He wore the same court-costume that Wordsworth and Southey had worn before him at their installations, and Sir Henry Taylor in his Autobiography has an amusing story to tell in connection with this. In 1869, when the veteran poet was knighted, he was in great difficulty about a fitting costume in which to do homage, and he wrote, "I have a new cause to lament the loss of my old friend Samuel Rogers. Two successive Poets Laureate went to Court on their appointment in borrowed plumes, and the plumes were borrowed from him. I well remember (how can I forget it?) a dinner in St James's Place, when the question rose whether Samuel's suit was spacious enough for Alfred. The elder poet turned to his man waiting behind his chair. I dare say, Edmund, you remember how Mr Wordsworth wore them when he went to Court; I think it was you who dressed him on the occasion?' 'No, sir, no,' said Edmund, 'it was Mr and Mrs Moxon, and they had great difficulty in getting him into them.' No such suit remains for me, nor, if it did, would the same assistance be available.”

Monckton Milnes had been Tennyson's best friend, and the Poet Laureate was soon to be again indebted to him for timely service. In Mr Wemyss Reid's account of that remarkable man of letters, an amusing piece of history may be found as to how Tennyson obtained his pension:

"Richard Milnes,' said Carlyle one day, withdrawing his pipe from his mouth, as they were seated together in the little house in Cheyne-row, 'when are you going to get that pension for Alfred Tennyson? My dear Carlyle,' responded Milnes, 'the thing is not so easy as you seem to suppose. What will my constituents say if I do get the pension for Tennyson? They know nothing about him or his poetry, and they will probably think he is some poor relation of y own, and that the whole affair is a job.' Solemn and emphatic as Carlyle's response. 'Richard Milnes, on the Day of Judgment, en the Lord asks you why you didn't get that pension for Alfred "yson, it will not do to lay the blame on your constituents; it is you that will be damned.'

"Nobody knew better than Carlyle that there was not the slightest danger of Milnes incurring the Divine wrath on this score. As a

matter of fact, Peel was already in communication with him on the subject of Tennyson's pension, and very singular were the circumstances surrounding the question. Two applications had been made to Peel for a pension of £200. One was on behalf of Tennyson, a young man in whose glorious future comparatively few in that time believed, whilst the other came from the friends of Sheridan Knowles, the dramatic author, on whose behalf age and infirmity, as well as past services to English literature, were the reasons pleaded. Peel consulted Milnes as to the course which he ought to take, accompanying the appeal by the statement that for himself he knew absolutely nothing either of Mr Tennyson or of Mr Knowles. 'What?' said Milnes, 'have you never seen the name of Sheridan Knowles on a playbill ? ' "No,' replied Peel.

And have you never read a poem of Tennyson's?' 'No,' was again the answer. Milnes offered the opinion that if the pension were merely to be bestowed as a charitable gift, Sheridan Knowles, infirm and poor, and past his prime, was the proper recipient of it; but that if, on the other hand, it were to be bestowed in the interests of English literature and of the nation at large, then, beyond all question, it should be given to Alfred Tennyson, in order that his splendid faculties might not be diverted from their proper use by the sordid anxieties of a struggle for existence. Peel took the public view of the question, and bestowed the pension upon Tennyson, though it is satisfactory to know that before very long he was enabled to confer a pension of the same amount upon Sheridan Knowles."

Of the spiteful letter of Rogers on Tennyson's “unfitness" for a pension nothing need here be said. On a first view it seems inconsistent on the part of a man who had expressed himself strongly on the subject of pensions, and who had exhorted his fellowmen not to

Toil for title, place, or touch
Of pension,

that he should himself accept both title and pension. But at least the pension was earned, and we know now that Tennyson only consented to be ennobled at the earnest and repeated request of his friend the Premie Mr Gladstone.1

The new Laureate, immediately on his appointment,

1 See Talks with Tennyson in the Contemporary Review, March 1893.

composed a dedicatory poem to the Queen which has since been prefaced to all complete editions of his works. The lines are apt and graceful; admiration is expressed without a taint of sycophancy, and praise is awarded without fulsomeness. The reference to Wordsworth is particularly good

Your Royal grace

To one of less desert allows

This laurel greener from the brows

Of him that utter'd nothing base.

The last three verses, which are now almost familiar as household words, are models of fine taste and elegant expression.

Mr Stedman, in his judicious and discriminating essay, remarks that the Poet Laureate was never at ease in handling subjects of the day-"To his brooding and essentially poetic nature such matters seem of no more moment, beside the mysteries of eternal beauty and truth, than was the noise of catapults and armed men to Archimedes studying out problems during the city's siege." An additional reason for non-success is to be found in the fact that Tennyson was not in the busy world, did not mingle with the crowd, and seldom felt the throbbing of the heart of great humanity. Yet, though I have spoken of his non-success, I could not speak of his failure, and in more than one instance he achieved a positive triumph. His Ode, sung at the opening of the International Exhibition,' with the aspiration that each man should

Find his own in all men's good,

And all men work in noble brotherhood;

-his Welcome to Alexandra, his Welcome to the Duchess of Edinburgh; his suppressed poems, The War, Britons, guard your Own, and Hands all Round;—all these, to the last lines on the Death of the Duke of Clarence, form no unworthy addition to our patriotic literature and to his

1 A sonnet on the same subject was written by Charles Tennyson-Turner.

own works. But above them all stands the Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington,—one of the six grandest odes in the English language. Noble in conception, lofty in language, rich in sentiment, and musical with resonant lines for which Handel alone could have found the organchords, this Ode was, in its original form, veritably the inspiration of the moment. Knowing how slow a worker Tennyson was, this fact alone is proof of the intensity of his feeling. The death of the "last great Englishman" stirred his heart to the depths. He paid not only his tribute to the great warrior and statesman, but he made the Ode an appeal to the loyalty of all Englishmen. Since the poem appeared in the Times, with all the weakness caused by haste and the blemishes made more conspicuous by irritating printers' errors, it has been elaborated and constantly revised. Remarkable to relate, however, the poem was far from giving satisfaction for some time. Sir Henry Taylor, the man who might have been Laureate, was one of the first to send his congratulations to his successful rival when the Ode appeared. In reply Tennyson wrote "Thanks, thanks! In the all but universal depreciation of my ode by the press, the prompt and hearty approval of it by a man as true as the Duke himself is doubly grateful."

Phrases in the Ode have passed almost into by-words, particularly the ringing refrain—

Not once or twice in our rough island-story,
The path of duty was the way to glory.

The picture of the Iron Duke seems to breathe and live. The recounting of his deeds has all the energy and pride with which we can imagine the old bards spake to stimulate their heroes to mighty deeds. The lines are deep and pealing, and now and then, as swept by some strong gust, they gather into a warlike thunder, or burst into impetuous torrent. We seem to hear at times the toll of bells, at times the clamour and clangour of war, at times the

acclamation of the people, at times the low roll of music and the wail of the Dead March. The Ode is a triumph of sounds, and with these sounds come the words we would utter in "eternal honour" to the name of the victor at Waterloo. The Charge of the Light Brigade alone among the patriotic lyrics can be spoken of in the same breath. "No writing of mine," said Tennyson in sending a thousand copies of the poem to the soldiers before Sebastopol, "can add to the glory they have acquired in the Crimea." Certain it is that the stirring lines have made that question still more difficult to answer-"When can their glory fade?” As further proof of the poet's practical sympathy with the Crimean heroes, his "Balaclava Letter" of 1875 may be put in evidence. "I cannot attend your banquet," he wrote, "but I enclose £5 to defray some of its expenses, or to be distributed, as you may think fit, among the most indigent of the survivors of that glorious charge; a blunder it may have been, but one for which England should be grateful, having learnt thereby that her soldiers are the bravest and most obedient under the sun." This autograph letter was discovered a year or two ago inserted in a copy of the first edition of Maud which was offered for sale. It is interesting to know that the manuscript of the whole poem is in the possession of a Torquay lady, who has stated that the latter part of the fourth verse originally stood as under—

Right thro' the fire they broke;

So was the Russian line

Struck by the sabre stroke,

Shattered and sundered.

But the marginal correction gives the present improved rendering. Two lines following alone formed the fifth

verse

Then they rode back, but not,

Not the Six Hundred.

The most extraordinary story told in connection with this memorable poem was published after Tennyson's death.

F