mind more successfully than poets who, like Goethe and Tennyson, have been ethically and emotionally in tune with Christendom. Such restoration seems to me superfluous, for we have the actual tones of classic Paganism, fresh, perfect, indestructible, in the books of Homer and Sophocles, of Virgil and Horace; and, though correct in certain traits of Paganism, the modern imitation is sure to be false in others, for no modern poet, however intense may be his rejection of Christ, believes, as Homer did, in Zeus or Apollo; and the atheistic cynicism which spurns at Christianity is not likely to sympathize vividly with religion in any form. I wish English poets were not so proud, or perhaps I should rather say so conceited. Goethe and Schiller, when their fame filled Europe, did not think themselves too gifted for translation; but young English poets, whose familiarity with the classics and superb command of their own language point them out as the men to give us in English an exact reproduction of the masterpieces of ancient poetry, seem to think nothing worthy of their talents except to enter the lists as actual rivals of the Greeks, and try to produce original English poems in their manner. Mr. Browning has of late given welcome proof that these remarks do not apply to him, and I trust that his example as a translator will be followed by younger poets. One perfectly translated drama from Sophocles would be worth a hundred tinselly imitations. Apart from translation, the best way of treating classical subjects in modern verse is that which was adopted with absolute frankness by Shakspeare, and which has been pursued less daringly by Goethe and Tennyson-namely, to trust for effect to the delineation of human nature not as specially modified by the conditions of existence in Greece, but as the poet sees and knows it in the Germany or the England in which he lives. Shakspeare, in Winter's Tale, represents messengers bringing oracles from the shrine of Apollo at Delphi and Puritans singing psalms to hornpipes. His stupendous genius can PICTURE OF APHRODITE. 303 neutralize even absurdities like this, but no one could safely venture upon such liberties in our day. Goethe and Tennyson, men of academic culture, avoid offending learned readers by freaks of glaring anachronism, and even contrive, by skilful use of classical or semi-classical coloring, to add a peculiar charm to their antique poems; but for their main interest they depend, as truly as Shakspeare depended, upon portraiture of character, exhibition of passion, and beauty of description. Tennyson's picture of Aphrodite, when she appealed to Paris to give her the apple, is almost too rich and ruddy for a poem in the Greek manner. Idalian Aphrodite beautiful, Fresh as the foam, new-bathed in Paphian wells, With rosy, slender fingers backward drew From her warm brows and bosom her deep hair Floated the glowing sunlights, as she moved. 66 The splendor of her beauty overcame Paris as if it had been a vision. The offer of empire and royal power made by Herè, the queen of Olympus; the tender of kingly wisdom, power over himself, and empire of noble manhood, made by Pallas; both these were in a moment swept from his mind by the presence and the glance of Sovereign Love. Aphrodite knew that she was victress before she opened her lips. A subtle smile in her mild eyes "-she could afford to be mild in the serene intensity of her satisfaction at having triumphed over her sister goddesses-announced her faith in her own irresistibility. She spoke but two or three words and laughed, when Paris handed her the apple, and Enone saw "great Here's angry eyes" vanishing into the golden cloud that was to be her chariot through the sky. In the Lotos - Eaters Tennyson dramatically embodies and expresses a mood of mind very common in the present day, a mood felicitously characterized by Mrs. Barrett Browning in the words "enchanted reverie," a mood in which the weary soul asks whether the gains of life are really worth the toil they cost, and plaintively acquiesces in the conclusion that there is no joy but calm!" Not one crude, unmelodious, inexpressive, or-so far as I am able to detect-imperfect line occurs in this poem. The imagery is marvellous even for Tennyson, marvellous in its freshness, in its nice accuracy of truth to nature, in its beauty, in its deep appropriateness. The Lotos-land is one in which everything proceeds languidly, pausingly, dreamily. A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke, Whoever has seen a stream in its midsummer slenderness of volume, falling down a front of rock divided into steps or ledges, will admit that no words could possibly surpass in descriptive precision these last. The Falling Foss, for example -a small cascade on one of the affluents of the Esk, near Whitby-affords a realization so exact of the "slow-dropping veil of thinnest lawn," that it at once, when I saw it last summer, reminded me of the poem; nor could an officer of the Geological Survey, writing with purely scientific intent, devise a more liberal or a more expressive description. And what imagery could convey the lulling influence of sweet, faint music. more movingly than this? There is sweet music here that softer falls Equally wonderful are those lines in which, as contrasted with the feverish unrest, with the tumultuous wearing activity, of human existence, the deep quietude of nature's operations in the vegetable world is shadowed forth. Lo! in the middle of the wood, The folded leaf is woo'd from out the bud Lo! sweeten'd with the summer light, The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow, Drops in a silent autumn night. All its allotted length of days, The flower ripens in its place, Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil, And surely the philosophy of sad resignation-the cui bono, don't care, nil admirari mood, that wants only to rest-the morphia-crave of a generation that has made the circuit of science, art, philosophy, to be told at last by Schopenhauer that life is misery and the universe a failure- never found more appropriate expression than that which follows: Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast, while our lips are dumb. What is it that will last? All things are taken from us, and become In ever climbing up the climbing wave? All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave In silence; ripen, fall and cease: Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease. In the conclusion of the poem the voyagers agree to “ swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind," to remain in the Lotos-land, and "lie reclined on the hills like gods together, careless of mankind." Then follows a picture of the gods in their high abodes: For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl'd Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands, Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands, Plagiarism is out of the question, but Tennyson must, I think, have derived the suggestion of this passage from the Song of the Fates, repeated by Iphigenic at the end of the fourth act of Goethe's drama. The gods are therein described as sitting at golden tables in everlasting feast, or striding along from peak to peak of the mountains, while, up through gorge and chasm, steams to them, like light clouds of altar-smoke, the breath of strangled Titans.* There can be no thought of plagiarism, because Tennyson's treatment is entirely his own. His substitution of the toiling races of men for the fallen Titans, as objects of contemplation to the happy gods, adds both to the sense of reality and to the pathos of the lines; but the coincidence seems too close to have been purely accidental. The germ, derived from Goethe, may very well have remained in Tennyson's mind without his recollecting whence it came. Sie aber, sie bleiben An goldenen Tischen. Sie schreiten vom Berge Aus Schlünden der Tiefe |