A daughter of the gods, divinely tall, And most divinely fair. Her loveliness with shame and with surprise Froze my swift speech: she, turning on my face Spoke slowly in her place. Artist, sculptor, and musician could do no more. It is when reading such lines that we can appreciate the outburst in Alton Locke-that fine tribute which the greatest novelist paid to the foremost poet. "In a happy day, I fell on Alfred Tennyson's poetry, and found there, astonished and delighted, the embodiment of thoughts about the earth around me which I had concealed, because I fancied them peculiar to myself. Why is it that the latest poet has generally the greatest influence over the minds of the young? Surely not for the mere charm of novelty? The reason is that he, living amid the same hopes, the same temptations, the same sphere of observations as they, gives utterance and outward form to the very questions which, vague and wordless, have been exercising their hearts. And what endeared Tennyson especially to me, the working man, was, as I afterwards discovered, the altogether democratic tendency of his poems. True, all great poets are by their office democrats; seers of man only as a man ; singers of the joys, the sorrows, the aspirations common to all humanity; but in Alfred Tennyson there is an element especially democratic, truly levelling; not his political opinions, about which I know nothing, and care less, but his handling of the trivial everyday sights and sounds of nature. Brought up, as I understand, in a part of England which possesses not much of the picturesque, and nothing of that which the vulgar call sublime, he has learnt to see that in all nature, in the hedgerow and the sandbank, as well as in the Alp peak and the ocean waste, is a world of true sublimity—a minute infinitean ever fertile garden of poetic images, the roots of which are in the unfathomable and the eternal, as truly as any phenomenon which astonishes and awes the eye. The descriptions of the desolate pools and creeks where the dying swan floated, the hint of the silvery marsh mosses by Mariana's moat, came to me like revelations. I always knew there was something beautiful, wonderful, sublime, in those flowery dykes of Battersea Fields; in the long gravelly sweeps of that lone tidal shore; and here was a man who had put them into words for me! This is what I call democratic art-the revelation of the poetry which lies in common things." The Gardener's Daughter was another of the perfect idylls which at once seized the popular fancy, for where shall we find richer painting or better interpretation of the feelings of the heart? Were there nothing else For which to praise the heavens but only love, That only love were cause enough for praise. Trite enough is the idea, but its beauty of exposition is fresh. Take this for felicitous imagery— The heavens between their fairy fleeces pale or this, the most charming of conceits Night slid down one long stream of sighing wind, The volumes contained infinite variety, for greater contrasts there could scarcely be than those between Will Waterproof's Lyrical Monologue and The Vision of Sin, St Agnes and Amphion, Ulysses and The Talking Oak. It fell to the lot of James Spedding, a year later, to review the works of the new poet, the article being written, as he explained in a prefatory note in his volume of Reviews and Discussions, "in pursuance of an engagement, made when Mr Tennyson's two first volumes were out of print, that if he would publish a new edition I would try to get leave to review it in the Edinburgh. Upon my assurance that, though an intimate friend and an advanced believer, I would not commit the Review to any praises or prophecies that would endanger its reputation, the editor consented." Spedding began by observing that "One of the severest tests by which a poet can try the true worth of his book, is to let it continue for two or three years out of print. The first flush of popularity cannot be trusted. If, on the other hand, a new edition be perseveringly demanded, and when it comes, be eagerly bought, we may safely conclude that the work has something in it of abiding interest and permanent value; for then we know that many people have been so pleased or so edified by the reading that they cannot be content without the possession." Proceeding to consider Tennyson's poems, he said :— "The book must not be treated as one collection of poems, but as three separate ones, belonging to three different periods in the development of his mind, and to be judged accordingly. "Mr Tennyson's first book was published in 1830, when he was at college. His second followed in 1832. Their reception, though far from triumphant, was not inauspicious; for while they gained him many warm admirers, they were treated, even by those critics whose admiration, like their charity, begins and ends at home, as sufficiently notable to be worth some not unelaborate ridicule. The admiration and the ridicule served alike to bring them into notice, and they have both been for some years out of print. As many of these productions as Mr Tennyson has cared to preserve are contained in the first volume of the present edition. The second consists entirely of poems not hitherto published; which, though composed probably at various intervals during the ten intervening years, have all, we presume, had the benefit of his latest correcting hand. In subject, style, and the kinds of excellence which they severally attain or aim at, they are at once so various and so peculiar, that we cannot affect to convey any adequate idea of the general character of the collection; unless we should go through the table of contents, giving as we go a description and a sample of each poem. The indications of improving taste and increasing power exhibited not only in the results of his later labours, but in the omission of some and the alteration of others among his earlier, lead us to infer that Mr Tennyson's faculties have not yet reached their highest development; and, even as they are now, he has not yet ventured upon a subject large enough to bring them all into play together. "His earliest published volume-though it contains one or two poems, as Mariana, for instance, which must always rank among his very best—is to be referred to rather as a point from which to measure his subsequent progress, than for specimens of what he is. The very vigour and abundance of a poet's powers will commonly be in his way at first, and produce faults. But such faults are by no means unpromising. Indeed it is better that the genius should be allowed to run rather wild and wanton during its nonage; for a poet will hardly have the free command of his faculties when full grown, unless he allow them free play during growth. . . . We cannot, however, conclude without reminding Mr Tennyson, that, highly as we value the Poems which he has produced, we cannot accept them as a satisfactory account of the gifts which they show that he possesses; any more than we could take a painter's collection of studies for a picture, in place of the picture itself. Powers are displayed in these volumes, adequate to the production of a very great work; at least we should find it difficult to say which of the requisite powers is wanting. But they are displayed in fragments and snatches, having no connexion, and therefore deriving no light or fresh interest the one from the other. If Mr Tennyson can find a subject large enough to take the entire impress of his mind, and energy persevering enough to work it faithfully out as a whole, we are convinced that he may produce a work, which, though occupying no larger space than the contents of these volumes, shall as much exceed them in value, as a series of quantities multiplied into each other exceeds in value the same series simply added together." "The poet's narrow circle of admirers," wrote Bayard Taylor, "widened at once, taking in so many of the younger generation that the old doubters were one by one compelled to yield. I still remember the eagerness with which, as a boy of seventeen, I sought for the volume; and I remember also the strange sense of mental dazzle and bewilderment I experienced on the first perusal of it. I can only compare it to the first sight of a sunlit landscape through a prism: every object has a rainbowed outline. One is fascinated to look again and again, though the eyes ache." Well might Emerson say—“O cherish Tennyson with love and praise, and draw from him whole books full of new verses yet!" Well might aged Wordsworth with half prophetic instinct declare that this young poet would “give the world still better things." Well might Edgar Allen Poe ("the first American author to welcome Tennyson") express a doubt that he was not already the "greatest of poets." And well might Dickens, with his large-hearted sympathy and his generous feeling, relate with joy how he had spent a whole morning on the sea-shore reading the little volumes, and had seen once more "the mermen and mermaids at the bottom of the ocean, together with millions of queer creatures, half-fish and half-fungus, looking down into all manner of caves and seaweed conservatories." The new star had arisen, and all eyes were turned to watch its radiance. CHAPTER IV. A "LOFTIER STRAIN": "THE PRINCESS." "And I too dream'd, until at last Across my fancy, brooding warm, The reflex of a legend past, And loosely settled into form. And would you have the thought I had, -The Day Dream. ALFRED TENNYSON'S history for at least forty years of his life is fragmentary. Like a comet, he appeared unexpectedly upon the horizon, and he mysteriously disappeared again. Where he was in these dark intervals is now only partially known. His early life at Somersby and his career at Cambridge have been already briefly sketched, but after his father's death, and until the time of his marriage, he was a wanderer. Dr Tennyson's widow remained at the old home, for the new rector of Somersby was non-resident. To the little Lincolnshire village Tennyson returned when his University life was over, and he was often visited by Arthur Hallam, who was now more closely linked with the Tennyson family by reason of his engagement to Miss Emily Tennyson, the second daughter. It was to Richard Trench that Hallam wrote in 1831, announcing—“I am now at Somersby, not only as the friend of Alfred Tennyson, but as the lover of his sister. An attachment on my part of nearly two years' standing, and a mutual engagement of one year, are, I fervently hope, only the commencement of an union which circumstances may not impair and the grave itself not conclude." After Arthur Hallam's death in January 1833, the family appears to have been separated. Charles became curate at Tealby, and he and |