Of the journalistic virus Tennyson’s style cannot be said to be so entirely free. When he was concerned with the life of his own moods he was, as has just been said, proof against poetic suggestion from without, but when his subject was some public occasion or some external event that only accidentally came within his own experience, he was not so wholly proof against the _clichés_ of journalism. It is true that he was one of the best occasional poets in the language, and particularly in the graver manner of his laureate office. And yet, even in the justly famous _Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington_ there is, in parts at least, a lower level of integrity in expression than, for example again, in our passage from _In Memoriam_, where, with the doubtful exception of “that noble breast,” there is not a word that is not manifestly of the poet’s own minting. But in the Ode, written clearly upon an occasion by which Tennyson was deeply moved, and one rich in associations that were of peculiar appeal to his genius, he cannot keep his style wholly free of editorial influence. This is not to speak in disparagement of a poem to which on the whole the term magnificent is not misapplied, and one of the supreme successes of its kind. But to acknowledge this is not to concede that the whole of the splendid eulogy of “the statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute” is couched in terms of pure poetry. It was hardly the Tennyson of the finest authority whom we find addressing Nelson thus-- Thine island loves thee well, thou famous man, The greatest sailor since our world began.... and Wellington as-- England’s greatest son, He that gain’d a hundred fights Nor ever lost an English gun ... and as being as the greatest only are, In his simplicity sublime ... who called upon an unregenerate world to Let his great example stand Colossal, seen of every land ... and exclaimed that on Napoleon’s overthrow at Waterloo Heaven flash’d a sudden jubilant ray. These are not the simplicities of Calm and deep peace in this wide air, These leaves that redden to the fall; And in my heart, if calm at all, If any calm, a calm despair ... nor of such things as this, from the Ode itself-- More than is of man’s degree Must be with us, watching here At this, our great solemnity. Whom we see not we revere, We revere, and we refrain From talk of battles loud and vain, And brawling memories all too free For such a wise humility As befits a solemn fane; We revere, and while we hear The tides of Music’s golden sea Setting towards eternity, Uplifted high in heart and hope are we, Until we doubt not that for one so true There must be other nobler work to do Than when he fought at Waterloo ...