University of Virginia Library

The History of A Poem: Tennyson's Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington
by
Edgar F. Shannon, Jr.

Despite Professor Paull F. Baum's assertion that the Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington "leaves modern readers cold," Laurence Binyon considers it a "fine example" of the Horatian ode in English and one of three such pieces worthy of a place with Marvell's ode upon Cromwell. Sir Harold Nicolson refers to Tennyson's ode as "magnificent"; Sir Charles Tennyson thinks it "perhaps his greatest . . . poem."[1] No doubt nationality, as well as temperament and training, affects a reader's response to this poem; but whether or not one can prove the Ode upon one's patriotic pulses, certainly it represents a notable technical achievement and a significant, though frequently over-looked, profession of Tennyson's faith — not alone in country, but in man and God. Yet the unity of tone and grammar of assent that characterize the ultimate text are the result of sustained application by the poet. Manuscripts and proofs testify to his assiduity; and three successive versions appeared (1852, 1853, 1855) before the Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington neared its final form. The definitive text is thirty lines longer than that of the first edition. Six of the lines originally published have been omitted; and, exclusive of changes in punctuation, over thirty of these have been altered or entirely recast. An account of the composition, reception, and revision of the poem and an appendix of variorum readings will illustrate Tennyson's scrupulous craftsmanship and his increasing willingness, as poet laureate, to speak affirmatively to the people.

I

On September 14, 1852, the Duke of Wellington died in Walmer Castle on the Channel coast near Dover, a place of residence that he

enjoyed by virtue of his office as Warden of the Cinque Ports. His son and heir, Arthur Wellesley, Marquis of Douro, was at the time traveling with his family on the Continent; and until he had been notified no arrangements for the disposition of the body could be concluded.[2] Owing to the Duke's austere mode of living, both press and populace feared that he might have prohibited a state funeral. Hence there was general satisfaction over the information provided on the afternoon of September 17 that there was no such proscription and that his will placed his remains "at the disposal of his Sovereign."[3] As the Illustrated London News declared, "Throughout the realm of Britain, all questions and topics of conversation and discussion have temporarily merged into one — when, where, and with what state and ceremonial the great Duke of Wellington shall be buried?" — a concern which Tennyson reflected in the opening line of his second strophe, "Where shall we lay the man whom we deplore?"[4] On September 20, in a letter from Balmoral to the Home Secretary, the Prime Minister, Lord Derby, hastening, as he said, "to relieve the public anxiety," announced the Queen's wish that the Duke of Wellington, "with all solemnity due to the greatness of the occasion," should be buried in St. Paul's cathedral, "there to rest by the side of Nelson — the greatest military by the side of the greatest naval chief who ever reflected lustre upon the annals of England." In order to honor the Duke with the will of the people, however, the Queen had determined to await the approval of her decision by both houses of Parliament, which were not expected to assemble until November 11.[5] Preparations began for an elaborate ceremonial, but it was clear that the funeral could not take place until almost two months had elapsed.

Two months seem ample time in which to prepare a poetical tribute to the departed hero; but Tennyson's habitually deliberate composition and his characteristic diffidence lend credence to Thomas Kibble Hervey's assertion in the Athenaeum, based he said on personal knowledge, that the poet was hurried in writing the ode and that in commemorating the occasion he "yielded reluctantly to arguments."[6] At

any rate, he accepted the challenge that circumstances had provided and can scarcely have found the task uncongenial — mere "Laureate work," as some of the reviewers implied. Doubtless, he was genuinely moved by the Duke of Wellington's death and by the implications of his life, symbolizing as it did England's heroic past, public service, devotion to duty, courage, simplicity, integrity. Alarmed over the possibility of a French invasion, after Louis Napoleon's coup d'état of December, 1851, Tennyson, "in a white heat of emotion," as Sir Charles says, had dashed off a series of newspaper verses in which, under assumed names, he had exhorted his countrymen to vigilance and valor.[7] He had been a fervid proponent of the Militia Bill, which augmented the national defenses by 80,000 militiamen and which the Duke of Wellington had championed in the House of Lords on June 15, 1852.[8] From the beginning of his literary career in 1830, Tennyson had shown a predilection for the patriotic strain.[9] Everyone is familiar with the conservative liberalism of "You ask me, why," "Of old sat Freedom," and "Love thou thy land" (1842). "Hail, Briton!" and "The Queen of the Isles," written in the '30's and until recently unpublished, further evince his response to public events — a response so fully developed and consistently maintained that he could appropriate six lines from "Hail, Briton!" for his ode to Wellington.[10] The civic muse recurs in "Walking to the Mail" and "Locksley Hall" (1842), in "The Golden Year" (1846), in the "Conclusion" to The Princess (1847), and in In Memoriam (1850). In 1851 the seventh edition of Poems had opened with laudatory stanzas "To the Queen."

Yet if, once committed, Tennyson embarked upon the project with some verve, he must have labored under handicaps. Besides having undertaken to meet a deadline, he had obligated himself to demonstrate his qualities as laureate. "To the Queen" had actually been his initial song as court poet, but the Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington would be his first separately published venture since In Memoriam and his acceptance of the bays. Two years of domesticity, with its concomitant house-hunting, travel, child-birth, and visitors, had not been conducive to poetry; and now Hallam Tennyson, born on August 11 and christened October 5, was both a fascination and a distraction.[11] Tennyson, generally acknowledged to be the leading poet of England, had a reptutation to maintain; and The Times' belated review of In Memoriam and George Gilfillan's recent diatribe in the Critic provided no grounds for complacency.[12] For the first time in his literary life Tennyson was truly under pressure.

In the latter half of October a royal proclamation officially scheduled the Speech from the Throne and the opening of Parliamentary business for November 11. Approval of Wellington's obsequies presumably would soon follow, and the burial was projected for the period from November 17 through 19.[13] Meanwhile Tennyson persevered at

his work. Devising an original prosodic form and a unifying scheme of monologue, dialogue, and action, he largely surmounted the impediments to poesy that confronted him. On November 6 the poet's publisher, Edward Moxon, wrote as follows:

For an edition of 10,000 copies of your Ode on the death of the Duke of Wellington I beg to offer you two hundred pounds, the amount to be paid at Christmas, or, should you wish it, on the day of publication.

Tennyson noted his acceptance of Moxon's offer in the margin of the letter.

Finally the funeral was set for November 18, and the elegy was ready within the available time. Although Tennyson had not brought it to the perfection that he would afterwards attain, it possessed the authentic cadence. He wished to honor the great Duke and was apparently satisfied to submit his lines to the verdict of readers and reviewers. A single octavo, bound in gray paper, the Ode, consisting of 251 lines of varying lengths, was published on November 16, two days before the funeral.[15] Undoubtedly Sir Charles is right that his hopes for the success of the poem were high.[16]

II

It was hardly to be expected that the Ode on the Death of the Duke

of Wellington would fully satisfy the reviewers' preconceptions, but their verdict was not unanimously hostile, as has generally been supposed.[17]

Anticipating the date of publication by a day, the magisterial Times, on Monday, November 15, treated the ode to a full column, which was widely reprinted, paraphrased, and plagiarized by metropolitan, provincial, and Scottish newspapers.[18] If "The Thunderer's" approach was somewhat condescending — "There is no affectation . . . in any of the lines . . . . [The poem] has more beauty than force, more sweetness and feeling than dignity and magnificence" — it found Tennyson "faithful to his mission" and quoted almost half of the poem. To introduce strophe VIII the reviewer wrote, "Never has . . . [the path of duty] been more simply and faithfully drawn than in the following lines."

On Wednesday, November 17, the Guardian, a liberal weekly, announced that the poem was not up to Tennyson's reputation. The subject was too grand and stern for his genius. Yet, though marred by some eccentricities of versification and "not a great production," the Ode was "dignified and graceful, full of tender and picturesque expressions, and in . . . metre generally melodious." The critic then quoted more than a third of the poem, commenting on several selections with such words as "a fine address to the two great men [Nelson and Wellington]," "a beautiful passage," "a striking one."[19]

Thursday, the day of the funeral, a short notice in the Fife Herald called the poem "a failure" — except for seventy-one lines comprising strophes VII and VIII, which were reprinted as a "noble passage."[20] But the impact of the Fife Herald upon public opinion was necessarily limited.

Extensive critical attention to the Ode began on Saturday, November

20, when eight London weeklies reviewed it. Among them Tennyson's reception was mixed.[21]

The Court Journal, which doted, it said, on "Locksley Hall," "The May Queen," "The Gardener's Daughter," and In Memoriam, found The Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington "somewhat redeemed by scattered lines of great beauty and power" but "very far inferior to anything" that the poet had yet written. "Disdaining all rules of rhythm and metre, Mr. Tennyson has strung together a series of expressions, which read more like dislocated prose than verse, full of endless repetitions and sing-song rhymes."[22] The Weekly News and Chronicle was prepared to be disappointed and duly found itself so. "Why, there is not a provincial newspaper in any of our large cities that has not, within the last three months, received dozens of such lines. . . ," it declared.[23] The Leader, a sophisticated and liberal journal, founded two years earlier by Thornton Hunt and George Henry Lewes, judged the poem "an intrinsically poor performance."[24] The paper that had lauded In Memoriam and would welcome Maud believed the Ode a tissue of "common-place reflections," unrelieved by the "splendour of imagery befitting a great event."[25] Both conception and execution struck the critic, probably Lewes himself, as "insignificant."[26] In the Athenaeum, T. K. Hervey maintained a cordial tone but could not accept the poem as a poetical offering "commensurate with those other forms of honour which in life were lavishly bestowed" on the Duke of Wellington. Excusing Tennyson on the ground of haste, Hervey looked

for the poem to "be expanded into nobler proportions under the influence of longer time and added reflection."[27]

The Spectator informed its readers that Tennyson's ode was "hardly equal to its theme." While reverting to its recurrent complaint about Tennyson's mannerisms, affectation, and babyism, this periodical, nevertheless, contradicted both the Leader and the Weekly News and Chronicle. If there was nothing profound about the poem, there was nothing about it "poor or commonplace. . . . The ode, be its faults what it may, is the work of a poet; its structure, its treatment, its thoughts, its style, all are removed from mere versifying."[28]

Three other influential weeklies, the Atlas, the Examiner, and the Literary Gazette tendered unqualified praise. The Atlas asserted, "This ode will not disappoint the admirers of Mr. Tennyson's genius." Finding some of the stanzas equal to any in In Memoriam, the reviewer let the poet speak for himself in three passages totalling seventy-one lines.[29] The critic for the Examiner, presumably Tennyson's friend John Forster, assured his readers that, as poet laureate, Tennyson had been true to the occasion. As "grand and solemn" as the work was, so also was "the poet's simple strain of music . . . Exquisite for grace, pathos, and poetic fire, is the whole passage to Nelson; masterly the rapid and brief description of Wellington's victories." Forster contented himself with quoting only fifty lines, since "all Englishmen will read" the poem.[30] The Literary Gazette was panegyrical. The task of giving "voice to the emotions of the nation's heart, and the matured convictions of its judgment, in strains worthy of the great theme" was one to daunt "even the genius of Tennyson." But with a "lamentation simple, majestic, well-attempted, like the man himself," the poet had tendered a "fitting death-song" for the Great Duke.

Yet in order to illustrate the general nature of the poem, the Literary Gazette quoted in full six of the nine strophes of the poem and a part of a seventh — 166 lines in all!

In spite of this encomium Tennyson took a bleak view of his prospects and wrote to Moxon, "if you lose by the Ode, I will not consent to accept the whole sum of £200 . . . . I consider it quite a sufficient loss if you do not gain by it."[32] Responding, on November 23, to a letter of congratulation from Henry Taylor, Tennyson exclaimed: "Thanks, thanks! . . . In the all but universal depreciation of my ode by the Press, the prompt and hearty appreciation of it by a man as true as the Duke himself is doubly grateful."[33] The poet's vulnerability to derogatory criticism seems to have given him a distorted notion of his reception. Possibly he had not seen the Atlas and the Literary Gazette. Since he had counted on Forster's loyalty, perhaps the Examiner was little consolation.[34] He may have read too impatiently to discover favorable comments in other papers; and as he later remarked to James Knowles, "I remember everything that has been said against me, and forget all the rest."[35] Probably his hopes for a decisive critical success would have left him satisfied with little less than undivided acclaim. The equivocal reaction was a severe disappointment.[36]

When he wrote to Taylor, however, the response to the Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington was not complete. The same day the Ayr Observer pronounced it worthy of the unique event it celebrated and evidence of "very considerable power";[37] but on November 26 the Dumfries-shire and Galloway Herald asseverated that the poem was not "equal to the occasion" and that Tennyson lacked the power "to smite a nation's heart" — though the paper succeeded in quoting more than half of his lines.[38] The next day the Illustrated London News, in a detailed critique signed J. A. H., deplored the laureate's ode.[39] Although this reviewer admitted that "in the midst of . . . poverty and humility of thought and style, there is an occasional beauty of phrase" and had no doubt that with time and leisure Tennyson would produce

"a fine poem" on the subject, he scorned the present offering: "the sentiments scarcely ever reach to the elevation of the theme," and "the injudicious style of expression lowers the best of them to the level of contemptuous familiarity, offensive to well-educated taste." Yet within four days, on December 1, the Critic, which only ten months before had printed George Gilfillan's excoriation of Tennyson, came stoutly to his defense.[40] The Ode had "been received with a very divided opinion — hearty praise and immoderate dispraise"; but fear of abuse from Tennyson's detractors would not prevent the Critic from registering its appreciation of a work which it found "perfectly Aeschylian. Thoughts too large for regular metre, but not less poetical on that account, lie heaped with all the gorgeous profusion of a Greek chorus." Finally, in January, 1853, the High Church English Review printed another enthusiastic critique of the ode — "in our judgment, a most masterly composition."[41] For this reviewer the poem displayed a union of "magnificence and sobriety" characteristic of Wellington; and the essay concluded with the following eulogy:

Obviously the severity of the critical reaction to the Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington has been considerably overstated. When Tennyson wrote to Taylor of "the all but universal disparagement of my ode by the Press," he seems excessively to have discounted such friendly reviews as those in the Atlas, the Examiner, and the Literary Gazette, and characteristically to have disregarded many favorable remarks in other papers. At this time, moreover, the articles in the Critic and the English Review, which must have been balm to his wounded spirit, had not yet appeared. Even the derogatory reviews had, in every case, found some lines to quote with praise, and the newspapers had disseminated substantial excerpts from the poem throughout the length and breadth of the United Kingdom. From his letter to Moxon, Tennyson apparently assumed a reduced demand for the poem, owing to adverse criticism; but it seems likely that extensive

quotation in the newspapers may have lessened desire for the complete text.

In the middle of January 1853, Tennyson wrote somewhat dolefully to his wife that "only about 6000 of the Ode" had been sold.[42] Certainly, this figure was far short of the 10,000 that Moxon had anticipated, but it was not a meager one. After the author's honorarium and the costs of printing and distribution, the publisher still probably realized a small profit. At any rate, he was willing to hazard a second edition.

At the end of February or early in March 1853, he issued at one shilling another paper-bound octavo almost indistinguishable from its predecessor, except for a slight variation in the color of the binding and the words on both cover and title page — "A NEW EDITION."[43]

III

The new edition was twenty-nine lines longer than the first and contained numerous alterations. Exactly when Tennyson began to revise is unknown; but he probably started not long after the funeral and continued his efforts until near the date of publication of the second edition.[44] Although Henry Taylor wrote, "I hear you are going to see the Duke buried," Tennyson did not actually witness the interment.[45] From Somerset House in the Strand he watched the magnificent procession that conveyed Wellington's body from the Horse Guards to St. Paul's and pronounced it "very fine." He may have visited the interior of the cathedral after the funeral; and he later read an account of the burial.[46]

To commemorate a great public event is easier than to anticipate it. After Tennyson had been stirred by pomp and pageantry and had

shared with his countrymen the emotions of the occasion, he could more effectively strike the appropriate mood than he could possibly have done beforehand. It was inevitable that he would make additions and corrections to the Ode, especially since circumstances had forced him to publish without his customary period of testing and perfecting. Certainly he wished the poem to take its place as a fitting and enduring memorial to "England's greatest son." The reviewers' objections indicated that he had not attained his goal and may have crystallized his determination to silence his detractors. His severest critic, J. A. H. in the Illustrated London News, had predicted that the future would bring from Tennyson a suitable tribute to the Duke. T. K. Hervey had envisaged a longer and nobler poem as the result of time and further reflection. Such opinions were earnest of a favorable predisposition toward a revised edition.

While it seems unlikely that Tennyson would have emended his Ode so fully as he did if the reception of the first version had been entirely laudatory, he paid scant attention to the strictures on his versification or to condemnation, for one reason or another, of specific passages. Among a dozen such passages his treatment of only one implies a possible reaction to criticism. The Illustrated London News had cited the opening seven-line strophe of the poem —

as an example of "what one of Shakespeare's fools calls 'the false gallop of verse' — most full and most facile in its rhymes." The Spectator had commented that this strophe betrayed "strong traces of Tennyson's mannerism and affectation of simplicity, pushed almost to babyism" and "might have been suggested by the well-known dirge of 'Who Killed Cock Robin?'" Even the friendly English Review said, "We like least the opening, which is abrupt. . . ." Although Tennyson left the rhyme scheme and the first four lines unchanged in the second edition, he altered lines 5 and 6 so that the last three lines read, Thus he improved the syntax of the strophe, intensified the attitude of mourning by reiterating the participle, and avoided a sing-song repetition of "And" at the beginning of lines 6 and 7. "Laurel-garlanded" was a trite and awkward epithet with inappropriate implications. Its omission silenced the insistent alliteration and assonance of the line and shifted the associations from those of classical triumph to modern leadership.

If Tennyson disregarded censure of other passages, he seems to have taken into account several general objections that the critics registered. For example, The Times had remarked, "The severe old soldier on the battlefield is not before us — the stern, unbending statesman — inflexible till inflexibility became a fault — does not strike our minds with awe." To the celebration in strophe IV of Wellington's qualities as a statesman Tennyson prefixed the following two lines:

To the account in strophe VI of the Duke's military exploits he added five lines on Wellington's activities in the peninsular campaign (ll. 103-107).

With some justification the Leader had complained that the ode was not about the death of the Duke but about his burial — "which it neither describes nor calls up before the reflective eye, suggesting grand and mournful images." Tennyson had given structure and movement to his poem through presenting his eulogy against a background of action — the decision upon a place of burial, the procession through the streets, the entrance to St. Paul's, the awakening of the shade of Nelson, the entrusting of the soul to God. But he had omitted the climax toward which the poem moved — the committal of the body to the earth. Now after the event and after reading a report of the ceremony, he skillfully supplied this lack. The inserted lines 251-253, concerning the "tides of Music's golden sea/Setting toward eternity," and the alteration of line 254 from "For solemn, too, this day are we" to "Lifted up in heart are we" shifted the mood from solemnity to exaltation. Four additional lines, concluding with the words from the order for burial in the Book of Common Prayer, provided a specific description of the descent of the coffin:

There can be no doubt of the extent to which these lines enhance the resolution of the poem in the second and all subsequent editions.

The English Review took strenuous exception to the ending of strophe III: "The last great Englishman is low." Tennyson had qualified this dictum as he began strophe IV: ". . . for to us he seems the last: / Our sorrow draws but on the golden Past"; but the English reviewer cried, "Let us hope that the assertion of the last line will not be verified by future events" and digressed from literary analysis long enough to write fourteen lines of verse declaring:

Apparently in response to this critic, Tennyson clarified his qualifying lines to read, ". . . for to us he seems the last: / Remembering all his greatness in the Past." The poet also suppressed five lines in strophe VII suggesting the possibility of an apocalyptic future for England: Possibly two lines added near the opening of strophe VII, concerning England's natural strategic advantage — owe something to the reminder in the English Review of "Truth on her Island throne" and the "viewless walls" that Heaven had reared "Britannia's shores around."[48]

The direct injunction to thank the Divinity in the lines Tennyson added here are symptomatic of an intensified religious note in the second edition. As he revised, Tennyson may simply have found himself in a more confident mood than he had experienced when he first wrote

the ode. Possibly, upon extended reflection, he felt obliged to express emphatically what he though that he and the people of England ought to believe; but he may have been stung by the charge in the English Review that he tried to be "all things to all men," that he seemed to offer some lines for Christians and others for "the transcendental deist or pantheist, Carlyleite or Emersonian." Quoting from its review of In Memoriam, the English Review had reiterated the opinion that Tennyson's poetry contained "a little Christianity . . . , a little infidelity, and a good deal of scepticism." To his original passage attesting the pre-eminence of the human soul — Tennyson prefixed, in the new edition, three lines concerning geological evolution: In this way, he stressed the permanence of the soul by contrasting it with terrestrial flux; and while acknowledging the discoveries of science, he proclaimed an unshaken faith in the spirit. And to conclude the passage he inserted the line:

Whatever influence the reviewers seem to have had upon Tennyson, he was never subservient to them, and his corrections of the Ode, like those in his previous poems, went far beyond anything that his critics had to suggest. Other significant alterations in the 1853 text of the Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington appear to be entirely independent of criticism. Some of these produced improvements in tone, others in force of expression. For instance, in strophe V, after the admonition "Let the bell be toll'd," the subsequent line, "A deeper knell in the heart be knoll'd" (l. 59), imposed upon all the necessity of inner, personal grief as well as external acts of respect. In strophe VI, by calling the French forces "banded swarms" instead of "bandit swarms" (l. 110), he increased the accuracy of his modifier and the

dignity of the Duke's activity. At the same time he muted the shrill anti-Gallic note. Opening this recast line with "Back to France," which the next line repeated, strengthened the reader's sense of the irresistible pressure that the Duke exerted against his adversaries. "Boundless reverence" in line 157, was obviously superior to "Most unbounded reverence" (see note 44 above). "And help the march of human mind" became "And drill the raw world for the march of mind" (l. 168).

Still other alterations underlined aspects of the poet's message. For

Tennyson substituted Eight lines later he expanded his eulogy of the Duke to include And in the succeeding strophe he changed to read Besides suppressing any implication of possible failure and dispensing with redundancy and a chiming internal rhyme, Tennyson accentuated a Carlylian doctrine of work, which adequately prepared for the conviction, expressed in the first and all later editions, that in the afterlife Wellington must have "other nobler work to do / Than when he fought at Waterloo" (ll. 256-257).

The theme of the ode — twice stated in strophe VIII of the first edition — had been that devotion to duty, not self-aggrandizement, is the way to earthly glory. In the second edition, singing this thematic refrain for a third time, Tennyson expanded the text to embrace a

prophetic hope for universal acceptance of the moral of the Duke's life — and of the poet's words:

The new version of the Ode was a different poem from that which had displeased a majority of the reviewers in 1852. In the Athenaeum, on March 5, 1853, John Abraham Heraud pointed out a number of Tennyson's revisions and applauded the superiority of the second edition: "There are a completeness and compactness, produced by what is added and what is subtracted, that satisfy and fill the imagination with a sense of harmony that was previously wanting. . . . The poem as it stands has the mature stamp of the artist upon it."[49] Heraud's only cavil was over the imperfect rhyme of "priest" with "guest" and "rest" in the first three lines of strophe VI. He hoped to see a line subsequently added that would rhyme with "priest." In this desire he was disappointed; and despite his approval of the contrast that the poet had introduced in strophe II between the isolated situation of the Duke's death, "on Walmer's lonely shore," and London, his place of burial, Tennyson recognized that the line about Walmer interfered with the direct antiphonal reply to the question "Where shall we lay the man whom we deplore?" and deleted it when the poem next appeared in Maud, and Other Poems, 1855.

Other corrections for the text of 1855 are not extensive, but they indicate continued care for exactness and felicity of phrase. The very first line gained by the shift from "Let us bury" to "Bury." The piece also benefited by the deletion of an unnecessary line between the initial defeat of Napoleon and the return from Elba that too specifically relaxed the enumeration of the Duke's exploits: "He withdrew to brief repose" (l. 118/119). The debt that England owes to great men Tennyson expanded from one "Of boundless reverence and regret" to that "Of boundless love and reverence and regret" (l. 157). The admonition "Revere his warning; guard your coasts" became explicitly

"He bad you guard the sacred coasts" (l. 172). Three additional lines augmented the picture of the Duke's character in strophe VII: In 1853, after hearing the music in St. Paul's "Setting toward eternity," the poet had declared, "Lifted up in heart are we." In 1855 the line had been expanded to "Uplifted high in heart and hope are we" (l. 254). In 1853 "the Dead March sounds in the people's ears"; in 1855 it "wails" (l. 267).

These and other emendations brought the poem to a nearly final form. The Ode reached its permanent length of 281 lines in 1855, and after that date Tennyson's alterations were few. In the second edition of Maud, and Other Poems, 1856, he changed the phrase "worlds on worlds" to "world on world" (l. 262). The text of A Selection from the Works of Alfred Tennyson, 1865, reveals emendation of five words and two initial letters from lower case to capital. With the reading "world-earthquake" for "world's-earthquake" (l. 133) in volume III of the Library Edition of the laureate's works, 1872, the text had attained its definitive state. Yet, as slight as these modifications are, each minutely contributes to the finish of the poem — and attests the poet's extended search for perfection.

As a discussion of the revisions indicates and scrutiny of the text confirms, the Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington is far from a perfunctory funeral panegyric. It is a diligently wrought piece of artistry and, Janus-like, facing both Tennyson's poetical past and future, is an epitome of his mature thought. His views on such subjects as common sense, freedom, love of country, public virtues, constitutional monarchy, and social progress echo the patriotic and political poems of the '30's and early '40's, "Locksley Hall," and "The Poet's Song." His insistence upon duty, work, and personal immortality recall the burden of "Love and Duty," "The Golden Year," and In Memoriam. Military devotion to country anticipates the conclusion of "Maud"; and the paramount value of the soul foreshadows the central allegory of The Idylls the of King. Although Tennyson suppressed the lines concerning "some reverse from worse to worse," they survive as a brief reminder of his consciousness, years before he became obsessed with the idea in "The Last Tournament" and "Locksley Hall Sixty

Years After," that a society may as easily disintegrate as advance and that progress may be retrograde as well as ameliorative.

APPENDIX

The Development of the Text

In addition to the published versions of the Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington already discussed, evidence of the development of the text appears in manuscripts, in uncorrected proof for the first edition, a first edition with the author's autograph corrections, and a proof copy for the second edition with autograph corrections.

Among the MSS formerly belonging to Sir Charles Tennyson, now in the Harvard College Library, there is no complete manuscript for the Ode and none that can have provided printer's copy. Those that exist (Tennyson Papers, bMS Eng 952.1:170-173) I have designated 1 through 6.

MS 1, a working draft in Tennyson's autograph, is written on a half leaf of plain blue wove paper, no watermark, 4 1/16" x 6½". The recto bears the earliest variant lines of strophe IV, ll. 28-42. Two of the lines have been inserted in the margin. The verso contains the earliest version of strophe VI, ll. 142-150:

The handwriting is hurried, almost scribbled.

MS 2 in Tennyson's autograph, carefully written on a slip of plain blue wove paper, unwatermarked, 1⅝" x 6½" (the same paper as that of MS 1) carries on the recto a revised state of the passage above:

The verso is blank.

MS 3 is in the hand of Emily Sellwood Tennyson, the poet's wife, but contains his autograph corrections. Written on both recto and verso of two folio leaves of plain blue laid unwatermarked paper, 13⅞" x 7⅞", formed by folding a single sheet which is still partially

joined, this MS runs consecutively from line 1 through the first five lines of strophe VI (l. 84), lacks the rest of this strophe, strophe VII, and the first eight lines of strophe VIII, resumes with line 9 of strophe VIII (1. 200), and continues without omission to the end of the poem.

MS 4 is in Tenynson's hand and has autograph revisions. It is written on a folio leaf and the top one-third of a separate folio leaf of the same plain blue laid unwatermarked paper as that of MS 3. The recto of the first leaf (13⅞" x 7⅞") includes the first four strophes of the poem, and the verso strophes V-VI, l. 90. The recto of the truncated leaf (5¼ x 7⅝") contains strophe VII, ll. 91-120, 122-133; the verso begins with strophe VI, l. 150 and continues through strophe VII, l. 169. MSS 3 and 4 appear originally to have represented identical states of the text; but in the parallel passages that have survived Tennyson's emendations bring MS 4 to a slightly later condition than MS 3. There is one notable exception, however. In the right hand margin of MS 4, f. 1v, the poet drafted and indicated for insertion an early version of present ll. 53-57 (words printed within brackets he wrote initially and excised):

Then he deleted the entire passage and redrafted it: But he inserted in the margin of MS 3, f. 1v, a third and later version that varies only slightly from the text published in the first edition:

MS 5 consists of six autograph lines representing strophe VI, ll. 91-97, written parallel to the long dimension of the paper, on a leaf of plain white laid paper, with part of the watermark design showing in the lower left hand corner, 7⅛" 4¾". This passage replaces l. 91, "His foes were thine: he kept us free," in MS 4 and adds five new lines:

The verso is blank.

MS 6 is an autograph draft on plain white laid paper, watermarked [Jo]hnson/1852, 7 1/16" x 4⅞", of strophe IX, ll. 251-254, which Tennyson inserted, somewhat altered, in his autograph corrections to the Pierpont Morgan copy of the first edition (see below). MS 6 reads as follows:

In the Morgan copy of the first edition Tennyson deleted l. 251, "For solemn, too, this day are we," and substituted the following: This version appears in the printed text of the corrected proof copy for the second edition in the Widener Collection (see below) and in the second edition. The verso of MS 6 is blank.

The uncorrected proof for the first edition is in the Harvard College Library (*fEC 85.T2586.8520a). It prints the Ode in four columns on a single sheet of white wove paper, unwatermarked, 17⅜" x 223/16". Collation shows that this proof cannot have been set from either MS 3 or MS 4 and that it varies by two capitals from MS 5. It is, however, considerably anterior to the text of the first edition and cannot represent a final state of proof. There are several printer's errors —

"ambition's" for "ambitious" (l. 28), "here" for "have" (l. 91), "But" for "But (l. 278); and lines 53-57 follow the emended reading of MS 4 instead of the later reading of MS 3.

The first edition with Tennyson's autograph alterations is in the Pierpont Morgan Library (W27/B copy 1). Most of these changes found their way into the text of the proof copy for the second edition (see below) and the second edition, but Tennyson did not adopt "Bury" for "Let us bury" (l. 1) until 1855. For the first line of strophe II, "Where shall we lay the man whom we deplore?" (l. 8), he substituted

Yet he did not use this version in any subsequent state of the text.

The proof copy for the second edition with author's corrections (erroneously catalogued as a second edition) is in the Widener Collection of the Harvard College Library. There are instances of light inking, and there is some smearing of the impression on the title page. This copy is without covers; the single gathering is not sewed, but it has been opened. It is inscribed on the first page of the text, "Walter White / from / ATennyson." The printed text reveals a new experiment with the first lines of strophe II:

But Tennyson deleted them and returned in autograph to the original reading of MSS and first edition: "Where shall we lay ye man whom we deplore?" Two lines concerning the Duke's character that occur in the letterpress — though unaltered in autograph, and included without modification in the text of 1855, did not appear in the second edition. This example and numerous variants in punctuation, typography, and spelling from the second edition prove that this proof copy as emended was not the state of the text immediately preceding the second edition.

Variant Readings

Below I provide variorum notes, in which I indicate all variants — exclusive of punctuation not accompanying a change in phraseology

— from the authoritative text in the annotated Eversley Edition (The Works of Tennyson, ed. Hallam Tennyson [London: Macmillan and Co., 1908]: Poems, II, 210-221).[50] Since the final text of the poem is readily accessible, considerations of space preclude reprinting it here. Variations in punctuation disclose Tennyson's attention to detail and his tendency to add punctuation marks and to increase the formality of earlier punctuation as he revised. Thus punctuation is sometimes helpful in establishing the order of existing texts; but the instances of change in punctuation without a change in wording are too frequent and critically unimportant to warrant reproduction. Variations in punctuation occurring along with variant phraseology, I have included in the notes. I have not considered an ampersand, "wh," or "ye" in MS a variation from an "and," "which," or "the" in a printed text; but when a variant line or phrase in MS includes an ampersand, "wh," or "ye," I reproduce it in my note.

Of the six minor alterations in diction that took place after the second edition of Maud, and Other Poems, 1856, five appear in A Selection from the Works of Alfred Tennyson (London: Edward Moxon, 1865) and one in Volume III of the Library Edition of The Works of Alfred Tennyson (London: Strahan and Co., 1872). Since it has not been feasible to examine all the numerous editions between 1856 and 1872 that printed the Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, I cannot say incontrovertibly that the five changes apparent in 1865 and the one in 1872 first entered the text on those dates; but the likelihood is strong that they did. Tennyson arranged and revised his work carefully for both A Selection and the Library Edition; and they are significant terminal points in the development of the text.

Apparatus

• MSS 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Manuscripts described above, Harvard
• P1852 Uncorrected proof for the first edition, Harvard
• 1852 First edition
• MS 6 Described above, Harvard
• 1852A First edition with the author's autograph corrections, Pierpont Morgan Library
• P1853 Proof copy for the second edition with the author's autograph corrections, Widener Collection, Harvard

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• 1853 A New Edition [second edition]
• 1855 Maud, and Other Poems
• 1856 Maud, and Other Poems, A New Edition [second edition]
• 1865 A Selection from the Works of Alfred Tennyson
• 1872 The Works of Alfred Tennyson, III. Library Edition
• D. Mary Joan Donahue, "Tennyson's Hail Briton! and Tithon in the Heath Manuscript," PMLA, LXIV (1949), 385-416.
• 8/9 Lines in manuscript or printed text between final lines 8 and 9
• added Appears in extant texts for the first time
• corr. Corrected
• trans. Transposed
• MS 3 -- 1852 Reading appears in MS 3 and in all subsequent states that include the line through the first edition, 1852

The numerals introducing the notes are the line numbers of the final text. A word or phrase to the left of the lemma is the reading of the final text. All known variants from this reading are listed to the right of the lemma. If the symbol for one of the states of the text listed above does not appear to the right of the lemma, the reading in that state is the same as that of the final version. There is an exception concerning the manuscripts, however. Since none of the manuscripts contains a complete version of the poem, omission of the symbol for a MS to the right of the lemma may mean that the line in which a variant reading occurs is not extant in that MS. This possible ambiguity seems preferable to cluttering the notes with incessant reminders under any variant line that it is missing in several MSS. Anyone using the notes should bear in mind that portions of the poem are missing in the MSS as follows:

• MS 1 lacks ll. 1-27; 43-141; 151-281
• MS 2 lacks ll. 1-141; 151-281
• MS 3 lacks ll. 85-201
• MS 4 lacks the last two words of l. 120 and l. 121; ll. 134-149; 170-281
• MS 5 lacks ll. 1-90; 98-281
• MS 6 lacks ll. 1-250; 256-281

When there is a variant reading of at least a line for an entire line in the final text, I do not repeat in the notes the line of the final text and do not use a lemma. I give the variant line or lines immediately following the line number.

Variorum Notes

• 1 Bury ] Let us bury MS 3 — 1852; Let us bury corr. to Bury 1852A; Let us bury P1853,1853
• 5 Mourning when their ] When laurel-garlanded MS 3 — 1852; When laurel-garlanded corr. to Mourning when their 1852A
• 6 Warriors ] And warriors MS 3 — 1852A; And warriors corr. to Warriors P1853
• 8 Where shall we lay the man whom we deplore? corr. to Soldiers, ye with measured tread/Shall follow now his fallen head/To his last home among the dead./Your chief shall rest in London's central roar. 1852A; The people's friend, the monarch's guide,/The mate of kings, the man who bore/Batons of eight armies, died, corr. to Where shall we lay ye man whom we deplore? P1853
• 8/9 He died on Walmer's lonely shore, P1853, 1853
• 9 Here ] But here P1853, 1853
• 20 Our sorrow draws but on the golden Past. MS 3 — 1852A
• 21-22 Added in autograph 1852A
• 27 amplest ] largest MS 3 — 1852A; largest corr. to amplest P1853
• 28 Yet clearest of ] Free from all MS 1; Yet freëst from MS 3 — 1852A; Yet freëst from corr. to Yet clearest of P1853 ambitious ] ambition's P1852 (apparently a printer's error)
• 29 yet ] man MS 1
• 31 Foremost ] The foremost corr. to Foremost MS 1
• 32 Rich ] And rich MS 1
• 34 his ] all MS 1
• 36 O voice ] Lost voice MS 1
• 37 true ] each MS 1
• 38 O tower of strength fallen at length MS 1
• 39 all the winds ] every wind MS 1
• 41 The long self-sacrifice of ] The long devoted patient MS 1 ; But now the long self-sacrifice of MS 3 ; But now the long self-sacrifice of corr. to The long self-sacrifice of MS 4 o'er ] oer MS 1, MS 4
• 42 World-victor's ] world-victor MS 1
• 54 And by themselves controll'd/Let a silent sea of the people behold corr. to And a silent city behold MS 4; And a silent city behold P1852
• 54/55 Him that follows & him that leads corr. to The host that follows, ye host that leads,/Banner & baton & mourning weeds, MS 4; The host that follows, the host that leads,/Banner and baton and mourning weeds, P1852
• 55 the sable ] & stately corr. to & sable MS 3; the stately corr. to & sable MS 4 ; and sable P1852

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• 56 its ] his MS 3; its corr. to his MS 4; his P1852 and in all subsequent states of the text that I have been able to examine until 1865, when the final reading its appears.
• 57 in its ] with it's MS 3; in it's corr. to in its MS 4
• 59 Added P1853 And a ] A 1853
• 64 For many ] Many corr. to For many MS 3, MS 4
• 70 asserts ] prefers MS 3 — P1852
• 74 frame ] fame MS 3
• 75-79 Cf. O' civic Muse, for such a name,/Deep-minded Muse, for ages long,/Preserve a broad approach of song/And singing avenues of fame. — "Hail, Briton!" stza. 42, D., 392.
• 75 muse ] Muse MS 3, MS 4
• 79 ever-echoing ] ever-ringing MS 3 and in all subsequent states of the text that I have been able to examine until 1865, when the final reading ever-echoing appears.
• 80 he ] this corr. to he MS 3, MS 4
• 81 With banner and with music, ] With a nation weeping, MS 3; With a nation weeping, corr. to With banner & with music, MS 4
• 82 With a nation weeping, and ] With banner & with music, MS 3; With banner & with music, corr. to With a nation weeping, MS 4
• 83 Mighty Seaman ] Mighty seaman MS 3 — 1852; Mighty seaman corr. to Warrior-seaman 1852A; Mighty seaman P1853 and in all subsequent states of the text that I have been able to examine until 1865, when the final reading Mighty Seaman appears.
• 85 thee well, thou famous ] thee, thou far-famous MS 4, P1852
• 91 His foes were thine: he kept us free. MS 4; His heart & hand have kept us free MS 5; His heart and hand here (printer's error) kept us free. P1852; His martial wisdom kept us free; 1852, 1852A; His martial wisdom kept us free; corr. to His foes were thine; he kept us free; P1853
• 92-94 Added MS 5
• 92 O give him welcome, ] Warrior Seaman MS 5; Warrior seaman, P1852; O warrior-seaman, 1852; O warrior-seaman, corr. to O give him welcome, 1852A
• 93 rites ] rite MS 5, P1852
• 95 Added preceding ll. 93-94 in 1852; trans. to l. 95 in 1852A For this ] This 1852, 1852A
• 96-97 Added MS 5
• 96 gain'd a hundred fights, ] never lost a fight, MS 5, P1852
• 97 Nor ever ] He that never MS 5, P1852; And never 1852; And never corr. to Nor ever 1852A an English gun, ] a Gun, MS 5; a gun, P1852
• 98 He that in his earlier day MS 4 — 1852A
• 101 And underneath ] And underneath corr. to Then beneath MS 4 another ] nearer P1853, 1853
• 102 Made the soldier, led him on, MS 4 — 1852A

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• 103-107 Added P1853
• 110 Back to France her banded ] All their marshall's bandit MS 4 — 1852A; Back to France her bandit corr. to Back to France her banded P1853
• 112 o'er the hills her ] their host of MS 4 — 1852A
• 113 Beyond ] Past MS 4 and in all subsequent states of the text that I have been able to examine until 1865, when the final reading Beyond appears.
• 118/119 Then he withdrew to brief repose. corr. to He withdrew etc. MS 4; He withdrew etc. P1852 — 1853
• 120 In anger, wheel'd ] Wheel'd corr. to In anger Wheel'd MS 4
• 123 sabbath ] Sabbath MS 4
• 126 Their ] The MS 4
• 127 Last, the Prussian trumpet ] Then the Prussian trumpet with an alternate reading in the margin The Prussian trumpet MS 4;The trumpet of the Prussian P1852
• 130 And down from where they stood at bay/Clothed in light the joyous legions drew/To charge their foes & charged & overthrew with an alternate reading in the margin We stood no more at bay/We charged & shock d: overthrew MS 4
• 131 So great ] So wise & great MS 4 taught us ] led them MS 4
• 132 Added P1852
• 133 In that ] On that MS 4 world-earthquake ] world's earthquake MS 4, P1852; world's-earthquake 1852 and in all subsequent states of the text that I have been able to examine until 1872, when the final reading world-earthquake appears.
• 134 Seaman ] seaman P1852 and in all subsequent states of the text that I have been able to examine until 1865, when the final reading Seaman appears.
• 142-149 But let the people voice in full acclaim/From shore to shore,/ The proof & echo of all human fame/Loudly attest his claim/With honour honour/Etc MS 1; Let the people's voice in full acclaim/A people's voice the proof & echo of all human fame/Loudly attest his claim/With Honour honour honour honour to him MS 2
• 151 The lines Thanks to the high hand of that God who set/ Our land apart, with Our corr. to This originally preceded A people's voice! we are a people yet, in MS 4.
• 153 Confused by brainless mobs and lawless ] Gagged into shameful peace by shameless corr. to Confused by brainless mobs & tyrant MS 4; Confused by brainless mobs and tyrant P1852
• 154-155 Added P1853
• 155 Briton ] Saxon P1853 and in all subsequent states of the text that I have been able to examine until 1865, when the final reading Briton appears.
• 156 have ] have MS 4 — P1853

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• 157 Of boundless love and ] Of boundless MS 4, P1852; Of most unbounded 1852, 1852A; Of boundless P1853, 1853
• 159 Added in autograph 1852A And keep it ours, O God, ] And keep it ours 1852A
• 160 O Statesman, guard us, guard the eye, ] But guard us, guard the eye, the light, MS 4, P1852; O Statesman, guard us, guard the eye, corr. to And guard us, guard the eye, 1852A
• 162 And save ] But guard corr. to O save MS 4; O save P1852
• 165 Our loyal ] Our Britain's loyal corr. to Our loyal MS 4 our temperate ] her corr. to our temperate MS 4
• 166 For, saving that, ye help to ] For, statesman, saving that, ye MS 4, P1852; For, saving that, ye 1852; For, corr. to O Statesman, saving that, ye 1852A
• 168 And help the march of human mind MS 4 — 1852A
• 169 at length ] added 1855
• 170 wink ] work P1852 slothful ] omitted P1852
• 170/171 Perchance our greatness will increase; /Perchance a darkening future yields/Some reverse from worse to worse,/The blood of men in quiet fields,/And sprinkled on the sheaves of peace. P1852 — 1852A Cf. For who may frame his thoughts at ease/Mid sights that civil contest yields?/The blood of men in quiet fields/And sprinkled on the sheaves of peace. — "Hail, Briton!" stza. 30, D., 390.
• 171 Remember ] And O remember P1852 — 1852A
• 172 He bad you guard the sacred ] Respect his sacred warning guard your P1852; Respect his sacred warning; guard your 1852, 1852A; Revere his warning; guard your P1853, 1853
• 173 Added P1853
• 175 lour ] lower P1852 — P1853
• 177 In thunder, silent ] In ruining thunders P1853
• 181-182 Added P1853; omitted 1853; restored 1855
• 183-184 Added in autograph 1852A
• 185 Added P1853; omitted 1853; restored 1855
• 186 Whose ] His P1852, 1852; His corr. to Whose 1852A
• 198 await ] attend P1852
• 199 cares not to be great, ] serves no private end P1852
• 200 as he saves or serves the state. ] loves his country as his dearest friend! MS 3; loves his duty more than dearest friend! P1852
• 218 He hath prevail'd; howe'er assail'd/At home abroad, he has not fail'd. MS 3; He hath not fail'd: he has prevail'd: P1852; He has not fail'd: he hath prevail'd: 1852; He has not fail'd: he hath prevail'd: corr. to Such was he: his work is done: 1852A
• 218/219 He loved not clamour, he disdain'd it;/If against him, he sustain'd it,/Nor fought for glory tho' he gain'd it. MS 3; He loved not clamour, he disdain'd it;/If against him, he sustain'd it,/Nor fought for glory, yet he gain'd it. P1852

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• 219-224 Added in autograph 1852A
• 224 duty ] Duty 1852A glory ] Glory 1852A
• 224/225 He has not fail'd: he hath prevail'd: in the printed text and deleted P1853
• 225 And ] So MS 3 — 1852; So corr. to And 1852A land ] men MS 3 — 1852; men corr. to land 1852A
• 226 For ] Thro' MS 3 — P1853
• 229 ever-loyal ] ever loyal MS 3
• 235 This line originally followed l. 240 in MS 3. Tennyson deleted it following l. 240 and inserted it in his own autograph as l. 235 in MS 3.
• 241 Added P1853
• 247 From talk of battles ] Yet our thoughts are MS 3, P1852 vain ] rain P1852 (apparently a printer's error)
• 248 And brawling memories ] Clamorous memories, MS 3, P1852
• 251-253 Added MS 6
• 252 Falls & flows of harmony/Tides of music's golden sea MS 6
• 253 Setting toward ] Breaking on MS 6
• 254 But solemn too, this day are we. MS 3; But solemn, too, etc. P1852; For solemn, too, etc. 1852; Uplifted on those waves are we MS 6; For solemn, too, this day are we. corr. to Lifted up in heart are we 1852A; Lifted up in heart are we, P1853, 1853
• 255 Until ] Friends, MS 3, P1852; O friends, 1852; Until MS 6; O friends, corr. to Until 1852A
• 259-261 Added in autograph 1852A
• 262 world on world ] worlds on worlds, MS 3 — 1855 in myriad myriads ] a million myriads, corr. to a myriad myriads, MS 3
• 263 Round ] Around corr. to Round MS 3; Around P1852
• 266-270 Added in autograph 1852A
• 267 wails ] beats 1852A; sounds P1853, 1853 people's ] People's 1852A
• 271 He ] He corr. to The man MS 3; The man P1852, 1852; The man corr. to He 1852A
• 273 force ] fame corr. to force MS 3
• 275 State ] state MS 3, P1852
• 276 truer ] finer P1852
• 278 Speak ] But speak MS 3 and in all subsequent states of the text that I have been able to examine until 1865, when the final reading Speak appears. There is a printer's error of Bnt for But in P1852.

Notes