to the highest class? Did he not only accept the right view, whatever that may be, but express it forcibly and majestically as one of the small class which represents poetry thoroughly transfused with philosophy? I at least cannot see my way to such a conclusion; and the mere comparison seems to me to suggest the real limitations to Tennyson's art. I will only notice what is suggested by many passages in these volumes. Carlyle, we are told, was first attracted to Tennyson by the 'Ulysses.' He quotes in his first letter to Tennyson the noble passage:—
It may be that the gulf will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the happy isles
And see the great Achilles whom we knew.
'These lines,' he says, 'do not make me weep, but there is in me what would fill whole lachrymatories as I read.'[1] Afterwards Carlyle appears to have suggested that Tennyson was wasting his time by scribbling verses. Carlyle, late in life, would occasionally quote the 'Ulysses' by way of contrast with Tennyson's later performances. The old poem, he thought, had the true heroic ring; and Tennyson himself, it may be remarked,
- ↑ I remember to have heard Carlyle in his old age speak with equal enthusiasm of this poem.
