His song rings
like that of Charles Kingsley, poet, novelist, preacher, and
"Christian socialist," who did not publish his "Saint's Tragedy" till
three years after Hood was dead.
There has, indeed, been no break in the continuity of our great
literary history; while one splendid group was setting, another as
illustrious was rising. Tennyson, who on Wordsworth's death in 1850
received at Queen Victoria's hand the "laurel greener from the brows
of him that uttered nothing base," had published his earliest two
volumes of poems some years before Her Majesty's accession; and of
that rare poetic pair, the Brownings, each had already given evidence
of the great powers they possessed, Robert Browning's tragedy of
"Strafford" being produced on the stage in 1837, while his future
wife's translation of the "Prometheus Bound" saw the light four years
earlier. The Victorian period can boast no greater poetic names than
these, each of which is held in highest reverence by its own special
admirers. The patriotic fervour with which Lord Tennyson has done
almost all his laureate work, the lucid splendour of his style, the
perfect music of his rhythm, and the stinging sharpness with which he
has sometimes chastised contemporary sins, have all combined to win
for him a far wider popularity than even that accorded to the fine
lyrical passion of Mrs.
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