Page:Tennyson - Walter Irving (1873).djvu/18

 Mr Tennyson, we believe, is a pure minded gentleman. And his poems seem to be the express image of his mind. They are read by the lovely daughters of England's peers. And it is no flight of fancy to picture one of these sentimental virgins poring over her tastefully bound copy, making a dog-ear where a pretty simile occurs, in order that she may get it by heart, or quote it appropriately the next time she writes to her dear, dear, Arthur, who she thinks is as stainless a knight as the spotless Sir Galahad. But a chastened nature, a nature such as Mr Tennyson seems to possess, will not make another great Milton. And we know we do Mr Tennyson no wrong when we say it is with Milton he earnestly hopes to be ranked. A hankering after the same subject, the same extreme love of Attic form, the same admiration of its dignity, severity, and grace, is common to both of them. But how unlike in genius. Milton would have regarded Mr Tennyson, and all his works, with the like feelings which Gulliver had for the Lilliputians and their houses, the tops of which he swept with the tails of his coat. The comparison may be odious, but the fault is Mr Tennyson's who provokes us to it. Milton's works form a library of history, poetry, and theology. He has enriched the State Paper Office of every court in Europe. A year of Mr Secretary Milton's correspondence is more valuable than the Coming and Going of Arthur and all his knights and their Round Table. His intellect was vast, masculine, strenuous, fitted and capable for all things; at one time descending to a mummer's play; at another rising to produce conceptions which for their blending of loftiness, boldness, dignity, and beauty stand unrivalled. He was majestic-minded, and all his conceptions comport with this, the ruling feature of his character. His shadow falls upon a hundred poets. No one may