Cornell University Library The original of tinis bool< is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013559111 WORIWG MAN'S VIEW OP ^mwQBaxiB "€nat\i %xtim." BY j; H. POWELL, AUTHOR OF " LIFE INCIDENTS AND POETIC PIOTUKES.' LONDON : TRtJBNER & CO., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW- 1866. K,\sb'^ic A A REVIEW OF TENNYSON'S "ENOCH ARDEN.' Poetry ! What is the use of Poetry ? Will it transmute, by ■wizard-skill, the earth's treasured ore into Great Easterns, and freight them with merchandise, sending them safely across the Atlantic ? Will it satisfy the demands of an angry stomach, or put one extra brick on the houses which are already amassed into cities ? Will it specify the future price of consols, and regulate the springs of commercial activity ? If Poetry will do any of these things it will have a use. If none, of what use is it ? This is the way in which Poetry is met by many, but only by those whose souls worship the world's golden, calves. To the extremely worldly minded man, whose nature sinks in materialism, we would say ; — Something more than . (rreat Easterns, food for the stomach, houses and consols, is necessary to human life. It is true youvnay not tliiok so ; but recollect that you yourself do not constitute all life's re- quirements. How, then, can you reasonably suppose that ..(Poetry has no uses if it do not perform the work of a steam- engine or a banker ? You have a mission, doubtless ; so has Poetry. Which has the greater mission of the two is a question worthy consideration. The world's material progress is but the manifestation of spiritual law. Poetry is a spiritual agent ; it reigns in the soul's inner temples. Poetry can no more be exiled from the human breast than the sun, flowers, birds, and all that adorn ereation can be exiled from the universe.. It is become proverbial that Poetry and Poverty go through the world hand-in-hand. But this is not wholly true. Poetry, in rare instances, has been closely allied even with the Stock Exchange, and has actually been the creator of bouses and ships as weU. as divine imagery. Rogers, Moore, Scott, and Tennyson may be enumerated among the few Poets ■whom the world, from its own plat- form of consols and per cents, has learned to honour. When publishers can afford to pay a guinea a line for Poetry, as m the case of Moore's "LallaEookh," and Tennyson's " Tythonus." It is enough to make even old Dives rub his hands with satisfaction, although he shall fail to compre- hend a single idea in the Poetry that is so costly. Taking the exceptional cases out of the argument, of course, the proverb which allies Poetry with Poverty holds true, and the matter-of-fact idolater from his point of observation has much to say which the poor Poet might find it difficult satisfactorily to rebut. " Man lives not by bread alone," or bricks, or consols, or Great Easterns. The assumption that these are the sole things necessary to his well-being is, therefore, a false one. We should be blind, indeed, if we failed to see the chain that connects us for a certain period to the car of Commerce. We cannot, as with an Enchanter's wand, strike the earth and behold corn springing up, without seed and labour, ripe and ready for garnering. Everything teaches us that steady uncompromising effort is demanded both in the tilling of the ground, and in the acquiring of Fame. The glebe needs ploughing ; Labour must put on the armour of resolution, or the harvei-t will be a poor one. There is avast distance between the ideal and real. Who does not know what it is to build castles in the air ! Every man has some acquaint- tance with the ideal, and a great deal more with the real (that is, supposing the stern realities of care, and the br < klike forces and facts around us, to be the absolutely real.) Half our lives are passed in dreams, the other half in regrets and pains. Without the dreams a larger margin would be given to the regrets and pains of existence. Let us not, therefore, ignore the ideal, or imagine that what wc (all the real is the all-in-all. Our lives being divided, we must fain forget not to whom we belong, or to what end we aie designed. "We are born to trouble as the sparks fly upward," but other realities beside trouble are in store lor us. The man does not live who has not dreamec^ of happiness, and found sweet delight in the anticipation 5 of it. Here, at one part of our lives we are scrambling for the gold that perisheth, and, at another, pining for higher and holier things. We walk on flints, cutting our feet and groaning with agony, all to win our way to some treasure-house of gold or fame. If we reach it, alas ! it often turns out a lazer-house of woes. We set our fortunes in the balance against destiny, and are destined to experience the fruits of our folly. The seed we sow will spring to fruit if we only are careful that the soil is in good con- dition, and the seed properly sown. We do not gather grapes from thistles, neither do we make banking books of poems ; but we gather thorns from thistles, and fruits from trees aecording to their order. When we seek a knowledge of Euclid we don't ask for Tennyson. In Memorimn wiU. not give us a product of figures which will circumscribe the earth; neither will Cocker supply us with subtile philosophies of the soul, and enter with us into the hereafter of the spirit. Each after its kind — that which is good for the body will not feed the spirit. That which ministers to the mere reasoning part of us will not satisfy the spiritual longings which are as much a part of our being as are our hands and feet. We are called upon to render unto Caesar the things that are Csesar's, and unto Grod the things which belong to God. The great 0»sar, Comtnerce, claims a certain part of our lives, and a great exercise of our energies. We must render them. They are his due. It is madness and wickedness to evade bis just demands. But God has also a claim upon us. He claims our willing obedience to His counsels, and demands a living sacrifice of worldly lusts and evil desires for His sake. Shall we give up ourselves wholly to Caesar and abandon God ? or shall we rather serve God first and Caesar according as it pleases our Heavenly Father ? The com- mon staring facts of existence, if no other faces from the domains of Poesy looked down upon us, would send us mad. The human mind could not possibly dwell monoton- ously on mere stubborn facts. Relaxation comes to it wearing a thousand graces. It is well that it is so, or the consequences would be seen in mental, moral, and physical dwarfishness. The human body is only capable of limited 6 exercise. Its powers, when exercised, soon become ener- vated, and unless relaxation be obtained, disease would soon climax in death. As with the body, even so it is with the mind ; relaxation restores its lost equilibrium, and aids to keep it healthy. If this be so, it follows that those influences which work beneficially in the restoration of bodily and mental vigour are as useful even as the stimuli that enervate them when employed in excess. Take as an illustration some young man who sits at a desk from morn till eve calculating profits and losses, and casting up accounts ; he leaves the ledger and goes home, intent on improving his income, and crowds into the time between tea andjbed, the teaching of arithmetic. He finds a change, it is true, and by-and-bye he marries ; children add to his responsibilities, and he needs to toil with re- doubled vigour. A few years pass on — consumption makes him her prey, and he lies in a premature grave. Apart from the stimulus of hope and the ambition to rise in the social scale, there were no high incentives to effort. He died young, and was he not sent to his account prema- turely? He had the seeds of consumption within, him, and the chances were unfavourable to lengthened life — ybt, had he paid proper attention to the yearnings of his soul, and occasionally spent a few days with the flowers and birds in the country — had he, in fact, dreamed more and toiled less, he would, in all probability, have lived longer. Many thousands dream too little ; in other words, neglect the spiritual for the material, which has no right to all their hearts. Taking, therefore, no more exalted view than the mere material view, Poetry can be proved to be of use, and a very good use, in presenting images to the mind which often charm away madness, disease, and death. "Whatsoever is is right" qualifiedly, may be compre- hended. In a sense this axiom of Pope may be taken to mean that God has made nothing without a purpose which we may be too blind to find out, but which, nevertheless, works in the progress of things. The moral evils, resulting from the abuse of good gifts do not come under the category of "Whatsoever is" in the sense, I suppose to be impliedL ."Whether I am right or not in this, I feel it my duty to exercise legitimately all my physical, inental, and spiritual gifts ; if I do so, I shall neither ignore material nor spiritual good, but wisely use both, since both have their uses. Poetry is the guest of the human bosom, and wherever man is, his heart being with him. Poetry should be wel- come. But it is quite another thing, giving a welcome to the poetic guest, to allow it to absorb the attention to the disharmony of all secular duties. Many thousands dream too little, and become so much absorbed in practical things that their hearts get hard as icebergs, which the heat of Love alone can soften. People of this class grow up 'with soulless bodies. Ljok at them, fearing to praise even the sun, that beautiful natural Poet who sends down his rays of light to translate earth with its beauty and music into a Paradise, because their souls are prostrate at the feet of Mammon, and they have learned to love their idol with all their affections ! What is the god of day to them ! Time cannot be spared from their musty ledgers and golden schemes to shake off the dust of business for an hour or two's luxury with the bright Poet of the universe. Alas ! for the victims of matter-of-fact philosophies when the heart beats only in unison with the ringing changes of gold ! It is impossible to separate Poetry from man without robbing him of half his existence, and making him an enemy to religion and humanity . Poetry is the natural nectar of the spirit. It is the sweet elixir of Love; the herald of Peace, and the angel tuat strews Life's pathspays with heavenly flowers. What sei-mon ever struck conviction to the heart of a sinner which had no touching poetic pathos ? What orator ever played successfully upon the chords of enthusiasm and patriotism whose words flashed not with poetic fire? Take the Bible; what book contains passages full of such sublime poems, in single Unos, as that does ? Religion is not only a Preacher ; she is a Poet. We cannot separate the history or life of the people from Poetry. . It has ever wreathed the crown that adorns thio brow of humanity, and ever must do so, or humanity must 8 degenerate into automata. Th.e oldest books we possesB prove that we originate little in sublimity of language that can compare with the old Hebrew Poets. Homer, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton — all sing to us through the dim haze of centuries ; we catch echoes of their songs, and re-set them to new measures. But if we lack originality of con- ception we retain an undying passion for the muse. Hence, when a new Poet arises, he is the subject of deep interest ; : and he must be a lucky being indeed if the critic's toma- hawk does not fall heavily upon his heart. No man can maintain a fame as a Poet who has not something sterling in the way of poetic ore. By a lucky accident, he may ; take the public by storm with something sensational, and, for the nonce, find himself to his surprise dubbed a " Great Poet;" but if the coin be spurious, it will be sure, sooner or later, of being taken at its real value. "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever." Present the genuine " thing of beauty ;" the world may not appreciateit with eagerness, but its appreciation will strengthen with time, and the immortal assert its claim. The flower may be crushed until its beauty is shorn, but those who think the flower is annihilated may leai-n that the foot which trod on it crushed out its perfume to the breeze, and who shall say whither it was borne ? In like manner, genius may be trampled on, but the process will be sure to crush out some beauties which will be borne away to become joys for ever. Alfred Tennyson has fought his way into public favour, and I readily yield him honour. He has won bays which sit gracefully enough upon his brow. With all due defer- ence, however, for the opinions of certain leading critics, I think some of his later productions cannot fitly compare with most of his former ones. His last book, "Enoch Arden," has excited the most opposite opinions, some critics pronouncing it his greatest, others his least woJ'k. The book has had a rapid and large sale, the printers not being able to turn copies out quickly enough to satisfy the demand for them. This fact alone ought to silence those who declaim against the public taste, and urge that it sickens at Poetry. I will analyse " Enoch Arden," and, if possible, discover the greatness ascribed to its author. Fri^^entaiy selections can only convey a faint idea of the Poem, yet I shall present some. " Enoch Arden is wrought out of very ordinary mate- rials. There is nothing in the whole Poem which carries the reader out of the boundaries of actual human every- day life. But there is a sweet philosophy running through it which proves Tennyson to be a man of grand human sympathies and ' noble magnanimities. The characters of the poem are life pictures, and life-like they act. The measures run along sweetly and smoothly, and, as we read, a pleasant feeling delights us. But where is the charm which stamps " Enoch Arden " with immortality ? The story is pretty, and well told, and the telling is done quaintly and mellowly ; and one of its best merits is seen in its relation t3 life. The Poet has not soared above the essentially commonplace to mystify us with musical utter- ances about fairies, elves, and such like, which, in their way, are passingly sweet. But here he looks upon human beings, and essays to transfigure their existence. In doing so, he follows in the track of Poets of a minor caste whose heavy dooms set them to sing while they suffer. I am glad the Laureate has chosen themes of this character because, in doing so, he must have sympathized with the heroic children of labour. It is a very difficult task to create Poetry out of want and abide by the con- ditions requisite to a faithful delineation of the hard necessities attending it. The stqix_OjLl'_Enoch Arden" is_soon_iold^. —Eng.ch Arden, Philip Ray, and AnnieTCee, pass their chndhopd togethsf^'ahd, as chiI3ren a.re^ wont, play at marriage. But~ieBt" a" Jealousy "should possess the l)reast of Philip, Alffile says^ she wifi be wife to both. It is a childish idea, pleasing, enough to herself and the boys.^ But in the course of time that idea is wrought into actual fact. When childht^od is merged into womanhood, Annie becomes the wife of Enoch, and happy thfiUghts are with her. Soon children—present themselves as-prototypiBS of the parents. But Enoch, the husband, has a fall, and is for a time unfit for Tabour. Then want is with them. Soon, however, a berth at sea is offered him, and he accepts it. His wife is 10 istricken with the presentiment she will never see him more, and urges his stay. Enoch sets to work and makes of his house a shop for the sale of stores. He starts, carrying with him a portion of his habe's hair, and bids Annie take the telescope and view him on the ship as it sails past. His wife obeys, gazing after him until the vessel is lost to the view. Annie finds her business qualifications not the best ; she cannot tell lies and cheat, and so her struggles grow great. Time rolls on and no news of Enoch. Philip, the MiUer, visits Annie, and proffers to educate her children. She is grateful. Philip rejoices and serves her all he can, sending by the children small presents of flour, &c. Ten years roll by, and yet no news of Enoch. 1 hilip believing he must be dead, offers Annie himself. She, however, lingering for Enoch 's return, says, if Philip will wait one year longer, and nothing is heard of Arden, she will become his wife. Philip waits — a year is gone — still no news, of Enoch. Still delating in the faint hope that her hus- band may yet return, she solicits a month, and Philip trem- blingly assents. The month passes ; still no news of Arden, Then Philip is accepted. But Enoch Arden is not dead. He has been buffeted about on the billows, dreaming of happiness and winning reward ; and when he believed him- self approaching the close of his long voyage, his heart yearning for his wife and children, he was tossed like another Crusoe on a desolate island. But in the midst of his desolation, a way is open for his deliverance, and he sails back to the port from whence he set sail. His first care is to learn news about Annie and her children. With this view h 3 enters a public-house, the resort of sailors, kept by Miriam Lane. The sailor is so weather-beaten and changed, that Miriam does not recognise him. But she unfolds the past to him, and the sad man learns that his wife is another's. He does not express what he feels, but decides on looking once more on Annie. He forces his feet along until he reaches Philip's house. He looks on Annie and her babe, but not his, and he sees his own cJiildren grown tall. The wifeless husband lifts the latch of the garden gate, and weighed down by grief, falls upon his knees and prays, whilst his hands clutch the sod. He 11 then resolves to return to Miriam Lane, and tell her who lie is. Miriam listens to him, but scarcely believes that he can be Eaoch Arden, because she recollects that Enoch was taller than he appears. But he replies that God and grief have made him bend, and after listening to Miriam's earnest entreaties that she may be permitted to fetch his children, and refusing to allow her, he hands her the portion of his babe's hair, saying he wiU soon see it (the babe having died in his absence) and prophecies his own death witliin three days. These are the principal materials of the poem. There is pathos, sweet music, and a chaste philosophy ; but no great creative art displayed. But the poem is to be loved, nevertheless. Such are the very themes to set to music. Why should not our great Poets illumine them with the radiance of genius ? I look upon Tennyson as a brilliant star, from which hosts of lesser stars borrow lustre. But he is not a moon in the hemisphere of mind. His thoughts always sparkle, but rarely consume. His music belongs to him, but his ideas belong to his age. He knows how to feel the pulse of the nation, and, like a poetic wizard, makes diamonds leap from dross. He is purely and essentially a lyrical artist. He always excels in beautiful, but rarely in sublime things. The epical or Miltonic compass is out of his reach. When he sings, there flows a divinity in the music which sets the pulses leaping and the heart keeping time. Tennyson observes before he sings; and always sings sweetly. One could wish the imagery he lavishes on long poems were like jewels set in smaller caskets. His descrip- tive power is very apparent ; he rarely loses the idea in the redundancy of description. Take his sketch of Enoch Arden on the desolate coast, and mark the stateHness of the rythm — The mountain wooded to the peak, the lawns And winding glades high up like ways to heaven. The slender coco's drooping crown of plumes. The lightning Hash of insect and of bird. The lustre of the long convolvuluses That coil'd around the stately stems, and ran 12 Ev'n to the limit of the land, the glows And glories of the broad belt of the world. All these he saw ; but what he fain had seen He uould not see, the kindly human face. Nor ever hear a kindly voice, but heard Themvriad shriek of wheeling ocean-fowl, The league- long roller thundering on the reef. And moving whisper of huge trees that branoh'd And blossom'd in the zenith, or the sweep Of some precipitous rivulet to the wave. As down the shore he ranged, or all day long Sat often in the seaward-gazing gorge, A shipwrc'ck'd sailor, waiting for a sail : No sail from day to day, but every day The sunrise broken into scar'et shafts Among the palms and ferns and jirecipices ; The blaze upon the waters to the east ; The bliize upon his island overhead ; The blaze upon the waters to the west ; Then the great stars that globed themselves in Heaven, 'J'he hoilower-beUowing ocean, and a^ain The scarlet shafts of sunrise — but no sail. All ttis is grand ; but the picture glows anon in grander colours while memory plays on fancy, and large affection smiles through all. There often as he watch'd or seem'd to watch. So still, the golden lizard on him paused, A phantom made of many phantoms moved Before liim haunting him, or he himselt Moved haunting people, things and places, known Far in a darker isle beyond the line ; The babes, their babble, Annie, the small house, The climbing street, the null, the leafy lanes. The peacock-yewtree, and the lonely Hall, The horse he drove, the boat he sold, the chill November dawns and dewy-glooming downs. The gentle shower, the smtll of dying leaves. And the low moan of leaden-colour'd seas. Once likewise, in the ringing of his ears, Tho' faintly, merrily — far and far away — He heard the pealing of his parish bells ; Then, the' he knew not wherefore, started up Shuddering, and when the beauteous, hateful isle Return 'd upon him, had not his poor heart Spoken with That, which being everywhere Lets none who speaks with Him seem all alone, Surely the man had died of solitude. 13 There is nothing in these passages to g^ve the idea of greatness in the accepted sense ; but what delightful pathos pervades them ; what tender touches of a tender theme ! "Who can read them without feeling their pure poetic preciousness ? He heard the pealing of hisi pariah hells ; Then, tho' he knew not wherefore, started up Shuddering— Was this a token of his Annie's second marriage and the knell of his own dead hopes ? On that remote island alone, ■with nothing but hateful beauty before him, closed in by the sea ; why should the recollection of his home and the pealing of his parish bells cause that strong, true heart to shudder ? Bather might he naturally enough have wiped the honest tears from his rough eyes to find the recollection a mockery to him. But he shuddered, and perhaps that shudder was naturally produced "he knew not wherefore," but invisible influences borne on magnetic pinions knew. They were, doubtless, sent to him mysteriously enough to make his instincts speak even when his reason could have no voice. It is pleasing to linger with " Enoch Arden," and to rejoice in its very common places. It is not a great, but it is a good poem, and one we may study with profit. There are lines, it is true, very inferior to those I have quoted, but it would be very unfair to extract them apart from others which are superior. The theme is one which could not well admit of equal poetical excel- lence. The objeqt Tennyson had in view was doubtless to be true to Nature as well as art ; in doing so he has not supplied bricks where he should have supplied mortar ; it is our fault if we ta^ke the mortar for the bricks. The Poet's excellence consists in his simplicity, and I think in " Enoch Arden " he never descends to puerility. The poem " Aylmer's Field" invites us to very difiFerent scenes. It surveys occurrences in 1793. Here and there lines flash like diamonds, astonishing you with their bril- liancy. There is more lustre, and less that clings to the heart, in this poem than in "Enoch Arden." It will not bear comparison with it. " Enoch Arden " throughout is 14 ■simple, the ideas 'beiiig full and prominent. On the contrary; one must read "Aylmer's Meld " to puzzle oneself about what becomes of the heroine. The story is exciting, but it is the old story so often retold of Love crossed by Wealth, and the finale Death. The crea- tive powers have not been called into play, except to make a framework for the picture which was ready to hand. Pew will dispute the taste which accompanies the hand of the frame maker. But whoever claims for him great original inventive genius should prove that the picture, as well as the frame, glowed into life-like beauty at his artistic touch. The materials for the framework must be supplied before the artist can make his frame ; so must the materials for the picture be supplied ere he can produce the picture. Very true. The twenty-six letters of the alphabet are common property, but no two writers use them alike. It is just the difference of the way they are put together that constitutes special differences of style. The materials used by Tennyson for the framework of hia poem are his own because he makes something not exactly after other men's patterns. But if he take the picture which is to grace the frame ready to hand, his merit lies in selection rather than in creation. "Aylmer's Field " pos- sibly cost the Poet more labour than did " Enoch Arden," but evidently both poems, like most of Tennyson's v^orks, are the work of much labour. What a marvellous set of uses have those little twenty-six letters of our language ! They have been borrowed to giro immortal majesty to the muse of the world's master minds. They have been exer- cised to give science and religion to life, and are not only indispensable to wise men and fools, but they are the very essentials of intellectual existence. What unborn Poets that shall yet set humanity singing will need to seek their aid we can but conjecture. But of all living Poets, few can conjure out of them brilliant, beautiful thoughts and characterictic music, equal to Tennyson. Like a modem Cagliostro, he plays fantastic tricks with them which set the people wondering at hia skill. Sir Aylmer Aylmer has a daughter Edith, and determines, Bfi many a wealthy fool has done beforetime, that " He IS that marries lier marries her name." Averill, of the Eectory, visits at the Hall, and so, does Leolin, his brother, who " Eolled his hoop to pleasure Edith." Now, as a very natural occurrence, Edith and Leolin love each other. But no thought or fear of anything of the kind enters the mind of the Baronet. He trusted AveriU and Leolin with his child as thoughtlessly as he would his greyhounds. Presently an Indian kinsman, on her mother's side, show- ered his oriental presents on everyone, but most on Edith. Of course, Leolin hates him. Among tJie presents given to Edith, curiously enough, is a very magnificent dagger, which Edith values so much that she gives it to her J over. Sir Aylmer, passing at the time, overhears what is said. Suspicion takes hold of him, which speedily works him into a rage, stammering — " Scoundrel!" He forbids Leolin to speak, or even write, to his daughter more. Leolin tells his grief to Averill, who sympathises with him, and essays to console him by assuring him that he himself has been jilted. Loolin resolves to make a name, " Chancellor, or what is greatest, would he be." The lovers meet again, exchange vows of faithfulness, and Leolin, full of hope arid sad of heart, goes forth to win a name. And as we task ourselves To learn a language known but smatteringly In phrases here and there at random, toil'd Mastering the lawless science of our law, That codeless myriad of precedent. That wilderness of single instances, 'Ihio' which a few, by wit or fortune led, May beat a pathway out to wealth and fame. But poor Leolin is a sad yet hopeful lover, and his bent is not much inclined to law. His days and months of close unsatisfying study would seem to be cheered only by Edith's letters, and letters in exchange he sends her by a crippled boy, who acts as a go-between. Now fresh disasters affect the lovers ; wealthy suiters are wooed by the parents for Edith, but they all fail to win her consent, for her heart is unal- terably in the keeping of Leolin. Sir Aylmer's plans for wedding Edith, and keeping up the name he prides so much to own, are all thwarted, and he grows more cruel t<9 16 Edith. She must no longer visit Averill, nor yet the houses of rich farmers, or even the poor who had reason to bless her for her many acts of kindness to them. But she wanders often to an old oak tree, a spot to her most sacred. Her father watches, and in an unlucky hour discovers one of Leolin's letters and the crippled messenger. He terrifies the boy, breaks the seal, gets wroth, and carries the letter to his wife, who tears it up as if it were the passion of the lovers she destroyed. Leolin, in one of his clandes- tine visits to the oak, gets shot by the keeper ; then in a hurry the Indian kinsman breaks the heart of Edith with the news of Leolin's death, whom he found dead, with "a letter edged with death," and "the dagger which himself gave Edith." Then the House of Averill, . made melancholy by the House of Aylmer, weeps, and Averill preaches strong denunciations; which cling to the hearts of the people, and more especially to those of Edith's parents. The mother follows her daughter; the father, whose pride in his name has become a sepulchre,, buries his life two years before death, and goes desolate to the grave, and his broad acres speedily get turned into farms. This is the plot. Both " Enoch Arden" and "Aylmer's Field" have a melancholy ending. But there is no similitude of one to the other ; the shadow of one seems to be reflected in the other, but it is only the shadow of melancholy ; the characters differ, the images differ, and the music differs. This is a noteworthy charm about most that Tennyson writes and proves him to be a master of measures, and a measurer of men and things. Perhaps more single lines containing a prettily conceived image or thought m ght be taken from "Aylmer's Eield," than from "Enoch Arden," but it is to my taste by far the least poem of the two. •' Enoch Arden " runs smoothly, like glass, in which its touching pathos is reflected. "Aylmer's Field" flashes and spreads like sudden streams of lightning, dazzling and bewildering the eye. There is more nature than art under- lying the surface of " Enoch Arden ;" there is more art than nature overlying " Aylmer's Field." The two poems repre- sent two principles, which flow out of beauty — the one grace 17 and strength, the other brilliance and fire. But the rich lustre of the latter lasts not so long as the pure living virtues of the former. If there be a cause for murmuring, it is that Tennyson is such a devotee of art that he is apt to sacrifice nature. But he is never so sveet as when he is natural, and never so dreary as when he is the slave of art. To give the reader an idea of " Aylmer's Keld," I -will select a portion of Averill's soul-stirring address on the double death of Edith and Leolin — Gash thyself, priest, and honour thy brute Baal, And to thy worst self sacriiiee thyself, For with thy worst self hast thou clothed thy God. Then came a Lord in no wise like to Baal, The babe shall lead the lion. Surely now The wilderness shall blossom as the rose. Crown thyself, worm, and worship thine own lusts ! — No coarse and blockish god of acreage Stands at thy gate for thee to grovel to — Thy God is far diffused in noble groves And princely halls, and farms, and flowing lawns, And heaps of living gold that daily grow, And title-scrolls and gorgeous heraldries. In such a shape dost thou behold thy God. Thou wilt not gash thy flesh; for him; for thine Fares richly in fine linen, not a hair Ruffled upon the scarfskin, even while The deathless ruler of thy dying house Is wounded to the death that cannot die ; And tho' thou numberest with the followers Of One who cried ' leave all and follow me.' Thee therefore with His light about thy feet. Thee with His message ringing in thine ears, Thee shall thy brother man, the Lord from Heaven, Bom of a village girl, carpenter's son. Wonderful, Prince of Peace, the Mighty God, Count the more base idolator of the two ; Crueller : as not passing thro' the fire Bodies, but souls — thy children's — thro' the smoke. The blight of low desires — darkening thine own To thine own likeness ; or if one of these. Thy better born unhappily from thee, Should, as by miracle, grow straight and fair- Friends, I was bid to speak of such an one By those who most have cause to sorrow for her— • 18 Fairer than Rachel by the palmy well. Fairer than Ruth among the fields of corn, Fair aa the Angel that said ' Hail !' she seem'd, Who entering filled the house with sudden light. For so mine own was brighten'd : where indeed The roof so lowly but that beam of Heaven Dawn'd sometime through the doorway ? whose the b;ibe Too ragged to be fondled on her lap, Warm'd at her bosom 1 The poor child of shame, The common care whom no one cared for, leapt To greet her, wasting his forgotten heart, As with the mother he had never known. In gambols ; for her fresh and innocent eyes Had such a star of morning in their blue, That all neglected places of the field Broke into nature's music when they saw her. Low was her voice, but won mysterious way Thro' the seal'd ear to which a louder one "Was all but silence — free of alms her hand— The hand that robed your cottage- walls with flowers Has often toil'd to clothe your little ones ; How often placed upon the sick man's brow Cool'd it, or laid his feverous pillow smooth I Had you one sorrow and she shared it not ? One burthen and she would not lighten it? One spiritual doubt she did not soothe ? Or when some heat of difference sparkled out. How sweetly would she glide between your wraths, And steal you from each other ! for she walk'd Wearing the light yoke of that Lord of love. Who still'd the rolling wave of Gallilee ! And one — of him I was not bid to speak — Was always with her, whom you also knew. Him too you loved, for he was worthy love. And these had been together from the first; They might have been together till the last. Friends, this frail bark of ours, when sorely tried. May wreck itself without the pilot's guilt, "Without the captain's knowledge : hope with me. Whose shame is that if he went hence with shame ? Nor mine the fault, if losing both of these I cry to vacant chairs and widow'd walls, " My house is left unto me desolate." , , » * ♦ Nor yours the blame— for who beside your hearths Can take her place— if echoing me you cry " Our house is left unto us desolate?" But thou, O thou that killest, had'st thou known, 19 O thou that stonest, had'st thou understood The things belonging to thy peace and ours ! Is there no prophet but the voice that calls Doom upon kings, or in the waste ' Repent ? Is not our own child on the narrow way, Who down to those that saunter in the broad Cries ' come up hither,' as a prophet to us ? Is there no stoning save with flint and rock^? Ves, as the dead we weep for testify — No desolation but by sword and fire ? Yes, as your meanings witness, and myself Am lonelier, darker, earthlier, for my loss. Give me your prayers, for he is past your prayers. Not past the living fount of pity in Heaven. But I that thought myself long-suffering, meek, Exceeding ** poor in spirit '' — how the words Have twisted back upon themselves, and mean Vileness. we are grown so proud — I wished my voicej A rushing tempest of the wrath of God To blow tlieae sacrifices through the world — Sent like the twelve-divided concubine To inflame the tribes: but there — out yonder — earth Lightens from her own central Hell — O there The red fruit of an old idolatry — The heads of chiefs and princes fall so fast, They cling together in the ghastly sack— The land of shambles — naked marriages Flash from the bridge, and ever-murder'd France, By shores that darken with the gathering wolf,; Runs in a river of blood to the sick sea. Is this a time to madden madness, then ? Was this a time for these to flaunt their pride ? " Behold, Your house is left unto you desolate,'' Succeeding " Aylmer's Field " is a poem entitled " Seik )reams." A city clerk and his wife tell each, other their [reams. The husband has an enemy, and speaks strong larsh words because the man had taken mean advantage f him. With all his conscience and one eye askew, So false, he partly took himself for true ; Whose pious talk, when most his heart was dry. Made wet the crafty crowsfoot round his eye j Who, never naming God except for gain. 20 So never took that useful name in vain ; Made Him his catspaw and the Cross his toot, And Christ the bait to trap his dupe and fool ; Nor deeds of gift, but gifts of grace he forged. And snakelike, slimed his victim ere he gorged ; And oft at Bible-meetings, o'er the rest Arising, did his holy oily best, Dropping the too rough 11 in Hell and Heaven, .To spread the Word by which he himself had thriven, The wife acts as the mediator; she preaches peace and forgiveness. The husband still urges feelings of hatred. But the wife triumphs ; she tells him he must furgive the dead, and assures him his enemy is dead. They have a little child, Margaret, who occupies a pleasing place in the poem. The city clerk has a storm in his heart, and dreams of storm, out of which he learns a moral. His A^-ifo dreams of peace, and peace is in her heart. Peace allays the storm, and the angel forgiveness triumphs, whilst the mother sings a little song to Mar- garet, " What does little Birdie say ?" and the poem closes. The theme of " Sea Dreams " is quite as common-place as that of " Enoch Arden," but it has very little to recom-' mend it after "Enoch Arden," still a few passages of Tennysonian strength give it a character. The song which the wife sings at the end might have been left out, and not been missed. It is certainly one of the worst of Tennyson's compositions ; but even a master like him cannot always rise to his own altitude; It is rarely, indeed, that Tennyson sings in a lyrical or ballad strain without makin.g yciu feel that he is no mere chirping sparrow, but a regular singing nightingale. Some of his ballads make the blood dance to the heart, and the dew of affection fill the eye. Eead his immortal "May Queen," and wonder at your lyrical king ! Among the gems in this book, " The Grandmother " is one which will become a household favourite. Every child wiU be pleased to read it, and many full-grown persons applaud its life-like reality. The picture of " The Grandmother " is a poetic-painting with here and there touches of that rustic simplicity, which Vll makes the English, home sacred to innocence and love. And so natural is the portrait that all the accessories of art fall in the shade. The Grandmother naturally enough has her long life's past ever present to her, and she talks to "little Annie " of her " eldest born" Willie, just gone to the world of spirits, and makes reference to Willie's wife, who "never was overwise," "Never the wife for Willie," because her father "hadn't a head to manage, and drank himself into the grave." Yet she was " pretty," but that was no reason for her being wedded to Willie, whom she describes as — My eldest born, the flower of the flock ; Never a man could fling him : for Willie stood like a rock. ' Here's a leg for a babe of a week ! ' says doctor; and he would be bound There was not his like that year in twenty parishes round. Strong of his hands, and strong on his legs, but still of his tongue ! I ought to have gone before him : I wonder he went so young. I cannot cry for him, Annie : I have not long to stay ; Perhaps I shall see him the sooner, for he lived far away. So for a time she moralises, until her attention is attracted by her "little Annie," who is her only listener, then she Why do you look at me, Annie.' you think I am hard and cold; But all my children have gone before me, I am so old : I cannot weep for Willie, nor can I weep for the rest ; Only at your age, Annie, X could have wept with the best. and immediately reverts to the past, telling of a quarrel she had with Annie's grandfather "seventy years ago," which resulted from Jenny, her cousin, being a "base little liar," and injuring her reputation in her lover's eyes. As the " Grandmother's " story unfolds itself, the lies of the cousin afford a theme for this piece of rare philosophy-^ And the parson made it his text that week, and he said likewise, That a lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies. That a lie which is all a lie may be met and fought with outright, But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight. 22 And Willie had not been down to the farm for a week and a day ; And all things loolced half dead tho' it was the middle of May. Jenny to slander me, who knew what Jenny had been I But soiling another, Annie, will never make oneself clean. It is interesting to read how the slanderous Jenny suc- ceeds in getting "Willie to pay attentions to her, and how at length our heroine is married to Willie ; (and here I must quote to give the reader a true idea of the touching pathos which is depicted in the Grandmother's loss of her firstborn) — So Willy and I were wedded : I wore a lilac gown; And the ringers rang with a will, and he gave the ringers a crowr. But the first th,it ever I bare was dead before he was born, Shadow and shine is life, little Annie, flower and thorn. That was the first time, too, that ever I thought of death. There lay the sweet little body that never had diawn a breath. I had not wept, little Annie, not since I had been a wife; But I wept like a child that day, for the babe had fought for his life. His dear little face was troubled, as if with anger or pain : I look'd at the still little body— his trouble had all been in vain. For Willy I cannot weep, I shall see him another morn : But I wept like a child for the child that was dead before he was born. But he cheer'd me, my good man, for he seldom said me nay : Kind, like a man, was he; like a man, too, would 'have his way : Never jealous — not he: we had many a happy year; And he died, and I could not weep — my own time seem'd so near. But I wish'd it had been God's will that I, too, then could have died : I began to be tired a little, and fain had slept at his side. And that was ten years back, or more, if I don't forget : But as to the children, Annie, they're all about me yet. Pattering over the boards, my Annie who left me at two, Patter she goes, my own little Annie, an Annie like you : Pattering over the boards, she comes and goes at her will, While Harry is in the five-acre and Charlie ploughing the hilL And Harry and Charlie, I hear them too — they sing to their team : Often they come to the door in a pleasant kind of dream. They come and sit by my chair, they hover about my bed — I am^not always certain if they be idive or dead. 23 And yet I know for a triith, there's none of them left alive; For Harry went at sixty, your father at sixty-five : And Willy, my eldest-born, at nigh three score and ten ; I knew them all as babies, and now they're elderly men. Call it fancy or reality, there is yet, in the above tender reminiscences of the departed, something so pure and life- like, yet withal, so simple, that I am compelled to pro- nounce "The Grandmother" one of England's household poetic pictures. It is full of pathos, rich in the simplest details of life, and thoroughly natural. Then with what rare delicacy is the spiritual conception realized ! Tenny- son deligh'ts to be real, even in his sketches of the ideal; He shrinks not from the dutiful task of introducing the dead where necessary, and, as in In Memoriam, calmly to exclaim — Dare I say No spirit ever brake the band That stays him from the native land. Where first he walked when clasped in clay ? In " Enoch Arden" we perceive running through its homely common-places a rich vein of- the spiritual. So, too, in "The Grandmother;'' yet, in a more direct form, the shades of the upper world are brought to the home of the living, and made to sit in the vacant chair and hover about the bed. Call it a poet's conceit— a simple phantasy — yet, what would poetry be without the spiritual? and why doubt the actuality of spirit-existence when the eye that reads this owns its power of reception from the Spirit that gives it its fire. Strains like "The Grandmother" give the poet a place in the vacant chair of every human home, for every home has a vacant chair, though it be not made of wood. There is a fresh, active, companionable virtue in such strains which glows ever beautiful ; simple as simplicity itself, yet how touchingly true to life are its various details. Tou cannot move along existence without perceiving real grandmothers, the prototypes of the poet's portraiture. This is one of Tennyson's living, speaking pictures, in which nature is 24 king over art, and yet art lends legitimate aid. It will' bear reading and re-reading, and will lose none of its freshness or living beauty. "The Northern Farmer," again, speaking in the northern dialect, is a most perfect picture, natural in its minutest details. You might read it and fancy the farmer himself before you. This is the great charm of Tennyson, when his best pictures glow upon the canvas the paint is lost sight of and the likeness seems alive. To sketch a portrait is one thing, but to make it speak quite another ; and yet how well the Laureate per-, forms this difficult task. From other lyrics I cuU THE FLOWEE. Once, in a golden hour, I cast to earth a seed ; Up there came a flower. The people said a weed. To and fro they went. Thro' my garden bower. And, muttering discontent. Cursed me and my flower. Then it grew so tall. It wore a crown of light ; But theives from o*er the wall Stole the seed by night, Sow'd it far and wide. By every town and tower; Till all the people cried, Spendid is the flower. Read my little fable : He that runs may read ; Most can raise the flowers now, For all have got the seed. And some are pretty enough, And some are poor indeed;; And now again the people Call it but a weed. 25 It has become the fashion in certain circles to lavish ful- some praise on Tennyson, and to laud his powers beyond all reasonable limits ; and it has become the habit of numerous small singers to steal the seed of his flower and call it their own. There is no denying that Tennyson is a master of song, but that he is the greatest of all masters of the present century I cannot admit. But why need we quar- rel about trifles, for it is a trifling matter after all, canvassing questions of greatness. A dwarf cannot reach the stature of a giant, but he may be a very useful man, nevertheless. Whether Tennyson be considered a giant or not, he claims our love insomuch as he is a true man and a sweet poet. I readily and heartily express my gratitude to him for the many beautiful life-like portraits he has painted in song. If I cannot call him an ocean, I can call him a very large singing stream. The nightingale sings less loudly and more sweetly than the blackbird, but each bird sings its own characteristic music. Tennyson is the nightingale of modern song, and can claim his own music. Shall I not love to hear him sing because his notes have less compass than those of some few other singers ? It is useless expecting to find the delicious sweet- ness of the nightingale combined with the rough music of the mountain waterfall. The lyrical belongs to the stream — the zephyrs — the gentle rain and the dulcet- throated birds. The epical goes with the raging sea, and finds voice in the trampling hosts and heavy artUlery of the battle plain. I do not say Tennyson cannot sing in bass notes as well as compass the octaves in alto, but the tenor is his natural tone, and he sings best in tenor. When he attempts bass, you cannot fail to admire, and possibly applaud, but when he sings in tenor, you love him, because he gives vocal ful- ness to his own rich strains, and makes the air heavy with his wonderful notes which come back to you in echoes. We all of us live in lyrics and epics, and those who cast their thoughts in song reflect only what nature and circum- stance have reflected in themselves. Human life merges the beautiful into the sublime, and sometimes into the ridiculous. But there are stages on the way. Tennyson holds position on the road to sublimity. -Always beautiful, 26 he sometimes catches glimpses of sublimity, and never falls over on the other side into the ridiculous. Throughout the poems in "Enoch Arden" we come across passages very common-place, but very pathetic, never- theless. In fact, one of the principal merits of the book is its naturalness. The poet has not satisfied himself by borrowing themes from fairy romance. He has looked around on absolute facts ; he has caught inspiration from human life in its various conflicts with matter, and yet in instances I have shown he has brought the spiritual to the material, and made heroism shine in the cottage of toil. For this I offer praise. He might have sought his themes amongst the palaces of lordly knights, where gentle dames attire themselves in all the colours of the rainbow, while they never sigh but to sicken at plenty ; or he might have struck his wondrous wand at the doors of courts, and all their jewelled crowns might have glistened upon his muse like sunlight gleaming upon water ; or he might have forsaken these, and wandering by the changing sea, which he so much loves ; or over forests of woodland scenery ; have simply presented us with pictures sketched from the sea or in the woodland ; or he might have listened to the ever sweet songs of the woodland birds, and essaying to rival, or at least imitate them, have given us musical repe- titions of their strains. Had he chosen to confine his muse to either or all of these things, we should hare been grateful, because the winning sweetness of his music would have wedded us to "things of beauty." But he was too human for that ; he saw heroism in humble garb and he exalted it. He saw villany in respectability with the mask of sanctity upon its face, and he exposed it, tearing the mask away. He went on his. way singing, not in imi- tation of the lark, which is ever joyous, but sad in others' sadness, glad in others' gladness, he sang of human life, its sweet pathos, its rough conquests, and its glorious uses. He never forgot he was human, hence his muse became to him a talent he dared not misuse ; consequently the eternal beauty of human effort which acts in holy things, set him singing. Always with a true man's eye beneath the surface of things and with a poet's keen sensibilities, he sympathized with the heroes of ships and cots. 27 He went fortli, not simply to catch music from rivulets, or breezes, — by rocky cavern, or fern-covered, pathway, to listen to the deep mysterious echoes of his own soul, but to listen to the music of humanity, which has not only a sweet- joyous, but a sad-complaining tone. Nothing elevates the character of a man like service bestowed for the benefit of others. It is that which gives grandeur, or moral majesty to Hfe. And he, our poet, true to the whispers of duty, sang the songs which humanity inspired, and he sang truly and wisely. Tennyson has sanctioned, and in a measure sanctified, such themes as he has wrought into living beauty in "Enoch Arden." The progress of civilization has not left poetry behind, but it has, thank God, left many national insipidities behind. Compare the themes which almost solely occupied the poet's attention in the past with those which Tennyson and others in the present age ennoble. "We have much reason to rejoice at the improvement. Time was, when the poet scorned the lowly virtues of the cottage, and set his muse in ecstacies at the triumphs of War and Bacchus, and made the lily lustre of a lady's face deepen in blood-colour at the defeat of her lover at the tournament. Now the world has began to scout, or scorn the poet who essays to make War and Bacchus, and all the so-called chivalric feats, diviae. It is a good sign that Tennyson, who can read the will of the nineteenth century as well as any man, has chosen his themes and sanctioned their use. The poet to be useful, must go out into human haunts, and study human habits and human necessities. Before he is entitled to teach he must learn — before he attempts to rule, he must learn to obey. Proper obedience begets the faculty of command. Experience alone can fit a man for a leader either in the State or Church, or in the realms of Art. The true poet must, therefore, be something more than a dreamer ; he must not merely imagine, but he must experi- ence, that is, if he would touch the answering chords of the human heart. Poetry elaborated out of pretty conceits or fancies, may tickle the undeveloped ears of children, but if it is to move the masses of humanity in the ways of Godli- 28 ness and virtue, it must have something to do with fact. In other words, the real must appear in the robes of the ideal, tangible and prominent as a picture in a frame, a face in a looking-glass, or the moon in the water. If it be the poat's mission to teach and inspire to heroic action, he must associate himself to a great extent with common matter-of-fact things. Tennyson seems to have caught this idea; at least, he has wrought it out in "Enoch Arden." He has walked not only among tombs, but in the very heart of commerce, and he has discovered that heroism is not confined to the singular heroes of novels, but that its images are photographed on almost every page of social life. The life-actions of the humblest speak in the most miraculous tongues, and their tones are not lost upon the poet. He is most like himself when he sings of heroism, for heroic impulses move the true poet to speech. Heroism forms the frontispiece of life's album. The poet cannot study life and obey the impulses of his genius and not see it. Let him turn the leaves over, a-nd here and there heroism shall glow gloriously upon the page ; and he shall find, as Tennyson has done, that heroism covers not all, but very much of the ground occupied by labour ; that it displays grand lists of difficulties surmounted, temptations baffled, self-sacrifice sanctified ; that it walks with virtue through heavy cannonades of sin and want ; and it teaches the all-conquering lesson, that virtue consists not in passive but in active goodness — not in the mere observance, but in the defence of law. Not in idea but in performance — not in ease, but in endeavour. The soul may nurse a faith with apparent ease where temptations are weak, but where they are strong and are conquered heroism crowns virtue kingly. The author of "Enoch Arden" has mixed with men, and found them better than books for study, and infinitely more interesting. Some men are like growing volumes which, the more you read the more you add to your wisdom. Some are like books with clasps which are rarely if ever opened ; you can see their bindings but not their leaves. These are more suitable for ornament or the museum than for use. Other men, with inferior covers and well printed 29 leaves, have no clasps and are open, and ke that runs may read ; these are the living books which, like living water, impart renewed mental and moral vigour. Tennyson has entered into a compact with himself to study men, and he has not only found that men are books, but that they are pic- tures likewise, some of which are better in the shade than in the light. Others personify moral virtues in prominent living colours, presenting a grace and dignity of expression which make the soul transparent. Men like these add beauty to life and eclipse the creations of the highest art. Tennyson has moved among men inspired with grand desires, and as he has gone on singing the dirge-like strains of In Memoriam ; the merry-mournful, yet expre.«- sively sweet, Maij Queen; and the graceful-homely Enoch Arden; he has found that men are poems, but that some are crude, inelegant, and unfinished; that others are like singing- streams which are always musical; that some halt like the doggerel feet of a Seven-Dial stave ; that others move on in heroics like the steady march of an army ; that some are weak and vapid, -n'hilst others are epics, stately and active, like the eternal years. Crown 8vo., well bound in Cloth, 272 pp., price FIVE SHILLINGS. TRiiBNER & Co., 60, Paternoster-row, London. T IFE INCIDENTS AND POETIC PICTURES, BY' J. H. POWELL. OPINIONS OP THE PEESS. There are many curious details in his account of his life— good, because genuine transcripts of experiencCi — Examiner. Replete with interest, .... Will be found both instructive and amusing. . . . The '* Poetic Pictures " contain many passages of sterling merit.— Observer. Mr. Powell's verse is better than his prose. The former is sometimes really vigorous, graceful, and pathetic; the latter i« nearly always loose and pretentious. — Illustrated London News. An interesting, and in many respects, a mournful book. . . . Mr. Powell's prose is very readable. — MorningStar. Mr. Powell is, we think, a thoroughly honest fellow, not without chivalry, but decidedly without any sense of humour. — Illustrated Times. The narrative is a sad but striking picture of the difficulties which beset the poor man who attempts a literary life. The poems are short, and from the circumstances under which they are written may be con- sidered to possess real merit. — Illustrated News op the World. His life has been one of ups and downs and locomotion — one of pros- perity and adversity — disappointments and triumphs. He is unquestion- ably a man of genius, considerably cultivated, and ^he possesses a large amount of general knowledge. — British Standard. Mr.^ Powell, through all his trials artd heart-strugglea, has preserved faith in God, Christ, and Immortality ; and the drifts of this world's sorrows have not blinded him to the sublimities of life. Let him, by all means, go forward in his efforts, neither extravagantly elated by praise, nor depressed by dispraise. He may never become a Poet- Laureate, but he win write true Poetry, nevertheless. — Christian World. An honest, brave heart and ardent temperament seem to have carried him through struggles and misfortunes under which a weaker nature, or a less buoyant and hopeful disposition would have- sunk. . . . His book will interest many readers, and we hope' its author will have no reason to regret its publication. — Spiritual IMagazine. It illustrates forcibly the difficulty experienced in what is called "get- ting on in the world," and some of the Ihcideiits are not a little interests' ing. — News of the World. From the Author of " Forty Years of American Life." I have read every line of your " Life Incidents," and I like the book, so far as I have read — the prose portion — very much and almost entirely . There is a simple honesty in your description of your life struggle, which is truly pathetic, and which connot fail to find a wide sympathy. From the Author of " Tangles and Tales." Your book will, I think, be a success, if it gets into the right quarters. It is nicely got up and punted, and the " Life Incidents " are throughout highly interesting and often pathetic. We have found a pretty poem in this volume called " Flaxen Curls," and if the author could always write as sweetly and freshly, he need not despair of winning a reputation as a graceful and melodious lyrist. Amuse- ment and instruction may be gleaned from the volume, and many readers will feel great respect for Mr. Powell, who, though hampered by poverty, has learnt to write creditably in prose and verse. — Public Opinion. We trust Mr. Powell wi'l meet with the success he deserves. — Work- man's Advocate. The book is undoubtedly a true picture of events in the author's careerj and leaves „the impression ol honesty and simplicity on his part. — Beasonbr. The writer displays considerable descriptive power, and some of his dehneations of character are pervaded by a spirit of quiet humour. — WOLVBBHAMPTON AND StaIfFORDSHIRK HeHALO. We dislike the general tone of one half or more o5 his volume as much as ever we disliked any printed matter we have ever met with. — StJNDAY Times. The narrative is a sad but strikiitig picture of the difficulties which beset the poor man who attempts a literary life. — Illustbated News of IHE World. Some of the poetic pictures are not without merit. — Newcastle Daily Chronicle. A series of "Life Incidents" less illumined with gleams of sunshine than those here recorded we never had the melancholy task of peruting. — Weekly Dispatch. Mr. Powell has gone through more vicissitudes than fall tothelot of most men, and quite enough to supply the material for a very rtadable volume, whicli this accordingly is. — Bkigdton Times. This is one of the most instructive and entertaining works which we have read for some time, and we feel assured it will find a place in every library connected with mechanics' and other institutions. — Illustrated. Penny News. We turn with pleasure [to a consideration of that portion of his work entitled "Poetic Pictures;'' many passages therein evince the highest order of poetic genius, — The Gravesend Journal. We do not deny that Mr. Powell 'lias talent, and, in proof of this, we could, did space permit, place before our readers very many poetic beauties from the work before us. — Brighton Gazette. One sees where Dickens gets the rqw material of his saddest pictures in this book. — Cincinnati Gazette, Cornell University Library PR 5556.P88 A working man's view of Tennyson's "Enoc 3 1924 013 559 111