The touching incident which forms the centre of the poem entitled In the Children's Hospital, namely, the incident of the little suffering child giving a sign to Jesus to show Him where His care was needed, was, according to a writer in Notes and Queries (N. and Q. Sixth series, vol. iii. p. 85), first told in St. Cyprian's Banner, a local magazine published by Hodges at 2 Park Street, Dorset Square, in December 1872. It there appeared as Alice's Christmas Day, and was said to be a true story related by a Sister of Mercy. Later on,' says the writer, whose note I am transcribing, 'I met with it in a pamphlet form, and have also seen it pp. 289-91 of the third volume of New and Old, a periodical magazine edited by the Rev. Charles Gutch.' The passage in the dedicatory poem to the Princess Alice- If what we call The spirit flash not all at once from out But that some broken gleam from our poor earth (Cf. In Memoriam, lxxxv. st. 22.) Compare the passage in the Ethics where Aristotle is discussing the question whether, or in what way, the fortunes of the living may affect the dead (Nich. Ethics, I. xi.). that is, we hide from view, we see the Phæacian hills fading into air and sinking out of sight.' See too Catullus, lxiv. 241, and Ovid, Met. ii. 226. Sir John Oldcastle.-A soliloquy supposed to be spoken by Lord Cobham when in hiding in Wales, whither he escaped after the demonstration in St. Giles's Fields. For a commentary see passages and authorities cited in Wordsworth's Eccles. Biog. vol. i. pp. 217-277. Columbus. With regard to this poem a serious charge of plagiarism was brought against the poet by Mr. Eric Mackay,' who pointed out that it is little more than an adaptation of a poem entitled Columbus at Seville written by a Mr. Joseph Ellis, and published by Pickering in 1869, and in 1876. A comparison between Tennyson's poem and Mr. Ellis's certainly seems to prove beyond doubt that the Poet Laureate not only got the whole framework of his poem from Mr. Ellis's, but has appropriated many of Mr. Ellis's ideas and details. If the resemblances between the poems are coincidences, it would be difficult to match coincidences so extraordinary in the whole history of literary parallels. Of one thing there can be no doubt, that the first edition of Mr. Ellis's poem appeared eleven years, and the second four years, before Tennyson's. The Voyage of Maeldune.-This poem is founded on an old Irish legend, preserved in the book of the Dun Cow, in the Yellow Book of Lecan, and in a MS. in the Harleian collection, MS. Harl. 5280. But it was first published in a translation by Dr. P. W. Joyce in his Old Celtic Romances. It was presumably on this version, published in 1879, that Tennyson 1 Vox Clamantis: a comparison analytical and critical between the Columbus at Seville and the Columbus of the Poet Laureate, by Eric Mackay. (No date) Museum Press mark 11826. dd 38. founded his poem. In his hands the story has been considerably modified—indeed, he has dealt with it in the same way as he has dealt with Malory's Morte d'Arthur in such idylls as The Coming of Arthur, deriving from his original little more than the framework of his poem. The chapters in Dr. Joyce's work which may be compared with the poem are, in order, i., ii., vii., xix., xi. and xxix., xxi. and xxii., xxxiii., xxxv. The words in stanza v. And starr'd with a myriad blossom the long convolvulus hung are plainly adapted from Shelley : The parasites Starr'd with ten thousand blossoms (Alastor). De Profundis.-The metaphysics of this poem find comment in the illustrations of the metaphysics of The Ancient Sage, see infra, p. 168 seqq. Cf. Plotinus, Ennead. V. lib. i. chap. i.: ... ἀρχὴ μὲν οὖν αὐταῖς τοῦ κακοῦ ἡ γένεσις καὶ ἡ πρώτη ἑτερότης καὶ τὸ βουληθῆναι δὲ ἑαυτῶν εἶναι (The beginning of evil to them (i.e. to souls) is birth, the separation from the former unity, and the desire of independence and isolation). 165 CHAPTER XI GROUP X.-LATER MISCELLANEOUS POEMS In the sonnet, To the Rev. W. H. Brookfield σkias ovap-dream of a shadow-go is from Pindar, Pythian viii. 135. Sir John Franklin.-The lines on the cenotaph of Sir John Franklin form with the epigrams to the memory of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, General Gordon, and Caxton, a group of poems which irresistibly suggest comparison with the parallel epigrams of Simonides. But how immeasurably inferior are the Poet Laureate's, not to the best, but to the poorest of his Greek predecessor's. Probably nothing so bad as that on Lord Stratford de Redcliffe was ever written seriously by a poet of Tennyson's eminence. It would indeed have been interesting to hear what Simonides and his brother poets would have had to say to an inscription on the statue of an eminent public man, the climax of which found expression in an antithesis of this kind: Here silent in our Minster of the West Who wert the voice of England in the East. The best is, undoubtedly, the epitaph on Caxton :Till shadows vanish in the Light of Light. There is an exquisite illustration of this in Lucy Hutchinson's Memoirs of her Husband. I will quote the whole passage, glad to have the opportunity of doing so, as it is one of the most beautiful to be found in our own or in any other language: She was a very faithful mirror, reflecting truely though but dimmely his owne glories upon him, so long as he was present; but she, that was nothing before his inspection gave her a faire figure, when he was remooved was only filled with a darke mist, and never could againe take in any delightful object, or return any shining representation. The greatest excellencie she had was the power of apprehending, and the virtue of loving his. Soe, as his shadow, she waited on him everywhere, till he was taken into that region of light, which admits of none, and then she vanished into nothing (Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson, p. 45, quarto edition). Tiresias.-The blind seer is presented to us at the moment he is encouraging Menaceus to sacrifice himself that Thebes may be saved. The poem might almost be regarded as a supplementary scene in the l'honisse of Euripides, either immediately preceding or immediately following the interview between Teiresias, Creon, and Menaceus, Phænissa, 833-1018. As in the play he is speaking while the storm of war is raging round the city, and its destruction is imminent. With the lines- Thou hast eyes, and I can hear cf. the whole of the chorus, 202-260, and also-for Eschylus too has been laid under contributionSeptem contra Thebas, 77-165, Tennyson's lines. being an adaptation of the two. The passage where Teiresias relates the circumstances under which he was deprived of sight |