sight, which began to trouble him at this time, he was
enjoying good health, which he maintained by a steady regime of physical
exercise. His strength and his good looks were alike remarkable.[25] As
his friend Brookfield laughingly said, 'It was not fair that he should
be Hercules as well as Apollo'.

Another volume of verse appeared in 1832; and its appearance seems to
have been due rather to the urgent persuasion of his friends than to his
own eagerness to appear in print. Though J. S. Mill and a few other
critics wrote with good judgement and praised the book, it met with a
cold reception in most places, and the _Quarterly Review_, regardless of
its blunder over Keats, spoke of it in most contemptuous terms. All can
recognize to-day how unfair this was to the merits of a volume which
contained the 'Lotos-Eaters', 'Oenone', and the 'Lady of Shalott'; but
the effect of the harsh verdict on the poet, always sensitive about the
reception of his work, was unfortunate to a degree. For a time it seemed
likely to chill his ardour and stifle his poetic gifts at the very age
when they ought to be bearing fruit. He writes of himself at this time
as 'moping like an owl in an ivy bush, or as that one sparrow which the
Hebrew mentioneth as sitting on the house-top'; and, despite his
friendship with Hallam, which was closer than ever since the latter's
engagement to his sister Emily, he had thoughts of settling abroad in
France or Italy, since he found, or fancied that he found, in England
too unsympathetic an atmosphere.

[Note 25: The portrait of 1838 by Samuel Laurence, of which the
original is at Aldworth, speaks for itself.]

Such a decision would have been disastrous. Residence abroad might suit
the robust, many-sided genius of Robert Browning with his gift for
interpreting the thoughts of other nations and other times; it would
have been fatal to Tennyson, whose affections were rooted in his native
soil, and who had a special call to speak to Englishmen of English
scenes and English life.

The following year brought him a still severer shock in the loss of his
beloved friend, Arthur Hallam, who was taken ill at Vienna and died
there a few days later, to the deep sorrow of all who knew him. Many
besides Tennyson have borne witness to his character and gifts; thanks
to their tribute, and above all to the verses of _In Memoriam_, though
his life was all too short to realize the promise of his youth, his name
will be preser