Critical essays and literary notes

Preface

The following pages may be said to form a sequel to the " Studies in German Literature " published last autumn, inasmuch as they show what the author accomplished in the way of briefer literary and analytical criticism. It was only in the latter part of his very active life, and chiefly by force of circumstance, that lie was led — in the midst of other work — to devote himself more earnestly to critical writing, which he considered an assistance toward attaining, but not as being essential to, his great object in life.

After he had arrived at that mature stage of existence, when all the energy inherent in his nature turned toward the higher forms of creative art, he was driven back by an adverse fate to the field of daily journalism, which he had left more than twenty years before, as he then thought never to return. His life consequently became a much more laborious one than ever, not now from free choice as hitherto, but from necessity. Yet, amid the severe pressure of liis daily tasks, and the diversity of subjects wliich came under iv PREFACE.

his ever ready pen, lie never for a moment discarded that strict literary conscience which accompanied him througli all the years of his life — from the time when his youthful mind first awoke to tlic consciousness of an author, until that day arrived when all earthly consciousness ceased for ever. The work he did, either in the service of the paper on whose staff he was employed or for the periodicals that invited his contributions, was done with the same care which he bestowed on all that he wrote for his own pui'poses and his own special gratification. As the conditioning of things terrestrial calls for light where there is shadow, for compensating circumstances where there are trials, thus, amidst the cloudiness of sore and often uncongenial labor, there were intervals of grateful sunshine. These came when he was called upon to use his higher capabilities for the purpose of pronouncing on the writings of known and famous authors, or the life-work of representative men and women. There were reasons why this task should be enjoyable : — his extensive knowledge, his large personal experience, his intense love for literature and art, and his earnest desire to see the realm of letters grow in excellence and rise to pre-eminence in his own country — all this fitted and inspired him for his work. Minor considerations were of themselves excluded from his critical writings. These were the consummate conclusions of his mature intellect, billed on that lofty ideal of beauty which is the true foundation of all Art.

PREFACE. y

Owing to the small space allowed in joiimalism, which does not permit any but a brief expression of opinions and criticisms, some of the reviews contained in this volume may appear to be aphoristic; but they will nevertheless not be found wanting in suggestiveness and in depth of thought, and, therefore, they will be of value to the lover of literature.

With the exception of a few articles, such as those on Hebel, Heavysege, Eiickert, and Thackeray — the latter consisting of personal reminiscences — the matter included in this volume is the product of a more or less recent date. It has been collected from the pages of The Ailitntic Monthly^ The International Revieio, /Scribne7'''8 Magazine, Tlie North American Review^ and from the columns of The New York Tnhune, Most of the "Notes on Books and Events" were originally contributed to the last mentioned journal, from the liles of which they have been obtained with the kind and generous assistance of its chief editor. They are but a minute proportion of all of Bayard Taylor's critical and editorial contributions to that paper, and have been selected not merely with regard to their contemporary interest, but also with a view to their possible value to the future student of literature.

The "Days at Weimar" have been included in this volume as possessing a decidedly literary interest, since they give evidence of the researches and studies of the author for that combined Life of Goethe and Schiller,

Vi PREFACE.

which, as it unfortunately was written only on the tablets of his brain, had to perish with him. It will not escape the observant reader how large an amount of gleanings from the yet unexhausted harvest of pei-sonal reminiscences and local tradition there was stored away for future use in the author's mind. Gaining a clear insiglit into his great theme and contemplated task, he became imbued in those days with conclusive light, and whilst he vainly hoped, from year to year, to present to the world the plan which he had conceived and matured, his wonderful memory grasped it and retained it in its fullness to the very last.

If some of the "Notes" contained within this volume should be considered of slight importance by the reader, the blame thereof will have to be laid to the editor, who may have been over-anxious in some instances to save from oblivion — which is too often the unjust and undeserved fate of daily journalistic labors — as much of the author's "brain-work" as seemed to her to be her duty to preserve.

MARIE HANSEN-TAYLOR.

New York, A'pnl, 1880.

OOJ^ TENTS.

PASS

Preface iii

VitTOK Hugo 37

The Author op ** Saul" 112

NOTES ON BOOKS AND EVENTS.

Fitz-Greene Halleck.

Dedication of the Halleck Monument 283

The Halleck Statue in Central Park 245

William Cullen Bryant.

Translation of the Iliad 258

Poems 275

Kichard Ubnkt Dana. 277 '

Ueoroe Sakd 280 '

Edmund Clarbncb Stbdman.

Victorian Poets 284

Hawthorns and other Poems 2U1

John Grkknlraf Whittier 204

PAOK

James Rdsskll Lowell 298

Oliver Wendell Holmes 301

Thomas Bailey Aldrich 302

J. J. AND S. M. B. PlAlT 304

Richard Watson Gilder 308

CiEORGE Parsons Lathrop 310

Sidney Lanier 312

George D. Prentice 314

The Right Hon. The Marquis of Lorne 318

Lord Houghton 326

Christina Rossetti 330

German Hymnology 333

George Eliot 339

Robert Buchanan 347

" OuiDA" 352

Nathaniel Hawthorne 354

Henry James, Jr 357

William D. Howells 361

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps 367

Three American Novels 371

Pay for Brain- Work 376

Authorship in America 378

TEKNTSOK

ALFEED TENNYSON must be classed among the most fortunate poets of all time. He discovered the true capacities of his genius while still in the first freshness and ardor of youth, overcame doubt and hostile criticism before his prime, and has already lived to see his predominant influence upon the poetic literature of his day. What ever judgment may be passed upon his work, his position and influence are beyond dispute. Posterity may take away a portion of what he has received, but can not give him more. It is possible, therefore, although he is still vigorously and successfully productive, to review his literary career with something of the unreserve which we usually apply only to the authors of the past.

Mr. Stedman, in his "Victorian Poets," luis discussed Tennyson's genius with such breadth and clear judicial insight that the outline is complete. I should not venture upon a field so competently surveyed, were my purpoeo precisely the same. But tliere is always a certain difference in individual vision, even when it has the same general direction : aftid, moreover, I propose to deal entirely with some characteristics of Tennyson's poetical growth and development, which, although they have not been overlooked by his critics, are capable of fuller illustration than they have yet received. The poet's intellectual biography, Bjs we deduce it from his works and such scanty details of his life as are generally known, is of a very exceptional and interesting character: it illustrates the value of art in litemture as that of no other famous poet, with the possible exception of Schiller. Unlike as are the two, their lives coincide in the utmost devotion to a definite aim — in the one case fulfilled in spite of poverty, persecution, and all manner of adverse circumstance : in the other, in spite of early discouragement, later ease, and the temptations of an almost unlimited popularity. Schiller's first literary venture, " The Robbers," carried Germany by storm, and made his name known in France and England ; Tennyson's only provoked the bewildered wrath of Christopher Xorth and the flippant satire of Bulwer. Schiller experienced the inevitable reaction of popular favor, as he began to do sounder and stronger work ; Tennyson slowly and steadily won that favor, by disregarding the sneers which greeted his early performance and holding to his faith in the divine right of poetry. The former died just as the consciousness that his achievement was recognized by the world came to him from the world; the latter has lived

I

TEATNYSON. 3

for twenty years in the proud consciousness of such recognition. Yet the governing principle of the two lives has been the same, and the end has nobly justified it. Poetry says to her chosen, " Give up all that thou hast, and follow me ! " Yet how few of them that are called heed the call ! Kay, how few are able to heed it ! For the poet is not less, but more, a man ; dowered with " the love of love," he least of all men can renounce wife, home and family, and the duties they include. Unless bom under a fortunate star, and released from the petty cares that wear away by slow attrition the eager keenness and brightness of his imaginative faculty, he is too often compelled to choose between the temptation of turning to lower and more remunerative labor, and the prospect of making those nearest and dearest to him bear the weight of his sacrifice. Schiller heroically resisted the temptation; but in Tennyson's case it was probably never present, at least in its bare inexorable form, lie was not rich, but neither could he be called poor. We have, as yet, but little knowledge of his life from the age of twenty-two to thirty-two ; but that very fact indicates that this period was marked by no serious vicissitudes of fortune. As far as the world knows, his days have preserved a singularly even tenor. What emotional experiences, what periods of spiritual anxiety and suffering, he has passed through we do not know and do not need to know ; but for thirty years we have seen him moderately prosperous iiL external circumstances, and leading a quiet life of surrender to his art.

The fact that such exclusive devotion has been possible to him gives him a separate interest in the long line of the world's poets. He took the talent, bestowed at birth, early estimated its full character and value, and invested it, at cumulative interest, in all attainable and serviceable knowledge. Few poets — perhaps none — have ever been so clearly conscious of the exact quality of their gift, and so wise in their disposition to increase it. His intellectual biography is, therefore, more important than the rather uneyentful story of his life, and if I attempt an outline of it up to a certain point, I may be able to throw some little light upon his works from a source outside of the direct line of criticism. In such a biography the starting-point is no less important than the terminus. It is quite natural that an author should seek to suppress his first crude efforts, and the more so in Tennyson's case, since they give not the slightest earnest of his later performance. His share in the first volume, "Poems by two Brothers" (published in 1827 or '28),''^ can not be very accurately ascertained now, but the book is so absolutely devoid of poetic ability that further knowledge is not required. Nevertheless his prize university poem of " Timbuctoo," beginning with distinct Miltonic echoes, yet constantly breaking into brief strains which prefigure the character of his own later blank verse, lifts itself high above the prim conventional level of its fellows. Compared with the resounding platitudes of

* So far as I know, there is but one copy in this country : it is in the possession of the Rev. Dr. E. H. Chapin.

Heber and Milman, it expresses an independence of conception remarkable in one so young. In fact, the lines —

" Divinest Atlantis, whom the waves Have buried deep, and thou of later name, Imi)erial Eldorado, roofed with gold ; Shadows to which, despite all shocks of change. All onset of capricious accident, Men clung with yearning hope which would not die," —

might have been written at any later period of his life. They illustrate the first distinct characteristic of his genius — an exquisitely luxurious sense of the charms of sound and rhythm, based upon an earnest if not equal capacity for sober thought and reflection. These two elements coexisted in Temiyson's mind, but were not developed in the same proportion, and are not always perfectly fused in his poctr}'. Take away either, and the half of his achievement, falling, leaves the other half utterly insecure. The aim of his life has been to correct and purify a power which he possessed almost in excess at the start, and to add to its kindred and necessary power by all the aids of study and science. In this aim, as I shall endeavor to show, he had both succeeded and partially failed.

His early poems show a considerable amount of intellectual struggle. We find in them traces of the influence of Milton, Shelley, and Barry Coniwall, but very rarely of Keats, of whom Tennyson luis been called singularly enough, the lineal poetical child. Indeed he and Keats have little in common except the sense of luxury in wordft, which was bom with both,* and could not be outgrown. But the echoes of Shelley, in the poems afterwards omitted from the volume which Tennyson published in 1830, are not to be mistaken. Take this stanza as an example :

**The varied earth, the moving heaven,

The rapid waste of roving sea, The fountain-pregnant mountains riven

To shapes of wildest anarchy, By secret fire and midnight storms

That wander round their windy cones, The subtle life, the countless forms Of living things, the wondrous tones Of man and beast are full of strange Astonishment and boundless change."

The sign-manual of Barry Cornwall is even more distinctly set in the following :

" When will the stream be aweary of flowing

Under my eye ?

When will the wind be aweary of blowing

Over the sky ?

When will the clouds be aweary of fleeting ? When will the heart be aweary of beating.

And nature die ?

Never, oh I never, nothing will die :

The stream flows.

The wind blows.

The cloud fleets.

The heart beats :

Nothing will die."

l^ENNYSON. 7

The poems from which these stanzas are taken, as well as "The Burial of Love," "Hero to Leander," and "Elegiacs," are written from the inspiration which dwell in melody and rhythm: the latter is a not wholly unsuccessful attempt to add rhyme to the chissic elegiac metre :

" Creeping through blossomy rushes and bowers of rose-blowing bushes, Down by the poplar tall, rivulets babble and fall. Barketh the shepherd-dog cheerly ; the grasshopper carolleth clearly ; Deeply the turtle coos ; shrilly the owlet halloos ; Winds creep : dews fall chilly : in her first sleep earth breathes stilly : Over the pools in the burn water-gnats murmur and mourn. Sadly the far kine loweth : the glimmering water outfloweth : Twin peaks shadowed with pine sloj^ to the dark hyaline. Low-throned Hesper is stayed between the two peaks : but the Naiad Throbbing in wild unrest holds him beneath in her breast."

Here the conception, as a picture, is so obscure that two different landscapes are suggested. Yet in the fragment we seem to discover the seed out of which Swinburne's poetry might have germinated. Wliere, then, shall we look for the seed of Tennyson's ? I do not refer to imitation or even to unconscious influence ; but there is usually something in each generation of poets — often some slight, seemingly accidental form of utterance — which, in tlie following generation, expands into a characteristic quality. Examples of poetry written for pure delight in sound and movement are rare before Shelley's day ; and his influence upon Tennyson was very transient. A better prototype is furnished by this glittering little carol from Coleridge's drama of " Zapolya : "

"A sunny shaft did I behold,

From sky to earth it slanted : And poised therein a bird so bold —

Sweet bird thou wert enchanted I He sank, he rose, he twinkled, he trolled

Within that shaft of sunny mist ; His eyes of fire, his beak of gold,

All else of amethyst ! "

The substance of this is absolutely nothing, yet the sound forever lingei-s in the ear like the whisper in the folds of a sea-shell. Tennyson's " Claribel " is a precisely similar example, with a melody in the minor key. In the volume published in 1830, the poems " Lilian," " The Sea-Fairies," " The Dying Swan," " The Merman," and several others, are almost equally slight in conception, while brimming with the luxury of a rhythm which touches the intellectual palate like a mellow perfumed wine. In " Mariana," "The Poet," and the sonnet to "J. M. K.," we find the earnest, contemplative side of the poet's nature, still lacking the certainty of his rhythmical genius, but already indicating the basis upon which he has built up all that is most enduring in his later work.

Inasmuch as the first of these two distinct elements is undoubtedly that which marks Tennyson's place in English literature, and accounts for his almost phenomenal popularity, it deserves a careful consideration. We find premonitions of it in Byron's " Stanzas for Music ; " in passagee of Keats's" Hyperion;" in Shelley's "Skylark," "Arethusa," and the choruses in " Prometheus Unbound ; " in Coleridge, Mrs. Hemans (whose passing popularity is almost wholly forgotten now), and Barry Cornwall. But in Tennyson it fii-st found superb embodiment. Before him no poet dared to use sound and metre in the same manner as the architect and sculptor use form, and the painter fonn and color. It was a new delight, both to the ear and to an unrecognized sense which stands between sensuousness and pure intelligence. Because, more than most poets, he consciously possessed his power, he rapidly learned how to use it. His "Mariana," written at the age of twenty, is an extraordinary piece of minute and equally-finished detail. The scenery represents that of the marshy lowlands of Lincolnshire ; the theme was suggested by a phrase of Shakespeare (a peculiarity wherein Browning, in " Cliilde Roland to the Dark Tower Came," has followed Tennyson) ; and the poem is a picture in the absolute Pre-Eaphaelite manner, written more than a dozen years before Pre-Riiphaelism was heard of in art. Tennyson, once, in talking with a fellow-author about his own reluctance to publish his poems, sai<l, " There is my ' Mariana,' for example. A lino in it is wrong, and I can not possibly change it, becauso it has been so long published ; yet it always annoys mo. I wrote:

* The rusted nails fell from the knots That held the peach to the garden-wall.'

Now, this is not a characteristic of the scenery I had in mind. The line should be : * That held the pear to the gahle-walV " But the ti-uth is that one who feels the forlomness and desolation of the ballad will not ask whether this or that detail is strictly true of the scenery which the author may have had in his mind. We are reminded of some of our own art-critics who turn away from the face of a saint or hero to find fault with the form of a leaf or pebble in the foreground. The chief defect of Tennyson's poetry is indicated in this over-anxiety in regard to unimportant details : it will be referred to again when I come to speak of his total achievement.

1^0 English poet, with the possible exception of Byron, has so ministered to the natural appetite for poetry in the people as Tennyson. Byron did this — unintentionally, as all genius does — by warming and arousing their dormant sentiment ; Tennyson by surprising them into the recognition of a new luxury in the harmony and movement of poetic speech. I use the word "luxury" purposely; for no other word will express the glow and richness and fullness of his technical qualities. It was scarcely a wonder that a generation accustomed to look for compact and palpable intellectual forms in poetry, — a generation which was still hostile to Keats and Shelley, and had not yet caught up with Wordsworth — should at first regard this new flower as an interloping weed. But when its blossom-buds fully expanded into gorgeous, velvety-crimsoned and goldenanthered tiger-lillies, filling the atmosphere of our day with deep, intoxicating spice-odors, how much less wonder that others should snatch the seed and seek to make the acknowledged flower their own? Tennyson must be held guiltless of all that his followers and imitators have done. His own personal aim has been pure and lofty ; but, without his intention or will, or even expectation, he has stimulated into existence a school of what might be called Decorative Poetry. I take the adjective from its present application to a school of art. I have heard more than one distinguished painter in England say of painting, "It is simply a decorative art. Hence it needs only a sufliciency of form to present color : the expression of an idea, perspective, chiar' oscuro, do not belong to it ; for these address themselves to the mind, whereas art addresses itself only to the eye." This is no place to discuss such a materialistic heresy; I mention it only to make my meaning clear. We may equally say that decorative poetry addresses itself only to the ear, and seeks to occupy an intermediate ground between poetry and music. I need not give instances. They are becoming so common that the healthy natural taste of mankind, which may be surprised and perverted for a time, is beginning to grow fatigued, and the flower — as Tennyson justly complains in his somewhat petulant poem — will soon be a weed again.

But this is the one point wherein the poet, truly apprehending his art and rarely devoting all his powers to its service, oversteps its legitimate frontiers. His later omissions from the volume of 1830 have been made with a correct instinct, and I have revived them with reluctance, because they were necessary illustrations, in endeavoring to describe his poetic development. The volume, published in the winter of 1832-3, is a remarkable advance in every respect. We see that indifference or ridicule has been powerless to stay the warm, opulent, symmetrical growth of his best powers. In the " Lady of Shallot," " CEnone," the " Lotus-Eaters," the " Palace of Art," and the " Dream of Fair Women," we reach almost the level of his later achievement. In some of these the conception suffices to fill out the metrical form ; the exquisite elaboration of detail is almost prescribed by the subject ; and the luxuries of sound and movement, while not diminished, are made obedient to an intelligent melodic law. Karely has a young man of twenty-two written such poetry or justified such large predictions of his future. Yet he was still almost unnoticed and unread. Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge, Moore, and Lamb were then alive, yet we find no word of the new bard in their correspondence of those days. Bulwer's sneer, in his " ISTew Timon," came twelve years later. For a decade thereafter Tennyson was silent, though not discouraged : we know very little of his life during this period, yet we may infer somewhat of its character from his later activity. We must suppose that he calmly waited, not doubtful of his power because of his very consciousness of it, but only th« more ardently turned to its complete development through varied study, earnest thought, and free imagination. We may conjecture that more was written in these years than he has preserved ; for when we reach the volume of 1842, we find every former characteristic of his verse heightened and purified, not changed. Only a sportive element, which does not quite reach the humorous, is introduced ; it is another chord of the same strain. Midway between it and his poems of imaginative sentiment lie his idylls of English country life, wherein we seem to detect some remote influence of Wordsworth. With the exception of " Dora " and " The Gardener's Daughter," they are hardly to be called poems. The fault of over-attention to detail makes itself most keenly felt when the subject is barely realistic; we are more willing to notice the texture of cloth-of-gold than of russet frieze.

Such poems as " Morte d' Arthur," " The Talking Oak," "Locksley Hall," "Ulysses," and "The Two Voices," wherein thought, passion, and imagination, combined in their true proportions, breathe through full, rich, and haunting fonns of verse, at once gave Tennyson his place in English literature. The fastidious care with which every image was wrought, every bar of the movement adjusted to the next and attuned to the music of all, every epithet chf>8en for point, freshness, and picturesque effect, every idea restrained within the limits of close and clear expression, — these virtues, so intimately fused, became a sudden delight for all lovers of poetry, and for a time affected their appreciation of its more unpretending and artless forms. The poet's narrow circle of admirers widened at once, taking in so many of the younger generation that the old doubters were one by one compelled to yield. Poe, possessing mnch of the same artistic genius in poetry, was the first American author to welcome Tennyson ; and I still remember the eagerness with which, as a boy of seventeen, after reading his paper, I sought for the volume, — and I remember also the strange sense of mental dazzle and bewilderment I experienced on the first perusal of it. I can only compare it to the first sight of a sunlit landscape through a prism : every object has a rainbowed outline. One is fascinated to look again and again, though the eyes ache.

The four succeeding volumes — "The Princess," "In Memoriam," "' Maud," and the " Idylls of the King " — exhibit more variety, perhaps, but no higher reach of technical achievement. There is a limit to the latter, so far as it is the result of devoted effort; and he who could write " Mariana " at twenty-two and the " Morte d' Arthur " at thirty-two had little to learn through that channel. All possible loftier effects depend upon the intensity of a self-forgetting imaginative or intellectual passion. Whoever will read the speech of Arthur to the Queen, in the idyll " Guinevere," will find the fitting example. Tennyson's power of receiving strong and multiform impressions can not be for a moment doubted ; but one who possesses so consciously the rarest qualities of his art, and so deliberately devotes liis life to the perfection thereof, is exposed to a danger wliich lie can never entirely recognize, and thus overcome. The artistic sense, so constantly and exquisitely refined, acquires an insidious mastery over the free idea, and partly conceals it under the ver}' perfection of illustration which is meant to present it in its full proportions. That higher sense, which determines the relative value of such illustrations, becomes dulled : each asserts its equal right, and receives equal attention, so it cany a tempting epithet with it; and the reader is constantly hurried back and forth, to and from the theme of the poem, by metaphors and descriptions so bright, keen, and true, that each must be separately enjoyed.

We do not walk as in a path, towards some shining peak in the distance : but as over a lush meadow, where new, enchanting blossoms, to the right and left, entice our steps hither and thither. A poetical conception requires perspective, balance of tints, concentration of the highest light, no less than a picture ; where, from beginning to end, every detail is presented with equal prominence and elaborated with equal skill, there is no resting-place for the mind, as, in a similar picture, there is none for the eye. I do not mean that this is a pervading fault of Tennyson : his instinct is too true to allow it to vitiate his most earnest work ; but his methods of labor do not allow him wholly to escape it. There are few forms of knowledge which he has neglected, and few which he has not used in the service of poetry. He rarely mistakes through deficient perception, but very frequently tlirough correct perception, asserting itself without regard to its proper place and value. All objects present themselves to him with such distinctness of illustration that he forgets the unfamiliaritj of the reader with their qualities. When he writes of a " clear germander eye," how many are there who know or remember that a germander is a wild plant with a blue flower ? He speaks of hair " more black than ash-buds in the front of March " — and we are obliged to pause and consider whether ash-buds are black. Only a few will recall the fact that they are an intense, glossy brown. In " The Princess " we find :

' ' "Walter warped his mouth at this To something so mock-solemn that I laugh'd, And Lilia woke with sudden-shrilling mirth An echo liTce a ghostly woodpecker^ Hid in the ruins."