something goody-goody and narrow. Alfred might have been driven into the inns of court; but one shudders at the thought that the brow now decked with laurel should have run the risk of perspiring in a horsehair wig, although poets and true ones have sat on the bench and been its ornaments. Testibus, Sir William Jones, Talfourd, and for that matter, many a Scotch laird. And is there not Browning, who by rights ought to have been a Q. C., chopping up, say, the law of remainders in a court of equity, instead of knitting his brows and frowning in a lord-chancellor way on high Parnassus?

The only other employment in which Tennyson, according to our present lights, would not have cut a moderate figure would have been the army. What a jovial mess member he would have been! How he would have shirked drill and pipe-clay! What rollicking camp songs he would have composed and sung! What a popular colonel he would have grown to be! And how religiously and simultaneously he would have hated and abused the French, and have seen that the mess port was of the right body and flavor! He would have been just in time to go out to the Crimea, and to take part with his Six Hundred there, instead of singing their exploits in slippered feet at home, where his big bass voice, fit to call a squadron to advance, was utterly thrown away on boots and the butler. (There was, by the way, another Englishman who would have graced any branch of the service, but whose life was wasted on art-poor George Cruikshank.)

Here let me note that when certain Crimean heroes came home, and were called to receive their academic brevets from Oxford, 1855, in the shape of doctorates in jurisprudence, Tennyson was joined with them in the honors for his poetic gallantry.

Tennyson's physical, mental, and moral nature and needs are those of a man enjoying active, every-day life, with a right to take long furloughs from it, and retreat into his library as occasion demands; apt to linger in cozy discussion "across the walnuts and the wine," when the ladies had cleared out; to sit on a stile and remark a colt's points; to take a languid interest in turnips and crop rotation; and to have interchange of proper courtesies with suspected poachers on the subject of wood-craft, or with the pretty farmers' daughters touching their swains. In America, there is somehow a lack among literary men of that sort of catholicity of intercourse; and my idea of the blessed Longfellow has always been of one who had the New England college tutor thoroughly injected into his marrow at an early age, and who would have been fearful of saying or doing anything hostile to varnished boots or academic discipline.

The two brothers, Charles and Alfred, were early sent to the Louth grammar school. It was here that, in March, 1827, they jointly published a small volume of verse, entitled "Poems by Two Brothers." It was stated in the preface that the pieces contained in the volume had been written by them between their fifteenth and eighteenth years.

This little collection has become a great bibliomaniac rarity. The late Rev. Dr. Chapin of New York was said to possess the only copy ever brought to America.2

Criticism of verse attempts by young school-boys would of course be idle; but the fact of the publication may simply be noted, as showing at how early an age and with what apparent success the poet had put in practice his studies of the laws of English rhythm.

2 Bayard Taylor's Essay on Tennyson.

Within half a year from his entry at Trinity College, Alfred was declared the successful competitor for the Chancellor's Gold Medal for English verse-the subject imposed being Timbuctoo.1

The name recalls the famous witty and successful attempt of Sydney Smith to find a rhyme for it, and invokes something of the grotesque in our feelings; but if we consider what gorgeous speculations were then rife as to the resources and condition of Central Africa, and the fabulous tales in vogue about its cities and their treasures, it would seem natural enough that a question of such great geographical interest should have been suggested as the subject for verse.

A couple of years before, an adventurous British officer had lost his life in attempting to gain personal knowledge of Timbuctoo.2 Prize poems have, I think, been rather unjustly abused. But if they have no other raison d'être, one might now be found in the fact that Tennyson had buckled down to the task of competing for a prize, and had succeeded so well that the effort became the hinge of his poetic reputation. And it would appear, too, that there was a brilliant set of students at Cambridge in those days, when Tennyson bore the banner of success, and young Hallam and Thackeray were among the defeated candidates. In looking over the names of eminent Englishmen who at that time resided at Cambridge, as undergraduates or otherwise, one cannot help thinking that there was there transpiring what we Westerners would call an intellectual boom. It is not necessary here to discuss the merits of Timbuctoo; but it is not out of place to call the attention of San Franciscans to the way in which the young Cantab, who had never felt the shudder of an earthquake, hits off the salient suggestions elicited by the experience:

"As when in some great city when the walls Shake, and the streets with ghastly faces thronged Do utter forth a subterranean sound."

1 Printed at Cambridge, 1829. See also, Cam

bridge Prize Poems.

2 Major Laing.

enon is fully described.

The "Athenæum" declared that the poem "indicated first-rate poetical genius, and would have done credit to any man that ever wrote."3

In 1830 Tennyson published a volume,4 entitled "Poems Chiefly Lyrical." Of this volume there appeared in the "Westminster" for January, 1831, a review written, it is said, by John Stuart Mill, wherein, after defining the duty, influence, and power of a true poet, the following prophetic passage occurs:

"If our estimate of Mr. Tennyson is correct, he, too, is a poet; and many years hence may he read his juvenile description of that character, with the proud consciousness that it has become the description and history of his own work."5

Leigh Hunt also, in the "Tatler," gave a favorable review of the volume in conjunction with one published simultaneously by Charles Tennyson; and Arthur Hallam wrote a notice of his friend's venture, which appeared in "The Englishman's Magazine."

Kit North, in his breezy way, clinched the strain of eulogy in "Blackwood's" (May, 1832), mixing kind encouragement with a certain amount of critical banter. In acknowledgment of this latter notice, Tennyson wrote the lines "Musty, Fusty Christopher," which appeared in a second volume published in the winter of 1832-33, by the poet-publisher, Moxon.

This second volume was discussed by Coleridge in "Table-Talk"; 8 and the veteran brings the singular charge against the young poet of a mismanagement of his meters, recommending him to stick to two or three common ones. Now Coleridge knew all about rhythm, and meant to be a fair critic; but in the light of Tennyson's rhythmical history, we cannot fail to suspect the justice of all poetical criticism.

8 Written either by John Sterling or Frederick

Maurice.

4 London, Effingham Wilson. 5 Westminster, January, 1831.

6 Tatler, numbers from February 24th, 1831, to March 3rd, 1831.

7 Blackwood, Vol. XXXI.

8 Table-Talk, Vol. II.

As adverse utterances, that of the "Quarterly" (July, 1833),1 is the most noticeable. It found all the weak chords in Mr. Tennyson's lyre; and spoke distrustfully and scornfully of many others, since acknowledged to be strong. The "Quarterly" in after years manfully retracted its hasty opinion.

But out of the collections thus far published by the young man, enough pieces stood their ground to entitle the author to take decided rank as a poet.

The year 18332 was the year of young Hallam's death-that Hallam who had been more than a brother to a poet who knew the worth of sympathetic fraternity; and to Hallam's memory, seventeen years later, Tennyson unveiled the most graceful literary monument that could be raised to the memory of a friendship cut short by death.

The time had now come when the poet could not be allowed to rest confidingly upon ancient models or to find a large enough world in the limits of a college quadrangle. He had become a man; and whatever life men of his day led, would be, if not his own, at least a strong agency in marking out his pathway for him. The most "offish" of us are affected to some extent by those about us; and we cannot wholly avoid the vices of our day and generation, even if we would.

If any one would like to frame an idea of quasi fine literary society in England between 1830 and 1840, he has only to study the ways and doings of coteries such as Lady Blessington's, and simultaneously to read Disraeli's novels. From our standpoint, it was a very good sort of life to keep out of; and Tennyson, in spite of some quavering motions, must have remained on the utter rim. It was a time when men had pallid brows and long hair and brocade dressinggowns, and were suspected of corsets, and had a glory of soft white hands, innocent of blisters and gauded with rings-a reign of Pelhams and Count d'Orsays in drawing-rooms -a time of Annuals and Books of Gems

1 Vol. XLIX.; see Vol. LXX.

2 Died September 15, 1833, at Vienna.

and Keepsakes and Friendship's Offeringsall illustrated with plates and engraved titles, and to which contributed languorous gentlemen, whose fathers had sparred with Jackson and fought with bargemen, and whose sons, in their subsequent day, took to club-swinging and foot-racing; dainty volumes patronized by impossible copper-plate beauties, who wrote watery verse and flirted with the Melbournes and the Endymions of the hour. I have said that Tennyson somehow escaped all that-the glamour whereof led captive the soul of the future tory leader, and made him, as a reward for his appreciative worship, like Joseph in Egypt, a ruler among strangers to his blood. But Tennyson did contribute to the annuals; and one of the most exquisite bits of his verse, afterwards embodied in Maud, first saw light in one of those fashionable collections.3

But Tennyson must have studied in one direction—that of nature—with no careless attention. No poet can effectively pursue his calling if deprived of the essentials of out-door life and pure air. He needs the odors and harmonies of the country to guide him in tuning his harp. He cannot shut himself up in a city without more or less vulgarizing his muse, and rendering his imagery paltry. He cannot bar out the world of sensuous force by closing his library door, without growing fastidious and finical. What would Scott have been but for his stumbling strolls through the heaths, with Maida at his heels? What sort of verse would Byron have written, had he not found the sea a place to revel in? I think the real obstacle which shunted Lamb off the poetic highway was his intense cockneyism. He had it in him to be a poet, and would have been one, had he been compelled to rest his eyes upon beds of wild flowers instead of shop windows and book-stalls.

Tennyson all his life has continued the habit so gained of illustrating his verse with suggestions from nature, which he had commenced in his Lincolnshire boyhood. He is so fond of the trick, and is so full of surprises of that kind, that his critics have taken to 8 The Tribute, edited by Lord Northampton, 1837.

carping at the accuracy of his facts. Bayard Taylor speaks of some of his similes as inapt, and instances where he compares the rippling, broken gurgles of a girl's laughter to a woodpecker's tapping. I fancy it is a question, not of the tapper, but of the sounding-board. Some kinds of woods when struck give an almost liquid response. Another critic objects to the poet's making a dog leap from the water to the land, and shake his ears as he recovers his balance. This critic says a dog does not leap but climbs ashore, and waggles his entire body before attending to his dripping ears. Now, it is true that if the dog were in the act of swimming, he would not leap; but if it were a shallow brook, he would make a quick jump from the one element to the other; and if he had pendant ears they would likely be wet when his back would be dry. I would hardly be willing to admit that Tennyson was an inaccurate or near-sighted observer in matters of natural phenomena; and he is certainly possessed of an immense fund of forest-and-field wisdom.

Tennyson did not issue any new volumes after Hallam's death, until 1842, although, as before mentioned, verses by him appeared in the modish annuals.1

Those who have read the lately published volume of letters to and by Miss Mitford will remember the energetic scorn which she

evinces for those who write but do not read.

Tennyson had no such conceit of self-evolution. He has written sparingly and read diligently.

The seven years of comparative silence were undoubtedly with him a period of study. His mental structure was being "fed with lime," drawn from the nourishment furnished by masters in poetry; and he had completely acquired his virile strength by cautious exercise of his powers, when, in 1842, he published a new edition of his poems in two volumes (republished the same year by Ticknor, Boston), from which it may be shown that by that time he

The verses in Maud.

O, that 'twere possible, After long grief and pain.

had adopted the essential features of his mature style, whereon the success of his literary career has been based.

The epic idyl is there represented by the "Morte d'Arthur"; "Dora" stands as a model of his other idyllic efforts; "Locksley Hall," "Ulysses," "The Day-Dream," "Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere," "Break, Break, Break," and "Come not when I am dead," are all typical in their several manners of Tennyson.

Tennyson was recognized thenceforth as a poet. It must not, however, be lost sight of that, literary-wise, his lines had fallen in pleasant places. His antecedents were all of cultured dignity. He had been the honored nursling of a venerable academy of learning. His friends were brilliant in their ways of thought, and stood manfully by him. The reviews had been kind to him in the main, and the portals of the temple of fame, if not staring open, were at least ajar for his coming.

In 1845, Wordsworth, too great-minded to be afraid of his newly created peer, pronounced Tennyson to be "decidedly the first of our living poets." 2

Had Tennyson followed in the wake of Keats, with whom at an early period he was frequently compared, he would only have intensified his model until his exaggerations became defects. Keats might have been, as it were, a good companion, but not a master. The secret to rival Keats in his special class of merits would best be solved by poring over the writers of the days of Queen Bess. These, the Laureate seems in his youth to have studied and understood. Here I would note the precocity of the poet. With most of us, the thoughts of great authors need to be subjected to successive winnowings through our minds at intervals of years. that is precious at one reading or at one period in our lives. But Tennyson would seem to have extracted every beauty of style at one sifting, and to have deftly worked every grain of knowledge so acquired into

his own mass.

We do not obtain all

2 Letter to Professor Reed.