AT SOMERSBY the poet was born is distinguished by the creeper-grown iron balcony. To the right of the building is shown the gabled exterior of the Gothic dining-*room with the sunlight flickering over it, and the curious little statues in the niches thereof, the carved shields built into the wall, the grotesque heads graven on either side of the traceried windows, and lastly, and most noticeably, the quaint gargoyles projecting boldly forth. This addition of Dr. Tennyson to the rectory at once gives it a welcome character, and lifts it out of the commonplace; without such addition the house would be pleasant enough to look upon in a homely way, but featureless. Like human beings, buildings are improved by a little character; there is plenty of insipidity in the world in flesh and blood as well as in bricks, or stones, and mortar.
The old bird-haunted garden behind the rectory—especially beloved by blackbirds and thrushes—with its old-fashioned flower-beds, its summer-house, dark copper beeches, and sunny lawn sloping to the south, remains much as when the Tennyson family were there, and a rustic gate, just as of old, leads to the meadows and the brook that "runs babbling to the plain." For the sake of posterity it would be well if this storied rectory, together with the little garden, could be preserved in its original and picturesque simplicity for ever. Any day may be too late! In the historic perspective of the centuries to come, Tennyson will doubtless rank as the greatest poet of a great age—perchance as one of the immortals, for some fames cannot die! and who can
