Had seldom, seen a costlier funeral.' “Now tell me if I don't do well to be angary,” cried Dorothy. “Those two lines--'a costlier funeral'! he should have given the items in the bill and said what was the name of the undertaker. Oh, why didn't you warn me off that awful conclusion? What should you say the bill came to? Oh, Alfred, Lord Tennyson!” I shook my head sadly, of course. “He does that sort of thing now and then,” I said sadly. “You remember the young lady whose 'light blue eyes' were 'tender over drowning dies'? and the 'oaths, insult, filth, and monstrous blasphemies.'” “I do now, but they are not so bad as that about the costly funeral. Why does he do it--tell me that--put me wise?” “I suppose we must all have our bit of fun now and again. Kean, when in the middle of his most rousing piece of declamation, used to turn from his spellbound audience and put out his tongue at one of the scene-shifters. If you want to be kept constantly at the highest level you must stick to Milton.” There was a pause before Dorothy said,-- “I suppose so; and yet was there ever anything funnier than his description of the battle in heaven?” “Funny? Majestic, you mean?” said I, deeply shocked. “Well, majestically funny, if you wish. The idea of those 'ethereal virtues' throwing big stones at one another, and knowing all the time that it didn't matter whether they were hit or not--the gashes closed like the gashes we loved making with our spades in the stranded jelly-fish at low tide. But I suppose you will tell me that Milton must have his joke with the rest of them. Oh, I wonder if all poetry is not a fraud.” That is how Tennyson did for himself by not knowing where to stop. I expect that what really happened was that when he had written:-- “So past the strong, heroic soul away,” he found that there was still room for a couple of lines on the page and he could not bear to see the space wasted. And it was not wasted either; for I remember talking to the late Dr. John Todhunter, himself a most accomplished poet and a scholarly critic, about the “costlier funeral” lines, and he defended them warmly. And the satisfying of Dr. Todhunter must be regarded as counting for a good deal more in the balance against my poor Dorothy's disapproval.