"My old fast friend the shore, and clinging thus Felt the remorseless outdraught of the deep Haul like a great strong fellow at my legs." Such are the words in which Wulfnoth, Harold's young brother, detained in Normandy, laments his situation: "Yea, and I Shall see the dewy kiss of dawn no more Make blush the maiden-white of our tall cliffs, Nor mark the sea-bird rouse himself and hover Above the windy ripple, and fill the sky With free sea-laughter." In two or three places the author makes, in a few words, a picture, an image, of considerable felicity. Harold wishes that he were like Edward the Confessor, "As holy and as passionless as he! That I might rest as calmly! Look at him-- The rosy face, and long, down-silvering beard, The brows unwrinkled as a summer mere." We may add that in the few speeches allotted to this monarch of virtuous complexion this portrait is agreeably sustained. "Holy, is he?" says the Archbishop, Stigand, of him to Harold-- "A conscience for his own soul, not his realm; A twilight conscience lighted thro' a chink; Thine by the sun." And the same character hits upon a really vigorous image in describing, as he watches them, Harold's exploits on the battle-fields: "Yea, yea, for how their lances snap and shiver, Against the shifting blaze of Harold's axe! War-woodman of old Woden, how he fells The mortal copse of faces!" We feel, after all, in Mr. Tennyson, even in the decidedly minor key in which this volume is pitched, that he has once known how to turn our English poetic phrase as skilfully as any one, and that he has not altogether forgotten the art. CONTEMPORARY NOTES ON WHISTLER VS. RUSKIN I. Originally published as an unsigned note in _The Nation_, December 19, 1878. The jury allowed Whistler one farthing damages. II. Originally published as an unsigned note in _The Nation_, February 13, 1879. The pamphlet here referred to was entitled _Whistler vs. Ruskin: Art and Art-Critics_. London: Chatto & Windus. 1878. This essay was afterwards reprinted in _The Gentle Art of Making Enemies_, London, 1890. CONTEMPORARY NOTES ON WHISTLER VS. RUSKIN I. THE SUIT FOR LIBEL