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Tennyson is the subject of the Magazines this month , varied , of course , by lucubrations on the war ; nay , one can scarcely say varied , since Tennyson himself affords the text of war-philosophy by his somewhat ludicrous dithyrambs on the subject in " Maud . " On this point a bright and pleasant writer in Tait has some happy sentences in his critique on " Maud . " We borrow a passage : — What is not clear is the philosophy which , finding from the newspapers , and the ¦ way the money goes , and the Lancet Analytical Commission ' s Report , that things are not what they ought to be after thirty years * peace , decides impromptu for a bloody and mole-blind war , as the most efficacious remedy . Why should the storming of the Redan cure the adulteration of pickles ? The sacking of Kertch with considerable brutality tend to lessen the number of brutes and husbands at home ? How should the blockade of the Baltic shut out Cocufas Tndicus from the cellar of the publican , or alum from the kneading-trough of the baker ? Why should a treble incometax and dear provisions lessen the " thirst for gold ? " In reply , we get figures of speech , but never a syllogism ; in fact , as we have hinted before in these papers , the syllogism is virtually abolished in our literature , and our reasoning is as spasmodic as our poetry . War stirs men ' s blood , makes them feel their -want of each other , intensifies national feeling , and so on . There is something in all this , no doubt ; but suppose Mr . Bright , Mr . George Combe , and Miss Harriet Martineau should club together , and prove that the evils we deplore in our " peaceful" condition are the necessary working-out of the bad feelings engendered in the last war—that even yet another generation may be required to work them off altogether—and that we , husbands and fathers of to-day , are transmitting to our children in diseased brains a legacy of incalculable mischief , all through this war ? The eloquence one hears respecting the " virtues of war" issues from the natural tendency to justify whatever we do . Men having admitted the necessity of the present war—as all except the peace party do admit—soon hurry on to the conclusion that being necessary , it must in itself be good ; as if the removal of an aching tooth were an operation desirable in itself and eminently pleasant . The writer just quoted remarks : — Js war a good thing or a bad ? Taking the question abstractly , it is bad . We say , then , if any man comes forward to say or sing that the slaughter of 30 , 000 Englishmen in the Crimea tends to prevent -women poisoning their babies , for the sake of the burial fees , in Birmingham , he is bound to show cause , and not bewilder our notions of morals and of lexicography by calling thirty years of intermitted war ( absolute peace we have not had during that interval ) a " long , long canker of peace . " If things are to go on at this rate , and metaphor is to grow laxer every day , we may expect before we lay down our critical pen , to have to chronicle the " brutal bane of Beneficence , " and the " blasting tornado of Piety . " The Peace Party has , in due course of reaction , created a War Partynot a Party declaring war to be inevitable , and in the" present case desirable , but declaring war to be in itself a finer thing than peace . Logic is terribly mauled in the reasonings of these advocates ; and social philosophy is utterly disregarded . Pickles are not poisoned by one class because another class is occupied courting servant maids , and using up large amounts of pipeclay , instead of bayoneting their fellow-men in the Crimea ; but the poisoning and the courting go on simultaneously , as now the poisoning goes on simultaneously with the bayoneting . If Civilisation is the progress of Humanity over Animality , the development of the higher faculties , moral and intellectual , must necessarily be more rapid , the less the lower animal faculties are stimulated ; and the great evils of war are not the loss of life , nor the increase of taxes , but the direct stimulus they give to the animal propensities . But we must not write an essay , with all these magazines before us . We have indicated the answer we should make to Tenntson , to his reviewer in Fraser and to the writer in that magazine on "The Bright side of the War , " and our sympathy with the critic in Tait . By the way , that critic has a pleasant passage expressing his scepticism on the function of criticism . In the motto to this department of the Leader , Critics are called the Police of Literature , which title is thus questioned : — For ourselves , we confess our faith in Critics as the " Police of Literature" is as small as it can well be . We cannot say , without impeaching the grand scheme , that Literature would be better without Critics , because the existence of a race with distinctly critical faculties ia an undoubted fact , and in erring Reason ' s spite , One truth ia clear—whatever is is right . But we often have serious doubts whether our current criticism contributea directly to the purification and protection of the book-world , though we believe there is at least as much honesty and good feeling in it as in Any other very compound product of human thought and feeling , and circumstance . It may seem doing good service to literature to expose showy platitudinarians like Tupper and Drawler ; but , after all , the cui bono is . hard to trace . These men and their congeners have their own set , who believe in them and vote you a blasphemer . They will not be disabused ; for the amiable English matron who thinks reading a bit of Tupper is as good as Buying her prayers , must be thrice armed with ignorance , and clad in complete steel of duncehood , arrow-proof . And why should she bo disabused , lot us aak ? Tupper has tukon accurate measure of her , however she may blunder in apotheosising Tuppor . Tupper does her good—never doubt it . She recommends Tupper to her chores amies . They aMget good out of Tupper . Tupper ia a public benefactor . Tupper prepares the way for something bettor . Honour to Tupper ! Why criticise him ? You and I know his worth to us- let us loavo him in peaceable poaseaaiou of his own sphere of usefulness , and go about our buaiueus . Very curious it ia to read the various opinions expressed by remarkable men an tmch a work us Maud . This variety gives the magazines an unusual piquancy . In leaser we have a mun of genius full of the heartfelt reverence
for genius , and , in that feeling for what Tennyson has written , shaping' his remarks on Maud . As a specimen of what admiration can find , to say in favour of Tennyson ' s new volume this article is remarkable ; remarkable also for what is said ; and instead of questioning any of the opinions , let us quote this striking passage on the metre demanded by galloping- horses : — On the Charge of the Light Brigade we have a few words to say , and must , even at the risk of seeming hypercritical , question the fitness of the metre . The dactyl is surely too smooth and cheerful a foot to form the basis of such a lyric ; and in fact , horses do not gallop in dactyls . The motion expressed by them is that of dancing j of a ship bounding over the waves before a gentle breeze ; but not a cavalry charge . For horses gallop , and even canter ( as the ear on trial will show at once ) in anapaests , in the measures of two short syllables followed , not preceded , by a long one . The two short syllables are produced by the putting down of the two fore-feet one after the other , the long strongly accented by the putting down of the two hind ones all but together ; the following pause , which marks the end of the measure , is the silent passing of the horse through the air during the forward leap which succeeds . In a slow artificial manage canter , the metre may sound at times dactylic ; we question whether it is ever really so ; in the "tit-up" canter of a moor-pony , it often takes the form of bacchics ( a short , a long and a short ) , but the true gallop is simply anapsestic ; and as it quickens , the two short syllables become more and more slurred together , till in the full-speed rush the pace becomes one of spondees , with the accent on the latter syllable of each foot , as every hunter ( even if he knows nothing about spondees and dactyls ) must have discerned . Who , too old or too cautious to " race for the gate , " has not heard again and again the horse-hoofs of some impetuous gentleman on his quarter change suddenly from their usual thudthud-thud , into a venemous determined thud-thud , thud-thud , which says , as plainly as words could do , "If you won ' t get on , sir , I will , and pass you ? " But satit sit lusisse . All we want to show is , that the anapaest i 3 the true base for equestriaa lyrics and in fact the best specimens of this style which we know are anapsestic—Young Lochinvar , The Elf-King , Liitzow ' s Wild Huntsmen , A Southerly Wind and a Cloudy Sky , in which antispasts are also introduced with great truth and effect , and Mr . Browning ' s Ride to Aix ( too much blamed perhaps in one of our previous numbers ) , in which we now and then meet with perfect anapaestic lines , though somewhat rough , like—At our feet broke the bright brittle stubble like chaff . Moreover , how is it possible to give the moral determination or the physical crash of a cavalry charge , except in verses ending with a firm and strongly accented long syllable ? This rule at least must be observed , even where , in order to express the galloping of many horses together , on rough ground , and without keeping pace , the anapsests are allowed to break into spondees and bacchics , with now and then the rattle of a tribrach . And it is , we must say , for want of copying nature and fact ( almost certain to be morally symbolic ) , that Mr . Tennyson ' s lyric has a deliberate ease , which , beautiful or otherwise , is not to the desperate valour of men who ride a * those six hundred rode . In Blackwood another poet criticises Maud ; but his admiration for Tennyson does not restrain the freest expression of blame , and sometimes ridicule . The tone of the two articles is as different as the opinions expressed * The critic of Blackwood , like ourselves , is glad to turn from Maud to the earlier poems of our greatest living poet ; he quotes a stanza from Hero and Leander which Tennyson has excluded from subsequent editions , and we extract it for the benefit of readers who have not seen it : — O go not yet , my love ! The night is dark and vast , The moon is hid in the heaven above . And the waves are climbing fast ; O kiss me , kiss me once again , Lest that kiss should be the last ! O kiss me ere we part—Grow closer to my heart—My heart is warmer surely than the bosom of the main ! Dipp ing about in the Magazines for matter which may interest our readers , and is not too long for extract , we find in Blackwood an article of great interest on " Life in the Interior of Russia , " from which two anecdotes may be given : — In general officials are very badly paid indeed . Of this I can give you an example in the case of a young man , the son of a small proprietor , who pinched himself in order to give his son a good education at the university , where he remained till ho was twenty-three years of age , when the father thought he would be able to obtain some good government employment—at least , that he would be at no further expense . After waiting nearly a year , he obtained a place with a salary of four roubles a month , one of which was deducted for his rank , leaving him three ( rather less than 10 s . a month ) to provide himself with a lodging , table ( which are to be had for about 80 s . a month ) , clothing , and everything necessary for a gentleman ! After that , as it wonderful that the Russian officials accept bribes a tort , et a travers t They are not only to be bribed , but , according to this witness , There is no sum so small that they will not accept : you may even offer them articles of wearing apparel—anything ; and this latter is too frequently done when the poor suitor has nothing more to offer . I myself have given such email sumsas 4 d . and 6 d . for trifling services which they have seemed reluctant to perform , which has always had the desired effect of accelerating their movements , and saved me the ennui of waiting half an hour for them to perform their duty . Jn Frasei \ besides other articles , we especially recommend the one on " Italy und Art in Italy . " The following passage on Raphael we extract in spite of our disagreement with the main proposition' :- — And this criticism may be applied to a great many of Raphael's paintings ; they wont the aerialnesa of ( sentiment , the aerialness of imagination , the atfrialnosa of ex P ™**™ * that vague , notorious , and intuitive charm which is ho subtle that "V'V ! m £ ht hff either in art or poetry except by « the vision and the faculty d . v . nc . » « ° ™ ™ £ of h gl tate to aay explicitly that there is a certain baldness and poverty ^ ini f ° J 2 dZ&icoM phael ; but with all hia sweetness and purity , wo certainly mias thatc "" ° ™ ° mcnt itl subtlety of expression which , alight in itaelf , is a very potent « n * J" £ ™ doubt solid the finer and rarer works of the imagination . U » w |* f ™ 1 ^ riobt diacuraivo , and conscientious , but is it penetrated , as with a subtle sp » ri * » Jy . B > now \ an » poetic insight ? Ilia fame ia especially aaaooiated w ««» «*» *?» j tcd though the very far from wishing to deny that many of these ^ . ^ " ^ Voxpreaaion is conmost part are chiefly distinguished , it appenra to mo , in bo i « r
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, ¦ ¦ ¦ „«? ?> , « i *»«* tslator 3 but tne judges and police of literature . They do not Cni ) C ^ akelaw ^ thly Interpret and try to enforceithem .-Edinburgh Review .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 8, 1855, page 869, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2105/page/17/
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