calmed down. Roumania has distin- | way of knowing it well. He must have guished itself among all European nations by its hatred of the Jews, which has remained very violent amongst the less enlightened class.

It is not a secret for any one that the young king Alphonso XII. has often deplored the fault committed by his ancestors, that he is possessed with the desire to repair it, and will do all in his power to wipe out this stain. Brought up himself in the hard school of exile, he has been able to learn the history of his country far from it, which is, perhaps, the best | Alphonso XII.

THE WHITE ALLIGATOR. Writing to the | tinguished from the larger species by its pointed New York World from Ca-Manos-Alto, at the nozzle, somewhat rounded tail, whiter color, foot of the great rapid of the Rio Negro, and its freedom from the acatinga (or smell). Brazil, the explorer, Mr. Ernest Morris, says: Though it is found throughout the whole course Over one of the camp fires the crew are roast of the Amazon, it abounds more in clearing with boisterous merriment a live alligator watered rivers and creeks. I have often found (Jacaré tinga), about five feet long. When I this alligator in streams of the high hills, miles asked why they did not kill the animal before away from any river or lake, and have freroasting, the pilot, who is always the spokes- quently seen the skulls and bones in the forest. man of the party, answered that it would spoil That it travels far and well on land there can the meat. The white alligator is highly rel-be no doubt; and the Indians say that its eggs ished by both whites and Indians. It differs are deposited in the forests. The flesh reentirely from the Jacaré assu, or large alligator, sembles veal in appearance and has a fishy rarely attaining five feet in length, and is dis- taste.

Fifth Series,
Volume XXXV.

}

No. 1940.— August 20, 1881.

From Beginning,
Vol. OL.

CONTENTS.

I. A NEW STUDY OF TENNYSON. Part III., . Cornhill Magazine,
II. IN TRUST. A Story of a Lady and her Lover,
Part III.,

III. HECTOR BERLIOZ: A BIOGRAPHY,
IV. AT A GERMAN SILVER WEDDING,
V. GREEK DINNERS,

VI. MR. CARLYLE AND DR. CHALMERS,
VII. BURMESE BELLS,

VIII. UP-STAIRS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY,

Fraser's Magazine,

Cornhill Magazine,

478

IX. THE DESTRUCTION OF SMALL BIRDS ON THE
CONTINENT,

XI. A CONGRESS OF DOMESTIC ECONOMISTS,
XII. FISH MORTALITY IN THE GULF OF MEXICO,

Pall Mall Gazette,
Pall Mall Gazette,
Saturday Review,.
Nature,

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From The Cornhill Magazine.
A NEW STUDY OF TENNYSON.

*

III.

they mark with singular precision the extent and the limitation of his powers. They are distinguished by those peculiar merits in which among the masters of later times he has no rival, among the masters of antiquity no superior. They exhibit those defects which must place what will, however, no doubt continue to be the most popular of English epics, immeasurably below the "Eneid," and even as a work of art below the "Gerusa lemme" and the “Lusiad.”

work of which Milton and Dryden dreamed had been attempted. We had before us, under a slight disguise, an Arthuriad in ten books, of which "The Coming of Arthur" formed the first, and "The Passing of Arthur" the last. The minute and patient study which every page of Mr. Tennyson's poetry exacts

soon discerned with what elaborate care

THE object with which this series of papers was undertaken has already been explained at length. That object would have been very imperfectly attained had we concluded our task without comment ing on the most characteristic triumph of Mr. Tennyson's genius. Of the thousands who hang with delight on the pages in which he tells in pure and graceful The Laureate has never, it is true, verse the story of Arthur and his knights, there is probably no one who is ignorant formally laid claim to a place beside those that the poet has drawn largely on prewho have achieved the last triumph of existing material. The nature and extent poetic genius. But when, in 1878, the of his obligations are, however, we sus-"Idylls" appeared in their present shape pect, known to few. The "Morte d'Ar- and in the order in which they now stand, thur" is voluminous; the "Mabinogion" the secret was at once revealed. The is inaccessible. In our day most readers would find it as distasteful to disentangle the Laureate's fascinating narratives from the labyrinths of a Malory as to read the story of Achilles and Hector, not in the glorious hexameters of the "Iliad," but in the bald and dismal periods of the "De Bello Trojano." Indeed, the task has been very inadequately performed even by those who have professed to undertake he had striven to blend together the narit. It ought, however, long ago to have ratives in epic unity; how nicely the sevbeen accomplished. When we remember eral episodes bore on the main action; the labor which has been expended on how anxiously he had endeavored to anithis branch of Shakespearian criticism, it mate his work with a central idea. It is is surely surprising that it should have this attempt which ennobles his use of the been spared in the case of a poet who has old romances; it is this attempt which availed himself even more than Shake- constitutes his sole claim to constructive skill; but it is this attempt which unforspeare of material furnished by others, whose use of that material is so pro-tunately brings him into competition with foundly significant, and whose place in the masters of epic song. our literature has yet to be fixed. An fails. The exquisite taste, the delicate analytical examination of the "Idylls" of the diction, of the sentiment, of the plot—a comparative estimate of what the Laureate has borrowed from his prede. cessors, and of what he owes to his own invention, are in truth indispensable, not only to a proper appreciation of his services to art, but to any attempt to realize even approximately his rank among poets. At once the most ambitious and, with the exception perhaps of "In Memoriam," the most elaborate effort of his genius,

• LIVING AGE, Nos. 1888, 1889.

And here he

ingenuity with which he has out of the chaos of ancient legend constructed his lucid and graceful narratives, can never fail to rank among the wonders of modern art, but the criticism which will be the first to do him justice for what he has done must be the last to admit the higher claim. He has not given us an epic poem, a homogeneous and consistent piece. The "Idylls " remain, in spite of all his efforts, a succession of fragments; they touch without cohering; they have been tagged rather than fused together. The unity of a true epic is organic; the unity of Mr.

452 Tennyson's epic is accidental. He has, with pleasure on such of his touches of it must be allowed, shown great skill in natural description as may happen to apmoulding his material in such a way as to peal to them. But they go no further, and make each idyll subservient to the devel-in going no further they are losers them. opment of the main plot, but the connec-selves, and the poet loses too. We have tion between the idylls themselves is so already said—and what we said we illusslight as to be scarcely discernible. Nor trated at length in our former papers is this want of union, this lack of harmony, that the poetry of Mr. Tennyson is, even apparent only in the framework of his in its minutest details, of an essentially poem. It is conspicuous throughout. reflective character; that his great achieve There is not, for example, more difference ments lie, not in original conceptions, but between the composition - we are using in elaborate workmanship, in assimilative the word in its widest sense of" Romeo skill. To discover what he has assimiand Juliet" and of "King Lear" than lated, on what he has worked, is the first there is between that of "Elaine" and duty of one who would properly appre"The Passing of Arthur," between that ciate his poetry. Of æsthetic criticism as of the "Quest of the Graal" and " Enid." applied to the Laureate's poetry, the world And the difference lies, not in those varia- has already had more than enough, and tions which diversities of theme require, æsthetic criticism is, perhaps, in the presnot in tone, touch, and color, but in ent state of Tennysonian study, of infiessence; it is a difference, not of degree, nitely less value than analytical. but of kind.

Of the ten idylls there are only four, The "Idylls of the King" bear, indeed, "The Coming of Arthur," "Enid," the same relation to works like the Guinevere," and "The Last Tourna"Eneid" and the "Gerusalemme," as the ment," which are not studies from the Essay on Man" bears to the " De Rerum compilation of Sir Thomas Malory. Natura." It is no injustice to Pope to "Enid" is a versification of the story ensay that he lacked the qualifications neces- titled "Geraint, the Son of Erin," in the sary for the construction of a great philo-" Mabinogion." "The Coming of Arsophical poem. It is no injustice to Mr. thur," "Guinevere," and "The Last TourTennyson to say that, partly perhaps ow-nament," though suggested by Malory, ing to the material on which he has chosen have nothing which immediately correto work, partly, no doubt, owing to the sponds to them in Malory's romance, and age in which his lot has been cast, he has may therefore be regarded as original denot succeeded in his attempt to produce signs. To "The Coming of Arthur" an epic poem. The "Essay on Man" Malory has, indeed, furnished nothing but a few hints and incidents. In one imporremains, however, with all its defects, one of the glories of our literature. tant particular the poet has, indeed, decan only be forgotten when liberately departed from the ancient "Idylls grace and melody, when purity of senti- legend; and as an illustration of his tact ment and beauty of expression shall cease and skill it is worth mentioning. To throw a halo of romantic mystery over the birth of Arthur, Malory perplexes his paternity by representing the lover of the baby's mother transformed by magical metamorphosis into the likeness of her husband. For this Mr. Tennyson has substituted another story equally miraculous but not equally embarrassing, and describes the child as being cast up by the sea at the feet of Merlin.

to charm.

The

But to our task. Of all popular poets Mr. Tennyson most needs a commentator. He has had the good fortune to be a favorite with the masses, but we very much doubt whether half his beauties are either relished or perceived by them. They read him as intelligent schoolboys read Virgil. They follow the story, they are struck by particular passages which they learn by heart and think very fine, they admire what they suppose to be the perspicuity of his diction, and they dwell

"Gareth and Lynette," which is perhaps the nearest approach the Laureate has ever made to becoming wearisome, is