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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1862 Excerpt: ... lies the Earth all Danae to the stars... or O'er the sun's bright eye Drew the vast eyelid of an inky cloud... or When the cairn'd mountain was a shadow, sunn'd The world to peace again... o... More

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1862 Excerpt: ... lies the Earth all Danae to the stars... or O'er the sun's bright eye Drew the vast eyelid of an inky cloud... or When the cairn'd mountain was a shadow, sunn'd The world to peace again... or The fresh young captains flash'd their glittering teeth, The huge hush-bearded barons heaved and blew... or He bared the knotted column of his throat, The massive square of his heroic breast, And arms on which the standing muscle sloped As slopes a wild brook o'er a little stone, Eunning too vehemently to break upon it... And this way of speaking is the least plain, the most unHomei-ic, which can possibly be conceived. Homer presents his thought to you just as it wells from the source of his mind: Mr. Tennyson carefully distils his thought before he will part with it. Hence comes, in the expression of the thought, a heightened and elaborate air. In Homer's poetry it is all natural thoughts in natural words; in Mr. Tennyson's poetry it is all distilled thoughts in distilled words. Exactly this heightening and elaboration may be observed in Mr. Spedding's While the steeds mouth'd their corn aloof... (an expression which might have been Mr. Tennyson's), on which I have already commented; and to one who is penetrated with a sense of the real simplicity of Homer, this subtle sophistication of the thought is, I think, very perceptible even in such lines as these, And drunk delight of tattle with my peers, Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy... which I have seen quoted as perfectly Homeric. Perfect simplicity can be obtained only by a genius of which perfect simplicity is an essential characteristic. So true is this, that when a genius essentially subtle, or a genius which, from whatever cause, is in its essence not truly and broadly simple, determines to be perfectly pl...

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