Try it, reader. It is a hard task to any one possessed of the least sensibility.

One of the best papers ever written on Tennyson is that by Mr. Hutton, which appeared in . The opening sentence ran: Tennyson was an artist before he was at poet. But he remained an artist to the end, the best proof of which is that you cannot alter one word in a single line of his poetry, withoult altering it for the worse. I think Matthew Arnoldwas as great an artist as Tennyson — but not so great a poet. But Tennyson and Arnold spoil one's taste for ever for other poetry than theirs.

Yet, Tennyson took a good many of his inspirations from Shakspeare; whilst the influence of Wordsworth is unmistakeable. In fact, Tennyson is Wordsworth set to music, and slightly sensualized.

Arthur Henry Hallam, the A. H. H. of was described by Tennyson to be as near perfection as mortal man could be. He was betrothed to a sister of the poet, then in her seventeenth year, and had begun to teach her Italian, when he set out on that fateful journey which ended in his sudden death in Vicencia. The following is one of the sonnets he addressed to his fianc´ee — Lady, I bid thee to a sunny dome, Ringing with echoes of Italian song; Henceforth to thee these magic halls belong, And all the pleasant place is like a home. Hark on the right with full piano tone. Old Dante's voice encircles all the air: Hark yet again, like flute-tones mingling rare, Comes the keen sweetness of Petrarca's moan. Pass then the lintel freely: without fear Feast on the music. I do better know thee Than to suspect this pleasure thou dost owe me Will wrong thy gentle spirit, or make less dear That element whence thou must draw thy life An English maiden and an English wife.

And perhaps the readers of will not regret having the following lines which the maturer judgment of Tennyson excluded from , although they were in the original manuscript: — Will she smile, if he presses her hand. This Lord Captain up at the hall? Captain? He to hold command! He can hold a cue, he can pocket a ball; And sure not a bantam-cockrel lives, With a weaker crow upon English land, Whether he boast of a horse that gains, Or cackle his own applause. Bought commission! Can such as he Be wholesome guards for an English throne, When if France but made a lunge, why she, God knows, might prick us to the backbone. What use for a single month to rage At the rotten creak of the State machine, Though it makes friend weep and enemy smile, The sons of a grey, board-ridden isle, Should dance in a round of old routine While a few great families lead the reels, And pauper manhood lies in the dirt, And Favour and Wealth with guided heels Trample service and tried dessert?

Tennyson's works already promise to become as fruitful fields for controversy as Browning's. He has already set at rest the much disputed question of the personality of him who sings To one clear harp in divers tones by declaring that it was Goethe he meant. But now comes the question, who is the pilot referred to in that wonderful valedictory, . There actually have been suggestions that he meant his late son, Lionel, or perhaps Arthur Henry Hallam, but from the fact that the poet wrote Pilot with an initial capital, and for other obvious reasons, there cannot be a doubtSince the poet's death his son, Hallam Tennyson, who is the second Lord Tennyson, has settled this question in accordance with our contributor's view. that he meant that Strong Son of God, Immortal Love, Whom we who have not seen Thy face, By faith, and faith alone embrace Believing where we cannot prove.

Notwithstanding his "Higher Pantheism," and his opinion — There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds.

We prefer to take the former lines as a profession of Tennyson's faith; yet we would have wished for something less Socratic and Pagan, and more Christian than the circumstances and details of his last death hour.

The thinks Coventry Patmore an eligible candidate for the Laureateship. If Ireland had a voice, it would unquestionably give the laurel wreath to him who was the intimate friend (and, were we living in more Christian times, we should say, quite the equal) of Wordsworth and Tennyson — Aubrey de Vere.