oem to
"In Memoriam"--in our eyes the noblest Christian poem which England
has produced for two centuries.

To explain our meaning, it will be necessary, perhaps, to go back to
Mr. Tennyson's earlier writings, of which he is said to be somewhat
ashamed now--a fastidiousness with which we will not quarrel; for it
should be the rule of the poet, forgetting those things which are
behind, to press on to those things which are before, and "to count
not himself to have apprehended but--" no, we will not finish the
quotation; let the readers of "In Memoriam" finish it for themselves,
and see how, after all, the poet, if he would reach perfection, must
be found by Him who found St. Paul of old. In the meantime, as a
true poet must necessarily be in advance of his age, Mr. Tennyson's
earlier poems, rather than these latter ones, coincide with the
tastes and speculations of the young men of this day. And in
proportion, we believe, as they thoroughly appreciate the distinctive
peculiarities of those poems, will they be able to follow the author
of them on his upward path.

Some of our readers, we would fain hope, remember as an era in their
lives the first day on which they read those earlier poems; how,
fifteen years ago, Mariana in the Moated Grange, "The Dying Swan,"
"The Lady of Shalott," came to them as revelations. They seemed to
themselves to have found at last a poet who promised not only to
combine the cunning melody of Moore, the rich fulness of Keats, and
the simplicity of Wordsworth, but one who was introducing a method of
observing nature different from that of all the three and yet
succeeding in everything which they had attempted, often in vain.
Both Keats and Moore had an eye for the beauty which lay in trivial
and daily objects. But in both of them, there was a want of deep
religious reverence, which kept Moore playing gracefully upon the
surface of phenomena without ever daring to dive into their laws or
inner meaning; and made poor Keats fancy that he was rather to render
nature poetical by bespangling her with florid ornament, than simply
to confess that she was already, by the grace of God, far beyond the
need of his paint and gilding. Even Wordsworth himself had not full
faith in the great dicta which he laid down in his famous
Introductory Essay. Deep as was his conviction that nature bore upon
her simplest forms the finger-mark of God, he did not always dare
simply to describe her as she was, and l