TENNYSON AS A GUEST.
[TO TEX EDITOR OF THZ " SPECTATOR."]
-SIR —I should like to show you, for publication or not, as you think well, quite another aspect of Tennyson as a guest. In 1850, just after his marriage, when he was staying at Coniston, he came over to spend a day with my grandmother—" Mrs. Fletcher, of Edinburgh "—at her house near Grasmere. Some of us took him up Easedale, showing him Wordsworth's haunts there, and when we got in face of Sour Milk Ghyll he answered its voice heartily with "The stationary blasts of waterfalls," &c. On joining the old-fashioned family early dinner he was interested by the four generations at the long table, noticing especially one little boy of three : " There's a glory about that child ;" and the homely fare seemed to please him greatly, his face quite lighting up at the sight of a dish of beans and bacon, the like of which he had not seen of late, and wished he saw oftener. On taking leave he said : "I've had a very jolly day ;" and altogether the union of enthusiasm and simplicity struck us as another instance of what we had long known in Wordsworth.—I am, Sir, &c.,
M. G. T.
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