—he had studied the world of books with not less sympathy and attention. In the sense of a profound and extensive acquaintance with all that is best in ancient and modern poetry, and in an extraordinarily wide knowledge of general literature, of philosophy and theology, of geography and travel, and of various branches of natural science, he is one of the most erudite of English poets. With the poetry of the Greek and Latin classics he was, like Milton and Gray, thoroughly saturated. Its influence penetrates his work, now in indirect reminiscence, now in direct imitation, now inspiring, now modifying, now moulding. He tells us in _The Daisy_ how when at Como “the rich Virgilian rustic measure of _Lari Maxume_” haunted him all day, and in a later fragment how, as he rowed from Desenzano to Sirmio, Catullus was with him. And they and their brethren, from Homer to Theocritus, from Lucretius to Claudian, always were with him. I have illustrated so fully in the notes and elsewhere[4] the influence of the Greek and Roman classics on the poems of 1842 that it is not necessary to go into detail here. But a few examples of the various ways in which they affected Tennyson’s work generally may be given. Sometimes he transfers a happy epithet or expression in literal translation, as in:— On either _shining_ shoulder laid a hand, which is Homer’s epithet for the shoulder— ἀνὰ φαιδίμῳ ὤμῳ —_Od_., xi., 128. It was the red cock _shouting_ to the light, exactly the ἕος ἐβόησεν ἀλέκτωρ (Until the cock _shouted_). —_Batrachomyomachia_, 192. And all in passion utter’d a _dry_ shriek, which is the _sicca vox_ of the Roman poets. So in _The Lotos Eaters_:— His voice was _thin_ as voices from the grave, which is Theocritus’ voice of Hylas from his watery grave:— ἀραιὰ δ’ Ἱκετο φωνά So in _The Princess_, sect. i.:— And _cook’d his spleen_, which is a phrase from the Greek, as in Homer, _Il_., iv., 513:— ἐπι νηυσὶ χόλον θυμαλγέα πέσσει (At the ships he cooks his heart-grieving spleen). Again in _The Princess_, sect. iv.:— _Laugh’d with alien lips,_ which is Homer’s (_Od_., 69-70)— διδ’ ἤδη γναθμοῖσι γελῴων ἀλλοτρίοισι So in _Edwin Morris_— All perfect, finished _to the finger nail_, which is a phrase transferred from Latin through the Greek; _cf._, Horace, _Sat_., i., v., 32:— _Ad unguem_ Factus homo (A man fashioned to the finger nail). “The _brute_ earth,” _In Memoriam_, cxxvii., which is Horace’s _Bruta_ tellus. —_Odes_, i., xxxiv., 9. So again:— A bevy of roses _apple-cheek’d_ in _The Island_, which is Theocritus’ μαλοπάρῃος. The line in the _Morte d’Arthur_, This way and that, dividing the swift mind, is an almost literal translation of Virgil’s _Æn._, iv., 285:— Atque animum nunc huc celerem nunc dividit illuc (And this way and that he divides his swift mind).