He does not fill his poems with information, and is not to be ranked with the didactic poets. His expressions and allusions are sometimes too studied, however, too careful and elaborate; but his keen poetic sense will allow nothing to take its place in his poetry merely for the sake of information. He carefully works out every detail and every image, and gives to each element of his verse that proportion which accords with his artistic apprehension. He has husbanded his strength for his poetic work, and lived a life of pure devotion to his art. He has taken no part in affairs, and has concerned himself with no other interests than those of a poet. A zealous and steadfast worshipper of the muse he has ever been, and he has found in poetry the one aim and inspiration of his life. Almost alone among the English poets in this century has he written wholly in verse. He has not published in all above half a dozen pages of prose; and even these have been in the form of brief letters on special occasions, and short notes to a few poems. Unconnected with his poetry scarcely a line of prose from his pen has been given to the public. He has lived in and for poetry; and all his experiences and his

knowledge are made to farther its growth and perfection.

So widely varied has been Tennyson's knowledge that much has been written of his indebtedness to other poets and literary masters. Stedman devotes a long chapter to his relations to Theocritus, and several pages to his resemblance to Pope; and others have made elaborate attempts to trace his expressions to his predecessors. The influence of his literary tastes on his poetry is a marked one; and he doubtless has carried away many an allusion and turn of thought from the books he has read. He is a literary poet, drawing his inspiration largely from "the storied past." It is not so much contact with nature which has made him a poet, as contact with the teeming thoughts of men, as they have taken form in the art products of the world. Only in so far as his borrowings indicate the extent to which he is a literary poet are they worthy of notice. Most of them are the results of the critics' ingenuity, rather than of the actual indebtedness of the poet. The right to read must be acceded to the poet as to other men, and the right to find in the past stimulating materials for the exercise of his poetic genius.

This conceded, it at once appears that Tennyson has fully assimilated whatever he has found that would be of most service to him as a poet, and made it a living part of his poetic work. His own answer to the charge of indebtedness vindicates his methods against the objectors and the critics :

"I do not object to your finding parallelisms. They must always recur. A man (a Chinese scholar) some time ago wrote to me saying that in an unknown, untranslated Chinese poem there were two lines of mine, almost word for word. Why not? Are not human eyes all over the world looking at the same objects, and must there not consequently be coincidences of thought and impressions and expressions? It is scarcely possible for anyone to say or write anything, in this late time of the world, to which, in the rest of the literature of the world, a parallel could not somewhere be found. But when you say that this passage or that was suggested by Wordsworth or Shelley or another, I demur, and, more, I wholly disagree.

"I could multiply instances, but I will not bore you, and far indeed am I from asserting that books, as well as nature, are not, and ought not

to be suggestive to the poet. I am sure that I myself, and many others, find a peculiar charm in those passages of such great masters as Vergil or Milton where they adopt the creation of a bygone poet, and reclothe it more or less, according to their own fancy. But there is, I fear, a prosaic set growing up among us, editors of booklets, bookworms, index-makers, or men of great memories and no imagination, who impute themselves to the poet, and so believe that he, too, has no imagination, but is forever poking his nose between the pages of some old volume in order to see what he can appropriate. They will not allow one to say 'Ring the bells,' without finding that we have taken it from Sir P. Sydney, or even to use such a simple expression as the ocean roars' without finding out the precise verse in Homer or Horace from which we have plagiarized it. (Fact!)"*

* A Study of "The Princess." By S. E. Dawson. Second edition.

Х

III.

TENNYSON has the sentiment of beauty; the vision of it ever rises before him; it subordinates all his other tendencies. It does no violence to his other gifts, but it rises above them all; it leads him by an invisible bond of delightful power it has woven about all his being. His love of beauty keeps him from being rugged and sublime in his poetry, from that majestic power and awful penetration of the high heavens of reality which we behold and feel in Dante and in Milton. Beauty is to him an entrancement; it is an Aladdin's lamp to open to his willing feet the realms of faery and of faith. His delight in beauty is no greater than his comprehension of it; he feels it and he knows it with an equal satisfaction. It does not overthrow his other powers; but it is in fine balance and harmony with them.

Tennyson is not subdued by beauty, as were Shelley and Keats, but his whole nature glows