I had nearly forgotten to tell you that Tennyson is deeply admired here by all the brilliant men. Stanley, our first genius, rates him highly; Hannah, who has guided nearly all the first and double-first class men for the last three years to honours, told me he considers his poetical and psychological powers more varied than any poet he knows. And the "Dread," a choice selection of the most brilliant among the rising men, have pronounced him to be the first poet of the day. So you see I have some to keep me company in my judgment. And at all events he is above ridicule. Pray inform Miss D---- of all this. One of our first professors raves about him. When I went up to Cambridge in 1860, Tennyson was the oracle poet among the younger men; but the feeling of doubt still remained among the older men. I recall a friendly dispute between the Senior and a Junior Fellow of my own College. The elder man charged Tennyson with being "misty"; the younger man defended: the elder man cited a passage from "In Memoriam," and challenged the younger to say what it meant. The elder man was so far successful that he drove the younger man to declare that though he could not explain it then, he hoped to enter into its meaning later on. It was a typical conflict; the older generation could not understand; the younger was under the spell of the Poet, and though unable to interpret everything, believed in Tennyson's message to his own age. There were charges levelled against Tennyson more serious and more absurd than that of obscurity. The words Scepticism, Pantheism, and even Atheism were heard. One newspaper in a review of "In Memoriam" exclaimed: "Here the poet barely escapes Atheism and plunges into the abyss of Pantheism." Another foolish writer, commenting on the lines: But what am I? An infant crying in the night, An infant crying for the light, And with no language but a cry,