Page:Literary studies by Joseph Jacobs.djvu/189

 In one case we can even date a canto at least thirteen years later than the death of Arthur Hallam. When the poet speaks of science charming her secret from the latest moon, there is little doubt he is referring to the discovery of Neptune in 1846; yet this occurs in one of the earlier sections of the poem. The dangers involved in a philosophical poem were overcome by putting the problem in a concrete shape. The theology of the poem was from Rugby: it is the voice of the Broad Church clear, yet somewhat thin, and wanting in the higher imagination. The curious anticipations of Darwinism which occur so frequently in it were due to the interest excited by Chambers's Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, which appeared in 1844, and enable us to see how late these sections of the poem were added. The felicities of phrase with which it abounds cause it to rank as one of the best known poems in the language, and the one with which the name of Tennyson will be indissolubly connected. Here, again, the comparison with Pope is justified. The only other long philosophical poem in the language of any real literary merit is his Essay on Man.

Maud is even a greater surprise when compared with the Tennyson of the first period. There is no lack here of impetuous emotion, no cold decorative work. There is even a