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conventional English taste for Alpine scenery, and broke out into abuse
of the discoloured water in the Grindelwald glacier--'a filthy thing,
and looking as if a thousand London seasons had passed over it'. In all
places, among all people, he said what he thought and felt, with
independence and conviction.

One incident connecting him with Italy is worthy of mention as showing
that the poet, who 'from out the northern island' came at times to visit
them, was known and esteemed by the people of Italy. When the Mantuans
celebrated in 1885 the nineteenth centenary of the death of Virgil, the
classic poet to whom Tennyson owed most, they asked him to write an
ode, and nobly he rose to the occasion, attaining a felicity of phrase
which is hardly excelled in the choicest lines of Virgil himself. But it
is as the laureate of his own country that he is of primary interest,
and it is time to inquire how he fulfilled the functions of his office,
and how he rendered that office of value to the State.

When he was first appointed, Queen Victoria had let him know that he was
to be excused from the obligation of writing complimentary verse to
celebrate the doings of the court. Of his own accord he composed
occasional odes for the marriages of her sons, and showed some of his
practised skill in dignifying such themes; but it is not here that he
found his work as laureate. He achieved greater success in the poems
which he wrote to honour the exploits of our army and navy, in the past
or the present. In his ballad of 'The Revenge', in his Balaclava poems,
in the 'Siege of Lucknow', he struck a heroic note which found a ready
echo in the hearts of soldiers and sailors and those who love the
services. Above all, in the great ode on the death of the Duke of
Wellington he has stirred all the chords of national feeling as no other
laureate before him, and has enriched our literature with a jewel which
is beyond price.

The Arthurian epic failed to achieve its national aim, and the
historical dramas, though inspired by great principles which have helped
to shape our history, never touched those large circles to which as
laureate he should appeal. Some might judge that his function was best
fulfilled in the lyrics to be found scattered throughout his work which
praise the slow, ordered progress of English liberties. Passages from
_Maud_ or _In Memoriam_ will occur to many readers, still more the three
lyrics generally printed together at