In this, the matter is darkly hinted, and shadowed forth, giving a force and awe to it far beyond the most literal description. The enunciation is in hieroglyphics, but full of meaning.

"We were two daughters of one race," &c.

The madness of the narrator is subtlely announced by the refrain,

"The wind is blowing in turret and tree:"

And the poet then throws a wonderful interest over the scene by the parallel line,

"Oh the Earl was fair to see."

This is done with the intention of first suggesting it as a doubt to the reader, and then taking it for granted, and insisting upon it as a truth, that the madness was produced by the struggle in the maiden's bosom between revenge and love.

The common opinion as to the story is, that a young lady to revenge the seduction and death of her sister by a young nobleman, resolves to have vengeance: she therefore affects a great love for the seducer, inspires him with a passion, and in a moment of dalliance stabs him to the heart: she then has his dead body taken to his mother's feet.

The more poetical version appears to us to be, that she did not actually commit the self-abandonment and murder, but went mad in the contemplation of the proposed vengeance, and imagines in her delirium all that is described: it is still heightened by the possibility that her love for her sister's betrayer, interfering with her vengeance, precipitates her insanity. With these preliminary suggestions we leave the poem to the understanding of our readers.

We must not conclude our sketch without offering as a triumph of poetical skill the exquisite poem of Godiva: the opening lines, however, seem in bad taste:

"I lounged with grooms and parties on the bridge," &c.

Mr. Tennyson's last production is "The Princess, a Medley," the largest and the most ambitious of his works; it is also his greatest failure. The subject is a sort of counterpart, or 66 'female half" to the plot of Shakspere's "Love's Labor Lost;" it may also be considered as a pleasing banter on the rights of woman. It relates to a certain philosophical princess, who founded a college of women, to be brought up in high contempt of the present lords of the creation. The royal champion of the rights of woman has been betrothed to a neighboring prince, and the poet, assuming the character of this prince, narrates the tale.

The royal mistress of a college, where no men are permitted to make their appearance, scouts the idea of being bound by any such pre-contract. The lover, however, will not resign the lady; he resolves to insist upon the fulfilment of the bond. He therefore sets forth with two companions, Cyril and Florian. They disguise themselves in female apparel, and gain admission to the palace college of fair damsels.

"There at a board by tome and paper sat,

With two tame leopards couched beside her throne,
All beauty compassed in a female form,

The princess; liker to the inhabitant

Of some clear planet close upon the sun,

Than our man's earth. She rose her height and said,
'We give you welcome; not without redound
Of fame and profit unto yourselves ye come,
The first-fruits of the stranger: aftertime,

And that full voice which circled round the grave
Will rank you nobly, mingled up with me.
What! are the ladies of your land so tall?'
'We of the court,' said Cyril. From the court!'
She answered; 'then you know the prince?' And he,
'The climax of his age; as though there were
One rose in all the world—your highness that—
He worships your ideal.' And she replied:

We did not think in our own hall to hear
This barren verbiage, current among men—
Light coin, the tinsel clink of compliment;
We think not of him. When we set our hand
To this great work, we purposed with ourselves
Never to wed. You likewise will do well,
Ladies, in entering here, to cast and fling
The tricks which make us toys of men, that so,
Some future time, if so indeed you will,
You may with those self-styled our lords ally
Your fortunes, justlier balanced, scale with scale.'
At these high words, we, conscious of ourselves,
Perused the matting."

Singular to say, the princess has selected two widows, Lady Blanche and Lady Psyche, for the chief assistants in her new establishment; both of these have children, one an infant. The three disguised knights place them under the tuition of Lady Psyche, who proves to be the sister of Florian. This leads to a discovery:

All three appeal to Psyche's feelings; she agrees to conceal the discovery, on condition that they will steal away as soon as possible. The princess rides out, and summons her three new pupils to attend her; after much long and learned discourse, they sit down to a pic-nic. Here Cyril, forgetting his womanly reserve, sings a merry stave, which discovers all; a general flight ensues. The Princess Ida falls into a stream, owing to her horse taking fright. The prince, of course, saves her; it, however, avails him nothing. He is brought before her, she sitting in state. She is guarded by eight mighty daughters of the plough. She then scornfully dismisses him. The prince's father arrives with an army to liberate his

son; the fair virago's brother comes with another for her protection. A battle ensues, and the lover is dangerously wounded. Compassion rises in the heart of Ida, she nurses the wounded prince, and while she nurses, love finds an entrance. The college is broken up, and marriage closes the poem.

It is impossible for a true poet to write a long poem without revealing some snatches of his genius, and, although generally speaking, this poem is a mournful instance of mistaken powers, it abounds in fine passages. For example, the beauty of the following lament, made by Lady Psyche, when deprived of her child by the princess, is very striking:

“Ah me, my babe, my blossom, ah my child
My one sweet child, whom I shall see no more;
For now will cruel Ida keep her back;
And either she will die for want of care,

Or sicken with ill usage, when they say

The child is hers; and they will beat my girl,
Remembering her mother. O, my flower!

Or they will take her, they will make her hard;

And she will pass me by in after life

With some cold reverence, worse than were she dead.

But I will go and sit beside the doors,

And make a wild petition night and day,
Until they hate to hear me, like a wind
Wailing for ever, till they open to me,
And lay my little blossom at my feet,
My babe, my sweet Aglaia, my one child;
And I will take her up and go my way,

And satisfy my soul with kissing her.""

After the combat between Arac and the prince, when all parties had congregated on what had been the field of battle, this child is lying on the grass

Laid like a new-fallen meteor on the grass,
Uncared for, spied its mother, and began
A blind and babbling laughter, and to dance
Its body, and reach its fatling innocent arms,
And lazy, lingering fingers. She the appeal

Brook'd not, but clamoring out, Mine-mine-not yours;
It is not yours, but mine; give me the child,'
Ceased all in tremble; piteous was the cry."

Cyril, wounded in the fight, raises himself on his knee, and implores of the princess to restore the child to her. She relents, but does not give it to the mother, to whom she is not yet reconciled-giving it, however, to Cyril.

"Take it, sir,' and so

Laid the soft babe in his hard mail'd hands,
Who turned half round to Psyche, as she sprang
To embrace it, with an eye that swam in thanks,
Then felt it sound and whole from head to foot,
And hugg'd, and never hugg'd it close enough;
And in her hunger mouth'd and mumbled it,
And hid her bosom with it; after that

Put on more calm."

A sketch of one of the female students reading in the maiden's university is pretty:

"One walked-reading by herself, and one

In this hand held a volume as to read,

And smoothed a petted peacock down with that.
Some to a love-song varied a shallop by,

Or under arches of the marble bridge
Hung shadow'd from the heat."

A description of a laughing, petulant daughter of a baronet is well thrown off:

"At this upon the sward

She kept her tiny silken-sandaled foot:

That's your light way, but I would make it death

For any male thing but to peep at us.'