to
the intellectual problems and spiritual aspirations of his era. Nor does
the Memoir, as a revelation of the poet's intellectual and personal
life, fall away, on any page of it, from the high plane on which it has
been prepared and written. There is no undue invasion, which a son's
pride might be apt to make, of domestic privacy, and no dealing with
irrelevant topics or elaboration of those set forth with becoming
modesty and restraint; far less is there the discussion of any subject,
for a trivial or vain purpose. Throughout the work we meet with no
unnecessary lifting of veils or treatment of themes merely to satisfy
morbid curiosity. Everywhere there is the evidence of sound judgment,
unimpeachable taste, and a wholesome sanity. This is especially the case
in the frank revelation of the poet's views on religion and his attitude
towards scientific and theological thought, to which we have ourselves
referred. In this respect, a large debt is due to the biographer for
setting before the reader, not only the high ethical purpose which
Tennyson had in view in selecting the themes of his poems and in the
mode of handling them, but, as we have said, in showing us what beyond
peradventure were his religious opinions, and, despite a certain
curtaining of gloom, how profoundly he was influenced by faith in the
Divine life. Nor is the least interest in the Memoir to be found in the
light the biographer throws on the poet's writings as a whole--how they
were conceived and elaborated, and on the often hidden meaning that
underlies some of the most thoughtful verse. This, to students of the
Laureate's writings, is of high value, in addition to the service
rendered by the biographer in tracing in his father's poetic work the
influences which fashioned it and the pains he took to give it its
marvellous beauty and artistic finish of expression.

It is this instructive as well as skilled and dignified treatment, with
the vast literary and deep personal interest in the life, that will
commend the Memoir to all who are proud of the Laureate's fame, and
wished to have nothing written that was unworthy of either the poet or
the man, or that would in the least detract from his laurels. Nor does
the restraint which the biographer imposes upon himself conceal from us
the man in his human aspects, or lead him to set before the reader an
imaginary, rather than a veritable and real, portraiture. We have a
picture, it is true, of an almost id