But if we look at Tennyson's work in a twofold aspect,--
HERE, on the exquisite art in which, throughout, his verse is
clothed, the lucid beauty of the form, the melody almost audible as
music, the mysterious skill by which the words used constantly strike
as the INEVITABLE words (and hence, unforgettable), the subtle
allusive touches, by which a secondary image is suggested to enrich
the leading thought, as the harmonic "partials" give richness to the
note struck upon the string; THERE, when we think of the vast
fertility in subject and treatment, united with happy selection of
motive, the wide range of character, the dramatic force of
impersonation, the pathos in every variety, the mastery over the
comic and the tragic alike, above all, perhaps, those phrases of
luminous insight which spring direct from imaginative observation of
Humanity, true for all time, coming from the heart to the heart,--his
work will probably be found to lie somewhere between that of Virgil
and Shakespeare: having its portion, if I may venture on the phrase,
in the inspiration of both.
A professed enthusiast for Tennyson can add nothing to, and take
nothing from, these words of one who, though his friend, was too
truly a critic to entertain the admiration that goes beyond idolatry.
Footnotes:
{1} Macmillan & Co.
{2} To the present writer, as to others, The Lover's Tale appeared
to be imitative of Shelley, but if Tennyson had never read Shelley,
cadit quaestio.
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