have been Carlyle who converted Lockhart to admiration of his old
victim. Carlyle had very little more appreciation of Keats than had
Byron, or (in early days) Lockhart, and it was probably as much the
man of heroic physical mould, "a life-guardsman spoilt by making
poetry," and the unaffected companion over a pipe, as the poet, that
attracted him in Tennyson. As we saw, when the two triumphant
volumes of 1842 did appear, Lockhart asked Sterling to review
whatever book he pleased (meaning the Poems) in the Quarterly. The
praise of Sterling may seem lukewarm to us, especially when compared
with that of Spedding in the Edinburgh. But Sterling, and Lockhart
too, were obliged to "gang warily." Lockhart had, to his constant
annoyance, "a partner, Mr Croker," and I have heard from the late
Dean Boyle that Mr Croker was much annoyed by even the mild applause
yielded in the Quarterly to the author of the Morte d'Arthur.

While preparing the volumes of 1842 at Boxley, Tennyson's life was
divided between London and the society of his brother-in-law, Mr
Edmund Lushington, the great Greek scholar and Professor of Greek at
Glasgow University. There was in Mr Lushington's personal aspect,
and noble simplicity of manner and character, something that strongly
resembled Tennyson himself. Among their common friends were Lord
Houghton (Monckton Milnes), Mr Lear of the Book of Nonsense ("with
such a pencil, such a pen"), Mr Venables (who at school modified the
profile of Thackeray), and Lord Kelvin. In town Tennyson met his
friends at The Cock, which he rendered classic; among them were
Thackeray, Forster, Maclise, and Dickens. The times were stirring:
social agitation, and "Carol philosophy" in Dickens, with growls from
Carlyle, marked the period. There was also a kind of optimism in the
air, a prophetic optimism, not yet fulfilled.