PHILIP JAMES BAILEY-RICHARD HENRY HORNE. PHILIP JAMES BAILEY was born at Basford, county of Nottingham, in 1816. He was educated in his native town and at Glasgow University, after which he studied for the bar. In 1819 he produced his first and greatest poem, Festus, subsequently enlarged, and now in its fifth edition. The next work of the poet was The Angel World, 1850, which was followed in 1855 by The Mystic, and in 1858 Mr Bailey published The Age, a Colloquial Satire. All of these works, excepting the last, are in blank verse, and have one tendency and object-to describe the history of a divinely instructed mind or soul, soaring upwards to communion with the universal life.' With the boldness of Milton, Mr Bailey passes' the flaming bounds of space and time,' and carries his Mystic even into the presence of the 'fontal Deity.' His spiritualism and symbolical meanings are frequently incomprehensible, and his language crude and harsh, with affected archaisms. Yet there are fragments of beautiful and splendid imagery in the poems, and a spirit of devotional rapture that has recommended them to many who rarely read poetry. The Colloquial Satire is a failure -mere garrulity and slipshod criticism. Thus of war: Of all conceits misgrafted on God's Word, By, and he therefore blows them from a gun; We may contrast this doggerel with a specimen of Mr Bailey's ambitious blank verse, descriptive of the solitary, mystic recluse, dwelling ‘lion-like within the desert:' Lofty and passionless as date-palm's bride, In vital and ethereal thought abstract, The depth of Deity and heights of heaven. Or the following fine lines from Festus: We live in deeds, not years, in thoughts, not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best. Love is the happy privilege of the mind- To life-to virtue one-and one to bliss: One only simple essence liveth-God- In 1867 Mr Bailey added to his poetical works a production in the style of his early Muse, entitled The Universal Hymn. RICHARD HENRY HORNE, born in London in 1803, commenced active life as a midshipman in the Mexican navy. When the war between Mexico and Spain had ceased, Mr Horne returned to England and devoted himself to literature. He is the author of several dramatic pieces -Cosmo de Medici, 1837; The Death of Marlowe, 1838; and Gregory the Seventh, 1840. In 1841 he produced a Life of Napoleon; and in 1843, Orion, an Epic Poem, the most successful of his works, of which the ninth edition is now (1874) before us. In 1844 Mr Horne published two volumes of prose sketches entitled A New Spirit of the Age, being short biographies, with criticism, of the most distinguished living authors. In 1846 appeared Ballad Romances; in 1848, Judas Iscariot, a Mystery Play; and in 1851, The Dreamer and the Worker, two vols. In 1852 Mr Horne went to Australia, and for some time held the office of Gold Commissioner. We may note that Orion was originally published at the price of one farthing, being an experiment upon the mind of a nation,' and 'as there was scarcely any instance of an epic poem attaining any reasonable circulation during its author's lifetime.' This nominal price saved the author 'the trouble and greatly additional expense of forwarding presentation copies,' which, he adds, 'are not always particularly desired by those who receive them.' Three of these farthing editions were published, after which there were several at a price which 'amply remunerated the publisher, and left the author no great loser.' Orion, the hero of the poem, was meant to present a type of the struggle of man with himself-that is, the contest between the intellect and the senses, when powerful energies are equally balanced.' The allegorical portion of the poem is defective and obscure, but it contains striking and noble passages. The Progress of Mankind.-From 'Orion.' Falls blunted from the mass of flesh and bone, His soul works on while he sleeps 'neath the grass. His wasted lamp-the lamp wastes not in vain, Nor trace them through the darkness; let the Hand A forthright plough, and make his furrow broad, WILLIAM ALLINGHAM. He was born in 1828, and from an early age contributed to periodical literature; removing. to England he obtained an appointment in the Customs. His publications are-Poems, 1850; Day and Night Songs, 1854; Laurence Bloomfield in Ireland (a poem in twelve chapters), 1864; and Fifty Modern Poems, 1865. Mr Allingham says his works' claim to be 'genuine in their way.' They are free from all obscurity and mysticism, and evince a fine feeling for nature, as well as graceful fancy and poetic diction. Mr Allingham is editor of Fraser's Magazine. To the Nightingales. You sweet fastidious nightingales ! With all their isles; and mystic towers Less sad if they might hear that perfect song! What scared ye? (ours, I think, of old) Or, most and worst, fraternal feud, And fierce Oppression's bigot crew, Come back, O birds, or come at last! (And ere another May-time go) Their place is in the second row. Come to the west, dear nightingales! The rose and myrtle bloom in Irish vales. ALFRED TENNYSON. MR TENNYSON, the most popular poet of his times, is the youngest of a poetical brotherhood of three Frederick, Charles, and Alfred-sons of This poet is a native of Ballyshannon, county the late Rev. George Clayton Tennyson, a Lincolnof Donegal, Ireland: shire clergyman, who is described as having The kindly spot, the friendly town, where every one is known, And not a face in all the place but partly seems my own. 1 Galloglas-kern-Irish foot-soldier; the first heavy-armed, the second light. * The mother of the laureate was also of a clerical family, daughter of the Rev. Stephen Fytche. His paternal grandfather been a man remarkable for strength and stature, and for the energetic force of his character. This gentleman had a family of eleven or twelve children, seven of whom were sons. The eldest three we have mentioned were all educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, pupils of Dr Whewell. Alfred was born in the parsonage of Somersby (near Spilsby) in 1810. In 1829, he gained the Chancellor's medal for the English prize poem, his subject being Timbuctoo. Previous to this, in conjunction with his brother Charles, he published anonymously a small volume entitled Poems by Two Brothers. In 1830 appeared Poems, chiefly Lyrical, by Alfred Tennyson. This volume contained poems since altered and incorporated in later collections. These early productions had the faults of youthful genius-irregularity, indistinctness of conception, florid puerilities, and occasional affectation. In such poems, however, as Mariana, Recollections of the Arabian Nights, and Claribel, it was obvious that a true original poet had arisen. In 1833, Mr Tennyson issued another volume, shewing an advance in poetical power and in variety of style, though the collection met with severe treatment from the critics. nine years the poet continued silent. In 1842, he reappeared with Poems, in two volumes-this third series being a reprint of some of the pieces in the former volumes considerably altered, with many new poems, including the most striking and popular of all his productions. These were of various classes-fragments of legendary and chivalrous story, as Morte d'Arthur, Godiva, &c.; or pathetic and beautiful, as The May Queen and Dora; or impassioned love-poems, as The Gardener's Daughter, The Miller's Daughter, The Talking Oak, and Locksley Hall. The last is the most finished of Tennyson's works, full of passionate grandeur and intensity of feeling and imagination. It partly combines the energy and impetuosity of Byron with the pictorial beauty and melody of Coleridge. The lover of Locksley Hall is ardent, generous, and noble-minded, 'nourishing a youth sublime' with lofty aspirations and dreams of felicity. His passion is at first returned : Extracts from 'Locksley Hall.' For Love took up the glass of Time, and turned it in his glowing hands; Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands. Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight. | Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships, And our spirits rushed together at the touching of the lips. The fair one proves faithless, and after a tumult of conflicting passions-indignation, grief, self-reproach, and despair-the suf ferer finds relief in glowing visions of future enterprise and the world's progress. For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be; Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales; Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue; Far along the world-wide whisper of the south wind rushing warm, With the standards of the peoples plunging through the thunder-storm; Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battleflags were furled In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law. *The route from Alum Bay to Carisbrooke takes you past Farringford, where resides Alfred Tennyson. The house stands so far back as to be invisible from the road; but the grounds A careless ordered garden, Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the looked very pretty, and thoroughly English. In another verse of copses ring, And her whisper thronged my pulses with the fullness of the Spring. was a Lincolnshire squire, owner of Bayons Manor and Usselby Hall-properties afterwards held by the poet's uncle, the Right Hon. Charles Tennyson D'Eyncourt, who assumed the name of D'Eyncourt to commemorate his descent from that ancient Norman family, and in compliance with a condition attached to the possession of certain manors and estates. The eldest of the laureate's brothers, Frederick, is author of a volume of poemsgraceful, but without any original distinctive character-entitled Days and Hours, 1854. Charles, the second brother, who joined with Alfred, as stated above, in the composition of a volume of verse, became vicar of Grassby, Lincolnshire, in 1835. He took the name of Turner, on succeeding to a property in Lincolnshire. In 1864, he published a volume of Sonnets. the poem from which I have quoted-the invitation to the Rev. F. D. Maurice-he exactly describes the situation of Farringford: For groves of pine on either hand, Tumbles a billow on chalk and sand. Every one well acquainted with Tennyson's writings will have noticed how the spirit of the scenery which he has depicted has changed from the glooming flats,' the 'level waste,' where 'stretched wide and wild the waste enormous marsh,' which were the reflex of his Lincolnshire observation, to the beautiful meadow and orchard, thoroughly English ruralities of The Gardener's Daughter and The Brook. Many glimpses in the neighbourhood of Farringford will call to mind descriptive passages in these lastnamed poems.-Letter in the Daily News. The laureate has also an estate in Surrey (Aldworth, Haslemere), to which he retreats when the tourists and admirers become oppressive in the Isle of Wight. A league of grass, washed by a slow broad stream, The fields between Are dewy-fresh, browsed by deep-uddered kine, The poet, while a dweller amidst the fens of Lincolnshire, painted morasses, quiet meres, and sighing reeds. The exquisitely modulated poem of The Dying Swan affords a picture drawn, we think, with wonderful delicacy: Some blue peaks in the distance rose, One willow over the river wept, And shook the wave as the wind did sigh; And far through the marish green and still, Shot over with purple, and green, and yellow. The ballad of The May Queen introduces similar scenery : When the flowers come again, mother, beneath the waning light, You'll never see me more in the long gray fields at night; When from the dry dark wold the summer airs blow cool On the oat-grass and the sword-grass, and the bulrush in the pool. The Talking Oak is the title of a fanciful and beautiful poem of seventy-five stanzas, in which a lover and an oak-tree converse upon the charms of a certain fair Olivia. The oak-tree thus describes to the lover her visit to the park in which it grew : Extracts from 'The Talking Oak! "Then ran she, gamesome as the colt, And livelier than a lark She sent her voice through all the holt Before her, and the park. . . . 'And here she came, and round me played, And sang to me the whole Of those three stanzas that you made 'And in a fit of frolic mirth She strove to span my waist: Alas! I was so broad of girth, I could not be embraced. 'I wished myself the fair young beech That here beside me stands, That round me, clasping each in each, She might have locked her hands.'. . . O muffle round thy knees with fern, But tell me, did she read the name When last with throbbing heart I came 'O yes; she wandered round and round 'A tear-drop trembled from its source, "Then flushed her cheek with rosy light; 'Her kisses were so close and kind, 'And even into my inmost ring A pleasure I discerned, Like those blind motions of the Spring, That shew the year is turned. .. 'I, rooted here among the groves, But languidly adjust My vapid vegetable loves With anthers and with dust: He laughed, and swore by Peter and by Paul: O ay, ay, ay, you talk!'-'Alas!' she said, 'But prove me what it is I would not do.' And from a heart as rough as Esau's hand, He answered: 'Ride you naked through the town, Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity: And dropt before him. So the Powers, who wait noon Was clashed and hammered from a hundred towers, An extract from The Lotos-eaters will give a specimen of our poet's modulations of rhythm. This poem represents the luxurious lazy sleepiness said to be produced in those who feed upon the lotos, and contains passages not surpassed by the finest descriptions in the Castle of Indolence. It is rich in striking and appropriate imagery, and is sung to a rhythm which is music itself. Lo! in the middle of the wood, The folded leaf is wooed from out the bud Lo! sweetened with the summer light, Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil, How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream, To watch the crisping ripples on the beach, Heaped over with a mound of grass, Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass! The most prominent defects in these volumes of Mr Tennyson were occasional quaintness and obscurity of expression, with some incongruous combinations of low and familiar with poetical images. His next work, The Princess, a Medley, appeared in December 1847. This is a story of a prince and princess contracted by their parents without having seen each other. The lady repudiates the alliance; but after a series of adventures and incidents as improbable and incoherent as the plots of some of the old wild Elizabethan tales and dramas, the princess relents and surrenders. The mixture of modern ideas and manners with those of the age of chivalry and romance-the attempted amalgamation of the conventional with the real, the farcical with the sentimental-renders The Princess truly a medley, and produces an unpleasing grotesque effect. Parts of the poem, however, are sweetly written; there are subtle touches of thought and satire, and some exquisite lyrical passages. Tennyson has nothing finer than these stanzas: |