was given in "Fraser's Magazine" for June, 1862, and it has lately been included by the Poet in the collected editions of his Works. On July 14, 1862, there appeared in the "Times" a Greek translation of this Ode, signed W. G. C. [the late William George Clark ?], and on July 18, a translation into Latin verse, signed W.

The "Welcome to Alexandra" appeared separately on the 10th March, 1863, under the title of "A Welcome. By Alfred Tennyson, D.C.L., Poet Laureate," pp. 4.' It has since been considerably retouched and some new lines have been added.

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"To the Editor of the Times.

"Sir,-There are two errors in my Ode as it appears in your columns of the 24th.

"In the second line invention' should be read, not 'in"ventions; and, further on, 'Art divine,' not 'Part divine.' "Be kind enough to insert this letter.

"A. TENNYSON.

"As for the Laureate's verses, I would respectfully liken "his Highness to a giant showing a beacon torch on a 'windy "headland.' His flaring torch is a pine-tree, to be sure, "which nobody can wield but himself. He waves it: and "four times in the midnight he shouts mightily' Alexandra !' "and the Pontic pine is whirled into the ocean, and Ence"ladus goes home."-W. M. THACKERAY (On Alexandrines, "Cornhill Magazine," April, 1863).

Epitaph on the late Duchess of Kent." The following lines were inscribed on Mr Theed's Statue of the late Duchess of Kent, at Frogmore, and are printed in the "Court Journal," March 19, 1864:

"Her children rise up and call her blessed." "Long as the heart beats life within her breast Thy child will bless thee, guardian mother mild, And far away thy memory will be blest

By children of the children of thy child."1

Mr. Tennyson's latest Laureate utterances are the magnificent peroration to the complete "Idylls of the King," addressed to the Queen, and containing among other things a touching and solemn allusion to the then recent recovery of the Prince of Wales from his dangerous and almost hopeless illness, and some lines. of welcome to Marie Alexandrovna, the bride of the Duke of Edinburgh.

Though living in retirement, Tennyson watches the events of his time with a vivid interest. He has always been ready to lend his voice and his aid to any

1

Compare the
poem "To the Queen" (1851):
"May children of her children say
She wrought her people lasting good."

noble cause.

Though as a rule he has abstained from using his great influence to direct the course of public affairs, he has not hesitated once and again to break silence, and announce his opinion with no uncertain sound when occasion seemed to demand it. He has been a hearty and consistent supporter of free-trade and of religious freedom. When Messrs. Parker and Son addressed their "Bookselling Question" in 1852 to all the principal authors of the day, Alfred Tennyson replied: "I am for free-trade in the bookselling

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question, as in other things." He was a subscriber, together with Mr. Carlyle and Mr. Ruskin, to the Eyre Defence Fund, to the secretary of which he wrote as follows:

"I sent my small subscription as a tribute to the "nobleness of the man, and as a protest against the

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spirit in which a servant of the State, who has saved

"to us one of the islands of the Empire, and many

English lives, seems to be hunted down. . . . In

"the meantime, the outbreak of our Indian mutiny

"The Opinions of Certain Authors on the Bookselling Question" (London: John W. Parker and Son, 1852), p. 61.

"remains as a warning to all but madmen against "want of vigour and swift decisiveness."

No words could more fittingly close a chapter devoted to the consideration of Alfred Tennyson as a Patriotic Poet.

1 "Life of Edward John Eyre, late Governor of Jamaica," by Hamilton Hume (London, 1867), p. 291.

CHAPTER VIII.

MAUD AND OTHER POEMS, 1855.1

A PORTION of the poem of " Maud" having appeared, as we have already seen, in a Miscellany, as far back as 1837, it seems highly probable that the original draught of the work is of much earlier date than its first publication. In that case the passages relating to the Crimean War must have been an afterthought made to fit into the poem, perhaps hardly to its advantage. However that may be, "Maud" excited no small amount of animadversion on its appearance; the critics joined in a chorus of dispraise,2 and one

1 The first edition contains only 154 pages, of which one hundred are occupied by " Maud."

2 See especially "Blackwood's Magazine," Sept. 1855; "National Review," Oct. 1855; “Ed. Rev.” Oct. 1855.