A few personal friends
admired it and praised its fine lyrics; but as a dramatic narrative it
failed to please the reviews. The most interesting of the critiques
(unfortunately too long to be reprinted here) appeared in _Blackwood's
Magazine_, XLI (311-321), of September, 1855,--a forcible, well-written
article, which, incidentally, shows how much the magazine had improved
in respectability since the days of the lampooners of Byron, Shelley,
and Keats. The authorship of the article has not been disclosed, but we
know that W.E. Aytoun asked permission of the proprietor to review
Tennyson's _Maud_. (See Mrs. Oliphant's _William Blackwood and his
Sons_.) The publication of the _Idylls of the King_ (1859), turned the
tide more strongly than before in Tennyson's favor, and subsequent
fault-finding on the part of the critics was confined largely to his
dramas.
153. _Catullus_. See Catullus, II and III--(_Passer, deliciae meae
puellae_, and _Lugete, O Veneres Cupidinesque_).
153. [Greek: Eithe lyre, k. t. l.] Usually found in the remains of
Alcaeus. Thomas Moore translates it with his _Odes of Anacreon_ (LXXVII),
beginning "Would that I were a tuneful lyre," etc.
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