of his own works."

Two years later, that is, in 1832 (the volume, however,
is antedated 1833), appeared `Poems by Alfred Tennyson', pp. 163.
In it were contained `The Lady of Shalott', and the untitled poems,
known by their first lines, `You ask me why, tho' ill at ease',
`Of old sat Freedom on the Heights', and `Love thou thy Land,
with Love far brought'.

In `The Lady of Shalott' is mystically shadowed forth the relation
which poetic genius should sustain to the world for whose
spiritual redemption it labors, and the fatal consequences
of its being seduced by the world's temptations, the lust of the flesh,
and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

The other poems, `You ask me why', `Of old sat Freedom',
and `Love thou thy land', are important as exponents of what
may be called the poet's institutional creed. A careful study
of his subsequent poetry will show that in these early poems
he accurately and distinctly revealed the attitude toward
outside things which he has since maintained. He is a good deal
of an institutional poet, and, as compared with Browning,
a STRONGLY institutional poet. Browning's supreme and
all-absorbing interest is in individual souls. He cares but little,
evidently, about institutions. At any rate, he gives them little
or no place in his poetry. Tennyson is a very decided
reactionary product of the revolutionary spirit which inspired
some of his poetical predecessors of the previous generation.
He has a horror of the revolutionary. To him, the French Revolution
was "the blind hysterics of the Celt", [`In Memoriam', cix.],