BYRON AND TENNYSON.1

(From the Quarterly Review, October, 1871.)

THE book before us is a biographical and critical essay on the noble poet and his works, containing a conscientiously accurate summary of his life and an impartial estimate of his genius. It will help to correct many erroneous notions, and it offers the opportunity which we have long coveted of analysing and (if possible) fixing the existing state of opinion regarding him, in especial relation to the living poet whose name is most frequently pronounced in rivalry.

Byron, indisputably the greatest poetical genius that England has produced since Shakespeare and Milton." Such is the commencement of the notice of Byron in the last edition of the "Conversations-Lexicon," and we have ascertained by careful inquiry that it may be accepted as the exact representative of enlightened Germany upon this as upon most other subjects of thought, speculation or philosophy. Herr Elze says, "In the four head-divisions of poetry, English literature has produced four unapproached men of genius: Shakespeare in the dramatic: Milton in the reflecting, so far as this can be regarded as a peculiar 1 Lord Byron. Von Karl Elze. Berlin, 1870.

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species: Scott in the epic: and Byron in the lyrical-the lyrical understood in the widest sense as subjective poetry." The intended supremacy is clear, although the lines of demarcation are not so well defined as could be wished. Turning to the rest of the continent, whether north or south-to Russia and Poland, to France, Italy, and Spainand consulting the highest authorities dead and living, printed and oral, we arrive at a similar conclusion. The result of our persevering researches and persistent interrogatories is everywhere throughout Europe, that Byron is deemed the greatest poet that England has produced for two centuries; and although the same unanimity may not be found across the Atlantic as to the amount of his pre-eminence, although he does not there rise so high above his competing predecessors or contemporaries as to dwarf or overshadow them, he takes precedence by common consent of all.

Tennyson, one of the most distinguished modern English lyrical poets." Such is the commencement of the notice of Mr. Tennyson in the Lexicon; and that it will startle his English admirers, we infer from its first effect upon ourselves. But tame and depreciatory as this description may sound to ears ringing with the music of his verse, it is one which would be deemed just and adequate by the bulk of the reading public of Germany, or the reading public of any country that knew him chiefly by translation. It would not satisfy the reading public of the United States, where his popularity is little inferior to that which he enjoys in England, but with this material difference. It is not an exclusive popularity. It coexists with the popularity of other poets whose influence is deemed antagonistic to him amongst us, especially with that of Byron;

and the main object of this article is to bring the English mind into better agreement with the Anglo-American mind on this subject, or, in other words, to reclaim a befitting and appropriate pedestal for Byron without disturbing Mr. Tennyson or his school. It is the comparative, not the positive, reputation of the author of the "Idylls that we dispute. Let him be read and applauded as much as ever, by all means: let the due meed of praise be ungrudgingly continued to those of his immediate contemporaries who cluster round him as their chief, or have adopted him as their model, or, essentially unlike as they are, have repaired to the same altar for their fire; but let the fitting honour be also vindicated and reserved for those whom they have temporarily superseded in popular estimation, far more by an accidental concurrence of opinions and events than by merits which will stand the test of time and command the judgment of posterity.

Foreign nations, in their independence of local influences, resemble and represent posterity: foreign nations have already given their verdict in the cause which we propose to bring before the home tribunal; and before appealing from that verdict on the ground that foreign nations mostly know the productions of the contrasted poets by translation, it would be well to meditate on this passage of Goethe:

"I honour both rhythm and rhyme, by which poetry first becomes poetry, but the properly deep and radically operative the truly developing and quickening, is that which remains of the poet, when he is translated into prose. The inward substance then remains in its purity and fullness; which, when it is absent, a dazzling exterior often deludes with the semblance of, and, when it is present, conceals."1

1 "Aus meinem Leben: Dichtung und Wahrheit," Th. 3, B. 11. "It

Whether a poet is translated into verse or prose, he will be appreciated in his new form in proportion to the amount of thought, reflection, palpable imagery, or, what Goethe calls "inward substance," embodied in the original. Grace or felicity of expression, idiomatic ease, and rhythm, must almost necessarily be lost; or, if replaced, should be set down to the credit of the translator, whose language is his own. Dryden said of Shakespeare, that if his embroideries were burnt down, there would be silver at the bottom of the melting-pot. If Mr. Tennyson were submitted to such a process, the residuum would be comparatively small. His greatest beauties are confessedly untranslatable; they are too delicate, too evanescent, too bloomlike. Speaking of the female characters in the "Poems," M. Taine says: "I have translated many ideas and many styles. I will never try to translate a single one of these portraits. Every word is like a tint, curiously heightened or softened by the neighbouring tint, with all the hardihood and the success of the happiest refinement. The least alteration would spoil all."1

Is, then, Mr. Tennyson's English fame enough? Is his title to rank as the first English poet of his epoch conclusively established by the fact that a majority of the rising generation of both sexes within this realm insist on so regarding him? We make bold to think not. It rests on divine would be a most easy task to prove that not only the language of a large portion of every good poem, even of the most elevated character, must necessarily, except with reference to the metre, in no respect differ from that of good prose, but likewise that some of the most interesting parts of the best poems will be found to be strictly the language of prose when prose is well written." (Wordsworth, Preface to the "Lyrical Ballads.") The obvious inference is that the best poems are those which -cæteris paribus-will best bear literal or prose translation.

1 "Histoire de la Littérature Anglaise," vol. iv. 434.

authority that no man is a prophet in his own country. But many a man has been a poet in his own country whose poetry had no exchangeable value, and could only live in a particular atmosphere. Were these necessarily first-class poets? This is a question which we will endeavour to illustrate before proceeding further, for all sound criticism depends upon the principles involved in it.

Our estimate of books and men are far more frequently subjective than objective. We judge them rather by our own feelings, prejudices, and passions, than by their inherent or individual qualities; and no man is a fair judge of either who does not habitually analyse his impressions as they are caught up or imbibed. Approval and disapproval are too frequently confounded with liking and disliking, with being pleased or displeased. The most cultivated intellects are not exempt from this liability to error, and should be equally on their guard against it. We once heard an eminent scholar and statesman (Sir G. C. Lewis) maintain that Gray was the first of modern English poets; and in the course of the ensuing discussion it was made clear that his admiration was mainly owing to the rush of youthful associations which a recent perusal of the "Ode to Eton College " had brought back. We strongly suspect that an analogous solution might be given of what we have heard cited as a proof of Mr. Tennyson's pathos, namely, that an ex-ambassador, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, of resolute will and masculine understanding, by no means given to the melting mood, burst into tears during the reading of "Elaine " aloud to a party at a country house. A word, a phrase, may have loosened the floodgate of association:

"And as a fort to which beleaguers win

Unhop'd for entrance through some friend within,