and also by his contributions both in verse and prose to the Eton Miscellany. At Cambridge he soon rose to eminence among undergraduates, and his rooms at No. 3 G. New Court, Trinity, became famous as a centre of intellectual life, where literature, metaphysics, and politics were eagerly debated (In Memoriam, lxxxvii.). When he first met Tennyson is not recorded, but it was probably in his first term, the autumn of 1828 (cf. xxii.). They soon became intimate friends. Early in 1829 they were competitors for the Chancellor's Prize Poem, Timbuctoo, Tennyson being the successful candidate. In 1830 the two friends had agreed to publish jointly a volume of poems, but at the request of Hallam's father the project was abandoned, and Tennyson's volume came out independently. In the summer of this year Hallam accompanied Tennyson in an expedition to the Pyrenees with money for the insurgents under Torrijos (see a reminiscence of this in In Memoriam, lxxi., and In the Valley of Cauteretz). As early as 1829 Hallam had become attached to his friend's sister Emily, and they were engaged; but the engagement was kept secret till 1832. Of this attachment several of Hallam's poems addressed to Emily Tennyson are the record (see for references to this, In Memoriam, lxxxiv.). Meanwhile, in August 1831, Hallam had reviewed his friend's Poems, chiefly Lyrical, in The Englishman's Magazine. In January 1832 Hallam left Cambridge and resided with his father at 67 Wimpole Street (In Memoriam, vii. and cxix.), became a student of the Inner Temple, and in the autumn was placed to read in chambers with an eminent conveyancer of Lincoln's Inn Fields, visiting the Tennysons at Somersby, as the accepted suitor of Emily Tennyson (In Memoriam, lxxxix. and cii.). At the beginning of August 1833 Hallam went to Germany with his father, weakened by an attack influenza, from which he had suffered in the spring of the year. The rest may be told in his father's words: "In returning to Vienna from Pesth, a wet day probably gave rise to an intermittent fever, with very slight symptoms, and apparently subsiding, when a sudden rush of blood to the head put an instantaneous end to his life, on the 15th of September 1833. The remains of Arthur were brought to England, and interred on the 3rd of January 1834 in the chancel of Clevedon Church, in Somersetshire." It is curious that Tennyson, who is generally so scrupulously accurate about facts and details, should have made two mistakes about this. He represents the body as having been landed at Bristol (xix.) when it was landed at Dover, and as having been buried in the churchyard (xxi.) when it was buried in the chancel of the church, unless we are to suppose that this is corrected by what is implied in section lxvii. Tickell has beautifully said Grief unaffected suits but ill with art, Or flowing numbers with a bleeding heart. But if In Memoriam is eminently both a work of art and 、† distinguished by "flowing numbers," of the depth and sincerity of the passion which inspired it and of which it is the expression there can be no question. Tennyson spoke of his loss as "an overwhelming sorrow, which for a while blotted out all joy from his life and made him long for death," and it was while he was under this cloud that The Two Voices, or, as its alternative title originally ran, Thoughts of a Suicide, was composed (Life, vol. i. p. 109). The picture which Tennyson gives of Hallam does not ... seem to have been exaggerated, scarcely even idealised. Of his person Fanny Kemble has given this description, which may be compared with the last two stanzas of In Memoriam, section lxxxvii.: "There was a gentleness and purity almost virginal in his voice, manner, and countenance, and the upper part of his face and eyes (perhaps in readiness for his early translation) wore the angelic radiance which they still must wear in Heaven. . . . On his brow and eyes the heavenly light, so fugitive on other human faces, rested habitually, as if he was thinking and seeing in Heaven."1 Dean Alford wrote of him: "Hallam was a man of wonderful mind and knowledge on all subjects, hardly credible at his age. I long ago set him down for the most wonderful person I ever knew. He was of the most tender, affectionate disposition; " 2 and the late Lord Houghton spoke of him as "being the only man of my standing to whom I bow in conscious inferiority in everything." Gladstone has also left emphatic testimony to his powers and promise: "There was perhaps no one among those who were blessed with his friendship who did not feel at once bound closely to him by commanding affection, and left far behind by the rapid, full, and rich development of his ever-searching mind; by his All-comprehensive tenderness, It would be easy to show what in the varied forms of human excellence, he might, had life been granted to him, have accomplished; much more difficult to point the finger and to say, 'This he never could have done.' Enough remains from among his early efforts, to 1 Record of a Girlhood, vol. ii. p. 3. 2 Quoted in Tennyson's Life, vol. i. p. 107. accredit whatever mournful witness may now be borne of him."1 If we turn to his Remains, which were first printed by his father in 1834 for private circulation, and afterwards, with some deductions, published in 1853, we shall find ample corroboration of these testimonies to his extraordinary abilities and promise. The Remains consist of selections from his poems and of certain prose pieces, the chief of which are an Oration on the Influence of Italian Works of Imagination-a College exercise, an Essay on the Philosophical Writings of Cicero, Remarks on Professor Rossetti's Disquisizioni sullo Spirito Antipapale, and an essay entitled Theodicæa Novissima, which was not reprinted when the selections were published.2 The poems are chiefly interesting as illustrating the seriousness, purity, and beauty of his character; but the prose pieces give evidence not only of very wide reading and culture, but of an acute, vigorous, and fertile mind. In intellectual power, subtlety, and fertility we should judge him to have been superior to his friend, and Tennyson has probably not exaggerated the extent of his indebtedness to him intellectually as well as morally and spiritually. Where influence was reciprocal it is not, of course, possible to define what each owed to the other, but this is certain, that in these Remains and in Hallam's Theodicæa Novissima will be found the germs, and more than the germs, of many of Tennyson's characteristic teachings throughout his poems, but more especially in 1 Gleanings of Past Years, vol. ii. pp. 136-37. 3 2 It is not easy to see why this most interesting fragment should have been suppressed; it occupies twenty-five pages, from 111-136, in the privately printed volume. 3 For a very interesting account of Hallam and his characteristics, see Dr. John Brown's Hora Subseciva, Second Series, edition 1882, pp. 419-86. In Memoriam.1 However this may be, it was no doub Hallam's influence, strengthened and consecrated by hi 1 Compare, for example Repinement dwells not with the duteous free. We owe a privilege, that reasoning man Remains, Meditative Fragments, p. II. The moving phantasies of things, And all our visual notions, shadow-like Half hide, half show, that All-sustaining One. Ibid. p. 16. "The loss of religious humility, without which, as their central life, all these (i.e. scientific truths) are but dreadful shadows."—Ibid. p. 143. "That mighty revolution (Christianity) which brought the poor and unlearned into the possession of a pure code of moral opinion, that before existed only for the wise, and crowned this great benefit by another . . . the insertion of a new life-giving motive into the rude mass of human desires, by the satisfaction it afforded to moral aspiration."—Ibid. p. 181. (Cf. with this In Memoriam, xxxvi.) "Without the Gospel (of Love), nature exhibits a want of harmony between our intrinsic constitution, and the system in which it is placed. But Christianity has made up the difference. It is possible and natural to love the Father, who has made us His children; it is possible and natural to love the Elder Brother, who was, in all things, like as we are, except sin."-Ibid. p. 176. From page 275 to 285 we have all the chief teachings of In Memoriam, the education through love and pain, set forth. Compare also with In Memoriam the following passages from the Theodicæa Novissima:— "The great effect of the Incarnation was, as far as our nature is concerned, to render human love for the Most High a possible thing."-P. 132. "Now that Christ has excited our love for Him by showing unutterable love for us; now that we know Him as our Elder Brother . . . it has become possible to love as God loves; that is, to love Christ, and thus to become united in heart to God."-P. 131. "Unless the heart of a created being is at one with the heart of God, it cannot but be miserable."-P. 130. 66 Any opinion which tends to keep out of sight the living and loving God, whether it substitute for Him an idol, an occult agency, or a formal |