he interest which
Tennyson, despite his seclusion, felt in social questions of the day.
From this point of view it may be linked with _Locksley Hall_ and
_Maud_; but in _The Princess_ the treatment is half humorous and the
setting is more artificial. Tennyson's lyrical power is seen at its best
in the magical songs which occur in the course of the story or
interposed between the different scenes. They have deservedly won a
place in all anthologies. His facility in the handling of blank verse is
also remarkable. Lovers of Milton may regret the massive grandeur of an
earlier style; but, as in every art, so in poetry, we pay for advance in
technical accomplishment, in suppleness and melodious phrasing, by the
loss of other qualities which are difficult to recapture.

Meanwhile _In Memoriam_ was approaching completion; and this the most
central and characteristic of his poems illustrates, more truly than a
narrative of outward events, the phases through which Tennyson had been
passing. Desultory though the method of its production be, and loose
'the texture of its fabric', there is a certain sequence of thought
running through the cantos. We see how from the first poignancy of
grief, when he can only brood passively over his friend's death, he was
led to questioning the basis of his faith, shaken as it was by the
claims of physical science--how from those doubts of his own, he was led
to think of the universal trouble of the world--how at length by
throwing himself into the hopes and aspiration of humanity he attained
to victory and was able to put away his personal grief, believing that
his friend's soul was still working with him in the universe for the
good of all. At intervals, during the three years mirrored in the poem,
we get definite notes of time. We see how the poet is affected each year
as the winter and the spring come round, and how the succeeding
anniversaries of Hallam's death stir the old pain in varying degree. But
we must not suppose that each section was composed at the time
represented in this scheme. Seventeen years went to the perfecting of
the work; it is impossible to tell when each canto was first outlined
and how often it was re-written; and we must be content with general
notions of its development. The poet's memory was fully charged. As he
could recall so vividly the Lincolnshire landscape when he was living in
the south, so he could portray the emotions of the past though he had
entered on a ne