And in what does it all end? It ends in the bitter cry of Vanitas vanitatum, as all such experiments must always end. Dull stagnation closes on the soul, and the pursuit of selfish ease ends in agonising despair. Beauty becomes loathsome, and its daily vision is as a fire which frets the flesh, until at last the soul exclaims: I am on fire within;

What is it that will take away my sin,

And save me lest I die?

And the only answer is

Make me a cottage in the vale, she said,
Where I may mourn and pray.

It is a great and memorable lesson memorably taught. Human responsibility cannot be ignored, whether in the monastery, the tavern, or the palace of art. The first duty of man is to his brothers, and that is the soul of all religion. Society annexes obligations to its privileges, and the one must be shared with the other. These poems represent the religious attitude of Tennyson, and it is an attitude eminently sane and noble. They breathe the spirit of a rational and serviceable human piety. They rebuke at once asceticism and sensuality. They pierce to the essential hollowness. of all mere art-worship as a substitute for the worship of God, and they contain teachings which were never more needed than in the generation which Tennyson has addressed.

WE

CHAPTER XXV.

TENNYSON'S "IN MEMORIAM”

E now come to the most distinctive, and, in many essential characteristics, the greatest of Tennyson's poems, "In Memoriam." Published in 1850, it is the work of his prime, and contains the most perfect representation of his genius. The personal history on which it is founded is well known. It commemorates one of the noblest of human friendships, and one of the noblest of men. Arthur Hallam, the son of Henry Hallam, the celebrated historian, was born in Bedford Place, London, on the 1st of February, 1811. The family afterwards removed to Wimpole Street, which is thus described in "In Memoriam—

Dark house, by which once more I stand,
Here in the long, unlovely street,

Doors, where my heart was wont to beat
So quickly, waiting for a hand.

In October 1828 Arthur Hallam went into residence at Cambridge, and it was there he met Tennyson. The affection which sprang up between them must have been immediate, for in 1830 we find them discussing a plan for publishing conjointly a volume of poems. One of Tennyson's most striking phrases in the "Palace of Art," "the abysmal deeps of personality," is directly borrowed from a phrase of Hallam's: "God-with

whom alone rest the abysmal secrets of personality." It was one of those rare and beautiful friendships which sometimes visit the morning hours of life, in which intellectual sympathy, not less than love, plays a foremost part. On the 15th of September, 1833, Arthur Hallam lay dead. On the 3rd of January, 1834, his body was brought over from Vienna, where he died, and was interred in manor aisle, Clevedon Church, Somersetshire

The Danube to the Severn gave

The darkened heart that beat no more;
They laid him by the pleasant shore,

And in the hearing of the wave.

There twice a day the Severn fills;
The salt sea-water passes by,

And hushes half the babbling Wye,
And makes a silence in the hills.

When and where "In Memoriam" was conceived or commenced it is impossible for us to know, but it will thus be seen that seventeen years elapsed between the death of Arthur Hallam and the publication of Tennyson's exquisite elegy. It is quite possible that the poem was actually in process of construction during the whole of this long period, for it bears in itself marks of slow growth, of gradual accretion and elaboration. Probably the work was begun with one or two of the earlier sections, which simply bewail in poignant verse Tennyson's sense of unspeakable loss, and which possess the solemnity and self-containedness of separate funeral hymns, rather than the consecutiveness of an elaborate poem. The history and character of

*In the first edition of "In Memoriam " Tennyson says in "the chancel." This was not strictly correct, and is altered in subsequent editions to "dark Church."

the poem sustain this view. In seventeen years the anguish of the deepest sorrow must needs show signs of healing. Grief grows less clamant, and more meditative. It passes somewhat out of the region of personal bitterness into the realms of philosophic reflection and religious resignation. Time does not destroy the sense of loss, but it lifts the soul to a place of broader outlook and calmer vision. As we read "In Memoriam" this process is clearly detailed, and there is much in the structure of the poem to suggest that from a few mournful verses, cast off in the bitterest hour of bereavement as a solace to the wounded spirit, Tennyson gradually enlarged his plan, till he had woven into it all the philosophic doubts, the religious hopes, the pious aspirations, which the theme of human loss could suggest to a thoughtful mind and noble spirit.

Concerning the general structure and character of the poem, one or two things are worth remark. It differs essentially from any other elegy in the English language, both as to metrical arrangement and artistic colour. English literature is not rich in elegy, but it possesses in Milton's "Lycidas," in Gray's famous poem, in Shelley's "Adonais," and perhaps in Arnold's noble lamentation for his father and his "Thyrsis," isolated specimens of elegiac poetry as fine as any literature can boast. Of these great elegies, Shelley's "Adonais" is the longest and the noblest; Milton's "Lycidas" the most classic in gravity and sweetness; Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" the most perfectly polished; Arnold's "Lines in Rugby Chapel" the most effective in moral view and spirit. But of the last two it will be at once perceived that neither aims at the constructive breadth of a prolonged poem, nor would the metrical form

sustain the burden of great length. The constant evil which menaces elegy is monotony, and it is the most difficult to be avoided by the very nature of the theme. Gray avoids it by aiming at aphoristic brevity, and by polishing every phrase with the most consummate artistic skill and patience. Arnold adopts for his purpose a peculiar unrhymed metre, which stimulates the ear without wearying it, but which could not be sustained except within the limits of brevity which he has set for himself. Milton is similarly brief, and "Lycidas" reads more like a noble fragment of the antique than an English poem written for English readers. No doubt Milton's genius would have served him perfectly if he had attempted a "Lycidas" of thrice the length, for he has attempted no form of poetry without absolute success; but, however that may be, he was taught by his artistic instincts in writing elegy to compress within the narrowest limits of space his lament for the noble dead. Shelley does indeed write at length, but there are two things to sustain him in his daring effort; first, he uses a metre singularly pliable and resonant; and, secondly, he leaves his theme at will, and weaves into his poem a hundred exquisite suggestions of natural beauty and imaginative vision, so that while his theme. is mournful his poem is often ecstatic, and monotony is avoided by richness of fancy and variety of theme. In what respects does "In Memoriam" differ from these great masterpieces? Wherein does its distinctive charm and greatness lie?

In the first place it differs entirely in metrical form and arrangement. Properly speaking, it is hymnal in form. Some of its stanzas are admirably suited for Christian worship, and no doubt will appear, with slight alterations, in the hymnal collections of the future.