they responsible for the opinions expressed, or for the critical
estimates. They are those of a Tennysonian, and, no doubt, would be
other than they are if the writer were younger than he is. It does
not follow that they would necessarily be more correct, though
probably they would be more in vogue. The point of view must shift
with each generation of readers, as ideas or beliefs go in or out of
fashion, are accepted, rejected, or rehabilitated. To one age
Tennyson may seem weakly superstitious; to another needlessly
sceptical. After all, what he must live by is, not his opinions, but
his poetry. The poetry of Milton survives his ideas; whatever may be
the fate of the ideas of Tennyson his poetry must endure.



CHAPTER I--BOYHOOD--CAMBRIDGE--EARLY POEMS.



The life and work of Tennyson present something like the normal type
of what, in circumstances as fortunate as mortals may expect, the
life and work of a modern poet ought to be. A modern poet, one says,
because even poetry is now affected by the division of labour. We do
not look to the poet for a large share in the practical activities of
existence: we do not expect him, like AEschylus and Sophocles,
Theognis and Alcaeus, to take a conspicuous part in politics and war;
or even, as in the Age of Anne, to shine among wits and in society.
Life has become, perhaps, too specialised for such multifarious
activities. Indeed, even in ancient days, as a Celtic proverb and as
the picture of life in the Homeric epics prove, the poet was already
a man apart--not foremost among statesmen and rather backward among