In the lines from On a Mourner— such as those Once heard at dead of night to greet Troy's wandering prince, so that he rose the allusion is to Virgil (Æn. iii. 147 sqq.). Who, God-like, grasps the triple forks is borrowed from the Romans, being the 'trisulcum fulmen,' or 'trisulci ignes,' or 'trisulca tela' of the Roman poets. Cf. Ovid, Met. ii. 848; id. Ibis, 471; Seneca, Hippol. 190; Thyestes, 1090. The phrase in Love thou thy land Across the brazen bridge of war— is of course Homer's ἐπὶ πτολέμοιο γεφύρας (Il. viii. 549). 53 CHAPTER IV GROUP III. -ENGLISH IDYLLS, AND OTHER POEMS No poems of Tennyson are more pleasing than his English Idylls. The honour of having given the first models for these belongs to Southey, who was followed by Wordsworth in Michael and The Brothers. Southey's poems are entitled by him English Eclogues, and were composed between 1797 and 1803. To these poem he prefixes a short note: The following Eclogues, I believe, bear no resemblance to any poems in our language. This species of composition has become popular in Germany, and I was induced to attempt it by an account of the German idylls given me in conversation. They cannot properly be styled imitations, as I am ignorant of that language at present, and have never seen any translation or specimens in this kind' (Southey's Poetical Works, 1-vol. edit. p. 624). They are eight in number, and are entitled The Old Mansion House, The Grandmother's Tale, Hannah, The Sailor's Mother, The Witch, The Ruined Cottage, The Last of the Family, The Alderman's Funeral. In point of merit there is no comparison between the richness, grace, and beauty of Tennyson and the bald, flat, and spiritless commonplace of Southey. But how closely Tennyson's Idylls are, in point of form, modelled on Southey's, will be at once apparent to any one who will take the trouble to compare them. The illustrations of the Morte d'Arthur will be given in the section on the Idylls of the King. In The Gardener's Daughter we trace the influence of Theocritus. The passage― From the woods Came voices of the well-contented doves, &c. is simply a parody of Theocritus (Idyll vii. 139 sqq.), just as in the lines all the land Smelt of the coming summer— we have a reminiscence of his πάντ ̓ ὦσδεν θέρεος μάλα πίονος (id. 143) (All savoured of a very rich summer). So again in The drowsy hours, dispensers of all good we have a reminiscence of Id. xv. 104, but see infra. The physical effect of joy on the spirits so happily described in the lines I rose up Full of his bliss, and following her dark eyes had been expressed also with equal felicity by Massinger (City Madam, act iii. sc. 3): Supports me not. I walk on air. The whole plot of the poem standing next, Dora, to the minutest details is taken from a prose story of Miss Mitford's, namely, The Tale of Dora Creswell (Our Village, vol. iii. pp. 242–253), the only important alterations being that of the names: Farmer Creswell, Dora Creswell, Walter Creswell, and Mary Hay, becoming respectively Allan, Dora, William, and Mary Morrison. How carefully the poet has preserved the picturesque touches of his original may be seen by comparing the following two passages : And Dora took the child and went her way .... The child once more, and sat upon the mound; That grew about, and tied it round his hat: A beautiful child lay on the ground at some little distance, whilst a young girl, resting from the labour of reaping, was twisting a rustic wreath of enamelled cornflowers, brilliant poppies, snow-white lily-bines, and light fragile harebells, mingled with tufts of the richest wheat-ears, round its hat. That the poet's indebtedness to the novel has not been intimated, is due no doubt to the fact that Tennyson, like Gray, leaves his commentators to track him to his raw material; though why he should have prefixed a preface to The Golden Supper acknowledging his debt to Boccaccio, and should have omitted to do so in the case of Dora, it is difficult to understand. The author of Our Village has certainly more to gain from the honour than the author of the De camerone. In Audley Court, the graphic touch, the Pillar'd dusk of sounding sycamores, is from Milton: A pillar'd shade High over-arch'd (Par. Lost, ix. 1106–7). 6 In Edwin Morris, in finish'd to the finger-nail,' and Sneeze out a full God-bless-you right and left,' we have illustrations of what has been referred to before. An odd coincidence in this poem is worth. noticing. Edwin Morris's love appears to have possessed Julia's seal She sent a note, the seal an elle vous suit. Julia's letter to Don Juan was despatched in an envelope― The seal a sunflower-elle vous suit partout (Don Juan, canto i. st. xcviii.). For the source of St. Simeon Stylites and a necessary commentary on it see Gibbon's Decline and Fall, ch. xxxvii. (Smith's Gibbon), vol. iv. p. 320. When the saint, alluding to his mortal body, observes — This dull chrysalis Cracks into shining wings we are reminded of Carew's original but ludicrous couplet The soul Broke the outward shell of sin And so was hatch'd a cherubin (CAREW's Poems, lix.), or still more immediately of Rogers's epigram comparing man on earth to the inglorious chrysalis, and man after death to the full-fledged butterfly (Rogers's Poem to a Butterfly). |