ABSTRACT
Unsigned review, the Crayon (New York, January 1856). Included in Imprints, pp. 14–20.
The interest of this piece lies in its comparison between Tennyson and Whitman. Whitman undoubtedly respected Tennyson’s abilities above those of any of his poetic contemporaries. At his last birthday party, he is reported to have toasted Tennyson as ‘the Boss of us all’. Tennyson, to some extent, reciprocated this regard, though he appears to have sympathized with Whitman the man rather than fully appreciated the poet. He did, nevertheless, invite Whitman to visit him and to stay with him at his home on the Isle of Wight, an invitation which Whitman might have accepted had not his paralytic stroke intervened to prevent him.
