A government should recognize intellect. It elevates and sustains the spirit. It elevates and sustains the spirit of a nation. But it is an office not easy to fulfil, for if it falls into favouritism and the patronage of mediocrity, instead of raising the national sentiment, it might degrade and debase it. Her Majesty, by the advice of her Ministers, has testified in the Arctic expedition, and will in other forms, her sympathy with science. But it is desirable that the claims of high letters should be equally acknowledged. That is not so easy a matter, because it is in the nature of things that the test of merit cannot be so precise in literature as in science. Nevertheless, etc. etc. The honour, even thus offered, was again respectfully declined, with a suggestion that it might be renewed for his son after his own death; but this was pronounced impracticable. The Metaphysical Society was founded by Tennyson and two others in 1869, and a list of the members is given in the _Memoir_, which touches on the style and topics of the debates, and on the umbrage taken by agnostic friends at the profound deference shown by Tennyson to Cardinal Manning. A letter from Dr. James Martineau describes the Poet's general attitude toward the Society's discussions; he sent his poem on the "Higher Pantheism" to be read at the first meeting; and he was "usually a silent listener, interposing some short question or pregnant hint." The letter discourses, in expansive and perhaps faintly nebulous language, upon the influence of his poetry on the religious tendencies of the day. That in a certain sense our great Laureate's poetry has nevertheless had a dissolving influence upon the over-definite dogmatic creeds within hearing, or upon the modes of religious thought amid which it was born, can hardly be doubted. In laying bare, as it does, the history of his own spirit, its conflicts and aspirations, its alternate eclipse of doubt and glow of faith, it has reported more than a personal experience; he has told the story of an age which he has thus brought into Self-knowledge.... Among thousands of readers previously irresponsive to anything Divine he has created, or immeasurably intensified, the susceptibility of religious reverence. After taking into due account the circumstances in which Dr. Martineau's letter was written, to many readers this high-flying panegyric will seem to have in some degree overshot its mark.