comes, in the expression of the thought, a heightened and elaborate air. In Homer’s poetry it is all natural thoughts in natural words; in Mr. Tennyson’s poetry it is all distilled thoughts in distilled words. Exactly this heightening and elaboration may be observed in Mr. Spedding’s
While the steeds mouth’d their corn aloof . . .
(an expression which might have been Mr. Tennyson’s), on which I have already commented; and to one who is penetrated with a sense of the real simplicity of Homer, this subtle sophistication of the thought is, I think, very perceptible even in such lines as these,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy . . .
which I have seen quoted as perfectly Homeric. Perfect simplicity can be obtained only by a genius of which perfect simplicity is an essential characteristic.
So true is this, that when a genius essentially subtle, or a genius which, from whatever cause, is in its essence not truly and broadly simple, determines to be perfectly plain, determines not to admit a shade of subtlety or curiosity into its expression, it cannot even then attain real simplicity; it can only attain a semblance of simplicity.[1] French criticism, richer in its vocabulary than ours, has invented a useful word to distinguish this semblance (often very
- ↑ I speak of poetic genius as employing itself upon narrative or dramatic poetry,–poetry in which the poet has to go out of himself
