New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1856-01-01


some Of them hsve not appeared yet.
I do mt know whether sn anecdote Of Tennyson
ard his Charge of the Light Brigade" viii have
reached vou. Some time since that fine lyric had
become 40 popular with our fellows In the Crmes
that half Of them were singing it in such snstches
as they mad managed to pick up. Tae chaplain OF
the society for the Prop agat.on OF the uosPel
wrote home to the Society. telling them tnat 'hey
could do no better thing than to print the poem
and send it out with the mex. batch Of Bibles
Tennyson heard OF this. aud so hs Prlntea thou
sand copies of the soldiers version Of 1t, and seat
them out with the following nice notice;
Having heard that ths brave soldiers before S5vss
topol. whom | am proud to call my countrymen, have
liking for my ballad or the Charge OF the Light
! Brigade at Bslakays | Nave ordered thousand
cOpies to be printed for them. Nowrtiug OF rsne can
add to the glory they have acquired in the C,mea;
but II what have heard be true they VII not he us
pleased to receive these copies OF the ballad from me-
ana TO know that those who sit at home love AMI honor
| them.
| Seldom does Tennyson come o1t o. his darkliDg
privacy. he has so intense feeling Of the sacred
ness of his own individuality, and shr.nks so from
being seen publicly except in his books. Mr..
Mason wishes to preface the Forthcoming Illus
! dson Of the Poets head. which has been taken
| by young sculptor, but it is very doubtful
! whether the poet will give his permission.
A friend Of mine, who is deyout Tenrysonian,
wanted to have q bust of the Laureate, and he
commissioned an Edinburgh sculptor to try and
get permission. Mr.. Tennyson rather abruptly
| refused, but, modifying somewhat said that II 1t
were taken, he-the sculpt0r-shOuld take II.
The other dag full liberty was granted-and so We
shall soon have copy OF il in Edinburgh. Ii Is
| to be hoped that the likeness will be good one.
The original head is one Of the grandest in Britain.
Such a one that if il could be said that that was
the man who wrote the Iliad and the Divine
Comedy and Paradise Lost you would not be
astonshed-for that il just like him.
II is too late now to speak Of BrOwnlngs new
volumes, as you will have had them long before
this letter reaches you. Their reception has been
very quiet with US. Somehow, BrOwnlngs genius,
large and intensely powerful as il is is too con-
cave on one side and too convex on the other to
get the right focus Either he cannot get suff-
cient expression he is in too great haste or too
Indifferent He has never made any advance upon
Paracelf in approaching the common heart of
humanty A yet there is stuff enough In him
TO make icur and-twenty LOngfellows if he could
only mS it presentabe. Browning does not
seem to understand that the greatest poet must
achieve the most utter selfabnegatiOn In matters
of art as well as when he is in the fury of crea
ton. He ueiH be willful and have his whims, in
stead of sterny sacrificing them. This willfulness
and these whims are more apparent n the last
volumes than the frst-as ter instance, when he
gives us such yahoo impertinences as " fsred and
funked, and
"Who fshed the mure1 up
What porridge had John Keats' -
Which are on par with those familiar questions:
Does your mother know you are out y and
"Who stole the donkey" presume he feels 80
full of power that he becomes skittsh.
What do YOU make of the last poem by Bailey
Truly We may say that the fire of Festus has
'.Hared and funked" Festusism went up like
rocket. and il comes down like stick, dead and
damned Speaking of Festus reminds me OF
good Joke Bailey's father is most dutiful ad
mirer of the genius of his son He is very proud
of being grandfather to Festus. The good soul
has recently published a Gude-BoOk to Noting
ham and its NeighborhOod, in which be deyOtes
considerable space TO the birthplace of Festus
and tells us of the marvellous success and ninety
nine editions of the poem. Among other things
he quotes the following from New-fOrk critic
sit would appear from these opinions, which, from
their intensity variety and number, upward of fifty
are to s very surprising signs of the times, that Mr.
Bailey has not so much improved happily super
seeded the authors of the books OF Job and Eccle-
sastes of the Divine Comedy of Paradise Lost
and Regaincd, OF DIR. Faustus,' Of Hamlet, OF
Faust. of Don Juan, The Course of Time, ST.
Leon The Jolly Beggars, and the Lives OF the
Angels He is more sublime and simple than job;
more royally witty and wise; more TO the point than
Solomon; more picturesque, more intense more pa
thetic than Dante; more Mtonic I'VE have no other
word than Milton dreadful, more sonorous than
Marlowe; wOrdly-wise, clever, and srct than
Goethe; more passionate, more eloquent more lmpu-
dent than Byron; more orthodox more edfying more
precocous than Pollock more absorptiye and invet-
crate than Goodwin; and more hearty more tender,
more of manhood all compact than Burns; more gay
than Moore more versatile than Shakespeare
This he quotes in serious earnest l do not
know in what shape il was presented by the said
critic but it was written by DIR. John Brown OF
Edinburgh, as fOOt-nOte filled, with huge humOr,
and attached to criticism Of Vaughan and other
poets which appeared few years since in The
North British Rerie,c.
Hiawatha" has had a capital welcome from
our critics. | am inclined to think 1t about the
greatest poetical success for some time. Let me
here note one little item of observation respecting
it, Had poor Poe been living he would have been
down upon Mr.. Longfellow for the following lines,
taken from the introduction:
THAT the feeble hands and helpless,
Grasping bfadly in he darkness,
Touch Co.'s right hand an the d0rkHess.
They are too obviously taken from the following
lines by young English writer:
&" saw not with mine eyes so full OF tears,
But heard Faiths sweet singing in the night. lh1Hd.
Ind groDine through tie darkness toucA d Gods
Extending that last line into three and making
the hand Gods right hand does not improve the idea
or expression.
Let me also note that Browning anticipated
Tennyscn in the peculiar measure of Maud" In
poem called 81 saul" the first part OF which
appeared years ago, and the second part OF which
appears in the new volumes added to the hrst, the
measure will be found. Tennys0n has varied it OF
course and has oftener touched nearer to perfec-
ton. With one other jOtting l must conclude:
Professor Aytoun is not the Editor of BIackpoods
Magazine Though closely connected with IT, he
ia not the stectire or responsible Editor OF IT, I"