QUEEN VICTORIA AND LORD TENNYSON

New Zealand Mail, 27 August 1902, Page 1 (Supplement)

QUEEN VICTORIA AND LORD TENNYSON

(“Public Opinion.”)

Great characters are like great mountain* We grasp their unity and dignity he«t ivhen separated from them by a certein interval, whether of time or of space. Standing back from some mighty monarch of the hills we rest our gaze, not onlv on the awful height and splendid outline when its topmost summit “stands and take the morning” but mark al<o many a tender curve of light anti shadow clinging to its softer slopes, tell-

mg ot Hidden valleys buried in its unseen depths or cool, mysterious recesses, lovely with flowers an dhaunted by birds. About nineteen months have passed since Queen Victoria left us, and this short time has given a sufficient leisure for musing on various aspects of her life Way and .Tune, the months of her birth and accession, will to many of us appear to oe especially connected with her memory. There is a circumstance of peculuir beauty, not, we believe as yet dwelt A|| )0, b to which we desire to call attention 1 lie friendship that the Queen formed in her later years with the late Poet Laureate was to her often wearied spirit a green retreat a quiet shelter from “the fierce light that beats upon a throne.” in which she could always find refreshment and peace.

Its record is given in Tennyson's “Memoirs,” especially in the closing pages, where the Queen, with a wise generosity, permitted their correspondence to appear. As a poet she had to . known him before the personal friendship began; for, when he was summoned to Osborne in ' the early years of her widowhood, she "could tell him that, “Next to the Bible, ‘ln Memoriam’ is my comfort.” Nor was this her only-mental link between his writings and the husband she had lost. The “Idylls” had been published soon enough for ■! Prince Consort to read them to her with intense admiration, and their hero was in her mind identified with the Prince

himself. After liig death she had expressed a wish that Tennyson would in some way “idealise the late Prince,” to wh ; ch the poet replied that he ’

see liow to idealise that which was itsell ideal; but tile wish bore fruit, for t next edition of the “Idylls” was prefithe beautiful dedication in which the memory of the Prince Consort is for ever enshrined. How deeply it was valued ' “Memoirs” tells us. A note fro’" Crown Princess of Prussia concludes thus:—“Surely it must give the ” satisfaction to know that his words have been drops of balm on the broken am' loving hearts of the widowed Queen and her orphan children.” The Queen and her Laureate therefore met uot as strangers, and when thev parted it was a.s friends for life. Her<

the Queen won not one of the least 01 her victories. Tennyson had always hated publicity and recoiled from u.. ceremonial of a Court, but he at once recognised in his Sovereign a nature as true and human as his own, a noble simplicity of soul that henceforward bound his heart to hers in loyal and chivalrous devotion. How disinterested wafriendship on his own part is shown b\ the answer he made when the Queen in her later years inquired whether Ihp wa.s anything she could do for h ; “Nothing, Madam, but shake my two boys by the hand—it may keep them loyal troublous times.” The image of h : s Queen as a brave, sorrowful, lov n woman, toiling on a lonely height f the welfare of her people, appealed ' all that was highest and deepest in lv grand nature, and. for her he w r>’ henceforth have done anything—excepting one thing. Not even she could induce him to frequent her Court. “It would give me the greatest of pleasures.” she wrote before the mar mane rf The Princess Beatrice, ‘‘if you would come over fn the wedding in our village chu’d I ‘fear’ you will not do that! B’M prai come and see me when all '« ouiet again.” Though absent in person her hermit friend was present in spirit on all occasions of jov and sorrow in the Queen’s family circle, as the poems he sea* such seasons test ; fy, and that they went straight to the mother's heart ; s shown by her charming renlies. He is never fomotten by her. When her own book i = pubbshed =he offers it to him “\ very humble and unpretending supinr ’’ In cheerful hours, such as Ids G-G,-G v* her own Jnh’lee. the nubl’e norf-r nance of his fV’de. the “tableaux v’vants” {riven at Osborne letters and little nresents are received bv Tennvsou sbow>n<r tpc affectionate remembrance in wfidi dalways held him. Tn reading these we have to nause and recall that they came nol onlv from tile h-'ehest but from. talCne her asre into account, the mosc bard worked woman in the world to an nrociaie properly their value and significance. That she should remember share her ioys with him and to eute~ inl-o his own gives US a I'velv her wa.rm. womanly nature. r T T v, t >e r-t--sliould do the in seasnrs of sorr-w is whaf we cV-onld have exrieofefl froa. Pnrrere-icm who always showed a rrl-:. confidence that her pubGcG would oTlpn-n

with her griefs even as she identified herself with the rs. At such periods the letters that passed between herself and 1 ennvsoil plainly came to and from the heart of a friend. When the bond was severed at last the xioet’s Sovereign was one of liis deepest mourners. Her words breathe a spirit not only of affection, but of gratitude to the great soul that had gone from earth. “The Queen deeply laments and mourns her noble Poet Laureate, who will be so universally regretted; but lie lias left undying works behind him, which we shall ever treasure. He was so very kind and full of sympathy to the Queen, who, alas! never saw him again after his last visit to Osborne . . . . That. great spirit now knows what lie so often reflected on and pondered over.” Want of space forbids further extracts, but we are confideu* that all who can find leisure to spend half an hour in studying the latter pages of Tennyson’s “Memo ; rs” will agree with us that the long roll of history contains a record of no friendship more honourable, more elevating, and more picturesque than that which united the Prince of Song and his beloved Sovereign.