Among the pulpit utterances on Tennyson we note the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes's as perhaps the very perfection of slobbery incapacity. He appears to be delivering a course of addresses on the poet. The first of these escaped our attention; the second is before us in the supplement to last week's _Methodist Times_. We have read it with great attention and without the slightest profit. Not a sentence or a phrase in it rises above commonplace. That a crowd of people should listen to such stuff on a Sunday afternoon, when they might be taking a walk or enjoying a snooze, is a striking evidence of the degeneration of the human mind, at least in the circles of Methodism. Mr. Hughes praises Tennyson for "conscientiousness in the use and choice of words." He should have said "the choice and use of words," for _choice_ must precede _use_ to be of any service. Mr. Hughes says it is of great importance that we should all be as conscientious as Tennyson. He might as well say it is of great importance that we should all be as strong as Sandow. Let us take a few examples of _Mr. Hughes's_ "conscientiousness." He talks of "shining features" which "lie upon the very surface" of Tennyson's poems. Now features seldom shine, they do not lie, and they must be (not _upon_, but) _at_ the surface. Six lines further the shining features change into "shining qualities," as though _features_ and _qualities_ were synonyms. Mr. Hughes speaks, in the style of a penny-a-liner, of Tennyson's "amazing and unparalleled popular influence." Will he tell us if anything could amaze us _without_ being unparalleled? He remarks that Tennyson was "not merely and mainly a poet of the educated classes." He should have said "merely _or_ mainly." He enjoins upon us to "define our terms" and "know the exact meanings of the terms we use"--which is absolute tautology. He says of flirtation--on which he seems an authority--that "I greatly fear, and am morally certain" it is as much perpetrated by men as by women. But if he fears he cannot be certain, and if he is certain he cannot fear. He calls duelling a form of "insanity and barbarism." But while it may be one or the other, it cannot be both at once. The disjunctive, therefore, not the copulative, is the proper conjunction. Mr. Hughes misspells the name of Spenser, translates _mariage de convenance_ as a marriage of convenience, and inserts one of his own inventions in a line of _Locksley Hall_, which runs thus in the Hughes edition of Tennyson-- Puppet to a father's threat and servile to a mother's shrewish tongue. "Mother's" spoils the line. It is not Tennyson's. Mr. Hughes may claim it--"an ill-favored thing, sir, but mine own." It does equal credit to his "conscientiousness" and his ears. Mr. Hughes's style as a critic does not rise to the level of an active contempt. Let us look at his matter and see if it shows any superiority.