The most famous review of In Memoriam is that which declared that
"these touching lines evidently come from the full heart of the widow
of a military man." This is only equalled, if equalled, by a recent
critique which treated a fresh edition of Jane Eyre as a new novel,
"not without power, in parts, and showing some knowledge of Yorkshire
local colour."



CHAPTER VI.--AFTER IN MEMORIAM.



On June 13 Tennyson married, at Shiplake, the object of his old,
long-tried, and constant affection. The marriage was still
"imprudent,"--eight years of then uncontested supremacy in English
poetry had not brought a golden harvest. Mr Moxon appears to have
supplied 300 pounds "in advance of royalties." The sum, so
contemptible in the eyes of first-rate modern novelists, was a
competence to Tennyson, added to his little pension and the epaves of
his patrimony. "The peace of God came into my life when I married
her," he said in later days. The poet made a charming copy of verses
to his friend, the Rev. Mr Rawnsley, who tied the knot, as he and his
bride drove to the beautiful village of Pangbourne. Thence they went
to the stately Clevedon Court, the seat of Sir Abraham Elton, hard by
the church where Arthur Hallam sleeps. The place is very ancient and
beautiful, and was a favourite haunt of Thackeray. They passed on to
Lynton, and to Glastonbury, where a collateral ancestor of Mrs
Tennyson's is buried beside King Arthur's grave, in that green valley
of Avilion, among the apple-blossoms. They settled for a while at