But the most unpardonable of Mr. Tennyson’s imitations of Shakspere are those in which he rings the changes on the celebrated passage about “no Italian priest shall tithe nor toll in our dominions,” which inevitably provokes the applause of those amongst a theatrical audience who do not know what it means--unpardonable, because it makes even Shakspere himself as ridiculous as a poor travesty cannot fail to do. He was content with one such passage throughout his many plays. If Terence had filtered the noble sentiment of his celebrated passage, “Ego homo sum, et nihil humanum a me alienum,” through a variety of forms, it would have excited the laughter instead of the plaudits of the Roman “gods.” But the author of _Queen Mary_ is not afraid to pose _his_ sentiment, itself borrowed in no less than three different attitudes in one play; committing the additional absurdity of thrusting it, like a quid of tobacco, into the cheek of two different personages. Gardiner uses it twice, Elizabeth once:
“Yet I know well [says the former] Your people … Will brook nor Pope nor Spaniard here to play The tyrant, or in commonwealth or church”;
“And see you, we shall have to _dodge_ again, And let the Pope trample our rights, and plunge His _foreign fist_ into our island church, To plump the leaner pouch of Italy”;
whilst Elizabeth is made to vulgarize it beyond hope of redemption into a mere petty ebullition of splenetic womanly vanity:
“Then, Queen indeed! No foreign prince or priest Should fill my throne, myself upon the steps.”
It must be owned, indeed, that this play lacks the highest poetry in its expression as much as in its conception. We occasionally come across passages of vivid and vigorous limning, as Count Feria’s reply to Elizabeth towards the end of the play, and Howard’s description to the Lord Mayor of the state of mind of the citizens. But even the force of this latter passage is not dramatic. There is none of the rush and movement of an excited populace. There are a few striking groups. But they are inactive. Theirs is a kind of dead life, if we may be pardoned such an expression. Rather, they are mere _tableaux vivants_. They inspire us with no fear for Mary’s throne. More near to dramatic power and beauty is Elizabeth’s soliloquy at Woodstock, suddenly lowered in the midst of its poetry, even to nursery familiarity, by the introduction of such a phrase as “catch me who can.”