TENNYSON (About 1871)
(Reproduced by permission of Mr. J. Caswall Smith)
By virtue of this golden mean Tennyson remained at an equal distance from revolution and reaction in his ideas, and equally remote from extravagance and insipidity in his work. He is essentially a man of the new time; he begins his career steeped in the influence of Shelley and Keats, without whom he would never have attained the height he did—a height nevertheless, in our opinion, appreciably below theirs, if he is regarded simply as a poet. But he is a poet and much else; he is the interpreter of the Victorian era—firstly to itself, secondly to the ages to come. Had even any poet of greater genius than himself arisen in his own day, which did not happen, he would still have remained the national poet of the time in virtue of his universality. Some personal friends splendide mendaces have hailed him as our greatest poet since Shakespeare. This is absurd; but it is true that no other poet since Shakespeare has produced a body of
From a drawing by George W. Rhead
MERLIN AND VIVIEN
(Reproduced from the Illustrated Edition of “Idylls of the King,” by kind permission of Messrs. Macmillan & Co., Ltd.)