analysis of Homer's epics, is a work of great merit.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE REACTION IN POETRY.

Alfred Tennyson. Early Works. The Princess. Idyls of the King.
Elizabeth B. Browning. Aurora Leigh. Her Faults. Robert Browning. Other
Poets.

TENNYSON AND THE BROWNINGS.

ALFRED TENNYSON.--It is the certain fate of all extravagant movements,
social or literary, to invite criticism and opposition, and to be followed
by reaction. The school of Wordsworth was the violent protest against what
remained of the artificial in poetry; but it had gone, as we have seen, to
the other extreme. The affected simplicity, and the bald diction which it
inculcated, while they raised up an army of feeble imitators, also
produced in the ranks of poetry a vindication of what was good in the old;
new theories, and a very different estimate of poetical subjects and
expression. The first poet who may be looked upon as leading the
reactionary party is Alfred Tennyson. He endeavored out of all the schools
to synthesize a new one. In many of his descriptive pieces he followed
Wordsworth: in his idyls, he adheres to the romantic school; in his
treatment and diction, he stands alone.

EARLY EFFORTS.--He was the son of a clergyman of Lincolnshire, and was
born at Somersby, in 1810. After a few early and almost unknown efforts in
verse, the first volume bearing his name was issued in 1830, while he was
yet an under-graduate at Cambridge: it had the simple title--_Poems,
chiefly Lyrical_. In their judgment of this new poet, the critics were
almost as much at fault as they had been when the first efforts of
Wordsworth appeared; but for very different reasons. Wordsworth was simple
and intensely realistic. Tennyson was mystic and ideal: his diction was
unusual; his little sketches conveyed an almost hidden moral; he seemed to
inform the reader that, in order to understand his poetry, it must be
studied; the meaning does not sparkle upon the surface; the language
ripples, the sense flows in an undercurrent. His first essays exhibit a
mania for finding strange words, or coining new ones, which should give
melody, to his verse. Whether this was a process of development or not, he
has in his later works gotten rid of much of this apparent mannerism,
while he has retained, and even improved, his harmony. He exhibits a rare
power of concentration, as opposed to the diffusiveness of his
contemporaries. Each of his smaller poems is a