Review.

Otago Witness, Issue 1242, 18 September 1875, Page 7

Review.

Tennyson's New Poem— Queen Mar//: a Drama. Henry S. King and Co., London ; Keith and Wilkie, Dunedin.

It was quite time the Poet Laureate should start upon a new line. His most patient admirers must have wearied of King Arthur and his knights. The later Idylls have been far inferior to the earlier group. The vein was quite worked out It was a relief to find an entirely new subject had been chosen — one, indeed, that no poet of any strength of wing had ever essayed before, though it had been trodden hard by the feet of many historians. The story of Queen Mary ia familiar in its broader outlines to all readers. The plot was already made to the hand of our author. He is no great hand at plots, and this is no disadvantage to him, but the contrary. His entire strength is thu3 thrown upon developing the characters, and sustaining the dialoguau' If it was a relief to drop " King ArlUr" for "Queen Mary," it was with some fear we found the idyllic form replaced by the dramatic. Our fears have been jnsti lied by reading the play. It will go well upon the stage, especially in the hands of such accomplished artistes as Mr Irving and Mrs Bateman. It is more than readable, which cannot be said of many dramas which may be popular on the boards. But it cannob take rank amongst the finest productions of tragedy. Tennyson is not at home in dramatic composition : it is not his forte. Wordsworth felt quite at liberty within the contracted limits of one sonnet Tennyson wanders at his own sweet will in idyllic fields. He moves but stiffly under the restraints imposed by dramatic composition. He excels in musical verse — which has but a rare place in dialogue. He has a marvellous faculty of exquisite description, which can only be dragged into a play by side doors. He lacks the vivacity of talk and repartee which many ncenes require, and cannot blow up the merry twinkled smile upon the surface of a conversation : he is no fellow of an infinite humour, but, like bis own Sir Launcelot, is " mirthful only in a stately kind." He can work out character— especially of the politic and more dignified sort— and pourtray passion with great power and pathetic feeling. These are all tbat are lef o him — for common life, unless expressed in an uncommon dia. lect, he cannot paint — and oat of character and path 08 alone he has created this work. Looking at all the difficulties of an unpractical hand, we must omfess our surprise at his success as far as it goes. Still, we must repeat the expression of our regret that he did not preeeut his subject in the idyllic form, where he is first master of all other poets. Four or nVe pieces— Msry, Cranmer, Elizabeth, Lidy Jane, abd Sir Ralph Bagenhall — would have set the whole sad story before us in his happiest mood, and most effective manner.

The familiar epithet of " bloody" Mary will have deceived some into the notion that there are the elements of a high tragedy in her history. This is a mistake — it lacks all grandeur, and the tone of a great crisis — Elizabeth's reign has these, and might make an epic, hardly a drama. Most of the pasnion, under Mary, plays its parts in the solitary courage of the martyr?, and the cunning use of laws that are ready to perish, There wants the close personal conflict of noble and working men, without which the highest dramatic effort must sink into a niere play! There is infinitely more tragedy in Job, Prometheus, Vinctus, Faust, The Piccolomini, and The Red-cotton Night Cap Country than in this subject which Tennyson might have made into an idyll, and has only marred by trying to make it swell to the size of a tragic drama. But enough of complaints.

i . ( • It wfti never merry world Itt England, since the Bible came amengst as. CUCIL.

It never will be merry world in England Till oU>nien have the Bible, rich and poor. ThetGcrontending opinions make up the entire back-ground of the story. The parts are played in front of this wider and more serious conflict. Sir Ralph is next to Cranmer, an 9in some ways more, the type of the Marian Protestant. Lord Howard and Cardinal Pole — men after John Henry Newman's own heart — Catholics, not papists, and Gardiner, with that brute beast Bonner, represent, even better than Mary herself, the Roman party. Mary has broken with her father's memory, but keeps his Tudor will ; she takes after her mother of Arragon ; she doats upon a man, eleven years her junior, " Stone hard, ioe-cold — no tlash of daring ia him," who, after the manner of profligates, soon wearied of her ; she feeds her disappointed love upon maternal hoped, and, when these are blighted, lets superstition light tho martyr piles, and "gwoesonaburnin 1 and a-burnin', to git her baaby born."

_ " — Mother of God, Thou inowest never woman meant so well. And fired w ill in this disastrous world." Her strong will i 8i 8 wholly at tha service of her disappointed passion, and under the direction of a cruel conscience. She was not vacillating, like Cranmer, but grew rapidly from a courageous woman down to Unhappiest 01 Queens, and wives, and women. Cranmor's vacillation rose more from State prudence than personal fear. His conscience was »enaitive, and slowly led him, under the determined revolt of Henry, from one position of belief to another. Constant change, accompanied by subtile disputation, made him uncertain of himself. •• / thank vuj Gad it v too late to fly." Bin noble constancy at last atoned for all his faults, at least in the sight of those who knew his gentle nature said loved him as a friend. To do Mm any wronfc wa« to bejret A Wnanws from him, for his heart was rich— ' 21 ■ och . fl " e mould, that i! you Bow*d thei em Tbo aeod of H»te, it blossomed Charity. Gardiner believes solely in his own advancement | thinks he can manage Mary : uses Bonner, with that mouth of his

To gorge a heretic whole, roasted or raw ; and despises Pole, partly because he cannot we him. Pole has the PlaniagcDd face, fyt not file f«« mi 9 tim Mir widest fcrng? .

Fine eyes— bjt melancholy, irresolute— A fine beard, Bonntr, a very full fine beard, But a weak mouth, an indeterminate— ha?

He'll bum a diocese to prove his orthodoxy.

Gardiner has had "to dodge, or duck, or die." and cannot understand Cole's mild ex pediency, and clear, cool insight into things — as thus —

There lie two ways to every end, A better and a worse— the worse is here To persecute, because to persecute Makef a faith hated, and k furthermore No perfect witness of a perfect fait'i In him who persecutes : irl/e/i men an lost On tiili-.t of tfnnuje ojn'nioii, ami nut sure Of their inrn selves, they are in oth with their own .trices, And (hener icith others ; then, iclio lii/litx the/mjgot V Not the full fmtli, 119, but the larkvuj doubt.

The wily self-seeker knows how to terrify even Elizabeth with allher conscious atrength.

I think my time will come.

Uncle, I am of sovereign nature, that I know. Not to be quelled ; and I have felt within me Stirring- of some great doom, when Ood'.s just hour Peals— but this fierce old Gardiner— his big baldness, That irritable forelock which he rubs, His buzzard beak and deep iucaverncd eyes Half-fright me. These extracts must be more than enough to whet the appetite of all poetasters. We could copy h?lf the volume and not drop down to the level of ordinary prose. The book is a poem of fine feeling and of great power. The longer speeches are vigorous aud dignified. We may not quote them ; we only name some : Bagenhall's pathetic story of Lady Jr-ue's death ; Howard's description of tbe city crowd ; Mary's rhapsody in fancied motherhood, contrasted with her politic speech, to the citizens ; Granmer's addrt ss at the stake ; and Cecil's summary of Elizabeth's position. These are all va ied and worthy the laureate's btsfc t elf. It need scarcely be added that the poem abounds in those polished apothegmatic jewels that mark the word-work of every trae poet. The serpent that hath sloughed, will slough again. A smilo abroad U oft a scowl at home. To strike t< o soon is oft ta miss the blow. If any man in any way would bo The one man, he shall be so to his cost. We count the following passages fine samples of Tennyson's happiest tfforts :—

Lo.vdox Bbidob.— (Sir Thomas Wyatt speaks.) Last night I climbed into the g^te-liouse. Brett, And so ired the <?ray old porter and his wife, And then I cf.pt alonfj the gloom and saw They had hewn the draw-bridge down into the river. It rolled as back as death ; and that same tide Which, coinuwr with our cominjr, *<eemed to bmile And sparkle like our fortune as thou saiilst, Rau stiuless down, and moaned against the piers. But o'er the chasm I saw Lord William Howard by torchlight, ami hia gu.ird ; four guns gaped at me. Black silent mouths : — •

THE HAPPIEST UOVR. There was a shallow brook across our field For twenty miles, where the black crow flies far, And doth no bound and babble all the way As it itself were happy. It was Way-time, And 1 was walking with the man I loved ; I loved him, but I thought I was not loved. And both were hitent, letting the wild brook Speak tor u«— till be stoope'l and gathet'd one From out a bed of thick for.-et-me-- ots, Looked hard and sweet at me, and gave it me. I took it. thnuyh I did not kaoie I toot: it, And put it In my bosjm, and all at once I felt his arms about me, and his lips— —

TUB MILKMAID'S 80X0. Shame upon you, Kobin, chains upon you nan- ! Ki«s me would yu? with me hands mi-king the cow? Dabies grow at?afn, kinx-cups bltw ajjaiii, -," And you came aui kissed trie milking tho cow, Robin cams behind me, kissed me well I trow. Cuff taim, could I, with my hands milking tho cow? Swallows fly again, cuckoos cry affiiu ; And you came and kissed me milking the cow. Come, Robin, Robin, come and kiss me now. Help, can I, with my hnmls milking the cow? Ringdoves coo again, all thinjra woo again Come behind, and kiss me milking the cow !

We dare avow no song of his will beat that. We dare not say how rich a treasure any sweet girl may win who can sing it to some tripping strain with a sly, half-bashful, half-wishful piquante air. May no wrong Robin take her at her word !

If Mr Tennyson has not established a claim to be a great dramatist by this piece of work, he has not damaged his high reputation as a character-poet, but rather raised it. There is not a misty, foggy line in the five acts. This will console the surface readers, the ready grumblers at "In Memoriam." The whole book is struck in a high moral key, and will aid the culture of true love, high-mindedness, and loyalty to conscience.