Tennyson's success was emphasized by the remarkable series of reviews that greeted his earliest volumes of poems. The _Poems, chiefly Lyrical_ (1830) were welcomed by Sir John Bowring in the _Westminster Review_, by Leigh Hunt in the _Tatler_, by Arthur Hallam in the _Englishman's Magazine_, and by John Wilson in _Blackwood's Magazine_. The _Poems_ (1833) were reviewed by W.J. Fox in the _Monthly Repository_, and by John Stuart Mill in the _Westminster Review_. This array of names was indeed a tribute to the poet; but the unfavorable review, was, as usual, most significant. The article written by Lockhart for the _Quarterly Rev._, XLIX (81-97), has been characterized as "silly and brutal," but it was neither. Tennyson's fame is secure; we can at least be just to his early reviewer. It is true that the poet winced under the lash and that ten years elapsed before his next volume of collected poems appeared; but Canon Ainger is surely in error when he holds the _Quarterly Review_ mainly responsible for this long silence. The rich measure of praise elsewhere bestowed upon the volume would leave us no alternative but the conclusion that Tennyson was childish enough to maintain his silence for a decade because Lockhart took liberties with his poems instead of joining the chorus of adulation. We know that there were other and stronger reasons for Tennyson's silence and we also know that the effect of Lockhart's article was decidedly salutary. When the next collection of _Poems_ (1842) did appear, the shorter pieces ridiculed by Lockhart were omitted, and the derided passages in the longer poems were altered.
We may, without conscientious scruples, take Mr. Andrew Lang's advice, and enjoy a laugh over Lockhart's performance. Its mock appreciations are, perhaps, far-fetched at times; but there are enough effective passages to give zest to the article. It has been said in all seriousness that Lockhart failed to appreciate the beauty of most of Tennyson's lines, and that he confined his remarks to the most assailable passages. Surely, when a critic undertakes to write a mock-appreciation, he will not quote the best verses, to the detriment of his plan. The poet must see to it that his volume does not contain enough absurdities to form a sufficient basis for such an article. There is a striking contrast to the humor of Lockhart in the little-known review of the same volume by the _Literary Gazette_, 1833, pp.
(772-774). The latter seized upon some crudities that had escaped the _Quarterly's_ notice, and, with characteristic brutality, decided that the poet was insane and needed a low diet and a cell.
Although the reception accorded to _Poems_ (1842) was generally favorable, the publication of _The Princess_ in 1847 afforded the critics another opportunity to lament Tennyson's inequalities. The spirit of the review of _The Princess_ here reprinted from the _Literary Gazette_ of August 8, 1848, is practically identical with that of the _Athenaeum_ on January 6, 1848, but specifies more clearly the critic's objections to the medley. It is noteworthy that Lord Tennyson made extensive changes in subsequent editions of _The Princess_, but left unaltered all of the passages to which the _Literary Gazette_ took exception. The beautiful threnody _In Memoriam_ (1850) and Tennyson's elevation to the laureateship in the same year established his position as the leading poet of the time; but the appearance of _Maud_ in 1856 proved to be a temporary check to his popularity. A few personal friends admired it and praised its fine lyrics; but as a dramatic narrative it failed to please the reviews. The most interesting of the critiques (unfortunately too long to be reprinted here) appeared in _Blackwood's Magazine_, XLI (311-321), of September, 1855,--a forcible, well-written article, which, incidentally, shows how much the magazine had improved in respectability since the days of the lampooners of Byron, Shelley, and Keats. The authorship of the article has not been disclosed, but we know that W.E. Aytoun asked permission of the proprietor to review Tennyson's _Maud_. (See Mrs. Oliphant's _William Blackwood and his Sons_.) The publication of the _Idylls of the King_ (1859), turned the tide more strongly than before in Tennyson's favor, and subsequent fault-finding on the part of the critics was confined largely to his dramas.
153. _Catullus_. See Catullus, II and III--(_Passer, deliciae meae puellae_, and _Lugete, O Veneres Cupidinesque_).
153. ???e ????, ?. t. ?. Usually found in the remains of Alcaeus. Thomas Moore translates it with his _Odes of Anacreon_ (LXXVII), beginning "Would that I were a tuneful lyre," etc. Lockhart proceeds to ridicule Tennyson for wishing to be a river, which is not what the quoted lines state. Nor does Tennyson "ambition a bolder metamorphosis" than his predecessors. Anacreon (Ode XXII) wishes to be a stream, as well as a mirror, a robe, a pair of sandals and sundry other articles. See Moore's interesting note.
155. _Non omnis moriar_. Horace, _Odes_, III, 30, 6.
156. _Tongues in trees_, etc. Shakespeare's _As You Like It_, II, 1, 17.
157. _Aristaeus_. A minor Grecian divinity, worshipped as the first to introduce the culture of bees.
164. _Dionysius Periegetes_. Author of pe?????s?? t?? ???, a description of the earth in hexameters, usually published with the scholia of Eustathius and the Latin paraphrases of Avienus and Priscian. For the account of aethiopia, see also Pausanias, I, 33, 4.
167. _The Rovers_. _The Rovers_ was a parody on the German drama of the day, published in the _Anti-Jacobin_ (1798) and written by Frere, Canning and others. It is reprinted in Charles Edmund's _Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin_. The chorus of conspirators is at the end of Act IV.
169. _The Groves of Blarney_. An old Irish song. A version may be seen in the _Antiquary_, I, p. 199. The quotation by Lockhart differs somewhat from the corresponding stanza of the cited version.
170. _Corporal Trim_. In Sterne's _Tristram Shandy_.
173. _Christopher North_. John Wilson, of _Blackwood's Magazine_.
ROBERT BROWNING
The reviews of Browning's poems are singularly uninteresting from a historical standpoint. There is usually a protest against the obscurity of the poetry and a plea that the author should make better use of his manifest genius. For details concerning these reviews, see the bibliography of Browning in Nicoll and Wise's _Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century_. The list there given is extensive, but does not include several of the reviews mentioned below.
The early poems were so abstruse that the critics were unable to make sport of them as they did in the case of Wordsworth, Byron, Tennyson, and the rest; and when Browning finally deigned to write within range of the average human intellect, that particular style of reviewing had lost favor. His earliest publication, _Pauline_ (1832) was well received by W.J. Fox in _Monthly Repository_, and in the _Athenaeum_. _Tait's Edinburgh Magazine_ called it a "piece of pure bewilderment." See also the brief notice in the _Literary Gazette_, 1833, p. 183. _Paracelsus_ (1835) had a similar experience; the reprint from the _Athenaeum_, 1835, p. 640, is fairly characteristic of the rest, among which are the articles in the _Monthly Repository_, 1835, p. 716; the _Christian Remembrancer_, XX, p. 346, and the reviews written by John Forster for the _Examiner_, 1835, p. 563, and the _New Monthly Magazine_, XLVI (289-308).
Neither the favorable review of _Sordello_ (1840) in the _Monthly Rev._, 1840, II, p. 149, nor the partly appreciative article in the _Athenaeum_, 1840, p. 431, seems to warrant the well-known anecdotes relating the difficulties of Douglas Jerrold and Tennyson in attempting to understand that poem. The _Athenaeum_ gave the poet sound advice, especially in regard to the intentional obscurity of his meaning. That this admonition was futile may be gathered from the _Saturday Review's_ article (I, p.
69) on _Men and Women_ (1855) published fifteen years after _Sordello_.
The critic reverted to the earlier style, and produced one of the most readable reviews of Browning. Whatever may be the final verdict yet to be passed upon Browning's poetic achievement, the fact remains that the contemporary reviews from first to last deplored in his work a deliberate obscurity which was wholly unwarranted and which precluded the universal appeal that is essential to a poet's greatness.
189. _Della Crusca of Sentimentalism_. Robert Merry (1755-1798) under the name Della Crusca became the leader of a set of poetasters who flourished during the poetic dearth at the end of the eighteenth century and poured forth their rubbish until William Gifford exposed their follies in his satires _The Baviad_ (1794) and _The Maeviad_ (1795).
189. _Alexander Smith_. A Scotch poet (1830-1867).
189. _Mystic of Bailey_. Philip James Bailey (1816-1902), best known as the author of _Festus_, published _The Mystic_ in 1855.
192. _Hudibras Butler, etc._ Samuel Butler, author of _Hudibras_ (1663-78); Richard H. Barham, author of the _Ingoldsby Legends_ (1840); and Thomas Hood, author of _Whims and Oddities_ (1826-27). These poets are cited by the reviewer for their skill with unusual metres and difficult rhymes.