He was no hungry hack, and could, and did, do infinitely
better things than "stand in a false following" of Pope. Probably
Lytton had a false idea that Tennyson was a rich man, a branch of his
family being affluent, and so resented the little pension. The poet
was so far from rich in 1846, and even after the publication of The
Princess, that his marriage had still to be deferred for four years.
On reading The Princess afresh one is impressed, despite old
familiarity, with the extraordinary influence of its beauty. Here
are, indeed, the best words best placed, and that curious felicity of
style which makes every line a marvel, and an eternal possession. It
is as if Tennyson had taken the advice which Keats gave to Shelley,
"Load every rift with ore." To choose but one or two examples, how
the purest and freshest impression of nature is re-created in mind
and memory by the picture of Melissa with
"All her thoughts as fair within her eyes,
As bottom agates seen to wave and float
In crystal currents of clear morning seas."
The lyric, "Tears, idle tears," is far beyond praise: once read it
seems like a thing that has always existed in the world of poetic
archetypes, and has now been not so much composed as discovered and
revealed. The many pictures and similitudes in The Princess have a
magical gorgeousness:-
"From the illumined hall
Long lanes of splendour slanted o'er a press
Of snowy shoulders, thick as herded ewes,
And rainbow robes, and gems and gem-like eyes,
And gold and golden heads; they to and fro
Fluctuated, as flowers in storm, some red, some pale.
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