2 Such were the surroundings and experiences of Tennyson's childhood and youth; they influenced his whole life, and inevitably entered into his poetry of later years. He illustrates the truth that a poet is largely what his environment makes him. In October, 1828, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, leaving in 1831 without a degree. In his boyhood. Alfred manifested unmistakable indications of genius; and during his university career he was generally looked upon as a superior mortal, of whom great things were expected by his teachers and fellow. collegians. Dr. Whewell, his tutor, treated him with unusual respect. It was thought to be no slight honor for a young man of twenty to win the chancellor's gold medal for the prize poem "Timbuctoo," and the volume of his poems published in 1830 gave him a sort of celebrity beyond his set of college acquaintances. While at Cambridge, Tennyson formed friendships which lasted till death ended them one by one. It was indeed a company of choice spirits with whom he had the good fortune to be associated. Among them were Milnes, Kemble, Trench, Alford, Brookfield, Spedding, and others. Besides these, he numbered among the friends of his early manhood, Fitzgerald, Kinglake, Thackeray, Maurice, Gladstone, Carlyle, Rogers, Forster, the Lushingtons, and other famous scholars and men of letters. In their companionship he found the stimulus necessary for the development of his poetical faculty. They all regarded him with feelings of warmest admiration. The young singer had at least a few appreciative readers during the ten or twelve years of obscurity when the public cared little for his writings. By their words of commendation he was encouraged to pursue the bard's divine calling, to which he was led by an over. mastering instinct. Much as Tennyson owed to these men, he owed most to one whose name is forever associated with his own, Arthur Henry Hallam, a son of the historian. Soon after coming to Cambridge he met Hallam, a young man of extraordinary promise, who became the dearest of his friends- more to him than a brother. They were inseparable in their walks and studies. They shared each other's ambitions and enthusiasms. In the summer of 1830 the two comrades travelled through the French Pyrenees. Their intimate fellowship was strengthened by Arthur's love for the poet's younger sister, Emilia. It was apparently his strongest earthly attachment; and the beautiful record of their "fair companionship" is found in the lyrics of "In Memoriam," written to perpetuate the mem. ory of the lost Hallam, whose life went suddenly out in Vienna, Sept. 15, 1833. This remarkable elegy remains, and is likely to remain through all time, a nobler monument than could be wrought out of bronze or marble. Equally enduring is the melodious wail, "Break, break, break," one of the sweetest dirges in all literature, written shortly after Hallam's death. The noted actress, Fanny Kemble, knew Tennyson in the prime of manhood, and in her journal (June 16, 1832) tells what manner of man he was: "Alfred Tennyson dined with us. I am always a little disappointed with the exterior of our poet when I look at him, in spite of his eyes, which are very fine; but his head and face, striking and dignified as they are, are almost too ponderous and massive for beauty in so young a man; and every now and then there is a slightly sarcastic expression about his mouth that almost frightens me, in spite of his shy manner and habitual silence."1 ↑ "Records of a Girlhood," pp. 519-520. After leaving college, Tennyson resided chiefly with his widowed mother as Somersby, then at High Beech (1837-1840), Tunbridge Wells and Boxley (1840-1844), and Cheltenham (1844-1850). He was often in London and elsewhere visiting friends. Fitzgerald speaks of his staying with Tennyson at the Cumberland home of James Spedding in 1835. Here Alfred would spend hour after hour reading aloud "Morte d'Arthur," and other unpublished poems, which his scholarly friend criticised. In 1838 he was a welcome member of the Anonymous Club in London, and had rooms in that city at various times during the next ten years. It was his habit to make long journeys through the country on foot, studying, the landscapes of England and Wales, and pondering many a lay unsung. He also made occasional trips to Ireland and the Continent. "From 1842," says Howitt, "he became pre-eminent among English poets;" and he was thenceforth often to be found in the society of prominent literary people. The Carlyles were much attached to him. In a letter written in 1843, Mrs. Carlyle calls him " a very handsome man, and a noble-hearted one, with something of the gypsy in his appearance, which for me is perfectly charming." In 1845 he was granted a Pension of £200, and in 1850 he was appointed poet-laureate to succeed Words. worth; in 1855 he received the honorary degree of D.C.L. from Oxford. Tennyson married (June 13, 1850) at Shiplake, Oxfordshire, Emily Sarah Sellwood, whom he had known and loved for many years. Carlyle, not long afterward, came across the laureate "with his new wife," of whom he pleasantly writes: "Mrs. Tennyson lights up bright glittering blue eyes when you speak to her; has wit; has sense; and were it not that she seems so very delicate in health, I should augur really well of Tennyson's adventure." She was the eldest daughter of Henry Sellwood, of Peasmore in Berkshire, afterward a soli citor of Horncastle, Lincolnshire; her mother was a sister of Sir John Franklin, and her youngest sister the wife of Charles Tennyson Turner. A lady of high intelligence and gracious manner, she was in every way fitted to be the companion of her poet husband, who lovingly bore testimony to her loyalty and worth. Exalted as was his ideal of woman as a wife and mother, she seems to have met his exacting requirements almost perfectly. Though a woman of more than ordinary education and talent, she never sought public recognition. A considerable number of the poet's songs she set to music. Content with the round of duties in a domestic sphere, she lived for husband and children. Their wedded life was exceptionally harmonious and happy. Their union was blessed with two sons, Hallam, born Aug. 11, 1852, and Lionel, born March 16, 1854. Bayard Taylor thought the Tennyson household a " delightful family circle." "His wife," he wrote in 1857, "is one of the best women I ever met with; and his two little boys, IIallam and Lionel, are real cherubs of children.” Many years later Professor Palgrave paid Lady Tennyson a well-deserved tribute in the graceful Dedication of "Lyrical Poems by Lord Tennyson (1885), characterizing her as "the counsellor to whom he has never looked in ain for aid and comfort, - the wife whose perfect love has blessed him through these many years with large and faithful sympathy." 1 Three years they lived in Chapel House, Twickenham. In 1853 the laureate bought the Farringford domain (now over four hundred acres), near Freshwater, Lady Tennyson died at Aldworth, Aug. 10, 1896, aged eighty-three. During the last years of her life, notwithstanding ill-health, she materially aided her son Hallam in preparing the biography of his father. in the Isle of Wight. In the lines, "To the Rev. F. D. Maurice," dated Jan- It should not be supposed from this that Tennyson's life at Farringford was passed in monastic isolation. However sequestered Aldworth was from the abodes of men, the poet's mansion near Freshwater was not a hermitage. Thither in the golden years of his long career, in the fifties and sixties and seventies, came men eminent in all the walks of life, preachers, statesmen, artists, and authors. His brothers and sisters, especially Horatio and Matilda, were with him a great deal of the time. Occasional visits from his young nephews and nieces, and afterward the presence of grandchildren, gladdened the days of the aged singer. For many years Mrs. Julia Margaret Cameron (who achieved fame by her marvellously successful photographs) and her husband were near neigh bors of Tennyson's, their cottage, Dimbola, being not far from Farringford. The Camerons and the Tennysons lived in closest intimacy, visiting each other's homes almost daily. Other dear friends on the Isle of Wight were the Prinseps, Mr. W. G. Ward, Sir John Simeon, and Mrs. Hughes, mother of Tom Hughes. Tennyson's life was never that of a recluse long at a time. He saw much of the world. His solitude was broken by occasional trips abroad, and by frequent tours through the counties of England and Wales. During his entire career, after leaving Cambridge in 1831, it may be said that he inevitably gravitated to London to stay a few weeks or months, and refresh himself with boon companions. No attempt is made here to trace all the wanderings of this much-travelled man. The letters of Edward Fitzgerald afford some clews to Tennyson's whereabouts during his early manhood, when his movements were not so closely watched and recorded in the newspapers. "I have just come from Leamington," he writes (June 7, 1840); "while there I met Alfred by chance; we made two or three pleasant excursions together; to Stratford-upon-Avon and Kenilworth, etc." In October, 1841, he writes: "As to Alfred, I have heard nothing of him since May, except that some one saw him going on a packet which he believed was going to Rotterdam." In 1851 the poet and his wife visited Italy, and vivid memories of their trav els are recalled in "The Daisy," written in Edinburgh two years later; this poem was suggested by the finding of a daisy in a book, the flower having been plucked on the Splugen, and placed by Mrs. Tennyson between the leaves of a little volume as a memento of their Italian journey. Scotland and the neighbor. ing isles seem to have exercised a strange power over the laureate; for he was often attracted to the Highlands, Valentia, and Ireland. He travelled in Portu gal in 1859 with his friend Palgrave. He revisited the Pyrenees in 1861, this time with Arthur Hugh Clough, and again in 1876. In 1865 he was at Weimar and Dresden; in 1869 through France and Switzerland with Frederick Locker. He went to Norway in 1872, where he had journeyed before, led thither by reading Bayard Taylor's "Northern Travel." He was in Italy in 1879, and in Lombardy in 1882. In 1883 Tennyson voyaged with Mr. Gladstone to Copenhagen, meeting at King Christian's court the Princess of Wales and the sovereigns of Greece and Russia. He visited the Channel Islands in 1887, and "in the spring of 1891 he was cruising in the Mediterranean." Only a few months before his death he was in Jersey, Guernsey, and London; and the venerable minstrel was preparing to return to Farringford for the winter when the final summons came in October, 1892. So the spirit of roving clung to him even to the end of his earthly. pilgrimage. In 1865 Tennyson declined a baronetcy offered by the queen as a reward for his loyal devotion to the crown, and again in 1868, when tendered by Disraeli In the latter part of 1883 he accepted a peerage at Gladstone's earnest solicitation. He was created a peer of the realm Jan. 24, 1884, with the new title, Baron of Aldworth, Sussex, and of Freshwater, Isle of Wight. He took his seat in the House of Lords March 11, 1884. 66 Baron Tennyson had a splendid lineage, three lines of noble and royal fam ilies being mingled in his descent. The poet himself writes: Through my great-grandmother [Elizabeth Clayton], and through Jane Pitt, a still remoter grandmother, I am doubly descended from Plantagenets (Lionel, Duke of Clar. ence, and John of Lancaster), and this through branches of the Barons d'Eyncourt." The pedigree of his grandfather, George Tennyson, is traced back to "the middle-class line of the Tennysons," and through Elizabeth Clayton ten genera. tions back to Edmund, Duke of Somerset, and farther back to Edward III. The laureate's grandfather was a well-known lawyer and wealthy landowner of Lincolnshire, who "sat more than once in Parliament, representing Bletchingly;" his second son, Charles Tennyson-d'Eyncourt, who succeeded him as the possessor of the family estate of Bayons Manor, was a noted public man, having represented Lambeth and other boroughs in Parliament from 1818 to 1852. At the death of George Tennyson (July 4, 1835), the valuable Clayton property near Great Grimsby was left to the rector's family, and it is still (1896) in the hands of Frederick Tennyson, the poet's elder brother. The poet's last years were saddened by the bereavement of many old friends and relatives. He suffered a severe blow in the death of his second son Lionel, while on the homeward voyage from India. He mourns his loss in the touching stanzas, "To the Marquis of Dufferin and Ava." The Hon. Lionel Tennyson, for several years connected with the India office, was attacked by jungle fever while on a visit to India, and died on board the Chusan, near Aden, April 20, 1886, at the age of thirty-two. Honors were showered plentifully on Lord Tennyson in his last years, but he was not spoilt by vanity. He was the recipient of many congratulations on the occasion of his eightieth birthday, Aug. 6, 1889. His was the fruitful old age that crowns a well-ordered career. His powers of body and mind were well preserved to the end, owing to his wonderful constitution and his quiet way of living. He read Shakespeare during his final illness, and continued to compose even on his death-bed, dictating "The Silent Voices" sung at his funeral. the tranquil evening of a well-spent life he peacefully passed away Oct. 6, 1892, receiving burial (Oct. 12) in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. In THE POETRY OF TENNYSON. TENNYSON is pre-eminently a lyric poet. His lyrical efforts embrace an extensive range of subjects and a wide variety of metres. Not having naturally the rhythmical facility of Byron or Shelley, he conquered the technical difficulties of the minstrel's art by painstaking study and labor. In this field he became a master. But, not realizing his limitations, or not content with the renown of being a great lyrist, he ambitiously essayed to enter fields where supremacy was for him impossible. In the epic and the drama he achieved only partial success. It is, therefore, as a lyric poet that Tennyson is chiefly known and will be remembered. Such incomparable lyrics as "Break, break, break," "The splendor falls," and "Crossing the Bar," prove him to be a singer by right divine- -one whose fame is immortal. tastes. 9966 "Enone, "The In some of his blank-verse idylls he was scarcely less happy. Noteworthy among these are his studies and imitations of the antique, Lotus-Eaters," "Ulysses,' Tithonus," "Lucretius," 99 66 Tiresias," "" Demeter," and "The Death of Enone," which, it is safe to say, are not generally popu lar, however much they may be admired by persons of scholarly and critical "In Memoriam" and " "Maud are merely collections of lyrics. Tennyson's dramas are often lyrical in spirit if not in form; they are distinctly undramatic. Except a few magnificent passages of blank verse, the lyrics are the best things in them. The songs in "The Princess," and the little melodies scattered through the "Idylls of the King," will be prized in future ages when the main portions of these works may have lost their interest for the average reader. These lyrics have been set to music, and sung in many a household where his longer poems are unread. The scenes and characters described in them have been depicted by painters. Thus the sister arts have conspired to popularize them, and impress them on the memory. Tennyson's lyrical successes are numerous, the list including most of his shorter poems. An array of versatile, superior productions! They make up a considerable body of poetry, much greater in bulk than the quantity of endur. ing verse produced by Herrick, Gray, Collins, Goldsmith, Cowper, Burns, Col eridge, Wordsworth, Scott, Keats, Campbell, Browning, Bryant, Poe, Lowell, o Whittier. Tennyson's first book-"Poems, Chiefly Lyrical" (1830)-was made up largely of metrical diversions, yet it contained a few pieces that are imperishable. They show plainly that when a young man he was as much addicted to wordmusic and word-color as he was in later years. The author of "Mariana" and "The Dirge" was a poetic artist of more than ordinary equipment. His second book of " Poems," published late in 1832, included some of his loveliest lyrics, -"The Lady of Shalott," "The Miller's Daughter,' "The Palace of Art," "The Lotus-Eaters," "" "A Dream of Fair Women,' etc., having the richness of melody and the indescribable witchery of style which constitute Tennyson's charm. In the two volumes of "Poems" appearing in 1842 were gathered the finest things in the two earlier books, but changed and polished until well-nigh | erfect, together with a number of new works- "Morte d'Arthur," "The Talking Oak," "Ulysses," "Locksley Hall," " Lady Clara Vere de Vere," "The Two Voices," "St. Agnes," "Sir Galahad," "Godiva," "Break, break, brøk,” that are justly regarded among the choicest treasures of British lyrica and etc. |