"^■■^■■; "tA'i-- ■ ' 
 
 X #f 
 
 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 
 PR5581.C52 1903 
 
 Tennyson 
 
 3 1924 013 560 085 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
 Photograph by 
 
 The London Stereoscopic Co. 
 
I Cornell University 
 y Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924013560085 
 
T 
 
 ENNYSON 
 
 G. K. CHESTERTON 
 
 AND 
 
 DR. RICHARD GARNETT, C.B. 
 
 WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 JAMES POTT AND COMPANY 
 
 LONDON 
 
 HODDER AND STOUGHTON 
 
PRINTED BV 
 HAZKLL, WATSON AND VINEV, LD. 
 LONDON AND AYLESBUWY 
 ENGLAND. 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Laurence) 
 
 Ai.FKED Tennyson 
 
 The Brook at Sojieusby 
 
 An Early Portiiait of Tennyson 
 
 SoMERSBY Rectory, Lincolnshire (where Alfred Tennyson was born) 
 
 Louth ..... 
 
 SoMEiisBY Church . 
 
 Alfred Tennyson (from the painting by Samuel 
 
 Tennyson's Mother 
 
 Bag Enderby Church . 
 
 Alfred Tennyson, 1838 
 
 Old Grammar School, Louth 
 
 Arthur H. Hallam (from the bust by Chantrey) 
 
 Alfred Tennyson (from the medallion by Thomas Woolner, R.A.) 
 
 The Lady of Shalott ....... 
 
 The Palace of Art ....... 
 
 Alfred Tennyson (from the bust by Thomas Woolner, R.A.) 
 
 Mariana in the South 
 
 Stockworth Mill . 
 
 Clevedon Church 
 
 Geraint and Edyrn 
 
 In Memoriam (" Man dies : nor is 
 
 In Memoriam ("Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky") 
 
 Lady Tennyson ........ 
 
 HoRNCASTLE (the home of Emily Selhvood) . 
 
 there hope in dust ") 
 
 Front i. 
 
 sjnece 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 4. 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 8 
 
 9 
 
 10 
 
 11 
 
 12 
 
 13 
 
 14 
 
 14 
 
 15 
 
 16 
 
 17 
 
 18 
 
 19 
 
IV 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Grasby Church ............ 20 
 
 Chapel House, Twickenham (Tennyson's first home after his marriage) . 20 
 
 Elaine 21 
 
 Alfred Tennyson (1867) 22 
 
 Alfred Tennyson (from a portrait by G. F. Watts, K.A., 1859) . . 23 
 
 Alfred Tennyson (from the chalk drawing by M. Arnault) . . .24 
 
 Farringford (Tennyson's residence at Fresh\\ater) . . . . .25 
 
 Tennyson (about 1871) 26 
 
 Merlin and Vivien ........... 27 
 
 Facsimile of Tennyson's Manuscrii't, "Crossing the Bar" . . .28 
 
 Glade at Farrin(;ford (from a water-colour drawing by Mrs. Allingham) . 29 
 Freshwater ..........-•• 30 
 
 Freshwater Bay ........-••• 30 
 
 Guinevere ............. 31 
 
 Alfred Tennyson ........••• 32 
 
 Tennyson's Lane, Haslemere ......-.• 33 
 
 Aldworth (Tennyson's home near Haslemere) . . . . . .33 
 
 Tennyson's Memorial, Beacon Hill, Freshwater . . . . .34 
 
 Alfred Tennyson (from a portrait by G. F. Watts, R.A.) ... 35 
 
TENNYSON 
 
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 was merely the 
 accident of his hour, 
 the call of his age, which 
 made Tennyson a philo- 
 sophic poet. He was 
 naturally not only a pure 
 lover of beauty, but a 
 pure lover of beauty in a 
 much more peculiar and 
 distinguished sense even 
 than a man like Keats, or 
 a man like Robert Bridges. 
 He gave us scenes of 
 Nature that cannot easily 
 be surpassed, but he chose 
 them like a landscape 
 painter rather than like a 
 religious poet. Above all, 
 he exhibited his abstract lo\'e of the beautiful in one most personal 
 and characteristic fact. He was never so successful or so triumphant 
 as when he was describing not Nature, but art. He could describe 
 a statue as Shelley could describe a cloud. He was at his A^ery 
 best in describing buildings, in their blending of aspiration and 
 exactitude. He found to perfection the harmony between the 
 rhythmic recurrences of poetry and the rhythmic recurrences of 
 architecture. His description, for example, of the Palace of Art 
 is a thing entirely victorious and unique. The whole edifice, as 
 
 From aphoto hy Messrs. Carlton &^ Sons, Horncastic 
 THE BROOK AT SOMERSBY 
 
TENNYSON 
 
 AN EARLY 
 PORTRAIT OF 
 
 TENNYSON 
 
 Rischgitz Collection 
 
 described, rises as lightly as a lyric, it is full of the surge of the 
 hunger for beauty ; and yet a man might almost build upon the 
 description as upon the plans of an architect or the instructions 
 of a speculative builder. Such a lover of beauty was Tennyson, 
 a lover of beauty most especially where it is most to be found, in 
 the works of man. He loved beauty in its completeness, as we 
 find it in art, not in its more glorious incompleteness as we 
 
TENNYSON 
 
 find it in Nature. There is, perhaps, more lovehness in Nature 
 than in art, but there are not so many lovely things. The 
 loveliness is broken to pieces and scattered : the almond tree in 
 blossom will have a mob of nameless insects at its root, and the 
 most perfect cell in the great forest-house is likely enough to 
 smell like a sewer. Tennyson loved beauty more in its collected 
 form in art, poetry, and sculpture ; like his own " Lady of Shalott," 
 it was his office to look rather at the mirror than at the object. 
 He was an artist, as it were, at two removes : he was a splendid 
 imitator of the splendid imitations. It is true that his natural 
 history was exquisitely exact, but natural history and natural 
 
 J^rom a tihoto l<y Messrs, Curtioit &^ Sens, Horiu\isUc 
 
 SOMERSBY RECTORY, LINCOLNSHIRE 
 Where Alfred Tennyson was born, on Sunday, August 6th, iScg 
 
TENNYSON 
 
 (Reproducefl from " The Laureate's Country," by kind permission of 
 Messrs. Seeley & Co., Ltd.) 
 
 religion are things 
 that can be, under 
 certain circumstances, 
 more unnatural than 
 anything in the world. 
 In reading Tennyson's 
 natural descriptions 
 we never seem to be 
 in physical contact 
 with the earth. We 
 learn nothing of the 
 coarse good - temper 
 and rank energy of 
 life. We see the 
 whole scene accurately, but we see it through glass. In Tennyson's 
 works we see Nature indeed, and hear Nature, but we do not smell it. 
 But this poet of beauty and a certain magnificent idleness 
 lived at a time when all men had to wrestle and decide. It is not 
 easy for any person who lives in our time, when the dust has settled 
 
 and the spiritual 
 perspective has been 
 restored, to realise 
 what the entrance 
 of the idea of evolu- 
 tion meant for the 
 men of those days. 
 To us it is a discovery 
 of another link in a 
 chain which, however 
 far we follow it, still 
 stretches back into a 
 
 ssj's. Carlton £^ Sons, Horncastie 
 
 soMERSBY CHURCH dlvlue mystcry. To 
 
 From a photo hy JSh 
 
TENNYSON 
 
 ALFRED 
 TENNYSON 
 
 From i/w painting by 
 Sauiuei Laurence 
 
 Rischgitz Collection 
 
 many of the men of that time it would appear from their 
 writings that it was the heart-breaking and desolating disco^'ery 
 of the end and origin of the chain. To them had happened 
 the most black and hopeless catastrophe concei\'able to human 
 nature ; they had found a logical explanation of all things. To 
 them it seemed that an Ape had suddenly risen to gigantic stature 
 and destroyed the seven heavens. It is difficult, no doubt, for us 
 
TENNYSON 
 
 TENNYSON'S MOTHER 
 
 Frotn a photo by AUsfirs, Carlion d^ Sons, Hon, 
 BAG ENDERBY CHURCH 
 
 in somewhat subtler days to understand 
 how anybody could suppose that the 
 origin of species had anything to do 
 with the origin of being. To us it 
 appears that to tell a man who asks 
 who made his mind that e\'olution 
 made it, is like telling a man who 
 asks who rolled a cab-wheel over his 
 leg that revolution rolled it. To state 
 the process is scarcely to state the 
 agent. But the position of those who 
 regarded the opening of the " Descent 
 of JMan " as the opening of one of the 
 seals of the last days, is a great deal 
 sounder than people have generally 
 allowed. It has been constantly 
 supposed that they were angry 
 with Darwinism because it 
 appeared to do something or 
 other to the Book of (ienesis ; 
 but this was a pretext or a fancy. 
 They fundamentally rebelled 
 against Darwinism, not because 
 they had a fear that it would 
 affect Scripture, but because 
 they had a fear, not altogether 
 unreasonable or ill-founded, that 
 it would affect morality. INIan 
 had been engaged, through in- 
 numerable ages, in a struggle 
 with sin. The e\'il within him 
 was as strong as he could cope 
 
TENNYSON 
 
 ALFRED 
 TENNYSON, 
 
 1838 
 
 From an early 
 Daguerreotype 
 
 (Reproduced 
 from"Tennyson: 
 a Memoir," by 
 kind permission 
 
 of Messrs. 
 
 Macraillan&Co., 
 
 Ltd.) 
 
 with — it was as powerful as a cannonade f 
 and as enchanting as a song. But in this ; 
 struggle he had always had Nature on his side. 
 He might be polluted and agonised, but the 
 flowers were innocent and the hills were j 
 strong. All the armoury of life, 
 the spears of the pinewood and 
 the batteries of the lightning, went 
 into battle beside him. Tennyson 
 lived in the hour when, to all 
 mortal appearance, the whole of 
 the physical world de- 
 serted to the devil. The 
 universe, governed by 
 violence and death, left 
 man to fight alone, with 
 a handful of myths and 
 memories. Men had now 
 to wander in polluted 
 fields and lift up their 
 eyes to abominable hills. 
 They had to arm them- 
 selves against the cruelty 
 of flowers and the crimes 
 of the grass. The first 
 honour, 
 surely, is to 
 those who 
 did not faint 
 in the face 
 of that con- 
 f ounding 
 
 Ein-ra-vd I'V G. I. SlodM-t 
 
 OLD GRAMMAR 
 SCHOOL, LOUTH 
 
 Theoriginal building, 
 
 now no longer in 
 
 existence, where 
 
 Tennyson was sent 
 
 to school at the 
 
 age of seven 
 
 (Reproduced from 
 
 "The Laureate's 
 
 Country," by kiiid 
 
 permission of 
 
 Messrs. Seeley & 
 
 Co., Ltd.) 
 
 From a draiuing by E. Hull 
 
8 
 
 TENNYSON 
 
 cosmic betrayal ; to those who 
 sought and found a new ^'antage- 
 ground for the army of A^irtue. 
 Of these was Tennyson, and it 
 is surely the more to his honour, 
 since he was the idle lover of 
 beauty of whom we have spoken. 
 He felt that the time called him 
 to be an interpreter. Perhaps 
 he might even have been some- 
 thing more of a poet if he had 
 not sought to be something 
 more than a poet. He might 
 have written a more perfect 
 Arthurian epic if his heart had 
 been as much buried in pre- 
 historic sepulchres as the heart 
 of Mr. W. B. Yeats. He might 
 have made more of such poems 
 as " The Golden Year " if his 
 mind had been as clean of meta- 
 physics and as full of a poetic 
 rusticity as the mind of AVilliam 
 Morris. He might have been 
 a greater poet if he had been 
 less a man of his dubious and rambling age. But there are some 
 things that are greater than greatness ; there are some things that no 
 man with blood in his body would sell for the throne of Dante, and 
 one of them is to fire the feeblest shot in a war that really awaits 
 decision, or carry the meanest musket in an army that is really 
 marching by. Tennyson may even have forfeited immortality : but he 
 and the men of his age were more than immortal ; they were alive. 
 
 From the bust by Chantrcy 
 
 ARTHUR H. HALLAM 
 
 (Reproduced from Hallam's "Remains," by kind 
 permission of Mr. John Murray) 
 
TENNYSON 
 
 9 
 
 Tennyson had not a special talent for being a philosophic poet, 
 but he had a special vocation for being a philosophic poet. This 
 may seem a contradiction, but it is only because all the Latin or 
 Greek words we use tend endlessly to lose their meaning. A 
 vocation is supposed to mean merely a taste or faculty, just as 
 economy is held to mean merely the act of saving. Economy 
 means the management of a house or community. If a man 
 starves his best horse, or causes his best workman to strike for 
 more pay, he is not merely unwise, he is uneconoinical. So it is 
 with a vocation. If this country were suddenly invaded by some 
 huge alien and conquering population, we should all be called 
 to become 
 soldiers. We *- 
 
 should not think 
 in that time 
 that we were 
 sacrificing our 
 unfinished work 
 on Cattle-Feed- 
 ing or our hobby ; 
 of fretwork, our 
 brilliant career 
 at the Bar or 
 our taste for 
 painting in 
 water - colours. 
 We should all 
 ha^e a call to 
 arms. W e 
 should, however, _ ,, , „. , „ „, , „ ^ 
 
 rroJii tlic incdallwn by 1 nomas lyoolncr, A. A. 
 
 by no means alfred tennyson 
 
 om-f><a +Vio-(- lira (Reproduced from "Tennyson's Poems." hy kind permission of 
 
 agiee tnat we Messrs. Macmllbn & Co., Ud.) 
 
10 
 
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 all had a vocation for arms. Yet a vocation is only the Latin for 
 
 a call. 
 
 In a celebrated passage in " Maud," Tennyson praised the 
 
 moral effects of war, and declared that some great conflict might 
 
 call out the greatness even of the pacific swindlers and sweaters 
 
 whom he saw around him in the Commercial age. He dreamed, 
 
 he said, that if — 
 
 . . . The battle-bolt sang from the three-decker out on the foam, 
 Many a smooth-faced, snub-nosed rogue would leap from his coimter 
 
 or till, 
 And strike, ^^■ere it but with his cheating vard-wand, home. 
 
 Tennyson lived in the time of a conflict more crucial and frightful 
 
TENNYSON 
 
 11 
 
 THE PALACE OF 
 ART 
 
 pTOm a draluvig l>y 
 Dant€ Gabriel Rtyssetti 
 
 (Reproduced from 
 
 ''Tennyson's Poems," 
 
 by kind permission of 
 
 Messrs. Macmillan & Co., 
 
 Ltd.) 
 
 than any European struggle, the conflict between the apparent 
 artificiahty of morals and the apparent immorality of science. A 
 ship more symbolic and menacing than any foreign three-decker 
 hove in sight in that time — the great, gory pirate-ship of Nature, 
 challenging all the civilisations of the world. And his supreme 
 honour is this, that he behaved like his own imaginary snub-nosed 
 rogue. His honour is that in that hour he despised the flowers 
 and] embroideries of Keats as the counter-jumper might despise his 
 tapes and cottons. He was by nature a hedonistic and pastoral 
 poet, but he leapt from his poetic counter and till and struck, were 
 it but with his gimcrack mandolin, home. 
 
12 
 
 TENNYSON 
 
 Tennyson's influence 
 on poetry may, for a 
 time, be modified. This 
 is the fate of every man 
 who throws himself into 
 his own age, catches the 
 echo of its temporary 
 phrases, is kept busy in 
 batthng with its tem- 
 porary delusions. There 
 are many men whom 
 history has for a time for- 
 gotten to whom it owes 
 more than it could count. 
 But if Tennyson is extin- 
 guished it will be with 
 the most glorious extinc- 
 tion, 
 ways 
 may 
 being 
 
 There are two 
 in which a man 
 vanish — tlirough 
 thoroughly con- 
 quered or through being 
 thoroughly the Conqueror. 
 In the main the great 
 Broad Church philosophy 
 which Tennyson uttered has been adopted by every one. This will 
 make against his fame. For a man may vanish as Chaos vanished 
 in the face of creation, or he may vanish as God vanished in filling 
 all things with that created life. 
 
 G. K. Chesterton. 
 
 ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
 A marble bust, copied by Miss Grant Irom the original, sculptured 
 from life in 1857 by Thomas Woolner, R.A. 
 
 Rischgitz Collection 
 
TENNYSON 
 AS AN INTELLECTUAL FORCE 
 
 IT is easy to exaggerate, and equally easy to underrate, the 
 influence of Tennyson on his age as an intellectual force. It 
 will be exaggerated if we regard him as a great original mind, a 
 proclaimer or revealer of novel truth. It will be underrated if we 
 overlook tlie great part reserxed for him who reveals, not new 
 truth to the age, but the age to itself, by presenting it with a 
 
 MARIANA IN THE 
 SOUTH 
 
 Fro^n a draining by 
 Dante Gabriel Rossctii 
 
 (Reproduced from 
 
 " T'ennyson's Poems," 
 
 by kind permission of 
 
 Messrs. Macmillaii& Co., 
 
 Ltd.) 
 
14 
 
 TEXXYSOX 
 
 SlOCKWOklH MILL 
 
 (Reproduced from " The Homes and Haunts of Alfred, Lord Tennyson,' by knid 
 permission of Mr. George G. Napier and Messrs. James Maclehose & Sons) 
 
 miniature of its own 
 higliest, and frequently 
 unconscious, tenden- 
 cies and aspirations. 
 Xot Dryden or Pope 
 were more intimately 
 associated with their 
 respective ages than 
 Tennyson Avith that 
 brilliant period to 
 which we now look 
 back as the age of 
 ^^ictoria. His figure 
 cannot, indeed, be so dominant as theirs. The ^^ictorian era was 
 far more affluent in literary genius than the periods of Dryden and 
 Pope ; and Tennyson appears as but one of a splendid group, some 
 of whom surpass him in native force of mind and intellectual 
 endowment. But when we measure these illustrious men with the 
 
 spirit of their age, we 
 perceive that — with 
 the exception of 
 Dickens, who paints 
 the manners rather 
 than the mind of the 
 time, and JNIacaulay, 
 who reproduces its 
 a\'erage but not its 
 higher mood — there 
 
 is something as it 
 
 ci.EviiT.oN CHURCH wcrc scctariau in 
 
 Where the remains of Arthur Hallam were finally laid to rest on 
 
 January jrd, is.h theiii wliicli prevciits 
 
 (Reproduced from "The Homes and Haunts of Alfred, Lord Tenny.son," by kind 4-1*1* 4- J 
 
 permi.ssion of Mr. George G. Napier and ?^Iessrs. James iMaclehuse & Suns) tlieiF Oeillg HCCepteCl 
 

16 
 
 TPZNNYSON 
 
 as representatives of 
 their epoch in the 
 fullest sense. In 
 some instances, such 
 as Carlyle and 
 13 r o w n i n g and 
 T h a c k e r a y , the 
 cause may be an 
 exceptional original- 
 ity \'erging upon 
 eccentricity; in 
 others, like George 
 Eliot, it may be 
 allegiance to some 
 particular scheme of 
 thought ; in others, 
 like Ruskin and 
 IMatthew Arnold, 
 exclusive devotion 
 to some particular 
 mission. In Tenny- 
 son, and in him 
 alone, we find the 
 man who cannot be 
 identified with any 
 one of the many 
 tendencies of the 
 age, but has affini- 
 ties with all. Ask 
 for the composition 
 which of all contemporary compositions bears the Victorian stamp 
 most unmistakably, which tells us most respecting the age's thoughts 
 
 I-'rovi It draining by A. Garth Jones 
 
 IN MEjMORIAM 
 
 " i\Ian clie-i : TKjr is thert hope in dust" 
 
 (Reproduced from the Caxtoii Scries Edition of Tennyson's 
 by kind permission uf Messrs. George Newnes, 
 
 " In i\Iemoriam," 
 Ltd.) 
 
TENNYSON 
 
 17 
 
 respecting itself, and 
 there will be little 
 hesitation in naming 
 "Locksley Hall." 
 
 Tennyson re- 
 turns to his times 
 what he has received 
 from them, but in an 
 exquisitely embel- 
 lislied and purified 
 condition ; he is tlie 
 mirror in which the 
 age contemplates all 
 that is best in itself 
 Matthew Arnold 
 would perhaps not 
 have been wrong in 
 declining to recoy- 
 nise Tennyson as 
 " a great and power- 
 ful spirit " if 
 " power " had been 
 the indispensable 
 condition of " great- 
 ness " ; but he forffot 
 that the receptive 
 poet may be as 
 potent as the 
 creative. His ca\il 
 might with equal 
 propriety have been aimed at A'irgil. In truth, Tennyson's fame 
 rests upon a securer basis than that of some greater poets, for 
 
 From a dra-lviiii; l^v A. ijitytit louts 
 
 IN MEiMORIAM 
 ■• Ring uut, wild bells, to the wild sky" 
 (Reprodticed from the Caxtoii Series Edition of Tennyson's 
 by kind permission of Messrs. George, Neunes 
 
 ■ In Me 
 Ltd,) 
 
18 
 
 TENNYSON 
 
 acqiuiintance 
 with him will 
 always be in- 
 d i s p e 11 s a b le 
 to the Jiistory 
 of thought 
 and culture 
 in England. 
 A Vhat George 
 Eliot and An- 
 thony Trol- 
 lope are for 
 the manners 
 of the period, 
 he is for its 
 mind : all the 
 ideas which 
 in his day 
 cliieHy moved 
 the elect 
 spirits of 
 English so- 
 ciety are to 
 be found in 
 him, clotlied 
 
 in the most exquisite language, and embodied in the most consummate 
 form. That they did not originate with him is of no consequence 
 whatever. We cannot consider him, regarded merely as a poet, as 
 quite upon the le\el of his great immediate predecessors ; but the 
 total disappearance of anj^ of these, except A\^ordsworth, would 
 lea\e a less painful blank in our intellectual history than the 
 disappearance of Tennyson. 
 
 J'/viii the Jiortrait at Aldworth l-y G. F. ]l'atts. /i.A. 
 LADV TENNYSON 
 
TENNYSON 
 
 19 
 
 FroH a dnnvi/is^ In' E. Hnll ■ '■ • ' 
 
 HORNCASTLE 
 
 The home of Emily Sellwood, afterwards Lady Tennyson 
 
 (Reproduced from "The Laureate's Countrj'," by kind permission of Messrs. Seeley & Co., Ltd.) 
 
 Beginning, even in liis crudest attempts, with a manner dis- 
 tinctly his own, he attained a style which could be mistaken for 
 that of no predecessor (though most curiously anticipated by a few 
 blank-verse lines of William Blake), and which no imitator has 
 been able to rival. Wliat is most truly remarkable is that while 
 much of his poetry is perhaps the most artificial in construction of 
 any in our language, and much again wears the aspect of bird-like 
 spontaneity, these contrasted manners e^'idently proceed from the 
 same writer, and no one would think of ascribing them to different 
 hands. As a master of blank verse Tennyson, though perhaps not fully 
 attaining the sweetness of Coleridge or the occasional grandeur of 
 A'\''ordsworth and Shelley, is upon the whole the third in our language 
 after Shakespeare and Milton, and, unlike Shakespeare and INIilton, he 
 has made it difficult for his successors to write blank verse after him. 
 
20 
 
 TENNYSON 
 
 Froiii a plioto in the possession o/ the Rc7'. A. 11'. li-'oi-kii/a?!, I'ic 
 
 grasi:y church 
 
 o/ Grasl'y 
 
 Tennyson is es- 
 sentially a composite 
 poet. Dryden's famous 
 \'erses, grand in ex- 
 pression, but question- 
 able in their applica- 
 tion to IMilton, are 
 perfectly applicable 
 to hini ; save that, in 
 making him. Nature 
 did not combine two 
 poets, but many. 
 This is a common 
 phenomenon at the close of a great epoch ; it is almost peculiar to 
 Tennyson's age that it sliould tlien liave heralded the appearance 
 of a new era ; and that, sinmltaneously with tlie inheritor of the 
 past, perhaps the most original and self-sufficing of all poets should 
 have appeared in the person of Robert Browning. A comparison 
 between these illustrious writers would lead us too far ; we have 
 
 already implied that 
 Teimyson occupies the 
 more conspicuous place 
 in literary history on 
 account of his repre- 
 sentative character. 
 
 The first import- 
 ant recognition of 
 Tennyson's genius 
 came from Stuart INIill, 
 who, partly perhaps 
 CHAPEL HOUSE, pwiLkENHAM uudcr tlic guidaucc of 
 
 Tennyson's llrst settled home after his marriage -■ ,f- rii i • i 
 
 Ri.chgi.z Collection J^li'^- 1 aylor, evmeed 
 
From a thawing by Gustave Dove 
 
 (Reproduced from 
 
 ustvatioiis to Tennyson's 'Idylls of the King,'" by kind permission of Messrs. 
 Ward, Lock & Co.) 
 
22 
 
 TENNYSON 
 
 about 183.5 a remarkable 
 insight into Slielley and 
 Browning as well as 
 Tennyson. In the eourse 
 of his observations he de- 
 clared that all that Tenny- 
 son needed to be a great 
 poet was a system of 
 philosophy, to which Time 
 would certainly conduct 
 him. If he only meant 
 that Tennyson needed 
 " the years that bring the 
 philosophic mind," the 
 observation was entirely 
 just ; if he expected the 
 poet either to evolve a 
 system of philosophy for 
 himself or to fall under 
 the sway of some great 
 thinker, he was mistaken. 
 Had Tennyson done either 
 he inight have been a 
 very great and very inter- 
 esting poet ; but he could not have been the poet of his age : for 
 the temper of tlie time, when it was not violently partisan, was 
 liberally eclectic. There was no one great leading idea, such as 
 that of evolution in the last quarter of last century, so ample 
 and so characteristic of the age that a poet might become its 
 disciple without yielding to party what was meant for mankind. 
 Two chief currents of thought there were ; but they were antag- 
 onistic, e\'en though JMr. Gladstone has proved that a very 
 
 Fro7i! n. pJioiog)-aph in 1S67 I'y Mrs. Julia jMargarct Caine}-on 
 ALFRED TENNYSON 
 (Reproduced hy permission of Mr. J. Caswall Smith) 
 
\\ 
 
 TENNYSON 
 
 23 
 
 exceptional mind might 
 find room for both. 
 Nothing was more char- 
 acteristic of the age than 
 the reaction towards 
 mediaeval ideas, headed by 
 Newman, except the ri\'al 
 and seemingly incom- 
 patible gospel of "the 
 railway and the steam- 
 ship " and all their corol- 
 laries. It cannot be said 
 that Tennyson, like 
 Gladstone, found equal 
 room for both ideals in 
 his mind, for until old 
 age had made him mis- 
 trustful and querulous he 
 was essentially a man of 
 progress. But his choice 
 of the Arthurian legend 
 for what he intended to 
 be his chief work, and the 
 sentiment of many of his 
 
 most beautiful minor poems, show what attraction the mediaeval 
 spirit also possessed for him ; nor, if he was to be in truth the 
 poetical representati\'e of his period, could it liave l)een otherwise. 
 He is not, however, like Gladstone, alternately a medictval and a 
 modern man ; but he uses medife\al sentiment with exquisite 
 judgment to mellow what may appear harsh or crude in the new 
 ideas of political reform, diffusion of education, mechanical inven- 
 tion, free trade, and colonial expansion. The Victorian, in fact, 
 
 From the poiirait ia thi! pOiSLSsi^^n of Lady llunry So/'ursti, 
 paintat I'v C. F. Watts, K-A., in 1S59 
 
 ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
From the c/ni/k ilra-ii.<i>ii; by M. Aj-iiaiil. -ait Oalloy 
 
 ALFRED TENNYSON 
 Riscligit;^ Cullection 
 
TENNYSON 
 
 'JO 
 
 Fi'oifi a photo by lifcssrs. F. Frith &^ Co., Reig-ate 
 
 FARRINGFORD 
 Tennyson's residence at Freshwater 
 
 finds himself nearly in the position of tlie Elizabethan, who also 
 had a future and a past ; and, except in his own, there is no age 
 in which Tennyson would have felt himself more at home than in 
 the age of Elizabeth. He does, indeed, in " ]Maud " react very 
 vigorously against certain tendencies of the age which he disliked ; 
 but this is not in the interest of the media;val or any other order 
 of ideas incompatible with the fullest de\elopment of the nine- 
 teenth century. If the utterance here appears passionate, it must 
 be remembered that the poet writes as a combatant. AVhen he 
 constructs, there is nothing more characteristic of him than his 
 sanity. The views on female education propounded in " The 
 Princess " are so sound that good sense has supplied the place of 
 the spirit of prophecy, which did not tabernacle with Tennyson. 
 " In JNIemoriam " is a most perfect expression of the average 
 theological temper of England in the nineteenth century. As 
 in composition, so in spirit, Tennyson's writings have all the 
 
26 
 
 TENNYSON 
 
 TENNYSON (Ai-.out 1871) 
 (Ri;pri>cUiC(j(l !)>■ perniissiuii of Mr, J. Caswall Smith) 
 
 ad\'antages and all 
 the disad\'antage.s of 
 the golden mean. 
 
 By virtue of this 
 golden mean Ten- 
 nyson remained at 
 an equal distance 
 from revolution and 
 reaction in his ideas, 
 and equally remote 
 from extra\'agance 
 and insipidity in his 
 work. He is es- 
 sentially a man of 
 the new time ; he 
 begins his career 
 steeped in the in- 
 fluence of Shelley 
 and Keats, without 
 whom he would 
 never have attained 
 the height he did — 
 a height neverthe- 
 less, in our opinion, appreciably below theirs, if he is regarded 
 simply as a poet. But he is a poet and much else ; he is the 
 interpreter of the Mctorian era — firstly to itself, secondly to the 
 ages to come. Had e\en any poet of greater genius than himself 
 arisen in his own day, Aviiich did not happen, he would still have 
 remained the national poet of the time in virtue of his universality. 
 Some personal friends — splcndidc mouhiccs — have hailed him as our 
 greatest poet since Shakespeare. This is absurd ; but it is true 
 that no other poet since Shakespeare has produced a body of 
 
28 
 
 TENNYSON 
 
 (i/t\X of^ (Xt*n ttUl fti. yyu.. 
 ^^ fr*^ %3nA U no rr^rur^ 9. /^ i-M- , • 
 "^^w. 7 ^ nj- Is fKA.^ 
 
 <W/ iL/4i/p ^.j;^. 
 
 ^^^^ (t^ fUA in oU^/t. 
 
 A FACSIMILE OF TENNYSON'S MANUSCRIPT, "CROSSING THE EAR' 
 
 (Rep'OLluced from " Tennyson : A Memoii'," by kind permission of 
 
 [Messrs. llacmillan ft Co., Lid.) 
 
 tf, 
 
 Uf 
 
TENNYSON 
 
 29 
 
 ideas will always be 
 congenial to the solid, 
 practical, robust, and 
 yet tender and 
 emotional mind of 
 England. They may 
 be briefly defined as 
 the recognition of the 
 association of c o n - 
 tinuity with mutability 
 in human institutions ; 
 the utmost reverence 
 for the past combined 
 Avith the full and not 
 regretful admission 
 that — 
 
 1'he old ordcT changes, 
 
 giving place to new. 
 And God fulfils Himself 
 
 in nianv wavs ; 
 
 the conception of 
 Freedom as sometliing 
 that " broadens down, 
 from precedent to pre- 
 cedent " ; A'eneration 
 for " the Throne un- 
 shaken still," so long as it continues " broad-based upon the People's 
 will," which will always be the case so long as 
 
 Statesmen at the Council meet 
 Who know the seasons. 
 
 Philosophically and theologically, Tennyson is even more con- 
 spicuously the representative of the average English mind of his 
 
 3 
 
 F^-oin a ivatc7'-coli^iir draiin/ig by A/)s. Allinghaiii. 
 
 THE GLADE AT FARRINGFORD 
 (Reproduced by kind permission of the Artist) 
 
30 
 
 TENNYSON 
 
 day. Not that he is 
 a fusion of conflicting 
 tendencies, but that 
 he occupies a central 
 position, equally re- 
 mote from the ex- 
 cesses of scepticism 
 and the excesses of 
 d e ^' o t i o n . This 
 position lie is able to 
 fill from his relation 
 
 Fro,,,. aj,holo by Messrs. F. Frith &> Co., Rcigatu tO ColCridgC, tllC grCat 
 
 FRESHWATER 4. X- j.1 
 
 exponent or the 'ciu 
 media ; not, as in former days, between Protestantism and Roman- 
 ism, but between orthodoxy and free tliought. Tennyson cannot, 
 indeed, be termed Coleridge's intellectual heir. As a thinker 
 he is far below his predecessor, and almost devoid of originality ; 
 but as a poet he fills up the measure of what was lacking in 
 Coleridge, whose season of speculation hardly arri^'ed until the 
 - season of poetry was 
 
 r • past. Tennyson was 
 
 but one of a band of 
 auditors — it might be 
 too much to call them 
 « disciples — of the sage 
 '#¥' who, curiously enough, 
 had himself been a 
 Cambridge man, and 
 who, short and un- 
 satisfactory as had 
 been his residence at 
 
 . /■■- J^'rit/i ^r' Co. Reigatc 
 
 FRESHWATER i!AY tluit scat of Icaming, 
 
 
 S 
 
F}-oin a draiy.n>ig hy Gvstavc Dorc 
 
 GUINEVERE 
 
 (Reproduced from the "Illustrations to Tennyson's 'Idylls ot the Ring,'" hy kind permission ot 
 IMessrs, Ward, Lock S: Co.) 
 
From a photo I'y Bari-aud 
 
 ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
TENNYSOX 
 
 33 
 
 seemed to have left 
 behind him some in- 
 visible influence des- 
 tined to germinate in 
 due time, for all his 
 most distinguished 
 followers Mere Can- 
 tabs. Such another 
 school, only lacking a 
 poet, had flourished at 
 Cambridge in the 
 seventeenth century, 
 and now caine up 
 again like long-buried seeds in a newly disturbed soil. The precise 
 value of their ideas may always be matter for discussion ; but 
 they exerted without doubt a happy influence by 
 
 Turning to scorn with lips divine 
 Tiie falsehood of extremes. 
 
 miaaimj'ik^jssmd " 
 
 '^'^SSKHm 
 
 ■.^'--•^n.»,'-^|pi 
 
 
 Ri--' '" 
 
 
 
 From a photo I'y tllc Gra/'holonc Co. 
 
 TENNYSON'S LANE, HASLEMERE 
 
 providing religious 
 minds reverent of the 
 past with an alterna- 
 tive to mere medi- 
 fEvalism, and gently 
 curbing Science in tlie 
 character she some- 
 times assumes of "a 
 Avild Pallas of tlie 
 brain. " AVhen the 
 natural moodiness of 
 Tennyson's tempera- 
 ment is considered, the 
 
 1 
 
 : photo by the Gi aphotont Lo 
 
 ALDWORTH 
 Tennyson's home near Hasleniere 
 
34 
 
 TENNYSON 
 
 prevalent optimism of his ideas, both 
 as regards tlie individual and the 
 State, appears infinitely creditable to 
 him. These are ideas natural to 
 sane and reflecting Englishmen, un- 
 challenged in quiet times, but Avhich 
 may be obscured or overwhelmed iii 
 seasons of great popular excitement. 
 The intellectual force of Tennyson is 
 perhaps chiefly shown in the art and 
 attractiveness with which they are 
 set forth ; e\'en much that might 
 have appeared tame or prosaic is 
 invested with all the charms of 
 imagination, and commends itself to 
 tlie poet equally with the statesman. 
 Tennyson is not the greatest of poets, 
 but appreciation of his poems is one 
 of the surest criteria of poetical 
 taste ; he is not one of the greatest 
 of thinkers, but agreement with his 
 general cast of thought is an excel- 
 lent proof of sanity ; many singers 
 have been more Delphic in their 
 
 inspiration, but few, by maxims of temperate wisdom, have provided 
 
 their native land ^^'ith such a Palladium. ^ 
 
 lllCHAltD CiARXETT. 
 
 From a Jihoio by JMcssrs. F. Frith £^ Co., 
 Rcigatc 
 TENNYSON'S MEMORIAL, BEACON 
 HILL, FRESHWATER 
 
 Somersby 
 Kectory, tlie 
 birthplace of 
 Alfred Tennyson 
 
 see page 3 
 
 B I G K A P H I C A E NOTE 
 
 Alfred Teiinysdii was Imni (in Suiiday, Auffust 6th, 1809, at Somersby, 
 a village in North Liiicnlushire between Horncastle and Spilsby. His father, 
 the Rev. Dr. Georfje t'laytim Tennyson, Rector of Somersby, married in 1805 
 Elizabeth Fytehe, daiig-hter of the A'iear of Louth, in the same county ; and, 
 of their twelve children, 'Alfred was the fourth. 
 
F}-oin a portrait by G. F. Watts, J\.A. 
 
 ALFRED TENNYSON 
 Rischgicz Collection 
 
86 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 Somersby Brook 
 
 see page i 
 
 Tennyson's 
 Motlier 
 
 see page 6 
 
 Somersby 
 Church 
 
 see page 4 
 
 Bag Enderby 
 Church 
 
 see page 6 
 
 Louth 
 
 ■ /■";'■<' 4 
 
 The Grammar 
 School, Louth 
 
 seepage J 
 
 He always spuke n-ith affectionate remembrance of his early home : of the 
 woodbine trained round his nursery window ; of the mediaeval-looking dining- 
 hall, with its pointed stained-glass casements ; f)f the pleasant drawing-room, 
 lined with bookshelves and furnished with yellow upholstery. The lawn in 
 front of the house, where he composed his early poem, "A Spirit Haunts 
 the Year's Last Hours," was overshadowed on one side by wych-elms, on the 
 other by larch and sycamore trees. On the south was a path bounded by a 
 flower-border, and beyond '"a garden bower'd close" sloping gradually to the 
 field at tlie bottom of \\-liich ran the Somersby Brook 
 
 That loves 
 To purl o'er matted cress aud libbed sand, 
 Or dimple in the dark of rushy co\-es, 
 Drawing into his narrow earthen urn 
 
 In every elLow and turn, 
 The filtered tribute of the rough «oodland. 
 
 The charm ami beauty of tliis l)rook haunted the poet tlu-ougbout his life, 
 and to it he especially dedicated, "Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea." 
 Tennyson did not, however, [ittrilmte his famous poem, "The Brook," to the 
 same source of inspiration, declaring it was not addressed to any stream in 
 particular. 
 
 Tennyson was exceedingly fortunate in the environment of his childhood 
 and the early influence e.xercised by his parents. His mother was of a sweet 
 and gentle dispcj.-ition, and devoted herself entirely to the welfare of her 
 husband and her children. Her son is said to have taken her as a model in 
 " 'l"he Princess" ; and he certainly gave a more or less truthful description 
 of this " remarkable and saintly woman " in his poem " Isabel " : — 
 
 Locks not wide-dispread, 
 Madonna-wite on either side her head ; 
 Sweet lips whereon perpetually did reign 
 1'he sunmter calm of golden charity. 
 
 Tennyson's father H-as a man of marked physical strength and stature, 
 called l)y his parishioners "The .stern Doctor." In 180" he was appointed 
 to the living of Soiner.sby, and that of the adjoining village of Bag Enderby, 
 and this position he held until his death, on March Ifith, 1831, at the age of 
 fifty-two. He was Ijuried in the old country churchyard, where "absolute 
 stillness reigns," beneath the sliade of the rugged little tower. In his time 
 the roof of the church was co\'ered with thatch, as were also those of the 
 cottages in its immediate vicinity. 
 
 The li\'ings of Somersby and Bag Enderljy were held conjointly, service 
 being conducted at one church in the morning and at the other in the 
 afternoon. Dr. Tennyson read his sermons at Bag Enderliy from the nuaint 
 liigh-built pulpit, Alfred listening to them from the scjuire's roomy pe\v. 
 
 At the age of seven Tennyson was sent to schoid at Louth, a market-town 
 which may fairly lay claim to htiving been a factor of some importance in bis 
 early life. His maternal grandmother li^'ed in W'estgate Place, her house 
 being a second home to the young Teiniysons. The (dd Cirammar School 
 ivliere Alfred recei\'ed the early portion of his education is now no longer in 
 e.xistence. Teiniyson's recollections of it and of the Rev. J. Waite, at that 
 time the head-master, were not pleasant. " IIow I did liate that school I 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 37 
 
 Arthur Hallam 
 (from tlie bust by 
 Chantrey) 
 
 see J>Lj^e 8 
 
 Tbe Lady of 
 Shalott 
 
 see page lo 
 
 he wrote later. "The Diily good I got from it was the memory of the words 
 iiorin.-i desilii'iitix iiqiin', and of an ohl wall covered with wild weeds opposite 
 the school windows." 
 
 Tennyson's first connected poems were composed at Louth, and in this 
 town also his first puhlished work saw the light, appearing in a v((lume 
 entitled "Poems by Two Brothers," issued in 1827 hy Mr. J. Jackson, a 
 bookseller. The two brothers were Charles and Alfred Tennyson. 
 
 After a school career which lasted four years, Alfred returned to Somersby 
 to continue his studies under his father's tuition. This course of instruction 
 was supplemented by classics at the hands of a Roman Catholic priest, and 
 music-lessons given him by a teacher at Horncastle. 
 
 In 1828 t^harles and Alfred Tennyson fcdloH'ed their elder brother 
 Frederick to Trinity College, Cambridge. They began their university life 
 in lodgings at No. 12, Rose Crescent, moving later to Trumpington .Street, 
 N<i. .57, Corpus Buildings. Of his early experiences of life at Cambridge, 
 Alfred wrote to his aunt: "I am sitting owl-like and solitary in my rooms 
 (nothing between me and the stars but a .stratum of tiles). The hoof of 
 the steed, the roll of the wheel, the shouts of drunken (iown and drunken 
 'I'own come up from below with a sea-like murmur. . . . The country is so 
 disgustingly level, the revelry of the place so monotonous, the studies of the 
 I'niversity so uninteresting, so much matter of fact. Xone but dry-headed, 
 calculating, angular little gentlemen can take much delight in them." 
 
 It was at Trinity College that Tennyson first made the acquaintance of 
 Arthur Hallam, youngest sou of the historian, whose friendship so prof'(jundly 
 influenced the poet's character and genius. " He would have been known if 
 he had lived," wrote 'I'ennyson, "as a great man, but not as a great poet ; he 
 was as near perfection as mortal man (;ould be." 
 
 In February 1831 Tennyson left Cambridge without taking a degree, and 
 returned to Somersby, his father dying within a month of his arrival. From 
 this time onward Hallam became an intimate visitor at the Rectory, and 
 formed an attachment for his friend'.s sister Emily. In July 1832 Tennyson 
 and Hallam went touring on the Rhine, and at the close of the year appeared 
 the vcdume of " Poems by Alfred Tenny.son," which contained, amongst 
 others, "The Lady of Shalott," "The Miller's Daughter," "The Palace 
 of Art," "The Lotos Eaters," and "A Dream of Fair \\'omen." 
 
 " \Vell I remember this poem," wrote Fitzgerald, with reference to " llie 
 Lady of Shalott," "read to me, bef(u-e I knew the author, at Cambridge one 
 night in 1832 or 3, and its images passing across my head, as across the 
 magic mirror, H'hile half asleep on the mail-coach to London ' in the creeping 
 dawn ' that followed." 
 
 There she weaves by night and day 
 A ni.agic \\ eb \\ith colours ga>'. 
 She has heard a whisper say, 
 A curse is on her if she stay 
 
 To look down to Camelot. 
 She knows not what the curse may be, 
 - - And so she wea\eth steadily. 
 And little other care hath she, 
 
 I'he Lady of Shalott. 
 
 'I he idea of "Mariana in the South" came to Teini 
 
 yson 
 
38 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 " Mariana in tlie 
 South " 
 
 sa- page 13 
 
 Stockwortli Mill 
 
 seepage 14 
 
 The Palace of Art 
 
 see page 11 
 
 Clevedon Church 
 
 see page 14 
 
 " In Memoriam " 
 
 see peiges 16, 17 
 
 The home of 
 Emily Sellwood, 
 at Horncastle 
 
 see page 19 
 
 travelling- ))etween Xarbniine anil I'erpignan. Hallaiu interpreted it to be 
 the " expression of desolate loneliness." 
 
 Till all the crimson changed, and past 
 
 Into deep orange o'er ihe sea, 
 Low on her knees herself she cast. 
 
 Before Our Lady murmur'd she ; 
 Complaining, " Mother, give me grace 
 
 To help me of my \\eary load," 
 
 And on the liquid mirror glow'd 
 The clear perfection of her fAce. 
 
 (If these earlier poems none added more ti^ Tennyson's g-rowing repntation 
 than " The Miller's Daiigliter." It was probalily written at Cambridge, and 
 the poet declared that the mill was no particular mill, or if he had thought 
 of any mill it was that of Trumpington, near Cambridge. But various 
 touches in the poem seem to indicate that the haunts of his boyhood were 
 present in his mind. 
 
 .'itockvvorth Mill was situated about two miles ahnig the banks of the 
 Somersby Brook, the poet'.s favourite walk, and might very well have inspired 
 the setting of these beautiful verses. 
 
 I loved the brimming wave that swanr 
 
 Thro' quiet meadous round the mill. 
 The sleepy pool above the dam. 
 
 The pool beneath it never still. 
 The meal-sacks on the whiten'd flooi", 
 
 The dark round of the dripping wheel. 
 The very air aljout the door 
 
 Made ntisty \vith the Hoating meal. 
 
 In the volume of 18;i2, several stanzas of "The Palace of Art" were 
 omitted, because Tennyson thought the poem was t<io full. '"The Palace 
 of Art,'" he wrote in 18!)l), "is the emliodiment of my own belief that the 
 Godlike life is with man and f(U' man." 
 
 Amongst the "marvellously compressed word pictures" of this poem is 
 the beautiful one of our illustration on page 11. 
 
 Or in a clear-wall'd city on the sea, 
 
 Near gilded organ-pipes, her hair 
 Wound with white roses, slept St. Cecily ; 
 
 \\\ angel look'd at her. 
 
 On the 1.5th of September, 1B:3;3, Arthur Hallam died suddenly at Vienna. 
 His remains ivere brought to England, and laid iinally to rest in the (dd and 
 lonely church beside the sea at Clevedon, on January 3rd, 18.')4. 
 
 \M'ien on my bed the moonlight falls, 
 
 I know that in thy jjlace of rest 
 
 By that "broad water of the west 
 There comes a glory oit the walls. 
 
 Tennyson's whide thoughts were absorbed in memories of his friend, and 
 he continually iirote fragmentary verses on the one tlieine A\-hich filled his 
 heart, many of them to l)e embcjdied seventeen years later in the ccmipleted 
 " In Memoriam." 
 
 In 18.'?0 Tennyson first met Emily Sellwood, who twenty years later 
 became his wife. Horncastle was the nearest toivn to Somersby, and in the 
 picturesque old market-square stood the red-brick residence of ]SIr. Hemy 
 Sellwood, a solicitor. The young Sellwoods being much of the same age as 
 theTennysons, a friendsliip sprang up between the two families, whicli in later 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 39 
 
 Grasby Churcli 
 
 sec page 20 
 
 Lady Tennyson 
 
 seepage 18 
 
 Chapel House, 
 Twickenham 
 
 see page 20 
 
 Farringford, 
 Tennyson's 
 residence at 
 Freshwater 
 
 see page 25 
 
 The Glade at 
 Farringford 
 
 see page 29 
 
 years ripened into a doulile matrimonial relationsliip. In 183(i, Charles 
 'Jennysdn, the poet's elder hrother, married Louisa, the youngest dauf<hter of 
 Henry Selhvood. In the previous year he had succeeded to the estate and 
 living of (irasby, taking the surname of Turner under his great-uncle's will. 
 At his own expense he built the vicarage, the church and the schools ; and on 
 his death, in 187'.<, Grasby descended to the Poet Laureate. It was at his 
 lirother's ivedding tliat tlie bride's sister, Emily, was taken into church by 
 Alfred Tennyson, but no engagement was recognised between them until four 
 or five years later, and their marriage did not take place until IS.iO. It was 
 scdemnised at Shiplake Cliurch on June l.'Sth, the clergyman who officiated 
 being the poet's intimate friend, tlie Rev. Robert Rjnvnsley. 
 
 In the April of the same year, on the death of Wordsivorth, Tennyson 
 liad been offered the poet-laureateship, to whicli post lie was appointed 
 on November I'Jth, owing chiefly to Prince All)ert's admiration for '" In 
 iVIemoriaui." 
 
 Lady Tennyson became the poet's adviser in literary matters. " I am 
 proud of her intellect," he wrote. She, with her " tender, spiritual nature," 
 was always by his side, clieerful, ccjurageous, and a sympathetic counselloi'. 
 She shielded his sensitive spirit fnuii the annoyances and trials of life and 
 " her faith as clear as the heights of the .fuue-blue heaven " helped liim in 
 himrs of depression and scu'row. 
 
 Chapel House, Twickenham, was the jjoet's first settled home after his 
 marriage, and he resided in it for three years. It was here his " Ode (ui tlie 
 Death of the Duke of AV'elliiigton " was written, and the birth of his .son 
 Ilallam took place in this house on August 11th, 18.52. 
 
 In 18.5;!, whilst staying in the Isle of Wight, Tennyson heard that the 
 residence called Farringford was to let at Freshwater. He decided to take 
 the place on lease, but two years later purchased it <iut of the proceeds 
 resulting from " Alaud," which was published in 18.5o, and F"arriiigfin-d 
 remained his home during tlie greater part of eacli year for forty j'ears, and 
 here he wrote some of his best-known works. 
 
 "The house at Farringford," says Mrs. Richmond Ritchie in her /iVcorr/.v, 
 "seemed like a charmed palace, with green Halls i\'ithout, and speaking 
 walls within. There hung Dante ^vith his solemn nose and wreath ; Italy 
 gleamed over the doorways ; friends' faces lined the passages, books filled 
 the shelves, and a glow of crimson was everywhere ; the oriel drawing- 
 room window was full of green and golden leaves, of the sound of V)irds and 
 of the distant sea." 
 
 The grounds of Farringford are exceedingly beautiful and picturescjue. 
 On the south side of the house is the glade, and close by 
 
 The waving pine which here 
 The warrior of Caprera set. 
 
 Referring to Farringford in his invitation to Maurice, Tennyson wi'ote — 
 
 Where far from noise and smoke of town 
 
 I watch the twiUght falling brown 
 All round a careless order'd garden, 
 
 Close to the ridge of a noble do\\n. 
 
 'Ilie ridge of the down in question constituted the poet's favourite i\'alk, and 
 
40 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL XOTE 
 
 Freshwater Bay 
 
 sec paj^e 30 
 
 Freshwater 
 VDlage 
 
 sec page 30 
 
 Alfred Tonnyson 
 
 see pages 22 and 26 
 
 "The IdyUsof 
 the King " 
 
 sec pc'grs 15, 21, 
 27. 31 
 
 Aldworth 
 
 see page 33 
 
 Tennyson's Lane 
 
 see page 33 
 
 Tennyson's 
 Memorial, 
 Beacon Hill, 
 Freshwater 
 
 sec page 34 
 
 Alfred Tennyson 
 (from the paint- 
 ing by Samuel 
 Laurence) 
 
 seepage 5 
 
 Alfred Tennyson 
 (from the paint- 
 ing hy G. F. Watts 
 in 1859) 
 
 see page 23 
 
 the scenery which he encountered round Freshivater Bay might well have 
 been represented in the opening \erse of " Enoch Arden " — 
 
 Long lines of cliff breaking have left a chasm ; 
 And in the chasm are foam and yellow sands. 
 
 Inland the road leads to the little village of Freshwater, in ivhich the erection 
 of a number of new houses evoked from the poet the lines — 
 
 Yonder lies our young sea-village — Art and Grace are less and less : 
 Science grows and Beauty dwindles — roofs of slated hideousness ! 
 
 (Opposite these villas stands an ivy-clad house at that time occupied by 
 Mrs. .Tulia Cameron, the celelirated lady art-photographer, two of ^^'hose 
 effective portraits of Teiniyson appear on pages 22 and 26. 
 
 In the autumn of 18.5i), '' The Idylls of the King " were first issued in their 
 original form, being four in number : Enid, Vivien, Elaine, and Guinevere, 
 and from their publication until the end of Tennyson's life his fame and 
 popularity continued witliout a check. During the next few years the poet 
 spent much time in travelling, l)ut in 18(i8 he laid the foundation-stone of a 
 new residence, named Aldworth, about tw(j miles from Haslemere, i\'hich 
 became his second home — 
 
 You came, and look'd and loved the view 
 
 Long-known and loved by me, 
 Green Sussex fading mto blue, 
 
 With one grey glimpse of sea. 
 
 On the H-ay from Ha.slcmere to Aldworth, it is necessary to cross a rough 
 comm<in covered with whin bushes to reach the long ivinding lane which was 
 jiamed Teiniyson's Lane. This was the poet's favourite walk when living in 
 the neighbourhood. 
 
 Tennyson died on Thursday, October fith, 18i)2, and was buried in the 
 Poets' Corner, \\'estminster Abbey, ne.vt to Robert Browning, and near the 
 Chancer monument. Against the pillar close by the grave has been placed 
 AVoolner's well-known bust. The monument erected to the memory of the 
 poet on Beacon Hill, near Fresliwater, was unveiled by the Dean of 
 Westminster on August 6th, 1897. 
 
 With regard to the portraits of I'ennyson reproduced in these pages, 
 perluips those of chief interest in addition to the Camercni photographs already 
 referred to are the paintings by >Samuel Laurence, executed about 1838, and 
 the three-quarter length by G. F. W atts, now in the possession of Lady 
 Henry Somerset. Of tlie former Fitzgerahl wrote ; 
 
 " ^'ery imperfect as Laurence's portrait is, it is nevertheless the hivt 
 painted portrait I ha\'e seen ; and certainly the oiili/ (uie of old days. 
 ' Bluliber-lipt ' I remember once Alfred called it ; so it is ; but still the only 
 one of old days, and still the best of all, to my thinking." 
 
 'I'lie AVatts portrait, according to Mr. V\'atts-Dunton, possesses "'a certain 
 dreaminess which suggests the poetic glamour of moonlight." The .same 
 Avriter asserts that " while most faces gain liy the artistic halo which a painter 
 of genius always sheds over his v\'ork, there are some few, some very few faces 
 that do not, and of these Lord Tennyson's is the most notable that I have 
 ever seen among men of great renown." 
 
AN EXPOSITION OF DANTE'S INFERNO 
 
 EXILES OF 
 
 7/6 s^ii^^^ 7/6 
 
 ETERNITY 
 
 NET. ML/ I Il/IVi^ 111 NET. 
 
 PREFIXED BY A LIFE OF DANTE 
 
 By 
 
 Rev. J. S. CARROLL, M.A. 
 
 There may seem to be some apolog}' necessary for adding 
 to the vast volume of Dante literature. It is true that 
 there is no lack of Essays on isolated points, general 
 Introductions and detailed Commentaries ; but of simple 
 and popular Exposition, of the Connnedia, canto by 
 canto, there exists very little in our language. To 
 present such an exposition, bringing" out the general 
 bearing and scope of Dante's ethical teaching, is the 
 chief purpose of this volume. Mere niceties And in- 
 genuities of interpretation have been avoided as far as 
 possible. It is the author's belief that Dante's symbolism 
 is not really so obscure and intricate as it appears to 
 a beginner, and that once the clue is gained, it leads 
 to the broad highway of universal morality. His 
 aim is to remove the impression of arbitrariness 
 which Dante's punishments leave on many minds, 
 by showing that in the main they are, in material, 
 visible and symbolic forms, the natural and inevitable 
 moral and spiritual issues of the various sins. 
 In this exposition constant reference is made to the 
 writings of Dante's great ethical authorities, Aristotle 
 and Thomas Aquinas ; but above all Dante is regarded 
 as his own best interpreter. 
 
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