In no way, is Tennyson's definite power more shown, than in his painting of indefiniteness itself; of those vague influences common to certain moods of the mind, and flowing from some aspects of external nature. Deep truth is reached in the accurate representation of these. Vague emotion is as real an entity, as definite. As actually existent in the human mind, thus does Tennyson suggest it. He fetches it from its hidden home, and imparts by the way a light to set it forth, enabling us to see it too. The indefinite he thus realizes; in his entire freedom from self-consciousness, that sickly east wind dispersing such moods as shadows are chased over a corn-field.

A landscape is painted not only in itself, but in its relation to the human mind-that to be felt in and through it; its very spirit. As, where singing of summer delights, he gives this evanescent reality :—

'O sound to rout the brood of cares,

The sweep of scythe in morning dew!"

Witness this early morn :

Sucked from out the distant gloom

A breeze began to tremble,

And gathering freshlier overhead,

Rocked the full foliaged elms, and swung
The heavy folded rose, and flung

The lilies to and fro, and said,

"The dawn, the dawn;" and died away.'

Have we not all heard such ineffable speech? Again, how true a hand plays here:

'Yet oft when sun-down skirts the moor

An inner trouble I behold.'

Mark the definite mystery, vagueness of influence embodied, of the following; sorrow it is speaks:

The stars she whispers, blindly run;
A web is woven across the sky;
From out waste places comes a cry,
And murmurs from the dying sun."

So, of this verse of the grand dream at p. 94:

'I dreamed there would be spring no more,

That nature's ancient power was lost;

The streets were black with smoke and frost,
They chattered trifles at the door."'

Thus much for the spiritual part of Tennyson's art. In all

pertaining to the aesthetic and technic, his wonted matured per

fection stands his great thoughts his elevated feeling in good stead; lending them wings for diffusion among all open to such charms; embalming them for the ages. As the last result of his art, ranks its freedom; not the characteristic of his earliest poems. The absence of all fine-spun or overloaded ornament is very noticeable in the volume. Simplicity prevails: an easy wealth. The diction is direct, self-consistent, in keeping with Nature; natural in the true sense, its use of Nature's best; both as to choice and flow of words. Inversion, in excess the crazy crutch of the lame, rarely occurs. The system inculcated and practised by Wordsworth is tacitly adhered to, without being pushed to extremes. The order of prose, when adequately forcible, is that adopted. But a fairer truth, more subtile reality, are added. That Promethean spirit, who shall define?-the touch which harmonizes, makes all kin; the unerring taste dictating selection, order, every part; separating poetry from prose, imagination from matter-of-fact, the ideal from the literal.

The music of the verse, deeply attuned and varied, as Tennyson's has ever been, is in kind distinct; at once flowing and self completing, passionate and emphatic; while tender, august, and lingeringly sweet. The stanza, before employed by him, on a few minor occasions, is an uncommon and a happy one. It is especially fitted to its present elegiac purpose; its half-detached, half-continuous application; and the effective medium of earnest thought and tender feeling. But it is the use of his scale marks the musician. He is literally creator of his music: brings the informing spirit, the mastery; substantially, all. A central source of Tennyson's music, the very soul of it, is his studied modulation of vowel-sounds: always his pre-eminent attribute; even more than his time, his modulation of pauses. The latter has an individual and peculiarly effective character in the present poem, dictated by the stanza; vigorous, refined, simple. But the vowel-sounds, the raw material of all verbal music, he handles as the potter does his clay. His predominant choice of monosyllables, the most characteristic of pure English, and his poetic instincts, ensure him a full supply. Vowels can never in our language be numerous enough, as in Italian, to cloy;-for either excess or defect defeats their true end. But. the developed, rich-toned, varied music, he draws from their consummate adjustment, is a part of his art beyond our scanning. Though of course primarily due to inborn feeling, it is, doubtless, consciously and artistically regulated by the poet.

For the most part, in his verse, it is strict rule and unvarying perfection. Now and then, lines apparently slovenly occur in the present volume; similar to those in the Princess,' which led some wiseacres to the fancied discovery of want of ear in

one of the half-dozen great musicians among English poets; on which discovery they much hugged themselves, in imagined superiority. They have yet to learn, a musician does not lose his ear, a master forget his mastery, on the sudden; then resume it. These licenses are taken advisedly, to aid a particular effect, of vigour, of emotion, or what not; or, in obedience to a delicate minor law of harmony, of course demanding recognition by the reader. When there is profusion of vowel-sounds, one is sometimes run into the other. At page 5, given in outline,' the three central syllables, rightly thus blend. So, in the 'cataract,' at page 97. In 'bringest the sailor,' at page 14, the two central syllables are each half-tones; together making to the ear one foot. The slightly-breathed e inbringest' tempers the harshness of the consonant. Without it, there would be dissonance. Thy spirit should fail from off the globe,' at page 115, is, perhaps, a really licentious line; though not without its compensating effect, evidently felt by the poet. The slur demanded is a little awkward.

A flaw or two of another kind may be microscopically descried in the diction itself. Words, such as communicate,' сараbilities,' foreign to Tennyson's vocabulary, too conventional and ineloquent for a poet's use, have here and there slipped in, amid the effort to represent pure thought. In other poets, where such words constitute half the store, we should not notice them. In an artist like Tennyson, all whose words ordinarily breathe a fresh, refined significance, informed with poetic life, half a dozen such in a volume become observable.

One merit of the stanza chosen, is its aptness for artistic completeness. This, with perhaps the poet's natural affection for the poem, in its theme; or the very art itself of the finishing touches, has prevented over-finish, the occasional error of this fastidiously sensitive poct.

It is, throughout, instinct with the freshness of first-feeling. The breeze of early morning plays about it. The spirit of the Dawn informs it. The strong life of those by-gone hours of emotion yet beats here, in earnest pulsations. But, though an early, it is eminently a perfected utterance. Doubtless it has matured, under his hands. Towards the close, matter and manner would indicate some substantive interweavings of late date; as especially at p. 195. In any case, the poem, whether from after maturing, or the elevation to which strong experience raised the poet in the first instance, well represents the Tennyson of to-day, as of yesterday. That experience is now recorded; past in all senses, save its gain. This is present in the poet's own being. Much has been solved, much mastered; for him, as for us. On this sure vantage ground of serenity and power, he stands; free for yet

nobler enterprise. In its combination of claims, its personal import, its thoughtful burthen, its art; the In Memoriam' ranks supreme in interest among his works. It occupies a place peculiarly its own, in its poetic and its interpretative value. It is a central member, the key-stone of the rest. By its light we may read them, and the poet too. Personally and poetically, it represents that period, previously a blank to us in his life.

ART. IX.-Wanderings in some of the Western Republics of America, with Remarks upon the Cutting of the Great Ship Canal through Central America. By George Byam, late of 43rd Light Infantry. 12mo. Pp. 264. London: J. W. Parker.

WE have not seen Mr. Byam's former volume, but from the reports which have reached us we conclude that it must constitute a good introduction to the one now before us. Looking back from the present to the past,-from the volume on our table to its predecessor of last year, we infer that many will be pleased to renew their acquaintance with a light-hearted, intelligent, and, on the whole, sound-minded English traveller, who went over ground not frequently visited, and is evidently more concerned to note with accuracy than to write finely. From some of Mr. Byam's opinions, as in the case of the Navigation Laws, we dissent. Occasionally he goes out of his way to sneer at a certain class of philanthropists,' and now and then-though very rarely we confess-he violates good taste in the ridicule with which he seeks to invest the views of his opponents. On his own ground, however, he is always entitled to respect. A shrewd observer, who has travelled over extensive regions in the manner best adapted to familiarize him with the condition and habits of their people, he speaks his mind freely, and admits us into the interior of social life, as well as informs us on various points of political interest and of scientific inquiry. Having spent six years in the Western Republics of America, he is obviously entitled to speak with confidence, and there is an air of truthfulness in his statements which commend them to confidence. In this small work,' he says, 'I propose to take my reader from Chili to the interior of Central America; and I promise him, as far as lies in my power, to avoid any ground that has been so trodden before as to leave a broad, beaten trail.' This promise is well fulfilled, and there is consequently a fresh

ness in the information communicated, which, in these days of dilettante authorship, is specially refreshing. The volume is mainly devoted to Chili and Peru, principally the former, and treats of the character, occupations, social habits, mining operations, natural history, and political institutes of these republics. There is no attempt at system or philosophy. The author is content to give us facts, and wisely leaves to others the work of classification and inference. We need scarcely say that the people treated of, are a totally different race from that with which Pizarro and Cortes met. They are, for the most part, the offspring of Spaniards modified by the special circumstances of their American residence. The Indian tribes which first viewed with wonder, and then regarded with abhorrence, the chivalrous but blood-thirsty soldiers of Spain, have passed away from the land of their fathers. The soil they once proudly trod now contains their remains, and the record of their sufferings is a lasting witness against the people by whom their confidence was betrayed. It is impossible to look at the present degradation of Spain, without having its American atrocities recalled to the mind. Verily there is a God that judgeth in the earth.'

There is no continental empire whose boundaries are more clearly marked than Chili, and its climate and temperature are marvellously diversified. Its length from south to north is about 1,000 miles, but the greatest diversity of climate is experienced in travelling from west to cast. In the latter case,' says Mr. Byam, sometimes one day's journey will enable the traveller to experience a transit from burning hot plains to most intense cold and never-melting snows. The change is sudden; and though I have often heard a parched-up traveller on the plains express a wish to take a good roll in the snow above him, yet, when he had arrived there, I never knew one that did not express a strong desire to be back again and get unfrozen.' The population of Chili is stated to be about 2,000,000, thinly scattered over a vast extent of territory. The government is nominally republican, but really an oligarchy in a few hands, and invested with much feudal power. The chief of the clergy, and the landlords, constitute in fact the ruling power, and are as really the owners of the peasantry as the feudal lord was of the serf. 'Cities and towns,' says our author, may be free from this influence, but in large estates it is real feudalism.' The mode adopted varies from that formerly prevalent in Europe, but the end attained is substantially the same. The following brief extract will explain the process to our readers

:

Every landlord keeps, at his "hacienda," a shop in which is sold every article that can possibly be wanted by any Peon. Charque (or hung beef), candles, grease, jackets, trowsers, pouches, boots, shoes,