university. I had been taught to admire Tennyson by my young friends at Oxford, many of whom were enthusiastic worshippers of the poet. My friends often forgot that I had been brought up on German poetry, and that though I knew Heine Rückert, Eichendorff, Chamisso, and Geibel, to say nothing of Goethe, Schiller, Bürger, and even Klopstock, their allusions to Tennyson, Browning, nay, to Shelley and Keats, often fell by the wayside and were entirely lost on me.

However, I soon learnt to enjoy Tennyson's poetry, its finish, its delicacy, its moderation-I mean, the absence of all extravagance; yet there is but one of his books which has remained with me a treasure for life, his "In Memoriam." To have expressed such deep, true, and original thought as is contained in each of these short poems in such perfect language, to say nothing of rhyme, was indeed a triumph. Tennyson was very kind to me, and took a warm interest in my work, particularly in my mythological studies. I well remember his being struck by a metaphor in my first essay on comparative mythology, published in 1856, and his telling me so. I had said that the sun in his daily passage across the sky had ploughed a golden furrow through the human brain, whence sprang in ancient times the first germs of mythology, and afterwards the rich growth of religious thought.

"I don't know," he said, "whether the simile is quite correct, but I like it." I was of course very proud that the great poet should have pondered on any sentence of mine, and still more that he should have approved of my theory of seeing in mythology a poetical interpretation of the great phenomena of nature. But it was difficult to have long discussion with him. He was fond of uttering short and decisive sentences: his yes was yes indeed, and his no was no indeed.

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It was generally after dinner, when smoking his pipe and sipping his whiskey and water, that Tennyson began to thaw, and to take a more active part in conversation. People who have not

known him then, have hardly known him at all. During the day he was often very silent and absorbed in his own thoughts, but in the evening he took an active part in the conversation of his friends. His pipe was almost indispensable to him, and I remember one time when I and several friends were staying at his house, the question of tobacco turned up. I confessed that for years I had been a perfect slave to tobacco, so that I could neither read nor write a line without smoking, but that at last I had rebelled against this slavery, and had entirely given up tobacco. Some of his friends taunted Tennyson that he could never give up tobacco. "Anybody can do that," he said, "if he chooses to do it." When his friends still continued to doubt and to tease him, "Well," he said, "I shall give up smoking from to-night." The very same evening I was told that he threw his pipes and his tobacco out of the window of his bedroom. The next day he was most charming, though somewhat self-righteous. The second day he became very moody and captious, the third day no one knew what to do with him. But after a disturbed night I was told that he got out of bed in the morning, went quietly into the garden, picked up one of his broken pipes, stuffed it with the remains of the tobacco scattered about, and then, having had a few puffs, came to breakfast, all right again. Nothing was said any more about giving up tobacco.

He once very kindly offered to lend me his house in the Isle of Wight; "but mind," he said, "you will be watched from morning till evening." This was in fact his great grievance, that he could not go out without being stared at. Once taking a walk with me and my wife on the downs behind his house, he suddenly started, left us, and ran home, simply because he had descried two strangers coming towards us.

I was told that he once complained to the queen, and said that he could no longer stay in the Isle of Wight, on account of the tourists who came to stare at him. The queen, with a kindly irony, remarked that she did not suf

fer much from that grievance, but Tennyson, not seeing what she meant, replied, "No, madam, and if I could clap a sentinel wherever I liked, I should not be troubled either."

It must be confessed that people were very inconsiderate. Rows of tourists sat like sparrows on the paling of his garden, waiting for his appearance. The guides were actually paid by sightseers, particularly by those from America, for showing them the great poet. Nay, they went so far as to dress up a sailor to look like Tennyson, and the result was that, after their trick had been found out, the tourists would walk up to Tennyson and ask him, "Now, are you the real Tennyson?"

This, no doubt, was very annoying, and later on Lord Tennyson was driven to pay a large sum for some useless downs near his house, simply in order to escape from the attentions of admiring travellers.

Why should not people be satisfied with the best that a poet is and can give them, namely his poetry? Few poets are greater than their poetry, and Tennyson was not one of them. Like many great poets, such as Victor Hugo, for instance, the worship that was paid him by many who came to see him was painful to him and to his friends. Tennyson frequently took flight from his intending Boswells, and was the very last man to appreciate the "Il parle" by which in Paris all conversation was hushed whenever Victor Hugo was present at a dinner and spoke to his neighbor, possibly only to ask him for the menu.

People have learnt after his death what a possession they had in Tennyson. He may not rank among the greatest poets of England, but there was something high and noble in him which reacted on the nation at large, even though that influence was not perhaps consciously realized. Anyhow, after his death it was widely felt that there was nobody worthy to fill his place; and why was it not left empty, as in the Greek army, where, we are told, a place of honor was left open for a great hero who was supposed to be

present during the heat of the battle, and to inspire those who stood near his place to great deeds of valor?

Browning was neither of Cambridge nor of Oxford, but his genius was much more akin to Oxford than to Cambridge, and towards the end of his life, particularly after his son had entered Balliol College, he was very often seen amongst us. Though he was not what we call a scholar, his mind was saturated with classical lore, and his appreciation of Greek poetry, Greek mythology, and Greek sculpture was very keen. He could not quote Greek verses, but he was steeped in the Greek tragedians and lyric poets. Of course this classical sympathy was but one side of his poetry. Browning was full of. sympathy, nay of worship, for anything noble and true in literature, ancient or modern. And what was most delightful in him was his ready response, his generosity in pouring out his own thoughts before anybody who shared his sympathies. For real and substantial conversation there was no one his equal, and even in the lighter afterdinner talk he was admirable. His health seemed good, and he was able to sacrifice much of his time to society. He had one great advantage, he never consented to spoil his dinner by making, or, what is still worse, by having to make a speech. I once felt greatly aggrieved, sitting opposite Browning at one of the Royal Academy dinners. I had to return thanks for literature and scholarship, and was of course rehearsing my speech during the whole of dinner time, while he enjoyed himself talking to his friends. When I told him that it was a shame that I should be made a martyr of while he was enjoying his dinner in peace, he laughed, and said that he had said No once for all, and that he had never in his life made a public speech. I believe, as a rule, poets are not good speakers. They are too careful about what they wish to say. Still I felt it was hard on me, and I became more and more convinced of the etymological identity of honor and onus. At last my turn came. Having to face the brilliant society

which is always present at this dinucr, including the Prince of Wales, the ministers of both parties, the most eminent artists, scientists, authors and critics, I had, of course, learnt my speech by heart, and was getting on very well, when suddenly I saw the Prince of Wales laughing and saying something to his neighbor. At once the thread of my speech was broken. I began to think whether I could have said any thing that made the prince laugh, and what it could have been, and while I was thinking in every direction, I suddenly stood speechless. I thought it was an eternity, and I was afraid I should have to collapse and make the greatest fool of myself that ever was. I looked at Browning, and he gave me a friendly nod, and at that moment my grapple-irons caught the last cable and I was able to finish my speech. When it was over I turned to Browning and said, "Was it not fearful, that pause?" "Far from it," he said, "it was excellent. It gave life to your speech. Everybody saw you were collecting your thoughts, and that you were not simply delivering what you had learnt by heart. Besides, it did not last half a minute." To me it had seemed at least five or ten minutes. But after Browning's good-natured words I felt relieved, and enjoyed at least what was left of a most enjoyable dinner.

The best place to see Browning was Venice, and I think it was there that I saw him for the last time. He was staying in one of the smaller palaces with a friend, and he was easily persuaded to read some of his poems. I asked him for his poem on Andrea del Sarto, and his delivery was most simple and yet most telling. He was a far better reader than Tennyson. His voice was natural, sonorous, and full of delicate shades; while Tennyson read in so deep a tone, that it was like the rumbling and rolling sound of the sea rather than like a human voice. His admirers, both gentlemen and ladies, who thought that everything he did must be perfect, encouraged him in that kind of delivery; and while to me it seemed that he had smothered and

murdered some of the poems I liked best, they sighed and groaned and poured out strange interjections, meant to be indicative of rapture.

There is a definiteness in Tennyson's poetry which makes it easy to recite and even to declaim his poems, while many of Browning's compositions do not lend themselves at all to viva voce repetition. There is always a superabundance of thought and feeling in them, and his mastery of rhyme and rhythm proved a temptation which he could not always resist. One often wished that some of Browning's poems could have passed through the Tennysonian sieve, to take away all that is unnecessary in them, and to moderate his exuberant revelling in language. Still his friends know what they possess in his poetry. When they are sad, he makes them joyful; when they exult, he tones them down; when they are hungry, he feeds them; when they are poor, he makes them rich; and, like a true prophet, he knows how to bring fresh water out of the rocks, out of the commonest events in our journey through the desert of life. It is a pity that his poetry does not lend itself to translation. Perhaps he is too thoroughly English, perhaps his sentences are too labyrinthine even for German readers. Anyhow, Browning is known much less abroad than Tennyson, and if translatableness is a test of true poetry, his poetry would not stand that test well.

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To have known such men as Tennyson and Browning is indeed a rare fortune. It helps us in two ways. We are preserved from extravagant miration, which is always stupid: and, on the other hand, we can enjoy even insignificant verses of theirs, as coming from our friends and lighting up some corner of their character. There are cases where personal acquaintance with the poets actually spoils our taste for their poetry, which we might otherwise have enjoyed; and to imagine that one knows a poet better because one has once shaken hands with him, is a fatal mistake. It would be far better to go at once to Westminster Abbey,

and spend a few thoughtful moments at the tombs of such poets as Tennyson or Browning, for there, at all events, there would be no disappointment.

F. MAX MULLER.

From The Nineteenth Century. THE CRETAN QUESTION. Who knows if this Cretan crisis, which has burst out at the most untoward season, just when the powers were about at last to take in hand, after such procrastination, the work of reform at Constantinople, may not be, nevertheless, a blessing in disguise? Undoubtedly it is a just reward for the incredible supineness with which diplomacy has let time fly after the settlement of the 25th of August, 1896. There is, besides, a broader Nemesis taking vengeance on that pusillanimous policy which dares only to deal piecemeal with the Eastern problem, and which, anxious to make the task more easy by balancing and shuffling and trimming, has not taken to heart the lesson of the Hydra of Lerna and of her innumerable heads only to be cut down at a blow.

However, if the powers understand this last teaching of events, if they are firmly resolved at once to maintain the beneficent, necessary agreement between themselves which is just now the only bulwark of peace, and to take time by the forelock in order to give Crete the measure of self-government to which it is entitled, and which would more than satisfy the immediate aspirations of its citizens, I, for one, shall see in this emergency, at one moment so threatening for the tranquillity of the world, a providential interference in a most complicated business. Let us keep or resume our coolheadedness. The problem is certainly not insoluble. The powers have, by instinct and unpremeditatedly, put their finger on the true means of solution. To act unanimously; to forbid to the Porte the sending of troops; to oc

cupy the coast towns; to call upon Greece to let Europe take the island in charge such were the successive or simultaneous steps taken by the Western Cabinets. Perhaps they ought to have been a little quicker, and to have peacefully, but resolutely, cut off the way from Greek intermeddling by blockading the ports of the kingdom. Their policy is perfectly consonant with the best traditions of our century. They have a right to ask the public not to deliver itself up wholly to hysterics, but to try to judge a great complex situation, not with its nerves only, but with its reason and conscience, and in relation to the whole duty of civilized nations.

Nobody is more convinced than I am of the greatness and of the legitimacy of the future of Hellenism. I see in it the heir-apparent to a great part of the succession of the Sick Man. I am happy to think a time will come when these fair lands of eastern Europe and western Asia, now blighted by the despotism or anarchy of the Ottoman system, will once more prosper under the enlightened and liberal government of the offspring of Solon and Perikles. What is more, I am perfectly disposed to admit, not only the justice of the hope and dreams of Hellenes, of that Great Idea which their statesmen and simple citizens so passionately entertain, but the perfect right of an enfranchised nation to go to the assistance of enslaved and suffering brethren and to strike a blow for their salvation. The memories of the War of Independence, of the heroic achievements of Canaris, Botzari, and their fellows, of Missolonghi and Chios, of the Philhellenism of our fathers, of Byron and Chateaubriand, of the romanticism and of the Orientales, are not so very far from us, that we can wholly shake them off. Only let us try to look facts in the face and not to be taken in by catchwords and phrases and mere humbug.

Is it or is it not certain that, Crete once occupied by the marines of the European navies, the powers will never give it back to the tender mercies