NATURE STUDY AND MODERN VERSE- WORDSWORTH AND TENNYSON.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTrATOR.".1
Sut,—Readers of the very discerning and discriminating article on this topic which appeared in your columns two or three weeks back may like to be reminded, even if a little late, of what is one of the most memorable remarks made on the relation of these two poets as regards their handling of Nature. It is certainly one of the most generous, too generous, indeed, to be strictly fair to his own gifts, for it is that of Tennyson himself, as recorded by the late Mr. Francis Palgrave. It was made during the tour which Tennyson and Palgrave took together in Cornwall in 1860. "I was
struck," says Palgrave, "on the plateau at Sennen, by the likeness between the masses of rock piled up by Nature only, and those cromlechs which also occur in Cornwall. 'Do you not remember that Wordsworth has a sonnet on this point ? ' Tennyson said, alluding to that beginning Mark the concentred hazels . . . ' adding: He seems to have been always before one in observation of Nature." The story of the incident and Tennyson's remark will be found in the Memoir of him by his son, Vol. I., p. 463.-1 am, Sir, &c., T. HERBERT WARREN. Magdalen College, Oxford.
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