ng and unparalleled popular
influence." Will he tell us if anything could amaze us _without_ being
unparalleled? He remarks that Tennyson was "not merely and mainly a poet
of the educated classes." He should have said "merely _or_ mainly." He
enjoins upon us to "define our terms" and "know the exact meanings
of the terms we use"--which is absolute tautology. He says of
flirtation--on which he seems an authority--that "I greatly fear, and am
morally certain" it is as much perpetrated by men as by women. But if
he fears he cannot be certain, and if he is certain he cannot fear. He
calls duelling a form of "insanity and barbarism." But while it may be
one or the other, it cannot be both at once. The disjunctive, therefore,
not the copulative, is the proper conjunction. Mr. Hughes misspells the
name of Spenser, translates _mariage de convenance_ as a marriage
of convenience, and inserts one of his own inventions in a line of
_Locksley Hall_, which runs thus in the Hughes edition of Tennyson--

Puppet to a father's threat and servile to a mother's shrewish tongue.

"Mother's" spoils the line. It is not Tennyson's. Mr. Hughes may claim
it--"an ill-favored thing, sir, but mine own." It does equal credit to
his "conscientiousness" and his ears.

Mr. Hughes's style as a critic does not rise to the level of an active
contempt. Let us look at his matter and see if it shows any superiority.

"Yet although," Mr. Hughes says, with characteristic elegance--"yet
although he wrote so much, Tennyson never wrote a single line that would
bring a painful or anxious blush to the cheek of the most innocent or
sensitive maiden." What a curious antithesis! Why should a man write
impurely for writing much? And is _this_ the supreme virtue of a great
poet? It might be predicated of Martin Tupper. Milton, on the other
hand, must have made many a maiden rosy by his description of Eve's
naked loveliness--to say nothing of the scene after the Fall; while
Shakespeare must have turned many a maiden cheek scarlet, though we
do not believe he ever did the maiden any harm. Tennyson was not as
free-spoken as some poets--greater poets than himself. But what does Mr.
Hughes mean by his "Christ-like purity"? Is there a reference here to
the twelfth verse of the nineteenth chapter of Matthew?

Purity, if properly understood, is undoubtedly a virtue. Mr. Hughes
forgets, however, that his eulogy on Tennyson in this respect is a slur
upon the Bible. There are