nial nobleness in any true impulse whose aim is lofty, and its failure of attainment simply invests it with a pathetic grandeur, a tragic dignity, a new claim upon our honour and admiration. Failure in a great cause is to Browning better than victory in a mean ambition, and to perish in the right, even when the right is dimly comprehended, is better than to succeed with a merely conventional success. It is not through any deficiency of analytical penetration that Browning does not pass as shrewd criticisms as Tennyson on the national defects of others, but he is better employed: it is his mission to mark the good that lurks in evil, and the high ideals which often penetrate and underlie even the most defective human action. When he goes to the French Revolution for a subject, it is not to find a text for British self-complacency, but to catch the dying whisper of the patriot's soul as it passes out of this wild earthly confusion, and to report it thus:

I go in the rain, and, more than needs,

A rope cuts both my wrists behind;

And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds,
For they fling, whoever has a mind,

Stones at me for my year's misdeeds.

Thus I entered, and thus I go!

In triumphs people have dropped down dead.
"Paid by the world, what dost thou owe

Me?" God might question; now instead,
'Tis God shall repay: I am safer so.

The difference between the two poets is precisely the difference between an insular and cosmopolitan view of politics. Tennyson sounds no keen clarion of hope, he is in no sense the leader of men. Men will never go

to him for inspiration in the dark and difficult hour of national peril. But, on the other hand, it cannot be

said that the general note he strikes is pessimistic.

He

says that his faith is large in time: he anticipates the hour when

The war-drums throb no longer, and the battle-flags are furled, In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.

Human progress is a Divine certainty :—

This fine old world of ours is but a child
Yet in the go-cart-Patience! Give it time
To learn its limbs: there is a Hand that guides.

The work of political evolution, like the work of natural evolution, is slow, and asks for its development the breadth of the ages. There will be widened thoughts with the process of the suns; there will be steady increase of strength and wisdom, and growing "harmonies of law." Tennyson's reverence for law is complete and absorbing: it is a temper of mind nurtured by his knowledge of and reverence for science. Even in his treatment of so light and delicate a fancy as the "Day-dream" he remembers the majesty of law, and pictures how the world may

Sleep through terms of mighty wars

And wake on science grown to more-
On secrets of the brain, the stars,
As wild as aught of fairy lore.

All the defeats and renunciations of to-day are but the Divine discipline shaping us for a great to-morrow, and far away, in the unmeasured and immeasurable spaces of the future, lies a fair and renovated world. He is as one who watcheth for the morning. His vision is not always clear, his hope is not always strong; and often in the dark night his faith seems to suffer sorrowful

eclipse. In such hours, when we ask him, "Watcher, what of the night?" his voice is mournful and his speech is bitter.

At last I heard a voice upon the slope
Cry to the summit, Is there any hope?

To which an answer peal'd from that high land,

But in a tongue no man could understand.

But it is at least a high land on which the poet stands, and, confused as his reply may often be, yet he never fails to see far off the promise of the future, how

On the glimmering limit, far withdrawn,

God makes Himself an awful rose of dawn.

And for this noble hope we thank the poet. He does not fight in the ranks with us, but he foresees the hour of victory. He does not stand amid the heat and dust of battle; but he that is not against us is for us. is one of those of whom Arnold speaks, one

Who hath watched, not shared the strife;

He

but at least he "knows how the day has gone," and he waits in patient hope for the breaking of a larger dawn.

CHAPTER XXIII.

IDYLLS AND THE "IDYLLS OF THE KING."

W

E have now come to the point in our study of Tennyson where his two greatest poems, the "Idylls of the King" and "In Memoriam," come into review. There are, however, certain groups of poems which can scarcely be passed unmentioned, and before turning to the two greatest works of Tennyson it may be well to glance at these. Everywhere throughout Tennyson's books there are to be found exquisite clusters of lyrical poems, and it may be said with confidence that in this domain of poetry his power is unrivalled and his excellence supreme. It is this excellence which redeems "Maud," in all other respects the weakest and least artistic of his long poems. The "Princess," again, wearisome and dull as it becomes in parts, contains three or four of the most musical lyrics Tennyson has ever written, and snatches of melody which will bear comparison with the finest lyrics in the language. The art in which Tennyson's rarest excellence lies, the art of musical expression, the subtle cadence of rhythm which produces a recurring and never-forgotten sweetness in the memory, is seen at its very best in these short and lovely lyrics. The lines in the "Princess" commencing,

The splendour falls on castle walls,

may be mentioned in this category as the nearest approach to the effect of fine music which language is able to produce, and in glamour and sweetness they are unapproached by any modern poet. Of poems like these nothing can be said but praise. They have gone far to constitute the charm of Tennyson. They have found their way into the general memory without effort, by virtue of an enchantment all their own. They will probably be remembered when much of his more ambitious work is forgotten. Indeed, it may be said that already this process has been accomplished in part, and the chief thing which preserves "Maud" from oblivion is the famous garden-song, "Come into the garden, Maud," one of the most finished and impassioned lyrics that is to be found in the whole range of modern English. In lyrical power and sweetness, in the power of uttering that "lyrical cry," as it has been called, that species of poem which is, in truth, not so much a poem as a cry, a voice, a gust of thrilling music-in this art Tennyson has few rivals and no peer.

To another class of poems in which Tennyson has attained high excellence he has himself given an appropriate title when he calls them English Idylls. The more famous is "Enoch Arden," the most exquisite is "Dora." When "Enoch Arden" was published great exception was taken to its method and structure, and its obvious want of simplicity in diction was held to disqualify its title to be called an English idyll. In subject it is purely idyllic, in diction it is elaborately ornate. One of the acutest and most brilliant of English critics, Mr. Walter Bagehot, has pointed out the fact that in no single instance throughout the poem is Tennyson content to speak in the language of simplicity. The phrases are often happy, often