Pond. — On Tennyson and Broivniufj. 551 



were, they ^Yere different from preceding work, and different 

 not in degree but in kind. Whereas the earlier poets of the 

 century had aimed at grand general effects, here was a young 

 poet who aimed first of all at beauty of detail only, who, re- 

 cognising that poetry was truly an art, was content first to 

 apprentice himself in order to master the technical detail of 

 his craft, and who, as Stedman says, " wrecked himself upon 

 expression for the expression's sake." 



It is in the volume published in his twenty-fourth year that 

 young Tennyson seems first definitely to feel his strength, and 

 I do not think it is altogether by accident that in that little 

 volume the first place is given to " The Lady of Shalott." The 

 Lady of Shalott dare not look upon life, but only upon the 

 shadows of life reflected in her magic mirror ; and now — 



" I am half-sick of shadows," said 

 The Lady of Shalotfc. 



She looks out upon the world as it is, and she dies in con- 

 sequence. So with the young poet. He has hitherto dallied 

 merely with the shadows of life, with dreams and fancies, 

 which, for all their richness and beauty, were still nothing but 

 dreams. He now looks forth upon the world as it is, and in 

 doing so finds not a curse but a blessing. And if, in the same 

 volume, he describes the land of the lotus-eaters where 

 "slumber is more sweet than toil," it is only resolutely to 

 turn his face from it. 



It is not my intention to trace Tennyson's poetic career by 

 the milestones of his successive volumes. The " English 

 Idylls," "The Princess," "In Memoriam " — to my mind his 

 most characteristic work — lead up to his acceptance of the 

 laureateship in 1850. It was then that, at the death of 

 Wordsworth, he received, to use his own words, the 



Laurel, greener from the brows 

 Of him that uttered nothing base. 



Then, after " Maud," comes the commencement of the 

 " Idylls of the King," that wonderful series of pictures which 

 has been in hand in one way or another more than forty years, 

 which began with the end, was continued with the beginning, 

 and finished with the middle. They are like a series of 

 stained-glass windows in some great cathedral, whose design 

 the artist had in mind from the first ; but in his execution he 

 follows no order — he inserts one here and another there — 

 and the people, while admiring the individual windows, are 

 puzzled as to the general design. It is only when transposi- 

 tions have been made, and the last two or three windows 

 added in their proper places, that it is seen that they are not 

 only beautiful individually, but now form an intelligible and 

 connected series, noble in design, admirable in execution. 



