Chapter 15

The question as to Tennyson’s precise rank in the glorious roll of the Poets of England can never be determined by us, if in any case or at any time such determinations can be made. We do not, or should not, ask whether Virgil or Lucretius, whether Æschylus or Sophocles, is the greater poet. The consent of mankind seems to place Homer and Shakespeare and Dante high above all. For the rest no prize-list can be settled. If influence among aliens is the test, Byron probably takes, among our poets, the next rank after Shakespeare. But probably there is no possible test. In certain respects Shelley, in many respects Milton, in some Coleridge, in some Burns, in the opinion of a number of persons Browning, are greater poets than Tennyson. But for exquisite variety and varied exquisiteness Tennyson is not readily to be surpassed. At one moment he pleases the uncritical mass of readers, in another mood he wins the verdict of the _raffiné_. It is a success which scarce any English poet but Shakespeare has excelled. His faults have rarely, if ever, been those of flat-footed, “thick-ankled” dulness; of rhetoric, of common-place; rather have his defects been the excess of his qualities. A kind of John Bullishness may also be noted, especially in derogatory references to France, which, true or untrue, are out of taste and keeping. But these errors could be removed by the excision of half-a-dozen lines. His later work (as the _Voyage of Maeldune_) shows a just appreciation of ancient Celtic literature. A great critic, F. T. Palgrave, has expressed perhaps the soundest appreciation of Tennyson:—

It is for “the days that remain” to bear witness to his real place in the great hierarchy, amongst whom Dante boldly yet justly ranked himself. But if we look at Tennyson’s work in a twofold aspect,—_Here_, on the exquisite art in which, throughout, his verse is clothed, the lucid beauty of the form, the melody almost audible as music, the mysterious skill by which the words used constantly strike as the _inevitable_ words (and hence, unforgettable), the subtle allusive touches, by which a secondary image is suggested to enrich the leading thought, as the harmonic “partials” give richness to the note struck upon the string; _There_, when we think of the vast fertility in subject and treatment, united with happy selection of motive, the wide range of character, the dramatic force of impersonation, the pathos in every variety, the mastery over the comic and the tragic alike, above all, perhaps, those phrases of luminous insight which spring direct from imaginative observation of Humanity, true for all time, coming from the heart to the heart,—his work will probably be found to lie somewhere between that of Virgil and Shakespeare: having its portion, if I may venture on the phrase, in the inspiration of both.

A professed enthusiast for Tennyson can add nothing to, and take nothing from, these words of one who, though his friend, was too truly a critic to entertain the admiration that goes beyond idolatry.

FOOTNOTES

{1} Macmillan & Co.

{7} To the present writer, as to others, _The Lover’s Tale_ appeared to be imitative of Shelley, but if Tennyson had never read Shelley, _cadit quæstio_.

{16} F. W. H. Myers, _Science and a Future Life_, p. 133.

{39} The writer knew this edition before he knew Tennyson’s poems.

{50} The author of the spiteful letters was an unpublished anonymous person.

{58} The Lennox MSS.

{62} Spencer and Gillen, _Natives of Central Australia_, pp. 388, 389.

{65} _Tennyson_, _Ruskin_, _and Mill_, pp. 11, 12.

{66} _Life_, p. 37, 1899.

{72} Poem omitted from _In Memoriam_. _Life_, p. 257, 1899.

{74} Mr Harrison, _Tennyson_, _Ruskin_, _and Mill_, p. 5.

{112} The English reader may consult Mr Rhys’s _The Arthurian Legend_, Oxford, 1891, and Mr Nutt’s _Studies of the Legend of the Holy Grail_, which will direct him to other authorities and sources.

{113} I have summarised, with omissions, Miss Jessie L. Watson’s sketch in _King Arthur and his Knights_. Nutt, 1899. The learning of the subject is enormous; Dr Sommer’s _Le Mort d’Arthur_, the second volume may be consulted. Nutt, 1899.

{129a} Βέλενος and Βήληνος. He is referred to in inscriptions, _e.g._ Berlin, _Corpus_, iii. 4774, V. 732, 733, 1829, 2143–46; xii. 405. See also Ausonius (Leipsic, 1886, pp. 52, 59), cited by Rhys, _The Arthurian Legend_ p. 159, note 4.

{129b} Brebeuf; _Relations des Jésuites_, 1636, pp. 100–102.

{139} Malory, xviii. 8 _et seq._

{196} Notices et Extraits des MSS. de la Bibliothèque Impériale, I. xix. pp. 643–645.

{218} See the _Life_, 1899, p. 521.