"Baron Alfred Vere de Vere, Of me you win no new renown: You thought to daze the country-folk And cockneys when you came to town. See Wordsworth, Shelley, Cowper, Burns, Withdraw in scorn, and sit retired; The last of some six hundred earls Is not a place to be desired. "Baron Alfred Vere de Vere, We thought you proud to bear your name; Your pride is yet no mate for ours, Too proud to think a title fame. We had the genius--not the lord; We love the poet's truer charms, A simple singer with his dreams Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms." And so on to the close:-- "Alfred, Alfred Vere de Vere, If time be heavy on your hands, Are there no toilers in our streets, Nor any poor in all these lands? Oh, teach the weak to strive and hope; Oh, teach the great to help the low; Pray Heaven for a noble heart, And let the foolish title go." There was undoubtedly much disappointment that Tennyson did not refuse the title bestowed upon him, as he had previously declined to be knighted, and was looked upon as something of a liberal. He probably was this when young, judging by some things in his writings; but he is now looked upon as a tory of the tories. Tennyson has probably received higher prices for his poems than any other poet. When he was paid ten pounds a line for "Sea Dreams," it was considered a fabulous price; but he has received much more than that since. During his long literary life--for he has been writing over fifty years--he has of course written a great deal; yet he is very slow and laborious in composition, and spends much time in rewriting and polishing. The garden song in "Maud" was rewritten fifty times, and almost as great labor has been given to other famous bits of writing. He was seventeen years in writing "In Memoriam," and he brought it almost to perfection of finish; but he has spent laborious years upon poems which are comparative failures. After the inspiration has waned, or if the inspiration is wanting in the first place, the pains taken in revision go for little in the making of a poem which will live. Given the inspiration, and the labor usually, though not always, adds to its chances for immortality. Tennyson, with all his fastidious delicacy in writing, is a robust, manly man,--strong, healthy, active, fond of out-of-door life, and not greatly given to study. He spends whole days in the open air, and has all an Englishman's fondness for walking. He is martial in spirit, too, and rejoices in the heroic deeds of his countrymen. He can write a spirited war song, as he proved a few years ago when he thrilled all England with the lyric:-- "Form, form, riflemen, form; Ready, be ready to meet the storm."