In the Dolorous Stroke, the prose sketch of Balin and Balan, the damsel who defames the Queen "was journeying to King Mark of Cornwall." But in the poem, the damsel is Vivien "from out the hall of Mark," 2 and the connection is thus indicated with the next idyll, when we learn of her departure from Cornwall to Camelot and the purport of her journey.

In Elaine, Lancelot was at first said to be stolen from his mother's arms by the Lady of the Lake, but meanwhile that personage was endued with deep spiritual significance and the term was no longer in keeping. In the revised version the necessary change is made

"Lancelot, whom the Lady of the Lake

Caught from his mother's arms—the wondrous one
Who passes thro' the vision of the night.'

"3

Many too, and with the same object, are the passages, often of considerable length, inserted in the Idylls from time to time. Thus in The Coming of Arthur, the whole account of the first battle, and in Merlin and Vivien the whole story of her expedition from Cornwall, are additions of a later date. One advantage of Tennyson's plan, indeed, was that it could be expanded at pleasure; and though the appearance of Balin and Balan in 1886 was probably a surprise to most readers, there was no reason why the thing should not occur again and the cycle be enriched with other 1 Knowles' "Aspects of Tennyson," II. Nineteenth Century January, 1893.

2 Balin and Balan, 431.

3 Lancelot and Elaine, 1393.

pieces, interesting in themselves and conducive to the idea of the whole. For, though all is orderly and coherent in the Idylls, the unity that the Arthurian story was capable of receiving and that Tennyson's genius was capable of supplying, was not in the highest sense organic. It was the unity of a chain into which link after link might be introduced.

At the same time, with Balin and Balan, Tennyson had made his last contribution to his life-work. And probably it was not his death that stayed him from further additions. At least, in 1889 he did what he had not done since 1842, he treated an Arthurian subject without reference to the Idylls and even in contradiction to their conception. His Merlin and The Gleam bears the same sort of relation to the cycle when completed, that The Lady of Shalott bears to the cycle not yet conceived. Here however the text for his invention is derived not from visionary romance but from legendary history; it is not the Maiden of Astolat but Merlin of the Woods whom he sings. And there is a corresponding difference between the lavish rhymes of his youthful fancy and the unadorned rhythms of his veteran experience. But the poem, though some of the early charm is gone, has in compensation a deeper personal interest. If, as he tells us, there is much about himself in Ulysses who voyages on to the vanishing goal, where

"Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move,"

there is also much about himself in the story of

Merlin following The Gleam. It guides him over

hill and level, till

"On the forehead

Of Arthur the blameless
Rested The Gleam."

But not for long. Arthur vanishes, clouds and confusion close on Camelot, and The Gleam, waned to a wintry glimmer, leads him forth anew. But it broadens as it moves, till, old and weary, at the land's last limit, he " can no longer,"

"And all but in Heaven

Hovers The Gleam."

Despite the passing of Arthur, the last word is one of encouragement. The Idylls too had closed with a hint of renovation; "the new sun rose, bringing a new year." But with more emphasis this last stray snatch of Arthurian melody dwells on the undying light that shall lead the new generations. The aged wizard bequeaths his quest of The Gleam to his younger fellows;

CHAPTER VII

GENERAL MEANING OF THE IDYLLS

WE

E have seen that Tennyson found the connecting principle for his Idylls in a conception which may be called symbolic, and even allegorical, if we remember that with him the meaning and the image have as a rule the simultaneous unity of art, and are not related by external afterthought as ready-made doctrine plus illustration annexed. We have seen too that the poet did not immediately attain clear and complete consciousness of his own principle; in the Morte d'Arthur it lay involved, but undeveloped; in the four next Idylls it is still more in the background; only in The Holy Grail and the subsequent pieces does it sway supreme, moulding and informing even the smallest details.

Thus, for two reasons, there is considerable objection to an allegorical explanation of the Idylls; first, the separation of the meaning from the form makes a divorce where no divorce ought to be, and seems opposed to the very nature of poetry; and, in the second place, even apart from this, a large portion of the present poem was admittedly composed without conscious reference to any "dark conceit."

But,

It is perhaps neither possible nor desirable fully to answer the first of these criticisms. It applies in a way to all analysis of any work of art. although such analysis is a bad thing to rest in, it is often a useful thing by the way; it is a means, not an end; it may sharpen the perception of beauty, and thus bring a more intimate enjoyment of it. This is its work; and if this be effected, its work is done. We turn from its divisions back to the rich unity of art, but it may be questioned whether an artistic masterpiece can in its entirety be appreciated without a preliminary analytic

examination.

The second argument is also, to a large extent, valid. It would clearly be straining the poem, and the explanation as well, to hunt for allegories where no allegories are. Tennyson is comparatively simple and straightforward in the elder Idylls, and into their details it would hardly do to read subtle hidden meanings. At the same time the later Idylls are not an independent growth, but only an after development of the same stock; and an explanation which is true of them, will also apply, though less evidently and circumstantially, to their predecessors. Their author at least considered the whole series sufficiently alike to fit into one frame without any violation of poetical harmony. This implies that there is no difference of principle between the various parts, but at most a difference in the extent to which the principle is carried through. In the last Idylls the allegory is present everywhere, colouring the smallest minutiae and consciously working itself out in the earlier it is more fitful