IRature IFlotes: 
Zbc Selbotne Society’s /Ibagasine. 
No. 36. DECEMBER, 1892. Vol. III. 
THE LATE LORD TENNYSON. 
By the Editor. 
HE portrait of the late President of the Selborne Society, 
which, by the courtesy of Messrs. Barraiid, I am en- 
abled to reproduce, forms a fitting frontispiece for our 
volume. 
So full — I had almost added so fulsome — have been the 
notices of the poet which have crowded our newspapers and 
magazines, that there is little need for me to swell the meed of 
praise which followed him to his grave, or add a flower to the 
wreaths which covered his coffin. Much, indeed, of what 
might have been said was admirably expressed by Mr. Kegan 
Paul in our July number : “ To ask ourselves how Tennyson 
looks on the outward world, and what he can teach us of the 
birds, the sky, the sea, the flowers, will be when we can answer 
the question, no bad fragment of a liberal education.” With 
these words Mr. Kegan Paul concluded his paper ; and we shall 
all agree with him that the poet “ has taught us much when 
we have looked through his eyes and heard with his ears.” 
On the few occasions when I have been privileged to share 
Lord Tennyson’s walks, or to hold converse with him, what has 
struck me most has been his intense delight in and knowledge 
of flowers, and especially wild ones. When I first called at 
Farringford, I noticed on the table a deep plate filled with 
rock roses, and in the hall and elsewhere were simple bunches of 
wild flowers. Although not what would be styled a botanist, 
he knew the plants of Freshwater well. I remember how, on 
our first walk, he suddenly stopped and asked me to gather 
some bogbean for Lady (then Mrs.) Tennyson, directing me 
from the road to the exact spot in the marshy meadow where it 
grew. He was always glad to be questioned about the meaning 
