* MODERN ENGLISH POETS. TENNYSON.-BROWNING.-CLOUGH.-ARNold.— MRS. BROWNING. [Quarterly Review, April, 1869.] IN coming from the poets of the beginning of this century to those of the last thirty or forty years, it cannot but strike every one how much the atmosphere of hope and of enthusiasm has cooled down. The years which were measured by the life of Shelley, were years in which Europe was agitated by the most fiery energies; nor was it merely the crash of unexampled wars, the tumult of rising or falling kingdoms, that stirred the minds of men. A new spirit was in the world: the equality of men was, for the first time, not indeed taught or believed, but practically urged by powers that in their first outburst destroyed all, or nearly all, that presumed to bar their way. There could be no indifference to such a spectacle. Some recoiled from it *1. Poems. The Princess. Maud, and other Poems. In Memoriam. Idylls of the King. Enoch Arden, &c., by Alfred Tennyson. London, 1868. 2. Poetical Works. The Ring and the Book, by Robert 3. Poems. By Elizabeth Barrett Browning. London, 1866. English Essays. 1 in horror; but those who dared to hope at all, hoped with a vehemence proportionate to the greatness of the events. It might be disputed whether the birth with which the age was in labour, would be for good or evil; it could not be disputed that it was marvellous, beyond precedent; and hence those who had faith, in spite of adverse appearances, that it was good, thought it marvellously and unprecedently good. And in this category were at their first starting (though some afterwards changed) all the great poets of the age. These then had no need to seek for a subject on which to write; rather were they likely to fail from the very multitude of their imaginations, from the intensity of their zeal, from inability to exercise that degree of soberness which is requisite, in order to discern truth from falsehood. And this, in fact, is precisely the point in which Shelley, who most of all bore the impress of his age, is the weakest. He could not be unpoetic; he was even too poetic: for in the world there are many things not calculated to rouse enthusiasm, but on the contrary dull and repulsive, which yet it is necessary should be seen, weighed, and remembered. And to these Shelley would never turn his attention. for ever like the Pythian prophetess; he stood on his tripod and delivered oracles, which to cool-minded observers seemed madness, but which penetrated deeply into those who had the seed of a like enthusiasm in themselves. He was The author who connects the age of which we have been speaking, with the age of Tennyson and Browning, is one who is no verse-writer, and who has even poured contempt on poetry, but yet is not the less surely a poet himself-Mr. Carlyle. We may be accused of extravagance in the following opinion, and yet we are not conscious of being mere partisans of Mr. Carlyle; and if need were, we should find many complaints to bring against him. But yet it appears to us that no historic event has ever been embraced so completely in all its amplitude, and in all its circumstances and bearings, by any single writer, as the French Revolution has been by Mr. Carlyle: not merely, nor even chiefly, in his History of the Revolution; but in his miscellaneous essays, where he shows how in Germany and France the new ideas sprang first in the brain of philosophers, and took form, and were disseminated; and how they came into conflict with the effete and languid spirit of those who were nominally rulers and statesmen and spiritual teachers; and where he makes every reader feel how natural and human was every part in every scene of that great drama which began with Voltaire, which culminated in Robespierre, and which ended in Napoleon. In Mr. Carlyle, the fire of the previous generation which had witnessed these events, has not yet died out; it burns less wildly, but more steadily, and, being mixed with a solid sense of reality, the result is a degree and extent of insight to which we know scarcely a parallel among historians. Revolutions, indeed, are precisely the kind of subject most suited to Mr. Carlyle's genius: that he would do equal justice to an orderly, peaceable age and country, following precedent, is not so probable. Thus far, then, the ardent and tender spirits who looked out into the world, had found, in the course of external events, full and ample materials to satisfy their need of ardent hopes and sympathies. But great is the change when we come to the next generation, which had no personal knowledge of the events of the beginning of the century. After the battle of Waterloo, Europe in its weariness ceased from the search after wide abstract principles; causes which take hold of eager and impulsive minds, became comparatively rare; a prosaic air belonged alike to the Reform Bill of 1832 and to the Revolution of July. Many most memorable political events took place between 1815 and 1848; but, with the exception of the Grecian War of Independence, they all belonged rather to the useful than to the brilliant and picturesque class. The effects of the French Revolution remained, it is true, in the increased action of the peoples, in the more cautious demeanour of monarchs, and in the general sense of a common cause subsisting between the nations of Europe. But a disenchantment had taken place: no one could any longer expect that these effects, however beneficial, were such as would forthwith make the earth a paradise. Consequently poets turned away from politics, as from a field in which they could not hope to find any inspiring theme for their verse. This change took place very suddenly. Tennyson is the first in whom it may be observed; the whole of his works do not, we believe, contain a single notice of continental public matters, except two or three allusions to France, not conceived in the most generous spirit. Three of his patriotic poems, however, are characterised by a certain quiet stateliness; the one beginning 'Of old sat Freedom on the heights;' that which begins 'Love thou thy land with love far-brought;' and that which contains the well-known stanza: |