36 ARDENMOHR. 



reputation I must protest against dishes of flummery, 

 however prettily served." 



" Flummery ! oh, my loved poet ! Is i In Me- 

 moriam ' wishy-washy, or the ' Idyls of the King ' ? " 



" The first is not ; but a good deal of the idyls may 

 be called balderdash ; ditto the laureate's magazine 

 poems." 



" Tennyson seems hardly your favourite poet ? " 



" Certainly not yet an accomplished man, and a 

 graceful versifier; but he is the fashion, and about 

 the best we have now." 



" But, tell me, who has written better poetry- 

 Wordsworth ? " 



" Neither am I a Wordsworthian enthusiast ; he 

 erred as far in affected simplicity as Tennyson does 

 in what Americans call < high faluten.' Yet "Words- 

 worth has a certain depth of thought and poetical 

 expression that Tennyson, with all his finish, has 

 not quite reached. Of course, like many poets, he 

 wrote namby-pamby of some bulk." 



" Yes; about milkmaids, and pedlars, and daisies, 

 and daffodils." 



"True;, and he might as easily have written about 

 great kings, great swelling hearts, great salt tears, 

 and great nonsense ; but, to Wordsworth, a cat 



