Hills, and we find in "Aurora Leigh," and in some of her minor pieces, not only reminiscences of that region, but other landscape, both English and Italian, executed in a broad and admirable manner. But when she follows the idyllic method, making the tone of the background enhance the feeling of a poem, she uses by preference the works of man rather than those of Nature-architecture, furniture, pictures, books above all, rather than water, sky, and forest. Men and women were the chief objects of her regard -her genius was more dramatic than idyllic, and lyric first of all.

BAYNE'S COMPARISON OF MRS. BROWNING AND TENNYSON.

A first and partial acquaintance, indeed, with the works of Mrs. Browning is apt to prompt the opinion that she may be classed among the pupils and followers of that poet. Both belong to one time, and their thoughts run not unfrequently in the same channels. But a more complete knowledge of Mrs. Browning's works puts to flight every imagination of an influence which could do no more than stimulate, which could in the slightest degree control, her powers. Her genius is of an order altogether above that which can be permanently or organically affected by any other mind. And, in truth, her whole mode of imaginative action is different from that of Tennyson. The unrivalled finish and strange perfection of the latter-his unique imaginative faculty, which combines a color more rich than that of Eastern gardens, with a science more austere than that of Greek architecture; his instinctive and imperious rejection of aught wearing even the semblance of fault or imperfection, requiring that all his marble be polished, and all his gems crystals-can in no respect or degree be said to characterize Mrs. Browning. Tennyson, more than any English poet of mark, approaches the statue-like calmness of Goethe; Mrs. Browning thrills with every emotion she depicts, whether passion kindles with a smile her own funeral pyre, or earnestness flows rhythmic from the lips of

the Pythoness, or irrepressible weeping shakes the breast of the child. Tennyson is the wizard, looking, with unmoved face, into the furnace, whose white heat melts the flint; Mrs. Browning has the furnace in her own bosom, and you see its throbbings. Tennyson's imagination treads loftily on cloth of gold, its dainty foot neither wetted with dew nor stained with mire; Mrs. Browning's rushes upward and onward, its drapery now streaming in the wind, now draggled in the mountain rivers, making, with impetuous lawlessness, for the goal. Mrs. Browning has scarcely a poem undefaced by palpable error or extravagance; Tennyson's poetry is characterized by that perilous absence of fault which seems hardly consistent with supreme genius. Between our greatest living poet, therefore, and the greatest of all poetesses there can be instituted no general comparison.

BOOKS OF REFERENCE.

elists," pp. 59-109.

Essays: By E. C. Stedman (Scribner, | G. Barnett Smith's "Poets and Novvol. vii.), Edgar A. Poe, E. P. Whipple, and Gilfillan. Biographical Essays by A. H. Stoddard.

Kate Field's Letter from Florence

(Atlantic Monthly, September, 1861). Letters to R. H. Horne, published 1877.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's "French and
Italian Journals."

Mary Russell Mitford's "Recollec-
tions of a Literary Life."
Bayard Taylor's "At Home and
Abroad."

Edinburgh Review, October, 1861.

Peter Bayne's "Two Great English- British Quarterly Review, 1865.

women" (1881).

ALFRED TENNYSON

(1809-).

TENNYSON'S PORTRAITS.

THE first published portrait of Tennyson was taken from a painting by Samuel Laurence: numerous other likenesses are now in circulation.

PERSONAL APPEARANCE.

One of the finest-looking men in the world. A great shock of rough, dusky-dark hair; bright, laughing hazel eyes; massive aquiline face-most massive yet most delicate; of sallow brown complexion, almost Indian-looking; clothes cynically loose, free-and-easy; smokes infinite tobacco. His voice is musically metallic-fit for loud laughter and piercing wail, and all that may lie between; speech and speculation free and plenteous: I do not meet, in these late decades, such company over a pipe! We shall see what he will grow to.-THOMAS CARLYLE: Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson (1847).

Tennyson is a grand specimen of a man, with a magnificent head set on his shoulders like the capital of a mighty pillar. His hair is long and wavy and covers a massive head. He wears a beard and mustache, which one begrudges as hiding so much of that firm, powerful, but finely-chiselled mouth. His eyes are large and gray, and open wide when a subject interests him; they are well shaded by the noble brow, with its strong lines of thought and suffering. I can quite understand Samuel Laurence calling it the best balance of head he had ever seen. He is very brown after all the pedestrianizing along our south coast.-CAROLINE FOX: Diary.