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TENNYSONIANA.
Milton and Wordsworth. Some of his recent Sonnets, however, such as "Montenegro," the memorial Sonnet on Brookfield, and the Sonnet to Victor Hugo are incomparably fine specimens of that very curious and difficult form of writing.
Alliteration, which may degenerate into a vulgar trick, he has used sparingly; but I remember an instance or two in "In Memoriam," where it most aptly enforces the idea:
"A distant dearness in the hill,
A secret sweetness in the stream."
"The low love-language of the bird
In native hazels tassel-hung."
A secret sweetness in the stream."
"The low love-language of the bird
In native hazels tassel-hung."
He has introduced several new measures into our language; witness "The Daisy," and particular sections of "Maud."[1] And by the melody of them he has
- ↑ The following is from Mr. Venables' "Memoir of Henry Luskington" (pp. 91-92): "One day at Paris, when I had read to him, from an unpublished copy which I had brought from England, Mr. Tennyson's "Daisy" and his little poem "To the Rev. F. Maurice," he said: "How the simple change in the last line from a dactyl to an amphibrachys changes a mere experiment into a discovery in metre."
