses" the artist is fully master of himself and his art, and the work is so perfect that no trace of the worker's toil can be detected. Strange to say, in some of his latest compositions the artist is less successful, and admits us "behind the scenes," to see him graduating his tints and adjusting his perspective.

At Somersby Parsonage, in Lincolnshire, among the fen scenery which he has so often described, Alfred Tennyson was born in 1809. He completed his education at Cambridge, where he won in 1829 the Chancellor's gold medal for his poem of "Timbuctoo," and formed an intimate friendship with Arthur Henry Hallam, the son of Hallam the historian. He had already published, in conjunction with his brother Charles, a small volume of poetry (240 pages duodecimo) under the title of "Poems by Two Brothers." In 1830, at the age of twenty-one, he issued his "Poems, chiefly Lyrical," containing many pieces now familiar to every ear, but, as a whole, making no impression on the public. Some judicious critics, however, as John Stuart Mill and Leigh Hunt, saw in them a rare promise of future excellence; and after an interval of twelve years, the publication of his "Poems" in two volumes, which included many of the early pieces revised and rewritten, convinced the world that a new and genuine poet had risen among them. The public fancy was caught at once by the rare melody and exquisite lyric glow, the artistic completeness and fine descriptive colouring, of "Locksley Hall," "The Two Voices," "Enone," and the "Morte d'Arthur," the last a grand and weird picture, which Tennyson, to my thinking, has never excelled. His poetical reputation was thenceforward ensured; but it was elevated and extended by the appearance of "In Memoriam," in 1850, as a tribute to the memory of the friend of his young manhood, Arthur Henry Hallam, who had been cut off in 1832 in the blossom of his days. On the death of Wordsworth in 1851, it was acknowledged by all that to him and him only could be granted "the laurel greener from the brows of him who uttered nothing base." In 1852 he issued his "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington," and in 1853 a new edition of "The Princess: a Medley," which had appeared in outline (so to speak) in 1847. "Maud and other Poems" were published in 1855, and in 1858 "The Idyls of the King," founded on the old Arthurian legends, to which were added "The Holy Grail" in 1869; the "Last Tournament" in 1871, and "Gareth and Lynette" in 1872. 66 Enoch

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Arden, and other Poems" appeared in 1864. In 1875 Mr. Tennyson essayed the drama in his "Queen Mary," followed by that of "Harold" in 1876; but it cannot be said that either displays anything of the dramatist's constructive skill.

"Mr. Tennyson," says an acute critic,1 "is a poet of large compass, of profound insight, of finished skill. We find him possessing the clearest insight into our modern life, one who discerns its rich poetical resources, who tells us what we are and may be; how we can live free, joyous, and harmonious lives; what grand elements of thought, feeling, and action lie around us; what a field there is for the various activities fermenting within us. We do not call him a Shakespeare, or even a Chaucer; but what Shakespeare and Chaucer did for the ages they lived in, Mr. Tennyson is doing for our age after his measure. He is showing it to us as an age in which an Englishman may live a man's life and be neither a mere man of business nor a mere man of pleasure, but may find in his affections, studies, business, and relaxations, scope for his spiritual faculties. Since John Dryden died no English poet has written verse so noble, so sonorous, of such sustained majesty and might; no English poet has brought pictures so clear and splendid before the eye by the power of single epithets and phrases."

Mr. Tennyson's poems, both as the expression of a ripe and original genius and in relation to their age, demand very careful study; and in undertaking this study the reader will be in no want of critical guides. I doubt, indeed, whether any poet has elicited a larger amount of criticism. It will be enough for my purpose to recommend Mr. Brimley's essay and Mr. R. H. Hutton's, Robert Buchanan in "Master Spirits," Mr. Stedman in the "Victorian Poets," Charles Kingsley in his "Miscellanies," and M. Taine in his "History of English Literature." I suppose the chief points to which the student's attention will be directed by this multitude of counsellors are :—

a. The sweet subtle music of his verse, its variety of form, and its originality.

B. The admirable appropriateness of his epithets, the right word appearing always in the right place, and a single adjective frequently conveying a whole picture (as, for instance, "the creamy vapour," "the league-long roller," "the hollower-bellowing ocean ").

y. The wide scope of his genius, which is almost equally successful in the idyl and the lyric, and attains no small success in the epic and the dramatic.

8. His power of drawing character.

e. His minute and living observation of Nature, though here it may be noted that the Nature of Tennyson is always a well-ordered and regulated Nature, not the Nature of mountains and rocks and

1 Essays by the late George Brimley, M.A.

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shaggy forests, but of "dewy pastures," green valleys, and “trickling streams;" and,

His sympathy with the great social and religious questions of his time, which he treats not less boldly than searchingly, not less frankly than tenderly.1

The sweet singers of this generation are legion, and as I am not writing a guide to English literature, but simply suggesting a course of English reading, it is not necessary-and I certainly have not the space to deal with them. It is noticeable that they all exhibit great finish of language, and all draw largely upon Nature. As a storyteller, William Morris has been unequalled since Chaucer. He tells his narratives with much the same simplicity and sweetness, though he has none of Chaucer's humour, broad human sympathies, and insight into the heart of man. A. H. Clough is the poet of intellectual speculation; a type, not uncommon at the present day, of the mind that refuses to accept the old beliefs, and yet mourns over its own want of faith. A wonderful rush and flow of lyrical music, somewhat injured in effect by the excessive use of alliteration, a fierce fervour of passion, and a bold luxuriance of imagery, mark out the poetry of A. C. Swinburne from that of his contemporaries. He allows himself, however, a freedom of expression and a latitude in his choice of themes which can hardly be admitted to harmonise with the highest poetry. Other poets (both living and dead) who have earned a well-deserved distinction may be named alphabetically:-Thomas Aird, Thomas Ashe, William Allingham, Thomas Lovel Beddoes, W. C. Bennett, Robert Buchanan, Austin Dobson, Sydney Dobell, E. W. Gosse, Lord Houghton, Jean Ingelow, the Rev. John Keble, the Rev. Charles Kingsley, Frederick Locker, Robert Lord Lytton, George MacDonald, Charles Mackay, Gerald Massey, Lewis Morris, Coventry Patmore, James Payn, W. M. Praed, Adelaide Anne Proctor, Christina Rossetti, W. B. Scott, Alexander Smith, Archbishop Trench, and Aubrey de Vere. These belong to the "Victorian Age;" their respective claims and positions we leave to their admirers to settle. Certain it is that each, in the reign of Anne, would have

1 "Mr. Tennyson's powers of observation, though by no means rapid, are exceedingly close and tenacious, and he has the strong apprehensive grasp of the naturalist in conjunction with the harmonising faculty of the poet. He seems to have studied his Grandmother' and his two 'Northern Farmers' much as he has studied the habits of bees and animals. He has a striking microscopic faculty on which his poetic imagination works. No poet has so many and such accurate references to the vegetable world, and yet at the same time references so thoroughly poetic. . . In painting, Mr. Tennyson is so terse and compressed that, though he never suggests the idea of swiftness-there is too much pains expended upon the individual stroke for that it would be simply absurd to call his manner dilatory. . . . If not the most perfectly finished of Mr. Tennyson's poems, "The Idylls of the King" has a grander aim and larger scope than any, and paints the waste places of the heart and the strength of the naked soul with a stronger and more nervous touch."-R. H. Hutton.

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been acknowledged with fervour as worthy of the bays; and that together they discuss almost every question, literary, social, political, psychological, and religious, which in the last half-century has disturbed the thoughts or excited the feelings of men.

The foregoing resumé omits one name which calls for separate recognition, that of Matthew Arnold (born 1822), who, if not on the same level as Tennyson or Browning, towers above all other contemporaries. As an artist he is scarcely less perfect than Tennyson. His "Empedocles on Etna," his "Heine's Grave," his "Obermann" and "Rugby Chapel," his "Rustum and Zohrab," his "Tristram and Iseult," and his "Scholar Gipsy," are beautiful productions-beautiful, with a grave, sad, tranquil beauty peculiarly their own. "There is not much, indeed, of heat or flame in the vestal or lunar light that shines from this poet's hearth; but it does not burn down. His poetry is a pure temple, a white flower of marble, unfretted without by grotesque intricacies, unvexed within by fumes of shaken censers or intoning of human choristers -large and clear and cool, with many chapels in it and outer courts, full of quiet and music." No poet has more successfully poured new wine into old bottles, the modern thought into the old classic form.

CHAPTER III.

ENGLISH HISTORY: A COURSE OF READING.

HAVE treated our poetic literature chronologically, because the poets are always so largely affected by the tendencies and passions, the sympathies and intellectual movements, of the age in which they live. This is not necessarily the case with the prose writers. The historian of past times, the inquirer into mental phenomena, the scientific pioneer, is, to a great extent, independent of external influences. Apart from this consideration, I am met by the fact that, owing to the immense range of our English literature, few students can hope to master even more than a portion of it, and therefore it is desirable that, instead of attempting a chronological survey, they should turn to such branches as they find most pleasurable or profitable. I propose, therefore, to glance at our prose writers in groups, according to the subjects which principally occupied their pens, and in each group to observe such order as may seem most conducive to the scholar's progress.

The first group or section shall be that of the HISTORICAL WRITERS; for, of all our studies, history seems the most important, and to offer the most tangible results in proportion to the research employed. English literature is specially affluent in this department, and the difficulty one has in dealing with it is the proverbial embarras de richesses. The question arises, How shall we deal with it? To follow the plan I have adopted with the poets, and to enumerate our annalists and historians in the order of their lives, would hardly facilitate the student's labours. At all events, it would not assist him in the study of history. It is obvious, Í think, that the only really practical method is to study history by epochs, working upon each epoch as a whole, and acquiring a thorough knowledge of one before we pass on to another. The history of our native land is far and away the most interesting to us as Englishmen. We cannot adequately fulfil our duties as English citizens, or appreciate our responsibilities, or value our privileges, unless we have a fairly extensive knowledge of it. And as that history has been a history of constant growth, of steady development and regular progress, of the gradual maturity of our