It was in the period, roughly speaking, between 1862 and 1880 that I saw most of him, for it was then our habit to make frequent visits to Freshwater or Alum Bay, generally at Christmas, and we were always received with the same cordial kindness. It was then that the long walks and the readings of his poetry after dinner continued as a kind of institution, and never palled. Among the poems that he read out to us were "Aylmer's Field," the "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington," parts of "Maud," "Guinevere," "The Holy Grail," "The Charge of the Light Brigade," "The Revenge," "The Defence of Lucknow," "In the Valley of Cauteretz." With regard to this beautiful poem I cannot help recalling an amusing and most unexpected laugh. He had read the third and fourth lines in his most sonorous tones: All along the valley, where thy waters flow, I walked with one I loved two and thirty years ago; and then suddenly, changing his voice, he said gruffly, "A brute of a ----has discovered that it was thirty-one years and not thirty-two. Two-and-thirty is better than one-and-thirty years ago, isn't it? But perhaps I ought to alter it." It was at this time that we used often to meet Mr. Jowett and also the Poet's great friend and admirer, the gifted Mrs. Cameron and her dignified and gray-bearded husband, who looked like a grand Oriental Chief. One trifling incident occurs to me as I write, the Poet's remarkable skill at battledore. One duel with him in particular comes back to my mind, in which I found it hard to hold my own. He was a very hard hitter. He did not care merely to "keep up" long scores. He liked each bout to be a trial of strength, and to aim the shuttlecock where it would be difficult for his opponent to deal with it. In spite of his being short-sighted he played a first-rate game. With the exception of my brother Arthur, I never came upon so formidable an antagonist. But I must leave these earlier years, of which I cannot find any written record, and pass on to the end of 1886, when, nearly four years after the death of my dear wife and a year and a half after my leaving Harrow, I was, to my great surprise, appointed Master of Trinity. On December 3 I was installed, and on December 13 I was invited to Farringford, with the prospect of returning on the 16th to Davos Platz, where I had left my invalid daughter. Of this short visit I find I have made a few notes. The Poet was as cordial as ever. After dinner he took me to his _sanctum_, and read me his new Jubilee Ode in Catullian metre, and then "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After." Next morning there came a letter from Dr. W. H. Thompson's executor containing an early poem of Tennyson's of 1826, and a Sonnet, once famous, complaining of defects in the College system of his day: