Two years later, that is, in 1832 (the volume, however, is antedated 1833), appeared ‘Poems by Alfred Tennyson’, pp. 163. In it were contained ‘The Lady of Shalott’, and the untitled poems, known by their first lines, ‘You ask me why, tho’ ill at ease’, ‘Of old sat Freedom on the Heights’, and ‘Love thou thy Land, with Love far brought’. In ‘The Lady of Shalott’ is mystically shadowed forth the relation which poetic genius should sustain to the world for whose spiritual redemption it labors, and the fatal consequences of its being seduced by the world’s temptations, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. The other poems, ‘You ask me why’, ‘Of old sat Freedom’, and ‘Love thou thy land’, are important as exponents of what may be called the poet’s institutional creed. A careful study of his subsequent poetry will show that in these early poems he accurately and distinctly revealed the attitude toward outside things which he has since maintained. He is a good deal of an institutional poet, and, as compared with Browning, a STRONGLY institutional poet. Browning’s supreme and all-absorbing interest is in individual souls. He cares but little, evidently, about institutions. At any rate, he gives them little or no place in his poetry. Tennyson is a very decided reactionary product of the revolutionary spirit which inspired some of his poetical predecessors of the previous generation. He has a horror of the revolutionary. To him, the French Revolution was “the blind hysterics of the Celt”, {‘In Memoriam’, cix.}, and “the red fool-fury of the Seine” {‘I. M.’, cxxvii.}. He attaches great importance to the outside arrangements of society for upholding and advancing the individual. He would “make Knowledge circle with the winds”, but “her herald, Reverence”, must “fly Before her to whatever sky Bear seed of men and growth of minds.” He has a great regard for precedents, almost AS precedents. He is emphatically the poet of law and order. All his sympathies are decidedly, but not narrowly, conservative. He is, in short, a choice product of nineteenth century ENGLISH civilization; and his poetry may be said to be the most distinct expression of the refinements of English culture--refinements, rather than the ruder but more vital forms of English strength and power. All his ideals of institutions and the general machinery of life, are derived from England. She is “the land that freemen till, That sober-suited Freedom chose, The land where, girt with friends or foes, A man may speak the thing he will; A land of SETTLED GOVERNMENT, A LAND OF JUST AND OLD RENOWN, WHERE FREEDOM BROADENS SLOWLY DOWN FROM PRECEDENT TO PRECEDENT: Where faction seldom gathers head, But by degrees to fullness wrought, The strength of some diffusive thought Hath time and space to work and spread.”