Tennyson or to
Mr. Browning. A time by this rule might come--but I am fain to think
better of the Fates--when by comparison of detached words and collation
of dismembered phrases the memory of Mr. Tennyson would be weighted and
degraded by the ascription of whole volumes of pilfered and diluted verse
now current--if not yet submerged--under the name or the pseudonym of the
present {237} Viceroy--or Vice-empress is it?--of India. But the obvious
truth is this: the voice of Shakespeare's adolescence had as usual an
echo in it of other men's notes: I can remember the name of but one poet
whose voice from the beginning had none; who started with a style of his
own, though he may have chosen to annex--"annex the wise it call";
_convey_ is obsolete--to annex whole phrases or whole verses at need, for
the use or the ease of an idle minute; and this name of course is
Marlowe's. So starting, Shakespeare had yet (like all other and lesser
poets born) some perceptible notes in his yet half boyish voice that were
not borrowed; and these were at once caught up and re-echoed by such
fellow-pupils with Shakespeare of the young Master of them all--such
humbler and feebler disciples, or simpler sheep (shall we call them?) of
the great "dead shepherd"--as the now indistinguishable author of _King
Edward III_.
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