1878.]  OF  TENNYSON.  53

[In  1878  two  stanzas  appeared  In  Punch
(preceded  by  a  quotation  from  a  leading
article  in  that  ne  plus  ultra  of  political
tergiversation,  the  Daily  Telegraph).  The
quotation  and  the  stanzas,  as  nearly  as  I
can  recollect,  ran  as  follows  :

"  Of  Mr.  Gladstone  we  may  say,  with  Imogen,
'  My  lord,  I  fear,  has  forgot  Britain  '  ;*  and  History
will  add,  as  Jachimo  does,  'And  himself.'  "f

*"  Has  forgot  Britain  '?     Blatant  buncombe  shapes
A  Britain  generous  Britons  would  disown  ;

A  mock-Britannia,  whose  stage -ermine  drapes
A  sham,  of  selfish  frothiness  upblown.
The  truest  lover  of  his  land  is  not

The  tap-room  patriot  of  the  pipe  and  pot.
*"  Forgot  himself  ?     Ay,  in  a  nobler  sort
Than  sordid  self-regard  can  understand.
What,  brave  the  loud  reproach,  the  foul  report,
The  taunt  of  treason  to  his  native  land  !

Say,  what  can  base  Jachimo  do  less

Than  scofF  at  such  fine  self-forgetfulness  ?"

I  have  always  been  inclined,  since  first  seeing  them,
on   the  day  of  publication,  to  attribute  these   lines  to

[*  Cymbeline,  Act  I.,  sc.  7.]
t    Dail-^  Telegraph.
54  THE  BIBLIOGRAPHY     [1879-

the  Poet  Laureate  ;  and  to  exclaim,  "  ^{ut  Tevn^son,
aut  diabolus''' ;  nor  have  I  ever  wavered  for  one  day
in  my  opinion,  that  the  writer  of  the  political  poems
in  the  Examiner  of  1852,  the  poet  who  contributed
twice  to  the  columns  of  Punch  in  1846,  and  the  writer
of  the  above  stanzas,  were  one  and  the  same  person.]


1879.
♦^  The  Lover's  Tale  [including  a  Third  Part,
previously  inedited,  and  a  Fourth  Part,
originally  published  in  1870  (1869),  under
the  title  of  "  The  Golden  Supper,"  with
a  Prose  Preface].  London  :  Kegan  Paul,
1879,  gi'i^s'^  cloth,  pp.  95.
