The times., 1901-03-10

propriate the unworked fields of Amer
| lean patriotic seafaring life, and of the
manners of the rcd man; he is Cooper OF
| the wood and wave" Eagerly were his
works read hy boys, when Thackeray was
boy and when | was boy. Never shall
his readers forget the Long Carabine,
TO whom Thackeray was devoted, and
Cncas, and Chingachgook
Still we love the Delaware.
And still WEI hate the Mingos
Doubtless Coopers Indians are not
realistically treated, though there is in
fuitely more Of truth in his dignified
hunters and warriors than people con-
versant only with the red man of today
are ready TO believe. But Cooper prob
ably, does not live with the Immortality
of his first renowned successor. Haw-
thorne, who, for secure perfection of
form, is to modern fiction what Keats is
to modern poetry. Like Scott, Hawthorne
is the unforced fruit of his ancestry and
the society into which he was born-a
! Puritan, not a Cavalier artist. with
background of austere faith and of old
superstition, differentiated from that OF
the Covenanters by the shadow of deep
forests and of struggles with the Indians
and the wild things of the woods. These
| had passed into mellow memories, as, Tor
Scott, had passed the age of witches
fairies, reivers, and claymOres. Entirely
in the Scarlet Letter by way OF
hereditary influence in the House OF
Seven Gables" Hawthorne reproduced
what was old, making it poetically endur-
ing His Moses from an Old Manse'
and other brief tales set the fashion, eX-
cept by Poe, long unfollowed, of the
Sc +I..,. 4I--,y- Bnu hngn u
in his own portion of this field. Haw-
thorme's haunted consciences, Poe's treas
ure tale his detective stories and his
tales of terror remain uneQualed, though
so profuscly initiated. This epoch, say
from 1880 to 1855, was a kind of classical
interspace in the literature Of the cen
tuIy. France, preoccupied by war in the
first thirty years of the age, now awoke
to her own famous romantic era, with
Hugo, Dumas, Musset. Gautier George
Sand, Sainte Beuve. Merimee-names OF
the highest. Germany, to the non-Teu-
tonic world, is. in poetry, represented by
Heine and, in science, philosophy, philoi-
ogy and history by a galaxy of inno-
vators ingenious and industrious. America
saw Hawthorne, Poe, Lowell, Holmes
Whittier Ticknor, Prescott, Motley,
T.ongfellow, Bryant, Emerson, in their
prime; while England had Carlyle, Ten
nyson Newman, Browning, the Brontes,
Kingsley, Thackeray, Dickens, and Rus
kin, all recognized and flourishing.
We look around. and see, as Mr.. Stew
enson says in a letter. that the suns
have set" while we are scarcely con-
scious of new dawns. Who can explain,
by circumstances of social evolution and
historical event the rising and the setting
&c Of frpOiuG2
not enough to speak of the democratic
demand. naturally Indifferent to style,
for never was style the object of such
anxious research, except In other ages
OF euphuism Encouragement is even
overabundant; masterpieces" are an
nounced every week, and forgotten every
year. 1t may be the prejudice of hoary
eld, but l must confess that our new
literature does not seem TO me to show
such promise of permanence as the litera-
ture Of 1S3Q-1S60 gave, and, so far, has
fulfilled Has fulfilled in spite of our
sneers at the early Victorian" which
was not socialistic or evolutionist, and
Darwin-ridden. and was respectable
and did avert it's eyes from all that most
people IN real life don't care to stare at.
This "prudery' was no new thing. The
Greeks, except some late decadents and
in the old comedy, have ''prudish' lit
erature. Tie Latin classics are not in
the taste of u. Zola. The age of Chaucer,
the age of Elizabeth, were grossly frank,
that of the Restoration was frankly
lewd. but we have sought out many in
ventions over which Sedley and Roches-
ter would not have cared to linger. Their
grossness was gay; ours is morbidly
squalid Such things are absent from
the work of Hawthorne and Holmes,
Lonefellow, Dickens, Thackeray, and the
rest Such things we now treat Of, great
" daring, and somehow our elders ap-
pear apt TO outlaugh and outlive US, as
humorsts, novelists, and poets. 1t is
strange.
Into the merits of that remarkable early
middle age of the century we cannot en-
ter in much detail. Tennyson holds un-
impeIiled the throne of the poet of the
time That his thought is not especially
penetrating; whether he deals with the
intricacies of human character, or with
the problems of the universe. may be
readily admitted But l am unaware that
any poet has Yet got the absolute into
a corner or solved the problems of the
universe Tennyson, more than people
suppose, was, personally, a mystic, with
his own mystic experiences; and his
followed the Clean" Neither in the
"IdylIs of the King nor In plays, was
dramatic rendering of character his forte
His forte was charm. and music, and the
Interpretation of nature. IN these he is
the equal of the Mantuan, is the Virgil
of the modern world golden branch
among the shadows" Moreover he has
infinite variety from Mariana" to "Fa-
TINA and "Rizpah' from the Lotus
Eaters" which adds a new charm af-
ter the Fairy Queen to the Northern
Farmer from Ulysses TO Crossing the
Bar" The early "Morte d'Arthur' is Of
unsurpassed nobility and magic; the last
poem, Crossing the Bar" is no less
pre-eminent in these qualities. TennysOn,
in short had genius; new, as all genius
is new. and no occasional defects of taste
or temper can impair the splendor and
richness of his gift to the world, nor
the Immortality of his fame
His contemporary, Browning, had the
misfortune to attract, by his faults, the
people who wish to believe themselves
clever. because they labor at appreciat-
ing passages which the poet had made
obscure. Darkness is not depth, nor Is
obscurity a merit. From his letters il is
plain that Mr.. Browning had not the
eift of lucid expression; from his poems il
is manifest that he had not, in a high
degree. the gift of verbal music and of
charms His gift of the grotesque, very
real and original, was also his snare. In
christmas Eve" and Easter Day"
with Men and Women" we have the
true essence of Browning at his best;