The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1880-06-03
Tennyson's Poetical Politics.

To any one who has the slightest acquain-
tance with English politics. and the relation Of
English families to them, it is known that Mr..
Tennyson comes of good old whig stock, and
would probably describe himself by that re-
spectacle but half obsolete term of party no
menclature. But while names remain, they
shift their meaning, and the old whig is some-
times scarcely distinguishable from the new
conservative and we shall therefore discuss
Mr. Tennyson's politics solely on the evidence
supplied by his poetry.
In any study of politics, it is as well to begin
at the bottom with the ground game. The tory
who is sound about rabbits is perfect tory
In spite of the reaction of Canon Kingsley in
his later years he could never get over his in
vidious remarks about "merry brown hares,"
nor conceal lurking sympathy with thu
poacher. Now, it must be admitted even by
the members of the Conservative Club at Glas-
cow University, that Mr. Tennyson is far from
sound about ground game. He has spoken dis
respectfully of rabbits; "the rabbit fondled his
own foolish face"-nay, he has gone so far as
to speak Of young lord with rabbit mouth
that is ever agape." Now. Keble in poem
on the twenty second Sunday after Trinity (or
thereabouts) alludes to pheasants in very diff
ferent strain. Keble must have been tory
poet, or Mr.. Sharp, the Professor of Poetry at
the University at the University of Oxford,
would not bestow ON him the praise which he
withholds from the radical Shelley.
Again in Aylmer's Field Mr.. Tennyson has
treated members of acountry family with very
scanty respect, exclaiming against their AFRO
CANT, respectable stupidity. No one would
gather from the more impassioned parts of
Maud that Mr.. Tennyson' was a tory 1t is
true that his hero has none of the commercial
spirit and denounces cheating tradesmen and
the adulteration of chemicals in common use
But no regard is shown by the lover in Maud
for wealth or rank or even for the land. He
scoffs openly at "tha gathering of the tories, of
the men of many acres" Aud this must be
set against his extreme hatred of the north
ern sin" and of Russia, and generally against
his truly Jingo wish that bloody war would
break out somewhere or other. Indeed IL
seems probable enough that the patriotism Of
ten displayed by Mr. Tennyson has been mis-
taken by conservative youths for toryism. The
conservatives have so long been declaring that
they are the only patriots that the younger
members of the party have perhaps come to
believe it. Now, Mr.. Tennyson, like all our
great poets, has ever shown an ardent love of
his country Perhaps his warlike and patriotic
verses are not his best; certainly the lines
which had refrain about George for Eng
land'' were not unjustly excluded from the Ia
ter editions of his poems. The Charge of the
Light Brigade, and The Ballad of the Fleet,
however, stir the blood like the sound of a
trumpet.
Mr.. Tennyson, or one of his characters, anti
cipated Mr.. Gladstone's remark about the
'silver streak. "God bless the narrow seas
that keep her off. would they were whole
Atlantic wide,' says some one in The Princess,
the cher" alluded to being of course France
But in these later years the recognition O. the
fact that England is an island, has often been
treated as sign OF a narrow parochial policy.
Thus there is no very marked trace of political
opinion in the Laureates verse, except the
wish for lone stro man in blatant land"