NATURE NOTES IN TENNYSON'S POETRY. 125 
That some at any rate of these hints will be acceptable to 
Selbornians, and suggest to them new ways of propagating their 
principles, is the sincere wish of 
The Editor. 
NATURE NOTES IN TENNYSON’S POETRY. 
POET attains popularity because he translates into 
ordered and beautiful language the ideas of his time, 
and he is only popular in so far as he is the child of his 
time. He may wait for recognition, or his fame may 
wane, and yet he will be at either of those periods as great a 
poet as at the hour of his fullest acceptance. 
What may be Tennyson’s place in literature it is obviously 
as yet impossible to say, but of two facts there can be no sort of 
doubt ; he has been for very many years the most popular 
English poet, among the learned and unlearned alike; and next, 
while all admire his dexterity in the use of words, and his 
gracious melody of verse, he is less popular than he was among 
the more thoughtful and literary readers. This second fact 
would seem to show that in some degree the problems of our 
age require a new poetic interpreter, and makes it possible to 
consider, without attempting ungracious comparisons, what it is 
that has given Tennyson the place which he holds in the estima- 
tion of his countrymen. 
The ideas which have most affected the mind of the age now 
passing away are those of science, and of the aspects of Nature, 
and in both these fields Tennyson has translated the thoughts 
of men’s minds into ordered words. For instance, when what is 
now known as Darwinism, and the doctrine of evolution, was 
only beginning to be, the poet put the whole into four beautiful 
lines. He has now suppressed them, probably because his 
English ear revolted against a rhyme which to a Frenchman 
would have been absolutely correct — 
All Nature widens upward ; evermore 
The simpler essence lower lies, 
More complex is more perfect, owning more 
Discourse, more widely wise. 
And again when he speaks of the birth of man we have the 
remarkable lines : — 
A soul shall draw from out the vast. 
And strike his being into bounds. 
And, moved through life of lower phase. 
Result in man, be born and think. 
And act and love, a closer link 
Betwixt us and the crowning race. 
The popularity of the whole of “ In Memoriam ” appears to 
arise mainly from the touches of science, from the descriptions 
