ted to its formation, and occasionally there is a
striking resemblance in turn and diction, while Mr. Tennyson is the more
idiomatic of the two. The chastity and moral elevation of this volume,
its essential and profound though not didactic Christianity, are such as
perhaps cannot be matched throughout the circle of English literature in
conjunction with an equal power: and such as to recall a pattern which
we know not whether Mr. Tennyson has studied, the celestial strain of
Dante.[1] This is the more remarkable, because he has had to tread upon
the ground which must have been slippery for any foot but his. We are
far from knowing that either Lancelot or Guinevere would have been safe
even for mature readers, were it not for the instinctive purity of his
mind and the high skill of his management. We do not know that in other
times they have had their noble victims, whose names have become
immortal as their own.

Noi leggevamo un giorno per diletto
Di Lancilotto, e come amor lo strinse.
* * * * *
Galeotto fu il libro, e chi lo scrisse.[2]

[1] It is no reproach to say that neither Dante nor Homer could have
been studied by Mr. Tennyson at the time--a very early period of his
life--when he wrote the lines which are allotted to them
respectively in "The Palace of Art."
[2] "Inferno," c. V, v. 127.

How difficult it is to sustain the elevation of such a subject, may be
seen in the well-meant and long popular "Jane Shore" of Rowe. How easily
this very theme may be vulgarised, is shown in the _"Chevaliers de la
Table Ronde"_ of M. Creuze de Lesser, who nevertheless has aimed at a
peculiar delicacy of treatment.

But the grand poetical quality in which this volume gives to its author
a new rank and standing is the dramatic power: the power of drawing
character and of representing action. These faculties have not been
precocious in Mr. Tennyson: but what is more material, they have come
out in great force. He has always been fond of personal delineations,
from Claribel and Lilian down to his Ida, his Psyche, and his Maud; but
they have been of shadowy quality, doubtful as to flesh and blood, and
with eyes having little or no speculation in them. But he is far greater
and far better when he has, as he now has, a good raw material ready to
his hand, than when he draws only on the airy or chaotic regions of what
Carlyle calls unconditioned possibility. He is made not so much t