is worthy of a Catholic matron. The description of St. Stephen, in _The Two Voices_, has all the depth and pathos of the poet's happiest mood; and, though neither it, nor some other passages which have been quoted, contain anything distinctively Catholic as opposed to other forms of Christianity, it is strongly marked with those orthodox instincts to which we are drawing attention: "I cannot hide that some have striven, _Achieving calm_, to whom was given The joy that mixes man with heaven; Who, rowing hard against the stream, Saw distant gates of Eden gleam. And did not dream it was a dream; But heard, by secret transport led, E'en in the charnels of the dead, The murmur of the fountain-head-- Which did accomplish their desire, Bore and forbore, and did not tire; Like Stephen, an unquenched fire, He heeded not reviling tones. Nor sold his heart to idle moans. Though cursed, and scorned, and bruised with stones; But looking upward, full of grace. He prayed, and from a happy place God's glory smote him on the face." _Poems_, p. 299. {152} We are anxious not to appear to lay undue stress on these extracts. Let them go for as much as they are worth, and no more. We do not stretch them on any Procrustean bed to the measure of orthodox. Others might be adduced, of a latitudinarian tendency, but they are few in number, and do not neutralize the force of these. In view of many passages in Shakespeare of a Catholic bearing, and of several facts favorable to the belief that he was a Catholic, M. Rio has come to the probably sound conclusion that he really was what he himself wishes to prove him. We put no such forced interpretation on our extracts from Tennyson as M. Rio has certainly put on many which he has brought forward from the Elizabethan poet; but we think that they are sufficiently cast in a Catholic mould to warrant us in applying to Tennyson the words which Carlyle has used in reference to his predecessor: "Catholicism, with and against feudalism, but not against nature and her bounty, gave us English a Shakespeare and era of Shakespeare, and so produced _a blossom of Catholicism_." (_French Revolution_, vol. i. 10.)