a Medley, published in 1849, represents the eclectic character of Tennyson’s art; a mediaeval tale with an admixture of modern sentiment, and with the very modern problem of woman’s sphere for its theme.  The first four Idylls of the King, 1859, with those since added, constitute, when taken together, an epic poem on the old story of King Arthur.  Tennyson went to Malory’s Morte Darthur for his material, but the outline of the first idyl, Enid, was taken from Lady Charlotte Guest’s translation of the Welsh Mabinogion.  In the idyl of Guinevere Tennyson’s genius reached its high-water mark.  The interview between Arthur and his fallen queen is marked by a moral sublimity and a tragic intensity which move the soul as nobly as any scene in modern literature.  Here, at least, the art is pure and not “decorated;” the effect is produced by the simplest means, and all is just, natural, and grand. Maud—­a love novel in verse—­published in 1855, and considerably enlarged in 1856, had great sweetness and beauty, particularly in its lyrical portions, but it was uneven in execution, imperfect in design, and marred by lapses into mawkishness and excess in language.  Since 1860 Tennyson has added little of permanent value to his work.  His dramatic experiments, like Queen Mary, are not, on the whole, successful, though it would be unjust to deny dramatic power to the poet who has written, upon one hand, Guinevere and the Passing of Arthur, and upon the other the homely dialectic monologue of the Northern Farmer.

When we tire of Tennyson’s smooth perfection, of an art that is over exquisite, and a beauty that is well-nigh too beautiful, and crave a rougher touch, and a meaning that will not yield itself too readily, we turn to the thorny pages of his great contemporary, Robert Browning (1812-1889).  Dr. Holmes says that Tennyson is white meat and Browning is dark meat.  A masculine taste, it is inferred, is shown in a preference for the gamier flavor.  Browning makes us think; his poems are puzzles, and furnish business for “Browning Societies.”  There are no Tennyson societies, because Tennyson is his own interpreter.  Intellect in a poet may display itself quite as properly in the construction of his poem as in its content; we value a building for its architecture, and not entirely for the amount of timber in it.  Browning’s thought never wears so thin as Tennyson’s sometimes does in his latest verse, where the trick of his style goes on of itself with nothing behind it.  Tennyson, at his worst, is weak.  Browning, when not at his best, is hoarse.  Hoarseness, in itself, is no sign of strength.  In Browning, however, the failure is in art, not in thought.