In our recent notices of Mr. Taylor's "Eve of the Conquest" and of the "King Arthur" of Sir E. B. Lytton, we ventured to deal with these remarkable productions as representatives of those forms of the poetical character to which they seemed severally to belong. On the present occasion we propose, though somewhat late, to take the opportunity which Mr. Tennyson's "Princess" affords us, of continuing our sketch of modern poetry and poets.

If a man were to scrutinize the external features of our time, for the purpose of characterizing it compendiously, he would be tempted, we suspect, to give up the task before long, and to pronounce the age a Medley. It would be hard to specify the character of our Philosophy, including as it does fragments of all systems, sometimes at open war, and sometimes eclectically combined. Not less various is the texture of Society among us, in which time-honored traditions are blended with innovations which a few months make antiquated. The Political condition of our day is a war of great principles. As heterogeneous in its character is Art among us. Here we have an imitation of the antique, there a revival of the middle ages; while sculpture itself is sometimes compelled to relax its severity, and copy the rude attire of our northern yeomen. By what term could we describe the architecture of the day? In our rising cities we find a Gothic church close to a Byzantine fane or an Italian basilica; and in their immediate neighborhood a town-hall like a Greek temple, a mansion like a Roman palace, and a club-house after the fashion of Louis XIV. The age in which we live may have a char

acter of its own; but that character is not written in its face.

In this respect Mr. Tennyson's poem "The Princess," not without design, if we may judge by the title, resembles the age. “A Medley" he calls it; and a medley, so far as its materials are concerned, it assuredly is. We find in it classical allusions, a tournament of the middle ages, and the scientific and political associations of modern times. It is only on a repeated perusal that a certain unity of purpose which methodizes its variegated exterior discloses itself. It professes but to weave together a chaplet of gay devices, such as might amuse the idleness of a young party on a summer's day and the reader will perhaps be disposed to regret this-if his experience be not sufficient to warn him that grand undertakings are apt to turn out tedious performances, and that often where least is promised most is accomplished.

The "Prologue" of the poem explains its drift, and is indeed one of its most graphic and graceful portions. A rural festival is celebrated in the grounds of Sir Walter Vivian, a "good old country gentleman," fond of sports and of the poor. His son, with several young college friends, is passing the vacation at his house; and some ladies from the neighboring country-seats are of the party. The morning is spent in looking over those curiosities of art and antiquity with which an old country-house may be supposed to abound: the guests inspect the rusty armor of times gone by, and dive into old family records, including a chronicle which celebrates a knight without fear and without reproach, Sir Ralph, who fought at

Ascalon, and a certain lady who had herself borne helmet and sword, and driven the foe from her walls. Leaving the house they then mingle with the crowd; after witnessing whose revels for a time, they make their retreat at last within the walls of a Gothic ruin, where they sit down to tell college. tales, criticise Masters, Proctors, and Tutors, and compare old things with new. A broken statue of the good knight Ralph which Lilia, the daughter of Sir Walter, has, in a childish caprice, mantled with a scarf of crimson silk, recalls the family legend; and where, asks Walter, is a true heroine now to be found? His young sister affirms that the land is still rich in such, but that their heroic qualities are undeveloped in consequence of their being deprived of a befitting education. Catching at this idea, half in ridicule and half in sympathy, the young men agree to recount a tale of which the heroine is to be a Princess who devotes herself to the exaltation of her sex, bringing up the maidens of her land in all manly knowledge and training. The narrators, who are seven in number, engage to take the up story in succession. The character of the tale is thus announced (p. 12.):—

With this intimation the tale corresponds. The poem begins as an English Decameron of the nineteenth century; but it swells as it proceeds into a wider continuity of interests, and deepens in pathos. A vein of kindly irony runs through no small portion of it; but by insensible gradations, the serious and the tender first, then the pathetic and the profound, supervene upon the gamesome. Any but the most delicate execution in this respect would have produced a very coarse, not to say grotesque, effect. The humorous and the serious are, however, seldom here found antithetically opposed to each other; but blend rather, like the different shades of some fine material shifted in the light. In this respect the poem is in harmony with nature; who so intertwines the grave with the

gay, in her passages of sadness or promise, that the color of the web is dark or bright according to the humor of him who handles it. There is room both for Democritus and Heraclitus in the world; and their dispute is one in which neither can have the last word. The narrative is but a slender thread; perhaps too slender compared with the gems. of precious poetry with which it is strung. A certain Prince, of whom we know no more than that he was "blue-eyed and fair in face," and that "on his cradle shone the Northern Star," had been betrothed and proxy-wedded while a child, to a Princess in the south not more than eight years old. The boy wears next his heart her picture, and one dark tress of southern hair; and around these relics, as boyhood changes into youth,

"Sweet thoughts would swarm as bees about their queen."

Ida, the Princess, has had her ideal also; but to her young lover she has been faithless before she has had the opportunity of being faithful. She admits, indeed, that

"We had our dreams-perhaps he mingled with them;"

but she has been the spoilt child of a doting father, and she has had her way in all things. The motherless girl had fallen, moreover, under the influence of two widows, Lady Psyche and Lady Blanche: and they have taught her, how

"Knaves are men That lute and flute fantastic tenderness, And dress the victim to the offering up, And paint the gates of Hell with Paradise, And play the slave to gain the tyranny.” (P.71.)

Among her own companions the Princess has seen also an instance of ill-requited truth. These circumstances have strengthened an early aspiration into a fixed resolve. It is thus that the king, her father, describes it to the young Prince who has sought his court, and in vain demanded the fulfillment of the early contract. He speaks of her two widow friends (pp. 18, 19):

"They fed her theories, in and out of place Maintaining that with equal husbandry The woman were an equal to the man. They harp'd on this; with this our banquets rang;

Our dances broke and buzz'd in knots of talk; Nothing but this: my very ears were hot