Tennyson: his Life and Works. By Jephson H. Smith. (James
Blackwood.)—It is one of the penalties of greatness to be made the subject of contemporary biography. Mr. Smith scarcely pretends to give anything like criticism, but he gossips about his subject, tells us where Mr. Tennyson was born, what he has written, who has criticised him, and what notice he has taken of such criticism. On the whole, this gossip'is fairly inoffensive. We certainly think it a mistake to have republished the offensive lines which appeared in the first edition of "The New Timon," and were suppressed in the second, with the poet's angry reply ; but this is the only serious mistake that we have noticed, except, perhaps, that the book, which is feeble and purpose- less, should ever have been published. Mr. Smith is not oven correct in his details. He speaks of Mr. Tennyson as being the "youngest of three sons," though he himself mentions three brothers. And he says that the "Poems by Two Brothers" "contained the only published pro- ductions of5lharles," never having heard apparently of the " Sonnets," turned sometimes with an exquisite grace, of the Rev. Charles Turner.
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