mood

bidity" is used in such a manner as to be equivalent to any of mind not actually comfortable-as something nearly akin to reflection and thought. Melancholy is the bête noir of the soul, to be shunned with horror. We can put no other interpretation upon the oft-repeated charge of being "morbid," which is brought against Tennyson. The man who wrote the Miller's Daughter, the Gardener's Daughter, the Talking Oak, and the Day Dream, surely The Golden has no diseased ideas of human love and affection. Year, Ring Out Wild Bells, You ask me why, though ill at ease, and Love thou thy Land, are not altogether like the productions of a confirmed croaker, nor of one wholly destitute of philanthropy and patriotism. But, unfortunately, Mr. Tennyson deals with human life as it is now,-deals with all its phases, its sorrow as well as its joys, its weaknesses, its struggles, wrongs and doubts; and there seem to be people amongst us who are afraid to be reminded of these things, and quite horrified at seeing them pourtrayed and grappled with. Now, for ourselves, we confess that it is herein that we find the full proof of Tennyson's real height, and of the great His mind is many sided, work which he is doing amongst us. full of deep thought and deep feeling; his soul bears close sympathies and relations to all other souls. He has grasped the full meaning of the age in which he lives, and has become its bard, interpreter, and prophet. He is nobly answering the querulous wail of those who deem that the age of poetry is gone. Not by precept, but by depicting human passions, joys, hopes, fears, and He fights our spiritual battles for us struggles, he is teaching us. before our eyes. In deep allegories, he deals with the knottiest questions of the age; and, as his latest work, he has wrought out an illustration of the great doctrines of Christianity from the old roinances of the past. We cannot stay to speak of the Idylls; we We have there can only point to the concluding poem of the series. poetry unsurpassed in the language,-full of touching tenderness, breathing the very spirit of our holy religion. We feel love and forgiveness triumphing over injury and wrong; raising the fallen as itself rises.

The charge of morbidity is generally coupled with In Memoriam. One word on that series of poems, and we have done. We have pointed to the moral of Guinevre, its working out the grand In Memoriam is the principle of love in its redeeming power. gospel of sorrow, an expansion and commentary upon the Divine We confess that declaration, "Blessed are they that mourn.' to ourselves it is well nigh the book of our age, as a literary production. A book that we value the more as we read it more. Never elsewhere has the struggle of the soul with sorrow in the There valley of the shadow of death been pourtrayed with such truth. There is Every phase of that struggle is there; but there is more. is the victory, the discipline and fruits of sorrow. the wisdom, the calm, the resignation, and the blessed hope, remaining behind. For us, there is "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath

taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." For the dead there is the benediction, "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord." There are dark doubts and questionings, but they ever give place to the sublimest thoughts and the brightest hopes. Grief darkens almost to despair, but softens to holy and happy remembrances, while faith passes on exultingly to future scenes of bliss. We see a purpose in our sufferings; the mysteries of Providence seem half explained. We acknowledge and feel that there is a discipline in affliction which reconciles it with Eternal love and goodness. We are ready to say, "It is good to have been afflicted." Our faith is strengthened, our souls purified. Our final mood is thankfulness. We learn to cast off real morbidity; all miserable shrinking from aught that is not comfortable. We rejoice that we can suffer, for we feel that so only can we deeply enjoy. There is no healthier, happier mood than that in which we learn at last to say with Tennyson,

"I envy not, in any moods,

The captive void of noble rage, The linnet born within the cage, That never knew the summer woods. "I envy not the beast that takes

His licence in the field of time, Unfettered by the sense of crime, To whom a conscience never wakes.

"Nor, what may count itself as blest,

The heart that never plighted troth, But stagnates in the weeds of sloth, Nor any want-begotten rest.

"I hold it true, whate'er befall;

I feel it when I sorrow most,-
'Tis better to have loved and lost,
Than never to have loved at all."
B. S.

NEGATIVE ARTICLE.-III.

"Procul, O procul este, profani,

Conclamat vates, totoque absistite luco."- Virgil.

THE most pleasing duty of the controversialist is ours on the present occasion; for we have not to find fault with our opponents, we have only to praise, and award the meed of praise to our adopted poet, Longfellow. It is surely a pleasing task to feel that we can say as much or more in praise of Tennyson than any of his advocates, and yet be able to say still more of Longfellow. It is not patriotism, nationality, nor any considerations of time or place which should influence our judgment on such a question as this; it is as teachers of the great family of the Saxon race, as exhibitors of the true and the beautiful, as moral and intellectual artists and prophets, that we compare the two most delicate and refined tastes in this glorious universe of ours. We have presented to our notice two exquisite gems, diamonds of the "first water," and it is our onerous duty to make choice, before the many and astute readers of these pages, of the preferable one, and to show reasons for our choice of a solid and substantial character, calculated to satisfy the cultivated perceptions and vigorous judgments of men accustomed to hold fast that which they believe to be true, and who require from others a reason for the truth that is in them. We have given our opinion

**

of the nature of true poetry on a former occasion, and, by implica tion, of the true mission of a poet, in these words :-"Poetry is the blushing forth of transcendent truth and beauty,—it delights in the beauty and sublimity of the soul; therefore the true genius of poetry, and the true philosophy, must be the creation and imitation of truthful, beautiful, amiable, and holy objects, such as elevate, ennoble, purify the soul, and fit it for a higher and a holier state of being. The distinctive characteristic of the greatest poetic genius must then be the preservation in his writings of the greatest measure of pure and holy truth and dignity, of high moral purpose." Passing years have tended to confirm the force and truth of this opinion, we consequently feel greater pleasure in relying upon this canon of taste than we could possibly have done had it not have stood the test of years and experience.

By this rule, we are content to abide by the verdict of the British Controversialists in the question, Tennyson versus Longfellow; yet not versus, but concursus, in fraternal emulation.

Longfellow's peculiarities are delicacy and beauty rather than sublimity; yet his chief feature is real earnestness of purpose in striking home a moral lesson to the heart; his high intellectual accomplishments and many attainments qualify him to deck his thoughts in the most fascinating dress, while energy and earnestness of character make him to feel his mission as a great teacher to the world of mind and feeling by which he is surrounded; his learning does not mystify nor crush the beateous thoughts embodied in his melodious numbers; it is not the terrors of the Alps but the beauties of the Rhine he loves to depict-not the hurricane of the prairie but the quiet and comfortable activity of the homestead in which he delights; he is rather a poet of the beauties of every-day life, than the poet of nature's grand sublimities and infinite terrors. Longfellow is strictly a sentimental poet: he speaks to the heart; he expresses the feelings of the heart; he exhibits the heart's fullest, most truthful workings; he aspires after and makes his reader wish for higher, holier, nobler thoughts, feelings, objects, and aims. Besides, while thus leading onward and upward the aspiring soul of humanity, he does not disregard the weak, the erring, the poor and the afflicted; he has pity for them, and compassion. His sympathy is "blood warm," and comes from the heart of a brother, consequently it never fails to reach the heart. It gives solace, it imparts strength, it conveys hope, it creates happiness, by means of that wondrous link of genuine sympathy which shares in each other's joys and sorrows, makes the rejoicing more a hundred-fold, while the sorrow shared is made lighter, and in the company of such sweet sympathy the burden is easily carried through life.

His "Psalm of Life" manifests his tendency to earnestness of purpose so clearly, that we particularize that as illustrating this feature in his poetry. It is not mere philosophy, commerce, nor

* See vol. iv. p. 453, First Series.

sensual pleasures which make up human life as it should be; but an earnest, painstaking effort to fulfil the mission with which God has charged every man in the present:

"Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant;

Let the dead Past bury its dead;
Act-act in the living PRESENT!

Heart within, and God o'erhead."

His "Excelsior" is the outspoken feeling of the nineteenth century, the personification of the good and the true in this struggling, erring world of ours. Where is the scholar who cannot say, "That is my thought "? Where is the philosopher who has not said, "That thought has guided and beckoned me on through many years of toil and labour, such as the world would not give me credit for "? Where is the man of commerce who does not act out, in his every day life, the sentiment of this poem? In fine, what hosts of struggling artisans have found this their chart and their encouragement to hope,-have said, Though we perish in the effort to gain knowledge, influence, and moral power, to benefit and bless our fellows, we will with clarion voice shoutExcelsior!""

His highly educated mind, controlled by good taste, ennobles any subject upon which he writes. The "Spanish Student" is a subject which, in the hands of many poets, might become a lesson of vice and immorality: in the hands of Longfellow it is made the vehicle to teach moral purity and its beauties; virtue and constancy are made fascinating, and vice to hide its recreant head from viewthus obeying Horace's rule, "Nothing offensive or revolting to a cultivated taste must be brought before the public in the action of the drama." Delicate art, and moral power, with consummate skill, are here combined in the most felicitous manner. Simplicity, natural elegance, native grace and loveliness, are nowhere so pleasingly exhibited as in Hiawatha's wooing; the sincere welcome of the lover to the home of the bride; the genial hospitality of nature's children; the patient, painstaking watchfulness of Minnehaha while he introduced the subject of his visit, and said,—

"That this peace may last for ever,

And our hands be clasped more closely,

And our hearts be more united,

Give me as my wife this maiden,
Minnehaha, Laughing Water,
Loveliest of Dacotah women!"

To which the Ancient Arrow-maker replied,

"Yes, if Minnehaha wishes:

Let your heart speak, Minnehaha."

She, with maiden simplicity and truthfulness,

"said, and blushed to say it,

'I will follow you, my husband.""

She leaves the wigwam of her father with the beautiful and strong Hiawatha, the father turning to his work again after his

"Fare thee well, O Minnehaha!'

Murmuring to himself, and saying:
'Thus it is our daughters leave us,
Those we love, and those who love us.
Just when they have learned to help us,
When we are old, and lean upon them,
Comes a youth with flaunting feathers,
With his flute of reeds, a stranger
Wanders piping through the village,
Beckons to the fairest maiden,

And she follows where he leads her,
Leaving all things for the stranger.""

Oh, how correctly does he pourtray the affectionate workings of the father's heart! how truly delineates the course of nature and of this world! These few lines are in their simplicity and comprehensiveness an epitome of the world's great heart; they find an echo in every family circle; the king upon his throne, and the peasant in his cot, feels the full power of this pathetic soliloquy of the lone father on his loved one's bridal day.

The joyous buoyancy of their young hopes are admirably pourtrayed in the few lines following, which show that all nature to their young eyes looks bright, happy, joyous, and rejoicing in their happiness; but how full of thought and wisdom.

"From the sky the sun benignant

Looked upon them through the branches,

Saying to them, 'O my children,

Love is sunshine, hate is shadow;

Life is chequered shade and sunshine:
Rule by love, O Hiawatha.'"

More we dare not cull from this melodious garland of many healthy sweets, but hasten to conclude with a brief reference to the quaint yet life-like picture of puritan simplicity and earnestness, Miles Standish." The retiring modesty of the heroine, the intense affection of the student, and the manly probity and determined self-sacrifice of both Miles Standish and his unsuspecting rival, are models of healthy character, worthy of the intellect and the heart of the greatest poet of our times.

It is, then, for the simplicity, nature-like, ennobling, elevating, purifying tendencies of Longfellow's poems that we would accord to him the palm of merit in these pages. We trust we do not detract from the merits of Tennyson by the course we have taken. We think highly, very highly of him; but we hope he may yet prove less mystical, less metaphysical, more life-like, hearty, and fraternal; then may his artistic elegance, his high attainments, and his great mental power, wield with more than a master's hand his native talent to express in easy numbers great ideas, with a holy purpose evident in every line. L'OUVRIER.