giin a^ CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 1924 079 597 807 Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924079597807 Cornell University Library reformatted this volume to digital flies to preserve the informational content of the deteriorated original. The original volume was scanned bitonally at 600 dots per inch and compressed prior to storage using ITU Group 4 compression. 1997 ESSAYS ON LOED TENNYSON'S IDYLLS OF THE KING ESSAYS ON LOED TENNYSON'S IDYLLS OF THE KING BY HAEOLD LITTLEDALE, M.A. SENIOR MODERATOR, TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN; FELLOW OP THE UNIVERSITY OF BOMBAY ; VICE-PRINCIPAL AND PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND ENGLISH LITERATURE, BARODA COLLEGE, INDIA Eondon MACMILLAN AND CO. AND NEW YORK @ 1893 All riglits reserved / I- A. ^1033 PEEFACE The extent of Tennyson's fame may be illustrated by the fact that these Essays on his Idylls were written as the basis of a course of lectures to an aiidience composed of undergraduates in an Indian college. In issuing these notes for the use of English and American no less than Asiatic students of our great poet, a number of merely verbal and grammatical annotations have been omitted, and some alterations have been made to adapt the work for general use. The object of this volume is to present a con- venient summary of much information that is dispersed through too many books to be accessible at first hand in the case of the general reader. The sources of the various Idylls have been very closely traced, yet in such a manner that the more earnest student will be tempted to carry his studies further. At the end of each study on the sources some notes on the text have been added. IDYLLS OF THE KING The purpose of the frequent citations of parallel passages in these notes would be greatly misunderstood if it were thought that they implied any disbelief in the poet's originality in passages thus illustrated. Not the least of the many charms of Tennyson's poetry is the seeming combination of originality and allusiveness in a profusion of passages that mingle their own fresh music with dim unconscious echoes of poets dead and gone. To indicate such echoes, and not in any way to suggest that the late Laureate imitated his pre- decessors, has been the writer's object in noting so many parallelisms. If Tennyson's mind was saturated with ancient and modern literatures as it seemed to be, it was saturated even more deeply with the spirit of nature and of truth to nature. All poets thus minded must look over the limited iield of human experience from somewhat similar points of view. For their scholarly advice on many points the writer's best thanks are due to his friends Messrs. F. A. H. EUiot, CLE. ; L. Ferrar ; J. J. Heaton ; and J. L. Jenkins, all of the Civil Service of India ; and the Eev. J. M. Hamilton, S.J., of St. Xavier's College, Bombay. Especial thanks are also due to Mr. Bernard Quaritch for his kindness in permitting large extracts from, the Mahinogion to be given. The labour of writing these Essays was lightened by PREFACE vn the hopes that they might be dedicated to the writer's father, and that Lord Tennyson might be pleased to accept a copy of them. Neither of these hopes was destined to be realised. The little book can now only be offered as a lowly tribute of love and reverence on two graves. H. L. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE The Arthurian Legend 1 CHAPTER II Feom Maloey 10 Tennyson . . ... 14 CHAPTER III Some Arthurian Characters and Localities . 28 CHAPTER IV The Prologue and Epilogue 51 CHAPTER V The CoiiiNG of Arthur 59 CHAPTER VI Gareth and Lynette 80 CHAPTER VII The Marriage of Geraint 113 IDYLLS OF THE KING CHAPTER VIII PAGE Gekaint and Enid ..... 136 CHAPTEE IX Balin and Balan . ... .153 CHAPTEE X Merlin and Vivien. . . . .171 CHAPTEE XI Lancelot and Elaine . . . . . .192 CHAPTEE XII The Holy Grail 217 CHAPTEE XIII Pelleas and Etiarre . . . . .244 CHAPTEE XIV The Last Tournament 254 CHAPTEE XV ' Guinevere 273 CHAPTEE XVI The Passing of Arthur 288 CHAPTEE I THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND Whether such a person as King Arthur ever existed has been questioned from the time when Caxton stated, in his preface to the Morte Bartliur, that " divers men hold opinion that there was no such Arthur, and that all such books as been made of him be but feigned and fables.'' Milton in a later age expresses his own dis- belief thus : " But who Arthur was, and whether ever any such reigned in Britain, hath been doubted hereto- fore, and may again with good reason." ^ But modern investigators seem to have settled that there was actually a British Prince or General named Arthiir, who lived in the beginning of the sixth century. He was "Chdedig or 'Dux Bellorum' of the northern Cymry of Cumbria and Strathclyde against the encroaching Saxons of the east coast (Bernicia), and the Picts and Scots from beyond the Forth and Clyde." ^ The rest ' Sist. of Ungland, bk. iii. Prose Works, p. 510 (one vol. ) " Mr. Stiiart-Glennie, in £nci/. Brit. See also Diet. Nat. Biog., B 2 IDYLLS OF THE KING chap. of his history is mere conjecture, but myth and legend have amply filled the place of fact. When a proud and warlike race is deprived of its cherished freedom, it loves to keep alive the memory of ancient glories by song and legend. Thus a sort of hero-worship arises, and the exploits, real or fictitious, of many warriors gather round the name of one. So it happened in the case of Arthur. Some very early British songs, found in the remains of the Welsh bards and among the lays of the Armoricans, bear witness to his fame. There seems also to have been a Celtic demigod of the same name (the mythological Arthur, Arcturus, represented the constellation of the Great Bear), and hence probably a confusion arose that led to the addition of supernatural details regarding him. As the Celts of Britain became more Saxonised, the Britons who had settled in Armorica (that is to say, "the Country by the Sea," Brittany) seem to have preserved and developed the legends, and still many of the folk-songs of modern Brittany tell, in "riddling triplets of old time," the deeds of Arthur and Merlin. The early Christian missionary monks, some of them excellent story-tellers, never hesitated to modify pagan traditions, if by so doing they might propagate Christian doctrines; and under their treatment the Arthurian legends grew still fuller of the marvellous — the weird and PuUing's Bid. Eng. Hist. s.v. Arthur, for references to the litera- ture on the subject ; and Appendix v. to Cox's Introd. Compar. Myttwl, p. 368, on the Historical Arthur. THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND enchantments, the " dragons of the prime," and monsters of Druidic superstition, continuing side by side with the mysteries and miracles of the religion of the Cross.'' The Arthurian traditions seem to have reached this stage, and to have become partly imbued with a chivalric spirit as well, when, in the first half of the twelfth century (about 1125), one Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, brought back from Brittany a collection of Breton stories ^ on the subject of Arthur and other British kings, and gave this book to his friend Geoffrey (Galfridus in Latin, and Gruffydd ab Arthur in Welsh), a Benedictine monk of Monmouth, and afterwards (1152) Bishop of St. Asaph's. This Geoffrey of Monmouth, before 1139, and perhaps before 1128, translated and remodelled Walter's Breton book into a Latin Historia Britonum, and thereby became one of our earliest retailers and probably inventors of legendary story.^ ^ "Le clerge, en I'adoptant pour son lievos, a rendu au monde reel le demidieu des Bardes," Villemarque, Table Bmide, p. 18. Taliessin represents Utlier as a god ; he calls him king of shades, veiled and mystic being, ordainer of battles, ib. p. 8. On Brittany and its folk-songs, and the Arthurian legends there, see Villemarque's Tabic Ronde, Bardes Bretons, Barzaz Sreiz, and Myrdhinn ; Pitre-Chevalier's La Bretagne Ancienne ; Sebillot's Contes des Paysaiis, etc., and Sou- vestre's Les demiers Bretons. ^ " A British record (long concealed In old Armorica, whose secret springs ITo Gothic conqueror e'er drank)." Wordsworth, Artegal and Elidure. ' Geoffrey was born about 1100 and died in 1154. His first sketch of the History appeared probably in 1128 (which date Lady Guest wrongly gives for his birth : Introd. to the Mabiiiogion, p. xiii.) ; IDYLLS OF THE ICING Where Archdeacon Walter got his book from does not appear. Geoffrey simply describes it as " a very ancient book in the British tongue, which, in a continued regular story and elegant style, related the actions of them all, from Brutus the first king of the Britons, down to Cadwallader the son of Cadwallo." ^ In the twelfth century there wei'e three Walters, Archdeacons of Oxford, and two of them are connected with the growth of the Arthurian romances. The iirst was Walter " Calenius," who was so called from Galena, a scribe's error for Galeva, anciently supposed to be the Latin name for Oxford.^ This Walter, Geoffrey's friend who brought over the Breton book, died in 1151. The next was Walter of Coutances, who was appointed Afchdeacon of Oxford in 1183. The last was Walter the Bid. Nat. Biog. agi-ees with Wright in fixing 1147 as the date of his iinal version of the History, and says that the book helped greatly to promote the spirit of national unity by recording a common ancestry for Briton, Saxon, and Norman. ^ Six Old Eng. Chron. Bohn's ed. p. 89 ; cf. p. ix. Villemarque, Table Eondc, p. 24, says that Walter turned the Arniorican "Legend of the Kings " into the Cambrian dialect and gave it to Geoffrey. There seems to be a good deal of unfounded assumption in this theor}', however. Ten Brink, Early Eng. Lit. p. 134 (Bohn's transl.), calls Geoffrey's History " a monument of stupendous delusion, but in which he seems to have been the deceiver rather than the deceived." Pro- fessor Zimmer's theory (in Sommer, iii. 5) is that "Geoffrey certainly invented the frame and sequence of events of his stories, but not the incidents forming their basis. These he drew from various sources (Neunius, Gildas, Welsh Heroic-Sagas, Bretonic sources). He dealt freely with them as best suited his purpose, and this explains the mis- placing and amplification of various incidents ; but he cannot be rcedited with having altogether invented anything." ^ Did. Nat. Biog. s.v. Calenius. THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND Map (or Mapes, so called from Mapus, the Latinised form of his name), who was appointed Archdeacon in 1196. Map was a clever and learned man. He has left a number of poems satirising a low class of ecclesiastical persons called goliardeis, that is to say, "riotous and unthrifty scholars who attended upon the tables of the richer ecclesiastics, and gained their living and clothing by practising as buffoons and jesters." ^ Map's connection with the Arthurian legends will be referred to later. It is sometimes asserted that Geoffrey invented the expanded version of the legends himself, or with the help of Calenius ; however, it seems preferable to suppose that he compiled his story from various sources, especially Welsh bardic legends, Armorican records, and current traditions, but that he so mixed these up and altered and added to them as to make his work the picturesque medley that it is. Whether this be so or not, the fact is indisputable that from Geoffrey's History a new literary epoch took its rise and its inspiration. He soon found imitators. First, Gaimar wrote a metrical history ; but the portion dealing with the Arthurian story has been lost. Next, in 1155, eight years after the appearance of Geoffrey's revised work (the earlier issue has not come down to us), a metrical translation in the Norman-French or " Eomans " dialect ' Wright, Poems of Walter Mapes, p. x. Camden Soc. 1841. IDYLLS OF THE KING was made by one Wace (that is, Wistace or Eustace), a native of Jersey, and a teacher at Caen in Normandy. " Wace's Geste des Bretons, or, as the poem, owing to its Celtic subject-matter, came to be called in the course of time, Wace's Brut cV Eiigleterre, served greatly," says Professor Ten Brink, "to spread the fables of the ancient British kings. Thus it tended powerfully to develop them, at least the legends of Arthur, who, in the romances of French poets and of their German imitators, took the name of Artus." ^ We must not suppose that the earliest romances were parts of a coherent Arthurian series. They grew up independently, and perhaps in some cases embodied fragments of the primasval myths and fancies of the human race ; but in time they assumed more and more a cyclic character, and in the hands of men like Geof- frey, Wace, Map, Chrestien, Boron, and others, developed a homogeneous, epical relationship. It was about the end of the twelfth century that the poetry of the Noraian trouveres (finders, makers of verses) and the Provencal troubadours (the same word as trouvdres in the Southern tongue or Langue d'oc) flourished : the former took knightly valour for their theme ; the latter sang more of courtesy and love. ^ Early Eng. Lit. pp. 141, 148. Pope meditated writing a blank verse epic on the story of Brutus of Troy, and Johnson (Lives) is rather thankful that he never executed the design. ■ But when we consider how different the course of eighteenth - century poetry might liave been had Pope set it the example of blank verse, we should rather regret that his plan was never realised. Still, we have the Idylls instead. THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND " Eeverence for women," says Ten Brink again, " formed the centre of the courtly chivalry unfolding in the south of France, which, as is ever the case in privileged, exclusive classes, especially in epochs of growing cul- ture, soon received an extremely conventional tone." Under the influence of the warlike chansons of the Trouveres and the love-poetry of the Troubadours, there grew up in Europe a taste for fictitious narratives of chivalry. In those times but few of the modern means of obtaining intellectual recreation existed, and there- fore it devolved upon the minstrel or story-teller to provide entertainment in hall or bower by his recitals, in which " Knighthood's daring deed and Beauty's matchless eye '' played a conspicuous part. Doubtless it was the demand for variation and reno- vation of time-worn themes that led to the additions and changes by later poets and romance- writers. Among such writers Walter Map gave, about the end of the twelfth century, what may be called the final outline to the Arthurian legend by combining with it a Chris- tianised form of the primitive Celtic myth of the Grail.'' He thus added the requisite elements of religious mysti- cism and chivalric piety to the " fierce wars and faithful 1 See Ten Brink, Early Eng. Lit. p. 172, for a sketch of the earlier histoi-y of the Grail legend ; and Dr. Sommer's edition of Caxton's Morte Darthur, vol. iii. pp. 206-220, for a comparison of the French prose romance of La Queste del Saint Graal (supposed to be by Walter Map) with Malory's Books XIII. -XVII. IDYLLS OF THE KING loves " and quasi-historical fictions of Geoffrey, and an immense number of romantic narratives, in verse and prose, gathered round the central figure of Arthur, but took as their subjects the adventures of the many knights that had from time to time been added to his order of the Eound Table. In the lays of the bards of Brittany a rich mine of legendary lore was found and worked by the French romancers. Finally, in these courtly poems and stories all the characteristic features of feudal chivalry came to be represented. Battles, crusades, jousts, tourneys ; the quests of knight- errantry, the service of ladies and the courts of Love ; the forests and enchantments ; the armoury of the invincible knights — noble ideals of faith and courage, of humility and devotion ; — all these shone forth, blazoned in the brightest colours of romantic eloquence. It is unnecessary for our present purpose to do Jiiore than mention the important names of Chrestien of Troyes, who developed the story of Parcival in his Conte del Graal, about 119.0 ; ^ and Layamon, the author of a highly poetical expansion of Wace's poem, and also called the Brut. Layamon especially amplifies the Arthurian story, even giving " echoes," says Professor Ten Brink, " of the Germanic myth," and thus impart- ing to the Saga, at last made up of Cymric, Armoric, ^ There is an interesting English metrical romance. Sir Perdval of Galles (Wales), taken from Chrestieu's poem, in Halliwell's Thornton Romances, Camden Soc. 18i4, with which the story of Peredur, in the MaUnogion, should be compared. THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND Saxon, Norman, and Germanic elements, an international character.-^ Last, we come to the true source of the Tennysonian/ Idylls, Malory's -Morte Darthur. This wonderful storehouse of romance was made out of certain French books, in 1469-70, by Sir Thomas Malory, Malorye, or Maleore, knight ; and was printed in 1485 by our first English printer, William Caxton. Of Malory himself nothing is known. Many editions of the book have been put forth since Caxton's time, but only two call for special mention : the deservedly popular " Globe " edition by Sir Edward Strachey, and Dr. H. Oskar Sommer's fine critical edition in three volumes, published by Mr. Nutt. The Introduction to the 1891 issue of the Globe edition has been revised and improved, and should be read by every student of the Idylls. Dr. Sommer's edition comprises a literal reprint of Caxton's text, and is more useful to the stvident of the early language than to the general reader. It has a laboriously-compiled apparahis criticus, includ- ing a valuable analysis of the sources from whence Malory derived his materials, and a most admirable Index. But as the Globe text is more readable where only the story is wanted, and is accessible to every one with three-and-sixpence to spare, I quote it usually in these notes.^ ' Sarly Enc/. Lit. p. 191. My quotations do uot show all my obligations to this excellent book. ^ Dr. Sommer shows that the materials used by Malory were : three "Merlin " romances ; the Thornton MS. " La Morte Arthnre " ; " Le IDYLLS OF THE KING Just as Shakspere never troubled to invent the plots of his plays, but took old stories and ballads and chronicles, modified them in detail, cut out superfluous matter, and made his dramas to all intents and purposes new v^orks, by imparting life to the dialogue and reality and variety to the characters, so Tennyson, with less dramatic faculty but with greater elaboration of work- manship, has taken this mediaeval book of romance, and some Welsh stories, and has constructed from them a poem, almost perfect in unity of design and proportion of parts, and imbued with a moral significance fitted to the aspirations of our own days, while preserving to a certain extent the archaic colour, the loves and quests, the conflicts and enchantments, of the feudal world. With the exception of the two Geraint poems, the Idylls of the King follows more or less closely the broader outlines of the story as it is given in Malory. We may say in general terms that the modern poet omits the preposterous, and the more indelicate, elements of the romance ; " the knights and ladies whom he paints are refined, graceful, noble, without roughness, without wild or at all events complex or distracting passions." ^ The reign of Arthur as depicted by Tennyson is a sort of poetical Utopia, as unreal and visionary as that of Eoman de Lancelot"; Map's "Graal"; "La Mort au Roi Artus"; "Le Roman de la Chavette" and prose "Lancelot"; the Harleian MS. "Le Mort Arthur" and a lost continuation of the "Lancelot" ; two prose "Tristan" romances, by "Luces de Gast" and "-Helie de " Boron " (both fictitious names) ; the " Prophecies of Merlin,'' etc. 1 Justin M'Carthy, Hist, of Our Ovm Times, yol. ii. p. 245. THE ARTHUIUAN LEGEND More. We are iu a heroic atmosphere all through ; as in the Iliad, it is the deeds of the knisrhts that concern us ; the people serve only as a dim background and shadow to the picture. It is perhaps a little unfortunate that Arthur is in some aspects such a "gray king" to us, for archaic legend and myth can never take so firm a hold upon the hearts of men as concrete historical facts can do. The story might have been made more human if the poet had not in some cases subordinated the incidents to the allegory ; but after all this only amounts to say- ing that Tennyson might have been more Homeric if he had been less Tennysonian. We must be thankful for what we have been given by him — " A song divine of higli and passionate tlioughts, To their own music chanted." And yet we may feel — as Sir Edward Strachey seems to feel most strongly — that in putting the new wine of Victorian philosophy into the old bottles of Arthurian romance, the old bottles have occasionally had rather a severe strain imposed upon them.^ It need hardly be added that such a state of society as is depicted by Malory, and still more as is described by Tennyson, never existed in the time of Arthur ; ^ I find that Mr. A. Lang has anticipated both the thought and the expression of this sentence, which I wrote months before I read his paper. See Sommer's ed. II. xxii. In Mr. Lang's remarks in con- tinuation, lie has similarly been anticipated by Mr. Elsdale. IDYLLS OF THE lUNG never indeed at any time in the world's history (see Lang, Sommer's ed. II. xxiv.) Malory's picture is only a fantastic and exaggerated idealisation of the actual feudal chivalry of the Middle Ages. English feudal knighthood touched its highest point of splendour in the wars of Edward III. It had caught inspiration from romance and from religion ; hut soon after, owing to the change that came over the science of war, it began to decline. Individual prowess ceased to be the determining factor in battles : the knight's shield might withstand the spear-head but not the " gun-stone." Two inventions, destined to profoundly change the world, came into being about that time ; two ancient monopolies fell before them. The invention of gun- powder gradually destroyed the monopoly of military prowess that had belonged to knighthood ; the invention of printing, coinciding with the spread of Byzantine learning after the conquest of Constantinople (1453), slowly broke down the monopoly of literature that had been possessed by ecclesiastics. The downfall of chivalry led to the rise of democracy ; the downfall of ecclesiastical domination led to the revival of learning and the growth of the modern free spirit of religious and intellectual speculation. Truly a marvellous trans- formation for mere villainous saltpetre and printer's ink to bring about. With this transformation the Middle Ages ended. 1. THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND 13 and modern times began. All that remained of feudal chivalry was its better part ; that which existed before it and shall endure to the end — the impulse of the human heart to eschew evil and make for righteousness. That spirit may change, but it cannot die ; it passes to Avilion but it comes again, healed and young, with a sway for ever new and for ever growing. It is with this view of chivalry that. Tennyson seems to have touched the legend of Arthur. He aims, he tells us, at " Shadowing sense at war witli soul, Rather than that gray king." It is good for men to have a spiritual hope ; for so Arthur comes, even when we know him not.^ ^ William of Malmesbury, about 1140, seems to have first given literary currency to the belief in Arthur's second coming, but it was dififased among the British I'aces, to whom the hand, clothed in samite and brandishing Excalibur, conveyed a promise and a hope (see Villemarque, Table Sonde, p. 20 ; Myrdhinn, p. 25). Malory gives the inscription on Arthur's tomb: " Hie jacet Arthui-us, Rex quondam Rexque futurus" (XXI. vii.) CHAPTEE II FROM MALORY TO TENNYSON The Arthurian legend did not cease to exert literary influence with the decline of mediseval chivalry. On the contrary, it retained a strong hold upon poetic minds in all the lands where it became known. In Italy, Dante, Ariosto, and Tasso made frequent use of the stories of Arthur and G-uinevere and Merlin. In Germany, the early romances of "Parzival," taken from the French stories by Wolfram von Eschenbach ; of " Tristan,'' by Gottfried von Strassburg ; of " Iwein," by Hartmann von Aue, although not appealing to national sentiment, were long popular, and have been revived in the epics of Karl Simrock, the dramatic poems of Halm and others, and not less in the music- poetry of Wagner. In Spain, Cervantes made his hero's fantasy " full of all that he read in his books, as of enchantments so of quarrels, battles, challenges, wounds, plaints, loves, storms, and absurdities im- possible." ^ In Prance, Eonsard and La Fontaine (says ^ See an immense list of Spanish and French books of chivalry, in CHAP. II FROM MALORY TO TENNYSON 15 M. de Villemarqud), "laissent voir milles traces des lectures qu'ils ont faites dans les romans de la Table Eonde." Lastly, in English literature the influence of the Arthurian legends has been persistent and strong. As Hugo von Trimberg in Germany, at the end of the thirteenth century, condemned the reading of such lying romances as " Parzival " and " Tristan," so Koger Ascham in the England of Elizabeth specially denounced " certeine bookes of cheualrie . . made in monasteries, by idle monkes, or wanton chanones ; as one for example, Morte Arthure, the whole pleasure of which booke standeth in two special poyntes, in open mans slaughter, and bold bawdrie. In which booke those be counted the noblest knightes that do kill most men without any quarrell, and commit fowlest advoulteries by subtlest shiftes." ^ But despite this protest, the story of Arthur and his knights, though " Touched by the adulterous finger of a time Tliat hovered between war and wantonness, And crownings and dethronements," has remained, a fixed star, shedding influence upon our literature down to the present day. Taking our start from the date of Ascham's protest, 1563, we first find the story treated in a play, Tlie Misfortunes of Arthur, acted before Queen Elizabeth, Mr. DufBeld's Don Quixote, vol. i. p. Ixvi. Mr. Duffield defines a "book of chivalry "as "a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing." ' The Scholemaster, ed. Arber, p. 80. 1 6 IDYLLS OF THE KING chap. at Greenwich, in 1587. One Thomas Hughes, with the aid of seven other gentlemen, was the author ; and among the contrivers of the dumb shows we recognise one memorable name, that of " Master Francis Bacon." ^ In this play Mordred is the chief character ; he is the son of Arthur and the lover of Guenevera ; the story might be called "The Eevenge of Gorlois," as his ghost appears and denounces vengeance on the sin- born son of TJther. The play contains some good lines, but on the whole it is a ranting production in blank verse, with much alliteration. It seems to be based, not on Malory, but on some of the earlier romances, and partly on Geoffrey's History, from which latter version, however, it differs in many ways. We next find Edmund Spenser making considerable use of the personality of Arthur, but his object is not to reconstruct the Arthurian legend. His main inten- tion is moral and political : fierce wars and faithful loves are to moralise his song ; and he makes Arthur, before his coronation and before his marriage with Guinevere, the chief hero, typifying magnificence, in the Aristotelian sense of perfection in all the moral virtues. He selects Arthur, he tells us, " as most fitte ■ for the excellency of his person, being m5,de famous by many men's former workes, and also furthest from the daunger of envy, and suspition of present time." Spenser makes no attempt to reproduce literally the old stories of the Eound Table ; his fable is subordinated to his allegory 1 Dodsley's Old Plays, vol. iv. pp. 249-343, ed. W. Hazlitt, 1874, n FROM MALORY TO TENNYSON 17 throughout : but his work is filled with the chivalric spirit, and it intensified the power of that spirit in the minds of his own generation and the generation that followed it. The passages in which Spenser alludes most particularly to the story of Arthur are as follows : — In the Faerie, Queene, Bk. I. canto vii. stanzas 29-37, we have a description of Arthur, and some of his ex- ploits are recounted in the next canto. In canto ix. st. 3 his bringing up by old Timon — the Sir Ector of Malory and Anton of Tennyson — is related. His sword Mord- dure, made by Merlin, is described in Bk. II. canto iii. St. 18 ; compare Bk. II. canto viii. st. 18-21. The Holy Grayle is mentioned in Bk. II. canto x. st. 53 ; Arthur's horse, Spumador, in II. xi. 8. In III. iii. 7, Maridunum, that is, Caer-Merdin, the cave and subter- ranean workshop of Merlin, is described ; Merlin, sur- prised and " buried under beare " (load, heavy stone) by the " traine " of the false Lady of the Lake, st. 11 ; Gorlois, st. 27 ; Uther, reigning while Arthur is a young ]might, st. 52 ; the story of King Eyence and the mantle made of kings' beards is imitated in VI. i. 7 (see Malory, I. xxiv.) ; and mention is made of Sir Pelleas and Sir^^r Lamorak, VI. xii. 39. These references will suffice to give some idea of Spenser's mode of treating his Arthurian materials. Drayton's Polyolhion, as is natural in a topographical poem having Albion as its subject, makes many allusions to Arthur and his knights, and the legends connecting them with various localities. c i8 IDYLLS OF THE KING CHAi'. Thus in Bk. 1. 1. 151, speaking of the river Camel, lie takes occasion to tell of Arthur's birth and death, and of "his twelve proud fields against the Saxon fought." In Bk. III. 11. 395-406, Camelot and Caerleon and the Pentecost feasts are described ; in Bk. IV. 1. 212, Avalon; 11. 245-252, Arthur's sword Escalaboure, his spear Eone, and his shield Pridwen; in IV. 299, the "circled board" (Eound Table) ; and so in many other passages. It was probably the Faerie Qioeene that first suggested the theme to Milton as capable of closer treatment, and led to his careful study of " What resounds In fable or romance of Uthei^'s son. Begirt by British and Armoric knights " (Par. Lost, i. 579); and it was not untU his historical researches led him to doubt " who Arthur was, and whether any such ever reigned in Britain," that he abandoned the subject as being merely fabulous. Milton's Latin poems give us clear indications of his early choice of the subject. In the lines Ad Mansuvi he says : — " Should I recall hereafter into rhyme The kings and heroes of my native clime, Arthur the chief, who even now prepares, In subterraneous being, future wars, With all his martial knights, to be restored Each to his seat around the federal board ; And oh, if spirit fail me not, disperse Our Saxon plunderers, in triumphal verse." II FROM MALORY TO TENNYSON 19 Aud still more explicitly in the Epitaphiimi Bamonis : — " Of Brutus, Dardan chief, my song shall be, How with his barks he ploughed the British sea. First from Rutupia's towering headland seen, And of his consort's reign, fair Imogen ; Of Brennus and Belinus, brothers bold. And of Arviragus, and how of old, Our hardy sires the Armorican controlled ; And of the wife of Gorlois, who, surprised By Uther, in her husband's form disguised (Such was the force of Merlin's art), became Pregnant with Arthur of heroic fame. These themes I now revolve, — and oh, if Pate Proportion to these themes my lengthened date. Adieu, my shepherd's reed ! yon pine-tree bough Shall be thy future home ; there dangle thou Forgotten and disused, unless ere long Thou change thy Latin for a British song ;" etc.i As Spenser may have suggested the theme to Milton, so possibly this latter passage may have suggested it to Dryden, if not also to Pope. It is perhaps not to be too deeply regretted that the fates reserved it for Tennyson. Dryden gives an outline of his plan in the preface to his translation of Juvenal's Satires, and Sir Walter Scott deplores that " A ribald king and court Bade him toil on to make them sport," and only left him leisure to compose a trashy opera on the story of Arthur. 1 Cowper's translation (Globe eJ. Cowpor's Works, pp. 457, 462). IDYLLS OF THE KING But too miich weight need not be laid qii Dryden's intended connection with the Arthurian poetry, as he seems to have thought more seriously of a different project. He says : " I was doubtful whether I should choose that of King Arthur conquering the Saxons, which, being farther distant in time, gives the gi-eater scope to my invention ; or that of Edward the Black Prince, in subduing Spain and restoring it to the lawful prince, though a great tyrant, Don Pedro the Cruel," etc. {Ussays of Dryden, ed. C. D. Yonge, p. 26, Essay on Satire). Sir Eichard Blackmore, a physician and a voluminous writer of worthless couplets, seems to have " conveyed " part of Dryden's original scheme, and produced two huge epics, "Prince Arthur" and "King Arthur." Dryden complains in a mildly sarcastic wa,y that Black- more has only partly followed his model : " the guardian angels of kingdoms" (which Dryden had purposed to introduce) "were machines too ponderous for him to manage." However, Dryden will deal "the more civilly" with Sir Eichard's Arthur, "because nothing ill should be spoken of the dead " ; and certainly the knight-physician's poems were dead even before Queen Anne — never to " come again." But Sir Eichard was a good man if a poor poet, and in that time of literary licentiousness his crime was dulness, not indecency. Passing over Ireland's Vortigern, we come to Sir Walter Scott. It would be strange if Scott had not FROM MALORY TO TENNYSON frequently touched upon the Arthurian legends. His Sir Tristrem is an edition of the fragmentary romance by Thomas the Eymer, of Ercildoune ; and the con- cluding " Fytte " has been restored by the hand of Scott himself, in the antique language and metre of the rest of the poem. Again, in the Introduction to the first canto of Marmion, Sir Walter describes at some length the sway that the " legendary lay " holds over the poet's mind, and declares his resolve to " Break a feeble lance In the fair fields of old romance " ; of which resolve Marmion is the ample fulfilment. In the Bridal of Triermain he relates a story of Arthur and a false damsel named Gwendolen. One line, " Mordred with his look askance " (II. xiii.), reminds us of the Tennysonian Modred ; and a few lines (II. iii.) describing the fair Gwendolen may be quoted : — " Much force have mortal charms to stay Our peace in Virtue's toilsome way ; But Gwendolen's might far outshine Each maid of merely mortal line. Her mother was of human birth, Her sire a Genie of the Earth, In days of old deem'd to preside O'er lovers' wiles and beauty's pride, By youths and virgins worshipp'd long With festive dance and choral song, IDYLLS OF THE KING Till wlien the Cross to Britain came, On heathen altars died the flame. Now deep in Wastdale solitude The downfall of his rights [rites ?] he rued. And born of his resentment heir, He trained to guile that lady fair. To sink in slothful sin and shame The champions of the Christian name." Have we not in these lines a slight germ at least of the character that Tennyson has depicted in the lissome Vivien ? Scott's conception of Arthur is not on a par with Tennyson's. Vivien attempts the blameless king in vain ; but Scott's false damsel succeeds in fascinating her Arthur. The various Waverley novels in which use is made of romantic materials need not be enumerated. Scott's mind was steeped in the spirit of mediajval chivalry, and he was the leader of the revival of romanticism at the beginning of this century. Southey's Madoc in Wales (1804) contains, as may be supposed, many references to the mythic heroes and the bards of Wales. Wordsworth, after perusing Milton's History of England, versified in 1815 the romantic story of Artegal and Midure " as a token of affectionate respect for the memory of Milton." ^ He refers to Geoffrey's History both in the lines quoted in chapter i. and in the following stanza : — ' See Knight's Wordsworth, vi. 47. This Artegal in the old ohronioles vas the prototype of Spenser's Sir Arthegall. FROM MALORY TO TENNYSON " There too we read of Spenser's fairy themes, And those that Milton loved in youthful years ; The sage enchanter Merlin's suhtle schemes ; The feats of Arthur and his knightly peers ; Of Arthur — who, to upper light restored. With that terrific sword Which yet he brandishes for future war. Shall lift his country's fame above the polar star." In the Egyptian Maid he touches another Arthurian legend with great delicacy ; and in his poems referring to localities he makes various minor allusions to the Celtic traditions. Matthew Arnold, in his Tristram and Iseult, retells with exquisite freshness and charm the story of Tristram's death, briefly narrated by Scott in the archaic verses with which he completed the Eymer's Tristrem. Arnold anticipates the Tennysonian character of Isolt of Brittany, " Patient and prayerful, meek. Pale-blooded, she will yield herself to God," and closes the story with the tale of Vivien compass- ing Merlin's destruction. He follows the "thorn- bush" form of the legend, and his story is simply told, as by the widowed Iseult to her and Tristram's children. Lastly, Mr. Morris and Mr. Swinburne have both given us remarkable poems, the former on Guinevere and other Arthurian themes, and the latter on Tristram ; but enouo'h has been said to show what a harvest of 24 IDYLLS OF THE ICING chap. beautiful thoughts and words has sprang from the fruitful seed of " Geoffrey's book, and Maleore's." Su' Edward Strachey claims for Malory's romance the rank of an epic, a prose poem, epical in plan and treatment. But we cannot now ascertain how far Malory was consciously imaginative in his work ; he seems to us to have been largely so, no doubt, though Dr. Sommer's labours have much reduced the old knight's claim to originality ; but it is not impossible that Malory's standpoint was that of the quasi-historian at least as much as of the romance-writer. These legends had a concrete reality for him that they have not for us, and whenever he feels that he is too unreal, he shelters himself by saying that so it is written in the Prench book ! Hence the Morte Darthur can hardly be regarded as an epical work in any strict sense of the term : Mr. Furnivall's description of it as a "jumble" is at least as applicable.'- With regard to the claim of Tennyson's poem, as it now stands, to the title of epic, there cannot be much serious question — the only doubt being whether a poem 1 Sir AV. Scott, Introd. to Sir Trisirem, p. 81, says that Malory's collection is "extracted at hazard, and without much art or combina- tion, from the various French prose folios. ... It is, however, a work of great interest, and curiously written in excellent English, and breathing a high tone of chivalry." See, too. Sir G. Cox's Oonip. Mytliol. p. 313 ; Sommer's edition, passim ; and the quotation from Mr. Gladstone below. ■II FROM MALORY TO TENNYSON 25 seemingly made up of a series of somewhat detached episodes may claim to possess the unity that must distinguish the true epic. From the way in which the Idylls were given to the world, a few at a time, the last first and the first last, our earlier critics -^ were rather uncertain on this sub- ject; but there is practically a consensus of recent opinion in favour of regarding the poem as an epical work in the fullest degree. M. Taine says that the poet is here " epic, antique, and ingenuous " ; another critic, Mr. Eoden Noel, calls the poem " this noble epic " ; and a third, Mr. Stedman, hardly thinks " that the poet at first expected to compose an epic. It has grown insensibly. ... It is the epic of chivalry — the Christian ideal of chivalry which we have deduced from a barbaric source."^ Mr. Stedman seems to be in error when he says that the poet did not at first expect to compose an epic. Tennyson's early version of the Morte Darthur is entitled The Epic, and we may infer from the dialogue preceding these " old Homeric ^ Mr. Gladstone excepted. See liis Quarterly Beview article, 1859, in his Gleanings, ii 170. He says : " Though the Arthurian romance be no epic, it does not follow that no epic can be made out of it. It is grounded on certain leading characters, men and women, conceived upon models of extraordinary grandeur ; and as the Laureate has evi- dently grasped the genuine law which makes man, and not the mere acts of man, the base of epic song, we should not be surprised were he hereafter to realise the great achievement towards wliich he seems to be feeling his way. . . . We do not despair of seeing Mr. Tennyson achieve, on the basis he has chosen, the structure of a full-formed epic." - Taine, Sist. Eng. Lit. ii. 530 ; R. Noel, Essays on Poetry and Poets, p. 242 ; Stedman, Victorian Poets, p. 175. / X 26 IDYLLS OF THE KING chap. echoes " that the poet had originally selected the theme for epical treatment, but after trial had found the task too complex to be worked out in a straight line. " ' You know,' said Frank, ' he burnt His epic, his King Arthur, some twelve books,' " from which we may infer at least the temporary post- ponement of a young poet's too ambitious design. But the bantering style of this dialogue seems to imply that the " great argument " was still latent in his mind. And can it be said that any epic ever grew "insen- sibly," save in so far as all artistic composition is gradual, a matter of developing and filing and polishing a general idea; for no work of art, poem, statue, picture, or musical theme, ever sprang in full panoply from its maker's brain. But now that the poem has come full circle it is clear to us that from the first the poet had a tangible scheme, a beginning, a middle, and an end, working and shaping itself in his mind. In giving us the Passing of Arthur first, he implied the precedent conception of the epical story. It is as though Merlin had moulded that one statue of Arthur, "with a crown, and peaked wings pointing to the jSTorthern Star," before he set about constructing the mighty Hall of Camelot, and its four zones of sculpture, set betwixt with many a mystic symbol. If we take this edifice as the type of Tennyson's work, in the sense that Merlin meant it to be the type of Arthur's aims and deeds, we shall see a spiritual 11 FROM MALORY TO TENNYSON 27 unity pervading the Idylls ; from the very beginning " Mens agitat molem et magno se corpore miscet." The fifty years' toil of the workman is not to be confounded with the originating conception of the architect who planned " This immense And glorious work of fine intelligence.'' It is not an easy matter to classify intellectual pro- ducts into genera and species according to rigidly scien- tific formulfe, for no two are exactly alike in structure or treatment ; the more original the creative mind, the greater its tendency to diverge from preceding models. But if we may say that there are epics and epics ; if we grant that an epic may have unity of subject without unity of action, may have spiritual unity rather than dramatic unity ; then we may surely assert that the Idylls of the King belongs to the class of epi- sodical epics, of which there are many, from the Shah Namcli downwards ; or if we must narrow our definition still further, we may conclude that the poet has here created a new form, which future ages will probably call the Tennysonian or idyllic epic.^ ^ There are some who hold that