"of Greek in one hand, his meerschaum in the other, 66 so far advanced towards the seventh heaven that he "would not thank you to call him back into this nether "world." Towards the middle of the century we find him a frequent visitor at the chambers of John Forster, to whom he entrusts the Farewell Sonnet to Macready, to read it at the dinner given to the latter on his retirement from the stage, March 1, 1851.1 He seems also to have been now and then a visitor at the house of Landor, who on one occasion sent him the following playful invitation: "I entreat you, Alfred Tennyson, Come and share my haunch of venison. I have too a bin of claret Good, but better when you share it. Tho' 'tis only a small bin, There's a stock of it within, And as sure as I'm a rhymer, Half a butt of Rudesheimer. 1" Mr. John Forster said he had been entrusted with a few lines of poetry by his friend the Poet Laureate, Alfred Tennyson, addressed to their distinguished guest, and it was left to his discretion whether he should read them in public tonight or not. He thought he ought, and was sure he should have permission to do so."-People's and Howitt's Journal, April, 1851, p. 150, Come; among the sons of men is one The following is from the Diary of Henry Crabb Robinson: 2 "31st January, 1845. I dined this day with "Rogers. We had an interesting party of eight. "Moxon, the publisher; Kenny, the dramatic poet; 66 66 66 Spedding, Lushington, and Alfred Tennyson, three young men of eminent talent belonging to literary Young England-the latter, Tennyson, being by "far the most eminent of the young poets. He is an "admirer of Goethe, and I had a long tête-à-tête with "him about the great poet. We waited for the 66 3 eighth-a lady 3-who, Rogers said, was coming on "purpose to see Tennyson." "The Last Fruit off an Old Tree," by Walter Savage Landor (London: Edward Moxon, 1853), p. 368. 2 Vol. iii. pp. 200, 201. 3 This proved to be the Hon. Mrs. Norton. CHAPTER VI. THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY. To what period we are to assign the composition of this work is uncertain; it did not, at any rate, appear until 1847, when the two volumes of minor poems had passed through four editions. Through five successive editions did the Poet alter, enlarge, and retouch this work. The original sketch differs as much from the present text as does the first rough draught of "Hamlet" from the "Hamlet" " en larged to almost as much again as it was.' The intercalary songs, six in number,' with the passage begin 1 The fifth song, "Home they brought her warrior dead," of which another version is given in the volume of Selections, is a translation from the Anglo-Saxon fragment "Gudrun,” which may be found in Conybeare's "Anglo-Saxon Poetry." The difference between the ancient and the modern ballad affords a fine illustration of the poet's wonderful sensitiveness of touch.-Communicated by a Correspondent. ning "So Lilia sang," were added in the third edition (1850), in which, besides a hundred more or less important additions, alterations, and omissions in the body of the poem, the Prologue and Conclusion were entirely rewritten. All the passages relating to the Prince's "weird seizures" were added in the fourth edition (1851), and the fifteen lines which now stand in the Prologue (p. 3) from to 666 "O miracle of woman,' said the book," "So sang the gallant glorious chronicle," were added in 1853, in the fifth edition. The following passage, in which the Prince describes his flight from his father's court, has been very curiously altered and re-altered. We give the read ings of three different editions. 1847-1848. "Down from the bastion'd walls we dropt by night, And flying reach'd the frontier." 1850. "Down from the bastion'd wall, suspense by night, Like threaded spiders from a balk, we dropt, And flying reach'd the frontier." 1851. "from the bastion'd walls Like threaded spiders, one by one, we dropt, And flying reach'd the frontier." Here is another instance, from the description of Gama, the father of the Princess, in which the edition of 1850 has a reading peculiar to itself: 1850. "His name was Gama; crack'd and small his voice, But bland the smile that pucker'd up his cheeks." 1851. "But bland the smile that like a wrinkling wind On glassy water drove his cheek in lines." The first and second editions contained many very beautiful and forcible lines, which for various reasons the Poet has since omitted. The italicized lines in the following passage, as it originally stood, afford an instance of this: "More soluble is this knot, Like almost all the rest if men were wise, |