her and of the rival who aspires to her hand. And in the
later cantos where, after the fatal quarrel, the hero is driven to moody
thoughts and dark presages of woe, there are passages which seem to be
charged with the doctrine that England was being corrupted by long peace
and needed the purifying discipline of war. For this the poet was taken
to task by his critics; and, though it is unfair in dramatic work to
attribute to an author the words of his characters, Tennyson found it
difficult to clear himself of suspicion, the more so that the Crimean
War inspired at this time some of his most popular martial ballads and
songs.

_The Idylls of the King_ had a different fate and achieved instant
popularity. The first four were published in 1859 and within a few
months 10,000 copies were sold. Tennyson's original design, formed early
in life, had been to build a single epic on the Arthurian theme, which
seemed to him to give scope, like Virgil's _Aeneid_, for patriotic
treatment. 'The greatest of all poetical subjects' he called it, and it
haunted his mind perpetually. But if Virgil found such a task difficult
nineteen hundred years before, it was doubly difficult for Tennyson to
satisfy his generation, with scientific historians raking the ash heaps
of the past, and pedants demanding local colour. In shaping his poem to
meet the requirements of history he was in danger of losing that breadth
of treatment which is essential for epic poetry. He fell back on the
device of selecting episodes, each a complete picture in itself, and
grouping them round a single hero. The story is placed in the twilight
between the Roman withdrawal and the conquests of the Saxons, when the
lamp of history was glimmering most faintly. In these troublous times a
king is miraculously sent to be a bulwark to the people against the
inroads of their foes. He founds an order of Knighthood bound by vows to
fight for all just and noble causes, and upholds for a time victoriously
the standard of chivalry within his realm, till through the entrance of
sin and treachery the spell is broken and the heathen overrun the land.
After his last battle, in the far west of our island, the king passes
away to the supernatural world from which he came. This last episode had
been handled many years before, and the 'Morte d'Arthur', which had
appeared in the volume of 1842, was incorporated into the 'Passing of
Arthur' to close the series of Idylls.

With what admixture