“ In 1884 he resigned his position at the Education Department, and in the following year succeeded John Campbell Shairp as professor of poetry at Oxford. He died in London on the 24th of October 1897, and was buried in the cemetery on Barnes Common. Palgrave published both criticism and poetry, but his work as a critic was by far the more important. His Visions of England (1880-1881) has dignity and lucidity, but little of the “natural magic” which the greatest of his predecessors in the Oxford chair considered rightly to be the test of inspiration. ”

“ There he came into contact with Tennyson, and laid the foundation of a lifelong friendship. When the training college was abandoned, Palgrave returned to Whitehall in 1855, becoming examiner in the Education Department, and eventually assistant secretary. ”