similar to the one written by Carlyle to a young author: "If the critics treat your first book ill, write the second so much better as to shame them." So Tennyson persevered till he placed himself where he belongs-at the head of living English poets. The following are among his productions: Godiva, May Queen, The Gardener's Daughter, Talking Oak, Locksley Hall, The Lotus Eaters, The Princess, In Memoriam, Enoch Arden, Idyls of the King. We have not space to mention more of his excellent poems. In giving an estimate of the present poetlaureate of England, we can do no better than to quote from our own loved and lamented Longfellow, "To Alfred Tennyson":

Poet! I come to touch thy lance with mine;
Not as a knight, who on the listed field
Of tourney touched his adversary's shield

In token of defiance, but in sign
Of homage to the mastery, which is thine
In English song, nor will I keep concealed
And voiceless as rivulet frost-congealed,

My admiration for thy verse divine.

Not of the howling dervishes of song,

Who craze the brain with their delirious dance,
Art thou, O sweet historian of the heart!
Therefore, to thee the laureate-leaves belong,

To thee our love and our allegiance,

For thy allegiance to the poet's art.

T

Charge of the Heavy Brigade.

HE charge of the gallant Three Hundred, the Heavy Brig

ade!

Down the hill, down the hill, thousands of Russians, Thousands of horsemen drew to the valley-and stayed.

For Scarlett and Scarlett's Three Hundred were riding by When the points of the Russian lances broke in on the sky; And he called "Left wheel into line!" and they wheeled and

obeyed,

Then he looked at the host that had halted, he knew not

why,

And he turned half round, and he bade his trumpeter sound "To the charge!" and he rode on ahead, as he waved his blade To the gallant Three Hundred, whose glory will never die.

"Follow up the hill!"

Up the hill, up the hill, followed the Heavy Brigade.

The trumpet, the gallop, the charge and the might of the fight!

Down the hill, slowly, thousands of Russians

Drew to the valley, and halted at last on the height

With a wing pushed out to the left and a wing to the right.

But Scarlett was far on ahead, and he dashed up alone
Through the great gray slope of men;

And he whirled his sabre, he held his own

Like an Englishman there and then.

And the three that were nearest him followed with force, Wedged themselves in between horse and horse,

Fought for their lives in the narrow gap they had made, Four amid thousands; and up the hill, up the hill, Galloped the gallant Three Hundred, the Heavy Brigade.

Fell, like a cannon shot,
Burst, like a thunderbolt,

Crashed, like a hurricane,

Broke through the mass from below,
Drove through the midst of the foe,
Plunged up and down, to and fro,
Rode flashing, blow upon blow,

Brave Enniskillens and Greys,
Whirling their sabres in circles of light;
And some of us, all in amaze,

Who were held for awhile from the fight
And were only standing at gaze,

When the dark muffled Russian crowd

Folded its wings from the left and the right

And rolled them around like a cloud

Oh! mad for the charge and the battle were we
When our own good red coats sank from sight,
Like drops of blood in a dark gray sea;

And we turned to each other, muttering, all dismayed,-
"Lost are the gallant Three Hundred, the Heavy Brigade!"
But they rode, like victors and lords,

Through the forests of lances and swords

In the heart of the Russian hordes

They rode, or they stood at bay;

Struck with the sword hand and slew;
Down with the bridle-hand drew

The foe from the saddle, and threw
Under foot there in the fray:

Raged like a storm, or stood like a rock

In the wave of a stormy day;
Till suddenly shock upon shock,

Staggered the mass from without;

For our men galloped up with a cheer and a shout,
And the Russians surged, and wavered and reeled
Up the hill, up the hill, up the hill, out of the field,
Over the brow and away!

Glory to each and to all, and the charge that they made!
Glory to all the Three Hundred, the Heavy Brigade!