The poetry of Tennyson is eminently representative of the Victorian age.  He has written little; but that little marks a distinct era in versification—­great harmony untrammelled by artificial correctness; and in language, a search for novelty to supply the wants and correct the faults of the poetic vocabulary.  He is national in the Idyls; philosophic in The Two Voices, and similar poems.  The Princess is a gentle satire on the age; and though, in striving for the reputation of originality, he sometimes mistakes the original for the beautiful, he is really the laurelled poet of England in merit as well as in title.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.—­The literary usher is now called upon to cry with the herald of the days of chivalry—­Place aux dames.  A few ladies, as we have seen, have already asserted for themselves respectable positions in the literary ranks.  Without a question as to the relative gifts of mind in man and woman, we have now reached a name which must rank among those of the first poets of the present century—­one which represents the Victorian age as fully and forcibly as Tennyson, and with more of novelty than he.  Nervous in style, elevated in diction, bold in expression, learned and original, Mrs. Browning divides the poetic renown of the period with Tennyson.  If he is the laureate, she was the acknowledged queen of poetry until her untimely death.

Miss Elizabeth Barrett was born in London, in 1809.  She was educated with great care, and began to write at a very early age.  A volume, entitled Essays on Mind, with Other Poems, was published when she was only seventeen.  In 1833 she produced Prometheus Bound, a translation of the drama of AEschylus from the original Greek, which exhibited rare classical attainments; but which she considered so faulty that she afterwards retranslated it.  In 1838 appeared The Seraphim, and other Poems; and in 1839, The Romaunt of the Page.  Not long after, the rupture of a blood-vessel brought her to the verge of the grave; and while she was still in a precarious state of health, her favorite brother was drowned.  For several years she lived secluded, studying and composing when her health permitted; and especially drawing her inspiration from original sources in Greek and Hebrew.  In 1844 she published her collected poems in two volumes.  Among these was Lady Geraldine’s Courtship:  an exquisite story, the perusal of which is said to have induced Robert Browning to seek her acquaintance.  Her health was now partially restored; and they were married in 1846.  For some time they resided at Florence, in a congenial and happy union.  The power of passionate love is displayed in her Sonnets from the Portuguese, which are among the finest in the language.  Differing in many respects from those of Shakspeare, they are like his in being connected by one impassioned thought, and being, without doubt, the record of a heart experience.