BOOKS.

CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER'S SONNETS.*

Tint interest of this delightful volume cannot readily be ex- pressed by the critic. To say that it is full of beauty, of suggestiveness, of " the light that never was on land or sea," of the music that lives on in the ear and heart long after the book is laid aside, is to utter but a portion of the truth con- cerning it. The reader will find is these sonnets not only the true song of a poet, but the record of a beautiful and harmoni- ous life. The earliest poems in the volume were published fifty years ago, and won, as they well might, the Warm approbation of Coleridge. The latest series of sonnets appeared in 1873, and these are followed in the present collection by fifty sonnets, "now first published, except four or 'five, which have appeared in magazines." On the whole, the book contains 342 sonnets, —a number which has been surpassed by Wordsworth, and, we believe, by Wordsworth alone, It would be absurd to expect equal merit in so voluminous a series. Mr. Tennyson Turner, like other poets, is tempted sometimes to write when his in- spiration is suspended, and what he has then to say might be as well said in prose. Like Wordsworth, he does not always sing, but he is always characteristic ; we see the man even when the poet is absent, and the simplicity and integrity of his nature prevent him from falling into the rut of the convectional verse- maker.

A poem in seven stanzas, by the Poet-Laureate; a biographi- cal summary, by Mr. Hallam Tennyson ; and an Introductory Essay, by the poet's friend, Mr. ;fames Spedding, reprinted from the Nineteenth Century, are prefixed to the Collected Honnet8. It would be unfitting to transcribe here the beauti- ful words of brotherly sympathy expressed in musical verse by Mr, Tennyson. They may attract, let us hope, many readers to the volume who will learn to love it well for its own sake. Mr. Spedding's Essay, however, claims a few words of comment. It is a just and temperate criticism, full of reasonable admira- tion, and of that sympathy without which it is impossible to do justice to a poet's work. The writer says truly, and the ob- servation has been made before, that to appreciate a collection * Collected Sonnets, Old end Nem. By Charles Tennyson Turner. London: C. Began Paul and Co.

of sonnets, "you should read them one by one, with intervals between long enough to let the impression of each get out of the other's way." We are less disposed to agree with his excuses for the irregularity in the form of many of Mr. Turner's sonnets. He writes, indeed, as if he were not sure that it is necessary to restrict a sonnet within the authorised boundary of fourteen lines, as if a greater latitude might be admitted, and the poem retain its character notwithstanding. "The necessity," he observes, " of forcing the thought into the frame has spoiled many good sonnets, and it would be hard to show how it can have improved any ; since whenever the poet found that what he had to say could be better expressed in fomteen lines than in more or fewer, the regular fourteen were always at his service." And Mr. Spedding adds that there may possibly be some virtue in this particular number, though it is hard to believe it. It may be replied, in answer to this plea for freedom, that poetry, like every other art, has its rules by which the poet is bound, males within which he can move unshackled. It is his fealty to law which gives him liberty, as distinguished from licence, and there is no great poet whose course has not been very distinctly influenced by a regard lot precedent. The dramatist, if he would be successful, follows the rules of the drama ; the epic poet works in salutary fear of his predecessors in the art; and the sonnet-writer will inevitably fail in his special department, if he wander beyond the "plot of ground" which is his lawful territory. Within that plot there is still room for variety, and we can welcome alike the free

rhymes and final couplet of Shakespeare, as well as the more complex and artificial form in which Milton, true to the Italian model, uttered his trumpet notes. Mr. Spedding complains of the artificial structure of the Miltonic sonnet, but it is the nature of the sonnet to be artificial, and the genius of the poet is shown in so exercising his divine art as to conceal the artifice.

It will bo gathered from these remarks that Mr. Turner's sonnets are marked by irregularities, and this is, no doubt, the case. He is fond, for instance, of rhyming the ninth line with the thirteenth, and the twelfth with the fourteenth ; he imitates frequently the familiar laxity of the Elizabethan sonneteers, and concludes epigrammatically with a couplet. His rhyming methods in the sestette are various, and Mr. Spedding is prob- ably right in saying, with regard to this variety, that the rhymes always fall so naturally into their places that it may be doubted " whether any one not engaged in a critical ex- amination of the question would be conscious of any differences in metrical structure, or be able to say off-hand where they are, or what they consist in."

Nature in its simplest aspects, and human life seen iu its common round of cares and duties, form the principal topics of Mr. Turner's verse. No subject is too slight to stimulate his fancy and to suggest a poetical thought. A scarecrow in the field suggests one sonnet, a willow-twig another, a sale of wood, on the estate of a non-resident proprietor a third, and two son- nets are dedicated to a dead canary which, having died in its cage, is destined still to retain in it the semblance of life :-

" He shall not be cast out liko wild-wood things ! We will not spurn those delicate remains; No heat shall blanch his plumes, nor soaking rains Shall wash the saffron from his little wings ; Nor shall he be incartli'd,—but in his cage Stand, with his innocent beauty unimpaired."

It is an open question whether Mr. Turner did not some- times suffer his wholesome love of homely things to cripple the vigorous exercise of his poetic genius, and yet this child-like love, so rare in these days of ambition and self-seeking, has surely its beautiful side. He had pity for the meanest thing that breathes, and a tender sympathy even for things that are inanimate; and he had none of the ambition which leads a man

to turn aside from what he loves, in order to magnify what the world admires. No poet—not Wordsworth, even—has treated Nature with more tenderness; not one has proved himself more ready to learn her simplest lesson, and Mr. Turner ex- presses a significant trait in his poetical character when he writes :—

" On Nature's book I love to pore and mark what soars on high,

Or lurks in bye-paths for the observant eye."

Quotations from a volume like this cannot be satisfactory, for it is impossible that they should represent iu any measure the variety and simplicity of the poet's art. At the same time, a sonnet has the advantage of being a complete poem in itself,

and can be read and appreciated apart from its fellows. The two following, alike in treatment and character, are full of beauty, and the treatment is, we think, effective :— " THE FOREST GLADE.

As ono dark morn I tied a forest glade,

A sunbeam entered at the further end, And ran to meet me through the yielding shade- Aa one who in the distance sees a friend, And smiling, hurries to him ; but mine eyes, Bewilder'd by the change from dark to bright, Received the greeting with a quick surprise At first, and then with tears of pure delight ; For sad my thoughts had been,—the tempest's wrath Had gloom'd the night, and made the morrow gray; That heavenly guidance humble sorrow bath, Had turn'd my feet into that forest-way, Just when His morning light came down the path, Among the lonely woods at early day."

"TAE LATTICE AT SUNRISE.

As on my bed at dawn I mused and pray'd,

I saw my lattice prankt upon the well,

Tho flaunting leaves and flitting birds withal,— A sunny phantom, interlaced with shade ;

Thanks be to Heaven,' in happy mood I said,

' What sweeter aid my matins could befall, Than this fair glory from the East bath made ?

What holy sleights hath God, the Lord of all, To bid us feel and see ! we are not free To say we see not, for the 'glory comes Nightly and daily, like the flowing sea ; His lustre piereeth through the midnight glooms, And, at prime hour, behold ! He follows me With golden shadows to my secret rooms !' "

We should be glad, did space allow, to quote several sonnets which, like the 193rd, are rural landscapes in miniature ; and others which, as in a fine sonnet entitled " Orion," the descrip- tion of the glory of Nature is blended with the personal feeling of the writer: A sonnet on the" Harvest Moon," which belongs to poems of this class, invites comparison with a still finer one by William Stanley Roscoe, ou the same subject. Although Mr. Turner is always faithful and often exquisite in his descrip- tion of what is known as still-landscape, we like him even better in a line of poetry which is more peculiarly his own. Children and birds are this poet's delight, and he is rarely so happy as when singing with a full heart of both. In its own way, the following, which may be already familiar to the render, strikes us as inimitable :-

" When Letty had scarce pass'd her third glad year,

And her young, artless words began to flow, One day we gave the child a coloned sphere Of the wide earth, that she might mark and know, By tiut and outline, all its sea and land.

She patted all the world ; old empires peep'd Between her baby fingers, her soft hand Was welcome at all frontiers. How she leap'd, And 'angled, and prattled iu her world-wide bliss; But when wo turned her sweet, unlearned eye On our own isle, she raised a joyous cry, ' Oh ! yes, I see it, Letty's home is there!' And while she hid all England with a kiss, Bright over Europe fell her golden hair."

And here in sweet verse is a simple thought expressed poetically 41,nd with the utmost propriety of language :- "When to the birds their morning meal I threw,

Beside one pretty candidate for bread There flash'd and wink'd a tiny drop of dew • But while I gazed, I lost thew, both had fled; His careless tread had struck the blade-hung tear, And all its silent beauty fell away ; And left, sole relic of the twinkling sphere, A sparrow's dabbled foot upon a spray. Bold bird! that didst efface a lovely thing Before a poet's eyes ! I've half a mind, Could I but single thee from out thy kind,

To mulct thee in a crumb ; a crumb to thee

Is not more sweet than that fair drop to me; Fie on thy little foot and thrumming wing ! " . .

This is not "lofty rhyme," but it has a genuine ring, which makes its homeliness welcome. Mr. Turner often rises to a higher strain, and shows in his suggestions and illustrations the culture of the scholar, as well as the feeling of the-poet.

Ns...sv Some of these more ambitious efforts possess a dignity and finish worthy of all praise. "His memory," says Mr. tipeddiug, was well stored with classical imagery. The great events and

great biographies of the past, the struggles] of the nations and the victories of humanity in the present and the hidden future of his country and his race, filled him with emotion, and in- spired strains which will probably take place hereafter, many of them, among the memorable utterances of our time." This praise may be justified, and Mr. Turner's sonnets suggested by

historical events or classic story will probably retain their place in literature ; but we confess that we return again and again with a keener sense of pleasure to the poems which are simplest in character, and describe, as the poet best loves to do, the most familiar incidents of rural life. Of this class there are so large a number that it is difficult to select from the plentiful supply, but hero is one which shows, perhaps, as well as any how fond this poet was of feasting on simple diet :- " The cow low'd sadly o'er the distant gate,

In the mid-field and round our garden rail; But nought her restless sorrow could abate, Nor patting hands nor clink of milking-pail ; Foi• she had lost the love she least could spare.

Her little suckling calf, her life of life, In some far shambles waited for the knife, And spent his sweet breath on the murderous air.

One single yearning sound, repeated still, Moan'd from the croft, and wander'd round the hill ; The heedless train ran brawling down the line ; On went the horsemen and the market-cart, Bat little Rose, who loved the sheep and kine, Ran home to tell of Cushie's broken heart."

There are a few controversial sonnets in the volume, which it is to be feared will repel readers, rather than attract them. Mr. Turner attacks the infidelity and agnosticism of the day with weapons that fail to strike home, and the result will satisfy neither the theologian nor the poetical critic. Religious con- troversy is unfitted for the calm region of poetry ; but poetry, despite Dr. Johnson's statement, does admit of the highest ex-

pression of devotion, of the most comprehensive utterance, provided it be expressed poetically, of Christian faith. Such sonnets as " A Non-Natural Easter," " German and French Gospels," " Lebeu Jesu and Vie do J6sus," satisfy neither the heart nor the head ; but happily Mr. Turner has written sonnets of another stamp, which carry us into a purer region. With one of them, called " The Pastor's Prayer " we close an imperfect notice of a volume which deserves a permanent place upon the shelf, among the poets we love best and converse with most frequently :—

" At dawn he marks the smoke among the trees, From hearths to which his daily footsteps go ; And hopes, and fears, and ponders on his knees, if his poor sheep will heed his voice or no; What wholesome turn will Ailsie's sorrow take P Her latest sin will careless Annie rue ?

Will Robin now, at last, his wiles forsake'? Meet his old dupes, yet hold his balance true ? lie prays at noon, with all the warmth of heaven About his heart, that each may be forgiven ; lie prays at eve ; and through the midnight air Sends holy ventures to the throne above; His very dreams are faithful to his prayer, And follow, with closed eyes, the path of love."