Famous Reviews by Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

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Sir Walter Elliot, a silly and conceited baronet, has three daughters,
the eldest two, unmarried, and the third, Mary, the wife of a
neighbouring gentleman, Mr. Charles Musgrove, heir to a considerable
fortune, and living in a genteel cottage in the neighbourhood of the
Great house which he is hereafter to inherit. The second daughter, Anne,
who is the heroine, and the only one of the family possessed of good
sense (a quality which Miss Austin is as sparing of in her novels, as we
fear her great mistress, Nature, has been in real life), when on a visit
to her sister, is, by that sort of instinct which generally points out
to all parties the person on whose judgment and temper they may rely,
appealed to in all the little family differences which arise, and which
are described with infinite spirit and detail.

* * * * *

We ventured, in a former article, to remonstrate against the
dethronement of the once powerful God of Love, in his own most especial
domain, the novel; and to suggest that, in shunning the ordinary fault
of recommending by examples a romantic and uncalculating extravagance of
passion, Miss Austin had rather fallen into the opposite extreme of
exclusively patronizing what are called prudent matches, and too much
disparaging sentimental enthusiasm. We urged, that, mischievous as is
the extreme on this side, it is not the one into which the young folks
of the present day are the most likely to run: the prevailing fault is
not now, whatever it may have been, to sacrifice all for love:

Venit enim magnum donandi parca juventus,
Nec tantum Veneris quantum studiosa culinae.

We may now, without retracting our opinion, bestow unqualified
approbation; for the distresses of the present heroine all arise from
her prudent refusal to listen to the suggestions of her heart. The
catastrophe, however, is happy, and we are left in doubt whether it
would have been better for her or not, to accept the first proposal; and
this we conceive is precisely the proper medium; for, though we would
not have prudential calculations the sole principle to be regarded in
marriage, we are far from advocating their exclusion. To disregard the
advice of sober-minded friends on an important point of conduct, is an
imprudence we would by no means recommend; indeed, it is a species of
selfishness, if, in listening only to the dictates of passion, a man
sacrifices to its gratification the happiness of those most dear to him
as well as his own; though it is not now-a-days the most prevalent form
of selfishness. But it is no condemnation of a sentiment to say, that it
becomes blameable when it interferes with duty, and is uncontrolled by
conscience: the desire of riches, power, or distinction--the taste for
ease and comfort--are to be condemned when they transgress these bounds;
and love, if it keep within them, even though it be somewhat tinged with
enthusiasm, and a little at variance with what the worldly call
prudence, _i.e._, regard for pecuniary advantage, may afford a better
moral discipline to the mind than most other passions. It will not at
least be denied, that it has often proved a powerful stimulus to
exertion where others have failed, and has called forth talents unknown
before even to the possessor. What, though the pursuit may be fruitless,
and the hopes visionary? The result may be a real and substantial
benefit, though of another kind; the vineyard may have been cultivated
by digging in it for the treasure which is never to be found. What
though the perfections with which imagination has decorated the beloved
object, may, in fact, exist but in a slender degree? still they are
believed in and admired as real; if not, the love is such as does not
merit the name; and it is proverbially true that men become assimilated
to the character (_i.e._, what they _think_ the character) of the being
they fervently adore: thus, as in the noblest exhibitions of the stage,
though that which is contemplated be but a fiction, it may be realized
in the mind of the beholder; and, though grasping at a cloud, he may
become worthy of possessing a real goddess. Many a generous sentiment,
and many a virtuous resolution, have been called forth and matured by
admiration of one, who may herself perhaps have been incapable of
either. It matters not what the object is that a man aspires to be
worthy of, and proposes as a model for imitation, if he does but
_believe_ it to be excellent. Moreover, all doubts of success (and they
are seldom, if ever, entirely wanting) must either produce or exercise
humility; and the endeavour to study another's interests and
inclinations, and prefer them to one's own, may promote a habit of
general benevolence which may outlast the present occasion. Every thing,
in short, which tends to abstract a man in any degree, or in any way,
from self,--from self-admiration and self-interest, has, so far at
least, a beneficial influence in forming the character.

On the whole, Miss Austin's works may safely be recommended, not only as
among the most unexceptionable of their class, but as combining, in an
eminent degree, instruction with amusement, though without the direct
effort at the former, of which we have complained, as sometimes
defeating its object. For those who cannot, or will not, _learn_
anything from productions of this kind, she has provided entertainment
which entitles her to thanks; for mere innocent amusement is in itself a
good, when it interferes with no greater: especially as it may occupy
the place of some other that may _not_ be innocent. The Eastern monarch
who proclaimed a reward to him who should discover a new pleasure, would
have deserved well of mankind had he stipulated that it should be
blameless. Those, again, who delight in the study of human nature, may
improve in the knowledge of it, and in the profitable application of
that knowledge, by the perusal of such fictions as those before us.

W. E. GLADSTONE ON TENNYSON

[From _The Quarterly Review_, October, 1859]

1. _Tennyson's Poems_. In Two Volumes. London, 1842.
2. _The Princess: a Medley_. London, 1847.
3. _In Memoriam_. London, 1850.
4. _Maud, and other Poems_. London, 1855.
5. _Idylls of the King_. London, 1859.

Mr. Tennyson published his first volume, under the title of "Poems
Chiefly Lyrical," in 1830, and his second, with the name simply of
"Poems," in 1833. In 1842 he reappeared before the world in two volumes,
partly made up from the _debris_ of his earlier pieces; and from this
time forward he came into the enjoyment of a popularity at once great,
growing, and select. With a manly resolution, which gave promise of the
rare excellence he was progressively to attain, he had at this time
amputated altogether from the collection about one-half of the contents
of his earliest work, with some considerable portion of the second; he
had almost rewritten or carefully corrected other important pieces, and
had added a volume of new compositions.

The latter handiwork showed a great advance upon the earlier; as,
indeed, 1833 had shown upon 1830. From the very first, however, he had
been noteworthy in performance as well as in promise, and it was plain
that, whatever else might happen, at least neglect was not to be his
lot. But, in the natural heat of youth he had at the outset certainly
mixed up some trivial with a greater number of worthy productions, and
had shown an impatience of criticism by which, however excusable, he was
sure to be himself the chief sufferer. His higher gifts, too, were of
the quality which, by the changeless law of nature, cannot ripen fast;
and there was, accordingly, some portion both of obscurity and of
crudity in the results of his youthful labours. Men of slighter
materials would have come more quickly to their maturity, and might have
given less occasion not only for cavil but for animadversion. It was yet
more creditable to him, than it could be even to the just among his
critics, that he should, and while yet young, have applied himself with
so resolute a hand to the work of castigation. He thus gave a remarkable
proof alike of his reverence for his art, of his insight into its
powers, of the superiority he had acquired to all the more commonplace
illusions of self-love, and perhaps of his presaging consciousness that
the great, if they mean to fulfil the measure of their greatness, should
always be fastidious against themselves.

It would be superfluous to enter upon any general criticism of this
collection, which was examined when still recent in this Review, and a
large portion of which is established in the familiar recollection and
favour of the public. We may, however, say that what may be termed at
large the classical idea (though it is not that of Troas nor of the
Homeric period) has, perhaps, never been grasped with greater force and
justice than in "Oenone," nor exhibited in a form of more consummate
polish. "Ulysses" is likewise a highly finished poem; but it is open to
the remark that it exhibits (so to speak) a corner-view of a character
which was in itself a _cosmos_. Never has political philosophy been
wedded to the poetic form more happily than in the three short pieces on
England and her institutions, unhappily without title, and only to be
cited, like writs of law and papal bulls, by their first words. Even
among the rejected pieces there are specimens of a deep metaphysical
insight; and this power reappears with an increasing growth of ethical
and social wisdom in "Locksley Hall" and elsewhere. The Wordsworthian
poem of "Dora" is admirable in its kind. From the firmness of its
drawing, and the depth and singular purity of its colour, "Godiva"
stood, if we judge aright, as at once a great performance and a great
pledge. But, above all, the fragmentary piece on the Death of Arthur was
a fit prelude to that lordly music which is now sounding in our ears. If
we pass onward from these volumes, it is only because space forbids a
further enumeration.

The "Princess" was published in 1847. The author has termed it "a
medley": why, we know not. It approaches more nearly to the character of
a regular drama, with the stage directions written into verse, than any
other of his works, and it is composed consecutively throughout on the
basis of one idea. It exhibits an effort to amalgamate the place and
function of woman with that of man, and the failure of that effort,
which duly winds up with the surrender and marriage of the fairest and
chief enthusiast. It may be doubted whether the idea is one well suited
to exhibition in a quasi-dramatic form. Certainly the mode of embodying
it, so far as it is dramatic, is not successful; for here again the
persons are little better than mere _personae_. They are _media_, and
weak _media_, for the conveyance of the ideas. The poem is,
nevertheless, one of high interest, on account of the force, purity and
nobleness of the main streams of thought, which are clothed in language
full of all Mr. Tennyson's excellences; and also because it marks the
earliest effort of his mind in the direction of his latest and greatest
achievements.

* * * * *

With passages like these still upon the mind and ear, and likewise
having in view many others in the "Princess" and elsewhere, we may
confidently assert it as one of Mr. Tennyson's brightest distinctions
that he is now what from the very first he strove to be, and what when
he wrote "Godiva" he gave ample promise of becoming--the poet of woman.
We do not mean, nor do we know, that his hold over women as his readers
is greater than his command or influence over men; but that he has
studied, sounded, painted woman in form, in motion, in character, in
office, in capability, with rare devotion, power, and skill; and the
poet who best achieves this end does also most and best for man.

In 1850 Mr. Tennyson gave to the world, under the title of "In
Memoriam," perhaps the richest oblation ever offered by the affection of
friendship at the tomb of the departed. The memory of Arthur Henry
Hallam, who died suddenly in 1833, at the age of twenty-two, will
doubtless live chiefly in connection with this volume; but he is well
known to have been one who, if the term of his days had been prolonged,
would have needed no aid from a friendly hand, would have built for
himself an enduring monument, and would have bequeathed to his country a
name in all likelihood greater than that of his very distinguished
father. There was no one among those who were blessed with his
friendship, nay, as we see, not even Mr. Tennyson,[1] who did not feel
at once bound closely to him by commanding affection, and left far
behind by the rapid, full, and rich development of his ever-searching
mind; by his

All comprehensive tenderness,
All subtilising intellect.

[1] See "In Memoriam," pp. 64, 84.

It would be easy to show what, in the varied forms of human excellence,
he might, had life been granted him, have accomplished; much more
difficult to point the finger and to say, "This he never could have
done." Enough remains from among his early efforts to accredit whatever
mournful witness may now be borne of him. But what can be a nobler
tribute than this, that for seventeen years after his death a poet, fast
rising towards the lofty summits of his art, found that young fading
image the richest source of his inspiration, and of thoughts that gave
him buoyancy for a flight such as he had not hitherto attained?

It would be very difficult to convey a just idea of this volume either
by narrative or by quotation. In the series of monodies or meditations
which compose it, and which follow in long series without weariness or
sameness, the poet never moves away a step from the grave of his friend,
but, while circling round it, has always a new point of view. Strength
of love, depth of grief, aching sense of loss, have driven him forth as
it were on a quest of consolation, and he asks it of nature, thought,
religion, in a hundred forms which a rich and varied imagination
continually suggests, but all of them connected by one central point,
the recollection of the dead. This work he prosecutes, not in vain
effeminate complaint, but in a manly recognition of the fruit and profit
even of baffled love, in noble suggestions of the future, in
heart-soothing and heart-chastening thoughts of what the dead was and of
what he is, and of what one who has been, and therefore still is, in
near contact with him is bound to be. The whole movement of the poem is
between the mourner and the mourned: it may be called one long
soliloquy; but it has this mark of greatness, that, though the singer is
himself a large part of the subject, it never degenerates into egotism--
for he speaks typically on behalf of humanity at large, and in his own
name, like Dante on his mystic journey, teaches deep lessons of life and
conscience to us all.

* * * * *

By the time "In Memoriam" had sunk into the public mind, Mr. Tennyson
had taken his rank as our first then living poet. Over the fresh hearts
and understandings of the young, notwithstanding his obscurities, his
metaphysics, his contempt of gewgaws, he had established an
extraordinary sway. We ourselves, with some thousands of other
spectators, saw him receive in that noble structure of Wren, the theatre
of Oxford, the decoration of D.C.L., which we perceive he always wears
on his title-page. Among his colleagues in the honour were Sir De Lacy
Evans and Sir John Burgoyne, fresh from the stirring exploits of the
Crimea; but even patriotism, at the fever heat of war, could not command
a more fervent enthusiasm for the old and gallant warriors than was
evoked by the presence of Mr. Tennyson.

In the year 1855 Mr. Tennyson proceeded to publish his "Maud," the least
popular, and probably the least worthy of popularity, among his more
considerable works. A somewhat heavy dreaminess, and a great deal of
obscurity, hang about this poem; and the effort required to dispel the
darkness of the general scheme is not repaid when we discover what it
hides. The main thread of "Maud" seems to be this:--A love once
accepted, then disappointed, leads to blood-shedding, and onward to
madness with lucid alternations. The insanity expresses itself in the
ravings of the homicide lover, who even imagines himself among the dead,
in a clamour and confusion closely resembling an ill-regulated Bedlam,
but which, if the description be a faithful one, would for ever deprive
the grave of its title to the epithet of silent. It may be good frenzy,
but we doubt its being as good poetry. Of all this there may, we admit,
be an esoteric view: but we speak of the work as it offers itself to the
common eye. Both Maud and the lover are too nebulous by far; and they
remind us of the boneless and pulpy personages by whom, as Dr. Whewell
assures us, the planet Jupiter is inhabited, if inhabited at all. But
the most doubtful part of the poem is its climax. A vision of the
beloved image (p. 97) "spoke of a hope for the world in the coming
wars," righteous wars, of course, and the madman begins to receive light
and comfort; but, strangely enough, it seems to be the wars, and not the
image, in which the source of consolation lies (p. 98).

No more shall Commerce be all in all, and Peace
Pipe on her pastoral hillock a languid note,
And watch her harvest ripen, her herd increase.
... a peace that was full of wrongs and shames,
Horrible, hateful, monstrous, not to be told ...
For the long long canker of peace is over and done:
And now by the side of the Black and the Baltic deep,
And deathful grinning mouths of the fortress, names
The blood-red blossom of war with a heart of fire!

What interpretation are we meant to give to all this sound and fury? We
would fain have put it down as intended to be the finishing-stroke in
the picture of a mania which has reached its zenith. We might call in
aid of this construction more happy and refreshing passages from other
poems, as when Mr. Tennyson is

Certain, if knowledge brings the sword,
That knowledge takes the sword away.[1]

[1] "Poems," p. 182, ed. 1853. See also "Locksley Hall," p. 278.

And again in "The Golden Dream,"--

When shall all men's good
Be each man's rule, and universal peace
Lie like a shaft of light across the land?

And yet once more in a noble piece of "In Memoriam,"--

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

But on the other hand we must recollect that very long ago, when the
apparition of invasion from across the Channel had as yet spoiled no
man's slumbers, Mr. Tennyson's blood was already up:[2]--

For the French, the Pope may shrive them ...
And the merry devil drive them
Through the water and the fire.

[2] "Poems chiefly Lyrical," 1830, p. 142.

And unhappily in the beginning of "Maud," when still in the best use of
such wits as he possesses, its hero deals largely in kindred
extravagances (p. 7):--

When a Mammonite mother kills her babe for a burial fee,
And Timour-Mammon grins on a pile of children's bones,
Is it peace or war? better war! loud war by land and by sea,
War with a thousand battles, and shaking a hundred thrones.

He then anticipates that, upon an enemy's attacking this country, "the
smooth-faced, snub-nosed rogue," who typifies the bulk of the British
people, "the nation of shopkeepers," as it has been emasculated and
corrupted by excess of peace, will leap from his counter and till to
charge the enemy; and thus it is to be reasonably hoped that we shall
attain to the effectual renovation of society.

We frankly own that our divining rod does not enable us to say whether
the poet intends to be in any and what degree sponsor to these
sentiments, or whether he has put them forth in the exercise of his
undoubted right to make vivid and suggestive representations of even the
partial and narrow aspects of some endangered truth. This is at best,
indeed, a perilous business, for out of such fervid partial
representations nearly all grave human error springs; and it should only
be pursued with caution and in season. But we do not recollect that 1855
was a season of serious danger from a mania for peace and its pursuits;
and even if it had been so, we fear that the passages we have quoted far
overpass all the bounds of moderation and good sense. It is, indeed,
true that peace has its moral perils and temptations for degenerate man,
as has every other blessing, without exception, that he can receive from
the hand of God. It is moreover not less true that, amidst the clash of
arms, the noblest forms of character may be reared, and the highest acts
of duty done; that these great and precious results may be due to war as
their cause; and that one high form of sentiment in particular, the love
of country, receives a powerful and general stimulus from the bloody
strife. But this is as the furious cruelty of Pharaoh made place for the
benign virtue of his daughter; as the butchering sentence of Herod
raised without doubt many a mother's love into heroic sublimity; as
plague, as famine, as fire, as flood, as every curse and every scourge
that is wielded by an angry Providence for the chastisement of man, is
an appointed instrument for tempering human souls in the seven-times
heated furnace of affliction, up to the standard of angelic and
archangelic virtue. War, indeed, has the property of exciting much
generous and noble feeling on a large scale; but with this special
recommendation it has, in its modern forms especially, peculiar and
unequalled evils. As it has a wider sweep of desolating power than the
rest, so it has the peculiar quality that it is more susceptible of
being decked in gaudy trappings, and of fascinating the imagination of
those whose passions it inflames. But it is on this very account a
perilous delusion to teach that war is a cure for moral evil in any
other sense than as the sister tribulations are. The eulogies of the
frantic hero in "Maud," however, deviate into grosser folly. It is
natural that such vagaries should overlook the fixed laws of Providence;
and under these laws the mass of mankind is composed of men, women, and
children who can but just ward off hunger, cold, and nakedness; whose
whole ideas of Mammon-worship are comprised in the search for their
daily food, clothing, shelter, fuel; whom any casualty reduces to
positive want; and whose already low estimate is yet further lowered and
ground down when "the blood-red blossom of war flames with its heart of
fire." But what is a little strange is, that war should be recommended
as a specific for the particular evil of Mammon-worship. Such it never
was, even in the days when the Greek heroes longed for the booty of
Troy, and anticipated lying by the wives of its princes and its
citizens. Still it had, in times now gone by, ennobling elements and
tendencies of the less sordid kind. But one inevitable characteristic of
modern war is, that it is associated throughout, in all its particulars,
with a vast and most irregular formation of commercial enterprise. There
is no incentive to Mammon-worship so remarkable as that which it
affords. The political economy of war is now one of its most commanding
aspects. Every farthing, with the smallest exceptions conceivable, of
the scores or hundreds of millions which a war may cost, goes directly
to stimulate production, though it is intended ultimately for waste or
for destruction. Apart from the fact that war destroys every rule of
public thrift, and saps honesty itself in the use of the public treasure
for which it makes such unbounded calls, it therefore is the greatest
feeder of that lust of gold which we are told is the essence of
commerce, though we had hoped it was only its occasional besetting sin.
It is, however, more than this; for the regular commerce of peace is
tameness itself compared with the gambling spirit which war, through the
rapid shiftings and high prices which it brings, always introduces into
trade. In its moral operation it more resembles, perhaps, the finding of
a new gold-field, than anything else. Meantime, as the most wicked
mothers do not kill their offspring from a taste for the practice in the
abstract, but under the pressure of want, and as war always brings home
want to a larger circle of the people than feel it in peace, we ask the
hero of "Maud" to let us know whether war is more likely to reduce or to
multiply the horrors which he denounces? Will more babies be poisoned
amidst comparative ease and plenty, or when, as before the fall of
Napoleon, provisions were twice as dear as they now are, and wages not
much more than half as high? Romans and Carthaginians were pretty much
given to war: but no nations were more sedulous in the cult of Mammon.
Again, the Scriptures are pretty strong against Mammon-worship, but they
do not recommend this original and peculiar cure. Nay, once more: what
sad errors must have crept into the text of the prophet Isaiah when he
is made to desire that our swords shall be converted into ploughshares,
and our spears into pruning-hooks! But we have this solid consolation
after all, that Mr. Tennyson's war poetry is not comparable to his
poetry of peace. Indeed he is not here successful at all: the work, of a
lower order than his, demands the abrupt force and the lyric fire which
do not seem to be among his varied and brilliant gifts. We say more. Mr.
Tennyson is too intimately and essentially the poet of the nineteenth
century to separate himself from its leading characteristics, the
progress of physical science and a vast commercial, mechanical, and
industrial development. Whatever he may say or do in an occasional fit,
he cannot long either cross or lose its sympathies; for while he
elevates as well as adorns it, he is flesh of its flesh and bone of its
bone. We fondly believe it is his business to do much towards the
solution of that problem, so fearful from its magnitude, how to
harmonise this new draught of external power and activity with the old
and more mellow wine of faith, self devotion, loyalty, reverence, and
discipline. And all that we have said is aimed, not at Mr. Tennyson, but
at a lay-figure which he has set up, and into the mouth of which he has
put words that cannot be his words.