Page:Tennyson - Walter Irving (1873).djvu/28

 consists merely of the abrupt interposition of useless words before the statement or description in the sentence is properly concluded. The effect of this is an absurd transition, unwarranted by the rules of grammer [sic], and most perplexing to a clear understanding of the poet's meaning. This is why many people cannot understand Mr Tennyson; this is his depth and profundity, of which we hear so much. It is because he says what he has to say in a manner more contorted, twisted, and abrupt than Carlyle, that the sense of it is not apparent at once. You have to stop, and think, and adjust, before you arrive at the meaning of Mr Tennyson's passages; and then, when you do arrive at them, you find your labour has been in vain, for they are meaningless. They turn out to be nothing but puerilities and insipid conceits, without point and relativity.

Mr Tennyson's sins against the English language are legion. Johnson has said that it would be impossible for anyone to translate Addison, on account of the free use he made of the idiom of the language. But no one, even suppose he possesses a more ample knowledge of our language than M. Taine, will be able to give a tolerable translation of the Idylls of the King. Adjectives, nouns, and adverbs are turned into verbs; adjectives into adverbs and present participles; nouns into adjectives. And a nominative and verb, before the conclusion of the sentence, occasionally part company with one another, and the verb sometimes displays a strong partiality for another subject. Sometimes all the Parts of Speech are jostled together in such a manner, that it is quite impossible, to tell in what capacity they are doing duty.

His insipid conceits are to be found on every page. For example, in Gareth and Lynette, which must be held to be the