explanations and remarks, critical and analytical, as appeared to me to throw light on the general conception of the Poem, and to assist the reader in arriving at a just estimate of the individual characters, and of their consistency with the main theme. I have borrowed largely from commentators, so largely, indeed, that the sin of literary piracy would lie heavy on my conscience did 1 not take this opportunity of freely acknowledging the help which I have derived from Mr. Dawson's excellent "Study" of the Poem. So many passages are borrowed in their entirety, that I have made no attempt, for the most part, to distinguish between the matter which is borrowed and the matter which is original. I accept the responsibility, however, for all the views expressed in these pages. If dishonesty is imputed to me on this score, I answer with Punch that it is cheaper to steal brooms ready made than to make them; and the value of "this here obserwation," like those of Captain Bunsby, "lies in the application of it." I merely claim to have collected the material of this "Sketch," and to have patched it together in a form which is, I believe, helpful in so far as it suggests the true meaning of the Poem, and-with regret I say it-almost necessary to stir in the reader something more than a vague sense of its beauty. R. G. G. EASTER, 1885. THE PRINCESS: A Sketch. PROLOGUE. THE eyes of Criticism have been directed towards this poem for nearly forty years, and, as will be presently shown, the lash has not been spared. Published in 1847, at the age when the writer usually produces his best work-equally removed from the exuberance of youth and the chill of age-the utmost effort has been expended upon it, and as it is now presented to us, its literary excellences, the accumulated wealth of five editions touched and retouched with exquisite care and delicacy of handling, stand out unsurpassed in perfect finish and elegance by anything in modern literature. In this respect Tennyson's "Princess" is to his other works what the "Elegy" is to Gray's; and yet in the universal admiration which for years his work has excited, seldom do we meet with appreciation of this his longest continuous poem. The point upon which critics have seen fit to attack it, B is its so-called incongruity of plan; and whereas in the case of his "Maud" the disappointment with which it was received has passed away, "The Princess" continues to be strangely disparaged, as though there, in the prime of his power, the master's skill had failed. Before proceeding to the plot and the subjectmatter of the poem, it will be of interest to take a cursory glance at the adverse criticisms with which "The Princess" was received when first presented to the world. The following is from the Edinburgh Review, written in 1855, when the poem had received its last touches :— "The subject of 'The Princess,' so far from being great in a poetical point of view, is partly even of transitory interest. This piece, though full of meanings of abiding value, is ostensibly a brilliant serio-comic jeu d'esprit upon the noise about women's rights which even now ceases to make itself heard anywhere but in the refuge of exploded European absurdities beyond the Atlantic. A carefully-elaborated construction, a 'wholeness' arising out of distinct and wellcontrasted parts which is another condition of a great poem, would have been worse than thrown away on such a subject. In reading the poem the mind is palled and wearied with wasted splendour and beauty." It seems difficult to get further astray than this, but Chamber's "Cyclopædia of English Literature" (1880) attempts it thus: "The mixture of modern ideas and manners with those of |