108 
ANNUAL ADDRESS. 
People who take a metaphor quite literally, as many do, should 
never have any poetry thrown into a description of anything like 
Natural History. 
The metaphorical style is, of course, consistent with scientific 
accuracy. Tennyson, who came under the influence of science — and, 
to his honour be it said, always was open to the impression of the 
scientific spirit of his age — Tennyson is full of metaphor in his 
most scientific poems. Thus, instead of speaking- of the sun 
sinking- in one of his well-known pieces, he says — and I wish to 
call attention to this piece : 
" Move eastward, happy earth, and leave 
Yon orange sunset waning slow ; 
From fringes of the faded eve, 
O happy planet, eastward go ; 
Till over thy dark shoulder glow 
Thy silver sister world—" 
Now, every line of this contains a metaphor, yet it is strictly true. 
Good poetry indeed is not vag-ue and indefinite, but exact. As 
Professor Dowden points out, two of our greatest poets, Dante and 
Milton, were almost laboriously accurate in their descriptions, so 
that a guide book, Celestial or Infernal, as the case might be, 
could be compiled from their Inferno, Paradiso, and Paradise Lost. 
True poetry indeed follows the advance of science. We some- 
times think rather sadly that the great tide of science, by washing 
away old landmarks, has prevented future poets from the high 
achievements of their predecessors. This has been surely confuted 
by men like Goethe and Browning — but on theoretical grounds 
there is plenty of room for poetical thought in the consideration of 
the wonders of modern science. What can be more entrancing for 
instance, than to let one's fancy wander back into the dim eternity 
from which our planet and our race have sprung — to picture our 
remote ancestors, and fancy that mysterious evolution of body and 
mind going on through the countless ages — and with all this 
memory and accumulated ancestry at our backs, to look forward 
and endeavour to cast the horoscope of the future ; there is plenty 
of room for the poets of the future in all this ! 
Speculation in fact is peculiarly the poets' province, and 
legitimate speculation and re-construction are frequently wanted 
in science. 
Many poets have been extremely good observers. It is rare to 
find any serious mistake in Tennyson, Wordsworth, Milton, Burns, 
or Shakespeare. Goethe, it is well known, was a good instance 
of a poet who could accurately observe. His imagination helped 
him, but it led him astray in the subject of physics and not only 
this, but made him unjust and even ridiculous in his estimation of 
Sir Isaac Newton. 
He knew no physics and very little mathematics and thought 
that physics could be taught without mathematics at all. His 
idea was that "Nature revealed herself to the patient observer," 
(Lewes's Life, p. 344), and he says, "And what she does not 
reveal to the mind \geist) will not be extorted from her by levers 
and screws." Compare this statement with the words of the 
