vend mean and petty stories of men whom others delight to honour.

The remaining poem of this group-that to J. S.-is, as I have implied, a kind of minor In Memoriam. It is not specially strong, perhaps, but it is wise with the wisdom of sorrow and sympathy, and full of high-toned thoughts. That is a beautiful image contained in the verse—

"His memory long will live alone

In all our hearts, as mournful light

That broods above the fallen sun,

And dwells in heaven half the night."

The last verse seems to express as a settled belief what is only put as a question in In Memoriam.

The resemblance between this poem and In Memoriam suggested to me the dainty pleasure of tracing such coincidences of thought and expression throughout the writings of the poet. I had thought of setting down a few of the results here, but I think it will be, on the whole, better to leave the matter as a mere suggestion. If any reader is pleased to take it up, he will like it better that the work should not have been partly done for him.

Tennyson has not done much laureate duty. Of the

laureate poems he has written, he has thought only the four I have named worth preserving. Two of these are very well known even beyond the circle of the poet's lovers. The Charge of the Light Brigade just uttered the national thrill at that mad, heroic deed. The Dedication of the Idylls to Prince Albert expressed the half-repentant honour which his death awakened in the nation's heart, and seemed to make the grief of the widowed queen a national sentiment. A Welcome to Alexandra is a graceful trifle-a true laureate poem, having nothing for its subject, and successful in that it says that nothing poetically and well. But the greatest of the laureate poems is the "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington." The writing of this was evidently no mere duty work; it was a labour of love, the poem being written very rapidly (it was published within a few days of the Duke's death), and having all the rush of a genuine enthusiasm about it. Not many a hero has had his praises sung in a nobler ode. In this case, again, the poet was expressing a deep national feeling, and the sorrow was idealized by being linked to such worthy utterance. The portrayal of the character of the national hero, the sketch of his career, the public lessons that his life dictates, the private example that his character affords, the great future in store for him—these,

intermingled with expressions of national sorrow, form the

theme of the poem. Of that passage beginning

"This is he that far away,

and ending

Against the myriads of Assaye,

Clashed with his fiery few and won,"

"And down we swept and charged and overthrew,"

Then the jubilant,

it is difficult to say whether it is more wonderfully condensed or more wonderfully vivid. march-like movement of the couplet

"Not once or twice in our rough island story
The path of duty was the way to glory,”—

leads up to the good hope

“Till in all lands, and through all human story,
The path of duty be the way to glory;"

and, for him, to that other hope—

"Uplifted high in heart and hope are we,

Until we doubt not that for one so true,

There must be other, nobler work to do
Than when he fought at Waterloo,

And victor he must ever be."

I have named the next group Riddles, because in the case

of each poem it is obvious that the meaning is intentionally hidden. Among the Philosophical Poems, there are some in which the meaning is clothed in allegory; still in these there is no attempt to hide the meaning, beyond that slight concealment which an allegory always affords. But in the Riddles it is otherwise-in these the meaning is designedly hidden, and, to be found, must be puzzled for. Far be it from me to attempt to thwart the intention of the poet, by offering a key to his Riddles.

The Trifles I pass without comment, as also the unclassifiable poems, though the Ode on the Death of the Old Year is a poem to grow fond of. The Experiments are interesting. I suppose there are not many who liked Boadicea at the first reading, while there can be few whom, upon familiarity, certain bits of it, and also the metre, did not come to haunt. The fragment of Homer that closes the Enoch Arden volume is very beautiful and perfect, and, maybe, foreshadows some poem on a classic subject as the next happiness in store for us from our dear poet's hands.

A FEW DAYS WITH THE POET LAUREATE.

IN my heart of hearts, I do not feel that I have put a false title to this paper. It is true that I did not see the Laureate with my bodily eyes. I did not wish to see him. I should like to have had him for a companion, if that might have been; but as that could not be, then no seeing him could have been equal to the companionship that I truly had. I can read In Memoriam—can distinctly see the man in it; but I am not sure that I could truly and fully read his face, without much time and effort. So I shall speak still of my "days with the Poet Laureate."

My friend, did you never hold converse with an absent dear one, with a dead loved one? Did you never feel your spirit taken hold of and led backward into the sad, happy, dreamy past, and forward into the future-the near future, if it be a living friend that is haunting you;