New-York tribune., 1893-12-25
STUDIES OF TENNYSON
TWO NEW VOLUMES IN A GROWING LIT
ERATCRE.

studies or the Life, Work and Teach!ng Of IN, he
TSa ror,rai: on steel bv Armytase after photo
Eraph hy Mrs rain TamSron' 'P V impo-ed 31" ~
Charles Scrlbners Sons.
a STUDY OF THE WORKS OF AkFREDr =; r,yar1 hWh1
Campbell Tansh New edition completed ana
largeiy rewritten. PIP. xi.. 32. Macmillan & Co.
Tcnnyson literature promises to rival that
which has grown up around the name OF Goethe
and II threatens TO be not less minute 1t Is not
likely that Tennyson's daily life can be ac-
counted for with the exactness now professed
by the students Of Goethe's biography. Mystic
rious lacunae have already been discovered
which there seems 70 be no hope OF filing Never
theess. the colators of personal incident and me-
mortal have done wonders in their way In spite
OF the open contempt with which Tennyson
treated all inquiry of this sort. We are al
ready instructed by formal treatises as to the
limits and the accuracy Of Tennysons knowl-
edge in botany and various other sciences, his
acquaintance with the Bible and With ancient
and modern literature We know much actu-
ally potentially. respecting his relations TO
Theocrtus. TO Virgil to Horace. to Keats. to
Shelley We have found already that his works.
like those OF the Hebrew poets. like Homer and
tie Aeneid can be turned to aegory, and that
this ellegory can be wonderfully elaborated and
yet be held together. What the AleXandrians did
with the Had and the Odyssey, what the Roman
grammarians did with Virgil what the fanciful
commentators did with Dante what modern
criticism pushed to the verge of eccentrcity.
has done for Goethe-that must be done for
TenDyson. too. Plain people. mere lovers Of good
poetry wherever they find it. may heave sigh
at TIE prospect. But they can console them
selves with the naked text of the poems in which
they take delight They can exclude from their
shelves the books and the essays that will doubt
less tumble from the press IN growing numbers
for generation or more. They will be none the
worse. for they will have Ternysons works
In the form which he deliberately gave them.
Perhaps the main interest Of this growing
ondary literature lies in the proof II affords Of
the utter want Of originality in the human race
Meanwhile. IL some youth with taste for
criticism and fer elucidaton like that which
was sometimes shown by Tcnnyson himself
should collect the writings OF the present day.
ard should carefully annotate. with due hon
csty toward his sources every poem Of Tommy
son. line by iine he might really accomplish a
task that would win him the gratitude Of in
vestigators in the far future. The most diff
cult thing to DO with poems that have de-
scendcd from hand to hand for many ages is
TO restore the conditions under which they were
written. not necessarily the conditions in the
poets mind, but the conditions of contemporary
life. AS the Servian commentary has always
accompanied Virgil. while nearly all those essays
favorable and adverse that were written in the
poets time and little later have disappeared SO
would such body of notes as is here suggested
survive with TennysOn all the books and essays
of the present day which touclr the theme only
here there. The work should be done,
"In Memoriam' is said to have been written.
without any thought of publication. If it were
,bo
world would take care of it as long as 1t re-
tanned any affection for Tennyson.
1t is only as unntentional contributions TO the
library of some such commentator as is here
meant that books like those of Mr. Walters and
Mr.. Tansh can be taken in all TIE seriousness
desired by the authors. For the coming anno-
tator. If he knows his business will go through
his collection with a blue pencil really or
1guratively. and he will put a broad mark upon
every sentence and every paragraph which IS
not new. The earliest critical essays on Tenny-
wNl doubtless suffer the least. for they wee
nearest the theme. But 1t is inevitable that the
repettions of ideas will grow frequent
time passes. If one were to take either Of these
volumes, page by page, and put a pencil mark
through every sentence the substance Of which
he had found somewhere else. he might be
prised at the result. 1t is in many instances
Take. for example that passage Of in Memo
riam" about men rising
\ ION stepping-stones
OF their dead selves to higher things"
How is it possible to escape from the remark Of
St Augustine which Longfellow used with such
graphic effect or the other remark, authorized
by Tcnnyson himself, that he was Indebted to
Goethe? To these references, which every COM
mentator has. but which might just as well be
given once for all. each author has added others
Mr.. Walters a passage from the "Iiitopadesa"
and one from Coventry Patmorc and Nj,
Tainsh. from newspaper clipping lines written
by Petrarch and by Milton. But il IS doubtful
If Tennyson could have had any Of these ex-
amples in mind They are Of value only as
illustrating the way thought wandcrs when
once IT has been set moving in the world. Per-
iaps they illustrate Tennyson's own notion about
alleged plagiarism. Are not human eyes all
the world asked. Cooking al the same
objects. and must there not consequently be
condolences Of thought and impressions and cx-
prcssions?" In which the only thing to cayil
at is the apparcr; assumption that these coin
Ciderccs occur by chance, whereas those Of
who see purpose everywhere can allow the
rnTaseoogy OF chance only tentative exist
eucc. But when TcnnysOn denies that passages
In his writings directly suggested by
other men, then he clearly has thc richt Of It,.
because he is speaking from lis inacr knowl-
edge Of facts which others can only study in
the light Of cjrcumstantal evidence. The wider
study OF condolences In literature which has
been made by the present generation show
that the ordinary beliefs on the subject
not trustworthy. There must be some far more
accurate generalization than the one implied in
the word plagiarism" to meet the casc as it
Sta de 4f.p cir 1qrff =
logically suggests the same details 10 two minds
working IL out. 4 fact in science is bound 10 be
expressed In the same way by all who take IT /
up. The wonder is that such infinite variety
can really be put into what is essentially the /
Nou. r-cr,n..snp . sci.nti.t n r-nu !