“Tanta est erga te mentis integritas, regina serenissima.”
It is a slip. The queen stops him. He recollects himself, and we hear no more Latin.
But in this drama the poet literally makes a cardinal, and such a cardinal as Pole, address Queen Mary with the angelic salutation to the Blessed Virgin, and in Latin:
“Ave Maria, gratia plena, benedicta tu in mulieribus!”
Upon the whole, the defects of this drama are so many and so serious, so radical and fundamental, that no competent criticism can pronounce it other than a failure; and a failure more complete than would have been thought possible to a poet of so great a reputation as Mr. Tennyson.[3]
Could I but see thee, dear my love! That face--but once! Not dazzling bright-- Not as the blest above Behold it in God’s light--
But as it look’d at La Salette; Or when, in Pyrenean wild, It beam’d on Bernadette, The favor’d peasant child.
Once seen--a moment--it would blind These eyes to beauty less than thine: And where could poet find Such theme for song as mine?
But if I ask what may not be, So spell me with thy pictur’d face That haunting looks from thee May hold me like a grace.
BY THE AUTHOR OF “PARIS BEFORE THE WAR,” “NUMBER THIRTEEN,” “PIUS VI.,” ETC.
“You must fly from idleness as from sin,” Father Henwick said; “you must never let a regret settle on your mind for an instant. It will often be hard work to resist them; but we are here to fight. You must shut the door in the face of idle thoughts by activity and usefulness. I will help you in this. You must set to work amongst the poor; not so as to fatigue yourself, or interfere with your duties and occupations at home, but enough to keep you busy and interested. At first it will be irksome enough, I dare say; but never mind that. By and by the effort will bring its own reward, and be a pleasure as well as a duty.”
He sat down and wrote out a time-table for her which filled up every hour of the day, and left not one moment for brooding. There were visits to the cottages and a class for children in the morning; the afternoon hours were to be devoted to helping her father, writing and copying for him, sometimes copying MSS. for Father Henwick, with no other purpose than to keep her mind and her fingers occupied.