Seraphic intellect and force

To seize and throw the doubts of man;
Impassioned logic, which outran

The hearer in its fiery course?

How inspiring it must have been to hear that "band of youthful friends" holding debate on mind and art, labour and state :

When one would aim an arrow fair,

But send it slackly from the string;
And one would pierce an outer ring,
And one an inner, here and there ;

And last the master-bowman, he
Would cleave the mark.

"So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more!" Brookfield, who remained a cherished friend of the poet's, was a clergyman of the Church of England, a distinguished preacher, Chaplain-in-Ordinary to the Queen, and one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools. He was especially favoured in his literary friendships. It was at his death, in memory of these days, that the Laureate wrote the sonnet beginning

Brooks, for they call'd you so that knew you best,
Old Brooks, who loved so well to mouth my rhymes,
How oft we two have heard St Mary's chimes!
How oft the Cantab supper, host and guest,
Would echo helpless laughter to your jest!

In later years his friends included many names famous in the ranks of literature-Carlyle, Kinglake, Lord Houghton. Miss Thackeray (Mrs Richie) wrote to Lord Lyttleton that Mr Brookfield was the "Frank Whitestock" of her father's sketch, The Curate's Walk.

No marvel is it that the doings of those Cambridge days passed into a cherished memory, that the "dawngolden times" lost none of their radiance or beauty as they were pushed further back into the past. Alfred

Tennyson, who, like Thackeray, left without taking his degree, on one ever-memorable occasion returned to Cambridge.

I past beside the reverend walls

In which of old I wore the gown ;
I roved at random thro' the town,
And saw the tumult of the halls;

And heard once more in college fanes
The storm their high-built organs make,
And thunder-music, rolling, shake
The prophets blazon'd on the panes ;

And caught once more the distant shout,
The measured pulse of racing oars
Among the willows; paced the shores
And many a bridge, and all about

The same gray flats again, and felt

The same, but not the same; and last
Up that long walk of limes I past
To see the rooms in which he dwelt.

Another name was on the door :

CHAPTER III.

A LYRICAL PRELUDE.

"What be those crown'd forms high over the sacred fountain?
Bards, that the mighty Muses have raised to the heights of the mountain,
And over the flight of the Ages! O Goddesses, help me up thither!
Lightning may shrivel the laurel of Cæsar, but mine would not wither.
Steep is the mountain, but you, you will help me to overcome it,
And stand with my head in the zenith, and roll my voice from the summit,
Sounding for ever and ever thro' Earth and her listening nations,
And mixt with the great Sphere-music of stars and of constellations."

-Parnassus.

ONE of those apocryphal stories, usually related of men of mark, is to the effect that Alfred Tennyson as a little boy was asked what he would like to be when he grew up. "A poet!" said the child. However much we may be inclined to doubt the fact, there is no escape from the conclusion that Tennyson as a young man had no serious aims of earning a livelihood. Even in his day, when poetry was more in demand, and when it was something of a marketable commodity, no one with a practical mind could have thought it possible to obtain a satisfactory revenue from this source. Dr Tennyson was not a rich man, and with his large family could not have saved money, so that it seemed a pressing necessity for the elder sons to choose a business or profession. Charles entered the Church, but Alfred, after leaving College, had apparently no definite plans. He had written in 1827-8 The Lover's Tale, which had been privately printed in 1833 and suppressed, the author "contenting himself with giving a few copies away." Thomas Powell, the author of a book on English writers, thinks the poem "decidedly unworthy" of Tennyson's reputation at that time—a lamentably rash judgment. Of

this poem Arthur Hallam possessed a copy, and as the whole piece was republished in 1879, its merits may be judged by readers for themselves. It is sufficient to relate in Tennyson's own words under what circumstances the long-concealed poem was brought into the light. "The original Preface to The Lover's Tale," he wrote, "states that it was composed in my nineteenth year. Two only of the three parts then written were 'printed, when, feeling the imperfection of the poem, I withdrew it from the press. One of my friends, however, who, boy-like, admired the boy's work, distributed among our common associates of that hour some copies of those two parts, without my knowledge, without the omissions and amendments which I had in contemplation, and marred by the many misprints of the compositor. Seeing that those two parts have of late been mercilessly pirated, and that what I had deemed scarce worthy to live was not allowed to die, may I not be pardoned if I suffer the whole poem at last to come into the light, accompanied with a reprint of the sequel-a work of my mature life-The Golden Supper?" It is worth noting here that The Lover's Tale supplied one line to Timbuctoo-"A center'd, golden-circled memory "-early evidence of the poet's economy. The author of Tennysoniana has pointed out that this early work of the Laureate's bears some resemblance to Browning's Pauline, which was also published in 1833. The Berenice of Edgar Allen Poe also treats of the same subject in a more sensational manner. The Lover's Tale was to have been included in the volume of 1833, and part of it was in type when Tennyson again decided that it was unworthy in its present condition to see the light.

At College, as we have seen, Tennyson was in the habit of reading his poems to a select circle of companions. It was on one such occasion that Alford, afterward Dean of Canterbury, heard "some very exquisite poetry of his entitled The Hesperides." The enthusiasm of his friends may have finally decided the poet on his course, and the judg

ment of Hallam, who was one of his warmest admirers, no doubt largely influenced him. With this friend he had journeyed under romantic circumstances to the Pyrenees, the object of the two zealous youths being to carry succour to the patriots engaged in a struggle for liberty in Spain. Mrs Ritchie, who has special information of this incident in the poet's life, tells a strange story of how, when Tennyson and Hallam were taking money and letters written in invisible ink to certain conspirators who were then revolting against the intolerable tyranny of Ferdinand, they met, among others, a Senor Ojeda, who confided to Alfred his intentions, which were to couper la gorge à tous les curés. Senor Ojeda could not talk English or fully explain all his aspirations. "Mais vous connaissez mon cœur," said he, effusively. "And a pretty black one it is," thought the poet. The friends were soon convinced that the patriots were too bloodthirsty to be pleasant companions, so they took their departure. But two and thirty years later, when Tennyson saw again the valleys and the flashing streams, the memory of that time rose up, and

All along the valley, by rock and cave and tree,
The voice of the dead was a living voice to me.

The journey ended prematurely, but left Tennyson unexhausted. He was at this time, according to Edward Fitzgerald, "a man at all points of grand proportion and feature, significant of that inward chivalry becoming his ancient and honourable race," and he determined to expend his superfluous energy in a walking tour through Wales. We learn that he went one day into a little wayside inn, where an old man sat by the fire, who looked up, and asked many questions. "Are you from the army? Not from the army! Then where do you come from?" said the old man. "I am just come from the Pyrenees," said Alfred. "Ah, I knew there was a something," said the wise old man. About this time Tennyson and Hallam had decided to issue a volume of their poems jointly, but Hallam's father

C