one central point, the recollection of the dead.  This work he prosecutes, not in vain effeminate complaint, but in a manly recognition of the fruit and profit even of baffled love, in noble suggestions of the future, in heart-soothing and heart-chastening thoughts of what the dead was and of what he is, and of what one who has been, and therefore still is, in near contact with him is bound to be.  The whole movement of the poem is between the mourner and the mourned:  it may be called one long soliloquy; but it has this mark of greatness, that, though the singer is himself a large part of the subject, it never degenerates into egotism—­ for he speaks typically on behalf of humanity at large, and in his own name, like Dante on his mystic journey, teaches deep lessons of life and conscience to us all.

* * * * *

By the time “In Memoriam” had sunk into the public mind, Mr. Tennyson had taken his rank as our first then living poet.  Over the fresh hearts and understandings of the young, notwithstanding his obscurities, his metaphysics, his contempt of gewgaws, he had established an extraordinary sway.  We ourselves, with some thousands of other spectators, saw him receive in that noble structure of Wren, the theatre of Oxford, the decoration of D.C.L., which we perceive he always wears on his title-page.  Among his colleagues in the honour were Sir De Lacy Evans and Sir John Burgoyne, fresh from the stirring exploits of the Crimea; but even patriotism, at the fever heat of war, could not command a more fervent enthusiasm for the old and gallant warriors than was evoked by the presence of Mr. Tennyson.

In the year 1855 Mr. Tennyson proceeded to publish his “Maud,” the least popular, and probably the least worthy of popularity, among his more considerable works.  A somewhat heavy dreaminess, and a great deal of obscurity, hang about this poem; and the effort required to dispel the darkness of the general scheme is not repaid when we discover what it hides.  The main thread of “Maud” seems to be this:—­A love once accepted, then disappointed, leads to blood-shedding, and onward to madness with lucid alternations.  The insanity expresses itself in the ravings of the homicide lover, who even imagines himself among the dead, in a clamour and confusion closely resembling an ill-regulated Bedlam, but which, if the description be a faithful one, would for ever deprive the grave of its title to the epithet of silent.  It may be good frenzy, but we doubt its being as good poetry.  Of all this there may, we admit, be an esoteric view:  but we speak of the work as it offers itself to the common eye.  Both Maud and the lover are too nebulous by far; and they remind us of the boneless and pulpy personages by whom, as Dr. Whewell assures us, the planet Jupiter is inhabited, if inhabited at all.  But the most doubtful part of the poem is its climax.  A vision of the beloved image (p. 97) “spoke of a hope for the world in the coming wars,” righteous wars, of course, and the madman begins to receive light and comfort; but, strangely enough, it seems to be the wars, and not the image, in which the source of consolation lies (p. 98).