bidden, to write more poetry, not "prose things." Tennyson lived
much in the society of Browning and George Eliot, and made the
acquaintance of Renan. In December 1879 Mr and Mrs Kendal produced
The Falcon, which ran for sixty-seven nights; it is "an exquisite
little poem in action," as Fanny Kemble said. During a Continental
tour Tennyson visited Catullus's Sirmio: "here he made his Frater
Ave atque Vale," and the poet composed his beautiful salutation to
the


"Tenderest of Roman poets nineteen hundred years ago."


In 1880 Ballads and other Poems proved that, like Titian, the great
poet was not to be defeated by the years. The First Quarrel was in
his most popular English style. Rizpah deserved and received the
splendid panegyric of Mr Swinburne. The Revenge is probably the
finest of the patriotic pieces, and keeps green the memory of an
exploit the most marvellous in the annals of English seamen. The
Village Wife is a pendant worthy of The Northern Farmer. The poem In
the Children's Hospital caused some irritation at the moment, but
there was only one opinion as to the Defence of Lucknow and the
beautiful re-telling of the Celtic Voyage of Maeldune. The fragment
of Homeric translation was equally fortunate in choice of subject and
in rendering.

In the end of 1880 the poet finished The Cup, which had been worked
on occasionally since he completed The Falcon in 1880. The piece was
read by the author to Sir Henry Irving and his company, and it was
found that the manuscript copy needed few alterations to fit it for