encountered the ideas and the persons of Maud.

I have tried to state the sources, in the general mind, of the
general dislike of Maud. The public, "driving at practice,"
disapproved of the "criticism of life" in the poem; confused the
suffering narrator with the author, and neglected the poetry. "No
modern poem," said Jowett, "contains more lines that ring in the ears
of men. I do not know any verse out of Shakespeare in which the
ecstacy of love soars to such a height." With these comments we may
agree, yet may fail to follow Jowett when he says, "No poem since
Shakespeare seems to show equal power of the same kind, or equal
knowledge of human nature." Shakespeare could not in a narrative
poem have preferred the varying passions of one character to the
characters of many persons.

Tennyson was "nettled at first," his son says, "by these captious
remarks of the 'indolent reviewers,' but afterwards he would take no
notice of them except to speak of them in a half-pitiful, half-
humorous, half-mournful manner." The besetting sin and error of the
critics was, of course, to confound Tennyson's hero with himself, as
if we confused Dickens with Pip.

Like Aurora Leigh, Lucile, and other works, Maud is under the
disadvantage of being, practically, a novel of modern life in verse.
Criticised as a tale of modern life (and it was criticised in that
character), it could not be very highly esteemed. But the essence of
Maud, of course, lies in the poetical vehicle. Nobody can cavil at
the impressiveness of the opening stanzas -