Through a great channel the Severn pours its water into the sea; so is the poet many-voiced, speaking with a large utterance to all the world. The waters of the Severn flow down, in part, from the proper source of the river, but the full body of the stream is swollen by contributions from many another river, yet it is all called the Severn. So the true poet combines with the outflow of his own heart and mind the thoughts of many another mind which have flowed into and become incorporated with his; and united and assimilated in him, find their way to the ocean of human thought through his mouth. And as all the streams that combine to form the Severn have their common origin in the rains of heaven, so all the true inspirations of the poet must be heaven-fetched, and he is a devil's prophet whose inspirations come from any other source.

And the Wye stands for Arthur Hallam. Many streams pour water into the Severn, but none so much as this one; many influences have gone to perfect the heart and mind of our poet, but none so potent as this

one.

"Since we deserved the name of friends,
And thine effect so lives in me.

"But he was rich where I was poor, And he supplied my want the more As his unlikeness fitted mine.

"Whatever way my days decline,

I felt and feel, tho' left alone,

His being working in mine own,

The footsteps of his life in mine."

The Wye has of itself no opening into the sea; it

flows into the Severn and becomes nameless.

Yet it

is not lost. Arthur Hallam found no utterance before the sea of men; he died and became nameless before he reached the ocean; no stream of thought is called by his name. Yet was he not lost. The Severn without the Wye were other and less; Tennyson without the influence of his friend were other and perhaps less. And herein our dead poet was as happy as the Wye; for an utterance has been given to him through the mouth of another. Before the eyes of the silent Intelligences he lives as no dumb poet; for utterance is not in words, and he whose spirit has gone abroad into the hearts of men is not dumb. The waters of the Wye commingle everywhere with the ocean- -the spirit of Arthur Hallam shall commingle everywhere with the thoughts of men.

DISTINCT from the difficulty of fully grasping the great thoughts of the author-a difficulty common to the study of In Memoriam and every other work of powerthere are felt to be some peculiar difficulties about the study of this poem, arising from the obscure or highly symbolical character of much of its language. I suppose the difficulty is somewhat real. Some of the language is obscure; much of the language is highly symbolical. The following chapter is an attempt to clear some of the obscurity, to interpret some of the symbolism.

I must ask the patience of each of my readers in case I should, in some or in many instances, have stopped to explain what is perfectly clear to him. While endeavouring to touch upon all passages that might be called obscure, I have tried to avoid such explanations as no thoughtful person would find needful. In Memoriam is not the book for unreflecting readers at all. But minds differ. What is perfectly clear to one may fail to strike another; and the obscurities, real or supposed, of the poem have driven off many readers, and are the subject of complaint

from many others.

So I have felt it right to make this verbal commentary somewhat full.

In determining what passages needed comment, I have called in the help of several intelligent friends. The agreements and the dissonances of their lists of passages were very instructive. I venture to hope. that, by the collation of these lists and my own best care, I have attained to something like an exhaustive exhibition of the verbal obscurities of the poem. Whether I have done much towards the elucidation of these obscurities is another matter. But here also I hope. There still remain one or two cases in which I have marked the obscurity without supplying the explanation. The reason for this is the one that will first come into the reader's mind. I hope that by thus publishing my needs I may create a chance of getting them supplied.

For the sake of brevity, I have thrown this chapter into the form of notes.

Dedication.

Verse 1, line 1. Probably Christ.

But there are passages

below that look more like an address to the personified love of God. It is not at all unlikely that both references were in the mind of the poet.

4. The resurrection of Christ, perhaps. But perhaps rather that Divine Love will conquer death also. The "skull" is the symbol of death.

1. "Systems" of doctrine and belief.

4. As before." "In the infancy of mankind," when "mind" and "soul," though each small, were, according to the implication of the poem, in balance and harmony.

Canto. Verse. Line.

This is the most obvious interpretation.
I doubt if it be the poet's meaning. It

assumes more than he is wont to assume.

A correspondent suggests: "That the soul which reverences, and the mind which knows, may keep in tune, as they were before the individual grew in knowledge that the one may not outstrip the other."

I. 1 1. "Him." Longfellow has this thought in his "Ladder of St. Augustine.” But I

think that poem was published after In
Memoriam.

In the Illustrated London News of Nov. 8,
1856, p. 484, occurs the following note :-
"In Memoriam. As to the poem referred
to by Tennyson at the opening of In
Memoriam, when Petrarch says—

"Da volar sopra 'l ciel gli avea dat 'ali

Per le cose mortali