INTRODUCTION

I. BIOGRAPHICAL

Alfred Tennyson was the son of Rev. George Clayton Tennyson, M.A., LL.D., who in the early years of the nineteenth century was rector of the church at Somersby in Lincolnshire. Somersby, a quiet little hamlet, rests among the trees in the midst of a gently rolling country, a region of large wheat fields and soft pastures, of shaded, winding streams and tall-towered churches. Here, in the unpretentious but very comfortable rectory (still standing), the future poet was born August 6, 1809. He was fourth in a family of twelve, all of whom were so endowed with literary or artistic tastes that their home came to be described as "a nest of singing birds." But of them all, Alfred early showed the most marked ability. His brothers and sisters long remembered his interesting, improvised stories, some of which were absurdly humorous while others were "savagely dramatic."

The poet's first teacher was his mother, a good and beautiful woman, devoted to her home and children, of whom the poet gives us a picture in his poem "Isabel." He received his early education mainly at home but partly at the grammar school in the neighboring village of Louth, where his grandmother lived. After three years at Louth, where he was not happy, Alfred, with his brother Charles,

9

who was his senior by only a year, passed to the tutelage of their father. Dr. Tennyson was a very scholarly man, and he gave his boys a fine training in Latin, Greek, French, mathematics, and the elements of natural science. Also, by way of directing their reading in English, he opened his excellent library to them. Here they became acquainted with the greatest English classics, reading and enjoying among other books the works of Shakespeare, Milton, Burke, Goldsmith, Addison, Swift, Defoe, and Bunyan. Alfred attended to his studies and did well in them, but found time for his favorite diversion of verse making. He imitated the styles of various English poets, and when he was about twelve wrote an epic of six thousand lines in the manner of Scott, full of battles and descriptions of sea and mountain scenery. A little later he wrote a drama in blank verse. His father, who had the artist's temperament, was rather proud of his son's precocious talents. On the contrary his grandfather, a blunt, practical man, thought very little of them. When, on the occasion of his grandmother's death, Alfred wrote some verses to her memory, his grandfather, apparently touched by the boy's devotion, gave him half a guinea, saying: "Here is half a guinea for you, the first you ever earned by poetry, and, take my word for it, the last.'

Early in 1827 the two brothers (for Charles also was fond of versifying) arranged with a bookseller and printer at Louth to publish a volume of their poems. This volume was entitled "Poems by Two Brothers. It contained one hundred and two poems in many different styles. Perhaps that which was most significant and interesting about the book was the brief Latin motto on the title-page, "Haec nos novimus esse nihil." Just because the boys realized that their poems were nothing, they could go on and im

prove. In the high ideals of these young poets we see the promise of their later excellence. For their modest little volume the boys received fifty dollar's worth of books and fifty dollars in cash. On the day of publication they celebrated the event by hiring a carriage and driving off to the seashore at Mabelthorpe, a favorite resort with them, where they "shared their triumph with the wind and waves.' One, at least, of the literary journals of the day gave the book a favorable review; but looking back on his work in after years, Alfred spoke of it as "early rot."

About a year later (Feb. 1828) the two boys entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where their older brother Frederick had already distinguished himself. Alfred at this time was a handsome fellow, six feet tall, athletic and graceful, with thick, wavy, dark hair, and the eyes of a poet. Fanny Kemble, who through her brother John saw something of the life of the University, said of him when at college, "Alfred Tennyson was our hero, the great hero of our day." Notwithstanding a certain shyness and reserve, not unnatural in boys who had scarcely ever been away from home, and in spite of the fact that they did not room in the college dormitories, they soon made many friends, and became a part of a coterie as brilliant as any ever gathered within the venerable walls of Cambridge. With their friends they formed a little society called "The Apostles," which met frequently for debates on literary and social questions. The spirit of progress and reform was in the air and to this spirit the entire band was eagerly devoted. Among the members of this group were Spedding (later the biographer of Bacon), Milnes (afterwards Lord Houghton), Trench (afterwards Archbishop of Dublin), Alford (afterwards Dean of Canterbury), Blakesley (afterwards Dean of Lincoln), Merivale (afterwards Dean of