nd of faith
while conserving its highest and dearest hopes. Happily, too, unlike
many poets, his own character was lofty and blameless, and hence his
message comes with more consistency, as well as with a higher
inspiration and power. Nor is the message the less impressive for the
note of honest doubt which finds utterance in many a poem, or for the
intimation of a creed that is at once liberal and conservative. With the
evidences before the reader that the poet himself had had his own
soul-wrestlings and periods of mental conflict, his counsellings of
courage and faith are all the more effective, as they are in unison with
his belief in the upward progress of the race, and his unshaken trust in
a higher Power.

Lacking in intensity of passion and dramatic force, Tennyson here again
is but typical of his era, to him one of reposeful content and calm,
reasoning progress. Of permanent, lasting value much of his verse
undoubtedly is, but not all of it will escape the indifference of
posterity or the measuring-rod and censure, it may be, of the future
critic. He had not the stirring strains or the careless rapture of other
and earlier poets of the motherland,--his characteristic is more
contemplative and brooding,--yet his range is unusually comprehensive
and his power varied and sustained, as well as marked by the highest
qualities of rhythmic beauty. In the idyll, where he specially shines,
we have much that is lovely and limpid, with abounding instances of that
felicitous word-painting for which he was noted. This is especially seen
in the simple pastoral idylls, such as 'Dora,' 'The May Queen,' and 'The
Miller's Daughter,' or in those tender lyrics such as 'Mariana,' 'Sir
Galahad,' 'The Dying Swan,' and 'The Talking Oak.' In the ballads and
songs, how felicitous again is the poet's work, and how rich yet
mellifluous is the strain! Had Tennyson written nothing else but these,
with the verse included in the volumes issued by him in 1832 and 1842,
how high would he have been placed in the choir of song, and how supreme
should we have deemed his art! In "The Princess" alone there are songs
that would have made any poet's reputation, while for music and color,
and especially for perfection of poetic workmanship, they are almost
matchless in their beauty.

Fortunately, however, the poet was to give us much even beyond these
surpassingly beautiful things, and make a more unique and distinctive
contribution to the verse of hi