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And in the pathetic account of Tennyson’s last moments we find it recorded that on the Tuesday before the Wednesday on which he died, he called out, “Where is my Shakespeare? I must have my Shakespeare”; and again on the day of his death, when the breath was passing out of his body, he asked for his Shakespeare.

Poets like Wordsworth, for instance, are supported against the world by love of Nature and by thatdivine arrogancewhich is sometimes a characteristic of genius. Tennyson’s case shows that not even love of Nature and intimate communings with her are of use in giving a man peace when he has not Wordsworth’s temperament. No adverse criticism could disturb Wordsworth’s sublime self-complacency.

“I think he took in more pleasure and inspiration than any one would have supposed who did not know his own almost personal dislike of the present, whatever it might be.” This is what makes us say that by far the most important thing in Tennyson’s life was his marriage.

In honest admiration of Tennyson’s dramatic work, where it is admirable, we yield to none, at the time when ‘The Foresters’ was somewhat coldly accepted by the press on account of itslack of virility,” we considered that in the class to which it belonged, the scenic pastoral plays, it held a very worthy place. That Tennyson’s admiration for Shakespeare was unbounded is evident enough.

Here is where she was wonderfully unlike Gabriel, whose power of self-criticism in poetry was almost as great as Tennyson’s own. But in the matter of inspiration she was, I must think, above Gabrielabove almost everybody.

Though much was said in praise of ‘Harold’ by one of the most accomplished critics and scholars of our time, Dr. Jebb, the play could not keep the stage, nor does it live as a drama as any one of Tennyson’s lyrics can be said to live. ‘Becket,’ to be sure, was a success on the stage.

But a hardy critic would he be who should characterize Tennyson’s poetry as commonplacethat very poetry which, before it became popular, was decried because it was merelypoetry for poets.” Still that poetry so rich and so rare as his should find its way to the heart of a people like the English, who havenot sufficient poetic instinct in them to give birth to vernacular poetry,” is undoubtedly a striking fact.

Tennyson’s knowledge of naturenature in every aspectwas very great. His passion forstar-gazinghas often been commented upon by readers of his poetry. Since Dante no poet in any land has so loved the stars.

There is in these volumes a curious document, a memorandum of Tennyson’s presented to Mr. Knowles at Aldworth in 1869, in which an elaborate scheme for turning into abstract ideas the characters of the Arthurian story is sketched:— K.A. Religious Faith. King Arthur’s three Guineveres. The Lady of the Lake.

But the rakers-up of thechips of the workshop,” to use Tennyson’s own phrase, seem to have been specially irritating to him, because he belonged to those poets who cannot really revise and complete their work till they see it in type. “Poetry,” he said, “looks better, more convincing in print.”