TENNYSON'S "QUEEN MARY."

Otago Witness, Issue 1244, 2 October 1875, Page 4

TENNYSON'S "QUEEN MARY."

The judgment pronouncedby an English journal that nothing equal to this drama has appeared since the time of Shakespeare, if intended to suggest a comparison between the two great masters, betrays a lack of sound discrimination as to the peculiar merits of each. There is no common standard by which to estimate the qualities of Shakespeare, the child of Nature, and of Tennyson, the offspring of Culture and Art. The attempt to weigh them in the same balance would be the revival of the ancient feud between genius and talent. If Tennyson is unapproachable among modern poets, it cannot be pretended fhftt he has himself

approached the heights of inspiration which formed the habitual atmosphere of Shakespeare. The former has too much genius for mere imitation, but any resemblances that may be fancied to England's divine dramatic prophet must be the fruit of imitation, and not of spontaneity. If Nature after creating Shakespeare " broke the mold in which he was formed," ifc was not reconstructed for the composition of Tennyson. The two poets if they may be said, to live in the same world — for human passion in all its manifestation 5 is identical with itself — do not breathe the same air, do not feed on the same meats, do not clothe in the same flesh and blood the progeny of their minds. The exquisite refinements of Tennyson, wrought out with all the dainty felicities of ' Art, ripened in the tender warmth of artificial sunshine, and painfully elaborated as through a discipline of fasting and prayer, , belong to another order than the free, cordial, unconscious utterances of Shakespeare, which, however quaint in fancy and often coarse in expression, are no less the genuine acts of Nature than the growth of flowers, or the journeys of planets. When Shakespeare, "Fancy's child, warbles his native wood-note wild," we are as little reminded of the polished and stately measures of Tennyson as the song of forest-birds echoes the music of an orchestra. The Laureate has too peculiar and admirable merits of his own to make him the subject of impossible comparisons. He is wronged by being compelled to stand face to face with the unique genius that had no precedent, and will have .no successor. — New York Tribune.