8.  There is another contrast between these poets.  It is quite clear that Tennyson was a distinctively English poet and a patriotic poet; at times too much of a patriot to judge tolerantly, or to write fairly, about other countries.  He had, at least, a touch of national contempts, even of national hatreds.  His position towards France was much that of the British sailor of Nelson’s time.  His position towards Ireland was that of the bishop, who has been a schoolmaster, to the naughty curate who has a will of his own.  His position towards Scotland was that of one who was aware that it had a geographical existence, and that a regiment in the English army which had a genius for fighting was drawn from its Highlands.  He condescends to write a poem at Edinburgh, but then Edinburgh was of English origin and name.  Even with that help he cannot be patient of the place.  The poem is a recollection of an Italian journey, and he forgets in memories of the South—­though surely Edinburgh might have awakened some romantic associations—­

                the clouded Forth,
    The gloom which saddens Heaven and Earth,
      The bitter East, the misty summer
    And gray metropolis of the North.

Edinburgh is English in origin, but Tennyson did not feel England beyond the Border.  There the Celt intruded, and he looked askance upon the Celt.  The Celtic spirit smiled, and took its vengeance on him in its own way.  It imposed on him, as his chief subject, a Celtic tale and a Celtic hero; and though he did his best to de-celticise the story, the vengeance lasts, for the more he did this the more he injured his work.  However, being always a noble artist, he made a good fight for his insularity, and the expression of it harmonised with the pride of England in herself, alike with that which is just and noble in it, and with that which is neither the one nor the other.

Then, too, his scenery (with some exceptions, and those invented) was of his own land, and chiefly of the places where he lived.  It was quite excellent, but it was limited.  But, within the limit of England, it was steeped in the love of England; and so sweet and full is this love, and so lovely are its results in song, that every Englishman has, for this reason if for no other, a deep and just affection for Tennyson.  Nevertheless, in that point also his poetry was insular.  A fault in the poet, not in the poetry.  Perhaps, from this passionate concentration, the poetry was all the lovelier.

Again, when Tennyson took a great gest of war as his subject, he took it exclusively from the history of his own land.  No one would know from his writings that high deeds of sacrifice in battle had been done by other nations.  He knew of them, but he did not care to write about them.  Nor can we trace in his work any care for national struggles or national life beyond this island—­except in a few sonnets and short pieces concerning Poland and Montenegro—­an isolation of interests which cannot be imputed to any other great poet of the first part of the nineteenth century, excepting Keats, who had no British or foreign interests.  Keats had no country save the country of Beauty.