The consent of mankind seems to place Homer and
Shakespeare and Dante high above all. For the rest no prize-list can
be settled. If influence among aliens is the test, Byron probably
takes, among our poets, the next rank after Shakespeare. But
probably there is no possible test. In certain respects Shelley, in
many respects Milton, in some Coleridge, in some Burns, in the
opinion of a number of persons Browning, are greater poets than
Tennyson. But for exquisite variety and varied exquisiteness
Tennyson is not readily to be surpassed. At one moment he pleases
the uncritical mass of readers, in another mood he wins the verdict
of the raffine. It is a success which scarce any English poet but
Shakespeare has excelled. His faults have rarely, if ever, been
those of flat-footed, "thick-ankled" dulness; of rhetoric, of common-
place; rather have his defects been the excess of his qualities. A
kind of John Bullishness may also be noted, especially in derogatory
references to France, which, true or untrue, are out of taste and
keeping. But these errors could be removed by the excision of half-
a-dozen lines. His later work (as the Voyage of Maeldune) shows a
just appreciation of ancient Celtic literature. A great critic, F.
T. Palgrave, has expressed perhaps the soundest appreciation of
Tennyson:-
It is for "the days that remain" to bear witness to his real place in
the great hierarchy, amongst whom Dante boldly yet justly ranked
himself.
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