II. Tennyson. ST. SIMEON STYLITES AND ST. AGNES. SPECIAL introduction to Tennyson might be desirable, but I can only, in the time and space at my disposal, attempt to place him generally before you, and point to some of the influences which formed him, and upon which he has reacted. Tennyson is emphatically the man of his age; he is intimately connected, in their wider aspects, with the political, social, and intellectual, as well as the poetical and spiritual, movements of the nineteenth century. Born in 1809, he came into public notice between 1830-40, and soon embodied in poetic literature the romantic movement then at its zenith on the continent. But the literary and artistic movement, at home and abroad was only a part of a general upheaval, in politics and religion. In 1830 the revolution broke out in Paris, and was followed in England by a long and successful agitation for Reform. Whilst in literature the forces set loose by the severe continental agitation took splendid and spontaneous shape in the wide embracing and inexhaustible excursions of Scott into untrodden realms of poetry, history, and romance; Coleridge gave expression to the mystic side of an intense and earnest religious philosophy; Southey added clearness and common sense to every subject he touched; Byron uttered the fierce revolt of his age against social fetters, hypocrisy, and shams—not always wisely, but too well; Shelley seized the finer elements of the deep spiritual reaction against dogmatic theology, and bade the world bathe once more in the Arethusan fountain of wild unsullied nature; Wordsworth, mellow with years and wisdom, standing a little apart from the strife of tongues, was yet deeply affected by the new social and political ideas, but sought the calm they could not give in quiet contemplation; and with an eye turned now upon the fair sky, and sea, and earth, and now inwardly upon the panorama of the soul, uttered thoughts so high, and sweet, and |