Chapter XII: Part 12

That God which ever lives and loves;

One God, one law, one element,

And one far-off divine event,

To which the whole creation moves."

It is to that chancel, and to the day, 3d January 1834, that he refers in poem xviii. of _In Memoriam_.

"'Tis well,'tis something, we may stand

Where he in English earth is laid,

And from his ashes may be made

The violet of his native land.

"'Tis little; but it looks in truth

As if the quiet bones were blest

Among familiar names to rest,

And in the places of his youth."

And again in XIX.:

"The Danube to the Severn gave

The darken'd heart that beat no more;

They laid him by the pleasant shore,

And in the hearing of the wave.

"There twice a day the Severn fills,

The salt sea-water passes by,

And hushes half the babbling Wye,

And makes a silence in the hills."

Here, too, it is, lxvi.:

"When on my bed the moonlight falls,

I know that in thy place of rest,

By that broad water of the west;

There comes a glory on the walls:

"Thy marble bright in dark appears,

As slowly steals a silver flame

Along the letters of thy name,

And o'er the number of thy years."

This young man, whose memory his friend has consecrated in the hearts of all who can be touched by such love and beauty, was in nowise unworthy of all this. It is not for us to say, for it was not given to us the sad privilege to know, all that a father's heart buried with his son in that grave, all "the hopes of unaccomplished years nor can we feel in its fulness all that is meant by

"Such

A friendship as had mastered Time;

Which masters Time indeed, and is

Eternal, separate from fears.

The all-assuming months and years

Can take no part away from this."

'But this we may say, we know of nothing in all literature to compare with the volume from which these lines are taken, since David lamented with this lamentation: "The beauty of Israel is slain. Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither rain upon you. I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me; thy love for me was wonderful." We cannot, as some have done, compare it with Shakspere's sonnets, or with _Lycidas_. In spite of the amazing genius and tenderness, the never-wearying, all-involving reiteration of passionate attachment, the idolatry of admiring love, the rapturous devotedness, displayed in these sonnets, we cannot but agree with Mr. Hallam in thinking "that there is a tendency now, especially among young inen of poetical tempers, to exaggerate the beauties of these remarkable productions and though we would hardly say with him, "that it is impossible not to wish that Shakspere had never written them," giving us, as they do, and as perhaps nothing else could do, such proof of a power of loving, of an amount of attendrissement, which is not less wonderful than the bodying forth of that myriad-mind which gave us Hamlet, and Lear, Cordelia, and Puck, and all the rest, and indeed explaining to us how he could give us all these;--while we hardly go so far, we agree with his other wise words:--"There is a weakness and folly in all misplaced and excessive affection which in Shakspere's case is the more distressing, when we consider that "Mr. W. H., the only begetter of these ensuing sonnets," was, in all likelihood, William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, a man of noble and gallant character, but always of licentious life.

As for _Lycidas_, we must confess that the poetry--and we all know how consummate it is--and not the affection, seems uppermost in Milton's mind, as it is in ours. The other element, though quick and true, has no glory through reason of the excellency of that which invests it. But there is no such drawback in _In Memoriam_. The purity, the temperate but fervent goodness, the firmness and depth of nature, the impassioned logic, the large, sensitive, and liberal heart, the reverence and godly fear, of

"That friend of mine who lives in God,"

which from these Remains we know to have dwelt in that young soul, give to _In Mentoriam_ the character of exact-est portraiture. There is no excessive or misplaced affection here; it is all founded in fact: while everywhere and throughout it all, affection--a love that is wonderful--meets us first and leaves us last, giving form and substance and grace, and the breath of life and love, to everything that the poet's thick-coming fancies so exquisitely frame. We can recall few poems approaching to it in this quality of sustained affection. The only English poems we can think of as of the same order, are Cowper's lines on seeing his mother's portrait:--

"O that these lips had language!"

Burns to "Mary in Heaven and two pieces of Vaughan --one beginning

"O thou who know'st for whom I mourn;"

and the other--

"They are all gone into the world of light."

But our object now is, not so much to illustrate Mr. Tennyson's verses, as to introduce to our readers, what we ourselves have got so much delight, and, we trust, profit from--_The Remains in Verse and Prose, of Arthur Henry Hallam_, 1834; privately printed. We had for many years been searching for this volume, but in vain; a sentence quoted by Henry Taylor struck us, and our desire was quickened by reading _In Memoriam_. We do not remember when we have been more impressed than by these Remains of this young man, especially when taken along with his friend's Memorial; and instead of trying to tell our readers what this impression is, we have preferred giving them as copious extracts as our space allows, that they may judge and enjoy for themselves. The italics are our own. We can promise them few finer, deeper, and better pleasures than reading, and detaining their minds over these two books together, filling their hearts with the fulness of their truth and tenderness. They will see how accurate as well as how affectionate and "of imagination all compact" Tennyson is, and how worthy of all that he has said of him, that friend was. The likeness is drawn _ad vivum_,

"When to the sessions of sweet silent t ought

He summons up remembrance of things past."

"The idea of his Life" has been sown a natural body, and has been raised a spiritual body, but the identity is unhurt; the countenance shines and the raiment is wrhite and glistering, but it is the same face and form.

The Memoir is by Mr. Hallam. We give it entire, not knowing anywhere a nobler or more touching record of a father's love and sorrow.

"Arthur Henry Hallam was born in Bedford Place,* London, on the ist of February 1811. Very few years had elapsed before his parents observed strong indications of his future character, in a peculiar clearness of perception, a facility of acquiring knowledge, and, above all, in an undeviating sweetness of disposition, and adherence to his sense of what was right and becoming. As he advanced to another stage of childhood, it was rendered still more manifest that he would be distinguished from ordinary persons, by an increasing thoughtfulness, and a fondness for a class of books, which in general are so little intelligible to boys of his age, that they excite in them no kind of interest.

"In the summer of 1818 he spent some months with his parents in Germany and Switzerland, and became familiar with the French language, which he had already learned to read with facility. He had gone through the elements of Latin before this time; but that language having been laid aside during his tour, it was found upon his return that, a variety of new scenes having effaced it from his memory, it was necessary to begin again with the first rudiments. He was nearly eight years old at this time; and in little more than twelve months he could read Latin with tolerable facility. *

"Dark house, by which once more I stand

Here in the long unlovely street;

Doors, where my heart was wont to beat

So quickly, waiting for a hand."

In Memoriam.

This is a mistake, as his friend Dr. A. P. Stanley thus
corrects:--"'The long unlovely street' was Wimpole Street,
No. 67, where the Hallams lived; and Arthur used to say to
his friends, 'You know you will always find us at sixes and
sevens.'"

In this period his mind was developing itself more rapidly than before; he now felt a keen relish for dramatic poetry, and wrote several tragedies, if we may so call them, either in prose or verse, with a more precocious display of talents than the Editor remembers to have met with in any other individual. The natural pride, however, of his parents, did not blind them to the uncertainty that belongs to all premature efforts of the mind; and they so carefully avoided everything like a boastful display of blossoms which, in many cases, have withered away in barren luxuriance, that the circumstance of these compositions was hardly ever mentioned out of their own family.

"In the spring of 1820, Arthur was placed under the Rev. W. Carmalt, at Putney, where he remained nearly two years. After leaving this school, he went abroad again for some months; and, in October 1822, became the pupil of the Rev. E. C. Hawtrey, an Assistant Master of Eton College. At Eton he continued till the summer of 1827. He was now become a good though not pej-haps a first-rate scholar in the Latin and Greek languages. The loss of time, relatively to this object, in travelling, but far more his increasing avidity for a different kind of knowledge, and the strong bent of his mind to subjects which exercise other faculties than such as the acquirement of languages calls into play, will sufficiently account for what might seem a comparative deficiency in classical learning. It can only, however, be reckoned one, comparatively to his other attainments, and to his remarkable facility in mastering the modern languages. The Editor has thought it not improper to print in the following pages an Eton exercise, which, as written before the age of fourteen, though not free from metrical and other errors, appears, perhaps to a partial judgment, far above the level of such compositions. It is remarkable that he should have selected the story of Ugolino, from a poet with whom, and with whose language, he was then but very slightly acquainted, but who was afterwards to become, more perhaps than any other, the master-mover of his spirit. It may be added, that great judgment and taste are perceptible in this translation, which is by no means a literal one; and in which the phraseology of Sophocles is not ill substituted, in some passages, for that of Dante.

"The Latin poetry of an Etonian is generally reckoned at that School the chief test of his literary talent. That of Arthur was good without being excellent; he never wanted depth of thought, or truth of feeling; but it is only in a few rare instances, if altogether in any, that an original mind has been known to utter itself freely and vigorously, without sacrifice of purity, in a language the capacities of which are so imperfectly understood; and in his productions there was not the thorough conformity to an ancient model which is required for perfect elegance in Latin verse. He took no great pleasure in this sort of composition; and perhaps never returned to it of his own accord.

"In the latter part of his residence at Eton, he was led away more and more by the predominant bias of his mind, from the exclusive study of ancient literature. The poets of England, especially the older dramatists, came with greater attraction over his spirit. He loved Fletcher, and some of Fletcher's contemporaries, for their energy of language and intenseness of feeling; but it was in Shakspere alone that he found the fulness of soul which seemed to slake the thirst of his own rapidly expanding genius for an inexhaustible fountain of thought and emotion. He knew Shakspere thoroughly; and indeed his acquaintance with the earlier poetry of this country was very extensive. Among the modern poets, Byron was at this time, far above the rest, and almost exclusively, his favorite; a preference which, in later years, he transferred altogether to Wordsworth and Shelley.

"He became, when about fifteen years old, a member of the debating society established among the elder boys, in which he took great interest; and this served to confirm the bias of his intellect towards the moral and political philosophy of modern times. It was probably, however, of important utility in giving him that command of his own language which he possessed, as the following Essays will show, in a very superior degree, and in exercising those powers of argumentative discussion, which now displayed.themselves as eminently characteristic of his mind. It was a necessary consequence that he declined still more from the usual paths of study, and abated perhaps somewhat of his regard for the writers of antiquity. It must not be understood, nevertheless, as most of those who read these pages will be aware, that he ever lost his sensibility to those ever-living effusions of genius which the ancient languages preserve. He loved Æschylus and Sophocles (to Euripides he hardly did justice), Lucretius and Virgil; if he did not seem so much drawn towards Homer as might at first be expected, this may probably be accounted for by his increasing taste for philosophical poetry.

"In the early part of 1827, Arthur took a part in the Eton Miscellany, a periodical publication, in which some of his friends in the debating society were concerned. He wrote in this, besides a few papers in prose, a little poem on a story connected with the Lake of Killarney. It has not been thought by the Editor advisable, upon the whole, to reprint these lines; though in his opinion, they bear very striking marks of superior powers. This was almost the first poetry that Arthur had written, except the childish tragedies above mentioned. No one was ever less inclined to the trick of versifying. Poetry with him was not an amusement, but the natural and almost necessary language of genuine emotion; and it was not till the discipline of serious reflection, and the approach of manhood, gave a reality and intenseness to such emotions, that he learned the capacities of his own genius. That he was a poet by nature, these Remains will sufficiently prove; but certainly he was far removed from being a versifier by nature; nor was he probably able to perform, what he scarce ever attempted, to write easily and elegantly on an ordinary subject. The lines on the story of Pygmalion are so far an exception, that they arose out of a momentary amusement of society; but he could not avoid, even in these, his own grave tone of poetry.

"Upon leaving Eton in the summer of 1827, he accompanied his parents to the Continent, and passed eight months in Italy. This introduction to new scenes of nature and art, and to new sources of intellectual delight, at the very period of transition from boyhood to youth, sealed no doubt the peculiar character of his mind, and taught him, too soon for his peace, to sound those depths of thought and feeling, from which, after this time, all that he wrote was derived. He had, when he passed the Alps, only a moderate acquaintance with the Italian language; but during his residence in the country he came to speak it with perfect fluency, and with a pure Sienese pronunciation. In its study he was much assisted by his friend and instructor, the Abbate Pifferi, who encouraged him to his first attempts at versification. The few sonnets, which are now printed, were, it is to be remembered, written by a foreigner, hardly seventeen years old, and after a very short stay in Italy. The Editor might not, probably, have suffered them to appear even in this private manner, upon his own judgment. But he knew that the greatest living writer of Italy, to whom they were shown some time since at Milan, by the author's excellent friend, Mr. Richard Milnes, has expressed himself in terms of high approbation.

"The growing intimacy of Arthur with Italian poetry led him naturally to that of Dante. No poet was so congenial to the character of his own reflective mind; in none other could he so abundantly find that disdain of flowery redundance, that perpetual preference of the sensible to the ideal, that aspiration for somewhat better and less fleeting than earthly things, to which his inmost soul responded. Like all genuine worshippers of the great Florentine poet, he rated the _Inferno_ below the two latter portions of the _Divina Commedia_; there was nothing even to revolt his taste, but rather much to attract it, in the scholastic theology and mystic visions of the _Paradiso_.

Petrarch he greatly admired, though with less idolatry than Dante; and the sonnets here printed will show to all competent judges how fully he had imbibed the spirit, without servile centonism, of the best writers in that style of composition who flourished in the sixteenth century.

"But poetry was not an absorbing passion at this time in his mind. His eyes were fixed on the best pictures with silent intense delight. He had a deep and just perception of what was beautiful in this art, at least in its higher schools; for he did not pay much regard, or perhaps quite do justice, to the masters of the seventeenth century. To technical criticism he made no sort of pretension; painting was to him but the visible language of emotion; and where it did not aim at exciting it, or employed inadequate means, his admiration would be withheld. Hence he highly prized the ancient paintings, both Italian and German, of the age which preceded the full development of art. But he was almost as enthusiastic an admirer of the Venetian, as of the Tuscan and Roman schools; considering these masters as reaching the same end by the different agencies of form and colour. This predilection for the sensitive beauties of painting is somewhat analogous to his fondness for harmony of verse, on which he laid more stress than poets so thoughtful are apt to do. In one of the last days of his life, he lingered long among the fine Venetian pictures of the Imperial Gallery at Vienna.

"He returned to England in June 1828; and, in the following October, went down to reside at Cambridge; having been entered on the boards of Trinity College before his departure to the Continent. He was a pupil of the Rev. William Whewell. In some respects, as soon became manifest, he was not formed to obtain great academical reputation. An acquaintance with the learned languages, considerable at the school where he was educated, but not improved, to say the least, by the intermission of a year, during which his mind had been so occupied by other pursuits, that he had thought little of antiquity even in Rome itself, though abundantly sufficient for the gratification of taste and the acquisition of knowledge, was sure to prove inadequate to the searching scrutiny of modern examinations. He soon, therefore, saw reason to renounce all competition of this kind; nor did he ever so much as attempt any Greek or Latin composition during his stay at Cambridge. In truth he was very indifferent to success of this kind; and conscious as he must have been of a high reputation among his contemporaries, he could not think that he stood in need of any University distinctions. The Editor became by degrees almost equally indifferent to what he perceived to be so uncongenial to Arthur's mind. It was however to be regretted, that he never paid the least attention to mathematical studies. That he should not prosecute them with the diligence usual at Cambridge, was of course to be expected, yet his clearness and acumen would certainly have enabled him to master the principles of geometrical reasoning; nor, in fact, did he so much find a difficulty in apprehending demonstrations, as a want of interest, and a consequent inability to retain them in his memory. A little more practice in the strict logic of geometry', a little more familiarity with the physical laws of the universe, and the phenomena to which they relate, would possibly have repressed the tendency to vague and mystical speculations which he was too fond of indulging. In the philosophy of the human mind, he was in no danger of the materializing theories of some ancient and modern schools; but in shunning this extreme, he might sometimes forget that, in the honest pursuit of truth, we can shut our eyes to no real phenomena, and that the physiology of man must always enter into any valid scheme of his psychology.

"The comparative inferiority which he might show in the usual trials of knowledge, sprung in a great measure from the w'ant of a prompt and accurate memory. It was the faculty wherein he shone the least, according to ordinary observation; though his very extensive reach of literature, and his rapidity in acquiring languages, sufficed to prove that it was capable of being largely exercised. He could remember anything, as a friend observed to the Editor, that was associated with an idea. But he seemed, at least after he reached manhood, to want almost wholly the power, so common with inferior understandings, of retaining with regularity and exactness, a number of unimportant uninteresting particulars. It would have been nearly impossible to make him recollect for three days the date of the battle of Marathon, or the names in order of the Athenian months. Nor could he repeat poetry, much as he loved it, with the correctness often found in young men. It is not improbable, that a more steady discipline in early life would have strengthened this faculty, or that he might have supplied its deficiency by some technical devices; but where the higher powers of intellect were so extraordinarily manifested, it would have been preposterous to complain of what may perhaps have been a necessary consequence of their amplitude, or at least a natural result of their exercise.

"But another reason may be given for his deficiency in those unremitting labours which the course of academical education, in the present times, is supposed to exact from those who aspire to its distinctions. In the first year of his residence at Cambridge, symptoms of disordered health, especially in the circulatory system, began to show themselves; and it is by no means improbable, that these were indications of a tendency to derangement of the vital functions, which became ultimately fatal. A too rapid determination of blood toward the brain, with its concomitant uneasy sensations, rendered him frequently incapable of mental fatigue. He had indeed once before, at Florence, been affected by symptoms not unlike these. His intensity of reflection and feeling also brought on occasionally a considerable depression of spirits, which had been painfully observed at times by those who watched him most, from the time of his leaving Eton, and even before. It was not till after several months that he regained a less morbid condition of mind and body. This same irregularity of circulation returned in the next spring, but was of less duration. During the third year of his Cambridge life, he appeared in much better health.

"In this year (1831) he obtained the first college prize for an English declamation. The subject chosen by him was the conduct of the Independent party during the civil war. This exercise was greatly admired at the time, but was never printed. In consequence of this success, it became incumbent on him, according to the custom of the college, to deliver an oration in the chapel immediately before the Christmas vacation of the same year. On this occasion he selected a subject very congenial to his own turn of thought and favourite study, the influence of Italian upon English literature. He had previously gained another prize for an English essay on the philosophical writings of Cicero. This essay is perhaps too excursive from the prescribed subject; but his mind was so deeply imbued with the higher philosophy, especially that of Plato, with which he was very conversant, that he could not be expected to dwell much on the praises of Cicero in that respect.

"Though the bent of Arthur's mind by no means inclined him to strict research into facts, he was full as much conversant with the great features of ancient and modern history, as from the course of his other studies and the habits of his life it was possible to expect. He reckoned them, as great minds always do, the groundworks of moral and political philosophy, and took no pains to acquire any knowledge of this sort from which a principle could not be derived or illustrated. To some parts of English history, and to that of the French Revolution, he had paid considerable attention. He had not read nearly so much of the Greek and Latin historians as of the philosophers and poets. In the history of literary, and especially of philosophical and religious opinions, he was deeply versed, as much so as it is possible to apply that term at his age. The following pages exhibit proofs of an acquaintance, not crude or superficial, with that important branch of literature.

"His political judgments were invariably prompted by his strong sense of right and justice. These, in so young a person, were naturally rather fluctuating, and subject to the correction of advancing knowledge and experience. Ardent in the cause of those he deemed to be oppressed, of which, in one instance he was led to give a proof with more of energy and enthusiasm than discretion, he was deeply attached to the ancient institutions of his country.

"He spoke French readily, though with less elegance than Italian, till from disuse he lost much of his fluency in the latter. In his last fatal tour in Germany, he was rapidly acquiring a readiness in the language of that country'. The whole range of French literature was almost as familiar to him as that of England.

"The society in which Arthur lived most intimately, at Eton and at the University, was formed of young men, eminent for natural ability, and for delight in what he sought above all things, the knowledge of truth, and the perception of beauty. They who loved and admired him living, and who now revere his sacred memory, as of one to whom, in the fondness of regret, they admit of no rival, know best what he was in the daily commerce of life; and his eulogy should, on every account, better come from hearts, which, if partial, have been rendered so by the experience of friendship, not by the affection of nature.

"Arthur left Cambridge on taking his degree in January 1832. He resided from that time with the Editor in London, having been entered on the boards of the Inner Temple. It was greatly the desire of the Editor that he should engage himself in the study of the law; not merely with professional views, but as a useful discipline for a mind too much occupied with habits of thought, which, ennobling and important as they were, could not but separate him from the everyday business of life, and might, by their excess, in his susceptible temperament, be productive of considerable mischief. He had, during the previous long vacation, read with the Editor the Institutes of Justinian, and the two works of Heineccius which illustrate them; and he now went through Blackstone's Commentaries, with as much of other law-books as, in the Editor's judgment, was required for a similar purpose. It was satisfactory at that time to perceive that, far from showing any of that distaste to legal studies which might have been anticipated from some parts of his intellectual character, he entered upon them not only with great acuteness, but considerable interest. In the month of October 1832, he began to see the practical application of legal knowledge in the office of an eminent conveyancer, Mr. Walters of Lincoln's Inn Fields, with whom he continued till his departure from England in the following summer.

"It was not, however, to be expected, or even desired by any one who knew how to value him, that he should at once abandon those habits of study which had fertilized and invigorated his mind. But he now, from some change or other in his course of thinking, ceased in a great measure to write poetry, and expressed to more than one friend an intention to give it up. The instances after his leaving Cambridge were few. The dramatic scene between Raffaelle and Fiammetta was written in 1832; and about the same time he had a design to translate the _Vita Nuova_ of his favourite Dante; a work which he justly prized, as the development of that immense genius, in a kind of autobiography, which best prepares us for a real insight into the _Divine Comedy_. He rendered accordingly into verse most of the sonnets which the _Vita Nuova_ contains; but the Editor does not believe that he made any progress in the prose translation. These sonnets appearing rather too literal, and consequently harsh, it has not been thought worth while to print.

"In the summer of 1832, the appearance of Professor Rosetti's _Disquisizioni sullo spirito Antipapale_, in which the writings of Arthur's beloved masters Dante and Petrarch, as well as most of the mediæval literature of Italy, were treated as a series of enigmas, to be understood only by a key that discloses a latent Carbonarism, a secret conspiracy against the religion of their age, excited him to publish his own Remarks in reply. It seemed to him the worst of poetical heresies to desert the Absolute, the Universal, the Eternal, the Beautiful and True, which the Platonic spirit of his literary creed taught him to seek in all the higher works of genius, in quest of some temporary historical allusion, which could be of no interest with posterity. Nothing however could be more alien from his courteous disposition than to abuse the license of controversy, or to treat with intentional disrespect a very ingenious person, who had been led on too far in pursuing a course of interpretation, which, within certain much narrower limits, it is impossible for any one conversant with history not to admit.

"A very few other anonymous writings occupied his leisure about this time. Among these were slight memoirs of Petrarch, Voltaire, and Burke, for the Gallery of Portraits, published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.* principally

* We had read these lives, and had remarked them, before we
knew whose they were, as being of rare merit. No one could
suppose they were written by one so young. We give his
estimate of the character of Burke. "The mind of this great
man may perhaps be taken as a representation of the general
characteristics of the English intellect. Its groundwork,
was solid, practical, and conversant with the details of
business; but upon this, arose a superstructure of
imagination and moral sentiment. He saw little, because it
was painful to him to see anything, beyond the limits of the
national character. In all things, while he deeply
reverenced principles, he chose to deal with the concrete
rather than with abstractions. He studied men rather than
man." The words in italics imply an insight into the deepest
springs of human action, the conjunct causes of what we call
character, such as few men of large experience can attain.

His time was however devoted, when not engaged at his office, to metaphysical researches, and to the history of philosophical opinions.

"From the latter part of his residence at Cambridge, a gradual but very perceptible improvement in the cheerfulness of his spirits gladdened his family and his friends; intervals there doubtless were, when the continual seriousness of his habits of thought, or the force of circumstances, threw something more of gravity into his demeanour; but in general he was animated and even gay, renewing or preserving his intercourse with some of those he had most valued at Eton and Cambridge. The symptoms of deranged circulation which had manifested themselves before, ceased to appear, or at least so as to excite his own attention; and though it struck those who were most anxious in watching him, that his power of enduring fatigue was not quite so great as from his frame of body and apparent robustness might have been anticipated, nothing gave the least indication of danger either to their eyes, or to those of the medical practitioners who were in the habit of observing him. An attack of intermittent fever, during the prevalent influenza of the spring of 1833, may perhaps have disposed his constitution to the last fatal blow."

To anyone who has watched the history of the disease by which "so quick this bright thing came to confusion," and who knows how near its subject must often, perhaps all his life, have been to that eternity which occupied so much of his thoughts and desires, and the secrets of which were so soon to open on his young eyes, there is something very touching in this account. Such a state of health would enhance, and tend to produce, by the sensations proper to such a condition, that habitual seriousness of thought, that sober judgment, and that tendency to look at the true life of things--that deep but gentle and calm sadness, and that occasional sinking of the heart, which make his noble and strong inner nature, his resolved mind so much more impressive and endearing.

This feeling of personal insecurity--of life being ready to slip away--the sensation that this world and its ongoings, its mighty interests, and delicate joys, is ready to be shut up in a moment--this instinctive apprehension of the peril of vehement bodily enjoyment--all this would tend to make him "walk softly," and to keep him from much of the evil that is in the world, and would help him to live soberly, righteously, and godly, even in the bright and rich years of his youth. His power of giving himself up to the search after absolute truth, and the contemplation of Supreme goodness, must have been increased by this same organization. But all this delicate feeling, this fineness of sense, did rather quicken the energy and fervour of the indwelling soul--the [Greek] that burned within. In the quaint words of Vaughan, it was "manhood with a female eye." These two conditions must, as we have said, have made him dear indeed. And by a beautiful law of life, having that organ out of which are the issues of life, under a sort of perpetual nearness to suffering, and so liable to pain, he would be more easily moved for others--more alive to their pain--more filled with fellow-feeling.

"The Editor cannot dwell on anything later. Arthur accompanied him to Germany in the beginning of August. In returning to Vienna from Pesth, a wet day probably gave rise to an intermittent fever, with very slight symptoms, and apparently subsiding, when a sudden rush of blood to the head put an instantaneous end to his life on the 15th of September 1833. The mysteriousness of such a dreadful termination to a disorder generally of so little importance, and in this instance of the slightest kind, has been diminished by an examination which showed a weakness of the cerebral vessels, and a want of sufficient energy in the heart. Those whose eyes must long be dim with tears, and whose hopes on this side the tomb are broken down for ever, may cling, as well as they can, to the poor consolation of believing that a few more years would, in the usual chances of humanity, have severed the frail union of his graceful and manly form with the pure spirit that it enshrined.

"The remains of Arthur were brought to England,, and interred on the 3d of January 1834, in the chancel of Clevedon Church, in Somersetshire, belonging to his maternal grandfather, Sir Abraham Elton, a place selected by the Editor, not only from the connexion of kindred, but on account of its still and sequestered situation, on a lone hill that overhangs the Bristol Channel.

"More ought perhaps to be said--but it is very difficult to proceed. From the earliest years of this extraordinary young man, his premature abilities were not more conspicuous than an almost faultless disposition, sustained by a more calm self-command than has often been witnessed in that season of life. The sweetness of temper which distinguished his childhood, became with the advance of manhood a habitual benevolence, and ultimately ripened into that exalted principle of love towards God and man, which animated and almost absorbed his soul during the latter period of his life, and to which most of the following compositions bear such emphatic testimony. He seemed to tread the earth as a spirit from some better world; and in bowing to the mysterious will which has in mercy removed him, perfected by so short a trial, and passing over the bridge which separates the seen from the unseen life, in a moment, and, as we may believe, without a moment's pang, we must feel not only the bereavement of those to whom he was dear, but the loss which mankind have sustained by the withdrawing of such a light.

"A considerable portion of the poetry contained in this volume was printed in the year 1830, and was intended by the author to be published together with the poems of his intimate friend, Mr. Alfred Tennyson. They were however withheld from publication at the request of the Editor. The poem of Timbuctoo was written for the University prize in 1829, which it did not obtain, Notwithstanding its too great obscurity, the subject itself being hardly indicated, and the extremely hyperbolical importance which the author's brilliant fancy has attached to a nest of barbarians, no one can avoid admiring the grandeur of his conceptions, and the deep philosophy upon which he has built the scheme of his poem. This is however by no means the most pleasing of his compositions. It is in the profound reflection, the melancholy tenderness, and the religious sanctity of other effusions that a lasting charm will be found. A commonplace subject, such as those announced for academical prizes generally are, was incapable of exciting a mind which, beyond almost every other, went straight to the furthest depths that the human intellect can fathom, or from which human feelings can be drawn. Many short poems, of equal beauty with those here printed, have been deemed unfit even for the limited circulation they might obtain, on account of their unveiling more of emotion than, consistently with what is due to him and to others, could be exposed to view.

"The two succeeding essays have never been printed; but were read, it is believed, in a literary society at Trinity College, or in one to which he afterwards belonged in London. That entitled _Theodicoea Novissima,_ is printed at the desire of some of his intimate friends. A few expressions in it want his usual precision; and there are ideas which he might have seen cause, in the lapse of time, to modify, independently of what his very acute mind would probably have perceived, that his hypothesis, like that of Leibnitz, on the origin of evil, resolves itself at last into an unproved assumption of its -necessity. It has however some advantages, which need not be mentioned, over that of Leibnitz; and it is here printed, not as a solution of the greatest mystery of the universe, but as most characteristic of the author's mind, original and sublime, uniting, what is very rare except in early youth, a fearless and unblenching spirit of inquiry into the highest objects of speculation, with the most humble and reverential piety. It is probable that in many of his views on such topics he was influenced by the writings of Jonathan Edwards, with whose opinions on metaphysical and moral subjects, he seems generally to have concurred.

"The extract from a review of Tennyson's poems in a publication now extinct, the _Englishman's Magazine_, is also printed at the suggestion of a friend. The pieces that follow are reprints, and have been already mentioned in this Memoir."

We have given this Memoir almost entire, for the sake both of its subjects and its manner--for what in it is the father's as well as for what is the son's. There is something very touching in the paternal composure, the judiciousness, the truthfulness, where truth is so difficult to reach through tears; the calm estimate and the subdued tenderness, the ever-rising but ever-restrained emotion; the father's heart throbs throughout.

We wish we could have given in full the letters from Arthur's friends, which his father has incorporated in the Memoir. They all bring out in different but harmonious ways, his extraordinary moral and intellectual worth, his rare beauty of character, and their deep affection.

The following extract from one seems to us very interesting:--"Outwardly I do not think there was anything remarkable in his habits, except _an irregularity with regard to times and places of study_, which may seem surprising in one whose progress in so many directions was so eminently great and rapid. _He was commonly to be found in some friend's room, reading or canvassing_. I dare say he lost something by this irregularity, _but less than perhaps one would at first imagine_. I never saw him idle. He might seem to be lounging, or only amusing himself, but his mind was always active, and active for good. In fact, his energy and quickness of apprehension did not stand in need of outward aid." There is much in this worthy of more extended notice. Such minds as his probably grow best in this way, are best left to themselves, to glide on at their own sweet wills; the stream was too deep and clear, and perhaps too entirely bent on its own errand, to be dealt with or regulated by any art or device. The same friend sums up his character thus:--"I have met with no man his superior in metaphysical subtlety; no man his equal as a philosophical critic on works of taste; no man whose views on all subjects connected with the duties and dignities of humanity were more large and generous, and enlightened." And all this said of a youth of twenty--heu nimimn brevis ovi decus ct desiderium!

We have given little of his verse; and what we do give is taken at random. We agree entirely in his father's estimate of his poetical gift and art, but his mind was too serious, too thoughtful, too intensely dedicated to truth and the God of truth, to linger long in the pursuit of beauty; he was on his way to God, and could rest in nothing short of Him, otherwise he might have been a poet of genuine excellence.

"Dark, dark, yea, 'irrecoverably dark,'

Is the soul's eye; yet how it strives and battles

Thorough th' impenetrable gloom to fix

That master light, the secret truth of things,

Which is the body of the infinite God!"

"Sure, we are leaves of one harmonious bower,

Fed by a sap that never will be scant,

All-permeating, all-producing mind;

And in our several parcellings of doom

We but fulfil the beauty of the whole,

Oh, madness! if a leaf should dare complain

Of its dark verdure, and aspire to be

The gayer, brighter thing that wantons near."

"Oh, blessing and delight of my young heart,

Maiden, who wast so lovely, and so pure,

I know not in what region now thou art,

Or whom thy gentle eyes in joy assure.

Not the old hills on which we gazed together,

Not the old faces which we both did love,

Not the old books, whence knowledge we did gather,

Not these, but others now thy fancies move.

I would I knew thy present hopes and fears,

All thy companions with their pleasant talk,

And the clear aspect which thy dwelling wears:

So, though in body absent, I might walk

With thee in thought and feeling, till thy mood

Did sanctify mine own to peerless good."

"Alfred, I would that you beheld me now,

Sitting beneath a mossy ivied wall

On a quaint bench, which to that structure old

Winds an accordant curve. Above my head

Dilates immeasurable a wild of leaves,

Seeming received into the blue expanse

That vaults this summer noon."

"Still here--thou hast not faded from my sight,

Nor all the music round thee from mine ear;

Still grace flows from thee to the brightening year,

And all the birds laugh out in wealthier light.

Still am I free to close my happy eyes,

And paint upon the gloom thy mimic form,

That soft white neck, that cheek in beauty warm,

And brow half hidden where yon ringlet lies:

With, oh! the blissful knowledge all the while

That I can lift at will each curvèd lid,

And my fair dream most highly realize.

The time will come,'tis ushered by my sighs,

When I may shape the dark, but vainly bid

True light restore that form, those looks, that smile."

"The garden trees are busy with the shower

That fell ere sunset: now methinks they talk,

Lowly and sweetly as befits the hour,

One to another down the grassy walk.

Hark the laburnum from his opening flower,

This cheery creeper greets in whisper light,

While the grim fir, rejoicing in the night,

Hoarse mutters to the murmuring sycamore,*

What shall I deem their converse? would they hail

The wild grey light that fronts yon massive cloud,

Or the half bow, rising like pillar d fire?

Or are they fighting faintly for desire

That with May dawn their leaves may be o'erflowed,

And dews about their feet may never fail?"

* This will remind the reader of a fine passage in _Edwin
the Fair_, on the specific differences in the sounds made by
the ash, the elm, the fir, etc., when moved by the wind; and
of some lines by Landor on flowers speaking to each other;
and of something more exquisite than either, in _Consuelo_--
the description of the flowers in the old monastic garden,
at the "sweet hour of prime."

In the Essay, entitled _Theodiccea Novissima_, from which the following passages are taken, to the great injury in its general effect, he sets himself to the task of doing his utmost to clear up the mystery of the existence of such things as sin and suffering in the universe of a being like God. He does it fearlessly, but like a child. It is in the spirit of his friend's words,--

"An infant crying in the night,

An infant crying for the light,

And with no language but a cry."

"Then was I as a child that cries,

But, crying, knows his father near."

It is not a mere exercitation of the intellect, it is an endeavour to get nearer God--to assert his eternal Providence, and vindicate his ways to men. We know no performance more wonderful for such a boy. Pascal might have written it. As was to be expected, the tremendous subject remains where he found it--his glowing love and genius cast a gleam here and there across its gloom; but it is brief as the lightning in the collied night--the jaws of darkness do devour it up--this secret belongs to God. Across its deep and dazzling darkness, and from out its abyss of thick cloud, "all dark, dark, irrecoverably dark," no steady ray has ever, or will ever, come--over its face its own darkness must brood, till He to whom alone the darkness and the light are both alike, to whom the night shineth as the day, says, "Let there be light!" There is, we all know, a certain awful attraction, a nameless charm for all thoughtful spirits, in this mystery, "the greatest in the universe," as Mr. Hallam truly says; and it is well for us at times, so that we have pure eyes and a clean heart, to turn aside and look into its gloom; but it is not good to busy ourselves in clever speculations about it, or briskly to criticise the speculations of others--it is a wise and pious saying of Augustine, _Verius cogitatur Dens, qnam dicitur; et verius est quam cogitatur_.

"I wish to be understood as considering Christianity in the present Essay rather in its relation to the intellect, as constituting the higher philosophy, than in its far more important bearing upon the hearts and destinies of us all. I shall propose the question in this form, 'Is there ground for believing that the existence of moral evil is absolutely necessary to the fulfilment of God's essential love for Christ?' (i. e., of the Father for Christ, or of [Greek].

"'Can man by searching find out God?' I believe not.

I believe that the unassisted efforts of man's reason have not established the existence and attributes of Deity on so sure a basis as the Deist imagines. However sublime may be the notion of a supreme original mind, and however naturally human feelings adhered to it, the reasons by which it was justified were not, in my opinion, sufficient to clear it from considerable doubt and confusion.... I hesitate not to say that I derive from Revelation a conviction of Theism, which, without that assistance, would have been but a dark and ambiguous hope. _I see that the Bible fits into every fold of the human heart. I am a man, and I believe it to be God's book because it is man'_s book. It is true that the Bible affords me no additional means of demonstrating the falsity of Atheism; _if mind had nothing to do with the formation of the Universe, doubtless whatever had was competent also to make the Bible_; but I have gained this advantage, that my feelings and thoughts can no longer refuse their assent to _what is evidently framed to engage that assent; and what is it to me that I cannot disprove the bare logical possibility of my whole nature being fallacious? To seek for a certainty above certainty, an evidence beyond necessary belief, is the very lunacy of scepticism_: we must trust our own faculties, or we can put no trust in anything, save that moment we call the present, which escapes us while we articulate its name. _I am determined therefore to reccive the Bible as Divinely authorized, and the scheme of human and Divine things which it contains, as essentially true_."

"I may further observe, that however much we should rejoice to discover that the eternal scheme of God--the necessary completion, let us remember, of his Almighty Nature--did not require the absolute perdition of any spirit called by Him into existence, we are certainly not entitled to consider the perpetual misery of many individuals as incompatible with sovereign love."

"In the Supreme Nature those two capacities of Perfect Love and Perfect Joy are indivisible. Holiness and Happiness, says an old divine, are two several notions of one thing. Equally inseparable are the notions of Opposition to Love and Opposition to Bliss. _Unless therefore the heart of a created being is at one with the heart of God, it cannot but be miserable_. Moreover, there is no possibility of continuing for ever partly with God and partly against him: we must either be capable by our nature of entire accordance with His will, or we must be incapable of anything but misery, further than He may for awhile 'not impute our trespasses to us,' that is, He may interpose some temporary barrier between sin and its attendant pain. _For in the Eternal Idea of God a created spirit is perhaps not seen, as a series of successive states_, of which some that are evil might be compensated by others that are good, _but as one indivisible object of these almost infinitely divisible modes_, and that either in accordance with His own nature, or in opposition to it....