TENNYSON AND HOME RULE.
[To THE EDITOR 07 THE SF...TX/08.1
Sra,—With reference to the prospect of civil war in Ireland, you quoted last Saturday the words used by Tennyson in a letter to Queen Victoria of April, 1886. A remark drawn from the poet by the Home Rule scheme of that year may be worth recalling at the present juncture : "Gladstone and the Radicals know that it is infinitely easy to destroy the con- stitution of a State, but do not realize that it is infinitely hard to reconstruct it" (Life of Tennyson, Vol. 11., p. 332). On June 28th, 1892, in a letter written "to an unknown corre- spondent, on the eve of the General Election," Tennyson summed up his feelings towards the Liberal leader in a sentence which has become famous : "I love Mr. Gladstone, but hate his present Irish policy" (ibid., p. 411).—I am, Sir, Sze., Craft
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