A third "He had not wholly quenched his power A little grain of conscience made him sour." And thus, at length, in a darkness visible of mystery and grandeur, the "Vision of Sin" closes : "At last I heard a voice upon the slope To which an answer peal'd from that high land, A reply there is; but whether in the affirmative or negative we do not know. A revelation there is; but whether it be an interference in behalf of the sinner, or a display, in ruddy light, of God's righteousness in his punishment, is left in deep uncertainty. Tennyson, like Addison in his "Vision of Mirza," ventures not to withdraw the veil from the left side of the eternal ocean. He leaves the curtain to be the painting. He permits the imagination of the reader to figure, if it dare, shapes of beauty, or forms of fiery wrath, upon the "awful rose of dawn," as upon a vast back-ground. It is his only to start the thrilling suggestion. After all, we have considerable misgivings about placing Tennyson-for what he has hitherto done-among our great poets. We cheerfully accord him great powers; but he is, as yet, guiltless of great achievements. His genius is bold, but is waylaid at almost every step by the timidity and weakness of his temperament. His utterance is not proportionate to his vision. He sometimes reminds us of a dumb man with important tidings within, but only able to express them by gestures, starts, sobs, and tears. His works are loopholes, not windows, through which intense glimpses come and go, but no broad, clear, and rounded prospect is commanded. As a thinker, he often seems like one who should perversely pause a hundred feet from the summit of a lofty hill, and refuse to ascend higher. "Up! the breezes call thee the clouds marshal thy way-the glorious prospect waits thee, as a bride for her husband-angels or gods may meet thee on the top-it may be thy Mountain of Transfigu ration." But, no; the pensive or wilful poet chooses to remain below. Nevertheless, the eye of genius is flashing in Tennyson's head, and his ear is unstopped, whether to the harmonies of nature, or to the still sad music of humanity. We care not much in which of the tracks he has already cut out he may choose to walk; but we would prefer if he were persuaded more frequently to see visions and dream dreamslike his "Vision of Sin"-imbued with high purpose, and forming the Modern Metamorphoses of truth. We have no hope that he will ever be, in the low sense, a popular poet, or that to him the task is allotted of extracting music from the railway train, or of setting in song the "fairy tales of science". the great astronomical or geological discoveries of the age. Nor is he likely ever to write any thing which, like the poems of Burns, or Campbell, can go directly to the heart of the entire nation. For no "Song of the Shirt" even, need we look from him. But the imaginativeness of his nature, the deep vein of his moral sentiment, the bias given to his mind by his early reading, the airy charm of his versification, and the seclusion in which he lives, like a flower in its own peculiar jar, all seem to prepare him for becoming a great spiritual dreamer, who might write not only "Recollections of the Arabian Nights," but Arabian Nights themselves, equally graceful in costume, but impressed with a deeper sentiment, chastened into severer taste, and warmed with a holier flame. Success to such pregnant slumbers! soft be the pillow as that of his own "Sleeping Beauty;" may every syrup of strength and sweetness drop upon his eyelids, and may his dreams be such as to banish sleep from many an eye, and to people the hearts of millions with beauty! On the whole, perhaps Tennyson is less a prophet than an artist. And this alone would serve better to reconcile us to his silence, should it turn out that his poetic career is over. The loss of even the finest artist may be supplied-that of a prophet, who has been cut off in the midst of his mission, or whose words some envious influence or circumstance has snatched from his lips, is irreparable. In the one case, it is but a painter's pencil that is broken; in the other it is a magic rod shivered. Still, even as an artist, Tennyson has not yet done himself full justice, nor built up any structure so shapely, complete, and living, as may perpetuate his name. Alfred Tennyson is the son of an English clergyman in Lincolnshire. He is of a retiring disposition, and seldom, though sometimes, emerges from his retirement into the literary coteries of London. And yet welcome is he ever among them with his eager physiognomy, his dark hair and eyes, and his small, black tobacco pipe. Some years ago, we met a brother of his in Dumfries, who bore, we were told, a marked, though miniature resemblance to him, a beautiful painter and an expert versifier, after the style of Alfred. 66 The particulars of his literary career are familiar to most. His first production was a small volume of poems, published in 1831. Praised in the "Westminster" elaborately, and extravagantly eulogized in the Englishman's Magazine" (a periodical conducted by William Kennedy, but long since defunct, and which, according to some malicious persons, died of this same article)—it was sadly mangled by less generous critics. "Blackwood's Magazine" doled it out some severely sifted praise; and the author, in his next volume, rhymed back his ingratitude in the well-known lines to Rusty, musty, fusty, crusty Christopher," whose blame he forgave, but whose praise he could not. Meanwhile, he was quietly forming a small but zealous cohort of admirers; and some of his poems, such as " Mariana," &c., were universally read and appreciated. His second production was less successful, and deserved to be less successful, than the first. It was stuffed with wilful impertinencies and affectations. His critics told him he wrote ill, and he answered them by writing worse. His third exibited a very different spirit. It consisted of a selection from his two former volumes, and a number of additional pieces-the principal of which we have already analyzed. In his selection, he winnows his former works with a very salutary severity; but what has he done with that delectable strain of the "Syrens?" We think he has acted well in stabling and shutting up his "Krakens" in their dim, ocean mangers; but we are not so willing to * His "Princess," published since the above, is a medley of success, failure, and half-success-not even an attempt towards a whole. part with that beautiful sisterhood, and hope to see them again at no distant day, standing in their lovely isle, and singing "Come hither, come hither, and be our lords, For merry brides are we. We will kiss sweet kisses and speak sweet words. Ye will not find so happy a shore, PROFESSOR NICHOL. THIS is the age of public lecturing, and we might spend a long time in discussing its pros and cons, its advantages and its evils. The open and legitimate objects which popular lecturing proposes to itself are chiefly the three following: instruction, excitement, and communication between the higher minds of the age and those of a lower grade. Now, in reference to its utility as an organ of instruction, much may be said on both sides. In public lecturing, truth is painted to the eye; it is enforced and illustrated by voice, gesture, and action; it stands in the person of the orator as in an illumined window. The information thus given, attended by a personal interest, and accompanied by a peculiar emphasis, is more profoundly impressed upon the memory and many, by the fairy aspect of truth which is presented, are induced to love and learn, who otherwise would have remained indifferent and distant. On the other hand, the quantity of knowledge communicated by lecturing is seldom large; and as to its quality, lecturers are under strong temptations to dilute it down to the capacities of their audience; and, instead of conducting them from first principles to details, to give them particular facts, and tell them to travel back themselves to leading principles, an advice which they seldom, if ever, follow. Too often the hearers, however strongly urged to the contrary by their instructors, forget to pursue profounder researches, to seek after higher sources; and the close of the six or seven lectures is the close of their studies, and furnishes the complement of their knowledge. Often too, the class who have least access to books have also least access to lectures, or even when privileged to attend them, find their special wants but indifferently supplied. In the excitement produced by good public lecturing, its advocates find a more plausible argument in its favor. It is an amusement so happy and so innocent; it withdraws so many from the theatre, the card-table, and the tavern; it gives such a stimulus to nascent intellects; it creates around the lecturer such circles and semicircles of shining faces; it rouses in so many breasts the spark of literary and scientific genius; it commences the manufacture of so many incipient Miltons, no longer mute and inglorious; and of whole generations of young Arkwrights, worthy of their illustrious progenitor. Nay, we would go a little farther still: we would "better the instruction." Its excitement and pleasure do not stop here. The lecture room promotes a great many matches; it brings young ladies and gentlemen into close and intimate propinquity; it excites active and animated flirtations; it forms, besides, a pleasant interchange to one class with the card-table-to another, an agreeable lounge on the road to the afterpiece; and to a third, a safe and decent half-way house to a quiet social talk in a quiet alehouse. It is also a nursery for the numerous sprigs of criticism which abound-faithfully figured by the immortal" Punch," in those specimens of the rising generation who deem that, as "for that ere Shakspeare, he has been vastly overrated." And last, not least, it permits many a comfortable nap to the hard-wrought doctor, or schoolmaster, or artizan-to whom it matters not whether the lecturer be in the moon or in the clouds, as they are only, like their instructor, absent and lost. Joking, however, apart, popular lecturing is undoubtedly a source both of much entertainment and excitement, though we are not sure but that that entertainment is more valued by the luxurious as a variety in their pleasures, than by the middle and lower classes as a necessity in their intellectual life; and although we are sure that an undue portion of that excitement springs from the glare of |
