GREAT MEN'S BODIES
which has continued ever since; in 1847, "The Princess," a medley; in 1850, "In Memoriam," when upon Wordsworth's death he succeeded him as Poet-Laureate; in 1852, his "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington" in 1855, Maud, and Other Poems; in 1859, The Idylls of the King; in 1864, "Enoch Arden"; "Aylmer's Field" and "Tithonus"; in 1870, "The Window; or, The Songs of the Wrens"; in 1872, "The Holy Grail"; in 1875, the drama "Queen Mary" and in 1876 another, "Harold."
The London Times, October 7, 1892, said: "The death of Lord Tennyson extinguishes the most brilliant light in English literature—a light which has shone to the last with unwaning lustre. He linked us with the golden age of the famous poets of the beginning of the century; and his loss, following on that of his old friend Browning, leaves a blank we can scarcely hope to fill. Though the late Laureate had kept his powers and much of his energy to the last; he has died in the fulness of years as of fame. He lived to a good old age; he did great and imperishable work; his name had long been a charmed household-word around the hearths and in the hearts of his admiring countrymen; for he was eminently the poet of the feelings and of the affections; and if he cared for lower honors and for more riches, he had won enough of both to satisfy his ambition. The greatest or most conspicuous men are often the least to be envied; but we should say that few lots were more enviable than his. The son of a clergyman in affluent circumstances, life from the first was made smooth and pleasant to him. . . . When most boys are still drudging at the gradus, or beginning to labor over the grindstone of Latin verse, he wrote flowing poetry which is readable, and was full of promise for the future. . . . His genius ripened steadily and surely. His reputation increased with the appreciative and sympathetic, as his popularity was widely extended among the crowd. . . . In the enjoyment of ample means; absolute master of his time and of his arrangements, he made his favorite recreation his regular occupation, writing just as much or as little as he pleased. He led the easy life of a country gentleman, as he understood it; drawing inspiration for his scenery and his minutely exquisite painting of nature from the lanes and downs that surrounded his dwellings.
He was born on August 5, 1809. His father was rector of Somersby, Lincolnshire, and remarkable for bodily strength and stature; which may help to explain his son's longevity, and the per-
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