BOOKS AND ESSAYS ON TENNYSON. [Only those works that have been chiefly used or referred to in this volume are here mentioned.] BIOGRAPHY. Ritchie, Records of Tennyson, Ruskin, and Browning. Harpers, 1893. Waugh, Alfred, Lord Tennyson. (Amer. ed.) Webster, 1894. CRITICISM. Brimley, Alfred Tennyson's Poems. 1855. Cambridge Essays, Brooke, Tennyson: His Art and Relation to Modern Life, Putnam's Sons, 1894. Collins, Illustrations of Tennyson. Chatto and Windus 1891. Elsdale, Studies in the Idylls. King and Co., 1878. Littledale, Essays on Tennyson's Idylls. Macmillan, 1893. Maccallum, Tennyson's Idylls and Arthurian Story. Macmillan, 1894. Stedman, Victorian Poets. Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1893. Tainsh, A Study of Tennyson's Works. Macmillan, 1893. Van Dyke, The Poetry of Tennyson. Scribner's Sons, 1891 ANNOTATED EDITIONS. Macaulay, The Holy Grail. Macmillan, 1893. Palgrave, Lyrical Poems of Lord Tennyson. Macmillan. Rolfe, Young People's Tennyson; Select Poems of Tennyson. Houghton, Mifflin and Co. Rowe and Webb, Selections from Tennyson. Macmillan, 1891. APPENDIX I. SOME OF TENNYSON'S MSS., ILLUSTRATING HIS INFINITE PAINSTAKING IN COMPOSITION. There are in Toronto very valuable MSS. of some of Tennyson's poems, autograph copies of the intercalary songs of The Princess, the property of Theodore H. Rand, Esq., M. A., D.C.L., Chancellor of McMaster University. If any one were given the opportunity to choose an autograph of the poet, he would undoubtedly choose one of Tennyson's lyrics; and of these none are of a more perfect beauty than the songs of The Princess. But in addition to being the precious records of the master's hand, these MSS. have a unique interest in representing, not the text as found in the printed edition, but one that shows the songs as they were before their revision in the printed text. From a comparison of the MSS. and the printed text, one can see the infinite painstaking with which the poet revised his work, a process noted already in The Lady of Shalott, The LotosEaters, etc. These two features, the representation of the poet's autographs and his ceaseless labour in revising his work, form the substance of Dr. Rand's article entitled Limae Labor, in the McMaster University Monthly, June, 1891. This article has been revised by its author and placed at our disposal, with a kindness we cannot sufficiently acknowledge, for use in this edition. Dr. Rand writes as follows: Some years ago the inventor of the Acme skate called my attention to thirteen skates displayed in order on his office wall. These products of his brain and hand disclosed in a single view the laborious revisions to which he had subjected his original conception. Compared with the perfected skate the first was intricate and complex in its structure. Every revision shewed a less number of separate parts, and this increasing simplicity resulted finally in a complete unity or wholeness of the implement for the purpose intended. The inventor had repeatedly revised his first conception, and its concrete expression in steel. This is the history of all mechanical invention. It is equally the history of all abiding products of thought in which form is essential. One artist uses stone or bronze; One, light and shade; he, plastic speech; THE PERFECT is the aim of each. Of all materials in which thought finds expression, language is the most plastic and the most enduring. I have often thought what curious and instructive revelations could be made by the waste baskets of the great poets, -the greatest masters of the embodiment of thought in perfect form. Their best work appears so natural and complete that we imagine these gifted souls are inspired, and that they are, therefore, lifted above the necessity of patient thought and toilsome revision in respect both of construction and verbal expression. If we could know the facts we should find that the poems which live from age to age embody results, both as to contents and expression, which are the outcome of manifold unwritten or written revisions. In proportion as we recognize this truth are we qualified to appreciate the marvels of the achievements of the poets. Genius as well as talent must put itself severely to school. This is especially true when language is the medium employed as the mould of thought,. since no other is at once so mobile and fluid and so rigid and monumental. In I wish to illustrate this process of limae labor—revision, polishing, perfecting by a reference to the poems of Lord Tennyson. The Poet Laureate is an acknowledged master in the use of language, ranking next after Shakspere and Milton. addition to his known scrupulous care in composition before publication, we may by a studious comparison of the various editions of his poems discover abundant evidence of extraordinary patience in perfecting the products of his genius. In Memoriam, the greatest and most elaborately wrought of elegiac poems, was given to the world in 1850. The lyrics which now appear as xxxix, and lix, 'Old warder of these buried bones,' 'O Sorrow, wilt thou live with me,' were subsequently inserted in the poem. Some forty lines, in different parts of the elegy, have also undergone verbal revision. Many instances of retouching could be cited from most of his other poems, some of the changes producing lines among the |