C URRENT LITERATURE.
ALFRED TENNYSON.
Alfred Tennyson. By Andrew Lang. (W. Blackwood and Sons. 2s. 6d.)—This book, if its purpose be to make people who are not " literary " read and like the poetry of Tennyson, seems excellently contrived for its purpose. Everything Tennyson did or wrote is shown on its best side, and some of the best "extracts" are quoted. Probably, however, it will be read more for the sake of its author than its subject. Mr. Lang is an excellent talker in print, and here he talks about a subject that he likes, while he solaces himself at intervals with talking about what lie does not like, when, if possible, he becomes more interesting still. Such dramatic relief is afforded legitimately enough by gibes at Mr. Frederic Harrison, who seems to have made some unfortunate slips in chronology ; less legitimately by innuendoes about Mr. Browning, which are put into the mouth of FitzGerald, in- troduced periodically for the purpose. Mr. Browning is intro- duced in his own person, at p. 49, in order to express Mr. Lang's own dislike at receiving the lyrics and tragedies of twitterers. The one piece of serious criticism in the book is the chapter on "The Idylls of the King," for which as a series of epic idy/tia, on the model of Theocritus, constructed with elaborate art, Mr. Lang offers a defence that must be reckoned with. When a second edition is called for Mr. Lang would do well to employ a friend to cross out repeti- tions of the same remark. He would do well also to omit the introduction, which discusses the question of Tennyson's borrow. ings, a question that cannot be profitably discussed apart from the instances furnished by the commentators, whom Mr. Lang informs us he has not react.
Previous page
