"Bayard Taylor, in some essays lately published, quotes your Father saying that Tennyson was the wisest man he knew--which, by the way, would tell more in America than all I could write or say. "Your finding it hard to make an article about A. T. will excuse my inability to help you, as you asked. I did not know (as in the case of your Father also) where to begin or how to go on without a beginning.--Ever yours, E. F. G." In 1863, just after our Father's death, my sister and I came to Freshwater. It seemed to us that perhaps there more than anywhere else we might find some gleam of the light of our home, with the friend who had known him and belonged to his life and whom he trusted. We arrived late in the afternoon. It was bitter weather, the snow lying upon the ground. Mrs. Cameron had lent us a cottage, and the fires were already burning, and as we rested aimlessly in the twilight, we seemed aware of a tall figure standing in the window, wrapped in a heavy cloak, with a broad-brimmed hat. This was Tennyson, who had walked down to see us in silent sympathy. TENNYSON ON HIS FRIENDS OF LATER LIFE TO W. C. MACREADY 1851 Farewell, Macready, since to-night we part; Full-handed thunders often have confessed Thy power, well-used to move the public breast. We thank thee with our voice, and from the heart. Farewell, Macready, since this night we part, Go, take thine honours home; rank with the best, Garrick and statelier Kemble, and the rest Who made a nation purer through their art. Thine is it that our drama did not die, Nor flicker down to brainless pantomime, And those gilt gauds men-children swarm to see. Farewell, Macready; moral, grave, sublime; Our Shakespeare's bland and universal eye Dwells pleased, through twice a hundred years, on thee. TO THE REV. F. D. MAURICE Come, when no graver cares employ, Godfather, come and see your boy: Your presence will be sun in winter, Making the little one leap for joy. For, being of that honest few, Who give the Fiend himself his due, Should eighty-thousand college-councils Thunder "Anathema," friend, at you; Should all our churchmen foam in spite At you, so careful of the right, Yet one lay-hearth would give you welcome (Take it and come) to the Isle of Wight; Where, far from noise and smoke of town, I watch the twilight falling brown All round a careless-order'd garden Close to the ridge of a noble down. You'll have no scandal while you dine, But honest talk and wholesome wine, And only hear the magpie gossip Garrulous under a roof of pine: For groves of pine on either hand, To break the blast of winter, stand; And further on, the hoary Channel Tumbles a billow on chalk and sand; Where, if below the milky steep Some ship of battle slowly creep, And on thro' zones of light and shadow Glimmer away to the lonely deep,