The political and social events of those years touched Tennyson, as we see from _Maud_ and the _Princess_, but his way of looking at them was not the way of a contemporary.

It might have been predicted from his previous career and work.

Then the new movements of Science and Criticism which disturbed Clough and Arnold so deeply, also troubled Tennyson, but not half so seriously.

He staggered for a time under the attack on his old conceptions, but he never yielded to it.

He was angry with himself for every doubt that beset him, and angry with the Science and Criticism which disturbed the ancient ideas he was determined not to change.