Page:Tennyson - Walter Irving (1873).djvu/14

 and bullies are notoriously without any. The character of Milton's genius is much more akin to Spenser, than Shakespeare or Burns. Milton and Spenser have neither wit nor humour; while on the other hand, the wit and humour of Burns and Shakespeare is keen, and jubilant. Shakespeare and Burns moreover were gifted, for it is a gift, with the deep tenderness which made them sympathize with, and reciprocate the emotion which is stirred by the sense of all that is fair and lovely, sad and sorrowfnlsorrowful [sic]. From this sentiment sprang into life the passionately fond Juliet, the simple tender Ophelia, the sparkling merry Rosalind, the immortal Jean, the lovely Annie Laurie and bonnie Highland Mary, characters who have excited more compassion, gained more sympathy, and interested the mind more than all the characters of history put together. And it is this same tenderness which makes us play the woman, over the sad story of Little Nell, which makes us sorrow with her old grandfather, when "They told him gently she was dead." Mr Tennyson cannot draw a tear, provoke laughter, or add to our senses the feelings of sublimity.

Great poets have always been great moral teachers. Philosophy receives from them but a secondary consideration. With them it is nothing compared with the great office of popularising the knowledge of the governance of the world, under the prescience of a beneficently wise God, of the retributive justice which overtakes them who will not listen to the voice of the charmer, of the loveliness, peace, and consolation of virtue. By admonition, entreaty, and illustration, they work out their great end and calling. They pass beyond the bootless problems of philosophy. They had grappled with them, and found their emptiness and hollowness. Such problems may engage and fascinate the mind, but they do not satisfy. There is something