Tennyson. By Morton Luce. (J. M. Dent and Co. Is.
6d. net.)—This is one of the series of "Temple Primers." To a certain extent it reproduces critical views already set forth in Mr. Lace's "Handbook to Tennyson." The volume now before us is more compact, and reasonably entitled to a separate existence. Mr. Luce is commonly so intelligent in his apprecia- tion of the poet that we are not a little surprised at his comments on "Maud." "He exchanges the dignified and discreet comments of a judge for the contentious declamation of an advocate." (p. 10.) "He makes war the moving-spring of honour and patriotism, and a healing for the wounds of love, while peace has become as sordid as commerce." Surely the writer of these sentences has forgotten the dramatic character of the poem. Imagine the result if Robert Browning were to be held responsible for the utterances of the strange medley of per- sonages through whose mouths it pleases him to speak ! Tennyson took pains to show that it was not himself, but another —one whose inheritance of life was tainted with the morbid— who was speaking in "Maud," and he resented the way in which this intention was ignored ; yet here is his latest commentator— one with nothing of the Zoilus about him—forgetting it. For the most part Mr. Luce is a sound and a judicious critic; but he
sometimes writes a little carelessly. How can it be said that we may "trace" to Shelley the "vigour of imagination" which Tennyson shows in "Timbuctoo "? This is a gift which no man can owe to another.
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