successfully shown that it is a mistake to call our Teutonic tongue harsh and rugged; that, while it is far stronger, it may at the same time be made as sweet as the languages of the south.
The elegiac metre of "In Memoriam" has been erroneously supposed to be new.[1] But though Tennyson did not introduce it, he has perfected it and made it so peculiarly his own, that it now seems almost a sacrilege for any less skilful hand to touch the same strings.
In the Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington he has soared to lyric heights to which, perhaps, even Pindar never attained. The tolling of the Bell, the solemn and slow funeral march, the quick rush of battle, and the choral chant of the cathedral all succeed each other, and the verse sinks and swells, rises and falls to every alternation with equal power.
The Experiments of Classic Metres in Quantity are admirable as showing Tennyson's mastery over even these difficult measures, and his wisdom in rejecting them as unsuited to our language. Let the reader turn
- ↑ It has been used by Ben Jonson in an Elegy, in his "Underwoods," commencing:
"Though Beauty be the mark of praise."
