Morning journal and courier., 1880-01-22

5anrnal and Gunrier.
Thursday Morning, Jan. p, 1880.
TENNYsON,s CREDITORS.

TENNYSON,S CREDITORS.
 writer who signs himself ssJ. 0. O." has an article in the Cornhill Magazine which has already made tremendous stir in England, and which will attract much attention and cause much discussion in this and ot her coun- tries In this article Tennyson is arraigned for extensive borrowing and stealing from other authors, and great number of verified quotations are given in support of the charge. Among the authors from whom the great poet is accused of appropriation" are Her bert of Cherbury, George Herbert, Cowper. Lucretius, Shakespeare, Persius, Napier (Peninsular war), Keats, Congreve. Horace, Shelley, Robert Browning, Catullus, Pin dar, Petrarch, Moschus, Stephen Hawes, Theocritus, Wordsworth, Archdeaoon Hare, Dryden, Beaumont, Ford, George Peele, Webster, Callimachus, Homer, Virgil, Sappho, Martial. Dante, Milton, Fitzgerald, Dr. Johnson and others. tJ. c. O." begins his article by some adroit comments upon the extent to which Virgil borrowed of his prede- cessors, and remarks: "John de Peyrarede once observed that he knew no task more in- structive than to compare Virgil's adaptations of Homer with the original passages-to note what details he rejected, what he added, what he softened down, what he thought proper to heighten. It was a perpetual study of the principles of good taste. In full confidence that what applies to Virgil in the case applies with equal justice to the work of our Laureate we propose to devote few pages to the sub ject, by way of inaugurating a branch of Tennysonian research which must necessarily be gradual and cumulative, but which will sooner or later become indispensable to @ proper appreciation of his services to art. Every Englishman must be quite as jealous of the fame of the Laureate as our old friend Furius Albinus was of the fame of his beloved Virgil, and we have in truth as little fear as honest Furious of our remarks being construed into an insinuation of plagiarism against great and noble poet"
 ''In Memoriam" is first taken up by ''J. 0. O." to show Tennyson's obligations to others. Of this poem it is said: ''The general scheme of the work is undoubtedly suggested by the series of sonnets and canzoni dedicated by Petrarch to the memory of Laura. Not only do the several divisions into which Tn Me- moriam' may be supposed to fall correspond with the divisions into which Petrarch's series may be fancifully divided, but the whole method and purpose of the two poets would seem to be precisely similar" There can be no doubt, the writer thinks, that the measure of ''In Memoriam, the hint of the cadence, and indeed the whole cast of the metre, have been taken from very rare volume, scarcely known even to professed students of our early poetry the occasional verses of Lord Herbert of Cherbury. The following are few of the quotations made to show how Tennyson bor- rowed for the poem under consideration, which we give as they are given:
 Never morning wore
 To evening but some heart did break. (vi) from Lucretius Nee ulla diem neque nootem Aurora secuta est. Que non audierit mixtos vagitbus Rgris
 His heavy sho tied hammock shroud
 Drops in his uast and loanderizsg grave Id.) from Shakespeare, ''Richard III." act i. sc3:
 To seek the empty, vast and acamdering air.
 And from his ashes may be made
 The violet of his native land. <xviii.) Persius, Sat. i. 39
 Nunc turnulo fortunataque fautlla
 NGScentuT uiotP
 That strikes by night cragRy shelf,
 And staggers bliradly ere she sink. (xvi) For this graphic touch see Napier, ssHistory of the Peninsular War" (Battle of Albuera)
 
 reeled and staggered like a sinking ship. The beautiful euphemism ito cease,' for to die (xxxiv., ) is of course from Keats lode to Nightingale"
 To cease upon tho midnight with no pain.
 'Tis better to have loved and lost
 Than never to have loved at all. (xxyii) Congreve, fWay of the World" act ii. sc. 2 |: Iris better to have besn left than to have been
 loved. Or possibly, as has been before suggested by Thackeray, stPendennis," vol. i. chap. vii Tt is best to love wisely no doubt, but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all.'' After dealing with Tn Memoriam' J. 0. 0. goes on to collate other parallel passages at random up and down Tennyson's poems, merely stopping to remark that he does not propose to trace his obligations to Shelley and Keats as they would of themselves form n interesting paper. We quote: Dry clashed his harness in he icy caves And barren chAsm. and all to left and right The bare black cliff clang'd round him, he based His feet on slippery crag that rang Sharp smtten.--Passing of Arthur. Now compare Wordsworth
 With the din
 Meanwhile the precpices rang aloud,
 The, The ieafiess less trees, and every icy crag As we have alluded to the Passing of Ar thur," we may, emitting the obvious Homeric and Virgilian limitations, notice very singu- lar appropriation or coincidence. The two fine lines For so the whole round world is every way Bound by gold chains about the feet Of God are the versifcations of sentence from Arch | deacon Hare's sermon on the 'Law of Self Sacrifce:'' This is the golden chain of whereby whole creation is bound to the throne Of the Creator.
 Ye may see for peeping flowers the grass, writes George Peele, in that loveliest of pas toral dramas, ''The Arraignment of Paris"
 You could see the grass for flowers, |