In the address to George Cruikshank, we find: "Artist, whose hand
with horror _winged_;" where a similar question arises; and,
returning to the "Gipsy Child," we are struck with the unmeaningness
of the line: "Who massed round that slight brow these clouds of
doom?"
Nor does the following, from the first of the sonnets, "To a
Republican Friend," appear reconcileable with any ideas of
appropriateness:
----"While before me _flow_
The _armies_ of the homeless and unfed."
It is but right to state that the only instance of the kind we
remember throughout the volume have now been mentioned.
To conclude. Our extracts will enable the reader to judge of this
Poet's style: it is clear and comprehensive, and eschews flowery
adornment. No particular model has been followed, though that general
influence which Tennyson exercises over so many writers of this
generation may be traced here as elsewhere. It may be said that the
author has little, if anything, to unlearn. Care and consistent
arrangement, and the necessary subordination of the parts to the
whole, are evident throughout; the reflective, which appears the more
essential form of his thought, does not absorb the due observation or
presentment of the outward facts of nature; and a well-poised and
serious mind shows itself in every page.
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