the years went on, and the memory of Waterloo faded, and the hero of Waterloo moved about and took his part in civic affairs, people (and people are ever ready to weary of their gods, if their gods are too near them and live too long) began to clip and cut down the gigantic proportions of the Iron Duke’s colossal figure. Indeed, before he died it is safe to say that half England regarded England’s hero as rather an ordinary sort of person and a worthy but extremely fortunate soldier. Still, death generally brings back the liveliest memories of deeds that are, or are thought to be, great and good, and a true poet’s song who believed all of Wellington that Tennyson’s poem expresses might well have been tipped with fire when Wellington died. Yet Tennyson’s funeral ode is poor, tame; where not tame, forced; and, like all such compositions, indefinitely strung out. All his readers know the opening: “Bury the Great Duke With an empire’s lamentation, Let us bury the Great Duke, To the noise of the mourning of a mighty nation, Mourning when their leaders fall, Warriors carry the warrior’s pall And sorrow darkens hamlet and hall!” It is plain from the start that he is writing for a public. This great duke needs a capital G and a capital D to impress duly that public, the British (which is always ready to be awed by capitals attached to titles), with the great duke’s immensity. There is something of the heavy English undertaker about this—a display, a forced solemnity, a measured tread, a sense of sham. The great duke is lost sight of in the funereal trappings, the crowd, and accompaniment. See how Byron seizes on the very heart of an event, and in a few lines pictures for us the whole, the before and after. He is describing the greater man by whose fall the great duke rose to fame: “Tis done—but yesterday a king! And arm’d with kings to strive— And now thou art a nameless thing: So abject—yet alive! Is this the man of thousand thrones, Who strew’d our earth with hostile bones, And can he thus survive? Since he, miscall’d the Morning Star, Nor man nor fiend has fallen so far.” This indeed is “the scorn of scorn,” and the entire ode is replete with it. Byron, who had been a great admirer of Napoleon, could not consent to his idol lowering himself so far as to receive his life from England. He could not forgive himself for yielding to “That spell upon the minds of men * * * * * That led them to adore Those Pagod things of sabre-sway, With fronts of brass, and feet of clay.” “O civic muse,” cries Tennyson, “To such a name, To such a name for ages long, To such a name Preserve a broad approach of fame, And ever-ringing avenues of song.”