spring time, when the sun with Taurus rides"-thus poetically represented, "When, with his golden horns in full career, The Bull beats down the barriers of the year, And Argo and the Dog forsake the northern sphere."

Wheat must not be sown till the Pleiades and the Crown are set; vetches and lentiles may be planted from the setting of Arcturus till mid-winter. Turning to Georgic iii. we have the Scythians described as a race of savages who live under Charles's Wain (Georgics, iii. 382), and the shepherd is to shelter his sheep in south - looking places against the season of winter, "when chill Aquarius sprinkles with showers the closing year" (Georgics, iii. 304), while in Georgic iv. 231, we have this truly poetical picture of the two seasons for gathering the store of honey: the one in May, the other in the end of October corresponding with the rising and the setting of the Pleiades :

"Two honey harvests fall in every year : First, when the pleasing Pleiades appear, And springing upwards spurn the briny seas. Again, when their affrighted choir surveys The wat'ry Scorpion mend his pace behind With a black train of storms and winter wind,

They plunge into the deep and safe protection find."

Compare with these the following verses descriptive of celestial phenomena out of Mr. Tennyson's works. The first three extracts are from the "Princess"

"The world was once a fluid haze of light,

Till toward the centre set the starry tides,
And eddied into suns, that, wheeling, cast
The planets."

"Like those three stars of the airy Giant's zone
That glitter, burnished by the frosty dark;
And as the fiery Sirius alters hue
And bickers into red and emerald, shone
Their morions wash'd with morning as they
came."

"Then ere the silver sickle of that month

Became her golden shield ”—

Two other aspects of our satellite are given in these graceful lines from "The Voyage:"

"Far ran the naked moon across

The houseless ocean's heaving field;
Or flying shone the silver boss

What follows is from "The Last Tournament," descriptive of the Aurora Borealis :

"They fired the tower,

Which half that autumn night like the live north

Red-pulsing up through Alioth and Alior

Made all above it as the waters Moab saw

Come round by the east. And out beyond

them flushed

The long low dune, and lazy-plunging sea."

Our next extract shall be from Maud," where the season is indicated by the position of the signs as seen on a clear night above the downs :—

"For it fell on a time of year When the face of night is fair on the dewy downs,

And the shining daffodil dies, and the Charioteer

And starry Gemini hang like glorious crowns Over Orion's grave low down in the west."

This figure of the grave is reproduced in" In Memoriam," No. lxxxvii., where Venus is pictured as about to follow in the wake of Jupiter :

"And last, returning from afar,

Before the crimson-circled star
Had fallen into her father's grave."

In the same group of poems, and evidently composed very late in the collection, the poet finds in the changed name and changed position of one and the self-same star an analogy to his own condition :

"Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double name

For what is one, the first, the last, Thou, like my present and my past, Thy place is changed: thou art the same." These quotations are evidences of Mr. Tennyson's love of astronomy. They show him to be, as Virgil was, a student of the stars; and that like Virgil he can clothe with a vesture of true poetry what he has seen and noticed of their motions and changes in the heavens.

Another point of resemblance between the two poets will be found in their constant reference to and description of the sea. Both must have had good opportunities for watching it in all its moods. Both must have lived, we think, much of their life within hearing of its waves; and both-pace a late writer in

tion of it. Here is a passage from Georgic iii. 237, brought in as a simile to illustrate the rush and roar of a bull prepared for fight with his rival, "Fluctus uti," &c. The rendering of it by Dryden is very insufficient, and we prefer to give the accurate prose translation of Conington :-"Like a billow which begins to whiten, far away in the mid sea, and draws up from the main its bellying curve; like it too, when rolling to the shore, it roars terrific among the rocks and bursts, in bulk as huge as their parent cliff, while the water below boils up in foaming eddies, and discharges from its depths the murky sand."

Again, the rising of the sea under the winds which Æolus has let loose is finely described in Æneid i. 83 :

"The winds rush forth,

Then settling on the sea the surges sweep, Raise liquid mountains, and disclose the deep; South, east, and west, with mixed confusion

"So swelling surges with a thundering roar, Driven on each other's back insult the shore, Bound on the rocks, encroach upon the land, And far upon the beach eject the sand. Then backward with a swing they take their way,

Repulsed from upper ground, and seek their mother sea.

With equal hurry quit the invaded shore, And swallow back the sand and stones they

This by no means exhausts the references in Virgil to the sea. Many more passages will occur to the reader which show that he had watched it, and could describe it well, in storm and calm alike. But let us turn to Mr. Tennyson, and see if he has not equalled, or even surpassed the Roman poet, in the truth and beauty of his delineation of this element.

Here is the sea as Mr. Tennyson saw it when a boy on the flat, stormy coast of Lincolnshire :

"Locksley Hall that in the distance overlooks the sandy flats,

And the hollow ocean - ridge roaring into cataracts."

Here again is the same sea, introduced by way of simile in "The Last

Tournament :"

"As the crest of some slow arching wave,

Heard in dead night along that table shore Drops flat; and after the great waters break Whitening for half a league, and thin themselves,

Far over sands marbled with moon and cloud, From less and less to nothing."

In "Maud" we find quite another beach and sea,—

"The silent sapphire-spangled marriage ring of the land,"

And

Listening now to the tide in its broad-flung shipwrecking roar,

Now to the scream of a maddened beach dragged down by the waves."

Visitors at Freshwater and the Needles will verify the truth of this, as also of what follows from "Sea Dreams," the scene of which is laid by the author upon a coast all sand and cliff and deep in-running cave:—

"But while the two were sleeping a full tide Rose with ground-swell, which on the foremost rocks

Touching, upjetted in spirts of wild sea smoke,

And scaled in sheets of wasteful foam, and fell

In vast sea-cataracts."

Surely as a sea-picture this is perfect, and must be the envy of workers in the sister-art. Here are two other vigorous lines, and the last that we shall quote on

the gathered Britons round their queen :

"Roared, as when the rolling breakers boom and blanch on the precipices."

And this from "Enoch Arden :"

"The league-long roller thundering on the reef."

The above examples, we submit, show a similarity between Virgil and Tennyson in their treatment of the sea, in their careful drawing of its waves, and nice and true observation of its various moods.

Another point of resemblance we find in the battle pieces of the two poets, and in the love they both have of the pomp and circumstance of war. That Virgil has imitated Homer in this, and that Mr. Tennyson has profited by his imitation may be admitted. But there

is something more than only imitation in their manner of dealing with martial subjects. They write of them con amore, as men who had "drunk delight of battle," for whom war had a fascination, who by the force of poetic genius realize to themselves and convey to their readers all the incidents of a combat, the blare of bugle, the flash of armour, "the thunder of the captains and the shouting."

Out of a superabundance of instances let us take but the two following from Virgil. The first, the vigorous description of the encounter between Mezentius and Æneas, with which the Æneid x. concludes. Dryden is here very diffuse, and we prefer the rendering of Mr. Conington :

"He ceased, and at the word he wings
A javelin at the foe;

Then circling round in rapid rings
Another and another flings.

The good shield bides each blow.
Thrice, fiercely hurling spears on spears
From right to left he wheeled ;
Thrice, facing round as he careers,
The steely grove the Trojan bears
Thick planted in his shield.

"At length impatient of delay,
Wearied with plucking spears away,
Indignant at the unequal fray
His wary fence he leaves,
And issuing with resistless force,
The temples of the gallant horse

The good steed rears, and widely sprawls,
Distracted with the wound;
Then heavily on the rider falls,

And pins him to the ground."

And this from Æneid ix. 748, where Pandarus is slain by Turnus. The version is Dryden's :

"Then rising on his utmost stretch he stood And aim'd from high: the full descending

blow

Cleaves the broad front and beardless cheeks in two.

Down sinks the giant with a thund'ring sound,

His ponderous limbs oppress the trembling ground,

Scalp, face, and shoulders the keen steel divides,

And the shar'd visage hangs on equal sides."

Now compare with these the following passages from Mr. Tennyson, which show him, we think, worthy to be classed with Virgil as a describer of feats of arms. We quote from the "Princess :""The lists were ready-empanoplied and plumed,

We entered in, and waited; fifty there
To fifty, till the terrible trumpet blared
At the barrier-Yet a moment, and once more
The trumpet-and again-at which the storm
Of galloping hoofs bare on the ridge of spears,
And riders front to front, until they closed
In the middle, with the crash of shivering
points

And thunder. On his haunches rose the steed,

And into fiery splinters leapt the lance,
And out of stricken helmets sprang the fire.
Part sat like rocks: part reeled but kept
their seats:

Part roll'd on the earth, and rose again and drew:

Part stumbled mixt with floundering horses
-Down

From Arac's arm as from a giant's flail
The large blows rained.

And Cyril seeing it, push'd against the
Prince,

With Psyche's colours round his helmet, tough,

Strong, supple, sinew-corded, apt at arms; But tougher, suppler, stronger he that smote And threw him: last I spurred: I felt my veins

Stretch with fierce heat: a moment hand to hand,

And sword to sword, and horse to horse we hung,

Till I struck out and shouted; the blade glanced;

I did but shear a feather, and life and love Flow'd from me: darkness closed me, and

Many passages equally vigorous, descriptive of combat, might be found in the "Idylls of the King." We shall be content to adduce but two-this from "Elaine "-which will serve also to exhibit Mr. Tennyson's marvellous power as a sea painter:

"They couch'd their spears and prick'd their steeds and thus,

Their plumes driven backward by the wind
they made

In moving, all together down upon him
Bare, as a wild wave in the wide North sea,
Green-glimmering toward the summit, bears,
with all

Its stormy crests that smoke against the skies,
Down on a bark, and overbears the bark
And him that helms it, so they overbore
Sir Lancelot and his charger, and a spear
Prick'd sharply his own cuirass, and the head
Pierced thro' his side, and there snapt, and
remained."

And but these two lines from "Gareth and Lynette," in which Mr. Tennyson, has exactly reproduced, perhaps unconsciously, the fate of Pandarus :—

"And with one stroke Sir Gareth split the skull,

Half fell to right, and half to left, and lay." Turning from "wars and fightings," sallies and retires, and all the dire incidents of battle, in the description of which both poets have excelled, and looking to quite an opposite quarter for a further point of comparison and resemblance, we find in it the tenderness which marks alike the works of Virgil and Mr. Tennyson. The episode of Orpheus and Eurydice (Georgic iv. 453); the fate of Priam (Eneid ii. 506); the description of Dido love - wounded (Eneid iv. 69); the lament for young Marcellus (Eneid vi. 860). The story of Nisus and Euryalus, with that most touching outburst of the mother's anguish, when she hears the untimely end of her son (Æneid ix. 481):— "Hunc ego te, Euryale, aspicio? tune illa senectæ

Sera mea requies potuisti linquere solam, Crudelis?"

The death of Pallas, Silvia's wounded. stag seeking refuge in its stall, and

Is it thus I behold you, my Euryalus! could you, the last solace of my old age, could

like one that begs for pity, filling the house with its cries (Eneid vii. 502), these are passages which at once occur to exemplify this feeling in Virgil. The tenderness of Mr. Tennyson is conspicuous in all parts of his poems, and it will be enough to mention "The May Queen," "The Lord of Burleigh," "The Grandmother," "Elaine," and "Guinevere," the dedicatory verses prefixed to the "Idylls," "These to His Memory," and "In Memoriam," throughout, as eminently illustrative of this quality.

And as in tenderness, so are these poets alike, and may be compared for a certain melancholy, leading them to take a depressing view of human life, of its shortness and its vanity, and all the ills to which flesh is heir. Thus Virgil in Georgic iii. 66 :

"Optima quæque dies miseris mortalibus ævi Prima fugit, subeunt morbi tristisque senectus,

Et labor et duræ rapit inclementia mortis." "In youth alone unhappy mortals live. But oh! the mighty bliss is fugitive. Discoloured sickness, anxious labours come, And age, and death's inexorable doom."

And again, in the apostrophe of Mezentius to his war horse (Æneid x. 861):— "Rhoebe diu, res si qua diu mortalibus ulla est. Viximus."

"O Rhoebus! we have lived too long for me,

If life and long were terms that could agree." Compare with these sentiments the following from Mr. Tennyson's "Maud: " "We are puppets-Man in his pride, and beauty fair in her flower.

However we brave it out we men are a little breed."

And this from his "Lucretius:"

"Tired of so much within our little life, Or of so little in our little life.

Poor little life! that toddles half an hour, Crowned with a flower or two-and there an end."

And again from the same poem :

"Rather plunge at once,

Being troubled, wholly out of sight, and sink Past earthquake-ay, and gout, and stone, that break

Body toward death, and palsy, death-in

The resemblance here is more than accidental; it arises from essential congruity of sentiment in the two minds.

There is yet one other point of comparison we would draw, and that is between the philosophy of these two poets. Allowing for the difference which the age, education, and outward surroundings must be supposed to make in the matter, both Virgil and Mr. Tennyson have very similar sentiments about the summum bonum of their kind. They both are quietists-wooers of the passionless bride, divine tranquillity: placing happiness in a rural life, undisturbed by ambition, unfretted by care of human praise or human blame; masters of themselves, and not sworn to the words of any particular teacher. Here is Virgil's ideal from the Georgics, ii. 490:

His mind possessing in a quiet state, Fearless of fortune, and resigned to fate. And happy too is he who decks the bowers Of Silvans, and adores the rural powers; Whose mind unmoved the bribes of courts can see,

Their glittering baits, and purple slavery, Nor hopes the people's praise, nor fears their frown."

And here is the counterpart from Mr. Tennyson in "Maud:"_

"For not to desire or admire, if a man could learn it, were more

Than to walk all day like the Sultan of old in a garden of spice."

And from the same poem :

"Be mine a philosopher's life in the quiet

woodland ways,

Where if I cannot be gay, let a passionless peace be my lot.

like a Stoic, or like

A wiser Epicurean." And in "A Dedication," in very solemn tones he begs the "dear, near" object of the poem :

"Pray that he May trust himself; and spite of praise or scorn, As one who feels the immeasurable world, Attain the wise indifference of the wise."

But it is time to gather up our threads

to show that Virgil and Mr. Tennyson have much in common; that they are alike in their study of physical phenomena; in their love of astronomy; in their painting of the sea; in their description of combats; in their love of martial spectacles; in their tenderness and melancholy; in the view they take of human life; in their philosophy; in placing man's best happiness in tranquillity.

The comparison might be pushed much further; and in more competent hands made more complete. Nothing has here been said of skill in composition; of artistic beauty of phrase; of finished excellence of workmanship; of refinement of polish; nothing of marvellous melody of rhythm; of the use of onomatopœa; of the supreme fitness of epithets; of the splendour of words and elevation of style; nothing of the numerous feliciter dicta and dramatic touchespoints in which each of these great poets has shown himself a master: each has been without a rival in his own generation. But apart from these inviting topics of comparison, enough, we think, has been adduced to prove the thesis with which we started to carry us out in maintaining that there is a resemblance, and that neither slight nor superficial, between the two; a resemblance closer than that between Macedon and Monmouth, founded on common points of disposition and genius, and traceable all throughout their several writings.

Both, we may add, are learned poets, on a level with the knowledge of their time; and yet both are out-door poets, fond of gardens and of flowers, with a keen eye for all that walks or creeps, or perches, or flies. Both are kind to the dumb creation, and careful watchers of their habits. Both are alike in temperament, shy and reserved, shunning crowds and popular notice. Both have caught the ear of kings, and earned their lasting gratitude and favour. Even in outward appearance, if we may trust tradition, the two are alike: tall, darkcomplexioned, wide-shouldered, bearing