THE HOMES OF TENNYSON.
The Homes of Tennyson. Painted by Helen Allingham. Described by Arthur Paterson. (A. and C. Black. 75. 6d.) —This is one of the best books of its kind—illustrative, that is to say, of •the life and works of a great poet— that have been published for many a day. Needless to say, the illustrations, such as that representing the dairy-farm at Farringford, are admirable ; the name of Mrs. Allingham, apart altogether from the different views of Farringford and Aldworth which are here given, is a guarantee of their quality. But the descriptive letterpress, by Mr. Arthur Paterson, is worthy even of the work of Mrs. Allingham. He commands a style which is graphic in the best sense ; as may indeed be judged from the opening page, in which he describes his arrival at Tennyson's "noble down" on a stormy day in February — "Swish came the rain, almost horizontally, followed by a bayonet charge of hail. That presently gave place again to rain, followed by a stillness as if the storm had paused to consider itself, broken only by the moan of the wind and the far-off drum-beat of the surf upon the shore." Mr. Paterson is, it is hardly necessary to say, a hero-worshipper—he could not have written the letterpress for such a work as this if he had not been—and he is enthusiastic over Tennyson as he saw him. But his eulogies are all in the best of taste. It is only necessary to add that Mr. Paterson makes considerable, but not excessive, use of the various biographies of the poet, including that of the present Lord Tennyson, which have been published. But Mr. Paterson has inwoven into his quotations so much that is original that one never thinks of him as a borrower.
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