From "The Palace of Art" several verses were omitted at the time of publication which are given in his Memoirs. He intended to introduce sculpture into it, and had written two descriptions, as follows:

"One was the Tishbite whom the raven fed,

As when he stood on Carmel steeps

With one arm stretched out bare, and mocked and said, 'Come, cry aloud, he sleeps.'

Tall, eager, lean and strong, his cloak wind-borne

Behind, his forehead heavenly bright

From the clear marble pouring glorious scorn,

Lit as with inner light.

One was Olympias; the floating snake

Rolled round her ankles, round her waist
Knotted, and folded once about her neck,

Her perfect lips to taste.”

As is the case usually when surviving friends collect and publish the work rejected by a poet himself, the new poems given in the Life prepared by his son will not add much to his reputation. Many such instances might be pointed out. The case of Christina Rossetti is a recent and notable one. Her own fine critical taste had culled from the mass of her poetical work what she was willing to submit to posterity, but the mistaken affection of her brother gave to the world a volume of New Poems, which to say the least were not up to the highest mark reached by her in life. The searching of the diaries and notebooks of dead friends, and the thrusting of their unimportant contents on the world, has certainly been carried far enough in recent years, yet the tendency is still further to exploit such private miscellanies for the gratification of the morbid curiosity of modern readers.

In the summer of 1831 Tennyson and Arthur Hallam, in all the glow and ardor of early youth, became absorbed in the interest they felt in a conspiracy against the rule of Spain, and started off for the Pyrenees to carry money to the insurgent allies of Torrijos, who had raised the standard of revolt against the inquisition, and the tyranny of Ferdinand, the King of Spain. They held a secret meeting with the heads of the conspiracy on the Spanish border, and caused great alarm among their friends by sending no news of themselves for several weeks. One is glad to have this glimpse of the poet as a man of action, and to count him among those young men who risk something for a noble cause. Byron's enthusiasm for Greek liberty has always been the brightest spot in the record of his clouded life. That Tennyson's soul was capable of a righteous wrath he proved many times in life. As early as his first university years he was stirred to indignation by the lethargy and selfishness of the college life and the narrow limits of thought there. He had higher ideals. of what a scholar's life should be, and of the inspiration he should receive from the men who guided it. The following lines written in 1830 will show his feeling:

"Therefore your Halls, your ancient Colleges,

Your portals statued with old kings and queens,
Your gardens, myriad-volumed libraries,
Wax-lighted chapels, and rich carven screens,
Your doctors, and your proctors, and your deans,
Shall not avail you, when the Day-beam sports
New-risen o'er awakened Albion. No!
Nor yet your solemn organ pipes that blow
Melodious thunders thro' your vacant courts

At noon and eve, because your manner sorts
Not with this age, wherefrom ye stand apart,
Because the lips of little children preach
Against you, you that do profess to teach

And teach us nothing, feeding not the heart."

Soon after Arthur Hallam's death he wrote "Ulysses," one of the noblest of his poems.

He

tells us that "it gave his feeling about the need of going forward and braving the struggle of life, perhaps more simply than anything in 'In Memoriam.'" He sees even as early as that

"How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought."

Again he says, —

"Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods."

The volume of 1832 placed him at the head of the poets of his generation, though there were critics who cavilled, as they had done at the two small preceding volumes. Of the little volume published by Charles and Alfred, Coleridge is said to have remarked that only the poems signed C. T. gave promise of a coming poet, and other reviewers sneered at some of

the early poems in a manner showing how little insight they really possessed. We who consider that some of the poems of that period were never surpassed by him, can but wonder at the obtuseness which saw in them only the rhymes of mediocrity.

The failing health of his father recalled him from Cambridge to Somersby before he had taken his degree, and he never resumed his studies there. But he began reading, soon after, many books on physical science, and meditating much on the problems they presented to his mind. In the years in which he was composing "In Memoriam " he read metaphysics a good deal also, and began to doubt some things he had been taught; but though his opinions changed somewhat from his early beliefs, he retained his firm faith in the existence of a Deity who guided the destinies of men. His religious attitude at that time is very clearly depicted in the poem. It was perhaps summed up as nearly in the lines which follow as anywhere:

"Oh, yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,

To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;

"That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroyed,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God has made his pile complete ;

"That not a worm is cloven in vain;
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shrivelled in a fruitless fire,

Or but subserves another's gain.

་་

This poem, or series of poems, which had been so long in the writing, was not published until 1850. Previous to this, he had published " English Idylls and other Poems," and in 1847, "The Princess," a medley. In 1850 his circumstances permitted him to marry Miss Emily Sellwood, to whom he had been engaged so long. In 1845 he had been granted a pension of two hundred pounds a year, and the sale of his books had become considerable. At the death of his father he also received a small annuity. But his means were still very limited wherewith to maintain a household. He had continued to live with his mother and sisters after his father's death until his marriage, though the establishment at Somersby had been broken up. Carlyle described him in those years after this manner:

"One of the finest-looking men in the world. A great shock of rough, dusty-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 musical 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 decades such company over a pipe. We shall see what he will grow to. He is often unwell; very chaotic - his way is through Chaos and the Bottomless and Pathless; not handy for making out many miles upon."

We may insert here a description of his personal appearance in late life, as a foil to the other.