A not uncommon phase of an exasperated mind is to refuse to recognize failure. Tennyson tried again, rather hastily, and in the same direction, with the satisfactory result of making a more disastrous failure than before. The blunder of _Queen Mary_ has been emphasized in _Harold_. The first named may have left some minds in doubt whether or not its author could construct a drama; the production of the second has effectually set all such doubts at rest. The critics who in the first instance were kind are in the second cruel. We have rarely seen a more general and resolutely contemptuous dealing with the pretensions of any writer at all than in the treatment which _Harold_ has received at the hands of critics of every shade of opinion, English as well as American. _Harold_ is simply narrative throughout—spoken narrative, indeed. A drama must be _act_. Scenes prior to and leading up to the Norman Conquest of England are depicted with more or less beauty of limning, but they are loose, shifting, independent of each other. There is no secret thread to link the whole and give it a unity of purpose and of plan, without which there is no drama. There are five acts. There might have been fifty, or only two, or only one, so far as the slow working of the whole up to the catastrophe at the conclusion goes. The first act opens in London at King Edward’s palace. Almost the first twenty pages are occupied by various characters in discussing the appearance, meaning, and portent of a comet. This is, of course, the old stage trick used to knit the coming horror with troubles in the air. Shakspere uses it often, notably in _Julius Cæsar_, but with him the troubled elements obey the magic wand of Prospero and minister to man, and are but the accompaniment of great events. Tennyson’s comet is too much for his characters. They puzzle themselves about it until we grow tired of it and its three tails.