The volume with this title appeared in 1880, and contained the poems that follow, as far as the lines To Dante' inclusive. It was dedicated to the eldest son (Alfred Browning Stanley Tennyson, born in 1878) of Lionel Tennyson, the second son of the poet.

Mr. Stedman ('Victorian Poets,' revised ed., 1887, p. 419 fol.) pays a fitting tribute to the 'Ballads' when, after commenting with qualified praise on the dramas, he goes on to say: In striking contrast, Tennyson's recent lyrical poetry is the afterglow of a still radiant genius. Here we see undimmed the fire and beauty of his natural gift, and wisdom increased with age. What a collection, short as it is, forms the volume of "Ballads" issued in his seventy-first year! It opens with the thoroughly English story of "The First Quarrel," with its tragic culmination, And the boat went down that night, the boat went down that night! Country life is what he has observed, and he reflects it with truth of action and dialect. "The Northern Cobbler" and "The Village Wife" could be written only by the idyllist whose Yorkshire ballads delighted us in 1866. But here are greater things, two or three at his highest mark. The passion and lyrical might of "Rizpah "never have been exceeded by the author, nor, I think, by any other poet of his day. "The Revenge" and "Lucknow are magnificent ballads. . . The Voyage of Maeldune" is a weird and vocal fantasy, unequally poetic, with the well-known touch in every number.'

TO ALFRED TENNYSON

MY GRANDSON

GOLDEN-HAIR'D Ally whose name is one with mine,

Crazy with laughter and babble and earth's new wine,

Now that the flower of a year and a half is

thine.