New-York tribune., 1912-03-03

ia mass of material which 1t is
st to have i'm this collected form. Suil'
What makes the book perhaps most well
come is not what it has to tell abou:
"Teunvson and His Friends" though
their "reminiscences apty supplement
those of others, among them Gladstone
Iecky and Aubrey de We're, in the Me-
mor" The real interest of the book
lies in its studies of some OF Tennyson
friends themselves. notably that of his
elder brother Frederick, by Charles Ten
.nvson. and Of FitzGerald, the translator
Of Omar Khayyam, by the president 'of
.Magdalene College, oxford, DIR. warren
Frederick Tennyson. though by FAR the
lesser poet, appears to have been de-
cidedly the more interesting man. Des~
tined for the Church, he wrote, on the
eve of his ordination, in 1S32, a pretty
parson | shall make, I'm thinking
Having inherited a comfortable property
shortly after leaving Cambridge, he de-
parted for Italy. where he afterward
married and settled down. He, too was
friend Of FitzGerald. who had the
greatest faith in his poetic gift, but their
correspondence was for while chiefy
concerned with music, which, indeed
Frederick Tennyson considered the
Queen Of the Arts:
|orre into which we endeaVor TO IhIoW
'thoughts too deep for tears or 700 Iap a.
turous for moral mirth. compared WIZ" VIZ .tst ~
divine abstract oceanic utterances OF ,rdi tup =
,,oice which can multiply a thousanoiolu
and exhaust I'm infinite echoes the pdsSIoIlo
that on canvas, i'm marble or even III poeSS
1the composite style in esthetCs) so 0.n 0ioT,,
leave us cold and emotionless ! Deseae y. :, .
Music 10 be as far above the other RrI RrIs is as
The affections Of the soul above the raTesI
ingenuity of the perfect orator
According to his own confession FRED
erick Tennyson suffered from "unsociai
nonomania." Certain il is that he llVed
a life of exceptionally varied intel
lectual and emotional experiences hlieu
with many enthusiasms and equally
strong dislikes He took up sweden
borgianism with all his enormous energy
progressed from il to Spiritualism-a
logical advance to his mind-and be-
slowed his contempt impartially upon
Rome and Canterbury-on all orthodoxy
on materialism and atheism. F1tZGer-
aid. who saw him for the last time III
1879. wrote TO Mrs. Kemble that he had
the faith Of gigantic ch.ld-rathetic'
and vet humorous to consider and con-
sort with"
He lived in the future. in his religious
experiences, in the politics Of his day in
Italy. France and England, and in the
realm OF art. He was headlong, Ideal
igtic progressive" seizing upon the
SYMPTOMS of his day and cOloring them
with the pigment of his own beliefs. He
uut his faith in the substitution OF altru-
ism for egoism, which would he the END
,of sin. and bring in the Everlasting
righteousness" Some Of his literary
judgments are worth quoting. In 1880,
when he was seventy eight years old, he
wrote:
There can never he a second Shake
epsarc: that Is TO say, given man ol
euual genius. he cannot IN TINS complex
and anal ytical age OF literature emnouy
himself in the metric ana dramatic Iornl
n his purpose Is 10 hold mp the mirror
"a Nature. and 10 give TO Time it's form
aud pressure The form of prose fiction
is q vastly greater one; indeed, IL maN
10 termed ll-coIupreheDsive. All
things considered. I am OF opinion tnat II
a man were endowed .th such faculties
as Shakespeare. they would be MOI
freely and effectively exerclseei1i IN prose p.s,
,Ubsn "cribbed, csbined, and conhned' IN
the tramnnels OF verse.
while Browning was one Of his friends.
Frederick Tennyson dctested his poetry