Cornell University Library 
 PR5584.N19 
 
 The homes and haunts of Alfred Lord Tenn 
 
 3 1924 013 560 671 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013560671 
 
The Homes 
 
 and Haunts of 
 
 Alfred Lord Tennyson 
 
GLASGOW, PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, MARCH, 1892, FOR 
 JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS. PUBLISHERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. 
 THE EDITION I-OR SALE OF THIS BOOK IS LIMITED TO THREE 
 HUNDRED COPIES, OF WHICH SEVENTY-FIVE HAVE BEEN PURCHASED 
 BY MACMILLAN AND COY., NEW YORK. FOR AMERICA. 
 
J, 
 
THE 
 
 HOMES AND HAUNTS 
 
 OF 
 
 Alfred Lord Tennyson 
 
 POET LAUREATE. 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE G. NAPIER, M.A. 
 
 GLASGOW 
 
 JAMES MACLEHOSE & SONS 
 
 Jpnbliahcva to the Sntbevsitfl 
 
 1892 
 
 r-' v\j 
 

 
PREFACE. 
 
 Being an admirer of the Laureate's genius, in order 
 to understand the beautiful allusions in his poems, I 
 visited Somersby, Cambridge, Clevedon, Farringford, 
 and Aldworth in the summer of 1888. 
 
 It was suggested to me that my tour and the 
 information I had gathered might interest others, so 
 I printed for private circulation, in the spring of 1889, 
 a small book, illustrating it with photographs I had 
 taken in the several localities, and with others kindly 
 given me by friends. 
 
 A more generous reception than I had anticipated 
 was accorded to my small volume, accompanied by 
 requests to publish it. 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 With a view to doing so, I re-visited the 
 Poet's haunts in Lincolnshire, Surrey, and the Isle 
 of Wight, extending my travels to several other 
 places more or less associated with the Laureate and 
 his work, such as Waltham Abbey, Twickenham, 
 Shiplake, Bolas, and Burleigh, and I now venture to 
 reprint " The Homes and Haunts of Tennyson " in a 
 revised and enlarged form. 
 
 I am much indebted to the Hon. Hallam Tenny- 
 son, Mr. Horatio Tennyson, and Professor Lushington, 
 who have given me valuable information. 
 
 My thanks are also due to Mr. d'Eyncourt of 
 Bayons Manor; Mr. Burton of Somersby ; Mr. C. J. 
 Caswell of Horncastle ; Dean Gatty of Ecclesfield ; 
 Rev. Mr. Soper of Somersby ; Rev. Mr. Quirk of 
 Grasby ; Mr. Edward Malan of Blackdown, Somerset, 
 and to many others for their kind help. 
 
 With regard to the illustrations, let me express 
 my gratitude to Sir George Reid, P.R.S.A., for his 
 
PREFACE. vii 
 
 drawing of the room in which the Poet was born ; 
 Mr. John Murray of Albemarle Street, for the bust 
 of Hallam by Chantrey ; Mr. J. E. Mayall, of Messrs. 
 Mayall & Coy., for the photograph of Tennyson 
 taken in 1864 at Farringford. and the Proprietors of 
 the Graphic ioi the study — Aldworth. The photo- 
 gravures have been engraved by Messrs. Annan of 
 Glasgow. 
 
 The compilation of the book has been a source of 
 great pleasure to me, and if it chance to make the 
 study of the Poet's works more interesting my object 
 
 will have been attained. 
 
 G. G. N. 
 
 Orch.\ru, 
 
 West Kilbridi!, N.B., 
 
 March, 1892. 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 CAGE 
 
 PREFACE, V 
 
 SOMERSBY. I 
 
 SOMERSBY CHURCH, I9 
 
 BAG-ENDERBY, 3 1 
 
 GRASBY, 39 
 
 BAYONS MANOR, 61 
 
 THE GRANGE AND THE MILL, -J-J 
 
 BURLEIGH HOUSE, 99 
 
 IN MEMORIAM, II5 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 page; 
 MARRIAGE, I 5 I 
 
 FARRINGFORD, l6l 
 
 ALD WORTH, 1 83 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS, 
 jfull ipage ipiatee. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, Frontispiece 
 
 MAP OF HAUNTS OF TENNYSON. Xvi 
 
 SOMERSBY, 2 
 
 A SOMERSBY INTERIOR, l6 
 
 SOMERSBY CHURCH, 20 
 
 BAG-ENDERBY CHURCH, 32 
 
 REV. CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER, 40 
 
 BAYONS MANOR, 62 
 
 GEORGE TENNYSON, 74 
 
 SOMERSBY GRANGE, 78 
 
 STOCKVVORTH MILL, 88 
 
xii ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 BURLEIGH HOUSE, lOO 
 
 ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM, I l6 
 
 CLEVEDON CHURCH, I 32 
 
 PROFESSOR EDMUND LAW LUSHINGTON, I42 
 
 HORNCASTLE (MR. SELLWOOD'S HOUSE), 1 ,2 
 
 FARRINGFORD, 162 
 
 THE HOME FARM, FARRINGFORD, 1 80 
 
 ALDWORTH, 1 84 
 
 THE STUDY, ALDWORTH, I90 
 
 lEiidraviiigs in tbe ITest. 
 
 LINCOLN FROM THE WITHAM, 4 
 
 niSTANT VIEW OK SOMERSBY, 5 
 
 SOMERSIIV BROOK, lo 
 
 THE ROAD PASSING SOMEKSBV, 12 
 
 SOMERSBY (GARDEN, I3 
 
 THE HALL, SOMERSBY, I 5 
 
 THE HALL, SOMERSBY, I 6 
 
 " MY FATHER'S DOOR," 18 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. xiii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 DR. Tennyson's grave, 22 
 
 OUTSIDE COVER OF REGISTER OF SOMERSHV, 26 
 
 TITLE-PAGE OF REGISTER OF SOMERSBY, 27 
 
 REGISTER OF SOMERSBY, 28 
 
 ENTRY OF TENNYSON'S BIRTH, 29 
 
 INTERIOR OF SOMERSBY CHURCH, 30 
 
 VILLAGE OF BAG-ENDERBY, 34 
 
 INTERIOR OF BAG-ENDERBY CHURCH, 38 
 
 DISTANT VIEW OF LOUTH, 42 
 
 " POEMS BY TWO BROTHERS," 44 
 
 THE LINCOLNSHIRE COAST AT MABLETHORPE, 45 
 
 iL4LTBY-LE-MARSH CHURCH, 46 
 
 DISTANT VIEW OF CAISTOR, 48 
 
 DISTANT VIEW OF GRASBY, 49 
 
 GRASBY VICARAGE, 5 I 
 
 GRASBY CHURCH, 56 
 
 SONNET— "THE DROWNED SPANIEL," 57 
 
 INTERIOR OF GRASBY CHURCH, 59 
 
 TABLET IN GRASBV CHURCH, 60 
 
 VILLAGE OF TKALBV, 66 
 
xiv ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 TEALBY CHURCH, 67 
 
 BAYONS MANOR, 7' 
 
 THE BARBICAN, BAYONS MANOR, 72 
 
 TOMB OF GEORGE TENNYSON, 76 
 
 " POEMS, CHIEFLY LYRICAL," 8 1 
 
 A MOATED GRANGE, MALTBY-LE-MARSH, 85 
 
 "POEMS, 1833," 92 
 
 HARRINGTON HALL, NEAR SOMERSBY, 95 
 
 SCRIVELSBY COURT, NEAR HORNCASTLE, 96 
 
 ENTRANCE GATEWAY, SCRIVELSBY COURT, 98 
 
 BOLAS, SHROPSHIRE, I04 
 
 'THE VILLAGE ALTAR,' BOLAS CHURCH, 105 
 
 ENTRY IN REGISTER OK BOLAS, I06 
 
 BURLEIGH, NEAR BOLAS, I07 
 
 STAMFORD-TOWN, LINCOLNSHIRE, I09 
 
 THE LODGE, BURLEIGH HOUSE, II4 
 
 CORPUS BUILDINGS, CAMBRIDGE, I18 
 
 INTERIOR OF KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL, II9 
 
 THE CAM AT TRINITY COLLEGE, I20 
 
 THE WALK OK LIMES, TRINITY COLLEGE, 122 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. xv 
 
 PAGE 
 
 hallam's rooms, trinity college, 126 
 
 interior of clevedon church, 1 32 
 
 hallam's TABLET IN CLEVEDON CHURCH, 1 35 
 
 "in memoriam," 136 
 
 waltham abbey, essex, 1 38 
 
 wimpole street, london, 140 
 
 park house, near maidstone, 143 
 
 interior of park house, 144 
 
 CARLYLE'S HOUSE, CHEYNE ROW, I46 
 
 TENNYSON'S LETTER TO MOXON, 1 47 
 
 BRANTWOOD, ON CONISTON LAKE, I48 
 
 MRS. TENNYSON'S GRAVE, HIGHGATE, I Jo 
 
 HORNCASTLE, LINCOLNSHIRE, I 54 
 
 CHAPEL HOUSE, TWICKENHAM, 1 58 
 
 SHIPLAKE CHURCH, ON THE THAMES, 160 
 
 FRESHWATER BAY, ISLE OF WIGHT, 1 68 
 
 FARRINGFORD LANE, I69 
 
 ENTRANCE GATE, FARRINGFORD, I70 
 
 FARRINGFORD LODGE, 171 
 
 A VISTA, FARRINGFORD, 172 
 
xvi ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 I'AGK 
 
 THE 1-'<JET'S GLAllK, FARRINGFORH, 174 
 
 TENNYSON'S DOWN, I 76 
 
 FARRINGFORD BEACON, 177 
 
 FRESHWATER CHURCH, 178 
 
 THE NEEDLES, 181 
 
 THE "MAYFLOWER" CROSSING THE SCILEN'I', 182 
 
 HASLEMERE, SURREY, I 87 
 
 TENNYSON'S LANE, HASLEMEKE, I88 
 
 BLACKDOWN, NEAR ALDWORTH, I9I 
 
 DISTANT VIEW OF \LDWORTH, I94 
 
Somersby. 
 
 " The silent woody places 
 By the home that gave me birth.' 
 
\\ 
 
SOMERSBY. 
 
 We are accustomed to associate several of the counties 
 of England with certain characteristics of their scenery, 
 Cumberland and Westmoreland with hills and lakes, 
 Durham with coal pits, and Lincolnshire — of which 
 we are about to speak — with fens. 
 
 The word fen suggests the idea of a place the 
 reverse of beautiful, hence the preconceived notion of 
 Lincolnshire is that of a region, dull, treeless, level, 
 and uninteresting, 
 
 "A flat malarian world of reed and rush!" 
 Such an opinion regarding the county has prevailed 
 for centuries, and, strange to say, exists at the present 
 time. 
 
 Going back to the reign of Henry VIII. we find 
 that monarch calling the county " one of the most 
 brute and beestalie of the whole realm," but in his day 
 there was some ground for giving it such a bad name, 
 as the reclamation of the land by drainage had not 
 
4 SOMERSBY. 
 
 commenced. Even after this work had been well 
 nigh completed, the same idea regarding the shire 
 still prevailed, George III.'s notion being that, "it was 
 all flats, fogs, and fens,'' and coming down to our 
 own day, modern writers such as Hawthorne and 
 Riiskin speak of it in somewhat similar terms. 
 
 Now, while it is no 
 doubt true that a great 
 part of the county is \i'£^SSk 
 very flat, the cloud- 
 capt towers of Lincoln Cathedral being visible for forty 
 miles around, yet if the traveller journey from Lincoln 
 to Horncastle, and thence walk three or four miles 
 eastward, he will find the aspect of the surrounding 
 country completely changed. For, while previously 
 
SOMERSBY. 
 
 5 
 
 there was nothing that his eye could rest on other 
 than a wide illimitable expanse of flat prosaic land, 
 
 "The level waste, the rounding gray," 
 
 now he will survey a pretty pastoral district, where 
 soft wooded hills rise from out deep valleys, down 
 which may be heard the murmur of brooks, hurrying 
 their waters to the German Ocean. 
 
 In the very heart of this home scenery, nestling in 
 an atmosphere of tranquil loveliness and rural peace, 
 
 ■.I'l^tw ^'^^ '•^^^ hamlet of Somersby, 
 which in all time coming will 
 be noted as the birthplace of Tennyson. 
 
 For centuries the estate has been owned by the 
 Burton family, who are lords of the manor and patrons 
 both of its living and that of the adjoining parish 
 of Bag-Enderby. 
 
 In the year 1807 there was presented to these 
 
6 SOMERSBY. 
 
 livings a young clergyman of the name of Tennyson, 
 whose father was well known throughout the county 
 of Lincoln as a lawyer and landlord. Previously to 
 his settling here the rector had married Miss Fytche, 
 the daughter of the vicar of Louth, and at the rectory 
 of Somersby, — now the manor-house, — on Sunday, 
 6th August, 1809, his fourth son, Alfred, the Poet 
 Laureate, was born. 
 
 In the quiet country round Somersby the boyhood 
 and early manhood of Tennyson were passed amid 
 what has been called " the cloistral calm of clerical 
 life," and a more fitting place for the upbringing and 
 training of one on whom the Muses had conferred 
 their rarest gifts it would be difficult to find. Out- 
 side, in the bright summer days, there was boundless 
 scope for him to wander in solitude, communing with 
 those natural instructors — the trees and flowers, birds 
 and brooks, sweeping plains and " bounding main " ; 
 while inside, when frosty winds barred the doors, 
 the long undisturbed winter evenings afforded him 
 ample time for close and applied study, which, 
 under his father's careful tutelage, was the means 
 of laying the foundation of that marvellous know- 
 ledge, which drew from Thackeray in after years the 
 
SOMERSBY. 7 
 
 encomium that Tennyson was the wisest man he 
 knew. 
 
 At the age of nineteen, along with his brother 
 Charles, the poet went up to Trinity College, Cam- 
 bridge, and while in residence there in 1831, death 
 entered the household at Somersby — his father suc- 
 cumbing to an attack of typhus fever. In many 
 respects the bereavement was a great one, the family 
 losing in Dr. Tennyson one who was not only a pious 
 divine, but a man of deep learning and of large and 
 varied attainments. An old Bentley scholar, he be- 
 stowed the greatest care on the education of his family, 
 hence he was revered by those now left to mourn his 
 loss, and by none more than the poet, as his lines 
 referring to this sad event show : — 
 
 This is the curse of time. Alas ! 
 
 In grief I am not all unlearn'd ; 
 Once thro' mine own doors Death did pass ; 
 
 One went, who never hath return'd. 
 
 He will not smile — not speak to me 
 Once more. Two years his chair is seen 
 
 Empty before us. That was he 
 Without whose life I had not been. 
 
 For a few years after Dr. Tennyson's death his 
 widow and family continued to reside at Somersby, 
 
8 SOMERSBV. 
 
 the ministerial duties being discharged by a curate, 
 the Rev. G. A. Robinson, and many lovely glimpses 
 of the place and of the happy life the poet spent here 
 with his brothers, sisters, and college friends, are un- 
 folded to the reader in the stanzas of " In Memoriam." 
 Take, for instance, the verses where he describes a 
 visit paid by Hallam : — 
 
 O sound to rout the brood of cares, 
 The sweep of scythe in morning dew, 
 The gust that round the garden flew. 
 
 And tumbled half the mellowing pears ! 
 
 O bliss, when all in circle drawn 
 About him, heart and ear were fed 
 To hear him, as he lay and read 
 
 The Tuscan poets on the lawn : 
 
 Or in the all-golden afternoon 
 A guest, or happy sister, sung. 
 Or here she brought the harp and flung 
 
 A ballad to the brightening moon. 
 
 Thus the years glided peacefully onwards, the 
 widowed mother leading a quiet, retired life within 
 the seclusion of the old rectory, her sons and 
 daughters growing up into handsome men and 
 women, till 1837, when the Tennysons were obliged 
 to quit Somersby, on account of the new rector, the 
 
SOMERSBV. 9 
 
 late Rev. Langhorne Burton Burton, coming into 
 residence. 
 
 How dearly Tennyson loved his birthplace, and 
 how sorry he was to leave it, may be gathered from 
 the lines he wrote recalling the period of his depart- 
 ure. One can picture him ascending the hill behind 
 the house and taking a last look at the familiar 
 landscape, or straying down the garden walks and 
 calling back to memory the time when he first heard 
 a voice speaking to him in the wind, and his earliest 
 attempts at poetry, when his brother Charles put a 
 slate into his hand and asked him to write something 
 about the flowers in the garden. But now, alas ! 
 
 Unwatch'd, the garden bough shall sway, 
 The tender blossom flutter down. 
 Unloved, that beech will gather brown. 
 
 This maple burn itself away ; 
 
 Unloved, the sun-flower, shining fair, 
 Ray round with flames her disk of seed. 
 And many a rose-carnation feed 
 
 With summer spice the humming air ; 
 
 Nor is the little brook which runs at the foot of the 
 garden, and which occurs so often in his poems, 
 forgotten in these musings, and hearing perhaps its 
 sound, he continues — 
 
lO 
 
 SOMERSBY. 
 
 Unloved, by many a sandy bar, 
 The brook shall babble down the plain, 
 At noon or when the lesser wain 
 
 Is twisting round the polar star ; 
 
 Till from the garden and the wild 
 A fresh association blow. 
 And year by year the landscape grow 
 
 Familiar to the stranger's child. 
 
 Though more than half a century has elapsed since 
 the Tennysons left their early home, Somersby is 
 
 situated, happily for us, 
 in such a far away old 
 world region as to be at 
 the present day little, or 
 in nowise altered since 
 the poet wandered along 
 its winding lanes. Time 
 has dealt kindly with the 
 landmarks of the Laure- 
 ate here, as the hamlets 
 round his birthplace 
 have not grown into villages, nor the villages swollen 
 into towns, but all is delightfully unchanged and rural, 
 due greatly to the fact that it is six miles "an' moor 
 fro' a raail." 
 
SOMERSBY.- 1 1 
 
 Starting from Horncastle — ^the nearest market town — 
 the road gradually trends upward for two or three 
 miles, till a ridge is reached which may be said to 
 command the surrounding country. Looking back, we 
 see the smoke rising from the little town just left, 
 and forward the view opens over a beautiful landscape 
 of hill and dale. Eastward the tower of Boston 
 Church can be seen and the glimmer of the Wash ; 
 westward "the minster- towers" of Lincoln are in view 
 far away in the distance, crowning the northern 
 heights of the Witham Valley. Point after point, as 
 the road descends, strikes a chord of interest, as the 
 liighway is exchanged for that " long acquainted path " 
 leading down "to the dear village haunts" where the 
 poet was born. Great hedgerows shut out the view, 
 but a break in them reveals a little valley, across 
 which may be seen peering out "from the woods that 
 belt the gray hill-side" the chimney tops of Somersby 
 Manor. Descending into the valley, a noise of 
 running water is heard, and a small bridge enables 
 the traveller to cross " the brook that loves to purl 
 o'er matted cress and ribbed sand." The road sud- 
 denly curves, then winding up through a deep cutting, 
 reaches the top of the slope, where, separated only 
 
SOMERSBY. 
 
 by the lusty holly hedge planted by Dr. Tennyson, 
 stands, a few yards back, " the well-beloved place " 
 
 under whose red-tiled roof the poet of the Victorian 
 era was born. 
 
 The main entrance — what Tennyson calls " my 
 father's door ' — is on the side facing the road, but the 
 house as thus approached is not seen to advantage. 
 When, however, it is viewed from the south, where 
 the creepers clamber up the yellow-washed walls, 
 it looks so sweet one does not wonder at the 
 regrets the poet had in leaving such a picturesque 
 home. 
 
SOMERSBY. 
 
 13 
 
 The classic lawn, the scene of so many happy 
 gatherings, slopes gently away to a little garden, 
 quaint and old-fashioned, intersected with walks of 
 turf and girt with high evergreen hedges. 
 
 In this secluded spot no sounds fall on the ear but 
 those which belong essentially to the pure country — 
 the ripple of the brook murmuring in its summer 
 sleep, the lowing of " the white kine," the bleating of 
 " the thick-fleeced sheep," or the cooing in the distant 
 woods "of the day-long-murmuring wood-pigeon." 
 
 The trees add greatly to the beauty of the place, 
 many of the poet's favourites, such as the elms and 
 
14 
 
 SOMERSBY. 
 
 beeches, still spreading their canopy of leaves over 
 the verdure underneath ; but, alas ! the " towering 
 sycamore " and " the poplars four " will be no more 
 seen. When Walter White visited Somersby in i860 
 he found only three poplars waving behind the house, 
 as one had disappeared ; now all are gone — in Mr. 
 Rawnsley's choice language, " they only whisper in 
 the Laureate's song." 
 
 As for the interior of the old manor-house, it may 
 be said to have all the peculiar charm of an English 
 country home. The ivy-mantled door opens on a 
 square hall, adorned with many tokens of the chase, 
 crossing which we enter the drawing-room rich with 
 pictures, china, and a wealth of bric-a-brac. It is 
 charmingly sunny, being lit with two large windows 
 on a level with the lawn, and for cheerfulness is quite 
 a contrast to a somewhat dingy room on the opposite 
 side of the passage, which must have been associated 
 with sad memories, as in it Dr. Tennyson died. 
 
 Passing along a dimly-lighted corridor, a pointed 
 gothic door opens on the dining-hall. This apart- 
 ment is one of stately dimensions, having been de- 
 signed by the rector himself, who, to his many other 
 accomplishments, added a thorough knowledge of 
 
SOMERSBY. 
 
 IS 
 
 architecture, the groined roof and high ecclesiastical 
 windows, the beautifully modelled mantelpiece and 
 
 carved panelled door all attesting his refined and 
 excellent taste. 
 
 To this hall Tennyson makes reference in " In 
 Memoriam" as that in which the family were wont 
 to gather on festive occasions, and doubtless its old 
 walls full many and many a time "with harp and 
 carol rang,'' more especially at Christmas, when the 
 poet and his brothers came down from Cambridge, 
 
i6 
 
 SOMERSBY. 
 
 accompanied by some of their college friends, to 
 spend the vacation at Somersby — 
 
 As in the winters left behind, 
 
 Again our ancient games had place. 
 The mimic picture's breathing grace, 
 
 And dance and song and hoodman-blind. 
 
 Such scenes of mirth and merry-making were not 
 always suited to the poet's habits of solitude — mani- 
 fest even at this early age — and oftener than else- 
 where was he to be found alone with his books in his 
 
SOM ERSBY. 
 
SOMERSBY. 17 
 
 Study in the attic. A private stair, rather dark and 
 difficult to climb, leads up to it from the ground 
 floor ; but the sanctuary of the Muse is strangely 
 altered, and the lines the poet addressed to it — 
 
 O darling room, my heart's delight, 
 Dear room, the apple of my sight, 
 
 No little room so warm and bright, 
 Wherein to read, wherein to write — 
 
 would hardly describe it now, as the books which 
 lined the walls and gave to it such a cheerful look 
 have been superseded by " Lincolnshire Pictures." 
 
 The skylight has been closed in, and now only one 
 window in the gable-wall greets the day, the view 
 from it embracing a wide prospect over the wolds. 
 
 Our chief interest, however, centres in the room in 
 which the poet was born. It is over the drawing- 
 room, and is distinguishable by the iron balcony in 
 front of its window, but the aspect of the interior is 
 greatly changed, owing to the furniture being alto- 
 gether different from that of eighty years ago. 
 
 Standing in this room our thoughts naturally travel 
 
 back over the years to that memorable day when 
 
 the roofs above heard the poet's "earliest cry." 
 
 c 
 
1 8 SOMERSBY. 
 
 Somersby would then be at its loveliest, for the 
 Laureate was born on what Charles Lamb would 
 call "an all-day day" in August, that charming 
 month when summer, falling into the lap of autumn, 
 " gilds the glebe of England." 
 
 Little would his parents think that to their house 
 had just been born an " heir of endless fame," yet it 
 was so ; for the voice first heard within these walls 
 will never die, but continue ringing down the corridors 
 of Time, and like the echoes in the " Princess," 
 
 roll from soul to soul, 
 And grow for ever and for ever. 
 
Somersby Church. 
 
 " Like soften'd airs that blowing steal, 
 When meres begin to uncongeal, 
 The sweet church bells began to peal." 
 
\'^ 
 
SOMERSBY CHURCH. 
 
 When depicting in the poem entitled " The Two 
 Voices " the struggle which constantly goes on between 
 the intellect and heart of man, all will remember 
 that Tennyson causes the latter to triumph over the 
 former by the joy awakened at the sight of happy 
 people gathering on a Sabbath morning for divine 
 service. 
 
 I ceased, and sat as one forlorn. 
 Then said the voice, in quiet scorn, 
 " Behold, it is the Sabbath morn." 
 
 On to God's house the people prest : 
 Passing the place where each must rest. 
 Each enter'd like a welcome guest. 
 
 I blest them, and they wander'd on : 
 I spoke, but answer came there none : 
 The dull and bitter voice was gone. 
 
22 
 
 SOMERSBY CHURCH. 
 
 It is not too much to suppose that " God's house " 
 here referred to is Somersby Church, as the scene 
 which the poet describes must often have been wit- 
 nessed by him in his boyhood as his father's parish- 
 ioners assembled for morning worship. 
 
 Ten yards past the manor house, on the opposite 
 side of the road, a small wicket gate, hidden under 
 
 the shade of trees, opens to a narrow path, ascending 
 which we enter the churchyard of Somersby. 
 
 All things here have rest ; absolute stillness reigns. 
 
SOMERSBY CHURCH. 23 
 
 It is truly a country churchyard, its beauty in no 
 way destroyed by huge blocks of granite and marble, 
 but here and there lichen-covered headstones with 
 simple inscriptions telling of lives " lived and ended 
 honestly." 
 
 Under the shade of the rugged little church-tower 
 sleeps the poet's father. The tomb is enclosed by 
 high railings, the altar slab bearing the following 
 inscription : — 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF 
 THE REVEREND 
 
 GEORGE CLAYTON TENNYSON, 
 
 LL.D., 
 
 ELDEST SON OF GEORGE TENNYSON, ESQ., 
 
 OF BAYONS MANOR, 
 
 AND RECTOR OF THIS PARISH, 
 
 OF BAG-ENDERBY AND BENNIWORTH, 
 
 AND VICAR OF GREAT GRIMSBY 
 
 IN THIS COUNTY. 
 
 HE DEPARTED THIS LIFE, 
 
 ON THE i6tH day OF MARCH, 183I, 
 
 AGED 52 YEARS. 
 
 The poet, thinking of his father lying here, while his 
 family are far removed from him, refers to this tomb 
 in these lines ; — 
 
 Our father's dust is left alone 
 And silent under other snows : 
 There in due time the woodbine blows, 
 
 The violet conies, but we are gone. 
 
24 SOMERSBY CHURCH. 
 
 So remote is the district, the church and church- 
 yard seem to have escaped the vigilant eyes of the 
 Puritans, when they hurried to and fro throughout 
 the land laying forcible hands on all popish images, 
 and accordingly there are still to be found here traces 
 of /rg-Reformation times. 
 
 One of these relics, almost unique in its complete 
 preservation, is a Norman cross, with a figure of our 
 Lord on one side, and the Virgin on the other ; while 
 close to the entrance of the church, in a dark corner, 
 is a little flat stone basin for holy water. Though 
 trees circle round the churchyard, there is no " dark 
 yew " among them, neither is there a clock in the 
 tower to beat out '" the little lives of men," the only 
 recorder of the hour being a sundial over the porch, 
 with date 1751, and motto "Time passeth." 
 
 The church must have been a very quaint edifice 
 in Dr. Tennyson's time, as its roof was then covered 
 with thatch, like the cottages in its immediate vicinity. 
 The tower is the oldest portion of the building, and 
 in several places has been patched with red bricks 
 instead of stone. 
 
 It contains two melodious bells whose soft tones 
 must often have fallen upon the poet's ear. 
 
SOMERSBY CHURCH. 25 
 
 " Would'st thou know the beauty of holiness ? " says 
 Charles Lamb. " Go alone on some weekday, borrow- 
 ing the keys of good Master Sexton, traverse the 
 cool aisles of some country church ; think of the 
 piety that has kneeled there — the congregations, old 
 and young, that have found consolation there — the 
 meek pastor, the docile parishioner." 
 
 With emotions akin to what Lamb here describes 
 we open the ponderous oaken door of this ' pastoral 
 sanctuary/ but a feeling of disappointment is experi- 
 enced, as the interior does not at all harmonize with 
 what the exterior would lead one to expect. This 
 part of the church has been restored, regardless of con- 
 gruity — the new pews and coloured tiles ill-assorting 
 with the old weather-beaten walls. One thing re- 
 mains unchanged, " the cold baptismal font," octagonal 
 in shape, and of plain freestone, where, according to 
 the register of Somersby, on Tuesday, the 8th August 
 1809, two days after his birth, the poet received the 
 name of Alfred. 
 
 It is matter for thankfulness that so many parish 
 registers have come down to us preserved from the 
 decay of Time and other destructive influences. 
 
 Whatever mist may envelope Shakespeare's life, no 
 
26 
 
 SOMERSBY CHURCH. 
 
 doubt can exist as to the date of his baptism and 
 burial, thanks to the parish register of Stratford, 
 which Hes open to the gaze of the world in the 
 church which contains the poet's dust. 
 
 Under a similar debt of obligation are we laid to 
 the quaint old register of Somersby, containing the 
 
 birth and baptism of 
 Tennyson, as from a 
 perusal of its pages 
 we are enabled to as- 
 certain certain defin- 
 ite facts of consider- 
 able value regarding 
 the poet and his 
 family. 
 
 The book, which is 
 the second Register 
 of Somersby, is de- 
 posited in the rectory 
 at Bag-Enderby, and 
 is in excellent pre- 
 servation. The leaves are made of thick parch- 
 ment, same as the outside cover, which bears the 
 date 1735. 
 
SOMERSBY CHURCH. 
 
 A predecessor of Dr. Tennyson (the Rev. Ralph 
 Battell) must have been a skilful penman, as he com- 
 mences the volume with a title-page of no little 
 beauty, describing the contents as " a Register of all the 
 Births, Burials, and Marriages belonging to the parish 
 of Somersby, in the , , ^ . _j,j, ii 
 
 County of Lincoln,' 
 etc., etc. 
 
 The first entry in 
 Dr. Tennyson's hand- 
 writing is to be found 
 on the bottom line of 
 the page previous to 
 that which contains 
 the birth of the poet. 
 The date is June 14th, 
 1 807, the entry above 
 it. May 6th, being 
 signed by Jo^' Young- 
 husband, curate, 
 whose name also appears at the end of the years 
 1802, 1803, and 1806. 
 
 From June 14th, 1807, to June 28th, 1808, a whole 
 year elapses without a single entry in the Register. 
 
 
 
 
 'ri.'o-,,. 
 
 
 
 F< 
 
 thulii. 
 
28 
 
 SOMERSBY CHURCH. 
 
 At the top of the page, containing the years 1808, 
 1809, 1 8 10, and portion of 181 1, the name of the Rev. 
 
 G. C. Tennyson as rector occurs for the first time. 
 The third entry in the year 1808 records the birth, 
 
SOMERSBY CHURCH. 29 
 
 on July 4th, of Charles Tennyson, and his baptism 
 on July loth ; the last entry in the same year being 
 the baptism on November 3rd of the late Rev. 
 Langhorne Burton Burton, father of the present 
 owner of Somersby, and successor of Dr. Tennyson 
 in the livings. 
 
 It is somewhat remarkable that of all the entries 
 in Dr. Tennyson's elegant caligraphy in this book the 
 only figure open to doubt is the date of the birth 
 of the poet. 
 
 It is the third entry in the year 1809, and runs as 
 follows : — 
 
 At the first glance the last figure looks like a 5, 
 but on closer examination it proves to be a 6, the 
 difficulty in reading the entry being caused by this 
 figure being made above the line and close to the 
 inner convex, or rounded margin of the old Parch- 
 ment Book. That this is correct may be said to 
 be beyond doubt, Lord Tennyson's authority having 
 recently been given, that, according to his mother's 
 
30 
 
 SOMERSBY CHURCH. 
 
 testimony, he was born on the 6th of August, which, 
 it is worth noting, was the fourth anniversary of his 
 parents' marriage. 
 
 The birth of the poet's eldest sister, Mary, is 
 recorded in 1810, while that of Emilia in 181 1 is the 
 last entry in this Register relating to the Tennysons. 
 On 29th December, 18 12, in the centre of the page 
 opposite the entry of the poet's birth, the rector 
 closes the book with these words — " Here com- 
 mences the new Register established by Act | of | Par- 
 liament," and in the new volume are recorded the 
 baptisms of the younger members of his family. 
 
Bag-Enderby. 
 
 ' Enormous elm-tree-boles did stoop and lean 
 Upon the dusky brushwood underneath 
 Their broad curved branches, fledged with clearest green, 
 New from its silken sheath.'' 
 
^1 
 
BAG-ENDERBY. 
 
 A FEATURE of this part of Lincolnshire is the near- 
 ness of the villages to each other, as is shown by the 
 poet hearing at one time the Christmas bells ringing 
 from four of the neighbouring churches. 
 
 The time draws near the birth of Christ ; 
 
 The moon is hid j the night is still ; 
 
 The Christmas bells from hill to hill 
 Answer each other in the mist. 
 
 Four voices of four hamlets round, 
 
 From far and near, on mead and moor, 
 Swell out and fail, as if a door 
 
 Were shut between me and the sound : 
 
 Not long ago the rector of Somersby received a 
 letter from an American, asking him what four 
 hamlets the poet here refers to, and Mr. Horatio 
 Tennyson, who happened to be staying in the vicinity, 
 promised to make inq\iiry of his brother. The poet's 
 
 E 
 
34 
 
 BAG-EN DERBY. 
 
 reply was that he had forgotten, but there can be 
 Httle doubt that one of the four is Bag-Enderby, as 
 it is only half a mile distant from Somersby. 
 
 The livings have always been held conjointly, ser- 
 vice being conducted in the morning at one church 
 and in the afternoon at the other. 
 
 It may be noted that 
 these parishes are called 
 hamlets, which word ex- 
 actly describes them, as they consist of only a few 
 scattered cottages. At Bag-Enderby these are ranged 
 on each side of the roadway, and form a sort of 
 village, the entrance to which is guarded by a great 
 elm-tree. 
 
BAG-ENDERBY. 35 
 
 There is a difference of opinion as to which is the 
 poet's favourite tree, some careful students of his 
 poems maintaining that it is the chestnut, others 
 that it is the elm. Possibly it is neither, but in 
 favour of the latter it may be mentioned that in the 
 poet's native county the elm is a very common tree, 
 the strong clayey moist soil of Lincolnshire seeming 
 to be specially adapted to its requirements. 
 
 It is a tree remarkable for the great horizontal 
 limbs which it throws out, sometimes to a distance 
 of thirty or forty feet from its trunk, and the elm 
 at Bag-Enderby is a good instance of this peculiarity, 
 as one of its boughs, on which the poet's sisters used 
 to swing in their girlish days, is now so large as to 
 afford, it is said, sufficient accommodation for the 
 whole of the population of the parish to sit side by 
 side on it in comfort. 
 
 There are three Enderbys in this vicinity — Mavis, 
 Wood, and Bag-Enderby. The prefix Bag — which 
 occurs in old Lincolnshire Records as far back as 
 1220 — has been rather a puzzle to antiquaries, and 
 would have deserved the researches of Jonathan Old- 
 buck. One interpretation is that Bag is a corruption 
 of Beck, the local name of the rivulet which flows 
 
36 BAG-ENDERBY. 
 
 along the foot of the valley; another, that it is the 
 old Norse Bak, which, rendered into English, means 
 Back ; while the fact that Badgers are to be found 
 in the holes of the sandstone rocks in the immediate 
 neighbourhood has given rise to the belief that pos- 
 sibly the prefix may have been derived from these 
 animals. 
 
 The church stands at the end of the village, and 
 at first sight might be mistaken for a ruin, as the 
 old pointed roof has been removed, leaving the bare 
 . gable. As far as can be ascertained, the edifice was 
 built in the middle of the 14th century, when it was 
 dedicated to St. Margaret. Internally it is much more 
 interesting than, its neighbour at Somersby, the little 
 high-built pulpit where Dr. Tennyson read his 
 sermons, and the great square squire's seat in which 
 the poet sat and listened to them, being entirely 
 unchanged. The baptismal font (at least 500 years 
 old) is quite a contrast to the one in Somersby 
 Church, as it is as elaborately carved as the other 
 is plain, one of its devices, strange to say, being a 
 poet playing on a harp. 
 
 There still resides in Bag-Enderby an old man, by 
 name Jonathan Clark, who was born there in the same 
 
BAG-ENDERP.Y. 37 
 
 year as the poet, and is now one of the few survivors 
 of these bygone days. Bent nearly double with age, 
 he still manages to hobble from church to church, in 
 order to discharge his duties of clerk and 'clinkumbell.' 
 He is "a mine of memories,' having many reminis- 
 cences to relate of his boyhood, though it is to be 
 feared his imagination is at times a ready mint for 
 the coinage of some of his stories. 
 
 " The doctor wur all for reading," is his summing 
 up of Dr. Tennyson's character, a remark not want- 
 ing in truth, as the poet's father's tastes were 
 somewhat akin to those of the rector described by 
 Crabbe, whose delight 
 
 " Was all in books ; to read them, or to write : 
 
 Courteous enough, but careless what he said, 
 For points of learning he reserved his head." 
 
 Jonathan distinctly remembers the Misses Tennyson, 
 " young ladies who were never seen without a book 
 in their hands," and the rector's seven tall sons ; but 
 he has no special recollection of the poet, as at that 
 time he was not " nobly distinguished above all the 
 six." 
 
38 
 
 BAG-ENDERBY. 
 
 The old man declares that some twenty years ago 
 he drove the poet over from Alford to Somersby, but 
 herein his memory fails to note the flight of time, 
 as the Laureate might say with Matthew Arnold, 
 
 " Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here," 
 
 not having been in the locality for nearly forty 
 years. Still, though the poet has not visited his birth- 
 place for so many years, it is a mistake to think 
 his interest in his native district has ceased, for, as 
 his brother once remarked, the writer of " Tears, idle 
 tears," never could forget Somersby. 
 
Grasby. 
 
 "True brother, only to be known 
 By those who love thee best." 
 
'S^L^a-c^-^^o-^ c^%->-7l^,-2_^ 
 
GRASBY. 
 
 Not unfittingly has the young household at Somersby 
 been compared to a nest of nightingales, as most of 
 the sons seem to have inherited the poetical gifts of 
 their father. 
 
 Frederick, the eldest, is the author of three volumes 
 of poetry, entitled " Days and Hours," " The Isles of 
 Greece," and " Daphne and other Poems," while 
 Edward, Septimus, and Horatio have each written 
 verses more or less known. Though some, how- 
 ever, might gainsay the claims of these to be 
 called poets, few will deny the title to their brother 
 Charles — indeed, all who have studied his sonnets feel 
 that no lines could better describe his genius than those 
 which the Laureate caused to be cut on the mural tablet 
 he erected to his memory in Grasby Church : — 
 
 " True poet, surely to be found 
 When Truth is found again." 
 
GRASBY. 
 
 Charles Tennyson was the first of the rector's 
 children born at Somersby, being little more than 
 a year older than his brother Alfred. From their 
 
 mfant da} s till eaily manhood 
 the two were constant com- 
 panions, running side by side for many a mile 
 in their race after the Muses, till at length the one 
 shot far ahead, completely distancing the other. No 
 one was more ready to acknowledge this superiority 
 than the elder brother ; — in fact, his willingness to take 
 the second place is noticeable in the earliest glimpse 
 we get of him. 
 
 After spending four years at the Grammar School 
 
GRASBY. 
 
 43 
 
 of Louth, " one of these old classic institutions," says 
 de Quincey, " which form the peculiar glory of Eng- 
 land," the brothers returned to Somersby — the next 
 six years being spent in studious retirement at their 
 father's rectory. During this time they were ex- 
 tremely diligent, encouraging and helping each other 
 in their literary studies, " drawing blood " from the 
 books they read, which in point of number cannot 
 have fallen short of those which their predecessor 
 Byron tells us he had mastered at a similar age. A 
 few years later we find Charles Tennyson writing a 
 sonnet on " Perseverance,'' which no doubt reflects 
 the earnest way they grappled with those difficulties 
 that beset the path of every student. 
 
 " On, on, in firm progression, sure and slow. 
 More scorning hindrance, as ye meet it more ; 
 Surmounting what ye cannot thorough go. 
 And forcing what ye fail in climbing o'er ; 
 Soon shall ye gaze upon the bliss attained. 
 And worth attainment fourfold as severe; 
 The glorious meed for zealous souls ordained. 
 Shall shine upon you, palpable and clear ; 
 Then when the starry coronal of Fame 
 Shall gird your brows, all-perdurably bright ; 
 When ye have seen the solitary flame. 
 That burns upon the solitary height, 
 
44 GRASBY. 
 
 Ye will not, then, your daily cares misname 
 As toil — well spent, for rapture to requite ! " 
 
 In their case, "the bliss attained" may be said to 
 have been the pubHcation, near the close of the year 
 
 1826, of ' Poems by Two Brothers,' a volume which, 
 in spite of their time being so fully occupied, they 
 found leisure to write " from the ages of fifteen to 
 eighteen." 
 
 Messrs. Jackson, of Louth, were the publishers, pur- 
 chasing the copyright for ^20, which price can hardly 
 have been a remunerative one, as the book was as 
 
GRASBY. 
 
 45 
 
 little sought after then as it is eagerly enquired for 
 now. Yet, little as may have been the notice the 
 volume attracted in the republic of letters, its appear- 
 ance was an event in the lives of the young Tenny- 
 sons — the day on which they first donned the livery 
 of the Muse being memorable to them. Many years 
 afterwards the elder poet recalled this glad time, 
 relating to the Rev. H. D. Rawnsley how he and his 
 brother in their joy took carriage from Louth the 
 afternoon the book was published, and driving across 
 the marsh to Mablethorpe 
 
 " to the ocean gave 
 Their mind and thoughts, as restless as the wave.'' 
 
 Before returning to Somersby 
 
 the young poets, like dutiful sons of a clergyman, spent 
 their hardearned money in a tour through Lincolnshire 
 inspecting the different churches, for which the county 
 is so justly famous. Those in the marsh would probably 
 
46 
 
 GRASBY. 
 
 first be visited (of which that at Maltby-le-marsh may 
 be taken as a type), stately old gray-stone edifices with 
 walls covered with ivy and square towers keep- 
 
 ing watch over the graves of buried generations. 
 Listening to the bells of some such church, Charles 
 Tennyson writes — 
 
 " Follow the sound, and it will lead thee on 
 Into an English church, the home of Prayer, 
 For who shall say she is not lovelier there, 
 Than in all other fanes beneath the Sun? 
 There, if thou doubtest, may it not impart 
 Fresh hope, to learn that others' hope is sure? 
 There, duly as the merchant to the mart, 
 
GRASBY. 47 
 
 Come aged men, whom daily death makes fewer ; 
 There all the spirit of a Christian heart 
 Is bodied forth in gentle rites and pure.'' 
 
 Some of the brightest intellects of our century, 
 men whose names through their works are household 
 words, have, after a brilliant college career, passed 
 their lives in a quiet rural parish. 
 
 Keble, Kingsley, and Charles Tennyson may thus 
 be linked together, from the similarity of their 
 attainments, the choice of their profession, and the 
 manner of their after lives. 
 
 When a student at Oriel no one was more looked 
 up to than the author of " The Christian Year," yet 
 Keble retired from the intellectual society of Oxford 
 to spend the rest of his days preaching and minister- 
 ing to the farmers and hinds of Hursley. 
 
 Kingsley at Magdalen astonished his tutor with 
 the way in which his mind grasped the most 
 abstruse questions ; but abandoning the idea of 
 a lucrative profession, the author of " Westward Ho ! " 
 decided for the Church, passing the remainder of his 
 life as rector of Eversley. 
 
 A somewhat similar life was Charles Tennyson's. At 
 Cambridge, owing to his having gained a Bell scholar- 
 
48 
 
 GRASBY. 
 
 ship and published a volume of sonnets, he became a 
 marked man, mixing among the exclusive set of the 
 superior minds of his University, and winning the 
 approval of Wordsworth and Coleridge. But all am- 
 bitious literary hopes he laid aside, and betaking 
 himself to the study of divinity entered into holy 
 orders and was ordained curate of Tealby in Lin- 
 colnshire. 
 
 Eight miles north of Tealby stands the old Roman- 
 
 looking town of Caistor, with 
 its church perched like a cita- 
 del on a hill. The Rev. Samuel Turner, great-uncle of 
 the Tennysons, lived here some 60 years ago, occu- 
 pying a large mansion in the square. His grand- 
 
GRASBY. 
 
 49 
 
 nephews being special favourites with him, were 
 frequent denizens of this quaint town, "so much so," 
 says Cuthbert Bede, "that to this day, the Cais- 
 torians proudly call the Poet Laureate 'our poet,' 
 declaring that it was within hearing of their church 
 bells he wrote his exquisite poem ' The Death of 
 the Old Year.'" 
 
 Though Mr. Turner resided in Caistor, he was not 
 
 rector of that town, but vicar and patron of Grasby, 
 a little village (on which it is said the sun never sets) 
 nestling some three miles distant on the Lincolnshire 
 wolds. 
 
 To the estate and living of Grasby, Charles Tenny- 
 son succeeded in the year 1835, taking by royal license 
 the surname of Turner under the direction of his 
 great-uncle's will, arfd the following year he married 
 
 G 
 
50 GRASBY. 
 
 Miss Louisa Sellwood — the youngest sister of the 
 lady who became the wife of his illustrious 
 brother. 
 
 As a considerable time had elapsed since the pub- 
 lication of his sonnets at Cambridge, Mr. Turner's 
 friends naturally looked forward to a recurrence of 
 poetical activity, now that he was settled with his 
 young wife in such pleasant surroundings ; but year 
 followed year, decade decade, and not a line came 
 from his pen. Far off echoes from the great world 
 told him how his brother was now threading 
 
 " the secretest walks of fame," 
 
 but such tidings, instead of raising a ripple of jealousy 
 in his mind, were rather a stimulus to him, as he was 
 much more interested in his brother's success than his 
 own. Like Sir Percivale, the young vicar of Grasby 
 
 " Had pass'd into the silent life of prayer, 
 Praise, fast, and alms," 
 
 the joys and sorrows, hopes and fears, of his 
 parishioners entering deeply into his pitying heart 
 and engaging all his sympathies. For them he 
 seemed unable to do enough, labouring incessantly, 
 
GRASBY. 
 
 SI 
 
 with his good wife, for their welfare — the use of 
 his carriage, the milk of his cows, his wine, his coals, 
 being freely given to those in need — while even the 
 
 
 
 44. 
 
 privacy of his vicarage was not 
 denied them, as under his own roof he delighted, on a 
 winter's evening, to gather his flock and teach them, 
 like the Pastor of Woldsby Ebriorum, by " words and 
 books." On such occasions, to hear him read the 
 " Queen o' the May," and " Break, break, break '' was 
 a treat never to be forgotten, the tears rising in his 
 
52 GRASBY. 
 
 eyes, as in slow and measured tones he repeated the 
 last two lines of the latter poem — 
 
 " But the tender grace of a day that is dead 
 Will never come back to me." 
 
 " Pray, think, and strive ! with God's good Book for 
 guide," may be said to have been his motto, while 
 his creed was one "of love, and faith, and holy fear"; 
 and thus, spending and being spent, the summer of 
 his life went quietly past, moving, as he tells us, 
 " in modest round among my neighbours '' — 
 
 " Thro' troops of unrecording friends, 
 A deedful life, a silent voice." 
 
 But though his mellow voice was so long hushed, 
 the muse had not wholly died within him, the autumn 
 of his life bearing as much fruit as the poetic 
 blossom of his youth had foretold. Within the space 
 of ten years (1864-73) well nigh three hundred sonnets 
 came from his pen, exhibiting all the old grace, power, 
 and kindliness of spirit trebly intensified. 
 
 A " Saviour-tone of love " breathes throughout these 
 sonnets, — kindly, pious thoughts being sure to rise 
 in the minds of those who read them, as no verse 
 is more touching, none more genuine or worthy of 
 
GRASBY. 
 
 53 
 
 study. Like Burns, our poet lives in sympathy, his 
 heart overflowing with love, not only for human beings 
 and animals, but even for inanimate creation. 
 
 To understand how beautifully this gentle trait in 
 his character finds expression in his sonnets one has 
 only to read those addressed to " The Buoy-Bell," 
 " The Old Rocking-Horse," and perhaps best of all, 
 " To a Scarecrow, or Malkin, left long after Harvest." 
 
 " Poor malkin, why hast thou been left behind .' 
 The wains long since have carted oft' the sheaves, 
 And keen October, with his whistling wind. 
 Snaps all the footstalks of the crisping leaves ; 
 Methinks thou art not wholly make-believe ; 
 Thy posture, hat and coat, are human still ; 
 Could'st thou but push a hand from out thy sleeve ! 
 Or smile on me ! but ah ! thy face is nil ! 
 The stubbles darken round thee, lonely one ! 
 And man has left thee, all this dreary term. 
 No mate beside thee — far from social joy ; 
 As some poor clerk survives his ruin'd firm. 
 And, in a napless hat, without employ, 
 Stands, in the autumn of his life, alone.'' 
 
 The personality of the writer is constantly present 
 in his pages, affording the reader an insight into his 
 life and work at Grasby, supported and solaced as he 
 was by the hopes and exercises of religion. Like a 
 true pastor he dwelt much at home ; still no one 
 
54 GRASBY. 
 
 was more fond of travel, and on his return to his 
 calm retreat he wrote many sonnets incidental to 
 the events which happened to cross his path when 
 travelling in Italy, or making a circuit of visits 
 among his friends in England and Wales. 
 
 The pleasure he derived from a sojourn at Farring- 
 ford is evident from his " Farewell to the Isle of 
 Wight," a sonnet which shows that years of separa- 
 tion, instead of diminishing, rather enhanced the 
 affection which existed between the poet-brothers. 
 
 " my memory wander'd back 
 To those fair shores — the Needles and the Downs — 
 The happy woodlands and the little towns — 
 For every day a new and pleasant track ; 
 How grieved was I those social walks to lose, 
 Those friendly hands 1 . . . . 
 
 those fond adieus." 
 
 In contrast to this grief at parting was the joy 
 he experienced when his brother was a guest at 
 the vicarage. These visits were rare, as the Laureate 
 did not often come to Grasby, but when he did, 
 they were halcyon days in the life of the vicar. 
 The social walks were then renewed, their boyish 
 and college memories recalled, while the many sub- 
 jects they had in common, such as their love of 
 
GRASBY. 55 
 
 astronomy, ornithology, arboriculture, etc., supplied 
 them with endless topics of conversation. 
 
 It was on one of these visits that the Laureate 
 witnessed a village school feast — which, as Mr. 
 Spedding in his delightful essay on Mr. Turner's life 
 and genius tells us, was the most stirring and pictur- 
 esque event connected with the pastor's round of 
 duties. 
 
 " The Feast is o'er — the music and the stir — 
 The sound of bat and ball, the rtiimic gun ; 
 The lawn grows darker, and the setting sun 
 Has stolen the flash from off the gossamer, 
 And drawn the midges westward ; youth's glad cry — 
 The smaller children's fun-exacting claims. 
 Their merry raids across the graver games, 
 Their ever-crossing paths of restless joy, 
 Have ceased — And, ere a new Feast-day shall shine, 
 Perchance my soul to other worlds may pass ; 
 Another head in childhood's cause may plot. 
 Another Pastor muse in the same spot, 
 And the first dews, that gather on the grass 
 Next morn, may gleam in every track but mine ! " 
 
 During the years of his ministry he built the 
 vicarage and schools, and rebuilt the church, the cost 
 being entirely defrayed by himself The pleasure 
 he took in this work is evinced from his sonnets 
 on "Our new Church," and "Our new Church Clock," 
 
56 
 
 GRASBY. 
 
 — in the latter of which we see another proof of the 
 vicar's anxiety to do all in his power to brighten 
 the lives of those around him : 
 
 " How sweet at eventide 
 Will that clear music be to toil-worn men ! 
 Calling them home, each to his own fire-side ; 
 How sweet the toll of all the hours till then ! " 
 
 In 
 
 the spire he placed two bells, one to the 
 memory of his mother (whom he was said to resemble 
 more than any of his brothers), the other to his father- 
 in-law, Mr. Sellwood. 
 
GRASBY. 57 
 
 His health faihng him, he came north to Scotland, 
 and was much benefited by the bracing sea air of 
 the Ayrshire coast. Though weak in body, his mind 
 was as vigorous as ever, and he there wrote many 
 fine sonnets, one — that on " The Drowned Spaniel " 
 — being inspired by the poet finding a poor drowned dog 
 as he was strolling over the sandy beach near Ardrossan. 
 
 Ok. ji'^-^ "- ^^"-^^ 
 7^ J!^^^ A-aArr i£^i^ ^4:^1^ ■«-' •« •«g^ •' 
 
 Whilst residing in Ayrshire he made a pilgrimage 
 to the birthplace of Burns, as he was a warm admirer 
 of the poems of Scotland's national poet. Perhaps the 
 
 H 
 
58 GRASBY. 
 
 " Scotch Song " in " Poems by Two Brothers," might 
 be traceable to this affection for the poet, although 
 no further attempt at versification in Burns' mother- 
 tongue was again tried by either of the brothers. 
 
 In "Euphranor" Fitzgerald tells us how the Laureate 
 broke into a passion of tears when he found himself 
 beside the ' Bonnie Doon,' and the same sympathetic 
 feeling for Caledonia's bard is observable in Mr. 
 Turner's sonnet on the " Localities of Burns." 
 
 " When the bright crescent gleam'd o'er hill and dale 
 We saw the poet's lowly place of birth, 
 The Kirk, erewhile the scene of fiendish mirth, 
 The brig that parted Maggie and her tail. 
 We saw his bust, we saw the cenotaph, 
 Which on the skirts of that fair garden stands, 
 And Tarn o' Shanter with his soundless laugh 
 Over his empty cup and stony hands — 
 All these were present, but the bard was gone, 
 No more to tune his pipe on plain or hill. 
 Nor multiply the moon from Willie's mill. 
 But oh ! how fondly still that crescent moon 
 Hung with her golden horns o'er bonnie Doon, 
 As though she look'd to be mis-counted still. 
 
 On Mr. Turner's return to Grasby he was no longer 
 able to conduct the services of the Sanctuary, and his 
 place was taken by a curate ; still, he continued his 
 
(;rasby. 
 
 59 
 
 visitations to the last, his love for his people being 
 unbounded. 
 
 Later, in order that he might be under the care 
 of Dr. Kerr, an old medical friend, he removed to 
 
 Cheltenham. There, thirteen years previously, his 
 brother Septimus, as well as his sister-in-law Char- 
 lotte, wife of Mr. Horatio Tennyson, had died, and 
 there on April 25th 1879, after much suffering, heroic- 
 
6o 
 
 GRASBY. 
 
 ally borne, the summon? came to him, and peacefully 
 his spirit passed away 
 
 '■ Across the waters, to the land of rest ! " 
 
 On his death, Grasby descended to the Laureate^ 
 and is now the property of his son, The Hon. Hallam 
 Tennyson. He, as patron, presented to the living his 
 friend, the Rev. J. F. Quirk, for some time curate at 
 Haslemere, who, like his predecessor, is much loved 
 and respected by his people. 
 
 Pax in Christo. 
 
Bayons Manor. 
 
 ' He lean'd nol on his fathers but himself.' 
 
^' 
 
BAYONS MANOR. 
 
 In the opening verses of his latest volume of poems, 
 the Laureate thanks Lord Dufferin for the kindness 
 he showed to his son, Mr. Lionel Tennyson, when 
 in India. 
 
 In doing so, his grief passes almost beyond control 
 as he pictures to himself the sad scene in the home- 
 ward-bound vessel, when near Aden — 
 
 " the coffin fell, 
 Fell— and flash'd into the Red Sea," 
 
 yet, remembering that "within our Father's heart the 
 secret lies of this dim world," like a brave man he 
 accepts the situation, merely adding — 
 
 " To question, why 
 The sons before the fathers die, 
 Not mine I " 
 
64 BAYONS MANOR. 
 
 This thought, so felicitously expressed, must have 
 been forcibly brought home to the poet three score 
 years before, on the death of his own father, — as his 
 father's father, George Tennyson of Bayons Manor, 
 was then living, hale and hearty, passing " life's late 
 eve" in his beautiful seat, not many miles distant 
 from Somersby. 
 
 George Tennyson may in one respect be said to 
 have been the restorer of his family's fortunes. En- 
 dowed with great energy and ability he turned his 
 attention in early life to law, and so mastered 
 
 " That codeless myriad of precedent, 
 That wilderness of single instances," 
 
 as to beat his way out to wealth and fame. 
 
 He was the principal promoter of and subscriber to 
 the magnificent dock at Grimsby, having inherited 
 through his mother's family the valuable Clayton 
 estates in and around the neighbourhood of that town. 
 To these estates he added by purchase those of Bayons 
 Manor and Usselby, whilst his marriage with Miss 
 Turner of Caistor brought him considerable wealth. 
 
 Two sons were born to him, tlie elder, the poet's 
 father, devoting his life to the service of the Church, 
 the younger entering Parliament. 
 
BAYONS MANOR. 65 
 
 In the year 1825 he lost his wife, and hearing of 
 the poetical tastes of his grandson — though his sym- 
 pathies with poets were somewhat on a par with 
 Squire Spedding's — he asked him to write an elegy 
 commemorating her death. 
 
 The shrewdest sometimes make mistakes, and the 
 learned lawyer with all his sagacity was not an ex- 
 ception to the rule. He had, as Lockhart says of 
 Scott, the zeal of pedigree deeply rooted in him, and 
 was busy at this time tracing his descent from his for- 
 bears, and building up the family name. Yet little did 
 he foresee that this slender youth would prove the 
 most illustrious scion of his house, and would cause 
 the name of Tennyson to be known in all lands, for 
 all time, otherwise he would not have passed his cele- 
 brated criticism on his grandson's poem, when, putting 
 a half-sovereign into his hands, he damped the lad's 
 aspirations by saying, " There, that is the first money 
 you have ever earned by your poetry, and, take my 
 word for it, it will be the last." 
 
 A drive of some twenty miles northward from 
 Somersby, over the wolds of Mid Lincolnshire, and 
 partly along the old Roman road called the High 
 
66 BAYONS MANOR. 
 
 Street, brings the traveller to a point, where a steep 
 narrow path winds gradually downwards to the rustic 
 village of Tealby. There is an air of deep seclusion 
 
 around this old world hamlet, the thatched cottages, 
 and old-fashioned gardens with their high hedgerows, 
 making it such a place as an artist would love, and 
 well entitling it to be called one of the prettiest of 
 the wold villages. 
 
 The scenery depicted in the early portion of "Aylmer's 
 Field " might have been taken from this country side, 
 for certainly it is a sleepy land with " little about it 
 stirring save a brook," which, flowing swiftly by, separ- 
 ates the village from the demesne of the d'Eyncourts. 
 
BAYONS MANOR. 
 
 67 
 
 On an elevated knoll half hidden among old trees 
 stands Tealby Church, from the porch of which a 
 lovely view is ob- 
 tained across the 
 wooded valley to 
 Bayons Manor. 
 
 In this church 
 Charles Tennyson, 
 after leaving Cam- 
 bridge, officiated 
 as curate for a 
 short time pre- 
 vious to his be- 
 coming vicar of 
 Grasby; and here, 
 according to the 
 Parish Register, 
 
 the poet's eldest brother, George, who died in infancy, 
 was baptized on 25th May, 1806. 
 
 The chancel contains the dust of the poet's grand- 
 parents, a short record of their lives being engraved 
 on two brass tablets fixed to the wall over the monu- 
 ment erected to their memory. 
 
68 BAYONS MANOR. 
 
 To THE Memory of 
 
 George Tennyson, Esquire, of Bayons Manor, 
 
 And of Usselbv in this County, 
 
 Who died 4TH July, 1835, 
 
 aged 85 YEARS. 
 
 He was the son and heir of Michael Tennyson, Esquire, by 
 
 Elizabeth, his wife. 
 
 Daughter and heiress of George Clayton, Esquire. 
 
 He left surviving his two daughters, Elizabeth and Mary, 
 
 and his son, the Right Hon. Charles Tennyson, M.P. for Lambeth, 
 
 whom he directed by his will to superadd the name of d'Eyncourt 
 
 in order to commemorate his descent from 
 
 THE TWO ancient FAMILIES WHO FORMERLY BORE THAT NAME AND TITLE. 
 
 His powerful understanding, 
 
 practical wisdom, and sympathising disposition 
 
 were a sure resource for all who sought from him 
 
 aid or counsel in difficulty or affliction. 
 
 Self-denying, but nobly liberal to others. 
 
 Constant to his friends, stedfast in his principles, 
 
 forgiving, sincere, benevolent, and just, 
 
 He commanded the respect and attracted the affection 
 
 of all around him. 
 
 His remains were attended to the tomb by all classes 
 
 from the surrounding county 
 
 and deposited by the side of his lamented wife. 
 
 Their grateful son prays fob the grace 
 
 TO walk humbly in their steps 
 
 AND PROVE HIS VENERATION FOR BOTH HIS PARENTS 
 
 BY STRIVING TO EMULATE 
 
 THEIR VIRTUES. 
 
BAYONS MANOR. 
 
 69 
 
 To THE Memory of 
 
 Marv, the wife of Geouge Tennyson, Esquire, of Bavons Manor, 
 
 She died on the 20TH day of August, 1825, 
 
 Aged 72 years. 
 
 And her remains are deposited 
 
 IN THE vault beneath THIS CHANCE!,. 
 
 She was the daughter of John Turner, Esquire, of Castor, in the county of Liwcoln, 
 
 by Mary, his wife. 
 After an union of 50 years she was survived dv her husband 
 who deeply lamented her loss; 
 
 AND BY their OWN ISSUE, 
 
 The Rev. George Clayton Tennyson, LL.D.; 
 
 Charles Tennyson, Esquire, representative in Parliament for the burgh of Grimsby; 
 
 Elizabeth, the widow of Matthew Russell, Esq., of Brancefeth Castle, 
 
 IN THE county OF DURHAM ; 
 
 and Mary, the wif^ of John Bourne, Esquire, 
 
 OF Dalby, in this county. 
 
 By her devoted tenderness as a wife and a mother, 
 
 HER Constancy, sincerity, and active benevolence, 
 
 by her pure mind, amiable manners, and affectionate disposition, 
 
 She was so endeared to her family and the pook. 
 
 By them and all who knew her 
 
 She was justly respected, loved, and mourned ; 
 
 and as by her virtues and exemplary life 
 
 SHE practically ILLUSTRATED THE GENUINE AND UNOBTRUSIVE PIETY 
 
 BY WHICH HER CONDUCT WAS UNIFORMLY ACTUATED, 
 
 SO IN THE HOUR OF DEATH WAS SHE RESIGNED AND HAPPY, 
 
 DERIVING SUPPORT THROUGH THAT GREAT TRIAL 
 
 FROM A SOURCE WHICH IS OPEN TO THOSE ONLY 
 
 WHO HAVE LIVED THE LIFE OF THE RIGHTEOUS. 
 
2)escent of trenn^son 
 
 fiom tbe 
 
 ffiloob IRosal of Englant). 
 
 Edward lII.=Philippa of Hainliault 
 
 Lionel, Duke of Clarence John of Gaunt 
 
 PhUi'ppa=Edward, Earl of March Sir John Beaufort 
 
 John, i2th Baron d'Eyncourt, Roger, Earl of March Edmund, Duke of Somerset 
 
 I of Blankney I I 
 
 Baroness d'EyncourC='William, Lord Lovel Aune=Richard, Earl of 
 
 I I Cambridge 
 
 WlUiam, Lord Morley Richard. Duke of York Margaret= Thorn as Cary of Chilton Folliott 
 
 Alice Lovel= William, Lord Anne Plan- =Sir Thomas St. Leger I 
 
 I Morley tagenet | Sir John Cary 
 
 Henry, Lord Morley Anne=George, 12th Lord Roos i 
 
 I I Sir Edward Cary 
 
 Henry, d.v.p. Thomas, 1st Earl of Rutland . 1 
 
 Henry, Lord Morley Lady Elizabeth Manners=Sir John Savage Aime =Sir Francis Leke, Baron d"Eyncourt of 
 I I I Sutton, 1624, and ist Earl of Scars- 
 Edward, Lord Morley Sit John Savage I dale, 1645 
 
 J I _ , , , I 
 
 iS, Eai' " 
 
 William, Lord Morley Thomas, Earl Rivers Nicholas, 2nd Earl Lady Anne=Henry Hildeyard 
 
 I j ., 3rd „ I of Winestead 
 
 ~~~ 1 I .. 4th „ I 
 
 Catherine of Morley=John, Earl Rivers extinct 1736 Henry Hildeyard 
 
 Lady Jane=George Pitt of 
 
 I Strathfieldsaye 
 
 Jane=Christopher Hildeyard 
 
 ^^'P'^Jitr"'"?"'''/"''""" 7 Dorothy Chapman Dormhy=George Clayton of Grimsby 
 and or Wrawby, 1692-1735 | I 
 
 Michael Tennyson, of Preston York, = Elizabeth Clayton 
 and Stai nton Lincoln, 1721-1796 j 
 
 I 1775 
 
 George Tennyson, M.P,, D.L., J.P., = Mary Turner, daughter of John Turner 
 
 of Bayons Manor, 1750-1835 | ofCaistor, 1753-1825 
 
 I 6th Aug., 1805 I 
 Rev. George Clayton Tennyson, = Elizabeth Fytche The Right Hon. Charles Tennyson d'Eyncourt, 
 M.A., LL.D., of Somersby I of Louth M. A., P.C., M.P., D.L. J.P., F.R.S., F.S.A., 
 1 778- 1 831 I 1781-1865 of Bayons Manor,i784-i86i 
 
 George, May, 1806-1806, born at Tealby Louis C. T. d'Eyncourt, of Bayons Manor. 
 
 Frederick, June, 1807- ,, Louth 1836 1814— 
 
 Charles, July, 1808-1879, ,, Somersby = Louisa Sellwood 
 
 13th June, 1850. 
 ALFRED, Aug. 6th, 1809, „ Somersby = EMILY SARAH SELLWOOD 
 
 Mary, Sept., 1810-1884, „ ,, daughter of Henry Sellwood, Esq., 
 
 Emilia, Oct., 1S11-1887, ,, „ ofBerks. 
 
 Engaged to A . H. Hallam, d. 1833 
 
 = Capt. Jesse, R.N. 
 Edward, Jan., 1813-1890, born at Somersby 
 Arthur, May, 1814- ,, ,, 
 
 Septimus, Sept., 1815-1866, ,, ,, 
 
 Matilda, Sept., 1816- ,, ,, 
 
 Cecilia, Oct., 1817- „ ,, 
 
 = Prof. Edmund Law Lushington, 
 D.C.L., of Park House 
 Horatio, Sept., 1819- born at Somersby 
 
 1884 I _ 1878^ 
 Hon. Hallam Tennyson = Audrey G. F. Boyle Hon. Lionel Tennyson = Eleanor M. B. Locker 
 18=2— I 1854-1886 I 
 
 I I ^ 1 \ n 
 
 Lionel Hallam Alfred Aubrey Alfred Charles Michael 
 
 i88g- 1891— 1878— 1S79 — 18S3— 
 
BAYONS MANOR. 71 
 
 Such tablets assist materially in tracing the pedi- 
 gree of the Poet Laureate, who, though he smiles 
 " at the claims of long descent " and tells us that " 'tis 
 only noble to be good," inherits through his female 
 ancestors some of the noblest blood in England — his 
 lineage extending back to Edward III. 
 
 On the death of George Tennyson in 1835 his 
 estates were divided. Those at Great Grimsby 
 passed to his eldest son's family, being now in the 
 possession of the poet's elder brother, Frederick ; 
 
 while Bayons Manor and ^^§0*/!^.'^'''^ 
 the adjoining estates were .^Wf^' ^'' ' '" 
 bequeathed to his younger 
 son, the Right Hon. Charles Tennyson d'Eyncourt. 
 
 A tradition prevails that a clause was inserted in 
 the will that the old mansion of Bayons Manor was 
 not to be pulled down, but the author of " Eustace " 
 managed to comply with his father's wishes and still 
 gratify his taste for architecture by erecting the 
 
72 
 
 BAYONS MANOR. 
 
 present pile at great cost fill round the old house, 
 
 which is still standing. 
 
 It IS a common remark among the natives of this 
 
 part of Lincolnshire that few have any idea of the 
 
 magnificence of this princely seat, and, even apart 
 from its Tennysonian interest, it well repays a visit. 
 Crossing the little brook and entering the park, the 
 house comes full in view. A moat forms a semi- 
 circle round the front of it, and this is spanned by a 
 drawbridge, passing over which and knocking at the 
 
 huge lion studded gate- 
 way of the barbican, entrance 
 
 is^ gained to the private grounds, where, on the site 
 
 d'Eyncourt, the present 
 
 of the old garden, Mr. 
 
BAYONS MANOR. 73 
 
 owner, frequently played with his cousin, the Laureate 
 in their boyish days. 
 
 The exterior of the mansion has every appearance 
 of a medifflval castle. It is built of a hard sandstone 
 found in the neighbourhood, and the colour, being a 
 pleasant brown, gives the structure an appearance 
 of age which its history does not warrant, as its 
 erection is within sixty years. 
 
 The interior has been carefully planned and fur- 
 nished to keep in character with the exterior of the 
 building. The banqueting hall, where, as we read 
 in " Eustace," 
 
 " Four hundred joyful guests a banquet shared 
 In all the form of olden times prepared," 
 
 is a magnificent apartment, resembling the Great 
 Hall at Burleigh House. The library has a large 
 collection of books, and the tapestry room in 
 the tower a connection with literature from the 
 fact that Bulwer Lytton wrote in it " The Last of 
 the Barons." The dining-room contains the family 
 pictures, most noticeable among which is the portrait 
 of the poet's grandfather, George Tennyson, by Sir 
 Thomas Lawrence. 
 
74 BAYONS MANOR. 
 
 The date of the picture is not known, but from the 
 admirable way in which the head and face are por- 
 trayed it evidently is one of the earlier and finer 
 works of this great artist. Charles Tennyson wrote 
 a sonnet on the death of Lawrence, and, gazing on 
 this beautiful portrait, we feel how true and forcible 
 are his lines — 
 
 " What hand, but his, so excellently knew 
 The shadow of our lineaments? 
 
 Age smiled, portray'd in all its sober calm, 
 Unvext, of grandsire aspect, pale and meek.'' 
 
 There is no portrait of the Laureate now at Bayons 
 Manor, as Admiral Tennyson d'Eyncourt removed it 
 some years ago to his London residence, but in the 
 dining-room there is another very interesting portrait 
 — that of the poet's uncle — to whom Tennyson refers 
 as "my father's brother" in his dedication of "Harold." 
 
 This is the Right Hon. Charles Tennyson d'Eyn- 
 court, who, after graduating at Cambridge, entered 
 Parliament and for many years was a prominent 
 member of the House of Commons, representing suc- 
 cessively Grimsby, Bletchingley, Stamford, and Lam- 
 beth. A man of very cultured tastes, had his time not 
 
GEORGE TENNYSON. 
 
 S^ ^'' / y ^A "^ '*'- '^^) '^ 
 
BAYONS MANOR. 75 
 
 been so fully occupied with politics, he too " might 
 have won the Poet's name," as the elegy he wrote 
 commemorating the death in 1842 of his son, Captain 
 Eustace Tennyson d'Eyncourt, who fell a victim to 
 yellow fever at Barbadoes, within a few days after his 
 arrival from England to join his regiment, shows con- 
 siderable poetical talent, one of the couplets being 
 specially noteworthy — 
 
 " Maintain the people's rights. The Queen defend. 
 Obey the laws. To God your soul commend." 
 
 Statesman, scholar, and poet, at a ripe age, in 
 1 861, he was gathered to his fathers, and buried in 
 Tealby Church, being succeeded in his estates by his 
 eldest son, George Hildeyard Tennyson d'Eyncourt, 
 registrar of the most distinguished Order of St. 
 Michael and St. George. 
 
 On the death of this gentleman in 1871 the estates 
 passed to his brother. Admiral Edwin Clayton Tenny- 
 son d'Eyncourt, C.B., a naval officer who has served 
 with distinction in China and in the Gulf of Finland 
 during the Crimean War. 
 
 By a family arrangement Bayons Manor is now the 
 property of the youngest surviving son of the poet's 
 
76 
 
 BAYONS MANOR. 
 
 uncle, Louis Charles Tennyson d'Eyncourt, Esq., a 
 gentleman widely known from his long and honour- 
 able tenure of the office of Senior Metropolitan 
 Magistrate. 
 
 In 1890, to the regret of all, he tendered his resig- 
 nation to the Home Secretary, carrying with him in 
 his retirement the love and esteem of troops of 
 friends, which his kindness and courtesy had gained 
 for him. 
 
 
The Grange and the Mill. 
 
 "I loved the brimming wave that swam 
 Thro' quiet meadows round the mill." 
 
I. 
 
 ^ 
 
 t- 
 
 '■^si^^ 
 
THE GRANGE AND THE MILL. 
 
 One of the chief characteristics of Tennyson is his 
 retiring nature. All his days he has dwelt very 
 much apart from men, loving "the life removed" — 
 the life, perhaps, best suited to develop the extra- 
 ordinary gifts he has been endowed with. No one 
 is more apt to be idolized than a popular poet, 
 and, in consequence, snares and pitfalls beset his 
 path, which, if he fall into, will dim the fire of 
 his genius, if not altogether extinguish it. Burns' 
 visit to Edinburgh proved a downward step in his 
 career. Society in the salons of London was a Will- 
 o'-the-Wisp to Byron ; and the muse of the genial 
 Sir Walter, may be said to have left him when he 
 exchanged the quiet retirement of Ashestiel for the 
 splendours of Abbotsford. 
 
 Whether or not warned by the mistakes of his pre- 
 
8o THE GRANGE AND THE MILL. 
 
 decessors, Tennyson, at an early age, when his name 
 began to be mooted in literary circles as the rising 
 poet of his generation, withdrew from the world. 
 
 You will not find him, as Howitt says, at the 
 dinner tables of the great, or in the crowded drawing- 
 rooms of London, only his voice is heard — the man 
 never to be seen. " He is gone down into his 
 garden, to his beds of spices, to feed in his garden, 
 and gather lilies." " He is wandering in some dream- 
 land, beneath the shade of old and charmed forests, 
 by far off shores, where 
 
 "all night 
 The plunging seas draw backward from the land 
 Their moon-led waters white " : 
 
 by the old mill-dam, thinking of the merry miller and 
 his pretty daughter ; or is wandering over the open 
 wolds, where 
 
 " Norland whirlwinds blow." 
 
 From all these places ; from the silent corridor of an 
 ancient convent; from the drear monotony of "the 
 moated grange," or the ferny forest beneath " the 
 talking oak," comes the voice of Tennyson, rich, 
 dreamy, passionate, yet not impatient, whisper- 
 
THE GRANGE AND THE MILL. 8l 
 
 ing into the ear a startling word of counsel or moving 
 one to deeds of mercy." 
 
 The drear monotony of the moated grange, and the 
 merry miller and his pretty daughter were among 
 the earliest themes of the poet's muse. 
 
 It was when a student at Cambridge that he first 
 came before the world as a poet, prefixing his name 
 
 to a thin volume, entitled " Poems Chiefly Lyrical." 
 Many of these, in the late editions, have been wholly 
 
 L 
 
82 THE GRANGE AND THE MILL. 
 
 suppressed, others considerably altered, but in this 
 rare duodecimo is to be found a poem, " Mariana," 
 which is so perfect in what Kingsley aptly calls 
 "tone" that even the critical hand of the Laureate 
 has not seen fit to change scarcely one word since 
 first it came forth, fresh from his pen. 
 
 In this poem Tennyson's object is to present a 
 picture of weariness and dreariness ; and taking for 
 his subject a woman abandoned to lonely misery, he 
 so handles the details of the landscape as to make 
 them tell of long years of protracted wretchedness 
 and hopeless suffering. We are not told whether death 
 or desertion has caused the lamp of her life to burn 
 so dimly ; all we know is that " he cometh not " ; and 
 so those things • which before tended to make life 
 joyous and happy are left unloved and unheeded ; 
 neglect takes the place of care, and all goes rotting 
 to decay. Black moss grows in the flower plots, the 
 nails are rusted, the sheds broken, the latch clinks, 
 the thatch is weedy and worn. When the day is at 
 its brightest she is unable to perceive it, as her eyes 
 are dim with tears. Night comes ; surely sleep will 
 steep her brows ''in slumber's holy balm"; but no, 
 even 
 
THE GRANGE AND THE MILL. 83 
 
 "In sleep she seem'd to walk forlorn, 
 Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn 
 About the lonely moated grange." 
 
 Thus her life is passed in hoping, loving, remember- 
 ing, waiting — waiting, remembering, loving, hoping — 
 till at last she vanishes from our sight, crying 
 
 " I am aweary, aweary. 
 Oh God, that I were dead ! " 
 
 Though " Mariana " is founded on that stray thought 
 in Shalcespeare's " Measure for Measure," — 
 
 "there, at the moated grange, resides this dejected Mariana,"— 
 
 it is far more due to Tennyson than to the Bard of 
 Avon that her fame has spread through the world. 
 
 The poem, in fact, may be said to be indissolubly 
 associated with the Laureate's name, and is one which 
 all his critics delight in praising. 
 
 Thus we find Fitzgerald, after purchasing a copy 
 of " Poems Chiefly Lyrical," writing to his friend 
 Allen, " I have bought A. Tennyson's poems. How 
 good Mariana is ! " And evidently it was the same 
 poem that Carlyle always associated with the name 
 of his illustrious contemporary, for when asked by 
 Emerson to write him a description of Tennyson, 
 
84 THE GRANGE AND THE MILL. 
 
 he says — "Alfred, you see in his verses, is a native of 
 moated granges." 
 
 It is doubtful what was the original signification of 
 the word grange, but prior to the Reformation it de- 
 noted the farm buildings attached to a monastery, 
 where the grain paid as tithes was stored ; in later 
 times coming to be used simply to designate a 
 yeoman's dwelling — a house immediately inferior to a 
 hall. 
 
 When situated in lonely districts such granges were 
 often surrounded by a deep fosse or ditch, which, 
 when filled with water, gave to the inmates a certain 
 sense of security. Moated granges of this description 
 still exist in the fenny districts of Lincolnshire, but 
 they are many miles distant from Somersby, hence 
 the scenery which colours this poem is not taken 
 from the country round the poet's birthplace, as it 
 has no features in common with the landscape depicted 
 in " Mariana." 
 
 With these low-lying districts, however, the poet was 
 quite familiar, especially with " the waste enormous 
 marsh," that wide tract of fertile land which has grown 
 above the sea and stretches from the wolds to the 
 coast-line, crossed by the family when journeying 
 
THE GRANGE AND THE MILL. 
 
 85 
 
 from Somersby to Mablethorpe, one of the watering- 
 places they used to visit. 
 
 Three or four miles before we reach Mablethorpe 
 the road passes through a very bleak piece of country, 
 where, owing to the winds that sweep inward from 
 the sea, scarcely a tree or shrub relieves the mono- 
 tony of the scene. Here in the vicinity of Maltby- 
 !e-marsh the Misses Tennyson, driving along in their 
 
 father's 
 
 coach, were wont 
 
 to call a dreary red brick house, which stood a 
 
 little way off the road in a rather low flat with a 
 
 very few trees about it, "the moated grange"; and 
 
 thus they may be said to have been the first to 
 
86 THE GRANGE AND THE MILL. 
 
 endeavour to localize Mariana's abode. In this respect 
 they have had many imitators, for how often, on 
 seeing some old deserted house, has the thought 
 suggested itself to the mind of others, surely this 
 must be the moated grange of Tennyson ! 
 y To take a case in point ; " I passed the summer 
 months this year," says a writer, " in a village of 
 Brabant, that nestles on the skirts of the old Foret 
 de Soignies. Strolling one evening down a little 
 valley by a path that was new to me, I came 
 suddenly on ' Mariana's ' moated grange. That and 
 no other, verily — an old, abandoned manor-house, 
 bristling with gables, its walls moss-coated, its moat 
 covered with green scum ; its garden wild, weedy, 
 and dank, and beyond the edges of it a marsh 
 fringed with poplars. Could the poet have beheld 
 this strange picture ere he created his poem .'' or 
 was the resemblance purely fortuitous .'' As I eyed 
 the place, wondering at its weirdness, and fancying 
 that in some upper chamber Mariana must be lying 
 dead, or I should hear her moan, a white mist 
 gathered on the face of the marsh, gathered and 
 crept and crawled and circled me waist high, and then 
 swallowed me up, me and the moated grange and 
 
THE GRANGE AND THE MILL. 8/ 
 
 the poplar spires — oozing, eddying, swirling, till nothing 
 was left." 
 
 It would be easy to quote similar experiences from 
 the writings of others, but it is needless to do so, 
 as it is impossible to identify this or that place 
 as the moated grange, for though certain outward 
 objects no doubt suggested certain ideas to the 
 poet, he here draws largely on his fancy's resources, 
 fusing together imaginatively into one picture several 
 different visual experiences ; as Shelley writes — 
 
 " He will watch from dawn to gloom 
 The lake-reflected sun illume 
 The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom, 
 Nor heed nor see what things they be ; 
 But from these, create he can 
 Forms more real than real man, — 
 Nurslings of immortality.'' 
 
 In the vicinity of Somersby, adjoining the manor- 
 house (painfully close to it, as one has remarked), stands 
 a gaunt, castellated building, which has often excited 
 the wonder of those who have visited the district, 
 quite a little storm of controversy raging round 
 its old lichen-covered walls. 
 
 For one thing, its name .seems doubtful, as it has 
 
88 THE GRANGE AND THE MILL. 
 
 many aliases — being known as Somersby Grange, 
 Somersby Old Hall, Somersby Farm, etc., etc. 
 
 The same dubiety also exists as to whether or 
 not the poet makes any allusion to it in his 
 poems, many fancying that from the air of gloom 
 which surrounds it, it is just such a place as 
 might be associated with the idea of the moated 
 grange ; while others, taking into account the fact 
 that it was once tenanted by a certain John Baum- 
 ber, a noted Lincolnshire agriculturist, have set 
 it down as the typical residence of the " Northern 
 Farmer.'' 
 
 Of the history of this old house there is little to 
 record, save that Sir J. Vanbrugh is credited with 
 having been its architect. Built entirely of bricks, 
 externally it has rather an imposing appearance, but, 
 inside, the wainscoted rooms are small, and not 
 fitted for the requirements of modern life. 
 
 It is a pleasant variety to turn one's steps from 
 this dreary building, and wending our way through the 
 gently sloping meadows to the little brook, follow 
 its windings for a mile or so, until it is dammed up 
 to turn the mill of Stockworth. 
 
^ 
 
THE GRANGE AND THE MILL. 89 
 
 If the melancholy which broods round Somersby 
 Grange has a tendency to depress one's spirits, the 
 sweetness of this rural spot will cause them not 
 only to regain their equilibrium, but to rebound in 
 the opposite direction, and we feel this in almost 
 every line of the poet when he writes of similar 
 scenery. 
 
 Of all the earlier poems of Tennyson, there was 
 none which added more to his growing reputation 
 than "The Miller's Daughter," its homely beauty and 
 glimpses of domestic happiness captivating at once 
 the imagination of the public. Our Queen was so 
 much touched by its simple strains, that when death 
 removed the Laureate's crown 
 
 " from the brows 
 Of him that utter'd nothing base," 
 
 it was the recollection of this bucolic idyll which 
 decided Her Majesty, in face of all opposition, to 
 confer the much coveted wreath on its author. 
 
 A poet in the first instance, Tennyson is also a 
 great moral teacher. His poems have always an 
 aim for good ; the lessons are there, if we would 
 only read them. He selects some character, tells a 
 
 M 
 
90 THE GRANGE AND THE MILL. 
 
 Story in language all his own, and leaves the reader 
 to draw his conclusions. 
 
 The marriage relationship is a favourite theme 
 with him, and many of his finest poems circle round 
 it. In "The Lord of Burleigh," "Lady Clare," etc., 
 he brushes aside all traditions, and with exquisite 
 pathos, revels in that true sentiment he is so fond 
 of, .showing that when there exists between two 
 persons what Scott calls "the secret sympathy," their 
 union is almost sure to be a happy one. But again 
 in " Maud " and " Locksley Hall " he declaims in 
 tones of thunder against those who sin against " the 
 truth of love," and especially in "Aylmer's Field," 
 taking for his text the words, " Behold, your house 
 is left unto you desolate!", he teaches the lesson of 
 pride trampling on love, and leaving in its train 
 desolation and ruin. 
 
 In "The Miller's Daughter" there is a beautiful con- 
 trast to all this, for here 
 
 " Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords 
 with might ; 
 Smote the chord of .Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out 
 of sight." 
 
THE GRANGE AND THE MILL. 91 
 
 The squire, when little more than a boy, falls in 
 love with the pretty daughter of a wealthy miller. 
 There are no hindrances to the match. His father 
 being dead, he has inherited his fortune, and is now 
 his own lord and master ; only his mother has to be 
 won round, and she, like most fond mothers, dotes 
 on her son, and soon yields her consent : — 
 
 " She wish'd me happy, but she thought 
 I might have look'd a little higher." 
 
 So he is wedded in the springtime of life, when 
 everything has a bright roseate hue, and though 
 some might expect that after his honeymoon was 
 over, this young fellow would change like leaves in 
 autumn, and begin to think he might have married 
 better, it is not so ; but on the contrary, his life 
 with his first love is like one long summer's day, 
 when the sun shines out in all its brightness, and 
 with the approaching sunset only one cloud appears 
 on the horizon — the thought that soon death must 
 separate them from one another. 
 
 " Yet fill my glass : give me one kiss : 
 My own sweet Alice, we must die. 
 There's somewhat in this world amiss 
 Shall be unriddled by and by. 
 
92 THE GRANGE AND THE MILL. 
 
 There's somewhat flows to us in life, 
 But more is taken quite away. 
 
 Pray, Alice, pray, my darling wife. 
 That we may die the self-same day." 
 
 As has been said, this lyric was one of the ear- 
 liest that Tennyson wrote, appearing in his second 
 volume of poems published about the close of 
 1832. 
 
 In the spring of that year, Hallam visited the poet 
 at Somersby, where Tennyson had been residing more 
 or less since the death of his father, and in an inter- 
 
THE GRANGE AND THE MILL. 93 
 
 esting letter to Trench he throws some light on the 
 poems then in manuscript. 
 
 (Postmark) Spilsby. 
 
 " March 20, 1832. 
 
 " Alfred I was most glad to find better than I 
 had apprehended. I see no ground for thinking he 
 has anything really serious to ail him. His mind is 
 what it always was, or rather brighter, and more 
 vigorous. I regret, with you, that you have never 
 had the opportunity of knowing more of him. His 
 nervous temperament and habits of solitude give an 
 appearance of affectation to his manner, which is no 
 true interpreter of the man, and wears off on further 
 
 - knowledge I have persuaded him, I 
 
 think, to publish without further delay. There is 
 written the amount of a volume rather larger than 
 the former, and certainly, unless the usual illusion 
 of manuscript deceives me, more free from blemishes 
 and more masterly in power." 
 
 Probably " The Miller's Daughter " was written at 
 Cambridge, as the mill is said to be taken from Trump- 
 ington Mill near that city, but there are several touches 
 in the poem, such as the references to " the wolds " and 
 
94 THE GRANGE AND THE MILL. 
 
 "the white chalk-quarry," which seem to indicate that, 
 consciously or unconsciously, the haunts of his boyhood 
 were present to the poet's mind, wherever he wrote it. 
 The little stream which runs along the happy 
 valley of Somersby turns the wheels of no less 
 than three mills, and in the .poet's youthful days 
 it supplied a fourth with water. This last was 
 almost within a stone's cast of his father's rectory, 
 and here the poet when a child would watch 
 
 " The sleepy pool above the dam. 
 
 The pool beneath it never still." 
 
 This mill has long ago disappeared, and the nearest 
 to Somersby is now that called Stockworth, in the 
 parish of Hagworthingham. As the distance does 
 not exceed two miles, it is not beyond the limits 
 of conjecture, knowing as we do that the poet's 
 favourite walk was by the banks of the brook, to 
 imagine that in some of those afternoon strolls, so 
 beautifully described in " In Memoriam," he and 
 his friend would often turn their steps hitherward, 
 especially as it is one of the sweetest spots in all 
 the surrounding country. 
 
 The mill and most of the land in its vicinity are 
 owned by the Ingilbys, an ancient family whose seat. 
 
THE GRANGE AND THE MILL. 
 
 95 
 
 "the old manorial hall" of Harrington being, the 
 nearest residence to Somersby — must have been one of 
 those landmarks familiar to the poet in his youth. 
 
 The hall, built of red 
 brick, is a fine specimen of 
 a Jacobean mansion, and dates from 1681, having prob- 
 ably been erected on the site of an older structure. 
 
 Within its policies stands the Church of Harrington, 
 rebuilt about five-and-thirty years ago, which con- 
 tains, besides other relics of the past, the effigy of a 
 knight in chain armour, with legs crossed and feet 
 resting on a hound, conjuring to memory the warrior 
 " fore-father " of Locksley Hall. 
 
96 
 
 THE GRANGE AND THE MILL. 
 
 Another beautiful Lincolnshire seat which, though 
 distant a few miles from Somersby, might still be 
 said to be within the boundaries of the Laureate's 
 
 country, is Scrivelsby Court, the home of the 
 Dymokes, who, as lineal descendants of the Mar- 
 mions, have for centuries been hereditary Grand 
 Champions of England. 
 
 The Marmions were a Norman family which came 
 over to England at the Conquest, and to them William 
 the Conqueror assigned, with other lands, the manor 
 of Scrivelsby, on condition of their filling the office 
 of King's Champion. 
 
 Scott revived the memory of the family by the hero 
 
THE GRANGE AND THE MILL, 97 
 
 of his rhymed romance, but his 
 
 " Lord of Fontenaye, 
 Of Lutterward, and Scrivelbaye," 
 
 was a purely fictitious character as, two centuries pre- 
 vious to the battle of Flodden, the family became 
 extinct owing to the death of Philip de Marmion in 
 1292. 
 
 The Court and Championship then passed by marriage 
 to the Dymokes, and from the time of Richard II. it 
 was the custom for the head of this family, at the 
 coronation of the English monarchs, to ride into West- 
 minster Hall clad in bright armour, and throwing 
 down the gauntlet, to challenge all who gainsayed the 
 Sovereign's title to the crown. 
 
 But 'the old order changeth, yielding place to 
 new.' The day on which the Laureate, adorned with 
 blue ribbons, walked down the streets of Louth in 
 procession with his schoolfellows in honour of the 
 coronation of George the Fourth, witnessed the enact- 
 ment for the last time of this remnant of feudalism, 
 as on the accession of William the Fourth the cere- 
 mony was allowed to fall into abeyance and not 
 renewed afterwards. 
 
98 
 
 THE GRANGE AND THE MILL. 
 
 Scrivelsby, from its associations with chivalry, and 
 from the Tennysons being allied to the Marmions, 
 through their descent from Sir Edward Hilary, son 
 of Joane de Marmion, must doubtless have had a 
 special interest for the poet. 
 
 Partly girt with a moat, the Court is situated in a 
 magnificent park — the entrance to which has been 
 guarded for the last four hundred years by a crowned 
 lion. 
 
 'HERK THE LION-Gl" ARDED GATE. 
 
Burleigh House. 
 
 "A mansion more majestic 
 Than all those she saw before.'' 
 

 ^, 
 
BURLEIGH HOUSE. 
 
 After the publication of the volume containing 
 " The Miller's Daughter " Tennyson remained silent 
 for many years. His college acquaintances, with 
 keener insight than their contemporaries, had 
 warmly applauded his verses, but the all-powerful 
 reviewers of the day, in the persons of Christopher 
 North and Lockhart, were not so encouraging. 
 Henceforth the poet determined to fulfil the ex- 
 pectations of his friends by winning the approval 
 of his detractors, in other words, to perfect himself 
 in his art. 
 
 It took him ten years to do so. Right noble 
 was his self-control, for to work and wait thus must 
 have been no easy task for one who knew that 
 powers had been entrusted to him far in excess of 
 his fellows. But the poet by his long self- discipline 
 
I02 BURLEIGH HOUSE. 
 
 showed that genius is sometimes amenable to con- 
 trol, and the reception accorded by all to the next 
 edition of his poems, published in 1842, proved the 
 truth of his own maxim that 
 
 " Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control. 
 These three alone lead life to sovereign power." 
 
 In this celebrated edition are several of Tennyson's 
 masterpieces. The quantity is not great, but the 
 quality is of the finest. Every sort of metre is 
 tried, every kind of subject handled ; in short, it 
 seems to have been the poet's desire to satisfy the 
 most diverse tastes. 
 
 Mrs. Carlyle, with her love for metaphysics, is 
 captivated by " The Vision of Sin," while her hus- 
 band's heart is stirred by the spirit of energy 
 breathing forth from " Ulysses.'' 
 
 Dickens takes the volumes with him to the sea- 
 side, and in rapture exclaims, " What a great 
 creature Tennyson is ! " Even Wordsworth acknow- 
 ledges his superiority to himself in a letter to a 
 friend, calling him " the first of our living poets." 
 
 While he thus won the approval of his comrades 
 in the domain of literature, not less enthusiastic in 
 
BURLEIGH HOUSE.- 103 
 
 his praise was the great mass of the poetry-reading 
 public. The country rang with the fervid music of 
 " Locksley Hall " ; as one has said, '■ another King 
 Alfred was crowned in England." 
 
 For the most part the poems are not founded on 
 fact, but spring from the luxuriance of the poet's 
 imagination. Some, like " Godiva " and " Morte 
 d'Arthur," are idealized reminiscences of old legends ; 
 others, pure idylls — what Ruskin would call the 
 hearth-side poetry of domestic life. There is, how- 
 ever, one poem in this notable collection, that ballad 
 of ballads, " The Lord of Burleigh," which is more than 
 the creation of a poet's fancy, being rather a narrative 
 in verse, with the usual poetic licenses, of the wooing 
 and romantic marriage of the tenth Earl and first 
 Marquis of Exeter. 
 
 From one of Fitzgerald's letters we get a glimpse 
 of Tennyson on a visit to Mirehouse, in the 
 Cumberland hills, during the spring of 1835, i" 
 which we are told of Spedding sitting up with 
 the poet "conning over the 'Morte d'Arthur,' 
 ' Lord of Burleigh,' " etc., etc. This is the first record 
 we have of the poem, but from the proximity of 
 Burleigh House to Lincolnshire, and the great influ- 
 
I04 
 
 BURLEIGH HOUSE. 
 
 ence of the Exeter family in that county, the incidents 
 round which the poem hinges must have been familiar 
 to Tennyson from a very early period of his life. ' 
 As the story goes, near the close of last century 
 Henry Cecil, heir to his uncle the Earl of Exeter, 
 
 secretly left his home, and, cross- 
 ing England, took up his quarters 
 
 in the hostelry of Bolas, a rural village situated 
 
 amid rolling slopes of corn in the heart of Shropshire. 
 
 In order to escape recognition Mr. Cecil had adopted 
 
 a peculiar cut of wig, but 
 
 " his Lord Burleigh look, serene and serious, 
 A something of imposing and mysterious," 
 
BURLEIGH HOUSE. 
 
 105 
 
 roused the suspicions of the landlord, and he was 
 requested to leave. In his extremity he betook 
 himself to a farm hard by the church, tenanted 
 by a Mr. Hoggins, and finding in this quiet house a 
 lodging suitable to his taste he resided there for two 
 years. 
 
 To one who had seen so much of high life 
 in his youth, the humdrum routine of an ordinary 
 farm-house must have grown rather monotonous had 
 not "love possess'd the atmosphere," the farmer's 
 
 daughter captivating by her naive simplicity and 
 gentleness, the heart of the stranger. She was a 
 
Io6 BURLEIGH HOUSE. 
 
 maid of fifteen summers when Mr. Jones — for he had 
 adopted that alias — came to reside with her father, 
 and being still at school he interested himself in her 
 education by becoming her tutor — in this and 
 other ways winning her affection. 
 
 " When two lo\e well, events must onwaid mo\-e." 
 
 BAiins of Mi.-iir.gc tchvecn ^ 
 
 :i^m .P,rr,f.i cf /f> V Pjrilh 
 
 - arid . ^fA/ra ^ , :^^r-^jt l/fl^/ c f A(^rJi 
 
 Parifh — . '^"^ ^ — were 
 
 Married in diis /'AjA.'y//i by ^^'f/Vy^o /^^ 
 
 tills ,. ;^V^./'^/^ Uflv o; ^^/tnrt/ in d'-cVear Oxx Tlioufand Seven Hun- 
 
 ^^ '^ fltnf/y : by lie -f'^lf^LI,'// ^V^^/,,^,,^ 
 
 Tliis Marriage was folcmnizcd ijctv.'jcn Vs^ _ 
 
 In the Pre.tin.i o f Ve/tiv ('^jrAeyfl^ d^ ^'^ 
 
 On April 13th, 1790, they were married in the 
 quaint little church of Bolas, the courtship and cere- 
 mony being thus described by Tennyson in three of 
 his most felicitous verses. 
 
 "In her ear he whispers gaily, 
 ' If my heart by signs can tell, 
 Maiden, I have watch'd thee daily. 
 And I think thou lox'st me well.' 
 
BURLEIGH HOUSE. 10/ 
 
 " She replies, in accents fainter, 
 
 ' There is none I love like thee.' 
 He is but a landscape-painter. 
 And a village maiden she. 
 
 " He to lips, that fondly falter, 
 Presses his without reproof: 
 Leads her to the village altar. 
 And they leave her father's roof." 
 
 Mr. Cecil preserved his incognito. Without ac- 
 quainting his wife of his prospects, he quietly settled 
 
 down in a house which he had built half a mile from 
 the village, giving it the name of Bolas Villa, now 
 changed to Burleigh, and considerably altered by the 
 present proprietor. 
 
Io8 BURLEIGH HOUSE. 
 
 Three years of married life had passed here, a 
 girl and a boy being born to them (the latter of 
 whom died in infancy), when in 1793 the demise 
 of his uncle, Lord Exeter, obliged Mr. Cecil to throw 
 off his disguise. 
 
 Not knowing very well how to break the news to 
 his wife, he merely told her that he was called on 
 business to Lincolnshire, and that he would like her 
 to accompany him. To this she willingly agreed, 
 and accordingly, mounted on a pillion behind her 
 husband, they set out from Bolas en route for 
 Stamford. 
 
 Travelling was by no means easy then, and what 
 now could be accomplished in a certain number of 
 hours occupied at that time as many days, if not 
 weeks. It had, however, its advantages, for in the 
 different stages of the journey it allowed them ample 
 time to see some of the great mansions of England 
 near which they happened to pass. 
 
 The Earl must have found it hard to keep his 
 secret, for at these houses, greatly to his wife's sur- 
 prise, they met with the most cordial reception, yet so 
 confiding was her nature she did not trouble him with 
 questions, and the grandeur, far from making her 
 
RURLEIGH HOUSE. 
 
 109 
 
 envious, rather deepened the love she bore her 
 husband. 
 
 " All he shows her makes him dearer : 
 Evermore she seems to gaze 
 On that cottage growing nearer, 
 Where they twain will spend their days.'' 
 
 Thus happily they rode by easy stages through 
 Cannock Chase, Lichfield, and Leicester, until at 
 
 length the spires of Stamford 
 came in view. They did not 
 stop in the town, but riding through its quaint old 
 streets to the southern boundary, soon reached the 
 
no BURLEIGH HOUSE. 
 
 gates of the avenue leading up to the ancestral seat 
 of the Cecils. The crisis was now at hand ; the 
 truth had to be told ; no longer could her rank be 
 hidden, and her feelings may be imagined when, 
 on expressing her admiration at the magnificence 
 and incomparable beauty of the mansion, she heard 
 her husband say — 
 
 " All of this is mine and thine." 
 
 " It was a sensation worth dying for, says Hazlitt. 
 The world we live in was worth making, had it 
 been only for this. Yc Tliojisand and One Tales 
 of the Arabian Xigkts' Entertainments! hide your 
 diminished heads ! I never wish to have been a 
 lord, but when I think of this story.'' 
 
 The Lord of Burleigh had no reason to regret the 
 choice he had made in his Countess, for her simple 
 manners and kindly ways gained for her the love 
 of all classes, from Queen Charlotte down to the 
 humblest of the Earl's numerous dependents. 
 
 But the duties involved by her rank pressed 
 heavily upon her, and though her cares were 
 brightened by the birth of a son (the father of the 
 present Marquis of Exeter) and the untiring devotion 
 
BURLEIGH HOUSE. ill 
 
 of her husband, three years after her happy home- 
 coming had scarcely elapsed, when Death severed the 
 white bonds which Love had woven. 
 
 "At Burleigh House, near Stamford," ran the obitu- 
 ary, January, 1797, "aged 24, to the inexpressible 
 surprise and concern of all acquainted with her, the 
 Right Hon. Countess of Exeter." 
 
 " Weeping, weeping late and early, 
 Walking up and pacing down, 
 Deeply mourn'd the Lord of Burleigh, 
 Burleigh-house by Stamford-town." 
 
 Burleigh House, or, as it is sometimes designated, 
 Burghley, is situated really in Northamptonshire, on 
 the borders of the counties of Rutland and Lincoln. 
 It was erected between the years 1575 and 1587 by 
 Sir William Cecil, Lord High Treasurer of England 
 and confidential adviser of his Sovereign Queen 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 John Thorpe was the architect, and in drawing the 
 plans he departed from the old lines, and introduced 
 into England a style of architecture partly borrowed 
 from Italy, partly created by his own lively imagination. 
 The change, like every other change, was viewed with 
 considerable apprehension by Conservatives of the time, 
 
112 BURLEIGH HOUSE. 
 
 one of whom characterized the style as " curious to the 
 eie, like paper worke, than substantial! for continuance." 
 In spite however of such gloomy forebodings the 
 house has withstood the storms of three centuries, and 
 to-day looks so fresh, that one might fancy it had 
 been erected in the Victorian era rather than in " the 
 spacious times of great Elizabeth." 
 
 In the olden days it was perhaps better known 
 than it is now, as the mail coaches on the great 
 North Road ran past the lodge gates, and the 
 mansion being one of the show houses of England, 
 and by the kind permission of its owners open to the 
 public, travellers often availed themselves of the stop- 
 page at Stamford to visit it. 
 
 An interesting entry in Sir Walter Scott's journal 
 records a visit he paid to Burleigh when journeying to 
 London in 1826. 
 
 " It is long since," he writes, " I travelled this 
 road, having come up to town chiefly by sea of 
 late years. . . Visited Burleigh this morning ; 
 
 the first time I ever saw that grand place, where there 
 are so many objects of interest and curiosity. The 
 house is magnificent, in the style of James I.'s 
 reign, and consequently in mixed Gothic. Of 
 
BURLEIGH HOUSE. 113 
 
 paintings I know nothing ; so shall attempt to say 
 nothing. But whether to connoisseurs, or to an 
 ignorant admirer like myself, the Salvator Mundi, 
 by Carlo Dolci, must seem worth a king's ransom." 
 
 The picture here alluded to of the Saviour bless- 
 ing the elements hangs in the jewel closet at Burleigh 
 House, and is considered the gem of the collection, 
 but it is not a little strange that Sir Walter, 
 who devoured all that was romantic, makes no 
 reference to the extremely interesting picture of 
 Henry, tenth Earl and first Marquis of Exeter, 
 Sarah, his Countess, and their daughter, Lady 
 Sophia Cecil, which occupies the place of honour 
 in the great billiard-room. 
 
 This exquisitely painted family piece was finished 
 by Sir Thomas Lawrence in the year in which the 
 Countess died. The Marquis, a man of noble bearing, 
 stands by the side of his wife, his left arm thrown 
 lovingly round her shoulder. With wide blue eyes 
 the Countess gazes wistfully out of the picture, 
 her face being so singularly pure and beautiful that 
 it is not difficult to realize how Mr. Cecil fell in 
 love with her and grieved so bitterly at her un- 
 timely end. 
 
114 
 
 BURLEIGH HOUSE. 
 
 In her arms she clasps her daughter, Lady Sophia 
 Cecil, a bright laughing girl of tender years. 
 
 This young lady became the wife of the Right 
 Hon. Henry Manvers Pierrepont of Conholt-Park, 
 and through the marriage of her only child with 
 Lord Charles Wellesley, the present Duke of Welling- 
 ton is a great-grandson of the heroine of Tennyson's 
 ballad, "The Lord of Burleigh." 
 
In Memoriam. 
 
 "'Tis better to have loved and lost 
 Than never to have loved at all." 
 
• y/''i////r/ .--Yr .-^/iayy/. 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 In his address to James Spedding, who was mourning 
 the loss of a brother, Tennyson, in trying to comfort 
 his friend, touches upon the mysterious ways of the 
 Almighty. 
 
 'Tis strange that those we lean on most, 
 Those in whose laps our limbs are nursed. 
 
 Fall into shadow, soonest lost : 
 Those we love first are taken first. 
 
 God gives us love. Something to love 
 He lends us ; but, when love is grown 
 
 To ripeness, that on which it throve 
 Falls off, and love is left alone. 
 
 Little did the poet think when he wrote these 
 lines that they would prove only too true in his own 
 case, and that he, whom he leaned on most — Arthur 
 Henry Hallam — would be taken from him not many 
 months afterwards. 
 
ii8 
 
 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 It was at Trinity College, Cambridge, that Tenny- 
 son and Hallam first met each other, both having 
 matriculated there in the autumn of 1828 ; and as 
 like draws to like, an intimacy naturally sprang up 
 between these two men of genius, ripening with 
 growing years. Unlike Hallam, the poet did not 
 reside within the precincts of the college, but had 
 his rooms first in the Rose Crescent and afterwards 
 
 at No. 55 Corpus Build- 
 ings, the last house in a 
 
 terrace so called from its proximity to Corpus Christi 
 
 College. 
 
 Situated in the central and pleasant part of the 
 
 town, the view from his windows must at that time 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 119 
 
 have embraced the great quadrangle of King's Col- 
 lege flanked by its still greater chapel, from which 
 
 might be heard on a still evening the throbbing 
 tones of the " high-built " organ. 
 
 Of the seventeen colleges of Cambridge, Trinity, 
 King's, and St. John's occupy the foremost place, 
 not only in point of scholarship and learning, but 
 also in beauty of situation. Closely adjoining one 
 
I20 
 
 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 another, their halls and quadrangles, cloisters and 
 chapels, fountains and beautiful pleasure grounds 
 
 through which under many a bridge the river Cam 
 glides quietly, form as pleasant a retreat for the pursuit 
 of knowledge as is to be found all the world over. 
 
 The scenery at the back of these colleges passes 
 vividly before the eye when one reads Tennyson's lines 
 recounting a visit he paid to the old rooms of his friend. 
 
 I past beside the reverend walls 
 In which of old I wore the gown ; 
 I roved at random thro' the town, 
 
 And saw the tumult of the halls ; 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 121 
 
 And heard once more in college fanes 
 The storm their high-built organs make, 
 And thunder-music, rolling, shake 
 
 The prophet blazon'd on the panes ; 
 
 And caught once more the distant shout, 
 The measured pulse of racing oars 
 Among the willows ; paced the shores 
 
 And many a bridge, and all about 
 
 The same gray flats again, and felt 
 The same, but not the same ; and last 
 Up that long walk of limes I past 
 
 To see the rooms in which he dwelt. 
 
 The contemporaries of Tennyson at Cambridge could 
 not complain, as the poet Gray did a hundred years 
 before when a student at Peterhouse, that their under- 
 graduate hfe was for dulness to be compared to the 
 lot of a blind horse going round and round in a mill. 
 On the contrary, these years were "dawn-golden 
 times," years which Henry Lushington used to look 
 back upon as the happiest in his life, "the days, 
 the nights being smoked away in free gladness, in 
 laughter and uninterrupted talk." 
 
 Leaving out of account the many sports and 
 pastimes — such as balloon ascents, amateur theatricals, 
 boat-racing on the Cam — which, hardly known before. 
 
122 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 then first came into vogue — the intellectual activity 
 which prevailed during this time at Cambridge may 
 be said to have reached high water mark. 
 
 Never before had " that long walk of limes " been 
 paced by so many talented youths as were now to 
 be found traversing its " ambrosial aisles," for among 
 them might have been seen Tennyson and Thackeray, 
 Hallam and Lushington, Spedding and Milnes, Trench 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 123 
 
 and Alford, Kinglake, Kemble, Thompson, Brookfield, 
 Merivale, Venables, — men who did so much in later 
 life to mould the literature of the century. 
 
 It is little cause for wonder then, that poetry, \ 
 f the highest expression of intellectual thought, should 
 have filled the very air, and that of all the prizes 
 in the gift of the University none was more eagerly 
 coveted than the Chancellor's medal for English verse. 
 The competition was open to all students of the 
 several colleges, and many entered the ranks hoping 
 for the prize. 
 
 Milnes, writing to his father, informed him that his 
 poem on Timbuctoo was now finished, and he buoyed 
 himself with hopes of success, as his verses were liked 
 by his own set, which was a good sign. 
 
 With no less zeal Hallam, who had already made a 
 name for himself at Eton by the splendid verses he 
 had contributed to the Eton Miscellany, joined in the 
 contest, writing his poem (as he told Gladstone, then 
 an undergraduate at Oxford), 'in a sovereign vein of 
 poetic scorn for anybody's opinion who did not 
 value Plato and Milton.' 
 
 Tennyson was one of the few who concerned him- 
 self little about the matter, and it is questionable if 
 
124 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 he would have competed for the medal at all had 
 not his father strongly advised him to do so. Accord- 
 ingly he resuscitated an old poem which he had 
 written some years before on the Battle of Arma- 
 geddon, and, having altered it a little, sent it in for 
 the theme of Timbuctoo. 
 
 How delighted Dr. Tennyson must have been when 
 the news reached him at Somersby of the burst of 
 applause with which his son's poem was greeted at 
 Cambridge ; for not only did it secure for its author 
 the much coveted medal, but it caused quite a sensa- 
 tion in literary circles, winning the attraction of such 
 men as Landor and many others, who were of 
 opinion that in imaginative power nothing had been 
 written equal to it since Milton. 
 
 Nor were those, who, like Kemble, believed that in 
 Tennyson's mind was heaped in abundance material 
 for the very greatest works — of which " Timbuctoo " 
 was only the first faint dawn — disappointed in the esti- 
 mate they had formed of his powers when, in 1830, 
 " Poems Chiefly Lyrical," made its appearance. With 
 its publication the poet's fame and position, as far as 
 Cambridge was concerned, were secure ; for, just as at 
 Somersby, his brothers and sisters had always deferred 
 
IN MEMORIAM. , 125 
 
 to him in literary matters, so here in this wider 
 sphere he was almost idolized by his companions — 
 so much so that Trench had to sound a note of 
 warning in case his friends might materially injure 
 him. 
 
 The highest honours they had it in their power to 
 bestow had already been conferred upon him, as 
 shortly before this time the poet, along with Hallam, 
 had been elected a member of that exclusive body 
 entitled the Cambridge Conversazione Society. 
 
 This club had now been in existence for about ten 
 years, having become famous in the time of Sterling, 
 Duller, and Maurice. Owing to the numbers being 
 limited to twelve, vacancies were extremely rare, the 
 greatest care being bestowed on the election of new 
 members. The Apostles — for so they were named 
 in derision — no doubt by envious aspirants to mem- 
 bership — lived in the closest intimacy, meeting usually 
 once a week in each other's rooms, there to hold 
 debate 
 
 on mind and art, 
 And labour, and the changing mart. 
 And all the framework of the land. 
 
 Though the society originated in St. John's College, 
 
126 
 
 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 the meetings were transferred to Trinity, being often 
 held in Hallam's rooms, which were situated on the 
 
 central staircase of the south side of the New Court. 
 At such gatherings the poet was often present, but 
 his making a speech or taking any part in the 
 debates was a thing unknown, being in this respect 
 a striking contrast to his friend, who was considered 
 the orator of the society. 
 
 And last the master-bowman, he. 
 
 Would cleave the mark. A willing ear 
 We lent him. Who, but hung to hear 
 
 The rapt oration flowing free. 
 
 Oratory was only one of the many gifts Hallam 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 127 
 
 possessed, his knowledge on all subjects being hardly 
 credible of one at his age, as he seemed to turn the 
 rays of a flaming torch on everything he handled. 
 No philosophical question, however abstruse, was 
 beyond his powers of mastery ; while his reading was 
 so wide as to embrace not only the whole range of 
 English literature, but that of Foreign literature as well. 
 Add to these mental qualities the most tender and 
 gentle disposition, a reverence for all that was good, 
 a pure and blameless character, 
 
 " The graceful tact, the Christian art,'' 
 
 and it is easy to understand how the poet was 
 attracted to him and made him his bosom friend. 
 The confidence thus reposed was not misplaced, for 
 Hallam looked up to Tennyson, as possessing a 
 much more lofty intellect than his own, in his letters 
 never tiring to predict the heights the poet would 
 attain to. " I hope you will buy and read Alfred 
 Tennyson's poems," he wrote Mr. Gladstone, June 30, 
 1830, " I am sure you will perceive their extra- 
 ordinary merit," and again, " I consider Tennyson as 
 promising fair to be the greatest poet of our genera- 
 tion, perhaps of our century." 
 
128 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 The poet did not return to Cambridge after the 
 death of his father in 183 1, but Hallam remained at 
 Trinity till January, 1832, when he took his degree. 
 The companionship was thus for a short time broken, 
 but the intimacy was soon renewed, as we find him 
 in the spring of that year " a welcome guest " at 
 Somersby. 
 
 "I am now at Somersby," he writes Trench, "not 
 only as the friend of Alfred Tennyson, but as the 
 lover of his sister. An attachment on my part of 
 near two years' standing, and a mutual engagement 
 of one year, are, I fervently hope, only the commence- 
 ment of an union which circumstances may not impair 
 and the grave itself not conclude." 
 
 On his return to London, Hallam, at the earnest 
 wish of his father, occupied himself with the study of 
 law, throwing all his energies into it, — in his own 
 words, "slaving at the outworks of my profession." 
 His health, which had always been a source of anxiety 
 to his friends, now began apparently to improve, and 
 his spirits, which before had been liable to sudden 
 fits of depression, became uniformly gay. 
 
 In the autumn of 1833, requiring rest and change 
 after an attack of influenza, he accompanied his father 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 129 
 
 on a visit to Germany, and prolonging his travels into 
 Austrian territory, reached the capital of that country. 
 On the afternoon of the 15th September, being 
 somewhat fatigued with previous exertions, he lay 
 down to rest on a sofa while his father went out 
 to take a walk in the streets of Vienna. On returning, 
 the historian, fancying Arthur was sleeping, sat down 
 to his letters, and became so engrossed in writing that 
 he forgot his son's presence until struck with his 
 stillness and silence, it suddenly flashed across his 
 mind that something was wrong, Alas! his worst 
 fears were verified ; in the interval, without premoni- 
 tory symptoms of any kind, a sudden rush of blood 
 to the head had terminated his son's life. 
 
 So went this sweet and beautiful soul "thro' the 
 strait and dreadful pass of death," yet to him this 
 sudden call was great gain, for "he was on his way 
 to God and could rest in nothing short of Him." 
 
 News in these days took a long time to travel ; but 
 at length it fell with awful suddenness on his friends 
 at home, extracts from some of the letters which 
 passed between his college companions showing how 
 grievously they felt the loss they had sustained in 
 his death. 
 
I30 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 " I did not think to have written to you so soon," 
 (wrote Trench to Donne, October 9th, 1833,) "and 
 very much would have rejoiced if I had no need to do 
 so ; but it is, I am sure, better that you should know 
 the great and common loss we have sustained, and 
 indeed pur whole generation. Our dear and delight- 
 ful friend, Arthur Hallam, who had for some time 
 been travelling in Germany, has not been permitted 
 to return. The fatal event took place at Vienna ; the 
 immediate cause, as you may have anticipated, pres- 
 sure of blood upon the brain. His father was with 
 him. I have not been able to learn any particulars, 
 but fear that there can be now no doubt of the truth 
 of the intelligence, having heard it from two quarters. 
 . . . I am sure we must all feel very deeply for 
 his family, and especially for poor Miss Tennyson. 
 We must give them what we have, which are our 
 prayers, that their hearts may be comforted, and that 
 she may find rest and consolation in Him Who can 
 alone give it." 
 
 It would be difficult to describe the grief at 
 Somersby when the sad tidings of Hallam's death 
 reached the family there. " When in London," (wrote 
 Francis Garden to Trench, November 26th, 1833,) 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 131 
 
 " I saw a letter from poor Alfred Tennyson. Both 
 himself and his family seemed plunged in the deepest 
 affliction." 
 
 The poet had been daily expecting to hear of his 
 friend's return home, 
 
 thinking ' here to-day ' 
 Or ' here to-morrow will he come.' 
 
 He likens himself to a mother praying for her sailor 
 son the very moment 
 
 His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud 
 Drops in his vast and wandering grave, 
 
 or to a father pledging his gallant son in the wine 
 cup while on the battlefield a shot still'd the life that 
 beat from him. 
 
 My blood an even tenor kept, 
 Till on mine ear this message falls, 
 That in Vienna's fatal walls 
 
 God's finger touch'd him, and he slept. 
 
 Many have been the endeavours to discover the 
 name of the " fair ship " which brought home Hal- 
 lam's remains, and thus trace her after history, but all 
 in vain. It seems, however, that she landed her 
 precious freight at Dover, though the poet till a few 
 
132 
 
 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 years ago always believed she had put in to Bristol. 
 From Dover the coffin was conveyed across country 
 by coach to Clevedon Church, where in the manor 
 aisle it was finally committed to its last resting place 
 on the 3rd Januarj', 1834. \ 
 
 This church was chosen by Mr. Hallam partly on 
 account of its being the burial place of his son's 
 maternal grandfather, Sir A. Elton, Bart, of Clevedon 
 Court, and because of its sequestered situation. 
 
 It stands half a mile to the south of Clevedon, 
 overlooking a broad expanse of water, where the 
 
■S 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 133 
 
 Severn flows down into the Bristol Channel, and is so 
 hidden that 
 
 a stranger here 
 Might wondering ask — Where stands the house of God ? 
 She sought it o'er the fields, and found at last 
 An old and lonely church, beside the sea. 
 In a green hollow 'twixt two headlands green. 
 
 To the highly-strung nervous temperament of Tenny- 
 son the burial of his friend was too trying an ordeal 
 to face, so he was not present at the funeral. Few 
 are now living who were there, but Augustus James, 
 the old sexton of Clevedon Church, who when a boy 
 witnessed the interment, still survives. 
 
 It was his father who dug the vault, into which 
 was lowered not only the coffin but a square iron 
 box containing 
 
 ' The darken'd heart that beat no more.' 
 
 The day was fine, the hour of burial one o'clock, 
 no flowers, no music, only the tolling of the large 
 bell in the tower. 
 
 Yet in these ears, till hearing dies. 
 One set slow bell will seem to toll 
 The passing of the sweetest soul 
 
 That ever look'd with human eyes. 
 
134 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 I hear it bow, and o'er and o'er, 
 
 Eternal greetings to the dead ; 
 
 And ' Ave, Ave, Ave,' said, 
 ' Adieu, adieu ' for evermore. 
 
 It was several years after the burial before the poet 
 saw Clevedon, but his visit made a lasting impression 
 on his mind, so that even when time and distance 
 intervened, the moonlight falling on his bed would 
 cause his thoughts to revert to the dim old lonely 
 church, where, when the moon is high in the heavens, 
 it strikes through the large south window of the manor 
 aisle, illuminating the tablet erected by the Historian 
 to his son's memory : 
 
 When on my bed the moonlight falls, 
 I know that in thy place of rest 
 By that broad water of the west. 
 
 There comes a glory on the walls : 
 
 Thy marble bright in dark appears, 
 
 As slowly steals a silver flame 
 
 Along the letters of thy name, 
 And o'er the number of thy years. 
 
 The tablet is placed in the centre of the western 
 wall of the aisle almost opposite the organ, under- 
 neath which is the vault where the body of Plal- 
 1am lies ; and the touching record of his short life, 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 135 
 
 which the poet here represents as struggling into light 
 under the moon's flickering rays, is penned as follows. 
 
 IbllipMcmnrfnf 
 ARTIIUR IIKNHY IIAI.MM. 
 
 of niuliv CtollvgF. L'anitiiidgc II. A 
 rUitlSonaniRMIirllALLAM Riqulro 
 
 Dnd of JDI.IA MaHia liii Win 
 
 OaughlcrDrSir ADR.VIUM nLTO.t Pir' 
 
 oTClixeJonCDUH, 
 
 ^Vbo Mil iTiiUJuid a'l^v hj iudilOTi ittult 
 
 alVlcfliu on Sfplimlui U'^iass, 
 
 in Iho Oa'l'^Tarnrhifcagc. 
 
 Anil new in iliia obscun aiiJ imJiiary Cliurrh 
 
 liul already 
 
 fbr thn bngtiliioH of hit gcniui 
 the dcplli oT hii luidrratanriing 
 
 t^c Iknaiir af h'li {1111(7 
 and thapuriljaTliiillfti. 
 
 nponnps 
 
 B 
 PATSS AO MATED 
 
 'IIAC RRQDIBBCA»D11 TECUM I 
 
 "T 
 
 T 
 
 There are now four tablets in this part of the 
 church, as three years after Arthur's death his sister 
 Eleanor passed away, then followed his mother and 
 his younger brother Henry, and in 1859 the His- 
 torian himself 
 
 HERE, WITH HIS WIFE AND CHILDREN, RESTS 
 
 HENRY HALLAM, THE HISTORIAN 
 is the epitaph which the Laureate wrote on the last 
 tablet. 
 
136 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 It was in May, 1850, that "In Memoriam " was given 
 to the world, a few copies having been circulated among 
 
 the poet's personal friends in the previous year. The 
 book did not bear the Author's name on the title 
 page, but critics were agreed that no one but Tennyson 
 could have written it. Strange to say, it did not meet 
 with the universal approbation that is now conceded 
 to it, what Dr. George Macdonald once styled " a 
 brutal review " appearing in " The Times " under the 
 title of " The Poetry of Sorrow." 
 
 During the seventeen years the poet was engaged 
 writing his great masterpiece next to nothing is known 
 of his haunts. He was living almost in another world, 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 137 
 
 communing with its spirits, solving doubts, following 
 problems to the verge of the Infinite. 
 
 Writing of this time, Howitt says — " It is very 
 possible you may come across him in a country 
 inn, with a foot on each hob of the fireplace, a volume 
 of Greek in one hand, his meerschaum in the other, 
 so far advanced towards the seventh heaven that he 
 would not thank you to call him back into this nether 
 world." This is a little indefinite, yet pretty near 
 the truth, as there are few places during this period 
 where his footsteps are distinctly visible. 
 
 It was in the early months of 1837 that the Tenny- 
 sons left Somersby, and, in a letter to Monckton Milnes, 
 dated January lOth, 1837, the poet makes touching 
 reference to their expected departure. 
 
 " It is very problematical whether I shall be able 
 to come and see you as I proposed, . . . and if I 
 come I should only be able to stop a few days, for as 
 I and all my people are going to leave this place very 
 shortly never to return, I have much upon my hands." 
 
 Beech Hill House was the name of their new home, 
 an old mansion — now pulled down and rebuilt — close 
 to High Beech, a village on the verge of Epping 
 Forest, in Essex. 
 
138 
 
 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 As the name indicates, the house is situated on a 
 hill, from which there is a fine view of Waltham 
 Abbey and its surrounding hamlets lying in the 
 hollow about two and a half miles distant. Waltham 
 Abbey, or Waltham Holy Cross, is a place of 
 great interest — its old Norman church (where the 
 poet frequently worshipped) being famous for the 
 
 many associations which cling to it in connec- 
 tion with Harold, the last of the Saxon kings, and 
 also for the splendid bells in the tower on which 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 139 
 
 celebrated peals have been rung from time imme- 
 morial. 
 
 On Christmas Eve, in the vigil of midnight hours, 
 the poet hears these bells pealing, and "sad 
 memory brings the light of other days around him" 
 as he thinks of the familiar bells of Somersby. Now 
 all is changed — the old home broken up, the haunts 
 of his youth forsaken, and he dwells "within the 
 stranger's land." 
 
 The time draws near the birth of Christ ; 
 
 The moon is hid, the night is still ; 
 
 A single church below the hill 
 Is pealing, folded in the mist. 
 
 A single peal of bells below, 
 
 That wakens at this hour of rest 
 
 A single murmur in the breast, 
 That these are not the bells I know. 
 
 But a week elapses, and again he listens to the 
 
 same bells ringing out the old year and ringing in 
 
 the new. If they brought sadness to him before, 
 
 they bring joy to him now, his spirits rising into a 
 
 higher air and finding expression in jubilant song : 
 
 Ring out the old, ring in the new, 
 Ring, happy bells, across the snow : 
 The year is going, let him go ; 
 
 Ring out the false, ring in the true. 
 
140 
 
 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 No doubt one of the chief attractions High Beech 
 had for the Tennysons was its vicinity to the Metro- 
 polis, it being so near that hither, it is said, Henry 
 VHI. came, in order that he might be at a distance 
 and still hear the guns from the tower announcing 
 Anne Boleyn's death. To London, therefore, the poet 
 resorted now more frequently than hitherto, and singu- 
 larly interesting is the glimpse " In Memoriam " gives 
 us of a visit he paid about this time to Hallam's 
 old home at No. 67 Wimpole Street. 
 
 It was not the first time he had resorted there since 
 his friend's death. Once before, on a dull wintry 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 141 
 
 morning, overwhelmed with grief at the news which 
 had just arrived, he had sought the " dark house " " in 
 the long unlovely street " ; now, more resigned to his 
 loss, he revisits it on an early morning in spring, 
 when there is a strange quiet charm about the city 
 so foreign to it at other hours ; 
 
 Doors, where my heart was used to beat 
 So quickly, not as one that weeps 
 I come once more ; the city sleeps ; 
 
 I smell the meadow in the street ; 
 
 I hear a chirp of birds ; I see 
 
 Uetwixt the black fronts long-withdrawn 
 A light-blue lane of early dawn, 
 
 And think of early days and thee. 
 
 His fame was now growing apace, and no one was 
 more eagerly welcomed in the select literary circles 
 of London ; but he shunned society, and, beyond a 
 very small coterie, was never to be met, preferring 
 " to sit up all night talking with a friend, or else to 
 sit and think alone." 
 
 Occasionally he would spend an evening with his 
 college set — a record of such a reunion being related 
 by Fitzgerald in one of his letters to Bernard Barton. 
 Writing from London in the spring of 1838, he says — 
 
142 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 "We have had Alfred Tennyson here; very droll, 
 and very wayward ; and nnuch sitting up of nights 
 till two and three in the morning with pipes in our 
 mouths : at which good hour we would get Alfred to 
 give us some of his magic music, which he does be- 
 tween growling and smoking." 
 
 Mrs. Tennyson did not remain long at High Beech. 
 The poet did not care for the district, complaining 
 that there were no sounds of nature and a want 
 of birds and men. So they left it about 1840 for 
 Tunbridge Wells — the following year settling at Box- 
 ley, near Maidstone. 
 
 One of the beautiful mansions in this parish, com- 
 manding a magnificent stretch of Kentish scenery, is 
 Park House, which has long been the seat of the 
 Lushingtons, a family whom Milncs described as 
 having " an hereditary right to, a sort of habit of, 
 academic distinction." 
 
 The head of the family, Edmund Law Lushington, 
 after being captain of Charterhouse School, went down 
 to Cambridge during the halo of Tennyson's youthful 
 celebrity. Here he was the first Grecian of his time, 
 being senior medallist of his year, heading the list 
 in the Classical Tripos and graduating Senior Optime 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 143 
 
 in mathematics. After being for a short time a 
 fellow of Trinity College, he was appointed in 1838 
 
 to succeed Sir Daniel K. Sandford as Professor of 
 Greek in the University of Glasgow, where, during a 
 long and distinguished career, he was revered by all 
 who had the privilege of his acquaintance, not only 
 for his exact and erudite scholarship, but because 
 
 he bore without abuse 
 The grand old name of gentleman. 
 
 On loth October, 1842, at Boxley, he was married to 
 the poet's youngest sister. Miss Cecilia Tennyson — a 
 
144 
 
 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 record of this happy event being preserved for all time 
 by the Epithalamium of "In Memoriam." In it the 
 poet pays a well-deserved tribute to his brother-in- 
 law's great abilities, the Professor being considered the 
 most scholarly man in England after Bishop Thirlwall. 
 
 And thou art worthy ; full of power ; 
 As gentle ; liberal-minded, great. 
 Consistent ; wearing all that weight 
 
 Of learning lightly like a flower. 
 
 Professor Lushinglon, to whom the 85th ode of 
 "In Memoriam" is addressed, watched the growth 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 145 
 
 of the poem for several years ; and it was to the 
 Professors younger brother, Henry, one of the few 
 the poet consulted in literary matters, that Tennyson 
 dedicated " The Princess," some of the description in 
 the Prologue having been taken from Park House and 
 from a meeting of the Maidstone Mechanics' Institute, 
 held in the park, at which the poet was present. 
 
 And me that morning Walter show'd the house, 
 Greek, set with busts : from vases in the hall 
 Flowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their names, 
 Grew side by side ; and on the pavement lay 
 Carved stones of. the Abbey-ruin in the park. 
 Huge Ammonites, and the first bones of Time ; 
 And on the tables every clime and age 
 Jumbled together ; celts and calumets, 
 Claymore and snowshoe, toys in lava, fans 
 Of sandal, amber, ancient rosaries, 
 Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere. 
 The cursed Malayan crease, and battle-clubs 
 From the isles of palm : and higher on the walls, 
 Betwixt the monstrous horns of elk and deer, 
 His own forefathers' arms and armour hung. 
 
 It was during this period of his life that Tennyson 
 formed the acquaintance of his great compeer in 
 literature, Thomas Carlyle, and up the narrow street 
 of Cheyne Row might he be seen wending his way 
 during some of his brief visits to town. 
 
146 
 
 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 " One evening," says Mr. Froude, " when Carlyle 
 came home from his walk, he found Tennyson sit- 
 ting with Mrs, Carlyle in the garden, smoking com- 
 fortably." 
 
 He admired and almost loved Tennyson. He 
 says: — "A fine, large-featured, dim-eyed, bronze- 
 coloured, shaggy- 
 headed man is Al- 
 fred; dusty, smoky, 
 free and easy, who 
 swims outwardly 
 and inwardly with 
 great composure in 
 an articulate ele- 
 ment of tranquil 
 chaos and tobacco 
 smoke. Great now 
 and then when he 
 does emerge — a 
 most restful, brotherly, solid-hearted man." 
 
 Such a visitor cheered the heart of Carlyle, who 
 delighted in his companionship ; but the poet's visits 
 were fewer than he could have wished, as Tenny- 
 son came less and less frequently to town, the family 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 147 
 
 having removed further from London — Boxley being 
 exchanged for Cheltenham in 1844. 
 
 This year was memorable for the rise of a new star 
 on the literary horizon — Ruskin having just published 
 his first volume of " Modern Painters." The book 
 was published anonymously ; and, strangely neglected 
 by the leading reviewers, its reception, as one has re- 
 marked, was simply contemptuous. Tennyson, how- 
 ever, who had noticed it lying on Rogers' table in 
 London was not slow to discern that the book was no 
 common one, and that the author, whoever he might 
 be, was a man of powerful and original intellect, so, 
 writing in 1844 from 10 St. James's Square, Chelten- 
 ham, he asked Moxon to send him a copy. 
 
 ^■<- <^ /CA ^ ^ ^^^.^ ^ /C 
 
 The attraction of these great minds was mutual, for 
 if Carlyle declared that Tennyson alone proved sing- 
 ing to be possible in our curt English speech, Ruskin 
 
148 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 shared in his master's admiration of the Laureate's 
 genius. 
 
 Repeatedly in " Modern Painters '' he quotes pas- 
 sages from the poet's works, now a line of " In 
 Memoriam," now a stanza from " Maud," to illustrate 
 some of the great truths he is desirous of impressing 
 on the minds of his readers, and not long after he 
 
 had settled at Brantwood, his 
 beautiful home on Coniston Lake, 
 he wrote with characteristic generosity these cele- 
 brated and oft-quoted words: — 
 
 " No description that I have ever given of anything 
 is worth four lines of Tennyson ; and in serious 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 145 
 
 thought, my half-pages are generally only worth 
 about as much as a single sentence of his." 
 
 Tennyson, Carlyle, and Ruskin — the Poet, the 
 Historian, and the Prose-Bard — will always be linked 
 together as the three great masters in literature of 
 the nineteenth century. 
 
 They are a noble trio, the flower of their age, 
 whose lives are not less heroic than their works. 
 
 There is one trait in their characters common to 
 all of them which is worthy of remark, namely, 
 their filial devotion. 
 
 Each was blessed with pious parents, each had 
 the advantage of a Puritanic upbringing, hence that 
 spirit of reverence so noticeable in all their writings. 
 
 Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers, 
 
 Whose loves in higher love endure ; 
 
 What souls possess themselves so pure, 
 Or is their blessedness like theirs? 
 
 The poet's father was cut off just as he was dis- 
 cerning the universality of his son's mind, but his 
 mother lived to see her son " chapleted with laurel " 
 by his admiring countrymen. 
 
 With her at Cheltenham Tennyson dwelt mostly 
 from 1844 till 1850, for it was some time after the 
 
ISO IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 publication of " In Memoriam " that she took up 
 her residence at Well Walk, Hampstead, where she 
 passed away in her 85th year. 
 
 She does not rest beside her husband in the quiet 
 churchyard at Somersby, near the old rectory, where she 
 trained her boys, but hard by the entrance of High- 
 gate Cemetery a small cross — 
 
 The symbol of the holiest death of all, 
 
 marks her grave, under it being carved simply the 
 words — 
 
 ll 
 
 m )H^^9 
 
 * 
 
 
 w 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 mm 1 f^nwUljHH 
 
 
 
 Blijabetb 
 'Cenn'SBon, 
 
 FEB. 2IST, 1865. 
 
Marriage. 
 
 ' These two — they dwelt with eye on eye, 
 Their hearts of old have brat in tune, 
 Their meetings made December June, 
 Their every parting was to die." 
 
^\' 
 
MARRIAGE. 
 
 Love may be said to be the key-note of Tennyson. 
 It is his favourite harp-string ; he never wearies 
 sounding it, from his " Airy, fairy Lilian " down to 
 his latest ode, — -with him " no lapse of moons can 
 canker Love." 
 
 The poet, he tells us, is dowered with "the love 
 of love," which, whether or not an unfailing charac- 
 teristic, seems in any cas.e true of Tennyson, as the 
 spirit of his poems abundantly testifies. 
 
 Love, however, which finds its realization in mar- 
 riage, could in his early years only be looked forward 
 to by him ; for, unlike his squire in " The Miller's 
 Daughter," he had few broad acres to call his own, 
 having accepted the spirit of poetry as his fortune 
 and chosen for himself a difficult path up the hill 
 of Parnassus, whose bare slopes yield but scanty sub- 
 sistence. Thus the greater part of Tennyson's early 
 
 u 
 
154 MARRIAGE. 
 
 manhood was passed unmarried, living with his friends 
 and his golden dreams. 
 
 During all these years he was never idle, but ever 
 moving upwards, cultivating by great study his mar- 
 vellous intellect. 
 
 With the publication of " In Memoriam " in May 
 1850 the seed was sown broadcast through the land, 
 and the same year brought the golden harvest. This 
 year may be said to have been the crowning one of 
 the poet's life. The world lay at his feet, the Lau- 
 reateship within his grasp — the cultivated youth of 
 the universities hanging on his every utterance with 
 
 absolute idolatry. Rest 
 and honour had now 
 
 come to him, and so the dreams of his youth might 
 
 be said to be realized. 
 
 In the centre of the picturesque town of Horncastle 
 
 stands a square red-brick mansion, which in the early 
 
MARRIAGE. 155 
 
 part of the century was the home of Mr. Henry Sell- 
 wood. He was a country gentleman, belonging to one 
 of the oldest county families in Berkshire and Somer- 
 setshire, and was engaged at Horncastle in the pro- 
 fession of a solicitor. His wife, who was a sister of 
 the ' heroic sailor ' Sir John Franklin, after giving 
 birth to three daughters, fell a prey in early life 
 to consumption. Hard by in the large parish church 
 one almost unconsciously walks over her grave, which 
 bears this inscription — 
 
 In Memory of 
 SARAH, 
 
 WIFE OF HENRY SELLWOOD, 
 
 who departed this life 
 
 On the 30th Day of September, 1816, 
 
 Aqed 28 years. 
 
 As Horncastle was the nearest market town to 
 Somersby, and the young Sellwoods and Tennysons 
 were of an age, a friendship naturally existed between 
 the two families which in after years ripened into a 
 double relationship — the poet's elder brother, Charles, 
 marrying the youngest and the poet himself the 
 eldest daughter, Emily Sarah Sellwood. 
 
 Charles' nuptials were solemnized at Horncastle, 
 but Tennyson was married in Shiplake Church, 
 
156 MARRIAGE. 
 
 Oxfordshire — a fitting place for a poet to be wedded 
 in, occupying, as it does, one of the most charming 
 situations on a bend of the " silver-streaming " 
 Thames. 
 
 The marriage took place on 13th June [850, the 
 clergyman who officiated being the late Rev. Robert 
 Drummond Burrell Rawnsley, a Lincolnshire man, 
 and intimate friend of the Laureate, who was a 
 frequent guest at the vicarage — and wrote that 
 beautiful ode of "In Memoriam" commencing "Sad 
 Hesper o'er the buried sun" while staying under 
 the vicar's hospitable roof at Shiplake. 
 
 From a letter of Carlyle to his wife, dated Septem- 
 ber 1850, we get a glimpse of the newly-wedded 
 couple on a visit at Tent Lodge, Coniston. 
 
 " Alfred looks really improved, I should say ; 
 cheerful in what he talks, and looking forward to a 
 future less detached than the past has been. A good 
 soul, find him where and how situated you may. 
 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." 
 
 Carlyle was right in his prognostications; for, 
 
MARRIAGE. 157 
 
 unlike some of the great literary figures of the nine- 
 teenth century, the Laureate has been peculiarly happy 
 in his married life. 
 
 In the dedication of " Enoch Arden " he refers to 
 Lady Teimyson as 
 
 Dear, near and true — no truer Time himself 
 Can prove you, tho' he make you evermore 
 ♦ Dearer and nearer, 
 
 and to her, says Mr. Palgrave, "he has never looked in 
 vain for aid and comfort, the Wife whose perfect love 
 has blessed him through these many years with large 
 and faithful sympathy." 
 
 Chapel House, Twickenham, was the home Tenny- 
 son brought his bride to, and where he spent the first 
 three years of his married life. 
 
 It is a corner house in Montpelier Row, a terrace 
 running betwixt the Thames and the Richmond Road, 
 about the same distance east as Pope's Villa is west of 
 Twickenham. Time has allowed creepers to cover 
 the walls, but the original character of the house 
 remains unchanged — the poet's study, known as the 
 Green Room, where he wrote his superb " Ode on the 
 Death of the Duke of Wellington," being left in 
 much the same condition as when he occupied it. 
 
158 
 
 MARRIAGE. 
 
 It was at Chapel House in 1852 that the poet's eldest 
 son was born, the Hon. Hallam Tennyson, who for 
 
 many years has 
 been his father's 
 constant com- 
 panion, accom- 
 panying him in 
 his travels and 
 shielding him in 
 every possible 
 way from the 
 cares and wor- 
 ries which neces 
 sarily fall to the 
 lot of the " Dean 
 of the literary 
 guild." "He had 
 his son Hallam 
 with him," wrote 
 Fitzgerald (after a visit the Laureate paid him at 
 Woodbridge), "whom I liked much: unaffected and 
 unpretentious : so attentive to his father, with a 
 humorous sense of his character as well as a loving 
 and respectful. It was good to see them together." 
 
MARRIAGE. 159 
 
 The poet's younger son, Mr. Lionel Tennyson, 
 was born at Farringford in 1854. He bore a strong 
 resemblance to the Laureate, inheriting much of his 
 father's literary ability and love of humour. 
 
 Having a strong natural leaning to Oriental sub- 
 jects, he entered the Political and Secret Department 
 of the India Office, where he soon distinguished 
 himself by drawing up an admirable report on the 
 " Moral and Material Progress and Condition of 
 India for 188 1-2." 
 
 On the invitation of Lord Dufiferin, then Viceroy 
 
 of India, he made a prolonged tour through our great 
 
 Eastern Empire, which, alas ! proved too much for 
 
 his constitution, as there 
 
 In haunts of jungle-poison'd air 
 The flame of life weirt wavering down. 
 
 " We left Calcutta very early this morning," writes 
 Lady Dufferin, March 30th, 1886. "Poor Mr. Tenny- 
 son's bed was pulled to the window that he might 
 see us off. He is still very ill, but as the hot weather 
 is coming on he must go home, and he is to start on 
 Sunday. He has had a long, sad illness, borne most 
 patiently." 
 
 Accompanied by his wife (the brilliant and cultured 
 
i6o 
 
 MARRIAGE. 
 
 daughter of Mr. Locker-Lampson), he embarked for 
 home in the Chusan, on board of which he died near 
 Aden, and, Hke Wilkie, was buried at sea. 
 
 Three little boys survive him, the eldest of whom 
 is the 
 
 Golden-hair'd Ally whose name is one with mine, 
 Crazy with laughter and babble and earth's new wine, 
 
 Glorious poet who never hast written a line. 
 
 .«;^^ *,C« (S' 
 
Farringford. 
 
 " It lies 
 Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard-lawns 
 And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea." 
 
FARRINGFORD. 
 
 Farringford, in the Isle of Wight, is inseparably 
 bound up with the name of Tennyson. It is 
 situated in the parish of Freshwater, which again 
 is in the extreme south-west of the primrose isle, 
 where the land begins to narrow down between the 
 waters of the Solent and the Channel. 
 
 Forty years ago Freshwater was a very different 
 place from what it is now. It was then a quiet, 
 rural parish, unspotted with villas, where news 
 from the great world only came at stated inter- 
 vals ; for while other portions of the island could 
 be reached easily enough, access to this part de- 
 pended very much on the irregular sailings of a little 
 vessel crossing the Solent at Yarmouth, "which, 
 when it crossed," says one who lived there at that 
 time, " we got letters, and when it did not cross 
 
l64 FARRINGFORD. 
 
 we went without." The population being sparse, the 
 only houses were the mansions of those families who 
 owned the soil, and a handful of cottages for their 
 dependants. 
 
 One of these mansions was Farringford, described 
 as an old house with a rambling garden at the back 
 of the downs. Before the poet's occupancy it was 
 let to an eminent judge, who made it his summer 
 residence. On his leaving it, the place was offered for 
 sale, and the Laureate, attracted by the picturesqueness 
 of the surrounding country, purchased it, and here in 
 the fall of 1853 he settled down with his wife and child. 
 
 About seventeen years prior to this time Monckton 
 Milnes had asked the poet to become one of the con- 
 tributors to the Tribute, an annual in which he was 
 interesting himself; and Tennyson, always willing to 
 oblige his friends, made the book a success by writing 
 for it, what Trench, a fellow contributor, called the 
 " magnificent " stanzas, beginning — 
 
 Oh ! that 'twere possible, 
 
 After long grief and pain, 
 To find the arms of my true-love 
 
 Round me once again ! 
 
 This fragment had never been republished, but had 
 
FARRINGFORD. 165 
 
 lain hidden away in this miscellany, and was almost 
 forgotten. Shortly after taking up his residence at 
 Farringford, the poet read the lines to his neigh- 
 bour, Sir John Simeon, who remarked that it seemed 
 to him as if something were wanting to explain the 
 story of the poem ; and, acting on his suggestion, 
 Tennyson determined to put the jewel in a proper 
 setting. 
 
 Time and place were propitious for the composition 
 of such a work. The poet was happy in his new 
 surroundings, the beautiful locality where he now 
 dwelt, with its delightful blending of sea and country, 
 acting as a stimulus to his mind, while the quiet 
 uninterrupted evenings afforded him an opportunity 
 for study better perhaps than he had enjoyed for 
 some time. 
 
 Under these favourable circumstances " Maud " was 
 written, a poem which might be called the poet's 
 poem, it being in his own opinion one of the finest 
 of his creations. 
 
 It was, however, only the prelude of greater works 
 to follow ; for Tennyson, unlike those who are 
 afraid to embark on some new enterprise lest they 
 may wreck their past reputation, was ever seeking a 
 
l66 FARRINGFORD. 
 
 newer world wherein to find fresh scope for the versa- 
 tility of his genius. 
 
 The love he had as a boy for the ancient records 
 of English chivalry had already found expression in 
 such poems as the " Lady of Shalott," " Sir Launcelot 
 and Queen Guinevere," and the " Morte d'Arthur." 
 These, however, were, like the stanzas contributed to 
 the Tribute, merely detached fragments, and to weave 
 them into one grand epic was the goal the poet 
 now set before him. The labour involved was such 
 as might have staggered the determination of a 
 much younger man, and Mr. Gladstone very truly 
 has said that Tennyson " will bequeath to us at 
 least one lesson in the loyalty, constancy, and in- 
 tensity of his devotion to his calling,'' for the " Idylls 
 of the King," commenced after the meridian of his 
 life was past, were not completed till he had reached 
 beyond the threescore and ten years which sum up 
 the ordinary span of human life. 
 
 During the time occupied in writing these " Idylls," 
 the seclusion the poet so dearly valued at Fresh- 
 water gradually became a thing of the past, and 
 Tennyson in causing the aged Merlin to say — 
 Sweet were the days when I was all unknown, 
 
FARRINGFORD. 167 
 
 may have been betraying his own feeHngs, as now 
 that his fame encircled the globe, Farringford became 
 one of the most overrun spots in Europe, people lurk- 
 ing about the shrubberies, staring in at his windows, 
 and watching him as he walked out of his gates. 
 
 Besides these unbidden visitors, many of the most not- 
 able literary and scientific men of the century, such as 
 Maurice, Kingsley, Dean Stanley, Darwin, Herschel, and 
 many others — giants in their different walks — have been 
 the poet's guests at one time or other at Farringford. 
 
 Opening the door to a caller, the servant sees a 
 tall, handsome gentleman, who on learning that the 
 poet was not at home, and being asked for his name, 
 replies, " Merely say Prince Albert called." 
 
 Garibaldi, fresh from his victories on the blood-red 
 battlefields of Italy, plants a tree of Liberty in the 
 avenue leading up to the house, while hither also 
 comes Longfellow, free from all taint of jealousy, and 
 amid the pine groves of Farringford holds such con- 
 verse with ' the many-sided mind ' of its owner, that on 
 his return to his native land, he writes an ode to 
 
 the "sweet historian of the heart" — 
 
 in sign 
 Of homage to the mastery, which is thine, 
 In English song. 
 
l68 FARRINGFORD. 
 
 The opening words of " Enoch Arden " — 
 
 Long lines of cliff breaking have left a chasm. ; 
 And in the chasm are foam and yellow sands ; 
 
 while describing a purely imaginary locality is not 
 
 unlike a picture of the scenery at Freshwater Bay. 
 The downs on which the poet loves to ramble, and 
 every foot of which is classic ground, suddenly dip 
 down to a little cove, and then as suddenly rise 
 again. 
 
 Proceeding inland from this bay, the road skirts a 
 
FARRINGFORD. 
 
 169 
 
 number of new houses, the erection of which must 
 have cost the poet many a pang, as he apostrophizes 
 them in the trenchant hnes — 
 
 Yonder lies our young sea-village — Art and Grace are less and 
 
 less : 
 Science grows and Beauty dwindles — roofs of slated hideous- 
 
 ness 1 
 
 Opposite these 
 new villas stands 
 the ivy-clad house 
 so long occupied 
 by Mrs. Julia 
 Cameron, the 
 
 celebrated lady 
 art-photographer, 
 whose effective 
 portraits of Ten- 
 nyson and of other 
 great men whom 
 she posed in her 
 studio are well 
 known. 
 
 Passing onward, the road is joined by Farring- 
 ford Lane, a shady path down which the poet 
 
Ijo FARRINGFORD. 
 
 often comes when walking from his house to the 
 sea. 
 
 At this junction the policies of Farringford com- 
 mence. No stiff stone wall encloses them, but a 
 high natural bank, surmounted by a hedge, screens 
 them from the main road. Here and there a gap in 
 this ' wall of green ' lays bare to view the park, 
 charmingly varied with clusters of large trees and 
 deep pasture ; but a glimpse of the ' woodland para- 
 dise ' itself is scarcely obtainable, on account of the 
 impenetrable foliage which surrounds it. 
 
 The entrance to the park 
 is so simple that strangers 
 might almost pass without noticing it. This is partly 
 
FARRINGFORD. 
 
 l/I 
 
 due to the situation of the gardener's lodge, as it 
 does not stand within the park, but on the other 
 side of the road, opposite the entrance gateway — its 
 
 windows looking 
 over to the avenue 
 which terminates a 
 hundred yards or 
 so further on, at 
 the glass-panelled 
 doors of the Lau- 
 reate's home. 
 
 No better words 
 could be used to 
 describe Farring- 
 ford, than Miss 
 Thackeray's when 
 she calls it, " a 
 - - charmed palace, 
 
 with green walls without, and speaking walls within," 
 for outside there is scarcely a foot of masonry which 
 is not covered with the most luxuriant creepers, while 
 indoors the rooms are lined with books from floor to 
 ceiling. 
 
 As at Somersby, the poet's study is in the topmost 
 
^7- 
 
 FARRINGFORD. 
 
 storey of the house, while on a level with the lawn, 
 where the cedar spreads ' his dark-green layers of 
 shade ' is the drawing room. This room, with its 
 oriel window looking out over the park to the sea, 
 
 is the one where the poet would sometimes melt 
 the eyes of his guests, as in the fading light he 
 read in his deep-toned voice some passage of touch- 
 
FARRINGFORD. 173 
 
 ing pathos from his own works. Not many pictures 
 adorn the walls, but over the mantel hangs a fine 
 engraving of Sebastiano del Piombo's masterpiece — 
 Christ raising Lazarus, recalling the lines — 
 
 Behold a man raised up by Christ ! 
 
 The rest remaineth unreveal'd ; 
 
 He told it not ; or something seal'd 
 The lips of that Evangelist. 
 
 Nowhere is Tennyson more at home than in a 
 garden. Open his poems where we please, we 
 are sure to find some allusion to flowers, plants, 
 and trees, couched in language which, for choiceness 
 of epithet, is not surpassed by Shakespeare. 
 
 As might therefore be expected, the grounds 
 round Farringford, having been laid out by Lady 
 Tennyson and the poet, are, for beauty and pictur- 
 esqueness, all that could be desired. 
 
 On the south side of the house the eye wanders 
 down a lovely glade, to which Miss Thackeray 
 makes reference when she says, " There is a photo- 
 graph I have always liked, in which it seems to me 
 the history of this home is written. It was taken 
 in the green glade at Farringford. Hallam and 
 Lionel Tennyson stand on either side of their 
 
174 
 
 FARRINGFORD. 
 
 parents, the sun is shining, and no doubt the thrushes 
 and robins are singing and fluttering in the wind- 
 blown branches of the trees, as the father and mother 
 and the children come advancing towards us." 
 
 Close to this glade grow some of the poet's rarest 
 trees, one of the most interesting being 
 
 the waving pine which here 
 The warrior of Caprera set. 
 
FARRINGFORD. 175 
 
 The Laureate has all a poet's love for trees, and the 
 pleasure he takes in watching the growth of his own 
 is evident from some of the verses in one of his 
 latest poems, entitled " To Ulysses." " He took 
 delight," says Oliver Wendell Holmes, " in pointing 
 out to me the finest and rarest of his trees, and 
 there were many beauties among them. In this garden 
 of England, where everything grows with such a 
 lavish extravagance of green, I felt as if weary eyes 
 and over-tasked brains might reach their happiest 
 haven of rest." 
 
 Passing down through trim-kept walks, " the dry- 
 tongued laurel " forming a rampart on either side, a 
 gate opens on a large walled garden. A proof of 
 the mildness of the climate is not wanting, as here 
 figs may be seen growing outside. The air smells 
 sweet with the fragrance of alleys of rosebushes, while 
 the rooks calling "Maud, Maud, Maud, Maud," make 
 music in the high branches of the surrounding trees. 
 
 In hisi well-known invitation to Maurice he speaks 
 
 thus pleasantly of his house and its surroundings — 
 
 Where, far from noise and smoke of town, 
 I watch the twilight falHng brown 
 
 All round a careless-order'd garden 
 Close to the ridge of a noble down. 
 
176 
 
 FARRINGFORD. 
 
 This down has fittingly been called Tennyson's 
 Down, partly because it forms part of the Farringford 
 
 estate, partly on account 
 of itb being the poet's 
 out-of-doors study, where he has spent many days 
 and nights in contemplative thought. 
 
 As the hills and dales, lakes and streams round 
 Rydal Mount inspired Wordsworth, so this " hushed 
 companionable down " has often invigorated the mind 
 of Tennyson. 
 
 A stroll along its lofty ridge is still the poet's 
 favourite walk, and, when residing at Farringford, he 
 may almost daily be seen climbing the steep combe of 
 the chalk cliff, and passing, like his own Lancelot, 
 Far o'er the long backs of the bushless downs. 
 
FARRINGFOKU. 
 
 177 
 
 On the highest part of the down stands Farringford 
 Beacon, the cHffs here rising to the height of 483 feet 
 above the sea-level. The Beacon only serves as a land- 
 mark by day, for no light is displayed upon its wooden 
 turret at night, but it serves another useful purpose, 
 
 as it is the visitor's 
 book of this locality, 
 the supports and even 
 the turf on which it 
 stands being cut and 
 carved with the names 
 and initials of the 
 Laureate's numerous 
 admirers. The ascent 
 to it from Freshwater 
 Bay is by no means so 
 easy as at first appears, especially if a 
 south-westerly gale happens to be 
 blowing in from the Atlantic ; but once the goal is 
 reached, the toil is repaid by a magnificent view, the 
 whole peninsula lying stretched out beneath. 
 
 Looking inland we see in the foreground the 
 "groves of pine'' round the poet's home; beyond, 
 smiling hamlets dot the landscape at various points. 
 
178 
 
 FARRINGFORD. 
 
 while far in the distance the river Yar can be traced, 
 now spreading itself out like a lake beneath the 
 
 old Parish Church of Fresh- 
 water, now creeping onward 
 through reedy meadows till 
 it joins the waters of the Solent. 
 
 Turning our eyes seaward, as we look out o'er 
 the "far-rolling, west-ward-smiling seas," and watch 
 the white-maned waves chasing each other before the 
 wind, some of Tennyson's marvellous descriptions of 
 the sea rise in our memory. 
 
 The representative poet of a great maritine nation 
 like England should be a lover of the sea, and 
 certainly in this respect, the Laureate is not found 
 
FARRINGFORD. 179 
 
 lacking. From childhood the world of waters has 
 been to him a special object of love and joy, and 
 the intense passion for the sea, which caused him 
 when a boy to run bareheaded all the way from 
 Somersby to the Lincolnshire coast, has increased 
 rather than diminished with years. 
 
 At Farringford his study windows are so situated 
 that from them he can watch the long waves rolling 
 into Freshwater Bay, and one of the attractions of 
 Aldworth is, that though so far inland, it yet 
 commands " one gray glimpse of sea." 
 
 On the approach of summer few things delight the 
 poet more than to cruise along the southern coast of 
 England in a " Sunbeam " or an " Assegai," and his 
 periodical crossing of the Solent in the "Mayflower" 
 is always enjoyed by him, and is said to have called 
 forth one of his latest and finest lyrics, " Crossing 
 the Bar." 
 
 It is not surprising then when we turn to his 
 poems to find them replete with the most exquisite 
 allusions to the sea — in its ever-changing aspects, and 
 to the stirring events connected with it. 
 
 Perhaps his most popular poem is that touching 
 story of sailor life, " Enoch Arden " ; perhaps his 
 
l8o FARRINGFORD. 
 
 grandest simile that in "The Last Tournament," 
 where he compares the fall of the Red Knight to a 
 great wave spending its way along some sandy sea- 
 board. 
 
 The poet's minute and accurate observations of the 
 landward beauties of nature has often been remarked 
 on by his friends, and to some extent this has also 
 been the case with his allusions to the sea, as in- 
 stance of which might be noted Mr. Swinburne's 
 criticism of the line in " The Marriage of Geraint," 
 
 And white sails flying on the yellow sea. 
 
 "I could not but feel conscious," he says, "at once 
 of its charm and of the equally certain fact that I, 
 though cradled and reared beside the sea, had never 
 seen anything like that. But on the first bright day 
 I ever spent on the eastern coast of England I saw 
 the truth of this touch at once, and recognized once 
 more with admiring delight the subtle and sure 
 fidelity of that happy and studious hand. There, on 
 the dull yellow foamless floor of dense discoloured 
 sea, so thick with clotted sand that the water looked 
 massive and solid as the shore, the white sails 
 flashed whiter against it and along it as they fled ; 
 

FARRINGFORD. 
 
 I«I 
 
 and I knew once more the truth of what I never 
 had doubted — that the eye and the hand of Tennyson 
 may always be trusted, at once and ahke, to see and 
 to express the truth " 
 
 Beyond the Beacon, westwards, there is a sHght 
 declivity in the down, followed by a long stretch of 
 level turf for more than a mile, after which the 
 "tender-tinted cliffs" gradually dip and dip downward, 
 till they reach a point in the rocks and lighthouse 
 well known to mariners as the Needles. 
 
 Returning by more frequented paths, we at once 
 know when we are within the marches of the poet's 
 estate from the many neat little cottages peeping 
 out amid bowers of honeysuckle, with a monogram 
 
l82 FARRINGFORD. 
 
 of the letters A. E. T. (Alfred and Emily Tennyson) cut 
 in a red stone over the doorway, " labourers' homes " 
 "each a nest in bloom," such as Edith Aylmer de- 
 lighted to visit when on her rounds of mercy. 
 
 The Home Farm, with its thatched roof and "martin- 
 haunted eaves," may be taken as a type of these 
 picturesque abodes, whose simple rusticity strikes the 
 traveller, when he contrasts it with the shoddiness of 
 more pretentious villas which mar the landscape in 
 other parts of the parish, making him wish for those 
 olden times. 
 
 When men knew how to build. 
 
Aldworth. 
 
 " You came, and look'd and loved the view 
 Long-known and loved by me, 
 Green Sussex fading into blue 
 With one gray glimpse of sea.'' 
 
>^ 
 
 
ALDWORTH. 
 
 The erection of so many new houses destroying his 
 privacy at Freshwater, and Lady Tennyson's health 
 requiring stronger air, induced the poet, about a 
 quarter of a century ago, to seek an additional resi- 
 dence, where he could have more retirement and a 
 less relaxing climate than was possible at Farring- 
 ford during the summer months. 
 
 The undulating elegance of the borderlands of 
 Surrey, with their green wooded slopes and dark 
 stretches of moor and heath, had not escaped his 
 keen perception of rural beauty ; and in the autumn 
 of 1866, accompanied by his wife, he called on Mrs. 
 Anne Gilchrist, at Brookbank, near Shotter Mill, the 
 very heart of this lovely district, with a view to 
 inspecting a neighbouring property called the ' Jumps,' 
 which was then for sale. 
 
l86 ALDWORTH. 
 
 The place did not please the poet, but the 
 country round Brookbank being quite to his mind, 
 he rented Grayshott on the top of Hindhead Farm, to 
 see if the climate suited Lady Tennyson's health, and 
 to be on the watch for any land that should be in 
 the market. 
 
 After looking at several places, such as Hurt Hill 
 and Mead Fields, the Laureate purchased the estate of 
 Green Hill, situated really in Sussex, though only half 
 a mile or so across the border line which separates 
 that county from Surrey. 
 
 "Yes," writes Mrs. Gilchrist, July, 1867, "we suc- 
 ceeded at last in finding land to suit. It is a 
 wooded hollow in Blackdown, at once very sheltered, 
 for the hill curves round on either side and rises 
 sheer behind it to the north, so that it is like a little 
 bay ; yet elevated, and commanding the view you 
 know well — Surrey, Sussex, parts of Hampshire, and, 
 I suppose, part of Kent, South Downs. I do think, 
 if ever there was a place made for a poet to live 
 in, this Green Hill, as it is called, is the spot." 
 
 On this site Aldworth (called after one of the old 
 Sellwood demesnes) was built, and since 1869 it has 
 been the custom of the poet to quit Farringford 
 
ALDWORTH. 
 
 187 
 
 about June, and, crossing the Solent in the ' May- 
 flower,' reside here till late autumn, when he returns 
 to his island home. 
 
 The nearest post town is Haslemere, lying in a 
 
 hollow of the burrey hills, a 
 village which has in recent years become quite a 
 centre of cultured society. 
 
 Poetry is represented by the Laureate, Science by 
 Tyndall, Fiction by Mrs. Humphry Ward ; while 
 many artists such as Tadema, Boughton, and Du 
 Maurier are often to be found sojourning in the 
 vicinity. It was to Haslemere that John Burroughs 
 came that he might hear the nightingale sing, and 
 in his amusing essay he describes the country 
 round about as " wild and irregular, full of lovely 
 
i88 
 
 ALDWORTH. 
 
 fields and over-grown hedgerows and very nightin- 
 galy." 
 
 Aldworth is distant about two miles from Hasle- 
 mere, but in this short space the road passes through 
 very varied scenery. After traversing a fine English 
 highway, and clambering over a rough common 
 covered with whin bushes, a long winding lane is 
 
 reached, which enjoys the title of Tennyson's Lane, 
 as the poet is often to be met walking here. The 
 trees, which form an arch over it, suddenly disappear, 
 and we come to a lone moor where not a sound is 
 heard, and the line rings in our ears — 
 
 Calm and deep peace on this high wold. 
 
ALDWORTH. 189 
 
 The road then divides into two paths, one dipping 
 down into a deep gorge, the other leading over the 
 brow of the hill. The latter has a sign-post with 
 " private road " marked on it, and following it for 
 two or three hundred yards we reach Aldworth. 
 
 Architecture has always been a favourite study with 
 the Tennysons as a family. Dr. Tennyson imitated 
 the Gothic long before even professional architects of 
 the present day adopted this style of building, while 
 his brother was a perfect adept at the art, as Bayons 
 Manor testifies. This family talent is strongly 
 developed in the poet, for in " The Princess," 
 " Recollections of the Arabian Nights," " The Palace 
 of Art," etc., one cannot but be struck with his know- 
 ledge of architecture, and with his fanciful descrip- 
 tions of what might be called ' castles in the air,' 
 picturing by a single stroke of his pen^ the style of 
 a building ; as when he speaks of the Abbey-ruin in 
 Sir Walter Vivian's park being 
 
 High-arch'd and ivy-claspt, 
 Of finest Gothic lighter than a fire. 
 
 In Aldworth these imaginary designs have been 
 realized in stone and lime. The plans were drawn 
 by Mr. Knowles, the editor of the Nineteenth Century, 
 
IQO ALDWORTH. 
 
 the architecture being a free treatment of domestic 
 Gothic of the Tudor period, but the poet super- 
 intended every detail, believing in what Mr. Ruskin 
 says, that " there is a sanctity in a good man's house," 
 and that it is " an evil sign of a people when their 
 houses are built to last for one generation only." 
 
 Around the edifice runs a band of leaves carven 
 in stone, interlacing the inscription (in Latin), ' Glory 
 to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will 
 toward men ' ; whilst a Welsh motto, " Y Gwir yn 
 erbyn y byd" (' The Truth against the World ') is 
 set into the tiles of the hall. The poet's study is in 
 the west corner of the second story, and has two 
 large windows, one, at which he works, looking 
 we.stward over the pine glen, the other embracing a 
 magnificent prospect to the south. 
 
 During his summer residence at this mansion. Lord 
 Tennyson leads a very retired life, though he is not 
 now so much of a recluse as he once was. Like 
 Milton, whom he resembles in many respects, he 
 knows the value of early rising, and devotes the fresh- 
 est hours of the day to work. At noon he generally 
 starts for his daily two hours' walk, and if one is 
 abroad on Blackdown at that time he may chance to 
 
ALDWORTH. 
 
 191 
 
 hear his "broad-blown" voice and see his stately figure 
 as he descends the private road accompanied by 
 his son and his dogs. 
 
 It is his habit when out walk 
 ing seldom to look at any one, but gazing on the 
 ground to pass on lost in reverie, hence a stranger 
 has not much chance of seeing the steel-coloured 
 light which gleams in the poet's eye. Erect by 
 nature, the burden of eighty years has caused him 
 to stoop slightly, which takes away from his great 
 height. A broad-brimmed hat covers his lofty brow, 
 such part of his face as is visible being deeply fur- 
 rowed with lines of thought. 
 
 In dress there is little to distinguish him from 
 others save this hat and the Byronic collar. 
 
192 ALDWORTH. 
 
 Seldom now-a-days is he to be seen in Haslemere, 
 though one may occasionally catch a glimpse of him 
 driving through the village with Lady Tennyson, 
 as the distance is rather far for him to walk, and so 
 he usually confines his strolls to. his own estate. 
 
 Though his fame is world-wide, its roots strike 
 deepest round his own home ; and as at Freshwater, 
 so at Haslemere, he is held in the greatest respect 
 by high and low. 
 
 In the welfare of those around him he is deeply 
 interested, and though, with his retiring nature, all 
 crowds are more or less distasteful, he sacrifices 
 his own feelings and makes a point of being present 
 at such gatherings as the local flower show and 
 sports held in the grounds of Lythehill, the seat of 
 his neighbour, Mr. Stewart Hodgson. 
 
 At his summer home he carries out his own 
 noble maxim expressed in the lines — 
 
 Why should not these great Sirs 
 Give up their parks some dozen times a year 
 To let the people breathe.' 
 
 for it is not an uncommon occurrence to see one 
 of his carriages driving from the station filled with 
 " city children " who, under the charge of the Hon. 
 
ALDWORTH. 193 
 
 Mrs. Hallam Tennyson, are on their way to Aid- 
 worth for a day's enjoyment in the country. 
 
 " They that can wander at will where the works of the Lord are 
 
 reveal'd 
 Little guess what joy can be got from a cowslip out of the 
 
 field." 
 
 Many of the poet's personal friends, such as the 
 Duke of Argyll, the Marquis of Dufferin, Aubrey de 
 Vere, the Bishop of Ripon, Mr. Jowett, Professor Pal- 
 grave, Sir Alfred Lyall, visit him when residing at 
 Aldworth, the place being within easy access of Lon- 
 don by rail, and usually once a year he pays a visit 
 of a few days duration to the ' dark Queen-city,' when 
 he dines with Mr. Gladstone and some old friends. 
 But the brilliant society of the Metropolis, which was 
 so fascinating to Browning, has little attraction for the 
 Laureate, as he loves far more 
 
 His own gray towers, plain life and letter'd peace, 
 To read and rhyme in solitary fields, 
 The lark above, the nightingale below. 
 And answer them in song. 
 
 Here, then, in his twilight-haunted study, we take 
 our leave of him reading some old book, with his 
 old hound couched by his side, in the hope that the 
 
194 
 
 ALDWORTH. 
 
 manuscript lying on his table will soon' be given 
 to the world 
 
 A flower all gold, 
 And bravely furnish'd all abroad to fling 
 
 The winged shafts of truth, 
 To throng with stately blooms the breathing spring 
 
 Of Hope and Youth. 
 
Index. 
 
 'Summ'd up and closed in Utile.' 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abbotsford, 79. 
 
 Aden, 63, 160. 
 
 "Airy, fairy Lilian,'' 153. 
 
 Aldworth, 179, 186, 188, 189, 193. 
 
 Alford, 38. 
 
 Alford, Dean, 123. 
 
 Allen, 83. 
 
 'Apostles, The,' 125. 
 
 Ardrossan, 57. 
 
 Argyll, Duke of, 193. 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, 38. 
 
 Ashestiel, 79. 
 
 "Assegai, The," 179. 
 
 " Aylmer's Field," 66, go. 
 
 Ayrshire, 57. 
 
 Barbadoes, 75. 
 
 Barton, Bernard, 141. 
 
 Bag-Enderby, 5, 26, 34, 35, 36. 
 
 Bag-Enderby Church, 36. 
 
 Bag-Enderby Church Font, 36. 
 
 Battell, Rev. Ralph, 27. 
 
 " Battle of Armageddon," 124. 
 
 Baumber, John, 88. 
 
 Bayons Manor, 64, 67, 71, 74, 
 
 75, 189. 
 Beck, 35. 
 
 Bede, Cuthbert, 49. 
 Beech Hill House, 137. 
 Bell Scholarship, 47. 
 Bentley, 7. 
 Berkshire, 155. 
 Blackdown, 186, 190. 
 Bletchingley, 74. 
 Bolas, 104, 108. 
 Bolas Church, 106. 
 Bolas Villa, 107. 
 Boleyn, Anne, 140. 
 " Bonnie Doon," 58. 
 Boston Church, 11. 
 Boughton, 187. 
 Boxley, 142, 143, 147. 
 Brabant, 86. 
 Brantwood, 148. 
 " Break, break, break," 51. 
 Bristol 132. 
 
iqS 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Bristol Channel, 133. 
 
 Brookbank, 185, 186. 
 
 Brookfield, 123. 
 
 Browning, 193. 
 
 BuUer, 125. 
 
 " Buoy-Bell, The," 53. 
 
 Burghley, in. 
 
 Burleigh, 107. 
 
 Burleigh House, 73, 103, iii, 
 
 112, 113. 
 Burns, 53, 57, 58, 79. 
 Burroughs, John, 187. 
 Burton family, 5. 
 Burton, Rev. Langhorne Burton, 
 
 9.29- 
 Byron, 43, 79- 
 
 Caistor, 48, 49, 64. 
 
 Caistorians, 49. 
 
 Calcutta, 159. 
 
 Cam, The, 120, 121. 
 
 Cambridge, 15, 47, 5°. 67, 74, 
 81, 93, 118, 119, 121, 122, 
 124, 128, 142. 
 
 Cambridge Conversazione Soc- 
 iety, 125. 
 
 Cameron, Mrs. Julia, 169. 
 
 Cannock Chase, 109. 
 
 Carlo Dolci, 1 13. 
 
 Carlyle, 83, 145, 146, 147, 149. 
 156. 
 
 Carlyle, Mrs., 102, 146. 
 
 Cecil, "Henry, 104, 107, 108, 113. 
 
 Cecil, Lady Sophia, 113, 114. 
 
 Cecil, Sir William, in. 
 
 Cecils, 1 10. 
 
 Champion, The, 96. 
 
 Chancellor's Medal, 123. 
 
 Chapel House, 157, 158. 
 
 Charterhouse, 142. 
 
 Cheltenham, 59, 147, 149. 
 
 Cheyne Row, 145. 
 
 China, 75. 
 
 Christ raising Lazarus, 173. 
 
 " Christian Year, The," 47. 
 
 " Chusan," The, 160. 
 
 Clark, Jonathan, 36, 37. 
 
 Clevedon, 132. 
 
 Clevedon Church, 132, 133, 134. 
 
 Clevedon Court, 132. 
 
 Coleridge, 48. 
 
 Conholt-Park, 114. 
 
 Coniston, 148, 156. 
 
 Corpus Buildings, 118. 
 
 Corpus Christi College, 118. 
 
 Crabbe, 37." 
 
 Crimean War, 75. 
 
 " Crossing the Bar," 179. 
 
 Cumberland, 3. 
 
 " Daphne and other Poems," 41. 
 
 "Days and Hours," 41. 
 
 Darwin, 167. 
 
 De Quincey, 43. 
 
 De Vere, Aubrey, 193. 
 
 Dean of the Literary Guild, 
 
 158. 
 "Death of the old Year, The," 
 
 49- 
 Descent of Tennyson, 71. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 199 
 
 D'Eyncourt, Right Hon. Charles 
 
 Tennyson, 71, 74. 
 D'Eyncourt, Admiral Edwin 
 
 Clayton, 74, 75. 
 D'Eyncourt, Eustace Tennyson, 
 
 75- 
 D'Eyncourt, George Hildeyard, 
 
 D'Eyncourt, Louis Charles, 72, 
 
 76. 
 D'Eyncourts, 66. 
 Dickens, 102. 
 Donne, 130. 
 Dover, 131, 132. 
 Dufferin, Lady, 159. 
 Dufferin, Lord, 63, 159, 193. 
 Du Maurier, 187. 
 Durham, 3. 
 Dymokes, 96, 97. 
 
 Edinburgh, 79. 
 Edith Aylmer, 182. 
 Edward III., 71. 
 Elton, Sir A., Bart., 133. 
 Emerson, 83. 
 
 England, 3, 18, 43, 54, 96, 103, 
 104, 108, III, 112, 175,179,180. 
 " Enoch Arden," 157, 168, 179. 
 Epping Forest, 137. 
 Essex, 137. 
 Eton, 123. 
 
 Eton Miscellany, 123. 
 " Euphranor," 58. 
 Europe, 167. 
 " Eustace," 71, 73. 
 
 Eversley, 47. 
 
 Exeter, Countess of, iii, 113. 
 Exeter, Earl of, 104, 108. 
 Exeter, Marquis of, 103, no, 
 
 113- 
 Exeter Family, 104. 
 
 Farringford, 54, 159, 163, 164, 
 165, 167, 170, 171, 173, 176, 
 179, 185, i86. 
 
 Farringford Beacon, 177, 181. 
 
 Farringford Home Farm, 182. 
 
 Farringford Lane, 169. 
 
 Fitzgerald, 58, 83, 103, 141, 158. 
 
 Flodden, 97. 
 
 Foret de Soignies, 86. 
 
 Franklin, Sir John, 155. 
 
 Freshwater, 163, 166, 185, 192. 
 
 Freshwater Bay, 168, 177, 179. 
 
 Freshwater Parish Church, 178. 
 
 Froude, Mr., 146. 
 
 Fytche, Miss, 6. 
 
 Garden, Francis, 130. 
 Garibaldi, 167. 
 George III., 4. 
 George IV., 97. 
 German Ocean, 5. 
 Germany, 129, 130. 
 Gilchrist, Mrs. Anne, 185, 186. 
 Gladstone, Mr., 123, 127, 166, 
 
 193- 
 Glasgow University, 143. 
 " Godiva," 103. 
 Golden-hair'd Ally, 160. 
 
200 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Grasby, 49, 50, 53, 54, 58, 60, 
 
 67. 
 Grasby Church, 41. 
 Gray, 121. 
 Grayshott, 186. 
 Green Hill, 186. 
 Grimsby, Great, 64, 71, 74. 
 Gulf of Finland, 75. 
 
 Hagworthingham, 94. 
 
 Hallam, Arthur Henry, 8, 92, 
 117, 118, 122, 123, 125, 126, 
 127, 128, 130, 131, 134, 140. 
 
 Hallam, Eleanor, 135. 
 
 Hallam, Henry, 132, 135. 
 
 Hampshire, 186. 
 
 Hampstead, 150. 
 
 " Harold," 74. 
 
 Harold, 138. 
 
 Harrington Church, 95. 
 
 Harrington Hall, 95. 
 
 Haslemere, 60, 187, 188, 192. 
 
 Hawthorne, 4. 
 
 Hazlitt, 1 10. 
 
 Henry VI H., 3, 140. 
 
 Herschel, 167. 
 
 High Beech, 137, 140, 142. 
 
 Highgate Cemetery, 1 50. 
 
 High Street, 65. 
 
 Hilary, Sir Edward, 98. 
 
 Hindhead Farm, 186. 
 
 Hodgson, Stewart, 192. 
 
 Hoggins, Mr., 105. 
 
 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 175. 
 
 Horncastle, 4, 11, 154, 155. 
 
 House of Commons, 74. 
 Howitt, 80, 137. 
 Hursley, 47. 
 Hurt Hill, 186. 
 
 "Idylls of the King," 166. 
 
 India, 159. 
 
 Ingilbys, 94. 
 
 " In Memoriam," 8, 15, 94, 136, 
 
 140, 144, 148, 150, 154, 156. 
 " Isles of Greece, The," 41. 
 Isle of Wight, 54, 163. 
 Italy, 54, III, 167. 
 
 Jackson, Messrs., 44. 
 James, Augustus, 133. 
 James I., 112. 
 Jones, Mr., 106. 
 Jowett, Mr., 193. 
 'Jumps,' The, 185. 
 
 Keble, 47. 
 Kemble, 123, 124. 
 Kent South Downs, 186. 
 Kerr, Dr., 59. 
 King Alfred, 103. 
 Kinglake, 123. 
 Kingsley, 47, 82, 167. 
 King's College, 1 19. 
 Knowles, Mr., 189. 
 
 " Lady Clare," 90. 
 " Lady of Shalott," 166. 
 Lamb, Charles, 18, 25. 
 Lambeth, 74. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 201 
 
 Lancelot, 176. 
 
 Landor, 124. 
 
 " Last of the Barons, The," 73. 
 
 " Last Tournament, The," 180. 
 
 Laureateship, 89, 154. 
 
 Lawrence,Sir Thomas, 73,74, 1 1 3. 
 
 Leicester, 109. 
 
 Lichfield, 109. 
 
 Lincoln, 4, 1 1. 
 
 Lincoln Cathedral, 4. 
 
 Lincolnshire, 3, 6, 27, 33, 35, 45, 
 
 48, 72, 84, 103, 108, III. 
 Lincolnshire Coast, 179. 
 Lincolnshire Wolds, 49, 65. 
 Locker-Lampson, Mr., 160. 
 Lockhart, 65, loi. 
 " Locksley Hall," 90, 95, 103. 
 London, 79, 80, 112, 128, 130, 
 
 140, 141, 147, 193. 
 Longfellow, 167. 
 Lord of Burleigh, 90, 103, no, 
 
 114. 
 Louth, 6, 44, 45, 97. 
 Louth Grammar School, 42. 
 Lushington, Professor E. L., 
 
 122, 142, 144- 
 Lushington, Henry, 121, 145. 
 Lushingtons, 142. 
 Lyall, Sir Alfred, 193. 
 Lythehill, 192. 
 Lytton, Bulwer, 73. 
 
 Mablethorpe, 45, 85. 
 Macdonald, Dr. George, 136. 
 
 Magdalen, 47. 
 
 Maidstone, 142. 
 
 Maidstone Mechanics' Institute, 
 
 145- 
 Maltby-le-marsh, 46, 85. 
 " Mariana," 82, 83, 84, 86. 
 Marmion, Joane de, 98. 
 Marmion, Philip de, 97. 
 Marmions, 96, 98. 
 " Marriage of Geraint, The," 1 80. 
 " Maud," 90, 148, 165. 
 Maurice, 125, 167, 175. 
 Mavis-Enderby, 35. 
 " Mayflower," The, 179, 187. 
 Mead Fields, 186. 
 " Measure for Measure," 83. 
 Merivale, 123. 
 Merlin, 166. 
 " Miller's Daughter, The," 89, 
 
 90, 93, 101, 153. 
 Milnes, Monckton, 122, 123, 137, 
 
 142, 164. 
 Milton, 123, 124, 190. 
 Mirehouse, 103. 
 " Modern Painters," 147, 148. 
 Montpelier Row, 157. 
 " Morte d'Arthur," 103, 166. 
 Moxon, 147. 
 
 Needles, The, 181. 
 
 New Court, Trinity College, 
 
 126. 
 A'iiieieenth Century, 189. 
 North, Christopher, 101. 
 Northamptonshire, in. 
 " Northern Farmer," 88. 
 
202 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 " Ode on the Death of the Duke 
 
 of Wellington," 157. 
 Oldbuck, Jonathan, 35. 
 Oriel, 47. 
 Oxford, 47, 123. 
 Oxfordshire, 156. 
 
 "Palace of Art, The," 189. 
 Palgrave, Professor, 157, 193. 
 Park House, 142, 145. 
 Peterhouse, I2i. 
 Pierrepont, Right Hon. Henry 
 
 Man vers, 114. 
 Plato, 123. 
 
 " Poetry of Sorrow, The," 136. 
 " Poems by Two Brothers," 44. 
 
 58. 
 " Poems, Chiefly Lyrical," 81, 83, 
 
 124. 
 Pope's Villa, 157. 
 Prince Albert, 167. 
 "Princess, The," 145, 189. 
 Puritans, 24. 
 
 Queen Charlotte, 1 10. 
 Queen Elizabeth, iii, 112. 
 Queen Victoria, 89. 
 " Queen o' the May," 51. 
 Quirk, Rev. J. F., 60. 
 
 Rawnsley, Rev. R. D. B., 1 56. 
 Rawnsley, Rev. H. D., 14, 45. 
 " Recollections of the Arabian 
 
 Nights," 189. 
 Reformation, The, 84. 
 
 Richard II., 97. 
 Richmond Road, 157. 
 Ripon, Bishop of, 193. 
 Robinson, Rev. G. A., 8. 
 Rogers, 147. 
 Rose Crescent, 118. 
 Ruskin, 4, 103, 147, 149, 190. 
 Rutland, iii. 
 Rydal Mount, 176. 
 
 Salvator Mundi, 113. 
 Sandford, Sir Daniel K., 143. 
 " Scarecrow, or Malkin," 53. 
 " Scotch Song," 58. 
 Scotland, 57. 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 65, 79, 90, 96, 
 
 112, 113. 
 Scrivelsby Court, 96, 98. 
 Sebastiano del Piombo, 173. 
 Sellwood, Henry, 56, 155. 
 Sellwood, Miss Emily Sarah, 
 
 155- 
 
 Sellwood, Miss Louisa, 50 
 
 Sellwoods, 155. 
 
 Severn, 133. 
 
 Shakespeare, 25, 83, 173. 
 
 Shelley, 87. 
 
 Shiplake, 156. 
 
 Shiplake Church, 155. 
 
 Shotter Mill, 185. 
 
 Shropshire, 104. 
 
 Simeon, Sir John, 165. 
 
 " Sir Launcelot v. Queen Guine- 
 vere," 166. 
 
 Sir Percivale, 50. 
 
[NDEX. 
 
 203 
 
 Solent, 163, 178, 179, 187. 
 
 Somersby, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 14, 16, 
 27, 29, 33, 34, 38, 41, 42, 43, 
 45, 64, 65, 84, 85, 87, 92, 93, 
 95,96, 124, 128, 130, 137, 139, 
 
 150, 155, 171, 179- 
 Somersby Church, 22, 36, 39. 
 Somersby Church Bells, 24. 
 Somersby Church Font, 25. 
 Somersby Churchyard, 22. 
 Somersby Cross, 24. 
 Somersby Grange, 88, 89. 
 Somersby Register, 25, 26,27. 
 Somersby Sundial, 24. 
 Somersetshire, 155. 
 Spedding, James, 55, 103, 117, 
 
 122. 
 Spedding, Squire, 65. 
 Spilsby, 93. 
 St. Margaret, 36. 
 St. John's College, 119, 125. 
 ■Stamford, 74, 108, 109, iii. 
 Stanley, Dean, 167. 
 Sterling, 125. 
 Stockworth Mill, 88, 94. 
 Stratford, 26. 
 " Sunbeam, The," 179. 
 Surrey, 185, 186, 187. 
 Sussex, 186. 
 Swinburne, 180. 
 
 Tadema, 187. 
 Tealby, 48, 66. 
 Tealby Church, 67, 75. 
 " Tears, idle tears," 38. 
 
 Tennyson, 5, 7, 9, 12, 15, 21, 26, 
 29, 74, 79, 80, 83, 86, 89, 92, 
 loi, 102, 103, 104, 106, 117, 
 118, 121, 122, 123, 127, 128, 
 131, 133, 136, 142, 145, 146, 
 147, 148, 149, 153, 155, 157, 
 163, 164, 165, 166, 169, 173, 
 176, 181, 190. 
 
 Tennyson, Lady, 156, 157, 173, 
 185, 186, 192. 
 
 Tennyson, Cecilia, 143. 
 
 Tennyson, Charles, 7, 9, 29, 41, 
 42,43,46,47,49,55,58,67,74, 
 
 155- 
 Tennyson, Charlotte, 59. 
 Tennyson, Edward, 41. 
 Tennyson, Emilia, 30, 130. 
 Tennyson, Frederick, 41, 71. 
 Tennyson, George, 64, 67, 71, 73, 
 
 87. 
 Tennyson, Rev. George Clayton, 
 
 6,7, 12, 14, 24, 27, 28, 29, 36, 
 
 37, 124, 189- 
 Tennyson, Mrs. Elizabeth, 142, 
 
 150. 
 Tennyson, Hon. Hallam, 60, 
 
 158, 173- 
 Tennyson, H on. M rs. H allam, 1 93. 
 Tennyson, Horatio, 33, 41, 59. 
 Tennyson, Lionel, 63, 159, 173. 
 Tennyson, Mary, 30. 
 Tennyson, Septimus, 41, 59. 
 Tennyson, Misses, 37, 85. 
 Tennysons, 10, 30, 45, 48,98, 137, 
 
 140, 155, 189. 
 
204 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Tennyson's Down, 176. 
 
 Tennyson's Lane, 188. 
 
 Tent Lodge, 156. 
 
 Thackeray, 6, 122. 
 
 Thackeray, Miss, 171, 173. 
 
 Thames, 156, 157. 
 
 Thirlwall, Bishop, 144. 
 
 Thompson, 123. 
 
 Thorpe, John, 1 1 1. 
 
 " Timbuctoo," 123, 124. 
 
 "Times, Tlie," 136. 
 
 "To Ulysses," 175. 
 
 Trench, 93, 122, 125, 128, 129, 
 
 130, 164. 
 "Tribute, The,'' 164, 166. 
 Trinity College, 7, 118, 119, 126, 
 
 128, 143. 
 Trumpington Mill, 93. 
 Tunbridge Wells, 142. 
 Turner, 147. 
 Turner, Miss, 64. 
 Turner, Rev. Samuel, 48, 49. 
 Twickenham, 157. 
 "Two Voices," 21. 
 Tyndall, 187. 
 
 " Ulysses," 102. 
 Usselby, 64. 
 
 Vanbrugh, Sir J., 88. 
 
 Venables, 123. 
 Viceroy of India, 159. 
 Vienna, 129, 130. 
 " Vision of Sin, The," 102. 
 Vivian, Sir Walter, 189. 
 
 Wales, 54. 
 
 Waltham Abbey, 138. 
 Ward, Mrs. Humphry, 187. 
 Wash, The, 11. 
 Well Walk, 150. 
 Wellesley, Lord Charles, 114. 
 Wellington, Duke of, 114. 
 Westminster Hall, 97. 
 Westmoreland, 3. 
 "Westward, Ho !" 47. 
 White, Walter, 14. 
 William the Conqueror, 96. 
 William IV., 97. 
 Wilkie, 160. 
 Wimpole Street, 140. 
 Witham \alley, 11. 
 Woldsby Ebriorum, 51. 
 Woodbridge, 158. 
 Wood-Enderby, 35. 
 Wordsworth, 48, 102, 176. 
 
 Var, 178. 
 Yarmouth, 163. 
 Vounghusband, Jos., 27. 
 
 PKINTED AT THE UNIVEkSITY [ KESS, GLASGOW, BV KOBEKT MACT.EHUSi-..