Notes and Queries, Number 78, April 26, 1851 - Various 3 стр.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF TENNYSON

That great poets are sometimes obscure, needs no proof. That the greatest poets will necessarily be so to the ordinary reader, seems to me equally indisputable.

Not without effort can one enter into the spontaneous thought of another, or even of himself in another mood. How much more when that other is distinguished from his fellows by the greatness and singularity of his thoughts, and by the extreme subtilty of their connecting links. Obscurity is not a blemish but an excellence, if the pains of seeking are more than compensated by the pleasures of finding, the luxury of μαθησις, where the concentrated energy of a passage, when once understood, gives it a hold on the imagination and memory such as were ill sacrificed to more diluted clearness.

Grandis præfatio tenui inceptoa sort of apology to Tennyson for implying that he needs illustration. Some time ago I made a few notes on particular passages in Locksley Hall, which I now enclose. Some of them are, I dare say, superfluoussome, possibly, erroneous. If so, they will stand a fair chance of being corrected in your valuable publication.

By the bye, if a "Notes and Queries" had existed in the days of Æschylus, we might have been saved from many a recourse to "corrupt text" and "lacunæ admodum deflendæ."

Stanza 2. "Dreary gleams:" in apposition with "curlews." I know the construction of this line has puzzled a good many readers.

Stanza 23. "Yet it shall be." Yet "decline" thou certainly wilt.

Stanza 28. "He will answer," &c. With an oath, it may beat the least with a coarse rebuff.

Stanza 29. "The heart's disgrace." The disgrace, the injury, and degradation the heart has sufferedits prostitution to a mercenary service by a marriage of interest.

Stanza 34. "Never." Alas! I never can.

Stanza 35. "In division of the records of the mind." In dividing my recollections of her into two groups, and erasing the one.

Stanza 38. "The poet is" (as I think has been already pointed out) Dante.

Stanza 40. "He hunts," &c. Hethy husband.

Stanza 42. "Never, never," &c. Never again! (joys never to return) sung by the ghosts of years departed.

Stanza 51. "I have but an angry fancy"my only qualification.

Stanza 53. "But the jingling of the guinea," &c. But there is no fighting now: the nations get over their quarrels in another wayby the jingling of the guinea, instead of the clang of arms.

Stanzas 54. "Mother-age."; 93. "Mother-age, for mine I know not."

This mother-age is a great difficulty. At first I took it for the past of history, but now understand by it the past of his own life, at least its earliest and brightest periodthat age which had been as a mother, the only mother he ever knew.

Stanza 70. "Youthful joys." The bright hopes of his youth. (?)

Stanza 75. "Blinder motions," Less rational, less well-guided emotions.

Stanza 91. "The distance." The distant future, the "good time coming."

There are some lines in In Memoriam (I have not the book at hand, but any reader thereof will instantly recollect them), which indicate Tennyson's acquaintance with and appreciation of Jeremy Taylor, who thus expresses the thoughts of the "wild fellow in Petronius," suggested by the sight of a floating corpse.

"That peradventure this man's wife, in some part of the Continent, safe and warm, looks next month for the good man's return or, it may be, his son knows nothing of the tempest: or his father thinks of that affectionate kiss which is still warm upon the good old man's cheek ever since he took a kind farewell; and he weeps with joy to think how blessed he shall be when his beloved boy returns into the circle of his father's arms."Holy Dying.

Compare with "Sure never moon to evening," &c., in the same poem, and I think the same place:

FOLK LORE

Sacramental Wine (Vol. iii., p. 179.).From a note by Mr. Albert Way, on the use of sacramental wine, one would be led to infer that it was recommended on account of some superstitious belief in its superior excellency from having been used in religious worship; but I would suggest that the same reasons which recommend Teynt wine, the kind generally used for the Sacrament, are those which have established for it a reputation in cases of sickness: these are its rich red colour, and sweet and agreeable flavour.

Weakness is popularly supposed to be caused by a thinness and want of blood; if wine be recommended for this, there is a deeply rooted prejudice in favour of red wine because the blood is red, and upon no better principle than that which prescribes the yellow bark of the barberry for the yellow state of jaundice; the nettle, for the nettle-rash; and the navel-wort (Cotyledon umbilicus), for weakness about the umbilical region. The truth is, that rustic practice is much influenced by the doctrine of similitudes, the principle of "similia similibus curantur" having been more extensively recognised in the olden time than since the days of Hahnemann.

The sweetness of Teynt wine would recommend it for children, to whom a stronger wine is generally distasteful; but Port is generally prescribed as a tonic for adults.

It may further be remarked, that the recommendation to give Sacramental wine might arise from the fact, that, as in some parishes more wine is provided than is required, the remainder is put by to be given to the poor who may require it at the hands of the clergyman.

In sending these remarks, I am led to request that your correspondents would make Notes upon such old wives' remedies as are employed upon the principles I have mentioned.

Cirencester, April 12.

Cure of Disease by means of Sheep.A child in my parish has been for some time afflicted with disease of some of the respiratory organs. The mother was recommended to have it carried through a flock of sheep as they were let out of the fold in the morning. The time was considered to be of importance.

L Rectory, Somerset.

ANCIENT INEDITED BALLADS, NO. IV

I next transcribe the following lines from the same MS. as my last. It is another epitaph on the Mr. Browne that I mentioned in No. II. It contains a curious illustration of a passage in Shakspeare, which has been often debated in the pages of "Notes and Queries," and so deserves preservation.

"Vpon the death of that right worthye man, Mr. Browne, late of Caius and Gonville Colledge disceased. Epicedion."(Harl. MSS., No. 367. fol. 155.)

I need hardly point out the striking similarity between the expression in Shakspeare

I need hardly point out the striking similarity between the expression in Shakspeare

and the third stanza of this poem.

POETICAL COINCIDENCES, ETC

In the Jealous Lovers of Thomas Randolph, the following passage occurs, which may possibly have suggested to Lord Byron the fearful curse he has put into the mouth of Eve, in "the grand and tremendous drama of Cain."1

That exquisite stanza in the Third Canto of Childe Harold, "Even as a broken mirror," &c., has been often admired. In Carew's poem, The Spark, I find the following lines, which contain similar image:

To the coincidences which have been already pointed out regarding that exquisite line in the Bride of Abydos:

the following from Carew may perhaps be added:

All will recollect the wonderful description of the shipwreck in Don Juan; and more particularly the incidents so graphically related in stanzas 52 and 53 of the Second Canto: to a part of which, the following passage fro Lee's Œdipus bears some resemblance:

I have now before me a print of John, the first Lord Byron, engraved from a painting in the collection of Lord Delaware; in which he is pourtrayed in armour, with a truncheon in the left hand, and the right arm bare to above the elbow. Can this have suggested to Lord Byron the idea of describing "Alp the renegade" as fighting with "the white arm bare," in the Siege of Corinth?

Byron refers to Smollett as an authority for "blatant beast," apparently forgetting that the figure originated with Spenser. Again, in a note to Don Juan