Chapter LXV (2)

We know not if there has been any great advance in the art of gilding, from early times to the present, though that of gold-beating has been brought to far greater perfection. Gold was extensively used at a very early period in all kinds of decoration, and in the fifteenth century was lavishly employed on pictures. Seven thousand leaves of gold were used on the chapel of S. Jacopo de Pistoia. The gold, as well as some of the expensive colours, was commonly provided by the parties for whom pictures were painted. On mural paintings, leaves of tinfoil, covered with a yellow varnish, were substituted for gold. It would be curious to seek how some modern uses are indebted to the publication of old recipes. "In order to economise gold, the old masters had another invention, called 'porporino,' a composition made of quicksilver, tin, and sulphur, which produced a yellow metallic powder, that was employed instead of gold. The Bolognese MS. devotes a whole chapter to this subject. A substance of a similar nature is now in use in England, and is employed as a substitute for gold in coloured woodcuts and chromo-lithographs." Wax was used as a mordant in gilding. Its use as a vehicle in painting has been much discussed; it was known to the ancients as encaustic, and, in another form, has been strongly recommended by a modern painter of great ability, whose works are fair tests of its efficiency; and if we may believe the assertions with regard to the ancient practice of Greek and mediæval painters, there may be little reason to doubt its durability. But as it was certainly known and discarded by the old masters, even before the invention of Van Eyck in oil painting, we should reasonably conclude that it was inferior to other vehicles. There is a picture by Andrea Mantegna at Milan, painted in wax, on which Mrs Merrifield makes the following remarks:--"The picture is very perfect, the colours bright, and the touches sharp. The darks are laid on very thick, but the paint appears to have run into spots or streaks, as if it had been touched with something which had touched the surface. It is said, however, that it has never been repaired, and its authenticity is stated to be undoubted. It is evident that the wax has been used liquid, for if the colours had been fused by the application of heat, the sharpness and precision of touch for which this picture, in common with other paintings of this period, is remarkable, would have been lost and melted down. The vehicle, whatever it was, appeared to me to have been as manageable as that of Van Eyck." Mrs Merrifield refers to Mr Eastlake's _Materials_ for the fullest account of all that pertains to wax-painting. We would refer also to his _Reports_ of the Commission on the Fine Arts for further detail.[10]

[10] In the third Report a recipe is given by Mr Eastlake, as communicated by "Mr John King of Bristol," who is spoken of as a "chemist." The recipe itself, in the Report, is considered an improvement. We wish, however, to correct an error which somewhat disparages the scientific reputation of a deceased friend, whom we greatly esteemed for his many virtues, as well as for his enthusiasm, knowledge, and taste, in all that regarded art. Mr King was not a chemist, but an eminent surgeon of Clifton. Had he been a chemist, his recipe would have been drawn up with greater chemical correctness: it is certainly not _secundum artem chemicam_. We may here state that we have heard from him, that early in life he had received this recipe from an aged ecclesiastic, as the veritable recipe of ancient times.

After some interesting accounts of statue-painting, the propriety of which has been so ably discussed by Mr Eastlake, and a few words on implements used in painting, Mrs Merrifield treats of leather, niello, and dyeing. The first of these leads her to lament the practice of the monks "during the dark ages;" who, to the supposed loss of many classic works, found out that, according to the old proverb, there is "nothing like leather." We would recommend her to become a little more acquainted with the real history of the monks during "the dark ages," their actual habits and manners, rather than trust, as we fear has been the case, to authors who have only misrepresented them. She will find matter even as interesting as the documents discovered respecting their arts and inventions. However there may be cause for lamenting the misuse of parchments which had been written on, and their conversion into waistcoats for warriors, and sandals for monks, there was no need to fit the said sandals on "the sleek and well-fed monks;" for certainly, if they were as described, they would have worn out the fewer, as "sleek and well-fed" means but fat and lazy. It would be hard to find any now who, equally with them, were given to fasting and prayer. Indeed, the very arts which they practised, into which Mrs Merrifield has made research, should, we think, rescue them from the common ill report.

Leather was used for hangings, at first only behind the seats of the owner of the house, subsequently round the room, and stamped and gilt, and ornamented with tinfoil. We doubt if our modern papers, even the "artistic," are an improvement. The old principle in furniture was richness of effect, a depth, a home-warmth both in substance and colour; the modern inferior taste is, or has been recently, for all that is light, gaudy, and flimsy. We should not be sorry to see the revival of leather hangings, as, in point of richness and look of comfort--a great thing in a room--far superior to paper. There is perhaps no very great beauty in niello, nor much cause for regret that it has fallen into disuse; yet, unimportant as it is in itself, it is the parent of the most delightful, the most useful invention--engraving. Nigellum or niello was known to the ancients, and practised during the middle ages: it is only known now by specimens in museums. Yet we think there has been an attempt to revive it in Russia. We have seen a specimen, but it was very coarsely executed.

Dyeing appears, during the middle ages, to have been the trade of the Jews. It is not ascertained at what period it was introduced into England. It is said that, in the reign of Henry III., woollen cloth was worn white, for lack of the art of dyeing--though this is doubted, as, woad having been imported in the time of John, it might be implied that dyeing was known. Before the introduction of printing-blocks, the practice of painting linen cloth intended for wearing-apparel, with devices, flowers, and various ornaments, in imitation of embroidery, was common in England. To what great results has this little dress-vanity led! How much of our commercial prosperity has its very origin in a taste condemned by the serious as frivolous! The love of ornament is an instinct, and they are slanderers of Nature in all her works, and in man's inventive mind, who would insert it in the calendar of deadly sins. There is perhaps another love, the love of profit, of a more ambiguous character: we believe there are not a few who would have made a "drab creation" of this beautiful world, now from their cotton-printing mills sending forth, by millions upon millions of yards, this "frivolous vanity" to the ends of the earth. It may be questioned if Penn's merchandise, as the bales were unpacked, would have passed the custom-house of a white conscience. Have poor Indians been as unscrupulously corrupted as cheated?

By far the greater portion of the introduction takes up the subject of oil-painting, which was the chief object of the commission. We have already spoken of the result, as well as of the little reliance to be placed upon the experience of modern painters and restorers in the country of the old masters. They flatly contradict each other. Even as to method, did Titian paint first with cold colours? One affirms, another denies. There is much evidence that the Venetian painters were more sparing than others in the use of ultramarine. Their principal blue, it appears, was azzurro della Magna, (German blue.) The receipts for making azures are numerous. Blue is the most important of our colours; it is well, therefore, that the attention of our colour-makers should be particularly directed to it. We have often felt sure, on looking at Venetian pictures, that the blues generally were not ultramarine--the beauty of which colour, great as it is, does not bear the mixture with _a body_ of white lead with impunity--it must be used thin. One of the artists consulted said, "The Venetians never used ultramarine, which inclined too much to the violet." Though he is wrong in "_never_," for there is proof to the contrary, in reference to their general practice he may be right, as also for their cause of setting it aside. The very glowing, warm, general tones of the Venetians--of Titian and Giorgione especially--required a _warmer_ blue, if we may be allowed to apply such an epithet--for we are aware that most classifiers of colours say that it is always cold; and we remember the old controversy on the subject, which Gainsborough endeavoured not unsuccessfully to decide, by painting his now celebrated picture, called the "Blue Boy." Contrary to the opinion of many artists, we are inclined to agree with Mr Field, whose chemical knowledge and experience should have great weight, that the modern colour "Prussian blue," if well prepared, is one of much value. It is certainly the most powerful--not, however, to be recommended for the clear azure of a sky. We should be glad to know the opinion of Mr Eastlake with regard to the modern ultramarine, said to be made after an analysis of the real substance. Though it belongs not to his investigation of the old practice, a note upon the subject would be very acceptable. If our blues and our chromes are permanent colours, we have little to regret in the (supposed) loss of many used by the old masters.

It is curious that even colours were purchased of the "speziali,"--the apothecaries. It is well known how much we are indebted to medical science for many of the recipes in art, including those for the purification of oils and the manufacture of varnishes. "Sig. A. told me that, when he was at Venice, he made a point of going to the Piazza San Salvatore, where Titian used to purchase his colours, to see whether there were any "speziali" there still. He found one, and inquired of him if he had any old colours, such as were used by the old painters, and he was shown an orange-coloured pigment, which resembled a colour frequently found on Venetian pictures." We have before us a document of payments so late as 1699, by which it appears that, with us also, the apothecary was the vender of painters' materials. "1699--Rob. Bayley, apothecary--for oil, gold, and colours, £61." This was for painting a high cross. Blackness has sometimes been objected to in the colouring of the greatest of landscape painters, Gaspar Poussin. If the following statement may be relied upon, the cause of this occasional blemish, if it be one, may be conjectured. Sig. A. showed a black mirror, which he said had been used in painting by Bamboccio, (Peter Van Laer,) and that it had been "bequeathed by Bamboccio to Gaspar Poussin; by the latter to some other painter, until it ultimately came into the hands of Sig. A." In pictures of an early time the darks are thick and substantial, the lights thin. This was reversed afterwards, excepting with regard to some dark blue, and other draperies, of which examples may be seen in Correggio. There is a peculiar impasto, however, of the Bolognese school, which seems to have escaped the notice of Mr Eastlake and Mrs Merrifield: it is mostly observable in Guercino. The paint on the flesh, in heads, arms, &c., is frequently greatly raised, as if modelled. We are curious to know something respecting this method--in what way the manipulation is managed.

We cannot credit the accounts given by all whom Mrs Merrifield consulted, that it was Titian's practice to lay by his pictures, after each painting, for months, and even years. This slow process implies a forbearance which can noways be reconciled with the fervour and usual impatience of genius. Without fastening him down to so systematic a necessity, we can easily believe that his pictures were long under his hand, from the repeated glazings so remarkable in his works. Exposure to the sun and air seems to have been universal. It is well known that, a short time after painting, a portion, probably a deleterious portion, of the oil rises to the surface. The atmosphere certainly takes up this, but the exposure must be frequent, for this greasiness will return. We strongly suspect that it is this deleterious exudation which destroys the purity of colours; and would recommend, from a long experience, the washing the surface of pictures, (we have used common sand for the purpose,) as often as any greasiness returns. A time will be ascertained when none recurs; and we think the picture is then pretty secure from any farther change. In this case, a kind of abrasion does what time would in the end do; but, not waiting for time, we often varnish, and leave this deleterious part of the oil to do its mischief. Much stress has been laid on the grinding of colours. The Venetians were not very careful in this matter, excepting in their glazing colours. It is very evident that, for some purposes of effect, they purposely laid on their colours very coarsely ground, and scraped down for granulation. White lead, however, it is admitted, cannot be too finely ground, or too carefully made. It is _the_ pigment that Titian was most solicitous about. There is a letter of his extant, in which he laments the death of the person who manufactured it for him. "The Italians, and especially the Venetians," says Mrs Merrifield, "were extremely careful in the preparation of their white lead, which was generally purified by washing." A recipe of Fra Fortunato of Rovigo, recommends the grinding it with vinegar and washing it, repeating the operation: "You will then have a white lead, which will be as excellent for miniature painting as for painting in oil." With regard to the glazings of Titian, an almost incredible story is told by an artist, Sig. E. "He says that glazings are never permanent, and that nothing can make them so; and, as a proof, he told me there were in a certain palace several pictures by Titian, which had always been covered with glasses: that he was present when the glasses were removed for the time; when, to the surprise of every one present, the glazings were found to have evaporated from the pictures, and to have adhered to the inside of the glass. I considered this incredible, and it certainly appears to require proof, although it must be recollected that Lionardo da Vinci says, 'Il verde fatto dal rame, ancorchè tal color sia messo a olio, se ne va in fumo,'" &c. If the colour evaporated from the picture, it would certainly be retained by the glass; and this artist distinctly said, that all the glazings were fixed on the inside of the glass, exactly above the painting, and that the effect of the different colours on the glass was very singular. From that time, he added, he had left off glazing his pictures. This is the more strange, because painters of the Flemish school may be said to have commenced their pictures with glazing, and to have continued it throughout; yet we never heard of such a fact, though many of their pictures have been under glass.

We have elsewhere recommended, without knowing that it was an old practice, the use of white chalk and such substances with the colours, and are therefore pleased to find the following notice,--"White chalk, marble dust, gesso, the bone of cuttle-fish, alumen, and travertine, were occasionally used in white pigments. They were frequently mixed with transparent vegetable colours, to give them body:" it might be added to give them, by a semi-transparency, and that even to colours in their own nature opaque, a luminous quality.

Does "grana in grano," the Spanish term for the scarlet pigment, show the origin of the expression, "a rogue in grain." "Pierce Plowman, whose _Vision_ is supposed to have been written in 1350, in describing the dress of a lady richly clad, says, that her robe was of 'scarlet in grain;' that is, scarlet dyed with grana, the best and most durable red dye. The import of the words 'in grain,' was afterwards changed, and the term was applied generally to all colours with which cloths were dyed, which were considered to be permanent."

"Biadetto," the artificial carbonate of copper, is said to be the blue most resembling that found in Venetian pictures. Mrs Merrifield erroneously places coal among the black pigments. It is a brown, and we know of none so useful; it is deep, but not the hot brown, such as Vandyke brown, resembling that of Teniers: Mr Eastlake has shown that it was used by the Flemish and Dutch painters. We had long used it, before we were acquainted with so authoritative a recommendation.

We find many very useful observations on oils, as to their purification, and the methods of rendering them drying. As Mrs Merrifield offers in a note a new dryer, certainly a desideratum, we quote the passage, that trials of it may be made:--

"The most powerful of all dryers is perhaps chloride of lime
in a dry state: a small quantity of this, added to clarified
oil, will convert it into a solid. For this reason it must be
employed very cautiously: if too much be used, it may burn the
brushes, and injure the colours. It has the advantage of not
darkening the oil, and its drying property appears to arise
from its absorbing the watery particles of the oil. Chloride
of calcium is equally efficacious as a dryer, but the small
quantity of iron which it contains dissolves in the oil, and
darkens it. It seems probable that, if the chloride of lime
were judiciously employed, it might prove serviceable as a
dryer; but as I am not aware that it has been tried as such by
any person but myself, the utmost caution would be required,
and some experiments would be necessary, in order to ascertain
the smallest possible quantity which would answer the purpose
intended."

We are surprised to find, in the Bolognese MS., olive oil mentioned as mixed with linseed oil in equal proportions, because we never yet heard of any successful experiment to render it drying. As it is the property of olive oil to turn lighter, not, as other oils, darker, a proof of successful experiment would be valuable. Pacheco mentions "salad oil" with honey, in a mixture of flour paste for grounds; but this may have been nut-oil. Besides the passages in Vasari and Lomazzo, which attribute to Lionardo the use of distilled oil, there is the recipe in the _Secreti_ of Alessio, which is conclusive as to the fact that linseed-oil was distilled and used to dilute amber varnish. We are aware that Mr Hendrie, in his valuable translation of Theophilus, strongly insists upon the superiority of distilled over other oil, but it does not appear ever to have been in general use.

The recommendation of amber varnish being the chief result of the commission, numerous authorities as well as recipes are given. "It appears to be mentioned in the Marciana MS., under the term 'carbone,' which has undoubtedly been written instead of 'caribe,' the Arabic and Persian term for amber." We would suggest the possibility that "carbone" may still be the right word, and mean amber, if it has been before mentioned in the MS.,--for one mode of making the varnish was to burn the amber to a "carbone," and then to grind it, as recommended in the recipe. In speaking of amber varnish as the result of Mrs Merrifield's research, we should be wrong in ascribing it to that alone; nor should we be doing justice to her own liberal and full acknowledgment of the prior recommendation of it by Mr Sheldrake in 1801, whose authority she quotes at much length, with detail of his experiments. "The use of amber varnish as a vehicle for painting, was revived and recommended so long ago as 1801, by Mr Sheldrake, in a paper published in the 19th volume of the _Transactions of the Society of Arts_. In these papers, Mr Sheldrake endeavours to prove that this varnish was used by the Italian painters; and as his opinion has been in a great measure confirmed by documentary evidence, his papers acquire additional interest from his having recorded the experiments made by himself in painting with this varnish."

The authority of Gerard Lairesse, given in a note, we think little of; for the work bearing his name was not written by him, but after his death, by some who professed to give an account of his instructions. There is an amusing anecdote, which is introduced for the purpose of showing that varnish was in use; we insert it for its pleasantry:--

"As an indirect proof, but not the less valuable on that
account, is the following anecdote, related by Luigi Crespi
of his father, Guiseppe Maria Crespi, called Lo Spagnuolo.
'One day, Cardinal Lambertini was in our house, sitting for
his portrait, which my father was painting, when one of my
brothers entered the room, bringing a letter, just arrived
by post, from another brother who was at Modena on business.
The Cardinal took the letter, and, on opening it, said to my
father, 'Go on painting, and I will read it.' Having opened
the letter, he began to read quickly, inventing an imaginary
letter, in which the absent son, with the greatest expressions
of shame and humiliation, prostrated himself at the feet of
his father, begging his pardon, and saying that he had found
it impossible to disengage himself from a stringent promise of
marrying a certain Signora Apollonia, whence.... But he had
hardly proceeded thus far, when my father leaped on to his
feet, knocking over palette, pencils, and chair; _and upsetting
oil, varnish, and everything else which was on the little
bench_; and uttering all kinds of exclamations. The Cardinal
jumped at the same time, to quiet and pacify him, telling him,
as well as he could for laughing, that it was all nonsense,
and entirely an invention of his own. Meanwhile, my father was
running round the room in despair, the Cardinal following him,
and thus pleasantly ended the morning's work. After this time,
whenever his eminence came to see my father, before getting out
of the carriage, he would whisper, That he had no doubt Signora
Apollonia was at home, and with him.'"

We refer the artist-reader to the work itself, for valuable matter on the subject of grounds; we have already trespassed too far to allow of our here entering minutely into the subject. Mr Eastlake and Mrs Merrifield, however, think a knowledge of grounds of the first importance. The evidence is in favour of white grounds, of size and gesso. De Piles thinks them, however, liable to crack. And in this place Mrs Merrifield narrates, on the authority of the French painter, M. Camille Rogier, to Sig. Cigogna, who inserted it in his _Inscrizeoni Veneziane_, a circumstance which strongly savours of the astute exchange of armour in the _Iliad_--brass for gold. Owing to the gesso or white tempera ground, it is said that the celebrated Nozze di Cana, by Paolo Veronese, was in such a condition as to render it necessary to line it very carefully, to prevent the paint scaling from the canvass. "But when, in 1815, the picture was about to be restored to Venice, according to the treaty, it was perceived that the colours crumbled off and fell into dust at the slightest movement. To continue the operation, therefore, was to expose one of the finest works of the Venetian school to certain destruction; and the committee decided that the picture of Paolo should remain at Paris, and that a painting of Lebrun's should be sent to Venice in its stead." "Credat Judæus!" If this were so--if the picture was really in that condition, how could it have been lined? and if it could, by any care, bear the necessary rough usage and removals of lining, would it not have borne careful conveyance? The French are able diplomatists. We think Mr Peel, and much less experienced liners, must laugh at the simplicity of the committee. Were they a committee on the Fine Arts? We have heard of valuable pictures having been smuggled into this country, with other pictures painted over them--if the proof which satisfied the committee, (if the story have any real foundation of truth,) had been a free pass through the custom-house, we have not the slightest doubt our picture-dealers would have readily supplied it, and have skilfully so attached dry colours as to peel off on the slightest shaking. We should rather give credence to the glazings of Titian flying off to the glass, than to this supposed danger of removal from the cause ascribed.

In now taking leave of Mrs Merrifield, we express our hope that, having so ably and so faithfully done the work confided to her by the Commission on the Fine Arts, she will not think her labours at an end; for we are quite sure that her judicious mind and clear style may be most profitably employed in the service of art, to whose practical advancement she has contributed so much.

TENNYSON'S POEMS.[11]

[11] _Poems._ By ALFRED TENNYSON. Fifth Edition.

_The Princess: a Medley._ By ALFRED TENNYSON.

There is no living poet who more justly demands of the critic a calm and accurate estimate of his claims than Alfred Tennyson; neither is there one whom it is more difficult accurately and dispassionately to estimate. Other living and poetical reputations seem tolerably well settled. The older bards belong already to the past. Wordsworth all the world consents to honour. Living, he already ranks with the greatest of our ancestors. His faults even are no longer canvassed; they are frankly admitted, and have ceased to disturb us. Every man of original genius has his mannerism more or less disagreeable; once thoroughly understood, it becomes our only care to forget it. No one now thinks of discovering that Wordsworth is occasionally, and especially when ecclesiastical themes overtake him, sadly prosaic; no one is now more annoyed by this than he is at the school divinity of Milton, or the tangled, elliptical, helter-skelter sentences into which the impetuous imagination of Shakspeare sometimes hurries him. Moore, another survivor of the magnates of the last generation, has judgment passed upon him with equal certainty and universality. He, with a somewhat different fate, has seen his fame collapse. He no longer stalks a giant in the land, but he has dwindled down to the most delightful of minstrel-pages that ever brought song and music into a lady's chamber. So exquisite are his songs, men willingly forget he ever attempted anything higher. We have no other remembrance of his _Lalla Rookh_ than that he has embedded in it some of those gems of song--some of those charming lyrics which scarcely needed to be set to music; they are melody and verse in one. They sing themselves. If his fame has diminished, it has not tarnished. It has shrunk to a little point, but that little point is bright as the diamond, and as imperishable. Of the poets more decidedly of our own age and generation, there are but few whom it would be thought worth while to estimate according to a high standard of excellence. The crowd we in general consent to praise with indulgence, because we do not look upon them as candidates for immortality, but merely for the honours of the day--a social renown, the applause of their contemporaries, the palm won in the race with living rivals.

Poetry of the very highest order, coupled with much affectation, much defective writing, many wilful blunders, renders Alfred Tennyson a very worthy and a very difficult subject for the critic. The extreme diversity and unequal merit of his compositions, make it a very perplexing business to form any general estimate of his writings. The conclusion the critic comes to at one moment he discards the next. He finds it impossible to satisfy himself, nor can ever quite determine in what measure praise and censure should be mixed. At one time he is so thoroughly charmed, so completely delighted with the poet's verse, that he is disposed to extol his author to the skies; he is as little inclined to any captious and disparaging criticism as lovers are, when they look, however closely, into the fair face which has enchanted them. At other times, the page before him will call up nothing but vexation and annoyance. Even the gleams of genuine poetry, amongst the confusion and elaborate triviality that afflict him, will only add to his displeasure. A heap of rubbish never looks so vile, or so disagreeable, as when a fresh flower is seen thrown upon it. Were Tennyson to be estimated by some half-dozen of his best pieces, he would be the compeer of Coleridge and of Wordsworth--if by a like number of his worst performances, he would be raised very little above that nameless and unnumbered crowd of dilettanti versifiers, whose utmost ambition seems to be to see themselves in print, and then, as quickly as possible, to disappear--

"One moment _black_, then gone for ever."

This diversity of merit is not to be accounted for by the diverse nature of the subject-matter which the poet has at different times treated; for Mr Tennyson has given us the happiest specimens of the most different styles of composition, employed on a singular variety of topics. He has been grave and graceful, playful and even broadly comic, with complete success. As a finished portraiture of a peculiar state of mind--conceived with philosophic truth, and embellished with all the fascinating associations which it is the province of poetry to call around us--nothing could surpass the poem of the _Lotos Eaters_. For playfulness, and tender, amorous fancy--warm, but not too warm--spiritual, but not too spiritual--we shall go far before we find a rival to the _Talking Oak_, or to the _Day Dream_: what better ballad can heart desire than the _Lord of Burleigh_? And how well does a natural indignation speak out in the clear ringing verse of _Lady Clara Vere de Vere_! Specimens of the richly comic, as we have hinted, may here and there be found: we have one in our eye which we shall seek an opportunity for quoting. In harmonising metaphysic thought with poetic imagery and expression, he does not always succeed; on the contrary, some of his saddest failures arise from the abortive attempt; yet there are some admirable passages even of this description of writing.

It is not, therefore, the difference of style aimed at, or subject-matter adopted, which determines whether Tennyson shall be successful or not. Perhaps it will be said that the marked inequality in his compositions is sufficiently accounted for by the simple fact, that some were written at an earlier age than others; that some are the productions of his youth, and others of his maturity--that, in short, it is a mere question of dates. There is indeed a very striking difference between those poems which commence the volume, and bear the date of 1830, and the other and greater number, which bear the date of 1832: the difference is so great, that we question whether, upon the whole, the fame of Mr Tennyson would not have been advanced by the omission altogether from his collected works of this first portion of his poems; for though much beauty would be lost, far more blemish would be got rid of. Still, however, as the same inequality pursues us in his later writings, and is evident even in his last production--_The Princess_--there remains something more to be explained than can be quite accounted for by the mere comparison of dates. This something more we find explained in _a bad school of taste_, under the influence of which Mr Tennyson commenced his poetic authorship. Above this influence he often rises, but he has never quite liberated himself from it. To this source we trace the affectations of many kinds which deface his writings--affectation of a super-refinement of meaning, ending in mere obscurity, or in sheer nonsense; affectation of antique simplicity ending in the most jejune triviality; experimental metres putting the ear to torture; or an utter disregard of all metre, of all the harmonies of verse, together with an incessant toil after originality of phrase; as if no new idea could be expressed unless each separate word bore also an aspect of novelty.

At the time when Tennyson commenced his career, poetry and poets were in a somewhat singular position. Never had there been so great a thirst for poetry--never had there existed so large a reading public with so decided a predilection for this species of literature; and rarely, if ever, has there arisen--at once the cause and effect of this public taste--so noble a band of contemporary poets as those who were just then retiring from the stage. The success which attended metrical composition was quite intoxicating. Poems, now gradually waning from the sight of all mankind, were rapturously welcomed as masterpieces. It seemed that the poet might dare anything. Meanwhile, the novelty to which he was emboldened was rendered urgent and necessary; for, in addition to the old rivals of times long past, there was this band of poets, whose echoes were still ringing in the theatre, to be competed with. Was it any wonder that at such an epoch we should have Keats writing his _Endymion_, or Tennyson elaborating his incomprehensible ode _To Memory_, or inditing his foolish songs _To the Owl_, or torturing himself to unite old _balladry_ with modern sentiment in his _Lady of Shalott_, for ever rhyming with that detested town of _Camelot_; or that he should have been stringing together fulsome, self-adulatory nonsense about _The Poet and the Poet's Mind_--or, in short, committing any conceivable extravagance in violation of sense, metre, and the English language? The young poet of this time was evidently carried off his feet. He had drank so deep of those springs about Parnassus, that he had lost his footing on the solid ground. It did not follow that he and his compeers always soared above us because they could no longer walk on a level with us. Men, in a dream, think they are flying when they are only falling. They reeled much, these intellectual revellers. It is true that sober men discountenanced them, rebuked them, reminded them that liberty was not license, nor imagination another name for insanity; but there was still a considerable crowd of indiscriminate admirers to cheer and encourage them in their wildest freaks.

One tendency, gathered from these times, seems, all along and throughout his whole progress, to have beset our author--the reluctance to subside for a moment to the easy natural level of cultivated minds. He has a morbid horror of commonplace. He will be grotesque, if you will; absurd, infantine--anything but truly simple: when he girds himself for serious effort, he would give you the very essence of poetry, and nothing else. This wish to have it all blossoms, no stem or leaves, has perhaps been one cause why he has written no long work. It is a tendency which is, in some measure, honourable to him. Though it has assisted in betraying him into the errors we have already noticed, it must be allowed that we are never in danger of being wearied with the monotony of commonplace.

It may be worth while to consider for a moment this characteristic--the wish to seize upon the essence, and the essence only, of poetry.

In our high intellectual industry, there goes on a certain division and subdivision of labour analogous to that which marks the progress of our commercial and manufacturing industry. The first men of genius were historians, poets, philosophers, all in one. If they wrote verse, they found a place in it for whatever could in any manner interest their contemporaries, whether it was matter of knowledge, or matter of passion. The theology of a people, and the agriculture of a people--chaos and night, and how to sow the fields--the progeny of gods, and the breeding of bulls--were alike materials for the poem. A Hesiod or a Gower chant all they know--science, or religion, or morality. The first epic is the first history. But the narrative here becomes too engrossing to admit of large admixtures of didactic matter. This is relegated to some other form of composition, and handed over to some other master of the art. The dramatic form carries on this division still further. The representation of the narrative relieves the poem of its historic character, and a dialogue which is to accompany action becomes necessarily devoted to the passions of life, or such strains of reflection as result from, and harmonise with, those passions. The lyric minstrel seizes upon these eliminated elements of passion and reflection, and adds thereto a greater liberty of imagination. At length comes that mere intellectual luxury Of imaginative thought--that gathering in of beauty and emotion from all sources--that subtle blending of a thousand pleasing allusions and flitting images--exquisite for their own sake, and constituting what is considered as pre-eminently the poetical description of natural scenery, or the poetical delineation of human feeling.

But it is possible that this intellectual division of labour may be carried too far. This luxury of imaginative thought may be found supporting itself on the slenderest base imaginable of either incident or reflection, may be almost divorced from those first natural sources of interest which affect all mankind. Now, although this may be the most poetical element of the poem--though this subtle play of imagination may constitute, more than anything else, the difference between poetry and prose, it does not follow that a good poem can be constructed wholly of such materials. It does not even follow that, in a good poem, this is really the most essential part; for that which constitutes the specific distinction between prose and poetry may not be an ingredient so important as others which both prose and poetry have in common. It is the _hilt_, and its peculiar formation, which more particularly distinguishes the sword from any other cutting instrument; but the blade--the faculty of cutting which it shares in common with the most domestic knife--is, after all, the most important part, the most requisite property of the sword. A peculiar play of imagination is pre-eminently poetic, but thought, reflection, the genuine passions of man--these must still constitute the greater elements of the composition, whether it be prose or poem.

If, therefore, we carry this division of labour too far, we shall be in danger of carving elegant and elaborate hilts that have no blades, or but a sham one. We ask no one to write didactic or philosophic poems--we should entreat of them to abstain; we call on no man to describe again the culture of the sugarcane, (though it bids fair to become amongst us one of the lost arts,) or the breeding of sheep, in numerous verse; we hope no one will again fall into that singular error of imagining that the "art of poetry" must be a peculiarly appropriate subject for a poem, and the very topic that the spirit of a poetic reader was thirsting for. Art of poetry! what poetic nutriment will you extract from that? As well think to dine a man upon the art of cookery! It is quite right that what is best said in prose should be confined to prose; but neither must we divorce substantial thought, the broad passions of mankind, or a deep reflection, from the poetic form. This would be to build nothing but steeples, and minarets, and all the filigree of architecture. We should have pillars and porticoes enough, but not a temple of any kind to enter into.

We often hear it asserted, on the one hand, that the taste for poetry has declined. We hear this, on the other hand, vigorously contested and denied. No, says the indignant champion of the muse, _verse_ may have sunk much in estimation, and the ingenious labours of the rhymist may be put on a par, if you will, with the tricks of the juggler or the caprices of art. Difficulties conquered! Nonsense. We want good things executed. It is your folly if you do not choose the best means. The man who plays on his fiddle with one string only, shall have thanks if he plays well, but not because he plays on one string; if he could have played better, using the four, his thanks shall be diminished by so much. Yes, verse may be depreciated, but _poetry_--which grows perennial from the very heart of humanity--you may plough over the soil deep as you please, you will only make it grow the faster, and strike the deeper root. The answer is well, and yet there may be something left unexplained. If poetry has been deserting the highroads of human thought--if it has grown more limited as it has grown more subtle--there may be some ground for suspecting that the public will desert it. Without wishing to detract anything from the high merit of his best performances, we should refer to a great portion of the poetry of _Shelley_ as an illustration of these remarks, and also to a considerable part of the poetry of _Keats_.

It is especially in the class of descriptive poetry, that we moderns have carried the over-refinement we are speaking of, to so remarkable an extent. The poets of Greece and Rome, it has been often observed, rarely, if ever, described natural scenery simply for its own sake. It was with their verse as with their paintings--the landscape was always a mere accessory, the main interest lying with the human or superhuman beings who inhabited it. The truth seems to be, that the pagan imagination was so full of its goddesses and nymphs, that these obscured the genuine impression, which the scene itself would have produced. Not but that the ancient poet must have felt the charm of a beautiful or sublime scene; but instead of dwelling upon this natural charm, he turned immediately to what seemed a more worthy subject--to the supernatural beings with which superstition had peopled the scene. Scarcely could he see the wood for the dryads, or the river for those smooth naiads that were surely living in its lucid depths. And even if we suppose that these pagan faiths had lost their hold both of writer and of reader, it is still very easy to understand that simple nature--trees, and hills, and water--however pleasing to the beholder, might not be thought an appropriate subject, or one sufficiently important for an exclusive description. What is open to every one's eye, and familiar to every man's thought, is not the first, but the last topic to which literature resorts. Not till all others are exhausted does it betake itself to this. Just as the heroic in human existence would be sung and resung, long before a Fielding portrays the common life that is lying about him; so portents and prodigies, gods and satyrs, and Ovidian fables of metamorphosed damsels, would precede the description of groves and bays, verdure and water, and the light of heaven seen shining every day upon them.

Even the sacred poets and prophets amongst the Hebrews, who gave such sublime views of nature, always associated her with the presence of God. This, indeed, was the secret of their sublimity. With them nature was never seen alone. The clouds rolled about His else invisible path; the thunder was His, the hills were His; nature was the perpetual vesture of the Deity.

It is only in modern times that the scenery of nature has been allowed to speak for itself, to make its own impression, as the great representative of the Beautiful here below. But now, as this scenery is to be described, not by admeasurements, or the items of a catalogue, as so much land, so much water, so much timber, but by the deep, and varied, and often shadowy sentiments it calls forth, it is manifest that it must become a theme inexhaustible to the poet, and a theme also somewhat dangerous to him, as tempting him more and more towards those refined, and vague, and evanescent feelings which are not found on the highways of human thought, and are known only to the experience of a few.

But to return more immediately to Mr Tennyson. We have said that, at the time when he commenced writing, poetry was in a certain feverish condition. The young poet had been spoilt--had grown over-confident. He was like Spencer's Knight in the Palace of Love, who sees written over every door, "Be bold! Be bold!" Only over one door does he read the salutary caution, "Be not too bold!" Public opinion, or the opinion of a large and powerful coterie, favoured his wildest excesses. That language was strained and distorted, was a sure sign of the original power of thought that was struggling through the imperfect medium. Obscurity was always honoured. People strained their eyes to watch their favourite as he careered amongst the clouds: if they lost sight of him, the fault was presumed to be in their own vision; they were not likely, therefore, to confess any inability to follow him. The young aspirants of the day even learnt to despise the trammels of their own art. The measure and melody of their verse was sacrificed to the irresistible afflatus which bore them onward. Metre was put to the torture,--at least our ears were tortured--in order that no iota of the heaven-breathed strain should be lost. They still wrote in verse, because verse alone could disguise the empty, meaningless phraseology they had enlisted in their service; but it was often a jingling rhythm, harsher to the ear than the most crabbed prose, which was retained as an excuse or concealment for that resplendent gibberish they had imported so largely into the English language. From a super-refinement of thought, altogether transcendental, they delighted to descend to an imitation of childish or antique simplicity. The natural level of cultivated thought was by all means to be avoided. If you were not in the clouds, you must be seen sitting amongst the buttercups.

Turn now to the opening and earlier poems in Mr Tennyson's volume; they are considerably altered from the state in which they made their first appearance, but they still leave traces enough of the unfortunate influence we have attempted to describe. The best amongst them is a sort of gallery of portraits of fair ladies--Claribel, and Lilian, and Isabel, and Adeline, and Madeline, and others. From these might be extracted some few very beautiful lines, but none of them pleases as a whole. There is an air of effort and elaboration, coupled with much studied negligence, which prevents us from surrendering ourselves to the charms of any of these portraitures. The _Claribel_, with which the volume commences, might be a woman or a child for anything that the poem tells us; we only gather from the expression "low lieth," that she is dead, and over her grave there rings a chime of words, which leave as little impression on the living ear as they would on the sleeper beneath. It was a pity--since alterations have been permitted--that the volume was still allowed to open with this mere monotonous chant. And why were these two absurd songs _To the Owl_ still preserved? Was it to display a sort of moral courage, and as they were first written out of bravado to common sense, was it held a point of honour to persist in their republication? I, Tennyson, have written good things; therefore this, my nonsense, shall hold its ground in spite of the murmurs of gentle reader, or the anger of malignant critic! But we must not commence an inquisition of this kind, nor ask why this or that has been permitted to remain, for we should carry on such an inquiry to no little extent. We should make wide clearance in this first part of his volume. Here is a long _Ode to Memory_, which craves to be extinguished, which ought in charity to be forgotten. An utter failure throughout. We cannot read it again, to enable us to speak quite positively, but we do not think there is a single redeeming line in the whole of it. A dreary, shapeless, metaphysical mist lies over it; there is no object seen, and not a ray of beauty even colours the cloud. Then comes an odious piece of pedantry in the shape of "A Song." What metre, Greek or Roman, Russian or Chinese, it was intended to imitate, we have no care to inquire: the man was writing English, and had no justifiable pretence for torturing our ear with verse like this:--

SONG.

"A spirit haunts the year's last hours,
Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers:
To himself he talks;
For at eventide, listening earnestly,
At his work you may hear him sob and sigh,
In the walks.
Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks
Of the mouldering flowers."

Of the _Lady of Shalott_ we have already hinted our opinion. They must be far gone in dilettantism who can make an especial favourite of such a caprice as this--with its intolerable vagueness, and its irritating repetition, every verse ending with the "Lady of Sha_lott_," which must always rhyme with "Came_lot_." We cannot conceive what charm Mr Tennyson could find in this species of odious iteration, which he nevertheless repeatedly inflicts upon us. It matters not what precedent he may insist upon--whether he quotes the authority of Theocritus, or the worthy example of old English ballad-makers--the annoyance is none the less. In a poem called _The Sisters_, we have the verse framed after this fashion:--

"We were two daughters of one race;
She was the fairest in the face:
_The wind is blowing in turret and tree._
They were together, and she fell;
Therefore revenge became me well.
_O the earl was fair to see!_"

And so we go on to the end of the chapter, with "The wind is blowing in turret and tree," and "The earl was fair to see," brought in, no matter how, but always in the same place. The rest of the verse is not so abundantly clear as to be well able to afford this intervenient jingle, which is indeed no better than the _fal lal la!_ or _tol de rol!_ of facetious drinking-songs. These have their purpose, being framed expressly for people in that condition when they want noise, and noise only, when the absence of all sense is rather a merit; but what earthly use, or beauty, or purpose there can be in the melancholy iterations of Mr Tennyson, we cannot understand. Certainly we agree here with Hotspur--we would rather hear "a kitten cry Mew, than one of these same metre ballad-mongers."

_Oriana_ is fashioned on the same plan:--

"My heart is wasted with my woe,
Oriana.
There is no rest for me below,
Oriana."

As if some miserable dog were baying the moon with the name of _Oriana_.

_Mariana in the Moated Grange_ is not by any means improved by this habit of repetition, every stanza ending with the same lines, and those not too skilfully constructed:--

"She only _said_, 'My life is dreary;
He cometh not,' she _said_!
She _said_, 'I am aweary, aweary;
I would that I were dead!'"

This piece of _Mariana_ has been very much extolled; the praise we should allot to it would seem cold after the applause it has frequently received. The descriptive powers of Tennyson are, in his happiest moments, unrivalled; on these occasions there is no one of whom it may be said more accurately, that his words paint the scene; but the description here and in the subsequent piece, _Mariana in the South_, has always appeared to us too studied to be entirely pleasing. We have tried to _feel_ it, but we could not.

For instances of graver faults of style, and in productions of higher aim, we should point, amongst others, to _The Palace of Art_, _The Vision of Sin_, _The Dream of Fair Women_. In all of these, verses of great merit may be found, but the larger part is very faulty. An obscurity, the result sometimes of too great condensation of style, and a jerking spasmodic movement, constantly mar the effect. From _The Palace of Art_ we quote, almost at haphazard, the following lines. The soul has built her palace, has hung it with pictures, and placed therein certain great bells, (a sort of music we do not envy her,) that swing of themselves. It is then finely said of her--

"She took her throne,
She sat betwixt the shining oriels
To sing her songs alone."

After this the strain thus proceeds:--