LORD TENNYSON.
[To mg EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR:] SIR, —There is one point in the character of the late great poet to which I do not observe that any obituary notice has referred, but which must have for many of your readers a deep and tender interest. Lord Tennyson, like his brother-poet Browning, was from first to last a consistent and ardent Anti-Vivisectionist. The allusions to the subject in his poems, and his scorn of the men who " carve the living hound," are well known ; but it may not be generally recognised that, from the foundation of the Victoria Street Society in 1876, to the day of his death, he was a leading member, and eventually vice-president, of the Association ; and that no great petition or memorial, of all the many that were sent up to Parliament, to Mr. Gladstone, and to the Home Office during those sixteen years, failed to bear his honoured signature. The last time I saw Lord Tennyson, he held my hand for a mcment as I was quitting his luncheon-table, and said, with his peculiar grave earnestness, alluding to my work : " Go on ! Fight the good. fight, Miss Cobbe ! Fight the good fight ! "—I am, Sir, &c., FRANCES POWER COBBE.
Hengwrt, Dolgelley, October 12th.
Previous page
