a heartier welcome at Farringford than Garibaldi, who was at
once peasant and sailor, and who remained so none the less when he had
become a hero of European fame. To Englishmen of nearly every cultured
profession Tennyson's hospitality was freely extended--we need only
instance Professor Tyndall, Dean Bradley, James Anthony Froude, Aubrey
de Vere, G. F. Watts, Henry Irving, Hubert Parry, Lord Dufferin, and
that most constant of friends, Benjamin Jowett, pre-eminent among the
Oxford celebrities of the day. Among his immediate neighbours he
conceived a peculiar affection for Sir John Simeon, whose death in 1870
called forth the stanzas 'In the Garden at Swainston'; and no one was
more at home at Farringford than Julia Cameron, famous among early
photographers, who has left us some of the best likenesses of the poet
in middle and later life.

Tennyson was not familiar with foreign countries to the same degree as
Browning, nor was he ever a great traveller. When he went abroad he
needed the help of some loyal friend, like Francis Palgrave or Frederick
Locker, to safeguard him against pitfalls, and to shield him from
annoyance. When he was too old to stand the fatigue of railway
journeys, he was willing to be taken for a cruise on a friend's yacht;
and thus he visited many parts of Scotland and the harbours of
Scandinavia. Amid new surroundings he was not always easy to please; bad
food or smelly streets would call forth loud protests and upset him for
a day; but his friends found it worth their while to risk some anxiety
in order to enjoy his keen observation and the originality of his talk.
Wherever he went he took with him his stored wisdom on Homer, Dante, and
the 'Di maiores' of literature; and when Gladstone, too, happened to be
one of the party on board ship, the talk must have been well worth
hearing. As in his youth, so now, Tennyson's mind moved most naturally
on a lofty plane and he was most at home with the great poets of the
past; and with the exception of a few poems like 'All along the valley',
where the torrents at Cauteretz reminded him of an early visit with
Hallam to the Pyrenees, we can trace little evidence in his poetry of
the journeys which he made. But we can see from his letters that he was
kindled by the beauty of Italian cities and their treasures. In every
picture-gallery which he visited he showed his preference for Titian and
the rich colour of the Venetian painters. He refused to be bound by th