master here and
everywhere; master of the spasms of the sky and of the shatter of the
sea, of all terror and all pain."

America, perhaps even more than England, has need of Whitman's teaching
as the poet of Democracy. He derided "the mania of owning things,"
he scorned distinctions of caste and class, he sang the divineness
of comradeship--and, what is more, he practised it. Full-blooded,
strong-limbed, rich-brained, large-hearted men and women are a nation's
best products, and if a nation does not yield them, its wealth will only
hasten its doom and pollute its grave.

TENNYSON AND THE BIBLE. *

* October, 1892.

We owe no apology for speaking of the dead poet as "Tennyson." This is
how he will be known by posterity. The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
and in this case it was not requisite. A true poet's gold can neither be
made more precious nor more current by empty titles. In our opinion, it
is a degradation, instead of an honor, for one of nature's aristocrats
to herd with the artificial nobility of an hereditary peerage. We
also take the opportunity of regretting that Tennyson ever became Poet
Laureate. The court poet should not survive the court dwarf and
the court jester. It is painful to see a great writer grinding out
professional odes, and bestowing the excrements of his genius on royal
nonentities. The preposterous office of Poet Laureate should now be
abolished. No poet should write for a clique or a coterie; he should
appeal directly to the heart of the nation.

Tennyson's funeral took place at Westminster Abbey. The heads of that
establishment, following the example set by Dean Stanley, now act as
body-snatchers. They appropriate the corpses of distinguished men,
whether they believed or disbelieved the doctrines of the service read
over their coffins. Charles Darwin's body is buried there--the great
Agnostic, who repudiated Christianity; Robert Browning's too--the poet
who said "I am no Christian" to Robert Buchanan. Carlyle took care that
his corpse should not join the museum. Tennyson's, however, is now in
the catalogue; and, it must be admitted, with more plausibility than in
the case of Browning--with far more than in the case of Darwin.

Christian pulpiteers, all over the country, have been shouting their
praises of Tennyson as a Christian poet. They are justified in making
the most of a man of genius when they possess one. We do not quarrel
with them. We only beg to remark that t