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TENNYSON'S " IN MEMORIAM '.

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already quoted, occurs an episode on Spring and Spring hopes, as suggesting a renewed intimacy beyond the grave.

Then follow the removal of the family from their old home and its many associations with the dead, and a Christmas kept among strangers. At each new stage, the poet seeks to make us aware of the changing phases of his sorrow; we are to see in the 'merry bells' ringing in the new year that a happier era is now approaching. This tone is continued in connexion with his friend's next birthday, which is now celebrated with gladness :

We keep the day. With festal cheer,
With books and music, surely we
Will drink to him, whate'er he be,
And sing the songs he loved to hear.

This spirit is maintained through the remaining sections, which supply reflections on the strengthening and mellowing influences of sorrow, backward glances over the course of his own grief, and calm descriptions of what he had received from the friendship.

The end of the whole is resignation, peace, and the conviction that his friend has become, not less, but more to him. He has grown into a universal presence, mingling with his own life (129, 130), and leading him on to fuller trust (131) in the

Living will that shall endure

When all that seems shall suffer shock.

The difficulties to be overcome in such a poem are unavoidably serious. To raise, in the name of friendship, an emotion of equal intensity with sexual love at its utmost, involves very great straining. The sympathy with a lover for the loss of one of the opposite sex, is easily kindled: no inordinate qualities of mind have to be assumed; and a very limited amount of plot and incident will suffice. To bring the same result out of friendship, the friend has to be constituted a rarity, a paragon, one in ten thousand. Everything has the appearance of over-statement.

A poem thus occupied with personal affliction and intense sorrow, needs redeeming elements. Such are found here in the high-class poetry which is made to envelop all the circumstantials of the bereavement, often without necessary connexion. This is what relieves the monotony of the personal bewailing. Secondly, the poem reveals a conquest over the pains of grief, such that, while the memory

of the departed friend remains, it becomes no longer weakness, but strength and comfort. If this conquest had been more definitely expressed, it would have been still more effectual. Thirdly, there is the celebration of the joys attainable by an intense and elevated friendship. But, having regard to the facts of life, we must feel that it is overdone. Indeed, were an affection of such intensity to occur in actual life, it would interfere with family ties, by taking the place of love without the inspiration and support derived from opposition of sex. It would repeat in an undesirable way, the defective side of the love affection in its intensified forms,-the impossibility of being ever satisfied with any but one person.

The evolution of the poem is open to criticism. Although not demanding the rigorous conditions of an epic, or a drama, it still needs an unfolding purpose; and the only purpose traceable is the writer's gradual approach to serenity of mind. In this, however, there are none of the windings of a plot. The detached passages of highly-wrought verse, constantly occurring, so far sustain the interest, and are, indeed, the glory of the poem.

In his piece entitled 'La Saisiaz,' Browning works up a pathetic subject, the sudden death of a lady friend; the main feature in the handling being an argumentative view of the future life, illustrated by powerful language and comparisons. Touches of tenderness occur, in the midst of energetic argument and declamation. The following is a brief example:

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Gone you were, and I shall never see that earnest face again

Grow transparent, grow transfigured with the sudden light that leapt, At the first word's provocation, from the heart-deeps where it slept. Therefore, paying piteous duty, what seemed you have we consigned Peacefully to what I think were, of all earth-beds, to your mind Most the choice for quiet, yonder.

There is a mixture of business with tenderness in the lines; but the charm of a fine demeanour and a noble character is present to awaken our emotions of love, which the sudden departure intensifies.

The author freely dilates on his own pains, in language severely energetic rather than softly tender, with the view of augmenting our sense of his loss, and the worth of his object :

COMPASSION FOR THE LOWER ANIMALS.

One day more will see me rid of this same scene whereat I wince,
Tetchy at all sights and sounds, and pettish at each idle charm
Proffered me who pace now singly where we two went arm in arm.

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In his sustained argumentation, he nearly exhausts the ways of looking at death, with a view to comfort, thusWhy repine? There's ever some one lives although ourselves be dead! Or again, an appeal to his courage to face the reality whatever it may prove to be--

Why should I want courage here?
I will ask and have an answer,—with no favour, with no fear,-
From myself. How much, how little, do I inwardly believe
True that controverted doctrine? Is it fact to which I cleave,

Is it fancy I but cherish, when I take upon my lips

Phrase the solemn Tuscan fashioned, and declare the soul's eclipse
Not the soul's extinction? take his "I believe and I declare---

Certain am I--from this life I pass into a better, there

Where that lady lives of whom enamoured was my soul "-where this Other lady, my companion dear and true, she also is?

BENEVOLENCE AS COMPASSION.

Compassion for human suffering generally, is a mixture of tender emotion with active sympathy. The woes of mankind are often far beyond the power of redress, and poetry, by its usual arts, attempts to alleviate the pain of contemplating them.

Pathos of this class may refer to the sufferings of mankind in general. But more usually our compassion is to be evoked towards some individual, imaginary or real, living or dead. Thus the errors and misfortunes of Burns are the theme of two poems by Wordsworth, suggested by a visit to his tomb; and Mrs. Browning, writing on Cowper's Grave,' expresses our sorrow for the mental disease that clouded his life. In both cases, the sadness is partly increased and partly relieved by bringing into view other elements of the respective lives, while the interest is greatly deepened by their poetic gifts. On the other hand, Hood, in 'The Bridge of Sighs,' endeavours to draw forth our compassion towards a life wrecked and lost, with no interest beyond this, and hence needing more to redeem it from its natural horrors.

The Lower Animals share in the lot of suffering, and their case has been sometimes made the subject of pathetic

rendering. The Hound of Ulysses, already referred to, makes one of the touching incidents of the Odyssey; no more being attempted than to indicate the remembrance of his master after twenty years.

The following stanza of Burns, with reference to a stormy winter night, expresses this pity for animals:Ilk happing bird, wee, helpless thing, That, in the merry months o' spring, Delighted me to hear thee sing,

What comes o' thee?

Whare wilt thou cower thy chittering wing,
And close thy e'e!

The luxury of pity is here indulged without too close a view of the sufferings implied; the compassion turns on helplessness, aided by the pleasure derived from the lively summer song.

The connexion with man suggested in this example is still further increased in the case of the tamed or domesticated animals. We may agree with Cowper's denunciation of the man

Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm; but it is barely possible to stir up keen compassion for organisms so different from our own. Shakespeare's assertion that

the poor beetle that we tread upon

In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies--

is much too exaggerated to bring out a tender response.* Pope's dying pheasant in 'Windsor Forest' is meant to be pathetic. The poet understands the efficacy of its beauties

After

* One of the most touching passages in ancient poetry is that contained in Ovid's Metamorphoses (Book XV.), where the poet, in describing the tenets of the Pythagoreans, dwells upon their feeling of the sacredness of animal life. adverting to the deserved punishment of the wild beast for his ravages and spoliation, he exclaims, 'What have ye done to be so treated, ye gentle sheep, made to provide for inen, ye that bear nectar in the full teat, that give us your wool for covering, and are more helpful in life than in death? What has the ox done, a guileless, innocent beast, made to endure toil?' 'Unmindful he, and not worthy to be repaid with crops, who could kill the tiller of his fields, as soon as the weight of the crooked plough was removed; who strick with the axe that neck worn with labour, which had so often renewed the hard field and given so many harvests!" (116-126).

† See! from the brake the whirring pheasant springs,

And mounts exulting on triumphant wings:

Short is his joy; he feels the fiery wound,

Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground.

Ah! what avail his glossy, varying dyes,

His purple crest, and scarlet circled eyes,

The vivid green his shining plumes unfold,

His painted wings, and breast that flames with gold?

MODES OF RECONCILING US TO DEATH.

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of plumage in adding to our compassionate interest. Nevertheless, to call forth pity in such a case is hollowness and mockery, seeing that the bird's death struggle comes as a matter of human sport.

PATRIOTIC COMPASSION.

Patriotic devotion is often tragic and pathetic; but, when a matter of history, it cannot be made to conform to artistic ideals. Campbell's lament over the downfall of Poland is relieved chiefly by the celebration of her champions. So the fall of Greece is usually redeemed by the recital of her glories, as in Byron's Isles of Greece. The same feeling is set forth by him from the sympathetic spectator's point of view, also on Greece, in Clime of the unforgotten brave'.

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The Pathos of Country is often exhibited through the emotions of exile: as with the Jews in Babylon.

Goethe's Mignon song reproduces it, with characteristic touches of Italy's charms.

Allan Ramsay's 'Lochaber no more,' touches all the chords of pathos in quitting one's native land to settle elsewhere.

DEATH.

There are various modes of reconciling us to Death. The term 'Philosophy' is the summing up of one class of considerations. Religion is the greatest of all. The poetic handling of the Tender Emotions is a distinct form; and, although occasionally standing by itself, it is the frequent accompaniment of all the other modes, and is excluded from none, except the severely ethical view of retribution or recompense for conduct in this life.

The ancients dilate powerfully upon philosophy, destiny and life-weariness. They also use the pathos of tenderness, or mixtures of that with philosophy.

Emily Brontë reaches a stern consolation, with perhaps the minimum of consolatory philosophy, in 'The Old Stoic": Riches I hold in light esteem,

And love I laugh to scorn;

And lust of fame was but a dream,
That vanished with the morn:

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