Keats's 'Isabella,' a horrible story from Boccaccio, is barely redeemed by the beautiful affection of Isabella. It is, however, one of those cases of love tragedy that allow of an exaggerated picture of affection without seeming oversentimental. At the same time, we demand a very highlywrought ideal, in order to compensate for the misery of the termination.

Such incidents happen in real life. The narration of them, unless redeemed by extraordinary genius in the treatment, transgresses the legitimate bounds that divide pathos from horror.

Tennyson's 'Coming of Arthur' is prefaced by a delineation of the previous condition of the kingdom. For the redemption of the horrors, the narrative of Arthur's beneficent improvements is barely sufficient:

And thus the land of Cameliard was waste,
Thick with wet woods, and many a beast therein,
And none or few to scare or chase the beast;
So that wild dog, and wolf and boar and bear
Came night and day, and rooted in the fields,
And wallow'd in the gardens of the King.
And ever and anon the wolf would steal
The children and devour, but now and then,
Her own brood lost or dead, lent her fierce teat
To human sucklings; and the children, housed
In her foul den, there at their meat would growl,
And mock their foster-mother on four feet,
Till, straighten'd, they grew up to wolf-like men,
Worse than the wolves.

STRENGTH FOR PATHOS.

When a pathetic effect is aimed at, care must be taken that Strength is not substituted for it.

This may happen in several ways. For example, sorrow may be expressed in the passionate forms of anger or hatred, which produce the effects of Strength instead of Tender Feeling. Or a scene intended to be pathetic may have its grander aspects enlarged upon, so that the impression of these may be what chiefly remains. Or, again, the conduct of a sufferer may be so painted that we rather admire his moral elevation than sympathize with his sufferings.

It is a matter of fact that our greatest geniuses are more successful in Strength than in Feeling. This is shown in setting forth the higher degrees of the love emotion; the

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figures chosen being figures of intensity that satisfy the intellect without touching the heart. The remark applies in a pre-eminent degree to Shakespeare. His love hyperboles are calculated purely for intensity of degree; they are apt to be incompatible with tender feeling. When Cleopatra says of Antony, His face was as the heavens,' she makes us look upon him with admiration and astonishment, and on herself as worked up to a pitch of frenzy, but neither effect is of the nature of love.

Macbeth's splendid outburst of dubitation before the murder, has touches of the highest pathos; yet with lapses into imagery of pure strength, which only the genius of the pathetic figures can render otherwise than discordant :

Besides, this Duncan

Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongu'd, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;

And pity, like a naked new-born babe,

Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubin, hors'd
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind.

The first lines anticipate a burst of moral indignation for the criminality of the deed; the amiability and nobleness of Duncan being tributary to the effect. It is a pure stroke of Shakespearean strength. The pathos lies in the second part, which begins with a touching figure of tenderness, 'a naked new-born babe'; but the adjunct, striding the blast,' does not carry out the figure, but invests the helpless object with an unnatural exercise of power. The same applies to 'heaven's cherubin,' which are objects of the child-like type, but with a certain maturity qualifying them for active functions; so that they are not improperly horsed on the couriers of the air. Yet the energy of the concluding lines is too much for a tender personation.

PROMISCUOUS PASSAGES.

Few pieces will show better on a minute examination, or prove more illustrative, than Coleridge's poem called ‘Love'.

All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,

All are but ministers of Love,

And feed his sacred flame.

Intensity of expression; yet the two first lines have little of the love harmony in them: 'thoughts' least, 'delights' most. The next lines are in full keeping :

Oft in my waking dreams do I

Live o'er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay,
Beside the ruin'd tower.

The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene,
Had blended with the lights of eve;
And she was there, my hope, my joy,

My own dear Genevieve!

The whole situation is delicately and suitably chosen for romance; -'the ruin'd tower'; 'the moonshine blended with the lights of eve'; while both circumstances are maintained in our view by brief allusions in the succeeding stanzas. The two concluding lines are simplicity itself, yet, the words being chosen at once for emotional keeping and for melody, they are all that we can wish. She lean'd against the armed man, The statue of the armed knight; She stood and listened to my lay, Amid the lingering light.

The position is expressive and readily conceived. We are to have a tale of a bold and lovely knight; and the statue is a material support to fancy. The lingering light' continues the previous allusion.

Few sorrows hath she of her own,
My hope, my joy, my Genevieve!
She loves me best whene'er I sing

The songs that make her grieve.

A matter of fact converted into rich pathos. The poet's invention has brought forth a choice delicacy of love sentiment; such happy strokes are the surest antidote to maudlin. It is an actual truth that the fresh unworn mind can bear with the depths of grief, without passing the limit where pity turns to pain.

I played a soft and doleful air,

I sang an old and moving story-
An old rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.

The pathetic and the antique here support each other, as it is their nature to do. All the terms are choice, and breathe the odour of tenderness.

She listened with a fitting blush,

With downcast eyes and modest grace;

For well she knew, I could not choose

But gaze upon her face.

The point of this is the delicate innuendo of self-consciousness on

"
COLERIDGE'S GENEVIEVE'.

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the part of the peerless beauty, an allowance that qualifies the ideal picture of loveliness, without spoiling it as an ideal. This too is a remedy against maudlin. The skilled novelist knows to introduce touches of human weakness into the most perfect characters.

The remainder of the poem consists of the tale of the noble and chivalrous knight, and the effect of all its windings upon Genevieve, ending in a complete conquest of her affections. The design is original, and the working out has the like grace and finish of language; never a word out of keeping, and the melody always of the richest. The stanzas commented upon sufficiently represent the whole.

Keats's Eve of St. Agnes' is made much of by Leigh Hunt, but scarcely bears the weight of his eulogy. It is a romantic tale of love and successful adventure; the merit consisting in the imagery and pictorial circumstances; very original and quaint, sometimes harmonious, sometimes heart-touching, but not by any means equal; it cannot be compared with Coleridge's 'Love'.

Although the minute examination of the poem appeals oftener to individual feeling than to reasoned criticism, yet there is scope for both, as well as for copious illustration of poetic effects.

The first stanza is a pictorial grouping to express chillness. Being painful, the poetry must be exquisitely harmonious, and must not simply add to the depression. The effect to be realized may possibly be a re-action, or cheering contrast, which, however, is barely attained.

The poor old beadsman is pathetic in the ordinary sense; he inspires our pity, but his age makes it lighter. The circumstances invented to project his feeling of chillness are curious and suited to the scene, but not inspiring.

The sculptured dead on each side seem to freeze

is not an enchanting or felicitous thought; it carries the enlivening of the dead too far. Only a bold imagination, with unusual motive, would go the length of bringing human emotion out of stone figures; we could sooner draw it out of trees and flowers, which have a living interest to begin with.

Emprison'd in black purgatorial rails

is equally forced, and equally unable to quicken emotion in an ordinary mind. It is gloomy enough, but not an inspiring gloom; heavy, stony, stiff. Not like Shakespeare's thrilling ice'.

-and his weak spirit fails

To think how they may ache in icy hoods and mails.

The poet produces a depression that he does not intend, if he produces any effect at all; we may refuse to undergo the labour of imagination, for so little of the reward.

Hunt admires the lines in Stanza III.:

-Music's golden tongue

Flatter'd to tears this aged man and poor.

The epithetgolden' may operate as a compliment, but it does not fuse with the notion of music; the disparity of the senses stops the way. The word 'flatter'd' is supposed to express with felicity the stirring and elevating effect of the music, although combined with tears, which might be joyful; but the interpretation is very roundabout. It is not obviously suited to all minds, although it has an assignable connexion.

At the end of Stanza IV., there is a further attempt to give life to the sculptured figures:

The carved angels, ever eager-eyed,

Stared, where upon their heads the cornice rests,

With hair blown back, and wings put cross-wise on their breasts. This is a smaller flight. It is one of those attempts to picture with vividness, by animated phraseology, the sculptured expression, without giving the stony figures emotion. Enough, if it be suggestive of the fact, and also calculated to increase the admiration of the artist. It is the calling up of what does not strike the common eye; and what we are pleased to find discovered. Stanza VI. we quote

They told her how, upon St. Agnes' eve,

Young virgins might have visions of delight;
And soft adorings from their loves receive
Upon the honey'd middle of the night.

From

The combination 'soft adorings' is in full keeping; 'the honey'd middle of the night,' is one of Keats's daring contiguities. It is original, and not unsuitable; yet we must not press the meaning of honey too far, or it will fail us.

Stanza VII :—

Full of this whim was thoughtful Madeline:
The music, yearning like a god in pain,

She scarcely heard: her maiden eyes divine
Fix'd on the floor,---

The 'yearning' of the music 'like a god in pain' is an original and striking description of an effect characteristic of the highest music-emotion, massive and vague, and seeming to strive after more definite expression. The 'maiden eyes divine' is a felicitous conjunction, ranking with the human face divine; much more unctuous than the epithets describing the sculptured figures.

Stanza X. A powerful description of the blood-thirsty tenants of the place.

Hyena foemen, and hot-blooded lords,
Whose very dogs would execrations howl
Against his lineage.

Then comes the picture of the poor old woman—

Save one old beldame, weak in body and in soul.