irect than "Tristram of Lyonesse." The story is
the same as Tennyson's "Balin and Balan," published with "Tiresias and
Other Poems" in 1885, as an introduction to "Merlin and Vivien." Here
the advantage is in every point with the younger poet. Tennyson's
version is one of the weakest spots in the "Idylls." His hero is a rough
Northumberland warrior who looks with admiration upon the courtly graces
of Lancelot, and borrows a cognisance from Guinevere to wear upon his
shield, in hope that it may help him to keep his temper. But having once
more lost control of this, he throws himself upon the ground

"Moaning 'My violences, my violences!'"--

a bathetic descent not unexampled elsewhere in Tennyson.

This episode of the old "Morte Darthur" has fine tragic possibilities.
It is the tale of two brothers who meet in single combat, with visors
down, and slay each other unrecognised. It has some resemblance,
therefore, to the plan of "Sohrab and Rustum," but it cannot be said that
either poet avails himself of the opportunity for a truly dramatic
presentation of his theme. Tennyson, as we have seen, aimed to give epic
unity to the wandering and repetitious narrative of Malory, by selecting
and arranging his material with reference to one leading conception; the
effort of the king to establish a higher social state through an order of
Christian knighthood, and his failure through the gradual corruption of
the Round Table. He subdues the history of Balin to this purpose, just
as he does the history of Tristram which he relates incidentally only,
and not for its own sake, in "The Last Tournament." Balin's simple faith
in the ideal chivalry of Arthur's court is rudely dispelled when he hears
from Vivien, and sees for himself, that the two chief objects of his
reverence, Lancelot and the queen, are guilty lovers and false to their
lord; and in his bitter disappointment, he casts his life away in the
first adventure that offers. Moreover, in consonance with his main
design, Tennyson seeks, so far as may be, to discard whatever in Malory
is merely accidental or irrational; whatever is stuff of romance rather
than of epic or drama--whose theatre is the human will. To such elements
of the wonderful as he is obliged to retain he gives, where possible, an
allegorical or spiritual significance. There are very strange things in
the story of Balin, such as the invisible knight Garlon, a "darkling
manslayer"; and the chamber in