FitzGerald remained loyal, but it was to "a fairy Prince who came
from other skies than these rainy ones," and "the wretched critics,"
as G. H. Lewes called them, seem to have been unfriendly. In fact
(besides the innate wretchedness of all critics), they grudged the
time and labour given to the drama, in an undramatic age. Harold had
not what FitzGerald called "the old champagne flavour" of the vintage
of 1842.

Becket was begun in 1876, printed in 1879, and published in 1884.
Before that date, in 1880, Tennyson produced one of the volumes of
poetry which was more welcome than a play to most of his admirers.
The intervening years passed in the Isle of Wight, at Aldworth, in
town, and in summer tours, were of no marked biographical interest.
The poet was close on three score and ten--he reached that limit in
1879. The days darkened around him, as darken they must: in the
spring of 1879 he lost his favourite brother, himself a poet of
original genius, Charles Tennyson Turner. In May of the same year he
published The Lover's Tale, which has been treated here among his
earliest works. His hours, and (to some extent) his meals, were
regulated by Sir Andrew Clark. He planted trees, walked, read,
loitered in his garden, and kept up his old friendships, while he
made that of the great Gordon. Compliments passed between him and
Victor Hugo, who had entertained Lionel Tennyson in Paris, and wrote:
"Je lis avec emotion vos vers superbes; c'est un reflet de gloire que
vous m'envoyez." Mr Matthew Arnold's compliment was very like Mr
Arnold's humour: "Your father has been our most popular poet for
over forty years, and I am of opinion that he fully deserves his
reputation": such was "Mat's sublime waggery." Tennyson heaped
coals of fire on the other poet, bidding him, as he liked to be