660 



TENNYSON. 



peculiarities and perhaps liis eccentricity in drcas and 

 manner roused opposition ID him and the Presbytery 

 of New Bmimrirk was divided. In ITI.'i !>< (bunded 

 a church at Philadelphia luit still travelled widely. 

 The I/og Collci;e li.id been merged in Nassau Hall at 

 ElizalM'ihtown. N .1 and afterwards at Princeton, and 

 in India!!' ul this i;i~lituti.'ii Tonnent went to England. 

 Sivtland. aiiil Inland in 1753, and obuiined liU ial 

 donations. II. il.. d at Philadelphia, July U:i. 17'.! 

 He had pul>li>lu-d many sermons and an account of the 

 revival of religion in 1741. 



TKNNYSnN. AIKIIED, BARON, the representative 

 poet of the Victorian era in English literature, was 

 Dora at Somcrsliv. a small hamlet of Lincolnshire, 

 Aug. G, isn'.i. lie is the third of seven sons in a 

 family of twelve children. Lord Tennyson is de- 

 scended, through the Barons 1> Kyneourt, from the 

 ancient and illustrious Norman PlaiiUigencta. The 

 poet's father, the llev. George Clayton Tennyson, 

 LL. D. (d. about 1S;{I). rector of Somcrsby and vicar 

 of (irimshy, was notable in many ways. He was a 

 striking, impres.-ive man of great strength and stature, 

 an excellent mathematician and lin.LMii.~t. SOUK thine of 

 an architeet. musician, painter, and poet, and. withal, 

 a man of fine character. " high -soiiled, high-tem- 

 pered." Tennyson's mother was Eli/.abclh. daughter 

 of the Rev. Stephen Fytehe, vicar of the neighboring 

 parish of J/oiith, "a sweet, gentle, anil most imagina- 

 tive woman, exceedingly tender-hearted, intensely, 

 fervently religious as a poet's mother should be." 

 Thus the genius of Alfred Tennyson, shared, as it was. 

 in some measure by most of his many brothers and sis- 

 ters, would seem to be inherited in some degree from 

 each of his parents; for if the fine physique, the 

 scholarly tastes, the high character, and the artistic 

 temperament of the illustrious son are traceable to his 

 father, surely his surpassing imagination and his 

 unspeakable tenderness without which his greatness 

 as a poet would have licen impossible are as plainly 

 traceable to his mother. 



Dr. Tennyson's "handsome children had beyond 

 most children that wondrous toy at their command 

 which some people call imagination." They were iriven 

 to games typifying the exploits of legendary kings 

 with their retinues of knights, and beguiled their 

 happy childhood with talcs and romances of their own 

 making fashioned alter mediaeval models. 



As to Tennyson's edu-ation. the central fact is that 

 he has been pre -emin. -nlly sch'-tiuiglit. Not that he has 

 lacked regulation te ehers an I tutors, but that he early 

 began to supplement tboir ioHtraatuxi bfself-hwtigated 

 reading, observation, an I ivllivtion : and that he has 

 chowti from boyhood a growing independence of mind 

 and character. E.irly in -life In . led ol 



himself that knowl.-d-.' to him w i- beautiful, and that 

 beloved it "for its beauty." To any one with the 

 slightest appn elation of Tennyson's love Ibr I he beau- 

 tiful this autobiographical bit is snlii.-ient to account 

 for the powerful affinity his mind lias ever shown for 

 know! ii a soul, alter a fi:.-t start, ma. 



IB' left to it~elf. This start in Tennyson's COM was ob- 

 tained largely at home under the tuition ol his father. 

 though he attended for a time Cadney's village school, 

 and tor a Im !' period the grammar school at Louili. 

 The young lad's poetical lient was gre.illy stimulated 

 by the similar IM-III of hi.- elder brothers, l-'iedeiick and 

 Charles, both of whom have \viiiten verse of much 

 merit. As Ixiys they were all great leader.- of poetry, 

 ancient and modern. Alfred being paificnlarly partial 

 in those years to Scott and Byron ; and they \v 

 furthermore mpious writers of metrical compositions. 

 Alfred's boyish efforts were very iiunier> 



In IM'7 Charles and Alfred published -elections from 



their accumulated prodnoUooa, under the title 



by Ticv lirnlhrr*. This little book, for which the young 

 authors received from their publishers 10, contained 

 228 pages, and bore on its title page the disclaimer 

 quoted frurn Martial, " ./i/uic nut nucimut cue nihil" 



The preface explained that the poomo WOT* pomp 

 not jointly but individually, and that they were written 

 between the ages of fifteen and cis-hlci'ii. The body of 

 the work is remarkable for its numerous foot notes and 

 quotations from ancient and modem poet. (nit chiefly 

 for the entire absence of anything characteristic 'it' die 

 later work of England's Laureate. The volume is 

 interesting chiefly as showing lh" 'prentice hand of 

 Alfred Tennyson. The critics of that day, with one 

 j exception, passed it by in utter silence. That it con- 

 tained little or nothing worthy, on its own merits, of 

 further perpetuation is now the practically unanimous 

 verdict. I'ennysou's not exempted; for he has never 

 tit to reprint or to publicly acknowledge so much 

 as asingle poem contributed by him to this tir.t volume. 

 About isi'S Alfred, with Charles, removed to Trinity 

 College, Cambridge, where the eldest brother 

 eriek had just taken the Chancellor's medal for his 

 ( i reek poem, J'j'/i//it. Here Alfred soon he.-ame a 

 recognized leader among a circle of young collegians 

 remarkable for high character, and for vigor and brill- 

 iancy of intellect. AIIIOIIL' them wire Arthur Henry 

 II mam, who will be forgotten only when In .)/-/ 

 tails lor readers; l,ord BountOB, then Richard 

 MoDokUm Milnes. sometimes styled the "Maecenas..! 

 his time;" Richard Chenevix Trench, afterwards 

 Archbishop of Dublin; Henry Alt'ord. , lames Sped- 

 ding, Merivale, the historian ; Edward Fitzgerald, and 

 Kingiake. Thackeray, for years a warm jtcixmal friend 

 and a great admirer of Tennyson, was also a fellow- 

 student at Cambridge ; their close intimacy, however, 

 seems to have dated from a subsequent period. Al- 

 utor at college was William Whewell, "a man 

 who is well known to have stripped the tr. 

 knowledge and tasted most of its substantial fruits." 

 Tennyson ami others of the students above mention. 'd 

 belonged to an undergraduate society commonly known 

 as the "Cambridge Apostles," from the limitation of 

 its active members to twelve ; the main object of which 

 was full and frank discussion of those questions which, 

 in the bold and vigorous minds of its mcmlers, were 

 pressing for solution. It appears probable that Tenny- 

 son in hi" university career was much more given to 

 wooing Jie muse.-, than to pursuing any prescribed 

 routine course of study ; but it is also probable that in 

 , ding conventionalities he was consciously fol- 

 lowing the mandates of his own genius, which, how- 

 ever lawless it might make him appear to others, was 

 an all-sufiicieiit law unto itself. When at length he 

 quitted the university il was without a degree. The 

 same was tine ot Thackeray. Thus the two most 

 widely known Cambridge men of this century left 

 their II/IIKI muter without the customary seal to their 

 fidelity and of her approval but destined to win loft- 

 ier honors and more i ndiuiiig laurels than any ever won 



or bestowed ill col 



In ISJ'.I Tennyson was awarded the Cliancellor's 

 medal for his |mem J'ini/iiti-tno. one of the unsuivesst'ul 

 competitors being his nearest friend, Arthur Ilallam. 

 The poem received a very flattering notice from the 

 .\tln-, in nut. "The author did not, however, include it 

 in subsequent collections ol' his poems. 



In IS.'iu, while still at Cambridge. Tennyson pub- 

 lished his 1'ifniK. C/iiiJ/ti /,i/riftil. This volume c. m- 

 tained Jsi/iitii, Ifulal, .\fiii-iniiii. Tin- Minium, Tilt 

 .\li-rinnlil. Tin- On/. l!,<-i,lii,hns of the Aral/inn 

 Mulits. <>:! i" Mr,,,,,,-;/. Tlir I'x't's '.Mind, Tke De- 

 lerted Houte, /'//' liullml n/ Orim/u. Tin 1 Si'n /'i//V/'<.v, 



\,,lliiuit It'/// IH,; All ThiiKjs \\"M Die. The Ihiin;) 

 Siniii. together with twenty live poems which the au- 

 thor did not repnblish in subsequent collections. All 

 the "rejected poems" indeed, every collectable scrap 

 Tennyson has ever written now appear in recent 

 \meiie.in editions. The volume of 1830 soon drew 

 the fire of tin- critics, from some of whom it received 

 hearty though discriminating praise. 



As originally proposed the "Poems" were to have 

 been a joint publication by Tennyson and Arthur 



