the old legends. The other thread is the ethical and leads into the purpose of the poems. This is the thread we have set ourselves to follow. Ethically the Idylls fall into two groups and may be thus classified. Poems of Poems of The Coming of Arthur-Gareth and Lynette-Geraint and Enid-Balin and Balan-The Holy Grail (in part) -Guinevere (in part)—The Passing of Arthur. Merlin and Vivien-Lancelot and Elaine-Pelleas and Tennyson has left us without doubt as to the ethical meaning of "The Idylls." It is the war of Sense with Soul. In his dedication "To the Queen" he thus makes clear the serious purport of the Epic. 46 . . . Accept this old imperfect tale, Rather than that gray king, whose name, a ghost, In the first group-Poems of Life-we shall find the principal characters "shadowing Sense at war with Soul," in which the victory falls to the side *My father thought that perhaps he had not made the real humanity of the King sufficiently clear in his epilogue; so he inserted in 1891, as his last correction, "Ideal manhood closed in real man," etc.-A Memoir, ii., p. 129. of soul. In the case of Guinevere Sense is regnant almost to the end, when Soul awakens and is victorious. In the second group-Poems of Death-the victory is more or less on the side of Sense, with, of course, the exception of Arthur and Dagonet in "The Last Tournament.” Let us take the first group and watch the war of Soul on its way to the victory of life. The THE "Coming of Arthur" introduces us to the king, that "Ideal manhood closed in real man," and the purest type in the Idylls of the spiritual man in conflict with opposing forces. He comes to a kingdom which is a wilderness-a moral waste "Wherein the beast was ever more and more, But man was less and less, till Arthur came." Sense was regnant over Soul, when the call comes to the King "'Arise, and help us thou! For here between the man and beast we die."" But when Arthur comes men dispute as to his "This is the son of Gorloïs, not the King; While Bedivere, in answer to King Leodogran, affirms 666 'Sir, there be many rumours on this head: For there be those who hate him in their hearts, Here we have the prevailing views of the origin and nature of the soul. Those who look only with the eyes of sense discern no spirit, and regard the soul as the product of matter-" baseborn." There is a materialism so absorbed in the phenomena of sense that it blinds the vision of the soul, so that it sees only "earthworms," where it might see angels ! There is a grosser form in which the sensuous has become sensual, and would fain drag the spirit into its own moral cesspool. Others again, who have not sacrificed but cherished the spiritual, contend for the divine origin of the soul, "And dream he dropt from heaven.. So that Arthur-the spiritual man-enters upon a realm in which he is opposed from the outset by the animal or sense-bound men. But so kingly is he in the greatness of his spirit and the supremacy of his authority, that soon they yield to his sway. In the great hall they kneel and are knighted, they swear allegiance, accept his will and obey his word. Then the strength of Arthur seems to pass into them, and they go to fight his battles and to win. "But when he spake and cheer'd his Table Round Beyond my tongue to tell thee-I beheld In "" likeness to him lay the secret of their power and of their victories over the heathen. They were loyal to their king. They witnessed the fire of God fall upon him on the field of battle, and their motto was: 666 'The King will follow Christ, and we the King."" Thus he fought "The heathen hordes, and made a realm and reign'd.” But the scene changes. Arthur, the spiritual man, will marry Guinevere, the carnal woman. Does it not suggest that soul must be joined to flesh to make the flesh pure? May not the higher nature in union with the lower infuse its own vitality so that the lower shall be redeemed, as if by an awakened conscience warring with its passions? Did not "the Word" become "flesh" to redeem the flesh, and was not the union of the twain the secret of redemption? Thus Arthur : "But were I join'd with her, Then might we live together as one life, And reigning with one will in everything Have power on this dark land to lighten it, And power on this dead world to make it live.'" And when the marriage is celebrated, it is with the suggestive words spoken at the altar: 44 6 Reign ye, and live and love, and make the world And all this Order of thy Table Round Fulfil the boundless purpose of their King!'" But the sequel shows that Arthur wedded to Guinevere-Soul to Sense-may sometimes fail to make flesh one with soul, and that it cannot always be redeemed and vitalized, or only late, "so late," as when Guinevere hides her face in the dust, and feels the breath of the passing King, and sees the shadow of his lifted hands, waved in blessing, ere he goes to be crowned in light. Slowly Sense begins to win supremacy over Soul in the guilty love of Guinevere for Lancelot; and, as evil is always contagious and taints the very atmosphere, it soon poisons the knights and, working within them, saps their loyalty and scatters their forces and ruins the realm. The King, compelled to arm against his rebel knights, falls at last upon the battle-field; but though he falls he is not vanquished, for he goes to be crowned in the far-off city, and men seem to hear the shout as of welcome to "a king returning from his wars." The character of Arthur will reveal itself through |