quoted from Greek, Latin, and Italian authors literal versions in English prose, though I need hardly say that the points of resemblance between the passages in Tennyson corresponding with the passages cited from authors in these languages are often necessarily lost in such versions, which can indeed preserve little more than analogies in thought, sentiment, and imagery. For this reason I have not given translations of the passages cited in the chapter which compares the style of Virgil and Tennyson.

It only remains for me to thank Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. for allowing me to incorporate in the present volume the greater part of three articles contributed by me some years ago to the Cornhill Magazine.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF TENNYSON

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION-TENNYSON AND VIRGIL

THOSE who may happen to be acquainted with the Saturnalia of Macrobius will remember that among the most pleasing episodes in that interesting work are the two books in which Eustathius and Furius Albinus estimate the extent of Virgil's obligations to his predecessors. Eustathius having concluded a long and elaborate review of the passages in the Greek poets of which the great Roman had availed himself, Furius Albinus proceeds to trace him through Latin literature. He was half afraid, he said, to produce the formidable list of passages appropriated by the poet, because he might be exposing his favourite to the censure of the malignant and unlearned.' Remembering, however, that such parallels as he was about to point out have been common to poets of all ages, and complacently observing that what Virgil condescended to borrow became him much more than the original owner-to say nothing of that owner becoming in some cases immortalised by the theft-Furius plunges into his theme. Between them these Langbaines of the fifth century made Conington very uncomfortable towards

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