who went with me, took me round to the museum behind the lecture-hall, where we found a number of the literary and scientific men of Boston assembled to accompany Dr Holmes to the platform. The doctor himself was there, but was altogether a different-looking man from what I had supposed him to be. I had conceived of him, for what reason I know not, possibly from his poetry, as a tall, thin, dark-eyed, brilliant-looking man. This is not, perhaps, the conception one gets from his "Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table;" but I read his poems first, and first impressions are apt to remain. Holmes is a plain little dapper man, his short hair brushed down like a boy's, but turning grey now; a trifle of furzy hair under his ears; a powerful jaw, and a thick, strong under-lip that gives decision to his look, with a dash of pertness. In conversation, he is animated and cordial-sharp too, taking the word out of one's mouth. When Mr Fields said, "I sent the boy this- "Yes; I got them," said Holmes. He told me I should hear some references to Dr John Brown of Edinburgh in his lecture; also some thoughts he had taken from Dr Brown's fine essay on Locke and Sydenham. "But you see," he added with a smile, "I always tell when I steal anything!" Near us, under one of the lofty windows, two men were standing whom I would have travelled many a league to meet. One of them was Professor Louis Agassiz-big, massive, genial-looking; the rich healthy colour on his broad face still telling of the Old World from which he came altogether a man who, but for his dark, keen eyes, would look more like a jovial English squire than a devotee of science. Beside him stood a man of strangely different builda gaunt, long-limbed man, dressed in a highcollared surtout-his piquant New England face peering down over the old-fashioned black kerchief that swathed his long thin neck. It was Emerson, the glorious transcendentalist of Concord. He stood in an easy, contemplative attitude, with his hands loosely folded in front and his head slightly inclined. He has the queerest New England face, with thin features, prominent hatchet nose, and a smile of childlike sweetness and simplicity arching the face, and drawing deep curves down the cheek. Eyes, too, full of sparkling geniality, and yet in a moment turning cold, clear, and searching, like the eyes of a god. I remember, when introduced to him, how kindly he took my hand, and with that smile still upon his face, peered deep with those calm blue eyes into mine. When the hour arrived we went into the lecture-room. Let me try to bring up the scene again. The room is crowded to the door-so ran like wildfire through the States, aroused the patriotic sentiment of the people, and saved the old ship. crowded that many of the students have to sit on the steps leading up between the sections of concentric seats, and stand crushed three or four deep in the passages along the walls. What a sea of pale faces, and dark, thoughtful eyes. Holmes, Emerson, and Agassiz are cheered loudly as they enter and take their seats. The principal opens proceedings with a short prayer the audience remaining seated. Dr Holmes now gets up, steps forward to the high desk amidst loud cheers, puts his eye-glasses across his nose, arranges his manuscript, and without The little man, in his any prelude begins. dress coat, stands very straight, a little stiff about the neck, as if he feels that he cannot afford to lose anything of his stature. He reads with a sharp, percussive articulation, is very deliberate and formal at first, but becomes more He would even gestica. animated as he goes on. late if the desk were not so high, for you see the arm that lies on the desk beside his manu script giving a nervous quiver at emphatic points. The subject of this lecture is the spirit in which medical students should go into their work-now as students, afterwards as practitioners. He warns them against looking on it as a mere lucrative employment. "Don't be like the man who said, 'I suppose I must go and earn that dd guinea!"" He enlivens his lecture with numerous jokes and brilliant sallies of wit, and at every point hitches up his head, looks through his glasses at his audience as he finishes his sentence, and then shuts his mouth pertly with his under-lip as if he said, "There, laugh at that!" Emerson sits listening, with his arms folded loosely on his breast-that queer smile of his effervescing at every joke into a silent laugh, that runs up into his eyes and quivers at the corners of his eyebrows, like sunlight in the woods. Beside him sits Agassiz, leaning easily back in his chair, trifling with the thick watchguard that glitters on his capacious white waistcoat, and looking like a man who has just had dinner, and is disposed to take a pleasant view of things. His Holmes is becoming more animated. arm is in motion now, indulging in mild movements towards the desk, as if he meant to kill a fly, but always repents and doesn't. He shows less mercy on the persons and opinions that he He comes down has occasion to critcise. sharply on "the quacks, with or without diplomas, who think that the chief end of man is to support the apothecary." He has a passing hit at Carlyle's "Shooting Niagara," and his discovery of the legitimate successor of Jesus Christ in the drill-sergeant. He has also a fling at Dr Cumming of London, and "his prediction that the world is to come to an end next year or next week, weather permitting, but very sure that the weather will be unpropitious." The lecture lasted about an hour, and at its close was applauded again and again-Holmes being a great favourite with the students. I met him afterwards at a dinner given to Longfellow and his literary friends, in congratulation on the completion of the poet's translation of Dante; and hoped there to enjoy one of the Autocrat's after-dinner speeches, which are said to be amongst his most brilliant performances. Longfellow, however, unlike most Americans, shrinks from any kind of public speaking himself, and Mr Fields came round at dessert to inform us that Longfellow had declared, that if he had to make a speech he should be in torment all the evening, and lose the enjoyment of his dinner. It had, therefore, been resolved that there should be no speeches: so Holines's power as an improvisatore had no opportunity for exercising itself that night. ALFRED TENNYSON, D.C.L, F.R.S. BY EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.* acknowledged, and fresh editions of his poems were called for in 1843, 1845, 1847, and afterwards in more rapid succession. The beauty and purity of his poems attracted royal favour, and in 1846 a pension was conferred on him from the Crown. Lord Lytton attacked him in the "New Timon;" Tennyson replied in the pages of Punch. The latter poem is still printed, along with some other dropped poems, in the American edition of his complete works. After Wordsworth's death, in 1850, as rightfully belonging to one who already stood in the front rank of English poets, he received the [ALFRED TENNYSON, poet laureate, is the third son of the late Rev. George Clayton Tennyson, LL.D., the elder brother of the late Right Hon. C. Tennyson D'Eyncourt, and was born at the parsonage of Somerby, Lincolnshire, in 1809. His father is said to have been a man of great energy of character, and remarkable for both strength and stature. His mother, who died in 1865, was a daughter of the Rev. Stephen Fytche. He was educated by his father, and in due season entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where he lived in the centre of some of the most distinguished young men of the university. He obtained the gold medal given by the Chancellor of the University for the best English poem, the subject being "Timbuctoo." This prize poem was printed with his name, and noticed at length in the Athenæum, the critic remarking that it indicated "really first-rate poetical genius, and which would have done honour to any man that ever wrote. How many men have lived for a century who could equal this?" When about seventeen years of age, in conjunction with his brother (now the Rev. Charles Turner), "Poems by Two Brothers," was issued by J. & J. Jackson, Market Place, Louth. In 1830 appeared the "Poems, chiefly Lyrical," by Alfred Tennyson; London, Effing-lowing are the dates of issue of his other poems: ham Wilson, Royal Exchange. This volume received a kindly notice from the hand of Arthur H. Hallam in the Englishman's Magazine, and another presumably by John Stuart Mill in the Westminster Review. In 1833 Edward Moxon issued a small volume, entitled "Poems by Alfred Tennyson." He was again silent for some years, when in 1842 he broke the silence by an edition of his poems in two volumes. The first volume contained some new pieces, others were rewritten, the second was entirely composed of new pieces. His merits were now generally "Laurel, greener from the brows Of him who uttered nothing base." The "Ode on the Duke of Wellington" was published in 1852. The poem, "The Charge of the Light Brigade," was originally contributed to the Examiner. Moxon the publisher issued it in a quarto sheet of four pages. Mr Tennyson wrote regarding it: "Having heard that the brave soldiers before Sebastopol, whom I am proud to call my countrymen, have a liking for my ballad on "The Charge of the Light Brigade' at Balaclava, I have ordered a thousand copies of it to be printed for them." The fol "The Princess, a Medley," in 1847; "In Memoriam" (anonymous), 1850; "Maude, and other Poems," in 1855; "The Idyls of the King," in 1858; "Enoch Arden, and other Poems," in 1864; "The Holy Grail, and other Poems," in 1869; "The Window; or, the Songs of the Wrens," in 1870; "Gareth and Lynette," in 1872. "Queen Mary" and "Harold," both dramas, are his latest poems. He has occasionally contributed short poems to the Contemporary Review, the Nineteenth Century, etc. "A Concordance to the Entire Works of Alfred Tennyson" was issued in 1869. Mr Tennyson ⚫ By permission. From "Victorian Poets." Lon- received the degree of D.C. L. from the Univerdon: Chatto & Windus. sity of Oxford in 1855. In 1869 he was elected an honorary fellow of Trinity, Cambridge, and his bust by Woolner was placed in the vestibule of their library. A separate poem, in honour of the marriage of one of his sisters to Professor Lushington of Glasgow, appears at the conclusion of "In Memoriam." Mr Tennyson's copyrights have been removed from the publishing house of Messrs Moxon & Co. to that of Mr Alexander Strahan, and more recently to that of Messrs C. Kegan Paul & Co., who have published editions in various styles, and at prices from one shilling upwards, all calculated to meet the demands of every class of reader. Mr Tennyson has given a very accurate sketch of his former residence at Farringford, near Freshwater Bay, Isle of Wight, in one of his poems: "Where, far from noise and smoke of town, speedily dissolved as the occupant of the chamber comes forward to meet you, the inseparable pipe still between his teeth. The figure, though slightly bent, bears the burden of its sixty-six years lightly; the dark mass of hair falling backward from the broad, high forehead, and the knightly growth fringing his lips, are but sparely streaked with silver; and the face, though rugged and deeply lined with thought, is full of calm dignity and of a tenderness strangely at variance with his somewhat brusque tone and manner. His disregard of the conventionalities of life is thoroughly natural and unaffected. His suit of light grey, hanging about him in many a fold like the hide of a rhinoceros, the loose ill-fitting collar and carelessly-knotted tie, the wide, low boots, are not worn, you may be sure, for artistic effect or with the foppishness of a Byron. . . . But his chief delight is not in communion with his fellows. Rather it is to sit here in this quiet and secluded study, surrounded by a few choice books of favourite authors; and when not working at the desk by the window that overlooks the pine glen and the purple down westward, to lounge by the larger one that looks down on the bright blossoming terrace over the dense belt of the beeches and hazels, where the whirring of night-jars sounds carelessly in the twilight, away to the grey line of undulating hills and the streak of silver sea. Whatever he is doing, the eternal pipe is ever for an ancestral urn, on the floor beside him. At other times he will wander down to the zig-zag pathways that meander in all directions through the tall hazel-twigs which hein his house around, where one comes suddenly on a little secluded dale bright with mossy verdure, or a garden laden with odours from a score of pine-trees, or a bigger lawn devoted to the innocent pursuit of croquet or lawn-tennis. Less frequently he may be seen walking through the neighbouring byways and exciting the curiosity of the villagefolks by the strangeness of his mien and the eccentricity of his costume. In all his out-ofdoor excursions he is sure to be accompanied by one or other of his handsome sons, fulllimbed and tall.' She, the dear, near, and true,' whose sweet faith in him was ever the incentive to greater labour and higher aspirations, is no longer able to be by his side in work; but invalid as she is, she still finds opportunity for ministering to the wants of the poor about her gates."*] His present residence at Haslemere has been thus described: "The house is modern Gothic, designed in admirable taste, with wide mullioned windows, many-angled oriels in shadowy recesses, and dormers whose gables and pinnacles break the sky-line picturesquely. Within every-ready at hand, and a huge tobacco-jar, big enough thing is ordered with a quiet, refined elegance that has in it, perhaps, just a soupçon of an affectation of æstheticism not quite in keeping with the spirit either of modern or medieval life. The hall, in spite of its richly tassellated pavement, has a delightful sense of coolness in its soft half-light. The lofty rooms have broad, high windows, the light of which is tempered by delicately-coloured hangings, walls of the negative tints in which modern decorators delight, diapered with dull gold, and panelled ceilings of darkly-stained wood with moulded ribs and beams. High-backed chairs of ancient and uncompromising stiffness flank the table, typifying the poet's sterner moods; while in cosy corners are comfortable lounges that indicate a tendency to yield sometimes to the soft seductions of more effeminate inspirations. Nowhere is the spirit vexed by garish ornament or the eye by glaring colour. A few good etchings and paintings hang on the walls, among them an excellent copy of the Peter Martyr, which is doubly valuable since the destruction of the original. But there is one room in which all that is most interesting in this house centres. The door opens noiselessly, and the tread of your feet is muffled as you enter a dim corridor, divided from the room by a high screen. The air is heavy with the odour of an incense not unfamiliar to men of letters; and if you could doubt whence it arose, your doubts would be That a new king should arise "over Egypt, which knew not Joseph," was but the natural order of events. The wonder is that nothing less than the death of one Pharaoh, and the succession of another, could oust a favourite from his position. Statesman or author, that • The World. public man is fortunate who does not find himself subjected to the neglectful caprices of his own generation, after some time be past and the duration of his influence unusually prolonged. There is a law founded in our dread of monotony, in that weariness of soul which we call ennui-the spiritual counterpart of a loathing which even the manna that fell from heaven at last bred in the Israelites; a law that affects, as surely as death, statesmen, moralists, heroes --and equally the renowned artist or poet. The law is nature's own, and man's perception of it is the true apology for each fashion as it flies. But nature, with all her changes, is secure in certain noble, recurrent types; and so there are elevated modes of art, to which we sometimes not unwillingly bid farewell, knowing that after a time they will return, and be welcome again and for ever. At present we have only to observe the working of this law with respect to the acknowledged leader, by influence and laurelled rank, of the Victorian poetic hierarchy. He, too, has verified in his recent experience the statement that, as admired poets advance in years, the people and the critics begin to mistrust the quality of their genius, are disposed to revise the laudatory judgments formerly pronounced upon them, and, finally, to claim that they have been overrated, and are not men of high reach. Such is the result of that long familiarity whereby a singer's audience becomes somewhat weary of his notes, and it is exaggerated in direct ratio with the potency of the influence against which a revolt is made. In fact, the grander the success the more trying the reaction. It is what the ancients meant by the envy of the gods, unto which too fortunate men were greatly subjected. Alternate periods of favour and rejection not only follow one another in cycles, by generations, or by centuries even; but the individual artist, during a long career, will find himself tested by minor perturbations of the same kind, varying with his successive achievements, and the varying conditions of atmosphere and time. The influence of Alfred Tennyson has been almost unprecedently dominant, fascinating, extended, yet of late has somewhat vexed the public mind. Its reposeful charm has given it a more secure hold upon our affections than is usual in this era, whose changes are the more incessant because so much more is crowded into a few years than of old. Even of this serene beauty we are wearied; a murmur arises; rebellion has broken out; the laureate is irreverently criticised, suspected, no longer worshipped as a demi-god. Either because he is not a demi-god, or that through long security he has lost the power to take the buffets and rewards of fortune "with equal thanks," he does not move entirely contented within the shadow that for the hour has crossed his triumphal path. A little poem, "The Flower," is the expression of a genuine grievance; his plant, at first novel and despised, grew into a superb flower of art, was everywhere glorious and accepted, yet now is again pronounced a weed because the seed is common, and men weary of a beauty too familiar. The petulance of these stanzas reveals a less edifying matter, to wit, the failure of their author in submission to the inevitable, the lack of a philosophy which he is not slow to recommend to his fellows. If he verily hears "the roll of the ages," as he has declared in his answer to "A Spiteful Letter," why then so restive? Why not recognise, even in his own case, the benignity of a law which, as Cicero said of death, must be a blessing because it is universal? He himself has taught us, in the wisest language of our time, that "God fulfils Himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world." No change, no progress. Better to decline, if need be, upon some inferior grade, that all methods may be tested. Ultimately, disgust of the false will bring a reaction to something as good as the best which has been known before. Last of all, the world's true and enduring verdict. In calmer moments the laureate must needs reflect that a future age will look back, measure him as he is, and compare his works with those of his contemporaries. To forestall, as far as may be, this steadfast judgment of posterity, is the aim and service of the critic. Let us separate ourselves from the adulation and envy of the moment, and search for the true relation of Tennyson to his era-estimating his poetry, not by our appetite for it, but by its inherent quality, and its lasting value in the progress of British song. There have been few comprehensive reviews of Tennyson's poetical career. The artistic excellence of his work has been, from the first, so distinguished that lay critics are often at a loss how to estimate this poet. We have had admirable homilies upon the spirit of his teachings, the scope and nature of his imagination, his idyllic quality-his landscape, characters, language, Anglicanism-but nothing adequately setting forth his technical superiority. I am aware that professional criticism is apt to be unduly technical; to neglect the soul, in its concern for the body, of art. My present effort is to consider both; nevertheless, with relation to Tennyson, above all other modern poets, how little can be embraced within the limits of an essay! The specialist reviewer has the advantage of being thorough as far as he goes. All I can hope is to leave no important point untouched, though my reference to it may be restricted to a single phrase. It seems to me that the only just estimate of Tennyson's position is that which declares him to be, by eminence, the representative poet of the recent era. Not, like one or another of his compeers, representative of the melody, wisdom, passion, or other partial phase of the era, but of the time itself, with its diverse elements in harmonious conjunction. Years have strengthened my belief that a future age will regard him, independently of his merits, as bearing this relation to his period. In his verse he is as truly "the glass of fashion and the mould of form" of the Victorian generation in the nineteenth century as Spenser was of the Elizabethan court, Milton of the Protectorate, Pope of the reign of Queen Anne. During his supremacy there have been few great leaders, at the head of different schools, such as belonged to the time of Byron, Wordsworth, and Keats. His poetry has gathered all the elements which find vital expression in the complex modern art. Has the influence of Tennyson made the recent British school, or has his genius itself been modified and guided by the period? It is the old question of the river and the valley. The two have taken shape together; yet the beauty of Tennyson's verse was so potent from the first, and has so increased in potency, that we must pronounce him an independent genius, certainly more than the mere creature of his surroundings. Years ago, when he was yet comparatively unknown, an American poet, himself finely gifted with the lyrical ear, was so impressed by Tennyson's method, that, "in perfect sincerity," he pronounced him "the noblest poet that ever lived." If he had said "the noblest artist," and confined this judgment to lyrists of the English tongue, he possibly would have made no exaggeration. Yet there have been artists with a less conscious manner and a broader style. The laureate is always aware of what he is doing; he is his own daimon-the inspirer and controller of his own utterances. He sings by note no less than by ear, and follows a score of his own inditing. But, acknowledging his culture, we have no right to assume that his ear is not as fine as that of any poet who gives voice with more careless rapture. His average is higher than that of other English masters, though there may be scarcely one who in special flights has not excelled him. Spenser's law of progress, founded on the distribution of values, his poetry is more eminent than most which has preceded it. complete the revolution with which he has, at least, been coeval, and how distinct his music then seemed from everything which had gone before. He began as a metrical artist, pure and simple, and with a feeling perfectly unique—at a long remove even from that of so absolute an artist as was John Keats. He had very little notion beyond the production of rhythm, melody, colour, and other poetic effects. Instinct led him to construct his machinery before essaying to build. Many have discerned, in his youthful pieces, the influence of Wordsworth and Keats, but no less that of the Italian poets, and of the early English balladists. I shall here. after revert to "Oriana," "Mariana," and "The Lady of Shalott," as work that in its kind is fully up to the best of those Pre-Raphaelites who, by some arrest of development, stop precisely where Tennyson made his second step forward, and censure him for having gone beyond them. Meaningless as are the opening melodies of his collected verse, how delicious they once seemed, as a change from even the greatest productions which then held the public ear. Here was something of a new kind! The charm was legitimate. Tennyson's immediate predecessors were so fully occupied with the mass of a com. position that they slighted details; what beauty they displayed was not of the parts, but of the whole. Now, in all arts, the natural advance is from detail to general effect. How seldom those who begin with a broad treatment, which apes maturity, acquire subsequently the minor graces that alone can finish the perfect work! By comparison of the late and early writings of great English poets-Shakespeare and Miltonone observes the process of healthful growth. Tennyson proved his kindred genius by this instinctive study of details in his immature verses. In marked contrast to his fellows, and to every predecessor but Keats-"that strong, excepted soul"-he seemed to perceive from the outset, that poetry is an art, and chief of the fine arts: the easiest to dabble in, the hardest in which to reach true excellence; that it has its technical secrets, its mysterious lowly paths that reach to aërial outlooks, and this no less than sculpture, painting, music, or architecture, By but even more. He devoted himself, with the eager spirit of youth, to mastering this exquisite art, and wreaked his thoughts upon expression, for the expression's sake. And what else should one attempt, with small experiences, little concern for the real world, and less observation of it? He had dreams rather than thoughts; but was at the most sensitive period of life with regard to rhythm, colour, and form. In youth feeling is indeed "deeper than all thought," and responds divinely to every sensuous confrontment with the presence of beauty. I have inferred that the very success of Tennyson's art has made it common in our eyes, and rendered us incapable of fairly judging it. When a poet has length of days, and sees his language a "familiar portion of men's thoughts, he no longer can attract that romantic interest with which the world regards a genius freshly brought to hearing. Men forget that he, too, was once new, unhackneyed, appetising. But recall the youth of Tennyson, and see how It is difficult now to realise how chaotic was the notion of art among English verse-makers |