THE LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 

 , 
 
 
 
 The Life and Times 
 of 'i'ennyson 
 
 [From 1809 to 1850] 
 
 
 
 BY 
 THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY 
 
 
 
 New Haven: Yale University Press 
 
 London: Humphrey Milford 
 
 Oxford University Press 
 
 MDCCCCXV 
 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
 
^£ 
 
 3A 
 
 Copyright, 1915 
 
 BY 
 
 Yale University Press 
 
 First printed, December, 1915, 1000 copies 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Tennyson's Early Years 1 
 
 II. Poems by Two Brothers 41 
 
 III. University Life 63 
 
 rV-VI. The Literary Situation in the Transi- 
 tion Period: 
 Part One: Critical Literature of the 
 
 Period 94 
 
 Part Two : Surviving Eeputations of the 
 
 Georgian Era 128 
 
 Part Three: Popular Authors of the 
 
 Period 163 
 
 VII. The Poems of 1830 205 
 
 VIIL Christopher North's Review . ... 227 
 IX-X. The Annuals : 
 
 Part One: The Origin and History of 
 
 the Annuals 245 
 
 Part Two: Tennyson's Contributions to 
 
 the Annuals 265 
 
 XL The Poems of 1832 279 
 
 XII. Lockhart's Review of Tennyson's 
 
 Second Volume 310 
 
 XIII. The Ten Years' Silence— First Half 
 
 (1832-1837) 325 
 
 328246 
 
vi CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XIV. The Ten Years' Silence— Second Half 
 
 (1837-1842) 357 
 
 XV. The Poems of 1842 378 
 
 XVI. Reception of the Poems of 1842 ... 416 
 XVII. American Reception of the Poems of 
 
 1842 . .- 446 
 
 XVIII. Christopher North's Later Attacks on 
 
 Tennyson 465 
 
 XIX. Tennyson's Pension and Bulwer's 
 
 Attack 497 
 
 XX. The Princess 530 
 
 XXL Poet Laureate 568 
 
 XXII. Arthur Henry Hallam 589 
 
 XXIII. In Memoriam 616 
 
INTEODUCTION 
 
 Professor Lounsbury's name, I suppose, is most 
 closely associated by the public with, his studies in 
 Chaucer and Shakespeare. His literary taste, how- 
 ever, was singularly catholic. Pope and Dryden, for 
 example, appealed to him strongly because of their 
 pugnacity and the keenness of their satire. Their 
 poems he knew intimately, and he often quoted pas- 
 sages from them in conversation, not always accu- 
 rately but rather by way of a paraphrase which gave 
 new edge to an epigram. Of later poets the ones he 
 read most were Byron, Browning, and Tennyson. 
 From any one of the three, he would repeat, when in 
 the mood for it, long stretches running to hundreds 
 of verses. Among the poems of Tennyson which he 
 sometimes recited were 'Locksley Hall,' the 'Ode on 
 the Death of the Duke of Wellington,' and parts of 
 'Maud,' 'The Princess,' and 'In Memoriam.' Many 
 of the quotations in this volume were first written out 
 from memory. 
 
 This admiration for Tennyson began in youth and 
 continued through a long life. It was his habit when 
 a schoolboy to clip from the newspaper any new 
 production of the poet and paste it in a scrapbook, 
 first, I daresay, committing the lines to memory; and 
 the most notable essay that he wrote while in college 
 was a defence of 'Maud' against hostile criticism. 
 
viii INTRODUCTION 
 
 Long afterwards, when the second 'Locksley HalP 
 made its appearance, he contributed to 'The New 
 Englander' a most illuminating contrast and compari- 
 son between this poem and the one of sixty years before 
 bearing the same name. The last lectures which he 
 gave at Yale, a decade ago, were on Tennyson and the 
 poet's early contemporaries. Always, the man who 
 had lived through the greater part of the Victorian 
 era set himself squarely against the wave of cheap 
 depreciation which at times threatened to overwhelm 
 Tennyson. Though he admitted the poet's limitations, 
 he insisted upon his greatness. 
 
 It was while Professor Lounsbury was in the midst 
 of his lectures that he planned a literary biography 
 of Tennyson. He never expected to cover the poet's 
 entire career, but he hoped that he might come down 
 to the publication of 'The Idylls of the lOng.' When 
 compelled to stop he had reached 'In Memoriam,' 
 though he had collected most of his materials for the 
 subsequent decade. In no "s^ase was his book intended 
 as a rival to other biographies of the poet, least of all 
 as a rival to the 'Memoir' of Tennyson by the poet's 
 son. "That work," Professor Lounsbury remarks in 
 notes which he had made towards a preface, "must 
 always be the final authority on the points it deals 
 wdth directly. All other biographies are under 
 obligations to it. My own obligations are sufficiently 
 shown by the numerous facts borrowed from it, which 
 are duly acknowledged on page after page." At the 
 same time, he goes on to say: "It is a matter of 
 supreme difficulty for one who is united to a man by 
 
INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 the closest of personal ties to tell satisfactorily the 
 story of his life. Especially is this so in the case of 
 a son. He cannot say anything in censure. Coming 
 from him, it would seem an act of impiety towards a 
 dead man. Equally he cannot say anything in praise, 
 even that which all the rest of the world would feel to 
 be justly due. It would be attributed in his case to 
 filial affection, not to the conclusion of an impartial 
 judge. Hence whatever appreciation he introduces 
 must come from the outside. Others must be brought 
 forward to say for him what he cannot say for himself 
 without being subjected to malevolent criticism. Such 
 a method of conveying an estimate is always unsat- 
 isfactory." This comment on the procedure of the 
 poet's son presents clearly Professor Lounsbury's 
 point of view. Free from the trammels of relation- 
 ship, he will always speak out as an unbiassed critic 
 in just praise and blame. This is what he did years 
 ago in his 'Life of James Fenimore Cooper.' In no 
 other way can one arrive at a true appraisal of a 
 writer. Professor Lounsbury's studies may be 
 regarded as supplementary to the ' Memoir ' by Hallam 
 Tennyson. 
 
 The title which the author chose for his book was 
 'The Life and Times of Tennyson.' Had the work 
 been brought nearer to completion, this would have 
 more properly described its scope than it does now. 
 Still, even in that case, there would have been need 
 of a brief explanation. It was not Professor Louns- 
 bury's purpose to relate anew those well-kno^vn inci- 
 dents in the poet's life which may be easily found 
 
X INTRODUCTION 
 
 elsewhere. Wliat he ever kept in mind was the 
 literary career of Tennyson. From many sources, 
 some of them very obscure, he drew such personal 
 incidents as would contribute directly to the end he 
 had in view. This is true even of the chapter on 
 Tennyson's youth. Most of the material that went 
 into those pages has a direct bearing on the poet's 
 future career. It was a difficult chapter to write, for 
 the boyhood of Tennyson has been passed over lightly 
 by all who have written upon him. Indeed, none of 
 them seems to have known much about it. No more 
 was it Professor Lounsbury's intention to make a full 
 survey of *'the times" embraced by the poet's eighty 
 years. That would have been a labor alike valueless 
 and impossible. As the reader will see, he has con- 
 fined his story to what immediately concerned Tenny- 
 son. So much and no more of ''the times" was 
 admitted. Accordingly certain great names of the 
 Victorian era either are casually mentioned or are 
 rendered conspicuous by their absence. They have 
 to give place to men who exerted a measurable 
 influence upon the varying fortunes of the poet's 
 literary career. These men were obviously not Brown- 
 ing and Matthew Arnold; they were, for the early 
 period, ''Christopher North," John Gibson Lockhart, 
 and scores of other reviewers whom the world has long 
 since consigned to oblivion. The opinions of these 
 critics then swayed the public for or against an author. 
 This is the reason why many of them are given a new 
 lease of life here. In a note summarizing his plan, I 
 find Professor Lounsbury saying: "I wish to bring 
 
INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 out clearly not only what took place in the life of the 
 poet during the period in question, but the situation 
 in which he found himself as regards literature, the 
 hostility which he encountered at the outset of his 
 career, and the circumstances which brought it about 
 and the influences that were at work both to create it 
 and to dissipate it. This is a field which has been 
 touched upon by none of his biographers, or if touched 
 upon merely alluded to." Though Professor Louns- 
 bury was compelled to shorten the period he once had 
 in mind, he has here depicted Tennyson's long struggle 
 for recognition down to the great triumph of 'In 
 Memoriam. ' It is the part of the poet's career that 
 has the greatest human interest. 
 
 An account of how Tennyson impressed his con- 
 temporaries involved, first of all, a consideration of 
 the critical literature of the time. *'I have gone over," 
 says Professor Lounsbury, ''every article of Tenny- 
 son which appeared in any quarterly, monthly, or 
 weekly of importance, whether in England or America, 
 from 1830 to 1855. Nor have I confined myself to 
 reviews which dealt directly with the poet. There is 
 no article dealing with the literary situation or with 
 the other writers of the period which I have not read 
 with more or less care." It is quite e\ddent that these 
 statements may be extended, mth some reserves, to 
 the daily newspapers which contained literary notices. 
 In these unworked mines. Professor Lounsbury dis- 
 covered fresh material for his volume. Sometimes he 
 used to grumble at the labor, but in his very heart he 
 thoroughly enjoyed it. Time often renders old views 
 
xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 and old opinions so absurd that they become a source 
 of delight to a man having Professor Lounsbury's 
 extraordinary sense of humor. He finds ''men extolled 
 to the skies whose names are now forgotten, and men 
 contemptuously decried whom the world now cherishes 
 as the greatest representatives of their age. ' ' Through 
 all this critical literature Professor Lounsbury slowly 
 ploughed his way. Some readers, he apprehended, 
 might object to his frequent extracts from it. Them 
 he would console by declaring that he had refrained, 
 out of regard to their sensibilities, from quoting scores 
 of passages which he might have adduced to illustrate 
 further the views once current concerning Tennyson. 
 By way of parenthesis, it may be observed that 
 Professor Lounsbury placed a very low estimate on 
 the intrinsic value of the criticism contemporary with 
 the poet. After admitting that he has met with some 
 articles still worth reading, he goes on to say: "The 
 chief impression produced upon me by them taken as 
 a whole is the general worthlessness of most contem- 
 porary criticism. Especially is this true of works of 
 the imagination. When it comes to the description of 
 matters of fact, superior knowledge may point out 
 errors of detail, but where taste and culture are the 
 leading factors, we never have much more than an 
 expression of the reviewer's likes and dislikes. . . . 
 After a careful examination of the criticism which 
 Tennyson received during the twenty-five years under 
 consideration, it is well within bounds to declare that 
 nine tenths of it is not worth the paper on which it 
 was written, and that no small share of this nine tenths 
 
INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 is discreditable to the men who wrote it and to the 
 periodicals in which it appeared." Why, then, it may 
 be asked, should one consider it? Why disturb the 
 dead ? Because in contemporary criticism and nowhere 
 else lies the literary biography of Tennyson. 
 
 While engaged upon this book, Professor Louns- 
 bury's eyes, never very good, failed him for close and 
 prolonged work. At best he could depend upon them 
 for no more than two or three hours a day. Sometimes 
 he could not depend upon them at all. That he might 
 not subject them to undue strain, he acquired the habit 
 of writing in the dark. Night after night, using a 
 pencil on coarse paper, he would sketch a series of 
 paragraphs for consideration in the morning. This 
 was almost invariably his custom in later years. 
 Needless to say, these rough drafts are difficult reading 
 for an outsider. Though the lines could be kept 
 reasonably straight, it was impossible for a man 
 enveloped in darkness to dot an i or to cross a t. 
 Moreover, many words were abbreviated, and numer- 
 ous sentences were left half written out. Every detail, 
 however, was perfectly plain to the author himself. 
 With these detached slips of paper and voluminous 
 notes before him, he composed on a typewriter his 
 various chapters, putting the paragraphs in logical 
 sequence. His next step was to subject his typewritten 
 copy to extensive revision with pen and ink. Subse- 
 quently he had a fair copy made for him by one more 
 expert in manipulating the typewriter. Nor did 
 composition end there. Besides having highly devel- 
 oped the instinct of the literary artist. Professor 
 
xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 Lounsbury strove at all times for perfect accuracy. 
 Before letting his manuscript finally go to the printer, 
 he went over it again with extreme care, modifying 
 where necessary his statements of fact, and re- 
 phrasing many sentences in order to gain the effects 
 he aimed to produce. Such was his usual procedure. 
 
 It is accordingly to be lamented that none of the 
 chapters printed here received Professor Lounsbury 's 
 final revision. All but three of them, however, had 
 reached the stage of the second typewritten copy ; and 
 on several of these he had indicated some of the 
 alterations which he wished to make; but he had not 
 proceeded far with this work — in no case through an 
 entire chapter. Whenever it was clear just what he 
 desired, I have made the emendations; otherwise I 
 have ventured upon no change except where a wrong 
 word had evidently slipped into the text, or where a 
 quotation was not quite literally given. Of the three 
 remaining chapters the fourteenth was nearly ready 
 for the second typewritten copy, but was being with- 
 held for additions the nature of which is not apparent. 
 The first chapter, which deals with Tennyson's youth, 
 was in a less satisfactory condition. Several of the 
 paragraphs Professor Lounsbury planned to modify 
 and reconstruct in the light of further study ; and the 
 views which he illustrates near the close on the 
 precocity of great poets were not fully developed 
 there. Indeed, the chapter, as he left it, broke off at 
 the beginning of a sentence. In order to give an 
 appearance of completeness to this chapter, I have 
 transferred to it a few passages from one that comes 
 
INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 midway in the book. Except for this and a few minor 
 corrections, it was necessary to let this chapter stand 
 in its incomplete state. The greatest perplexity arose 
 over what to do with the last chapter — the one on 
 'In Memoriam.' With the theme of this poem Pro- 
 fessor Lounsbury's mind was filled during the last 
 weeks of his life. Whenever his health permitted, he 
 wrote out various paragraphs in pencil, and he had 
 begun to organize them into a whole when the end 
 came. Much that he designed to say about *In 
 Memoriam' the reader ^svill find in this chapter as I 
 have attempted to piece it together ; and some passages 
 will as surely be found there which would have been 
 discarded had Professor Lounsbury lived to complete 
 it. Most of all, his friends will miss those remarks on 
 the poem which they have heard from him in conver- 
 sation and which he intended to incorporate into this 
 or a succeeding chapter. There exist also partial 
 outlines for chapters on the Wellington 'Ode' and on 
 ' Maud ' ; but they are too faint and uncertain to follow. 
 They contain, however, certain observations of a 
 general nature which I have inserted near the end of 
 the chapter on 'In Memoriam.' 
 
 In preparing the manuscript for the press, I have 
 received much aid from Miss Helen McAfee, who has 
 verified the quotations. Mr. Andrew Keogh of the 
 Yale University Library has kindly read all the proofs, 
 and has super^dsed the preparation of the index. For 
 myself, I have to say that this last book of Professor 
 Lounsbury's is here presented to the public as nearly 
 as possible in the form which in my opinion he would 
 
xvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 have desired. Nothing that he ever wrote better dis- 
 plays his remarkable qualities as a literary historian, 
 his brilliant wit and humor, and that mastery of style 
 which places him among the foremost prose writers 
 of recent times. 
 
 Wilbur L. Cross. 
 Yale University, September, 1915. 
 
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
CHAPTER I 
 TENNYSON'S EAKLY YEARS 
 
 The county of Lincoln, the second in size of the Eng- 
 lish shires, is, so far as about one third of its area is 
 concerned, a county of marshes and fens. These two 
 words, however, as there employed, hardly convey to 
 the reader in this country the idea that he would be 
 likely to entertain. They mean not tracts of land 
 covered partially or wholly "wdth water, but cultivated 
 soil reclaimed in one case from the sea and in the 
 other from the overflow of streams. Accordingly they 
 are not marshes and fens in the strict sense of the 
 terms. They are level fields separated from each 
 other not by fences or hedges, but by ditches and 
 dykes. The so-called marsh in the neighborhood of 
 Tennyson's boyhood home was a belt, from five to ten 
 miles broad, of rich alluvial soil, stretching along the 
 coast from the upper course of the Humber River to 
 the neighborhood of Wainfleet, and protected from the 
 ocean by sand dunes heaped up by the winds and 
 waves. A few miles to the south of the place of his 
 birth lay the much vaster fen country of the shire. 
 
 The surface of the country is for the most part a 
 great plain. Yet in contrast to its ordinarily level char- 
 acter there run through it, in the general direction of 
 north and south, two bold ranges of calcareous hills, 
 
3 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 which rise in places to the height of two or three thou- 
 sand feet. The range to the west is called the Cliffs, 
 that to the east the Wolds. The latter extends from 
 Barton-on-Hiimber to Spilsby. Towards its southern 
 extremity and situated between low hills, lies the vil- 
 lage of Somersby. It is rather entitled to the designa- 
 tion of hamlet. It is a very small place now, and such 
 it seems to have been always. In fact, it is too small 
 to be found upon any but the largest maps ; early in the 
 nineteenth century it contained not many more than 
 half a hundred inhabitants. At that time the rector of 
 the parish was the Reverend George Clayton Tenny- 
 son. He was a man of lofty stature, of great physical 
 strength, and of vn.de interests and tastes in many 
 different directions. He paid attention to poetry, to 
 painting, to music, and to architecture. He designed 
 and built as an addition to the rectory a Gothic- 
 vaulted dining-room, where on winter evenings his 
 family gathered and spent the time in games and music 
 and readings from favorite authors. In the rear of the 
 house was the lawn w^hich sloped down to the garden, 
 along whose edge ran the little brook which played no 
 unimportant part in the life of the children. Adjoin- 
 ing the garden was the orchard. 
 
 George Clayton Tennyson had married Elizabeth 
 Fytche, the daughter of the vicar of Louth. Twelve 
 children were the fruit of this union. Of these eight 
 were sons. The first-born, George, died the year of 
 his birth. Of the eleven others, the eldest was Fred- 
 erick, born in 1807, the second Charles, born in 1808, 
 and the third Alfred, who was born in 1809. Unlike 
 
TENNYSON'S EAELY YEAKS 3 
 
 the father all the children, with a single exception, 
 passed the threescore and ten years allotted to man's 
 life on earth. Some of them approached fourscore 
 and several passed that mark. *'The Tennysons 
 never die, ' ' was the almost despairing cry of that one 
 of the sisters who was engaged to Arthur Hallam, in 
 the midst of the utter prostration of mind and body 
 which followed the death of her lover. Tennyson him- 
 self had passed by two months his eighty-third birth- 
 day at his death, and five of his brothers and sisters 
 sur^^ved him, one of them, Frederick, the oldest of all. 
 One of the petty controversies connected with the 
 poet's life has arisen as to the exact date of his birth. 
 In nearly all of the later accounts it is put dowTi as 
 having occurred on the sixth of August. Tennyson 
 himself asserted that it took place on the fifth. His 
 testimony to that effect is given by Canon Rawnsley 
 to whom it came from the poet directly. "I had it," 
 wrote the canon, ''from Lord Tennyson himself that, 
 though the 6th is popularly put down as the date of his 
 birth, it really took place a few minutes before mid- 
 night of the 5th. "^ In spite of his necessary presence 
 on the occasion his independent testimony cannot be 
 deemed of much value, certainly it is not conclusive. 
 At that time he could not be expected to have any 
 recollection of the event, even if in it he inevitably bore 
 a particularly prominent part. But according to the 
 advocates of this date, his statement is borne out by 
 the evidence of one much better informed. In their 
 
 1' Memories of the Tennysons,' by H. D. Rawnsley, 1900, p. 3, 
 
4 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 opinion the father labored under the same impression 
 as the son. Tennyson's baptism took place on the 
 eighth of August. The record of the fact appears in 
 the parish register written in the rector's own hand. 
 Under the date mentioned there is the following 
 entry : 
 
 Alfred, son of George Clayton and Elizabeth Tennyson 
 bom August 5 th. 
 
 Against this view the advocates of the later date 
 maintain that the fifth is due to a misreading in the 
 parish register. This assertion was made long ago 
 while the poet was still alive by one who professed to 
 have examined with the greatest care the father's 
 entry. According to his account the 6 had been mis- 
 taken for a 5, "the top of the back stroke being some- 
 what square and pointing to the right, and the ink at 
 the back, or left, of the loop is rather faint ; but under 
 a magnifier it can be traced through all the figure."^ 
 At all events this date has been adopted in what may 
 be called the official life of the poet. The fact seems 
 to be that he was born about midnight, and so his birth 
 could properly be assigned to either the fifth or the 
 sixth day. Still, as there has now come to be a pretty 
 general agreement on the adoption of the later date, 
 that will doubtless continue to be considered as his 
 birthday. 
 
 In 1832, Arthur Hallam, visiting the home of the 
 Tennysons, is said to have remarked, ''Fifty years 
 hence people will be making pilgrimages to this spot. ' ' 
 
 iC. J. C. in 'Notes and Queries,' March 14, 1891. 
 
TENNYSON'S EARLY YEARS 5 
 
 He certainly wrote in 1831 to Tennyson's sister that 
 many years and even many ages after they were all laid 
 in dust, young lovers of the beautiful and the true 
 would seek the region where the mind of the poet had 
 been moulded in silent sympathy with the everlasting 
 forces of nature ; would point out the places which he 
 would be supposed to have celebrated. Something must 
 of course be pardoned to the enthusiasm of strong per- 
 sonal attachment; perhaps even more to the fact that 
 the speaker was very much in love with his friend's 
 sister, and human nature is so constituted that a cir- 
 cumstance of this sort has a tendency to check the 
 preservation of a calm and judicial attitude of mind 
 towards the qualities characterizing that sister's 
 brother. There is no question, however, that in this 
 case the prediction has been fulfilled. Pilgrimages 
 were made to the spot within less than fifty years 
 afterward. They will doubtless continue to be made 
 when many additional fifty years have gone by. Still, 
 it is not necessary to attribute an inspired clearness of 
 \-ision to the utterance. How many are the unfulfilled 
 predictions of this sort for which at the time there 
 appeared the amplest justification to their utterers! 
 They have been proclaimed in all sincerity by the easy 
 admiration of youth, reinforced by the magnifying 
 power of personal attachment. When the predictions 
 are not realized, as too generally they are not, we no 
 longer recall them, we forget, in fact, that they were 
 ever made. But the one success in prophecy makes 
 infinitely more impression than a hundred failures, 
 and we cite its verification as a proof of special insight. 
 
6 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 In the rectory of the little village, mth four poplars 
 then standing before its door, and a brook flo^\ing just 
 below its garden, the childhood and most of the early- 
 youth of Alfred Tennyson were spent. Of this period 
 of his life, in spite of the numerous biographies of him 
 which have been written, we have largely to content 
 ourselves with generalities. For this the poet himself 
 was mainly responsible. He was particularly hostile 
 to anything in the shape of reports of his sayings and 
 doings, to secure which seems frequently to be the 
 specially engrossing desire of the modern author. 
 This attitude was as marked in his early years when 
 no one sought to gather information about him as it 
 was in his later when every one was seeking to secure 
 it at any cost. Then as afterward he held himself 
 aloof from others in the intercourse of private life. 
 He was averse to having his personality made in any 
 way conspicuous before the public, or to attracting its 
 attention by the disclosure of what he thought and 
 said. Yet if certain accounts are to be trusted, he 
 would have gained far more by such revelations than 
 he would have lost. His intimate friend, FitzGerald, 
 was wont to express regret that the casual utterances 
 of Tennyson were not preserved. They were, he 
 declared, sajdngs to be remembered, decisive verdicts. 
 * * Had I continued to be with him, ' ' he wrote to a friend 
 in 1872, ''I would have risked being called another 
 Bozzy by the thankless World ; and have often looked 
 in vain for a Note Book I had made of such things." 
 
 This notebook has been found and printed. The 
 reported sayings upon which FitzGerald laid so much 
 
TENNYSON'S EARLY YEARS 7 
 
 stress, when read in cold blood, hardly justify the 
 praise he la^dshed. Nothing he has preserved would 
 lead the reader to believe that much would have been 
 lost by silence. This is far, however, from being an 
 uncommon experience. Vapid and lifeless, not to say 
 dull, are often the words when read, which seemed so 
 full of sparkle and charm and brilliancy when heard. 
 Such instances are frequent in the case of men whose 
 conversation has attracted and delighted numbers, but 
 cannot stand the test of publication. The success of 
 the sayings depends at the time on other things than 
 upon what is actually said. The effect produced upon 
 the hearer has not been so much due to the words them- 
 selves, or even to the thought or the way in which the 
 thought has been expressed. It is rather the result of 
 attendant circumstances — the sjTnpathetic audience, 
 the by-play that leads up to the utterance, the aptness 
 of the introduction to the comment made upon the sub- 
 ject under discussion, the looks and gestures and 
 intonations with which the sentiments conveyed are 
 accompanied and enforced. Detached from the agen- 
 cies which contribute to the immediate impression, the 
 effectiveness of the words uttered disappears. Com- 
 mitted to print, they lose the point and force which 
 belonged to them when spoken. 
 
 Still, the words of a man of genius are well worthy 
 of preservation ^dthout regard to their intrinsic value. 
 The world is neither disposed to be thankless for the 
 gift of the most trivial utterances of its greatest men, 
 nor to blame the giver. There is no doubt, however, 
 as to the state of mind any such action would have 
 
8 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 inspired in Tennyson himself. His own feelings are 
 distinctly expressed in that verse of 'Will Water- 
 proof's Lyrical Monologue,' when he speaks of that 
 remote past when the great writer could give freest 
 utterance to his thoughts and emotions with no fear 
 of the reporter that travels in darkness or of the inter- 
 viewer that wastes at noonday : 
 
 Hours, when the Poet's words and looks 
 
 Had yet their native glow; 
 Nor yet the fear of little books 
 
 Had made him talk for show; 
 But, all his vast heart sherris-warm 'd, 
 
 He flash 'd his random speeches. 
 Ere days, that deal in ana, swarm 'd 
 
 His literary leeches. 
 
 This is far from being the only time or place in 
 which Tennyson expressed his aversion to that 
 remorseless publicity of modern life which waits upon 
 him who has lifted himself up to a high position among 
 his fellow men. Both in his writings and in his conver- 
 sation he took in this matter the extremest of extreme 
 ground. In one of his poems he manifested his feel- 
 ings with a vehemence that amounted almost to bitter- 
 ness. This is the one now entitled, 'To after 
 
 reading a Life and Letters.' The person whom he is 
 addressing is generally supposed to be his brother 
 Charles; the 'Life and Letters' which he read, to be 
 the biography of Keats prepared by Milnes, and pub- 
 lished in 1848. Tennyson seems later to have desired 
 to disclaim the idea that he had in mind this particular 
 volume. The only reason apparent for this implied 
 
 1\ 
 
TENNYSON'S EARLY YEARS 9 
 
 denial of the reference to the work is that it might be 
 construed into an attack upon a personal friend. In 
 truth, in his journal, William Rossetti records an 
 assertion of Tennyson that this particular poem was 
 written by him "in a fit of intense disgust" after read- 
 ing Medwin's journal of the 'Conversations of Lord 
 Byron.' It is so easy for the most honest of reporters 
 to give a wrong impression of what has actually been 
 said that the reader may be permitted to doubt that 
 the poet ever made any unqualified assertion of this 
 sort. It may be that Medwin's w^ork was mentioned by 
 Tennyson as one of those he had in mind. But in 
 itself it could never have been the inspiration of the 
 sentiments expressed in this particular piece. 
 
 The lines contained a peculiarly strong manifesta- 
 tion of his personal feelings. They were originally 
 printed in 'The Examiner' for March 24, 1849. Later 
 they were included in the sixth edition of the 'Poems' 
 which appeared in 1850. It was not till the eighth edi- 
 tion which came out in the latter part of January, 
 1853, that the words "After reading a Life and 
 Letters" were added. This makes it clear that Med- 
 win's work could not have been the one to which refer- 
 ence was made. That author had not written a life 
 of Byron, nor had he printed his letters. He simply 
 purported to record his conversations. As, further- 
 more, his work appeared in 1824, it was rather late in 
 the day to become agitated about what had been 
 reported a quarter of a century before. The poem, it 
 is to be added, had after its title a quotation of the last 
 line of Shakespeare's epitaph, "Cursed be he that 
 
10 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 moves my bones. ' ' The words had here not the slight- 
 est appropriateness. Shakespeare, or whoever wrote 
 the epitaph, sought simply to express the natural 
 desire that the body should be left undisturbed in the 
 resting-place to which it had been consigned; that it 
 should not, after the lapse of generations, encounter 
 the fate of thousands in the crowded churchyards of 
 England whose bones are dug up to make room for 
 those of some newcomer to the grave. He was not 
 thinking at all of what would be said of him after his 
 death or what revelations would be made of his words 
 and acts. In Tennyson's quotation from the epitaph 
 invoking Shakespeare's curse upon those who will 
 not let his ashes rest, he imputes by implication to 
 Shakespeare feelings which the great dramatist 
 pretty certainly never had, and very certainly never 
 expressed. 
 
 Tennyson was indignant that Keats 's letters should 
 have been published. It was indicative of his general 
 attitude. In this particular he stood at the opposite 
 pole from that of his great contemporary. Browning 
 entertained no objection to the curiosity felt about him 
 and his works by ''the many-headed beast"; in par- 
 ticular none when it sprang from respect or reverence. 
 The indignation which some have felt and others have 
 thought it decorous to feel at the publication of the 
 letters which passed between him and his future wife 
 was manifestly one with which that poet himself 
 would not have had the slightest sympathy. There is 
 little question that Browning, so far from being averse 
 to this correspondence seeing the light, was at heart 
 
TENNYSON'S EARLY YEARS 11 
 
 anxious that it should eventually be published. He 
 could not but be well aware that it redounded to the 
 credit of himself and the woman to whom he had 
 become affianced. But no feelings of this sort char- 
 acterized Tennyson. His idea was that an author 
 should be known only by his works ; that his sentiments 
 about men and things should never be disclosed; and 
 that in particular there should be no revelation of his 
 personal characteristics and his failings. It was in 
 these words that in the poem under consideration he 
 expressed his feelings towards the sort of biography 
 for which he entertained special aversion: 
 
 For now the Poet cannot die, 
 Nor leave his music as of old, 
 But round him ere he scarce be cold 
 
 Begins the scandal and the cry: 
 
 Proclaim the faults he would not show ; 
 
 Break lock and seal ; betray the trust ; 
 
 Keep nothing sacred ; 'tis but just 
 The many-headed beast should know. 
 
 He ended the poem by contrasting the better fate 
 of him who dies unheard to that of him who drops dead 
 in front of Glory's temple while the carrion vulture 
 waits to tear his heart before the crowd. 
 
 Tennyson's aversion to having anything said about 
 himself was part of that peculiar susceptibility to criti- 
 cism or comment of any sort which was not only one 
 of his greatest weaknesses, but had a specially injuri- 
 ous effect upon the success of his early career. It was 
 ingrained in his nature and influenced his whole con- 
 
12 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 duct. To it and to its important results it will be neces- 
 sary to call attention again and again. The truth is 
 that he sought for himself two things absolutely incom- 
 patible. He desired general recognition from the pub- 
 lic and complete privacy for himself. He who gains 
 the benefit of greatness must be resigned to partaking 
 of its penalties. Tennyson's genius lifted him to a 
 position where he was known and observed of all men. 
 Interest in what he said, interest in what he did was 
 inevitable. He himself spoke of the fierce light which 
 beats upon a throne ; but that light beats just as fiercely 
 upon him who occupies the throne of letters as upon 
 him who occupies the throne of a realm. A great 
 intellectual sovereign can no more succeed in hiding 
 himself from the curiosity of his literary subjects than 
 he can from their admiration and reverence. The one 
 is a consequent of the other. It is not to the discredit 
 of the present age, on the contrary it is distinctly to 
 its credit, that it cares to hear more about its 
 uncrowned kings than it does about those who are 
 crowned. 
 
 Tennyson furthermore was utterly mistaken as to 
 the cause that has led to woeful ignorance, in which he 
 seems to have rejoiced, of the great writers of the past. 
 It was not due in the slightest degree to the reticence 
 of their contemporaries, to their lack of curiosity, or 
 to their indifference. In all these respects the men 
 of former centuries were not unlike the men of 
 our own. In the days of old, the poet did not merely 
 die and leave his music behind him as the sole reminder 
 to his contemporaries of his existence. At his death, 
 
TENNYSON'S EAKLY YEARS 13 
 
 then, began as much the scandal and the cry as there 
 does now. The carrion vulture was then waiting to 
 tear his heart before the crowd as eagerly as it waits 
 now. The same feeling in truth has existed about the 
 great writers of every period of the world's history. 
 Furthermore, it is to be said that in the case of men 
 whose achievements have lifted them above the level 
 of the crowd, the assumed scandal and cry which arise 
 at their death are purely a figment of the imagination, 
 as much as is the existence of the carrion vulture 
 waiting to tear his heart out before the crowd. The 
 death of every really great man, be he poet, statesman, 
 or warrior, instead of being followed by a proclama- 
 tion of his faults, is marked by their concealment. His 
 enemies, if enemies he has, are silent. His failings are 
 kept in the background. Detraction is hushed, as his 
 sorrowing fellow men become increasingly sensible of 
 what they have lost. The attitude almost invariably 
 taken is that of reverence, the sentiments expressed 
 are those of grief and admiration. These same feel- 
 ings doubtless existed in the past as they do in the 
 present; and would naturally have found the same 
 avenue to expression. But no means existed then of 
 imparting to the general public what was well known 
 in private circles. More than that, there was then no 
 means of transmitting this knowledge to posterity. It 
 is not to be forgotten furthermore that biography — in 
 particular the biography of men of letters, now one of 
 the principal staples of literary manufacture — hardly 
 had an existence worth chronicling before the latter 
 part of the eighteenth century. Hence the deplorably 
 
14 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 scanty knowledge we possess of all the greatest 
 authors of the past. 
 
 There is no question that Tennyson carried this 
 aversion to publicity to an extreme which it requires 
 self-restraint to call merely ridiculous. Some of the 
 sentiments he expressed on the subject it is hard, in 
 truth, to take seriously. In certain instances it would 
 be paying them an exaggerated compliment to call 
 them silly. Nothing in his opinion should be told of 
 an author save what he himself chose to reveal per- 
 sonally. '* The poet's work is his life, and no one has a 
 right to ask for more," he said several times to his 
 friend, Francis Turner Palgrave. ''Eeaching once," 
 added Palgrave, "even the barbarity, as I could not 
 help calling it, that if Horace had left an autobiog- 
 raphy, and the single MS. were in his hands, he would 
 throw it into the fire. And, consistently, he would 
 never read such Lives. "^ Doubtless if such a state of 
 things had come to actual trial, he would not have done 
 what he said. If he had, he would certainly have 
 deserved not only to be thrown into the fire himself 
 but into everlasting fire, and his memory would have 
 been held in just execration by all coming generations. 
 But the view expressed represented after a fashion 
 his general attitude. In a letter of his Farringford 
 neighbor, Mrs. Cameron, written in 1860, she described 
 him as pouring out his feelings on this subject with 
 positive vigor and peculiar folly. The desire on the 
 part of readers of becoming acquainted with the per- 
 sonal life of great authors he represented as treating 
 
 1 ' Alfred Lord Tennyson, A Memoir by his Son, ' Vol. II, p. 484. 
 
TENNYSON'S EARLY YEARS 15 
 
 them ''like pigs to be ripped open for the public." 
 He thanked God Almighty with his whole heart and 
 soul that he knew nothing of Jane Austen and that 
 there were no letters preserved either of her or of 
 Shakespeare. More than once he expressed sentiments 
 like these in almost the same words. 
 
 Tennyson's thanks to the Almighty had to suffer 
 some abatement, for he lived long enough to see letters 
 of Jane Austen published. In his opinion either noth- 
 ing whatever was to be told of the person whose life 
 was written or only that which would deprive it of the 
 slightest interest. Accordingly he resented the por- 
 trayal of the foibles and weaknesses of great men. If 
 a disagreeable trait was disclosed, it was to the dis- 
 credit, not of the possessor, but of the revealer that 
 the disclosure had been made. His attitude in this 
 matter is brought out strikingly in a comment of his 
 which seems to be regarded as redounding particularly 
 to his credit. At Tunbridge Wells was an old lady who 
 flourished there with some repute on the strength of 
 having known Dr. Johnson. She cherished memories 
 of him and repeated incidents about him. Among 
 other things she observed that he ''often stirred his 
 lemonade with his finger and that often dirty." The 
 observation is of no particular consequence, for it can 
 hardly be said to add anything to what was already 
 known. This method of stirring lemonade does not 
 awaken Tennyson's resentment but the account of it 
 did. That the great man should have a dirty finger 
 and should use it improperly appeared to be in his 
 eyes a fact which was not to the discredit of the owner 
 
16 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 of the finger; but the relation of the fact was very- 
 much to the discredit of the narrator. *'The dirt is 
 on her own heart," he said. 
 
 There is little question that the knowledge of some 
 of his own failings was one of the reasons that led 
 Tennyson to resent any disclosure to the public of the 
 infirmities of the great. Men indeed, as a general 
 rule, are more sensitive about the revelation of their 
 foibles than of their vices. Tennyson's dislike of per- 
 sonal details was to some extent based upon the 
 knowledge that in certain particulars he was himself 
 far from impeccable. Even in his university days his 
 immoderate use of tobacco was a matter of offence to 
 some of his associates ; for in that earlier time indul- 
 gence in the habit was far from being so general as it 
 became later. Still less was it practised on the grand 
 scale in which the poet displayed it. Many indeed are 
 the references not merely to his excessive use of 
 tobacco but to the sort of tobacco he used. The two 
 things did not impress favorably several of his most 
 attached friends. To it they were sometimes wont to 
 ascribe the ailments under which he labored. In 1838, 
 Blakesley wrote to Milnes from Trinity College of a 
 visit which the poet had been paying there. ''Alfred 
 Tennyson," he said, ''has been with us for the last 
 week. He is looking well and in good spirits, but com- 
 plains of nervousness. How should he do otherwise, 
 seeing that he smokes the strongest and most stinking 
 tobacco out of a small blackened clay pipe on an 
 average nine hours every day? He went off to-day by 
 the Wisbeach to Epping, where he complains that there 
 
TENNYSON'S EAELY YEAES 17 
 
 are no sounds of Nature and no society ; equally a want 
 of birds and men."^ 
 
 Blakesley lived to a good old age, but the friend he 
 criticised survived him several years. As Tennyson 
 persisted in smoking to the end of his life, it is reason- 
 able to suppose that the diagnosis of the cause of his 
 nervousness was due to the prejudices of the writer 
 rather than to the real fact. 
 
 A more s^Tnpathetic tribute to his prowess as a 
 smoker was given somewhat later by one who was fully 
 competent to express an opinion on the subject. 
 '' Alfred," wrote Carlyle in December, 1842, ''is a right 
 hearty talker; and one of the powerfullest smokers 
 I have ever worked along with in that department!"^ 
 But far greater censure fell upon Tennyson for the 
 carelessness of his personal habits and for the sloven- 
 liness of liis dress. There is more than one reference 
 in the correspondence of this early period to the annoy- 
 ance and vexation wrought by the untidiness of his 
 appearance. So subject are we all to the domination 
 of clothes that his indifference in these matters grieved 
 the friendly and offended the fastidious. They did not 
 speak of it to his enemies ; but they deplored it among 
 themselves.^ 
 
 In Tennyson's opinion, no facts of this kind were to 
 be mentioned. The view of biography here indicated, 
 
 1 'Life, Letters, and Friendships of Richard Monckton Milnes,' edited 
 by T. W. Reid, 1891, Vol. T, p. 221. 
 
 2 'New Letters of Thomas Carlyle,' edited by Alexander Carlyle, 
 Vol. I, p. 280. 
 
 3 See in particular a letter of Henry Hallam in ' Mrs. Brookfield and 
 her Circle,' Vol. I, p. 213. 
 
18 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 it is fair to add, has been by no means peculiar to the 
 poet. It is held by many in theory. By others it has 
 been illustrated in practice, not merely to the woeful 
 discouragement of the would-be reader but to the com- 
 plete effacement from human interest and regard of 
 the one, however brilliant and fascinating he may have 
 been, who has been made its victim. The prevalence 
 of this belief in the desirability of treating great men 
 with peculiar tenderness and reticence has had the 
 result of turning much of modern biography into a 
 portrayal of faultless prigs or tedious bores. Absten- 
 tion from repeating details of almost any sort, but 
 especially of those which might cause annoyance or 
 pain, is naturally the right course to follow while the 
 man is living. During that period respect for the ordi- 
 nary decencies of life would suffice to prevent any but 
 a thoroughly vulgar soul from intruding upon that 
 privacy which every one, not guilty of a crime, has a 
 right to demand for himself, that freedom from the 
 revelation to the public of his personal characteristics, 
 of his foibles and his failings. But in the case of the 
 dead who are worthy of our admiration, there is no 
 reason for this restraint. What we then have a right 
 to demand is a full and faithful portrayal of the indi- 
 vidual as he actually was. The desire we have to 
 learn the exactest details of the lives of those whose 
 characters we cherish and in whose achievements we 
 take pride, is one of the most creditable characteristics 
 of human nature. We never admire a really great man 
 the less because we have come to know of his weak- 
 nesses, his faults, one might almost add his vices. For 
 
TENNYSON'S EARLY YEARS 19 
 
 these in fact we are often disposed to love him the 
 more, if he is worth lo^dng at all. Without a knowl- 
 edge of such characteristics the picture of the man 
 would be incomplete. The great poet of humanity put 
 into the mouth of Othello a representation of the atti- 
 tude which should be assumed by every biographer. 
 Nothing should be extenuated; nothing should be set 
 do^vn in malice. A character that cannot bear to have 
 his failings revealed is ordinarily not worth remember- 
 ing; it may almost be said that his life is not worth 
 living. There is doubtless such a thing as too much 
 insistence upon petty personal details. Such a repre- 
 sentation would detract as much from the verisimili- 
 tude of the portrait as would their entire omission, and 
 would perhaps detract even more. But that is the 
 fault of the writer and not of the method. 
 
 Tennyson's view of the subject was manifestly dif- 
 ferent from Shakespeare's. It was the same as that 
 of those friends of Johnson who deplored Boswell's 
 biography as an unwarranted and loquacious revela- 
 tion of every weakness and infirmity of the one whom 
 they considered to be the greatest good man of the 
 times. They called it treachery. Yet the reason why 
 Johnson is so near to all of us and so dear to many of 
 us is due to that very personal portrayal against which, 
 had he been then living, Tennyson would have pro- 
 tested fiercely. By many, Boswell's picture of the man 
 exactly as he was could not be forgiven at the time. 
 Fanny Burney tells us that Boswell came to her for 
 some *' choice little notes," as he expressed it, upon 
 the Doctor. She refused to help him and was much 
 
20 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 shocked at the course he purposed to take. ''We have 
 seen him long enough upon stilts," Boswell told her. 
 * ' I want to show him in a new light. Grave Sam, and 
 great Sam, and solemn Sam, and learned Sam — all 
 these he has appeared over and over. Now I want to 
 entwine a wreath of the graces across his brow; I 
 want to show him as gay Sam, agreeable Sam, pleas- 
 ant Sam."^ How much wiser Boswell was than the 
 wisest of his contemporaries the public realizes fully 
 now and came soon to understand then. So did the 
 publishers who had preferred to entrust the prepara- 
 tion of the story of Johnson's career to the pompous 
 Sir John Hawkins, whose formal and stupid biog- 
 raphy was speedily extinguished by its rival. As a 
 result of Boswell 's action we have the portrayal of a 
 living, breathing man, not of a colorless character 
 which has hardly the vitality of a wax figure. 
 
 This aversion to the inevitable publicity which waits 
 upon a career like his own was all the more unreason- 
 able in Tennyson because the minutest revelation of 
 the details of his life would have no other effect than 
 to raise him still higher in the estimation of the world. 
 Indeed if the character of any one prominent writer of 
 his generation could be trusted to come out essentially 
 unscathed from the severest scrutiny, it would be his. 
 Such a scrutiny would reveal foibles and petty failings, 
 and a number of peculiarities, not altogether pleas- 
 ant, at times a roughness bordering closely upon rude- 
 ness, at times a frankness of speech that was occasion- 
 ally hard to distinguish from brutality, which, taken 
 
 1 'Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay,' 1893, Vol. Ill, p. 299. 
 
TENNYSON'S EAKLY YEARS 21 
 
 together, would save him from the curse of being mis- 
 taken for that most disagreeable of beings, a so-called 
 saint. But it would bring out even more distinctly on 
 account of these very blots the essential nobleness of 
 his nature, his high sense of honor, his loftiness of 
 spirit, and in particular his superiority to that com- 
 mon weakness of authors in his freedom from envy 
 and jealousy of rival poets, even at times when for a 
 short period they seemed about to threaten his posi- 
 tion before the public. In this respect none of his 
 contemporaries would surpass him; very few could 
 stand on a level with him. To him, if to any one, 
 belonged what he said of the Prince Consort, that he 
 wore ' * the white flower of a blameless life. ' ' 
 
 With the sentiments he not merely entertained. but 
 felt deeply, it is quite impossible to conceive of Tenny- 
 son as writing an autobiography. But the keen inter- 
 est now taken in the details of the life of a great author 
 has made up to a slight extent for the failure of the 
 man himself to furnish much information directly. It 
 is, however, no part of the plan of the present work to 
 spend much time in tracing Tennyson's genealogy — 
 genealogy which is sometimes the spacious but invari- 
 ably the dark and dreary vestibule to the edifice of 
 English biography. Ancestors in general are as unin- 
 teresting a body of persons as those who concern them- 
 selves with the lives of great men come to encounter. 
 Still, a certain degree of importance attaches to the 
 poet's immediate forbears, his fathjer and his grand- 
 father. Of this latter too little knowledge has been 
 vouchsafed. In his early life, at least, George Tenny- 
 
22 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 son was a solicitor at Market Rasen in Lincolnshire, 
 near which his estate of Bayons Manor lay. He was 
 elected a representative from the borough of Bletch- 
 ingley in Surrey to the last Parliament of George the 
 Third. This met in August, 1818, and was dissolved 
 in February, 1820, on the death of the king. The 
 grandfather, however, did not remain a member of it 
 during its short existence, but early in 1819 accepted 
 the Chiltern Hundreds. In the parliamentary register, 
 his name is given not as George, but as George Clay- 
 ton Tennyson. In the course of his life he accumu- 
 lated a fairly large fortune. From the few accounts 
 of him which have come down, one gets the impres- 
 sion that he was possessed of a good deal more of 
 ability than of amiability. For some as yet unex- 
 plained reason, the property seems to have been 
 destined from an early period to pass into the hands 
 of the younger brother Charles instead of the elder. 
 As the grandfather lived until 1835, he survived by 
 more than four years his natural heir. At a compara- 
 tively early period the poet's father must have been 
 aware of the intention to disinherit him. As a sort 
 of compensation for the intended alienation of the 
 property, several preferments in the church were be- 
 stowed upon him ; for those were the days when plural- 
 ities prevailed. He was made rector of Somersby and 
 Wood Enderby — two adjacent hamlets — and also in- 
 cumbent of Benniworth and vicar of Great Grimsby. 
 Still, the income derived from these combined livings 
 could hardly have amounted to more than a small por- 
 
TENNYSON'S EARLY YEARS 23 
 
 tion of the value of the inheritance of which he was 
 deprived. 
 
 Tennyson's father seems to have remained on 
 friendly terms with the brother who had been selected 
 to take his place. But his temperament, naturally 
 melancholy, was little likely to be soothed by the ever 
 present consciousness of what must have been in his 
 eyes an undeserved unkindness, not to call it injury. 
 In any country the treatment he received would give 
 the impression of injustice. But in England where 
 primogeniture has for centuries been invested with a 
 peculiar sort of sanctity, the setting aside of what 
 would be regarded by every one as his legitimate 
 claims could hardly have failed to fret the spirit of 
 the elder son almost beyond endurance. It was per- 
 haps the disgrace of being passed over that was harder 
 to bear than the loss of the property, though that 
 involved as a consequence comparatively narrow cir- 
 cumstances. He inwardly brooded over it. At times 
 he fell into fits of despondency which cast a gloom 
 over the whole family. No doubt this depression was 
 to a certain extent constitutional and would have 
 shown itself under any circumstances. Tennyson him- 
 self inherited to some degree this tendency towards 
 it, and was occasionally subject to it even at the height 
 of his fame and fortune. But the treatment he re- 
 ceived would naturally increase the despondent dis- 
 position of the father. It preyed upon his spirits and 
 probably impaired his health. Pretty surely it con- 
 tributed its part towards making his life a compara- 
 
24 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 tively short one; for he was but fifty-three years old 
 when he died/ 
 
 Nor apparently was the masterful grandfather con- 
 tent with the exercise of parental power in diverting 
 his estate from the eldest son. He seems to have 
 assumed, or rather to have desired to assume, the right 
 of directing the course in life of his son's sons. He 
 sought to have them all enter the ministry. So far 
 as can be gathered, their own preferences were not 
 to be taken into consideration. His plans for their 
 future were not, however, carried out very satisfac- 
 torily. Of the seven grandsons — all of whom grew up 
 to manhood — Charles was the only one who became a 
 clergyman. Even in his case the choice of the profes- 
 sion seems not to have been dictated by any desire to 
 defer to the views or whims of the grandfather, but 
 to carry out the wishes of his uncle, the Eeverend 
 Samuel Turner of Caistor, to whose property he was 
 early the expectant and finally the actual heir. We 
 know indeed that this crusty and eventually gouty 
 old grandfather was looked upon with anything but 
 regard by the children of his eldest son. There was 
 certainly nothing in his treatment of them which would 
 predispose them to entertain feelings in his favor. 
 Their attitude towards him is plainly indicated in 
 letters as yet unpublished. 
 
 The grandfather's vision of the future was no more 
 trustworthy than his control over it was successful. 
 At his request Alfred wrote a poem on the death of his 
 grandmother. This took place in 1825. As a reward 
 
 iBorn, December 10, 1778; died, March 16, 1831. 
 
TENNYSON'S EARLY YEARS 25 
 
 the boy received a small sum of money. Certain 
 prophetic words accompanied the gift. ''Here," said 
 the grandfather, ' ' is half a guinea for you, the first you 
 have ever earned by poetry, and take my word for it, 
 the last. ' ' It did not fall to his lot to live long enough 
 to witness the more than utter failure of his predic- 
 tion in the fortune that was to come to the grandson 
 from this then much derided source. Yet his life was 
 sufficiently protracted for him to be made aware that 
 as a prophet he could hardly be deemed a success. 
 Tennyson's father took what turned out to be a far 
 juster view. He recognized in the early productions of 
 his son the promise of more enduring performance to 
 follow. ' ' If Alfred die, ' ' he said on one occasion, * ' one 
 of our greatest poets will have gone." This was not 
 the view held by the grim old grandfather. When told 
 the closing year of his life that his grandson had pro- 
 duced a volume of poems, he remarked, ' ' I had sooner 
 have heard that he had made a wheelbarrow. ' " 
 
 Until he went to the university, far the larger pro- 
 portion of Tennyson 's childhood and youth was passed 
 in the quietude of his native place and the region 
 immediately adjacent. The only exceptions are the 
 years he spent in the grammar school of the not far 
 distant market town of Louth. Thither he repaired 
 about Christmas, 1816. He was then but seven and a 
 half years old. His brother Charles had preceded him 
 at a similar time the year before. There Tennyson 
 remained for the next four years. He left it at the 
 Christmas term of 1820, and he left it gladly. Tenny- 
 
 1 Alfred Church 's ' The Laureate 's Country, ' p. 63. 
 
26 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 son never cared for the school at Louth, — it might be 
 more accurate to say that he hated it. In fact, he liked 
 it so little that when at that place in later life he would 
 not go do^\Ti the lane where it was situated. Nor did 
 he believe that he got from it any benefit. There is lit- 
 tle doubt that his opinion was correct. The truth is that 
 the school was then of a type too generally prevalent 
 in those days. The instruction was bad, the instructors 
 made it worse. It was presided over by a man whom 
 it would be a compliment to call a ruffian. Further- 
 more, he was a ruffian of a peculiarly bad type — that 
 is, a conscientious ruffian. In this respect he did not 
 differ from many, perhaps most, of the headmasters 
 then presiding over the English public schools; and 
 like them he was held in high esteem, not only by his 
 fellow citizens but by the students whom he flogged. 
 The system of education pursued, like much of that 
 then in vogue, was better fitted for the extinguishment 
 of the abilities of the student than for their develop- 
 ment. Everything had to be learned by rote. To 
 understand anjrthing or to be interested in anything 
 was not a matter of moment. The school was further 
 characterized by the methods prevailing in that old 
 system of instruction in which the belief was firmly 
 held and assiduously carried out in practice that noth- 
 ing could be expected to stay permanently in a boy's 
 brain until it had been eifectively driven in by blows 
 upon his body. There used to be in the schoolroom, 
 and perhaps still is, a chair impressed with the govern- 
 or 's seal, which represents **a master with a rod in 
 his upraised hand and a boy crouching before him." 
 
TENNYSON'S EARLY YEARS 27 
 
 It was symbolic of the method followed. Teachers 
 walked up and down the room with implements of chas- 
 tisement in their hands. Ears were boxed upon every 
 pretext, knuckles were rapped. Legs and arms fur- 
 nished constant temptation for the application of the 
 cane. "WTio spares the rod hates the child, was the 
 inscription in Latin posted in full view of the school- 
 boys. Complaint could never be made by anyone that 
 this proof of affectionate regard for himself and solici- 
 tude for his welfare had not been lavished on him in 
 abundance. In all these respects the school has now 
 undergone a great change. It is not merely different 
 in character, but it has come to cherish the memory of 
 its most famous pupil who did not love it, and whom 
 the man then in charge of it apparently did not love. 
 A white marble bust of the poet stands in the room 
 where as a boy he studied somewhat and suffered a 
 good deal. A sleeping section in this building bears 
 the name of the Tennyson dormitory. 
 
 Nor further did Tennyson form any intimacies with 
 his school companions. He pretty certainly cared for 
 none. Mr. John Cuming Walters, who wrote a book^ 
 on the homes and haunts of the poet in Lincolnshire, 
 was informed by the only surviving fellow student of 
 Tennyson at the grammar school that even there he 
 never knew him to associate with the other lads or to 
 take part in their sports. He and his brother Charles 
 were inseparable companions. They walked together, 
 they talked together exclusively. Both were recog- 
 nized as possessing ability; but neither stood high in 
 
 1 ' In Tennyson Land, ' 1890. 
 
28 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 their classes. Both were strong and stalwart; but 
 neither engaged in athletic exercises nor was seen in 
 the playground. From such associations or rather 
 lack of associations, from such methods of instruction, 
 from such a system of discipline, a change to their 
 own home could hardly have been otherwise than wel- 
 come. There it was that they spent the years which 
 followed until they went to the university. Their 
 father became their instructor. He would have been 
 different from the usual run of fathers who assume 
 that position towards their children if he had not been 
 a rigorous one. He not merely taught them ; he made 
 them study. There is little doubt that he did not err 
 on the side of undue leniency. As one who knew him 
 in those days observed, he was ''amazing sharp" mth 
 them. Still, it was not merely a profitable change from 
 the methods of instruction pursued at the Louth school, 
 it was far from being an unpleasant one in spite of 
 general sternness and perhaps of occasional harshness. 
 The father, too, was an excellent scholar ; at least that 
 was the repute in which he was held. In addition, 
 for the sake of those with whose education he intrusted 
 himself, he gave up time and labor to render more 
 perfect his knowledge of the studies he set out to 
 teach. 
 
 Here for the next seven years Tennyson spent his 
 life. To one of his nature there were advantages in 
 his confinement to this secluded region which out- 
 weighed all its disadvantages. These did not consist 
 in the fact that the boy was far removed from the 
 temptations of the city. Such, though different in 
 
TENNYSON'S EARLY YEARS 29 
 
 kind, are no worse than those of the country. But he 
 was removed from its distractions. Somersby was one 
 of the quietest of the quiet wold villages. For tliis 
 very reason it was in certain ways well fitted for the 
 youth of a poet. Talent usually finds its most satis- 
 factory development amid the activities of life where 
 it is forced to come into constant contact and occa- 
 sional collision with men. But the best nursing-place 
 of genius is retirement, which with its attendant con- 
 templation and reflection brings the mind into frequent 
 communion "with itself. 
 
 FurtheiTnore, the comparative solitude of his early 
 years gave Tennyson ample time for reading and 
 study during that period of his life when these occu- 
 pations are not so important for the acquisition of 
 knowledge they bring as for the influence they "s^^ield 
 over the intellectual development. The absence of all 
 disturbing elements contributed not merely to profi- 
 ciency in learning but to the creation of a love for the 
 highest literature. His father's library was an excel- 
 lent one for its size. It was made up largely of the 
 best books of the best authors in various languages. 
 With them the cliildren had ample leisure to familiar- 
 ize themselves thoroughly. These indeed they were 
 forced to read if they read anything; and they were 
 fond of reading. Another advantage, therefore, of this 
 remoteness from populous centers was that during the 
 most impressionable period of life the boy's attention 
 was not drawn away from the great works of the great 
 literatures of the world by a swarm of ephemeral pro- 
 ductions which in crowded cities are always brought 
 
30 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 to the sight and fairly thrust themselves upon the 
 notice of those who would ordinarily have remained 
 unaware of their existence. 
 
 In all these respects, therefore, the conditions which 
 surrounded the youth of the poet were peculiarly 
 favorable. Little there was in the scenes and sur- 
 roundings of his boyhood or in its occurrences to dis- 
 turb the monotony of existence which pervaded the 
 community in which his early years were spent. Few 
 opportunities existed for communication with the 
 world outside, or for sharing in its activities or dis- 
 tractions. The mail reached Somersby but two or 
 three times a week. At the frequent summer resort 
 of the family at Mablethorpe, there was at that time 
 none at all, unless it came through some chance agency. 
 Furthermore, in that sparsely settled hamlet there 
 was but scanty society for the children outside of that 
 which they found in their own home. The persons with 
 whom they would most naturally associate dwelt at 
 greater or less distance. Of some of them they saw, 
 comparatively speaking, a good deal, if the conditions 
 that prevented frequency of intercourse be taken into 
 consideration. Still, the fact that such persons could 
 only be seen at intervals naturally stood in the way 
 of indulgence in many close intimacies. The children 
 were in consequence largely thrown upon themselves 
 for society. With books and talk about books, with 
 poetry and music, they passed the days. They seem 
 indeed to have grown up without any particular re- 
 straint. Within limits they were allowed to do about as 
 they pleased. As, however eccentric their conduct, 
 
TENNYSON'S EAELY YEARS 31 
 
 there was nothing vicious in their natures, this lack of 
 restraint was productive of nothing but good. Accord- 
 ingly, when freed from the confinement of their lessons, 
 their tendency was to fleet the time carelessly as in the 
 golden world. ' ' They were always running about from 
 one place to another," an old resident told Mr. Wal- 
 ters, ''and every one knew them and their Bohemian 
 ways. They all wrote verses, they never had any 
 pocket money, and they took long walks at night- 
 time, and they were decidedly exclusive.'" 
 
 Reports naturally came to cluster about the uncon- 
 ventional and self-absorbed ways of that one of the 
 family who was destined to make its name famous. 
 Stories there were of his carelessness in dress, or 
 rather of his complete indifference to it; of his walk- 
 ing again and again up and do^vn the carriage-way, 
 shouting and hallooing while carrying a book in his 
 hand; of his wandering off by himself wdth his long 
 hair, under no restraint from a hat, floating in the 
 wind, and ^vithout a coat to his back, talking vehe- 
 mently to himself, as he wandered along the sand hills 
 that line the coast. This was not a course of conduct 
 to meet the approval of the staid members of that 
 rural community. There was a very general impres- 
 sion among the rustic inhabitants of the region that 
 the boy was daft. ''Many a time," Mr. Walters tells 
 us, "has Alfred been met miles away from home, hat- 
 less and quite absorbed, sometimes only realizing his 
 situation when his further journeying was prevented 
 
 1 ' In Tennyson Land, ' p. 40. 
 
32 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 by the sea.'" This habit of self-absorption, seen in 
 childhood, never left the man. The life he led in his 
 youth would also have naturally little effect in break- 
 ing up that crust of shyness and reserve which was 
 part of his nature. The habit of isolation which had 
 distinguished him during his school life continued to 
 a great extent after his return to his home. In truth, 
 it continued during the whole of his career. Unques- 
 tionably his self-absorption and reserve contributed at 
 times to his personal unpopularity. It furnished 
 sufficient ground for the intruder upon his retirement 
 to complain that he had gone to see a lion and had 
 found only a bear. 
 
 Quiet however as was Somersby, it did not lack 
 attractions of divers kinds to appeal to the impres- 
 sionable nature of the boy. The region all about was 
 covered with pretty hamlets, with copse woods, with 
 roads lined with long avenues of elms, with embowered 
 lanes ; with huge moats belonging to granges which had 
 disappeared; with manor houses and their terraced 
 gardens rejoicing in the gorgeous flowers with which 
 that district of country abounded; with windmills 
 on the wolds and water-mills in the valley; with fre- 
 quent churches mthin whose walls lay cross-legged 
 the monuments, as it was believed, of old crusaders. 
 Northward of the little place rose to their greatest 
 height the chalky cliffs of the Wolds. Mounting them 
 was a steep and treeless pike which led to the market 
 town of Louth. From it could be seen the long 
 stretches of level land parallel with the coast over 
 
 1 ' In Tennyson Land, ' p. 40. 
 
TENNYSON'S EAKLY YEARS 33 
 
 whose flat surface blew at times with tumultuous fury 
 the fierce winds of the German Ocean. From the hills 
 the eye commands the wide expanse of the marsh with 
 its streams of channelled waters extending from hori- 
 zon to horizon and moving sluggishly towards their 
 outlet, spanned in all directions by the frequent bridge. 
 Perhaps even more appealing to the poetic spirit 
 was the long line of coast bounding the marsh on the 
 east with its mounds of sand heaped up along the 
 shore by the stormy waters of the North Sea, covered 
 and held firm by the vegetation which had sprung up. 
 All this region was familiar to the children of the 
 household. It was the scene of much of their recrea- 
 tion and play. There for them v/as the far-receding 
 tide of Skegness and Gibraltar Point, which left at 
 low water a long and wide expanse of sand in which 
 the bare-legged brothers and sisters could disport 
 themselves for hours. There, too, was the Mable- 
 thorpe beach on which in stormy weather the plung- 
 ing waves would break with thunderous roar, the tem- 
 pestuous wind beating their crests into foam, driving 
 the water up the sand dunes, and scattering far and 
 wide the spray. The beauty of it and the might of it 
 made an indelible impression upon the mind of the 
 growing boy. The sea, indeed, was always Tennyson's 
 delight. To watch the onset of the ever restless waves 
 and listen to their roar was for him a perpetual pleas- 
 ure. The feeling began in childhood and remained 
 until the end. In later life he remembered and re- 
 corded the sentiments of his early years when he tells 
 us he read in the Revelation of St. John of the new 
 
34 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 heaven and the new earth which were to come when 
 the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. 
 *'And there was no more sea," concludes the Apostle. 
 **I remember reading that when a child," Tennyson 
 wrote in 1848, ' ' and not being able to reconcile myself 
 to a future when there should be no more sea. ' " 
 
 The scenes and sights which early met his eyes are 
 constantly reflected in his verse. Doubtless they lost 
 something of their charm to the man himself as he 
 grew in years. Yet as doubtlessly they became glori- 
 fied in memory after he had bidden them a final 
 farewell in order to share in the struggles of the world 
 outside. He would then forget their discomforts and 
 recall only their attraction. Still, when later he would 
 return to them, they would not always be to him what 
 he had fancied them to be. The moorland would be 
 more barren, the shore would be more dreary. This 
 different attitude of the mind at different times is 
 shown in the well-known lines in which he described 
 the fairy picture which the boy dreamed and the reality 
 which the boy when grown to manhood came to see : 
 
 Here often, when a child I lay reclined, 
 
 I took delight in this fair strand and free ; 
 Here stood the infant Ilion of the mind, 
 
 And here the Grecian ships all seem'd to be. 
 And here again I come, and only find 
 
 The drain-cut levels of the marshy lea, — 
 Gray sand-banks and pale sunsets, — dreary wind. 
 
 Dim shores, dense rains, and heavy clouded sea.^ 
 
 1 ' Memoir, ' Vol. I, p. 238. 
 
 2 Lines contributed to 'The Manchester Athenseum Album,' 1850, in 
 'Memoir,' Vol. I, p. 161. 
 
TENNYSON'S EARLY YEARS 35 
 
 It is indeed from incidental references in his owti 
 writings that we get the fullest insight into the 
 thoughts and feelings of Tennyson's early life as well 
 as the objects which met his gaze. One of the best, if 
 not the best of the poems which made up the volume 
 of 1830/ sets forth \T.vidly the various scenes which 
 were ever before his eyes. It is in the lines addressed 
 to memory in which he paints those scenes which had 
 impressed him peculiarly: 
 
 Come from the woods that belt the gray hillside, 
 The seven elms, the poplars four 
 That stand beside my father's door, 
 And chiefly from the brook that loves 
 To purl 'er matted cress and ribbed sand 
 Or dimple in the dark of rushy coves, 
 Drawing into her narrow earthen urn. 
 
 In every elbow and turn, 
 The filter 'd tribute of the rough woodland. 
 
 ! hither lead thy feet ! 
 Pour round mine ears the livelong bleat 
 Of the thick-fleeced sheep from wattled folds 
 
 Upon the ridged wolds, 
 When the first matin-song hath waken 'd loud 
 Over the dark dewy earth forlorn, 
 "What time the amber morn 
 Forth gushes from beneath a low-hung cloud. 
 
 Perhaps even more vividly descriptive of the sights 
 that were ever before the eyes of the boy are the lines 
 in the same poem where he speaks of 
 
 1' Poems, chiefly Lyrical,' 1830. 
 
36 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 . . . the high field on the bushless Pike, 
 
 Or even a sand-built ridge 
 
 Of heaped hills that mound the sea, 
 
 Overblo\^^l with murmurs harsh, 
 
 Or even a lowly cottage whence we see 
 
 Stretch 'd wide and wild the waste enormous marsh, 
 
 "Where from the frequent bridge, 
 
 Like emblems of eternity, 
 
 The trenched waters run from sky to sky. 
 
 Of his early poetical tastes and of his early efforts 
 in verse Tennyson, for once abandoning his usual 
 reticence, has left us a slight record. Thomson was 
 the first poet he knew. It was rather a singular choice 
 for a child. When about ten or eleven years old, 
 Pope's translation of the Iliad exercised over him the 
 peculiar fascination which it has exercised over so 
 many poets at about this period of life. Later he fell 
 under the influence of Walter Scott, in whose style he 
 wrote an epic of six thousand lines. At the age of 
 fourteen he produced a drama in blank verse. This 
 last may have survived the destruction which has over- 
 taken the other pieces; but if so, it has not been 
 printed. The taste, indeed, for poetical composition 
 was not confined to him alone of the children ; it appar- 
 ently prevailed in the whole Tennyson family. The 
 father was himself addicted to the composition of 
 verses. He never published them; but three of his 
 sons brought out volumes of poems. Though only 
 one of the number attained fame, there was not at the 
 outset assurance that Alfred would be the one. Two 
 others had their partisans. Charles, in particular, had 
 
TENNYSON'S EARLY YEARS 37 
 
 his advocates. FitzGerald held Frederick, the eldest 
 of the brothers, as altogether superior. The same 
 preference was shown by the Brownings. FitzGerald 
 wrote to him on the subject in 1849.^ ''You and he" — 
 by he he meant Alfred — ' ' are the only men alive whose 
 poems I want to see in print," are his words. Later 
 he renewed the same request. "As you know," he 
 wrote in 1850, "I admire your poems, the only poems 
 by a living writer I do admire, except Alfred's."^ 
 Whether in consequence of this urgency or not, Fred- 
 erick Tennyson published in 1854 a volume of poems 
 entitled ' Days and Hours. ' It was received generally 
 with respectful and in some quarters with enthusiastic 
 mention. But whatever success it gained was confined 
 to the critics. With the public it never met with any 
 peculiar favor, and its author published nothing more 
 till 1890, eight years before his death. But his later 
 volumes were hardly more successful than his first. 
 
 Tennyson would have been different from the rest 
 of the world, had he not at that time fallen under the 
 sway of the overpowering personality of Byron. He 
 did fall under it. The story has been told again and 
 again since its first mention how profoundly the im- 
 pressionable boy of fifteen was affected when the news 
 reached the quiet Lincolnshire hamlet that Byron was 
 no more; how full of consternation he was; how he 
 went off by himself and wrote on the sand, "Byron is 
 dead. ' ' It was something almost impossible to credit. 
 
 1' Letters and Literary Remains of Edward FitzGerald,' Vol. I, 
 p. 195. 
 
 zlhid., p. 203. 
 
38 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 *■ ' I thought, ' ' he said, ' ' the whole world was at an end. 
 I thought everything was over and finished for every 
 one — that nothing else mattered."^ Tennyson came 
 afterward for a time at least to share in the undue 
 depreciation which sooner or later is sure to over- 
 take any reputation whether duly or unduly exalted. 
 In truth, there was a period in Tennyson's life when 
 he indulged in that cheapest of cheap criticism which 
 styled the poetry of Byron rhetoric. This was a vague 
 word used to express a vague idea that Byron is not 
 profoundly reflective, as of course the speaker always 
 is. At a later period Tennyson took a somewhat dif- 
 ferent view. He believed that Byron's reputation 
 would rise and that he would come to his own again. 
 But under no circumstances could Tennyson have be- 
 longed for any length of time to the school which Byron 
 had founded, however much his spirit might have 
 been affected by him while his influence was most pre- 
 vailing. Both in feeling and expression the two were 
 as far apart as the poles. No proper comparison can 
 be made between natures which had so little in common 
 in thought and utterance. The business of comparison 
 between great writers is in general unsatisfactory but 
 there are instances like the present when it assumes 
 the dimensions of the absurd. 
 
 With men who have genius for poetry, its existence 
 is almost certain to disclose itself in early production. 
 It perhaps hardly needs to be added that this par- 
 ticular method of manifesting itself is very far from 
 being confined to men of genius. The further general 
 
 1 Mrs. Kitchie 's ' Records of Tennyson, Euskin, Browning, ' p. 12. 
 
TENNYSON'S EARLY YEARS 39 
 
 statement may be safely made that there is one respect 
 in which poetical composition stands apart from other 
 activities of the creative intellect. When once the pro- 
 ducer has reached full maturity the quality of the prod- 
 uct is little likely to be further improved with age. 
 No rule indeed can be laid do^vn which will not show 
 exceptions. Still, it is rarely the case that he sur- 
 passes after he has reached thirty the work produced 
 before that time. Sometimes he fails to equal it. In 
 the career of a poet the age between twenty-five and 
 fifty is usually not only the most productive period, 
 but it is also the period of most satisfactory produc- 
 tion, frequently of the only satisfactory production. 
 Ordinarily indeed the further limit might be restricted 
 to forty. Poetry, in truth, is a literary growth which 
 flowers early. 
 
 This fact the writers of the Georgian era exemplify 
 uniformly. The assertion made about them might be 
 extended to nearly all the writers of every period. As 
 this is a view unfamiliar to many, it may be well to add 
 that the history of English poetry and poets bears con- 
 clusive testimony to its truth. The exceptions are but 
 few ; and even these are often more apparent than real. 
 Chaucer, it may be, was one of them. But besides the 
 possibility, if not probability, that a good deal of his 
 first production has perished, he had laid upon him 
 the burden of shaping and perfecting the vehicle he 
 employed. Milton, again, did not produce his epic till 
 late in life. But in his early years he had manifested 
 his possession of poetic power of the highest grade. 
 There is indeed every reason to believe that 'Paradise 
 
40 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 Lost' would have been an even nobler work than it is, 
 had it been written at a period of life when the fervor 
 and fire of youth had not yet been impaired by age 
 but merely strengthened and tempered by the judg- 
 ment of maturer years. Dryden is, in fact, the only 
 great modern poet whose first production gave little 
 or no assurance of the position he was afterwards to 
 attain ; but Dryden is more a poet of the intellect than 
 of the feelings. Far the largest share of great verse 
 in English literature has been produced before its 
 creators have reached the middle period of man's 
 allotted life on earth. 
 
 To this general rule of the excellence of early pro- 
 duction by a great poet, Tennyson, as will be seen, is 
 no exception, even if he be considered an exception to 
 the decay which ordinarily follows it. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 POEMS BY TWO BROTHERS 
 
 It was while the children were carrying on their 
 studies at home, reading in a desultory fashion but on 
 an extensive scale, that two of them — Charles and 
 Alfred — during the years immediately preceding their 
 entrance into Cambridge University, prepared a 
 volume for the press. It was entitled 'Poems by Two 
 Brothers.' When the book came out, the elder of the 
 two was nineteen years old, the younger a little less 
 than eighteen. 
 
 It was in the latter part of April, 1827, that this 
 work made its appearance. It was published by a 
 firm of provincial booksellers, J. and J. Jackson of 
 Louth, who were the owners of the copyright. On the 
 title-page, however, the name of the London publish- 
 ing house of W. Simpkin and R. Marshall took prece- 
 dence. The book was prefaced by a so-called adver- 
 tisement stating that the pieces which composed it had 
 been written ' ' from the ages of fifteen to eighteen, not 
 conjointly, but individually." It was further added, 
 somewhat modestly, though boyishly, that if the work 
 were subjected to "the microscopic eye of periodical 
 criticism," a long list of inaccuracies and imitations 
 would doubtless result as an outcome of the investiga- 
 tion. But the authors went on to say, as did Byron in 
 
42 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 the preface to his 'Hours of Idleness,' that they had 
 passed the Rubicon and must necessarily encounter 
 whatever fate the future had in store. In truth, this 
 advertisement was manifestly inspired by Byron's 
 preface to his first venture, though it is a little more 
 than a dozen lines, while his extended to some pages. 
 The spirit, however, was exactly the same ; the thought 
 was the same, so far as it could be under the varying 
 conditions. There can be no reasonable doubt that the 
 author of the later brief preface had in his mind, while 
 writing it, the earlier preface to the somewhat similar 
 collection of boyish verses. 
 
 The original volume is now one of the scarcest of 
 books. It commands accordingly an exceptionally high 
 price whenever a copy appears on the market. The 
 poems contained in it are precisely one hundred and 
 three in number. This number, however, includes one 
 written by Charles, which serves as a kind of intro- 
 duction to the whole work. The manuscript of the 
 volume was later unearthed at the printing-office, and 
 a reproduction of the original was brought out in 1893. 
 In this reprint the initials of the writers were attached 
 to the different pieces, so far as that could then be 
 determined with reasonable certainty. Here it may be 
 said that the designation of the authorship then made, 
 agreed pretty generally with what had previously been 
 reached by competent critics on the ground of internal 
 evidence. In the reprint the authorship of forty-eight 
 of the pieces was assigned to Charles Tennyson; that 
 of forty-two to Alfred. The rest were in most 
 instances left undetermined. Three, however, bore 
 
POEMS BY TWO BROTHERS 43 
 
 the signature of the eldest brother, Frederick Tenny- 
 son. In the preface to the book, the number of his 
 contributions is said to be four. Accordingly one of 
 them seems to have been left unindicated. The long- 
 est poem in the whole volume — 'The Oak of the 
 North' — was of his composition. Nor is either one 
 of the two others specified as his distinguished by 
 brevity. In consequence of his participation in it, the 
 book might fairly have been termed 'Poems by Three 
 Brothers.' 
 
 The later celebrity of Tennyson has caused an excep- 
 tional degree of curiosity to spring up about this petty 
 volume. There are indeed circumstances connected 
 with its publication which invest it with peculiar inter- 
 est, entirely dissociated from the matter it contains.- 
 Though the boys fancied they had been crossing a 
 Rubicon, the audacity of the act did not awaken any 
 surprise or astonishment in the rest of the world. Men 
 did not learn of it at the time. They continued much 
 later to remain in ignorance of the fact that any Rubi- 
 con existed in Lincolnshire or that any one had crossed 
 it. The work attracted no attention worth mentioning 
 till late in the century. Three notices of it, however, 
 certainly appeared. They are all more or less per- 
 functory. One can be found in an advertisement of 
 it taken from 'The Sunday Mercury' of April 22, 1827. 
 This spoke of it as "a work, which, under the most 
 retiring title contains many exquisite pieces of verse." 
 Another criticism appeared in 'The Literary Chroni- 
 cle and "Weekly Review' of May 19 of this same year. 
 This was one of several weeklies fated soon to die, 
 
44 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 or to be merged ^vith others, which about that time 
 were set on foot. The criticism is interesting as 
 expressing no opinion in a genial way. "This little 
 volume, ' ' it said, ' * exhibits a pleasing union of kindred 
 tastes, and contains several little pieces of considerable 
 merit. ' ' It quoted two poems in full. One of them was 
 the piece beginning with the line 'Yon star of eve, so 
 soft and clear,' and the other entitled 'God's Denun- 
 ciations against Pharaoh-Hophra. ' The first of these 
 is thought by some to be the unindicated fourth poem 
 of Frederick Tennyson. 
 
 The fullest and most genuinely cordial of these three 
 notices was that contained in 'The Gentleman's Maga- 
 zine.'^ It began with controverting the dictum of Dr. 
 Johnson that no book was ever spared out of tender- 
 ness to its author. "Why," it continued, "to such a 
 volume as this should a test be applied which should 
 have reference only to high pretensions 1 These poems 
 are full of amiable feelings, expressed for the most 
 part with elegance and correctness — are we to com- 
 plain that they want the deep feeling of a Byron, the 
 polished grace of Moore, or the perfect mastery of 
 human passions which distinguishes Crabbe? We 
 would rather express our surprise and admiration that 
 at an age when the larger class of mankind have barely 
 reached the elements of thought, so much of good feel- 
 ing, united to the poetical expression of it, should be 
 found in two members of the same family. The vol- 
 ume is a graceful addition to our domestic poetry, and 
 does credit to the juvenile Adelphi." 
 
 1 Vol. XCVII, Supplement to Part I, p. 609. 
 
POEMS BY TWO BROTHERS 45 
 
 It was of course not to be expected that the work 
 should attract even so much as the little attention it 
 received. A volume of poems written by two boys 
 whose names were not given on the title-page, and 
 brought out by provincial booksellers in a small coun- 
 try town, did not have any favoring adventitious cir- 
 cumstances to contribute to its success. The collec- 
 tion of pieces, though in a certain way remarkable, is 
 not so very remarkable. Nor indeed is it so very 
 unusual. Better work has been accomplished at this 
 early age by poets who have turned out distinctly 
 inferior to the greater of the two brothers. What has 
 justly been regarded as the most wonderful thing 
 about the volume is that not only were these young 
 writers able to find men who were mlling to print and 
 publish it at their own expense but to pay in addition 
 twenty pounds for the copyright. To the boys them- 
 selves who never had at best more than a few pence 
 in their pockets and usually nothing at all, the pos- 
 session of so much money must have given them the 
 feeling of having come into the possession of a veri- 
 table Golconda. A goodly part of this sum, to be sure, 
 was taken out in books. But the fact itself is justly 
 regarded as one of the most astounding stories that 
 can be told of the relations which have existed between 
 authors and publishers. A prosaic explanation of this 
 apparently inexplicable phenomenon has been given 
 on the ground that the maternal grandfather of the 
 two authors had been vicar of Louth. They them- 
 selves had also been students in the grammar school 
 of the place. Accordingly, though the grandfather 
 
46 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 had been dead long before, the interest of his person- 
 ality would still continue to linger about the efforts of 
 his grandsons. 
 
 This explanation has been called very rational. All 
 wonder therefore is to cease. If so, the rational intel- 
 lect works very differently in Lincolnshire from what 
 it does in the rest of the civilized world. In the latter 
 it takes more than the sale of a work among a large 
 circle of personal friends to repay the expense of pro- 
 duction, even when the author has achieved some repu- 
 tation already. The likelihood that it would have any 
 effect of that sort in the circle which continued to 
 remember a grandfather with a different name, who 
 had been dead for several years, can hardly be reck- 
 oned as justifying an experienced man of business in 
 embarking upon any such venture. There may have 
 been motives which influenced the Jacksons in the 
 course they adopted which we have no means of ascer- 
 taining. If it were, however, a business transaction 
 purely, their generosity can be praised only at the 
 expense of their sagacity. It is doubtful — it is perhaps 
 right to add, it is not doubtful — that the receipts from 
 the sale never paid them even for the price of the 
 copyright, to say nothing of the other expenses of the 
 publication. Fortunate it pretty surely was for the 
 boys that they fell into the hands of provincial book- 
 sellers. Had their first venture been with a London 
 publisher, instead of receiving from him twenty 
 pounds for the copyright, they would have been likely 
 to have paid him instead more than twenty pounds for 
 bringing out the book at all. Even then he would 
 
POEMS BY TWO BROTHERS 47 
 
 probably have lost money by the bargain. At any 
 rate, he would have insisted that he had, which so far 
 as they were concerned would have amounted to the 
 same thing. 
 
 The contents of the volume now come up for consid- 
 eration. Like the work of most young and precocious 
 writers belonging to the educated class, it was char- 
 acterized by the display of that multifarious learning, 
 in the exhibition of which boyhood delights. This 
 was scattered over its pages with a lavish hand in 
 the shape of mottoes, footnotes, and quotations. For 
 most of these Alfred was responsible. Furthermore, 
 like the work of all young writers, it reflected the 
 authors who were their favorites. In their case it 
 reflected the work of a great many authors, for the 
 two brothers had been omnivorous readers, and read- 
 ers, almost without exception, of the best literature. 
 Especially was this true of the younger. Curious is 
 the picture which the citations and remarks contained 
 in the volume present of the tastes and occupations of 
 the boys in that secluded Lincolnshire home. It is 
 worth while indeed to give a fairly full, though not 
 complete, list of the various authors mth whom they 
 were more or less familiar ; for it is manifest that the 
 references and quotations are usually suggested by 
 their o^\ti reading and not drawn from compendiums 
 and conventional collections of '^elegant extracts." As 
 was to be expected, the classic writers were strongly 
 in e^ddence. Yet in Greek but two of these — Xenophon 
 and Apollonius Rhodius — are referred to directly, 
 though in the poems themselves familiarity with others 
 
48 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 is manifested. In Latin, however, there is a far larger 
 display of authors and titles. They come too from 
 both early and late periods of the literature. Lucre- 
 tius, Terence, Sallust, Cicero, Horace, Virgil, Ovid, 
 Tacitus, Suetonius, Juvenal, Martial, ^lius Lamprid- 
 ius, and Claudian are the names of those to whom 
 direct reference is made or indebtedness professed. 
 Even the Latin poems of Gray are drawn upon. 
 
 In the modern tongues there is the same wealth of 
 boyish erudition displayed. France furnishes quota- 
 tions from Racine and Rousseau. Even Spanish 
 authors are cited. But naturally the English writers 
 present the most formidable array of names. Among 
 the poets are found Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, 
 Young, Mason, Beattie, Cowper, Ossian, Scott, Moore, 
 and Byron. Among the prose writers are Addison, 
 Burke, and Mrs. Radcliffe. The historians are repre- 
 sented by Hume and Gibbon. There are quotations 
 from less distinguished names which need not be con- 
 sidered here. The works of the great oriental scholar, 
 Sir William Jones, are, however, worth mentioning, 
 because they seem to have been specially favored by 
 the younger brother. But besides direct references, 
 it is easy to detect in the poems themselves imitations 
 of writers who are not specifically mentioned. It is 
 a common remark that in this volume the influence of 
 Byron is predominant. At the time the book came 
 out, that result might surely have been anticipated; 
 for in the minds of most Byron still continued to be 
 the predominating force in English poetry. Within 
 certain bounds, accordingly, it may be conceded that 
 
POEMS BY TWO BROTHERS 49 
 
 the statement is true. There is in the production of 
 the younger brother a manifest imitation of particular 
 poems of that author whose recent death had deepened 
 the impression created by his brilliant career. This 
 fact is especially noticeable in the case of certain con- 
 templative pieces about the future life; and we may 
 feel confident that the expedition of Nadir Shah into 
 Hindostan would never have been written by Alfred 
 Tennyson, had not the Assyrian previously come dowTi 
 like the wolf on the fold. But even here the influence of 
 Byron is not exclusive. There are lines in the poem 
 plainly reminiscent of the 'LochiePs Warning' of 
 Campbell. 
 
 More marked, however, than the character of the 
 subjects and the form of versification is the spirit 
 which pervades several of these imitations. Especially 
 is it noticeable in those written by the elder brother. 
 In Byron the posing for effect which now strikes us as 
 so unreal had something of a basis in genuine feeling 
 on his part, or at any rate, in what he believed to be 
 genuine feeling. But with his imitators the posing 
 was the only thing that was genuine at all. In the 
 case of these two writers it had about it under the cir- 
 cumstances almost an air of the comic. It is perhaps 
 natural for a boy to write gloomy poetry; to pretend 
 to be blase before he has really known what pleasure 
 is; to complain of blighted affections before he could 
 have learned by experience the meaning of that pre- 
 liminary process of acquiring them which we term 
 falling in love; to find the grave casting its gloomy 
 shadow over life at the very age when life is abound- 
 
50 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 ing and fairly exultant in freshness and vigor. It 
 seems for some reason to be always natural; at that 
 particular period Byron had made it fashionable. 
 
 But in the case of these young authors the unreality 
 of this attitude is peculiarly unreal. The man of the 
 world can hardly be expected to refrain from smiling 
 when a boy of sixteen or seventeen begins to talk about 
 the flowers of youth as having faded in spite of sor- 
 row's tears. He might feel justified in laughing when 
 a well-brought up lad, still a good way from having 
 reached the end of his teens — whose greatest iniquity 
 is likely to have been the twisting of a knocker from a 
 door or ringing a bell and running away — when so mild 
 a scapegrace as this should announce in all seriousness 
 that it is a fearful thing for him to glance back over 
 the gloom of misspent years and to have his mind 
 filled with a thousand terrors as he sees advancing the 
 shado-v\y forms of guilt, and the vices of his life 
 stand portrayed before him mthout a gleam of hope 
 to cheer his old and aching eyes. This is pretty strong 
 language for a veteran sinner ; but it is hopelessly out 
 of place in the mouth of a boy w^ho had never dreamed 
 of committing a crime of even respectable turpitude, 
 still less of perpetrating a deed of flagrant atrocity. It 
 may be said that this is merely a dramatic picture. 
 The writer accordingly is not to be held responsible 
 for the views his characters express. But even in the 
 case of these supposed characters the language has an 
 air of unreality. The impression produced is that of 
 feelings which no man had ever experienced in any 
 form, and which these boys could never have conceived 
 
 I 
 
POEMS BY TWO BROTHERS 51 
 
 of, unless influenced by an imagination inspired by 
 vagne recollections of what they had read. 
 
 But as has been intimated, this kind of writing char- 
 acterizes the work of the elder brother rather than that 
 of the younger. Throughout, this diiference between 
 the nature of their respective contributions had been 
 recognized by the writers themselves. In their so- 
 called advertisement they intimate that their produc- 
 tions are not alike either in style or matter. This is 
 apparent to even the casual reader. The difference 
 between the poetry of the two authors extends not 
 merely to the treatment of their subjects, but to the 
 subjects themselves. This the very titles show. 
 Persia, Mexico, The Fall of Jerusalem, Mithridates, 
 Berenice, Antony and Cleopatra are the themes upon 
 which the younger brother dilates. These are not the 
 sort of subjects which interested Charles. Equally 
 marked is the difference in the manner of their treat- 
 ment. In that respect the productions of the two are 
 as divergent as two streams forming a junction, which 
 have come from entirely different regions and carry 
 with them the traces of different soils. Charles had 
 none of the intricate variations of verse or peculiari- 
 ties of diction which, even at that early age, had begun 
 to characterize the workmanship of his younger 
 brother. His writing is usually simple, clear, and with 
 an almost fatal tendency to the commonplace. Certain 
 of his poems, in truth, such as 'Sunday Mobs' and 
 'Phrenology,' are hopelessly prosaic. The influence of 
 Byron was far more disastrously potent in his case 
 than in that of Alfred. It is in his poems that the 
 
52 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 posing attitude is prominent. It is he who is racked 
 by remorse for crimes never committed. It is he who 
 looks back upon a career of blighted hopes and sinful 
 deeds. One of his pieces is entitled 'In Early Youth 
 I Lost my Sire.' As a result of this misfortune, he 
 tells us, his soul had been torn by every blast of vice. 
 By such lines as the following he not only harrows our 
 feelings, but proceeds to enhance the extent of his 
 misfortune by using italics : 
 
 Why lowers my brow, dost thou enquire? 
 Why burns mine eye with feverish fire? 
 With hatred now, and now with ire? 
 In early youth I lost my sire. 
 
 As a matter of fact, we know that the Tennysons at 
 this time had not lost their sire. Further, as a matter 
 of theory, we are pretty safe in asserting that in minds 
 ordinarily constituted no direful results of the kind 
 here denoted follow from the loss of one's sire which 
 w^ould not have followed had the sire continued to 
 exist. 
 
 But it is to be said that in the pieces of Alfred 
 Tennyson which here most distinctively indicate the 
 features of his future poetry, there is even at this early 
 day comparatively little trace of the influence of Byron. 
 What there is of it, if not that of Byron at his best, 
 is certainly not that of him at his worst. In several of 
 the more important pieces which the younger brother 
 contributed to this volume, the influence of the earlier 
 poet can hardly be detected at all. Fully as noticeable, 
 certainly, are the imitations, conscious or unconscious, 
 
POEMS BY TWO BROTHERS 53 
 
 of Scott and Campbell. Perhaps even more directly 
 marked than any others are the passages that owe 
 their existence to the poetry of Gray. There are lines 
 which are obviously inspired by some of those con- 
 tained in that writer's Uvo Pindaric odes — ^inspired 
 not in the sense of being borrowed but in that of being 
 suggested. In truth, the wide reading of the younger 
 brother comes out distinctly in his verse as contrasted 
 with the little display of it by the elder, even if the 
 latter had been as remarkable for its possession as his 
 associate. The difference between the two in this par- 
 ticular is another easy method of distinguishing the 
 authorship of the respective pieces. But in truth, he 
 who had become thoroughly steeped in Tennyson's 
 later diction and method of expression would never 
 experience much difficulty in designating a very large 
 proportion of the pieces in this volume for which he 
 was responsible. In these first writings of the poet 
 occur not unfrequently the compound adjectives which 
 later much distressed the critics of his early work. 
 Even here are to be found such expressions, for exam- 
 ple, as Vapor-mantled, earth-imbedded, soul-enchant- 
 ing, and greenly-tangled. In them, too, was exhibited 
 that fondness for the archaic which led Tennyson later 
 to revive words and phrases which had gone out of use, 
 and for which he came constantly to be charged mth 
 affectation. Especially noticeable in the work of a 
 writer, then only a young boy, is the use of the prefix 
 y to the past participle. From all vagaries of this 
 sort — if we choose to call them vagaries — his brother 
 Charles was thoroughly free. 
 
54 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 Though the younger brother's poems were fewer in 
 number than those of the elder, as a consequence of 
 the greater length of his pieces, he contributed to the 
 joint volume much the larger proportion of lines. But 
 as may be inferred from what has been said, far more 
 did he surpass him in quality of verse. There has been 
 a disposition to sneer at the work accomplished in his 
 boyhood by the future poet. Tennyson himself was at 
 one time disposed to depreciate it. He called it his 
 ''early rot." But when towards the close of his life 
 he came to examine it, he admitted that it was better 
 than he had thought. It has been no infrequent state- 
 ment on the part of others — usually indeed of those 
 who have not prejudiced their minds by reading this 
 volume— that what appeared in it gives no promise 
 whatever of his later achievement. The assertion 
 indeed has sometimes been made by those who have 
 professed to pay special attention to the work itself. 
 We have been told in an article on the bibliography of 
 Tennyson that ''we may safely assert that the most 
 intense student of the Laureate might read this vol- 
 ume through without the faintest suspicion of its 
 alleged authorship. ' " In one sense this might be said 
 of the early production of any great author. The art, 
 what there is of it, of boys whose ages range anywhere 
 between sixteen and twenty, is fairly sure to be imita- 
 tive. It is not in such pieces that we expect to see any 
 striking mastery of technique or display of profound 
 thought or intense feeling, and above all of those char- 
 acteristics which mark peculiarly the expression of 
 
 1 ' Fortnightly Eeview, ' Vol. II, p. 386. 
 
POEMS BY TWO BROTHERS 55 
 
 the mature man as contrasted with the imitation con- 
 sciously or unconsciously practised by the immature. 
 It may be remarked, however, that the suspicion of a 
 very intense student of Tennyson might be aroused 
 by finding an occasional line in the early poems essen- 
 tially reproduced in his later works. 
 
 This fact, however, carries but little weight when we 
 come to discuss the nature and value of the poetry. 
 The thorough commonplaceness of Tennyson's work 
 in this volume has been insisted upon by men who can 
 hardly plead, who at least ought not to plead, that 
 impartiality of judgment which arises from ignorance. 
 So acute a critic as the late Andrew Lang took the 
 ground in one of his essays that the early work of great 
 poets is never better than that of ordinary men — a 
 thesis pretty difficult to maintain in the face of certain 
 writers, such, for example, as some of Cowley's pieces 
 written in boyhood, or Milton's 'Nati\dty Ode,' or 
 Pope's 'Essay on Criticism.' To sustain his view he 
 cited among others the case of Tennyson. ''There 
 is no promise at all," he wrote, "in the Tennysons' 
 'Poems by Two Brothers.' "^ This is negative dis- 
 paragement; but for positive failure to exhibit the 
 least sign of literary judgment we can have recourse 
 to another critic. Of the 'Poems by Two Brothers' 
 Stopford Brooke tells us that "they are mthout a 
 trace of originality, force, or freshness — faded imita- 
 tions of previous poets, chiefly of Byron; or, where 
 not imitative, full of the futile modesty of boyhood, 
 
 1 On 'Genius in Children,' in 'North American Eeview, ' January, 
 1897, Vol. CLXIV, p. 36. 
 
56 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 which would fain be vain but does not dare ; made up 
 partly of bold noise and partly of sentimentality, accu- 
 rately true to the tjq^e of English poetry between the 
 death of Shelley and the publication of the Tennyson 
 volume of 1830." It is further remarked that ''it is 
 one of the literary puzzles of the world that certain 
 great poets, as, for example, Shelley, and here Tenny- 
 son, write trash in their boyhood ; and within a year or 
 two step on to a level of original power. "^ Examples 
 such as these show that in the production of foolish 
 criticism no limitations are imposed by age. 
 
 This is not to say that Tennyson's productions in 
 the 'Poems by Two Brothers' are to be regarded as 
 highly remarkable. It would be an assumption not 
 justified by the character of the pieces found in this 
 volume to maintain that they gave certain indication of 
 the advent of a great poetic genius. Had not the 
 promise here disclosed been followed by great per- 
 formance, these poems would have remained in the 
 oblivion into which they speedily fell; or rather into 
 the oblivion into which they were born, outside of the 
 immediate circle of friends or relatives who were prob- 
 ably their sole readers. But to say that there is no 
 promise at all shows either ignorance of their content 
 or a wilful closing of the eyes to the fact. There are 
 several of the younger poet's pieces which are far 
 from being poor productions in themselves. "I did 
 not expect to find them so good as they really are," 
 said Frederick Tennyson in the passage of a letter 
 
 1 ' Tennyson, His Art and Eelation to Modern Life, ' by Stopf ord 
 Augustus Brooke, 1894, p. 55. 
 
POEMS BY TWO BROTHERS 57 
 
 quoted in the reprint of 1893. His praise seems to have 
 been given to all of them ; that it has sufficient warrant 
 in the case of Alfred may be shown by a few extracts. 
 The first consists of two stanzas taken from a poem 
 entitled 'The Vale of Bones.' It is the picture of a 
 valley between mountains strewn with the bones of 
 those who had fallen in battle : 
 
 I knew thera all — a gallant band, 
 The glory of their native land, 
 And on each lordly brow elate 
 Sate valour and contempt of fate. 
 Fierceness of youth, and scorn of foe. 
 And pride to render blow for blow. 
 In the strong war's tumultuous crash, 
 How darkly did their keen eyes flash ! 
 How fearlessly each arm was rais 'd ! 
 How dazzlingly each broad-sword blaz 'd ! 
 Though now the dreary night-breeze moans 
 • Above them in this Vale of Bones. 
 
 What lapse of time shall sweep away 
 The memory of that gallant day, 
 When on to battle proudly going. 
 Your plumage to the wild winds blowing. 
 Your tartans far behind ye flowing, 
 Your pennons rais'd, your clarions sounding, 
 Fiercely your steeds beneath ye bounding. 
 Ye mix'd the strife of warring foes 
 In fiery shock and deadly close? 
 What stampings in the madd'ning strife, 
 What thrusts, what stabs, with brand and knife. 
 What desp'rate strokes for death or life, 
 Were there ! What cries, what thrilling groans. 
 Re-echo 'd thro' the Vale of Bones! 
 
58 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 No one can well deny the force or fire of this passage, 
 when we take into account that it comes from a boy of 
 sixteen or seventeen. It assuredly indicated the possi- 
 ble, though of course not certain, development of poetic 
 power of no mean order. This promise is brought out 
 more unmistakably in the following stanza from the 
 poem entitled 'Antony to Cleopatra': 
 
 Then when the shriekings of the dying 
 
 Were heard along the wave, 
 Soul of my soul ! I saw thee flying ; 
 
 I follow 'd thee, to save. 
 The thunders of the brazen prows 
 
 O'er Actium's ocean rung; 
 Fame's garland faded from my brows, 
 
 Her wreath away I flung. 
 I sought, I saw, I heard but thee ; 
 For what to love was victory? 
 
 Of an entirely different cast from either of these is 
 the poem entitled ' Persia. ' In it is depicted the grief 
 of the founder of the empire could he have foreseen 
 its fall. In so doing the writer describes in the follow- 
 ing lines the extent of the domain whose fate he 
 bewails : 
 
 To view the setting of that star. 
 Which beam'd so gorgeously and far 
 O'er Anatolia and the fane 
 Of Belus, and Cai'ster's plain, 
 
 And Sardis, and the glittering sands 
 
 Of bright Pactolus, and the lands 
 Where Croesus held his rich domain: 
 On fair Diarbeck's land of spice, 
 Adiabene's plains of rice. 
 
POEMS BY TWO BROTHERS 59 
 
 Where down th' Euphrates, swift and strong, 
 The shield-like kuphars bound along; 
 And sad Cunaxa's field, where, mixing 
 
 With host to adverse host oppos'd, 
 'Mid clashing shield and spear transfixing, 
 
 The rival brothers sternly elos'd. 
 And further east, where, broadly roll'd. 
 Old Indus pours his stream of gold; 
 And there where, tumbling deep and hoarse, 
 Blue Ganga leaves her vaccine source; 
 Loveliest of all the lovely streams 
 That meet immortal Titan's beams. 
 And smile upon their fruitful way 
 Beneath his golden orient ray: 
 And southward to Cilicia's shore. 
 Where Cydnus meets the billows' roar, 
 And where the Syrian gates divide 
 The meeting realms on either side; 
 E 'en to the land of Nile, whose crops 
 
 Bloom rich beneath his bounteous swell, 
 
 To hot Syene's wondrous well. 
 Nigh to the long-liv'd JEthiops. 
 And northward far to Trebizonde, 
 
 Renoun'd for kings of chivalry. 
 Near where old Hyssus, from the strand, 
 
 Disgorges in the Euxine sea — 
 The Euxine, falsely nam'd, which whelms 
 
 The mariner in the heaving tide. 
 To high Sinope's distant realms, 
 
 Whence cynics rail'd at human pride. 
 
 These lines are not merely remarkable for the mastery 
 of historical and geographical detail they exhibit but 
 for the skill manifested in marshalling an almost Mil- 
 tonic wealth of nomenclature. It is easy to pick out 
 
60 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 flaws ; but a boy of sixteen or seventeen who had come 
 into the possession of the knowledge here displayed, 
 and had the ability to couch it in such vivid verse, has 
 achieved something of a distinctly higher grade than 
 ordinary and even excellent versifiers could produce at 
 a mature age.^ It would be no difficult matter to add 
 other extracts as significant. These are enough, how- 
 ever, to show that the undeveloped Tennyson is already 
 indicated. There is in them distinct poetic promise, 
 though one may be perfectly willing to concede that 
 there has been much poetic promise in the world fully 
 equal to it which has never ripened into performance. 
 It may be well to give some further information 
 about this volume, though this concerns bibliography 
 rather than literary history. The manuscript of the 
 poems chanced to be saved from the destruction which 
 usually overtakes the writings of unknown authors 
 after their works have once gone to the press. On 
 December 23, 1892, it was sold in London by auction.* 
 It brought the sum of £480. Included in the sale, how- 
 ever, was a copy of the printed volume, then com- 
 manding the price of about thirty pounds in the 
 market, and also the receipt for the twenty pounds 
 paid by the Jacksons for the copyright. The manu- 
 script itself was sold a few months later to an Ameri- 
 can firm for £420.^ In this country it remained for a 
 while, but before it was disposed of here, it was re- 
 
 1 "This is not perfect poetry," says Dr. Van Dyke (in 'The Poetry 
 of Tennyson'), after quoting this passage from this poem; "but it is 
 certainly strong verse. It is glorified nomenclature. Milton himself 
 need not have blushed to acknowledge it. ' ' 
 
 2 ' Athenasum, ' December 31, 1892, p. 922. 
 
 3 'Notes and Queries,' June 3, 1893, p. 426. 
 
POEMS BY TWO BROTHERS 61 
 
 turned to England and found a proper resting-place 
 in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge/ Exami- 
 nation of the manuscript showed that all its contents 
 had for some reason not been published. To the 
 reprint of the original edition made in 1893, four short 
 poems were added which had been omitted from the 
 first edition. 
 
 It is not a matter of particular consequence, but it 
 is proper to remark in passing that this volume of the 
 two brothers has not unfrequently been spoken of in 
 recent times as belonging to the year 1826 instead of 
 1827. A statement to that effect has been made, for 
 instance, in some biographies of the poet. In other 
 works a sort of compromise has been arranged between 
 the actual and the supposed fact by designating the 
 volume as that of 1826-1827. For the error Tennyson 
 himself was originally responsible. Strictly speaking, 
 a writer ought to know better than any one else just 
 when a book of his own came out. Rarely is it the 
 case, however, that he can be trusted implicitly. 
 Least of all is it true when he has produced a long 
 succession of works. In this instance assuredly the 
 author cannot be trusted. The truth is that Tennyson 
 came to confound in later life the circumstances con- 
 nected with the dating of his second independent vol- 
 ume of poetry \\dth those of the volume which he had 
 brought out in conjunction with his brother. The 
 former appeared early in December, 1832. It was 
 postdated, however, 1833. Lapse of time with its 
 unfailing concomitant of a treacherous memory led the 
 
 1 Ibid., September 9, 1893, p. 218. 
 
62 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 poet to transfer to the earlier work what was true of 
 the later. The 'Poems by Two Brothers' came out in 
 April, 1827. The so-called advertisement prefixed 
 bears the date of the preceding March. 'The London 
 Daily Chronicle' of April 27, announces it as that day 
 published. It is advertised in 'The Literary Gazette' 
 of April 21 and April 28, though it does not appear in 
 its list of new books until the number for May 12. 
 This is sufficient evidence, though more could be easily 
 supplied. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 UNIVERSITY LIFE 
 
 It was about ten months after their poetical venture 
 that Charles and Alfred Tennyson went to Cambridge 
 University. Both were matriculated at Trinity Col- 
 lege. To be exact, the date was February 20, 1828. 
 There they had been preceded by their eldest brother 
 Frederick. He had gone up from Eton where he had 
 distinguished himself as a most successful writer of 
 Greek and Latin verse. At Cambridge he had already 
 made a still further reputation for himself by gaining 
 the university medal for the best Greek poem. 
 
 With most persons poetically inclined a little mathe- 
 matics goes a long way, and Cambridge had then long 
 been and still continued to be the most mathematical 
 of universities. Excellence in that subject was essen- 
 tial to the attainment of the highest honors. Yet 
 never has it fallen to the lot of any institution of 
 learning — at least in English-speaking lands — to have 
 on its rolls so large a number of illustrious men of 
 letters, most of whom knew little of that special sub- 
 ject and some of whom hated it. From this most 
 mathematical of universities had been graduated be- 
 fore Tennyson was born a large majority of the great- 
 est poets of England. In literature, there was to be no 
 falling off in the period which immediately followed. 
 
64 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 In the course of the third decade of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, particularly, appeared at the university a most 
 remarkable body of men. In the early part of it 
 Macaulay was graduated. During his first residence 
 he expressed his feelings about the studies pursued in 
 a letter to his mother signed ''your most miserable 
 and mathematical son." In the middle of this same 
 decade Bulwer and Winthrop Mackworth Praed were 
 prominent; and a little later Frederick Denison 
 Maurice, John Sterling, and shortly after them, 
 Charles Buller. But towards its end came together 
 in the university, and, as it chanced, mainly in a single 
 one of its colleges, a group of men each of whom was 
 to achieve more or less distinction in the period which 
 w^as to follow. Two of them have attained eminence 
 for all time ; but every one of the others has played no 
 inconspicuous part in the intellectual life of the nine- 
 teenth century. 
 
 The two greatest never completed the course. 
 Tennyson remained but three years, Thackeray but 
 one. Yet there were several others then congregated 
 there who were destined to be of note and force in 
 their generation. Two of the now less known to the 
 public of the circle of which the poet became a mem- 
 ber were the future preacher, William Henry Brook- 
 field, whom Thackeray described as Frank Whitestock 
 in 'The Curate's Walk'; and the future barrister and 
 journalist, George Stovin Venables, upon whose char- 
 acter — not upon whose career — the same novelist is 
 generally asserted to have modelled the Warrington 
 of ' Pendennis. ' However that may be, he has the dis- 
 
UNIVERSITY LIFE 65 
 
 tinction of ha\ang contributed one cautionary line to 
 'The Princess.'^ Another one of the number was 
 Klinglake, not so likely to be remembered hereafter by 
 his history of the Crimean War, weighted do^vn with 
 infinite information on the pettiest topics, as by that 
 brilliant book of travels, the glory of which is that it 
 gives no information at all. Both Thackeray and 
 Kinglake belonged to Trinity ; but with neither of them 
 at that time could Tennyson's acquaintance have been 
 more than nominal, if it even existed. Nor did he then 
 consort with FitzGerald, with whom later his relations 
 were to become specially intimate. Furthermore, it 
 was not till the close of his stay that he met Trench, 
 the future archbishop of Dublin. To his more imme- 
 diate circle of associates, besides the tw^o already men- 
 tioned, belonged Henry Alford, the future dean of 
 Canterbury ; Charles Merivale, the future historian of 
 the Roman Empire ; James Spedding, the future editor 
 of Bacon ; Richard Monckton Milnes, the future Lord 
 Houghton; and last, though so far as the poet is 
 concerned, of greatest importance, Arthur Henry 
 Hallam. 
 
 It is clear that at the outset there was much in his 
 surroundings which was little to the poet's taste. The 
 high position accorded to mathematics in the course 
 of study w^ould not be likely to recommend either the 
 institution or those seeking its honors to the regard of 
 
 1 This was the second line of the speech of ' The Princess ' at the 
 beginning of Canto IV: 
 
 There sinks the nebulous star we call the Sun, 
 If that hypothesis of theirs be sound. 
 
66 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 one who was devoted above all things else to literature. 
 A letter written to an aunt early in his university 
 career reveals his dissatisfied state of mind. ''I know 
 not how it is," he says, ''but I feel isolated here in 
 the midst of society. The country is disgustingly 
 level, the revelry of the place so monotonous, the stud- 
 ies of the university so uninteresting, so much matter 
 of fact. None but dry-headed, calculating, angular 
 little gentlemen can take much delight in them."^ 
 Fortunately these feelings did not continue. Still it is 
 evident that while Tennyson was in his way an earnest 
 student, it was not in the way which led to college 
 honors. His acquaintance, however, was not confined 
 to the dry-headed, calculating, angular little gentlemen 
 of whom he seemed at first to think the university was 
 made up. These adjectives would be especially inap- 
 plicable to the group of young men already mentioned 
 with whom he became intimate, all of whom were pro- 
 foundly affected by the feelings of literary and politi- 
 cal unrest which were then dominant everywhere. 
 
 For the Tennysons came up to Cambridge and con- 
 tinued to remain there during the period of excite- 
 ment and agitation which was then prevailing over 
 England and the Continent. While it lasted not only 
 were kings dynastic and literary sent into exile, but 
 thrones of every kind were to a greater or less extent 
 shaken. More than its sister university, Cambridge 
 felt stirring in itself the intellectual revolt which 
 sought to dethrone the old divinities and to substitute 
 for them new gods. Two men, in particular, both con- 
 
 1 'Memoir,' Vol. I, p. 34. 
 
UNIVERSITY LIFE 67 
 
 nected with the educational staff of Trinity College, 
 were regarded as the prophetic interpreters of the 
 new creed. One was Julius Charles Hare, who was 
 classical lecturer from 1822 to 1832. The other was 
 Connop Thirlwall, the future historian and bishop of 
 St. Da\dd's. At the time of Tennyson's residence 
 these two were engaged in the translation of Niebuhr 's 
 'History of Rome.' This work was then regarded by 
 many as of a revolutionary character and as having a 
 tendency to promote skepticism. Of the two, Hare 
 had much the more influence with the members of the 
 younger set in whose brains were fermenting the new 
 literary and social ideas which were in the air. With 
 many of them he was on terms of intimacy. As he was 
 by nature extravagant both in his likes and dislikes, 
 he was fairly sure to be found an ardent friend or a 
 furious foe. One result of this temperament was that 
 he was little able to form a trustworthy estimate of the 
 comparative value of persons or productions. An 
 incidental remark of his made in all sincerity fur- 
 nishes a striking illustration of this critical wayward- 
 ness. In 1832 he was at Munich. There he saw Schel- 
 ling. That philosopher, he added, ''now that Goethe 
 and Niebuhr are gone, is A^dthout a rival the first man 
 of the age, — I know not who is the second."^ It is not 
 necessary to quarrel mth this estimate of Schelling. 
 It was not an unnatural view for a metaphysician to 
 take. It is the junction of Goethe and Niebuhr that is 
 noteworthy. 
 
 The influence of Hare was potent with the little 
 
 1 ' Memorials of a Quiet Life, ' Vol. I, p. 458. 
 
68 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 group of friends who surrounded Tennyson. The stu- 
 dents who were under his sway frequently did more 
 than imbibe his views ; they carried them further, and 
 sometimes carried them into action. Byron for more 
 than a dozen years had dominated the realm of poetry. 
 To him all aspirants for fame had bent the knee. The 
 supremacy of this autocrat these revolutionists now 
 proceeded to assail. Hare in particular had early 
 become one of the most thoroughgoing advocates of 
 Wordsworth. He had upheld his supremacy at a time 
 when many were disposed to deny him poetical merit 
 at all. Along with his passionate admiration of the 
 poet was mingled an unqualified contempt for the intel- 
 lectual qualities of those who had of him an opinion 
 different from his own. It sometimes manifested 
 itself characteristically. In November, 1829, a debate 
 took place at the Cambridge Union on the comparative 
 merits of Byron and Wordsworth. The friends of the 
 latter poet were largely outnumbered. There were but 
 twenty-three votes in his favor. This number Hare 
 declared to be altogether too large. There were not, 
 he said, twenty-three persons in the room who were 
 worthy to be Wordsworthians. 
 
 It was into a society of this sort, stirred by the re- 
 volt then going on in literature and life, that the 
 Tennysons were thrown. They were warmly wel- 
 comed. Little as the volume of 'Poems by Two 
 Brothers' had been read or circulated, its existence 
 could not have been unknown to the small circle of 
 which they had become members. Their reputation 
 had preceded them. In that boyish world it could 
 
UNIVERSITY LIFE 69 
 
 hardly fail to give a certain dignity to the newcomers 
 that they could look back already upon a past of 
 authorship. From incontestable evidence we know 
 that in these college days poetical fame was predicted 
 for both the brothers, though even then the superior- 
 ity was generally accorded to the younger. Charles 
 Merivale's father had been a friend of George Clay- 
 ton Tennyson in their owti university days. In Octo- 
 ber, 1826, he wrote to his son, advising him to seek 
 the acquaintance of the son of his old fellow student.^ 
 The person meant was Frederick. But in April, 1828, 
 about three months after the arrival of the other 
 brothers, Merivale wrote to his father about meeting 
 not the one who had been recommended to him, but the 
 younger of the two new arrivals. ''I have got," he 
 said, "the third of the Tennysons in my room, who is 
 an immense poet, as indeed are all the tribe — was the 
 father so?"^ This is but one of many indications of 
 the opinion entertained in the university as to the 
 respective merits of the three and of the superiority 
 generally accorded to Alfred. He was the only one 
 of them selected to become a member of a distinctly 
 exclusive society, which both then and later played an 
 important, though in some ways a designedly incon- 
 spicuous part in the intellectual life of Cambridge 
 University. As indirectly it had a good deal to do 
 with the growth of Tennyson's reputation, some 
 account of it is desirable. 
 
 1 ' Autobiography and Letters of Charles Merivale, Dean of Ely, ' 
 Oxford, 1898, p. 130. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 136. 
 
70 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 The title of the organization was the Conversazione 
 Society. By that it was officially known. But as its 
 number was ordinarily limited to twelve, the term 
 Apostles was given to it in derision. As is not unusual 
 in such cases, the nickname was accepted, by those to 
 whom it was applied, as a title of honor. Were they 
 not commissioned to preach to the sons of men dwell- 
 ing in outer darkness new truths in regard to literature 
 and religion, the cultivation of a loftier philosophy, a 
 purer poetry, higher ideals in life and letters? The 
 society was made up of undergraduates or of those 
 who, having taken the degree of bachelor of arts, were 
 still continuing to pursue their studies at the univer- 
 sity. They were consequently young men who were 
 brought together by common sympathies, common 
 tastes, common aspirations. Their minds were bub- 
 bling over mth the new ideas with which the age was 
 fermenting. They were disposed to scrutinize with 
 severity, or rather to treat mth contempt, the views 
 generally held by the large majority of men, even of 
 educated men, in regard to books and authors. All the 
 fine audacities of youth in speculation, all its intense 
 partisanship in matters of literature were repre- 
 sented by members of this organization who had the 
 most abiding confidence in the correctness of their 
 opinions on any subject or on all subjects. ' ' The world 
 is one great thought, and I am thinking it" was the 
 way in which one of their number — John Mitchell 
 Kemble — indicated their state of mind.^ Joined with 
 this was a lofty scorn of the intellectual capacities of 
 
 1 ' Autobiography and Letters of Charles Merivale, ' p. 99, 
 
UNIVERSITY LIFE 71 
 
 those who did not share in their opinions and beliefs. 
 The term Philistine had not yet been imported from 
 Germany to designate the members of the shop- 
 keeping class who cared nothing for high ideals in life 
 or literature. Still less had the word come to be per- 
 verted to stigmatize those whose views chanced to 
 differ from one's own. But though the designation 
 was absent, the spirit which had generated it was 
 present and active. For the characterization of the 
 degraded beings who had not attained their o\^^l lofty 
 level, they borrowed another vQ^d from the German. 
 They designated them as Stnmpfs — that is, ''stupids." 
 Along with this poor opinion of the men of their 
 own university who did not sympathize with their 
 views was an even more contemptuous estimate of all 
 who had, in their opinion, the misfortune to belong to 
 the sister university. For them they professed un- 
 measured contempt. This feeling seems to have been 
 pretty general in the Apostolic band. They based 
 their justification for this state of mind upon the long 
 line of illustrious men of which Cambridge had been 
 the mother, though not always regarded by these sons 
 as the cherishing mother ; and the comparative barren- 
 ness in this particular of Oxford. Especially was this 
 true of those w^ho had attained distinction in verse. 
 Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Pope had received no uni- 
 versity training; but of the other poets of the first 
 class Spenser, Milton, Dryden, Gray, Coleridge, 
 Wordsworth, and Byron were all graduates of Cam- 
 bridge. Besides these, there too had been educated no 
 small number of authors of inferior grade, such, for 
 
72 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 instance, as Herrick, Herbert, Waller, Suckling, 
 Crashaw, and Cowley. In consequence of this pre- 
 ponderance of eminent writers a sense of intellectual 
 superiority came to prevail in those days and more 
 than once made amusing exhibition of itself. It lasted 
 indeed in members of the Apostolic band and their 
 associates long after the period had arrived for out- 
 growing this particular form of folly. In December, 
 1840, Brookfield wrote to his wife about one of the 
 undergraduates of the sister institution. ''I found 
 him very oxford," he said, — "which I can't for the 
 life of me help spelling with a little o — and indeed I 
 utterly despair of ever seeing a half-penny worth of 
 vigorous and apprehensive mind from that precious 
 school of gentility, and I never speak to one of her 
 graceful children without thinking of Venables' . . .. 
 modest remark — * I often wonder what we have done to 
 deserve being gifted as we are so much above those 
 cursed idiotic oxford brutes.' "^ In a later letter he 
 commented on the unconscious good faith with which 
 Venables had given utterance to this opinion. "His 
 mind," he said, "not in the least engaged with the 
 fact of Cambridge superiority — which was far too 
 matter-of-course a thing to dwell upon — but solely "with 
 speculation upon the cause ... I believe that Oxford 
 minds are not considered to have any value but such 
 as arises (as in Turnspit dogs) from their extreme 
 rarity. ' ' 
 
 Such was the sort of spirit that prevailed among the 
 members of this so-called Apostolic band. The birth- 
 
 1 'Mrs. Brookfield and her Circle,' Vol. I, pp. 59-60. 
 
UNIVERSITY LIFE 73 
 
 place of the organization had been St. John's College. 
 Thriving after a fashion for a while in its original 
 home, it gra-vdtated at length to Trinity, where it 
 began an altogether new life. Frederick Denison 
 Maurice, who had entered that college in 1823, is 
 credited with being its second founder. **The effect," 
 wrote Arthur Hallam to Gladstone in 1830, ''which 
 he" — that is, Maurice — "has produced on the minds 
 of many at Cambridge by the single creation of that 
 Society of the Apostles (for the spirit, though not the 
 form, w^as created by him) is far greater than I can 
 dare to calculate, and will be felt, both directly and 
 indirectly, in the age that is upon us."^ It is mani- 
 fest from this and various similar expressions by 
 others that the members of the organization had no 
 poor opinion of themselves. It was their intention and 
 expectation to uplift and regenerate society. Their 
 mission, said one of their number, was to enlighten 
 mankind upon things spiritual and intellectual. They 
 possessed, too, in its fulness, that preliminary to all 
 success in shaking the world, an absolute confidence 
 in their ability to shake it. Necessarily they had a set 
 of idols to whom they bowed down reverentially. Cole- 
 ridge was their principal divinity in metaphysics, 
 Wordsworth in poetry. The reign of the latter was 
 not wholly absolute. In it Shelley and Keats were 
 coming to have a recognized position. It was by the 
 men of this little band that the 'Adonais,' the monody 
 of the former on the death of the latter, printed at 
 Pisa in 1821, w^as first reprinted in England in 1829. 
 
 I'Life of Frederick Denison Maurice,' Vol. I, p. 110. 
 
74 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 About this society hung all that air of mystery 
 which constitutes a peculiar charm of itself to those 
 who are in the period of intellectual immaturity. 
 Reticence in regard to it was carried to the extremest 
 extreme. It cared not to flaunt itself in the light of 
 day. It exhibited no visible symbols of its possession 
 of a being. It sought secrecy, at that time at least, not 
 to inspire curiosity or interest, but for the sake of 
 secrecy itself. Its very existence was a matter of 
 deduction ; it could not be said to be positively known. 
 So far were its members from being desirous of prid- 
 ing themselves upon their connection with it, they 
 labored to conceal the fact that they belonged to it. 
 Your most intimate friend might be one of the sacred 
 band ; but you did not know it, you merely inferred it. 
 You observed that he was familiar with celebrities no 
 longer in residence and no longer having any direct 
 relations to the university. You saw that on Saturday 
 evenings he was always engaged somewhere, though 
 you had no means of ascertaining where. The silence 
 which guarded the existence of the organization was 
 never broken by him in the days of his active member- 
 ship. 
 
 To this society Arthur Hallam and Tennyson were 
 elected on January 24, 1830. The conviction of 
 Alfred's superiority to his two brothers is evinced by 
 this choice of him as one of the Apostles. He seems 
 to have been hardly a faithful member. In the account 
 of this organization given by Leslie Stephen he repre- 
 sents that according to his brother's report — which 
 may have come down by tradition — Tennyson ''had to 
 
UNIVERSITY LIFE 75 
 
 leave the Society because he was too lazy to write an 
 essay. "^ "Whatever may be the truth as to the reason 
 assigned, there seems little doubt that he failed to 
 respond, when it became his duty to produce one at the 
 appointed time. It was not likely, however, to have 
 been from laziness. The failure was in all probabiUty 
 due to his constitutional shyness or to dissatisfaction 
 with what he had prepared. Whatever was the real 
 reason for cutting short, if the tradition be true, his 
 direct connection vdih the society, his hold upon its 
 members was not in the least degree impaired either 
 at the time or afterward. He received indeed from his 
 associates then in the organization and from their 
 successors what came to be powerful support in the 
 most trying days of his career. 
 
 There can indeed be no doubt as to the profound 
 personal impression made by Tennyson upon the bril- 
 liant group of his college contemporaries. The evi- 
 dence to this effect is abundant in quantity and pro- 
 nounced in its positiveness. Long before he had 
 accomplished an}i;hing which could with propriety be 
 termed great, he was so considered and so styled by 
 no small number of the circle to which he belonged. 
 Whether the prophecy of his future fame was due to 
 a far-sighted prescience begot of the deep insight 
 which springs from intimate personal acquaintance, or 
 whether it was merely the enthusiastic devotion of 
 friendship which was for once justified in its faith by 
 the conformity of later fact, certain it is that the belief 
 
 I'The Life of Sir James Fitzjamea Stephen,' by his brother Leslie 
 Stephen, 1895, p. 100. 
 
76 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 that he was to be one of the leading poets of the cen- 
 tury, if not its leading poet, was not only firmly held 
 at Cambridge University but was loudly proclaimed, 
 much to the wrath, as will be seen later, of professional 
 critics who resented any attempt to force upon their 
 approval reputations which had not received from 
 themselves their first certificate of merit. 
 
 Illustrations of this conviction of Tennyson's great- 
 ness abound during the whole of his university career. 
 Especially was this true after the publication of his 
 first volume of verse, while he was still an undergrad- 
 uate. "My brother John," wrote Fanny Kemble in 
 the recollections of her girlhood, "gave me the first 
 copy of his poems I ever possessed."^ It was accom- 
 panied with a prophecy of his future fame and excel- 
 lence written on the flyleaf. The brother did not con- 
 fine his predictions to his sister. On April 1, 1830, he 
 wrote to Trench about both Charles and Alfred. He 
 declared them to be "of the highest class." "In 
 Alfred's mind," he continued, "the materials of the 
 very greatest works are heaped in an abundance which 
 is almost confusion. Charles has just published a 
 volume of superb sonnets ; and his brother and Hallam 
 are about to edit their poems conjointly. One day these 
 men will be great indeed.'" Similarly in January of 
 this year Blakesley, who died as dean of Lincoln, wrote 
 from Cambridge to the same man of the accession of 
 Hallam and Tennyson to the ranks of the Apostles. 
 ' * The Society, ' ' he said, ' * has received a great addition 
 
 1 'Records of a Girlhood,' 1879, p. 184. 
 
 2 'Letters and Memorials of Archbishop Trench,' 1888, Vol. I, p. 59. 
 
UNIVERSITY LIFE 77 
 
 in Hallam and in Alfred Tennyson, the author of the 
 last prize poem, 'Timbuctoo' (of which Landor, whom 
 I dare say, you will see at Rome, will give you an 
 account) — truly one of the mighty of the earth. You 
 will be delighted with him when you see him."^ 
 
 This early extravagant advocacy of Tennyson's 
 claims, and the early proclamation of his greatness 
 by his friends were attended by a result which could 
 have been predicted beforehand. The enthusiasm dis- 
 played by them in his behalf, if it did not actually re- 
 tard the growth of his reputation, certainly did not 
 advance it. Their ardent and undiscriminating eulogy 
 provoked disparaging and contemptuous criticism. 
 However painful this may have been at the time to the 
 subject of it, it is not improbable that it contributed 
 more to the development of his powers and to the 
 chastening of his style than the atmosphere of unmixed 
 laudation in which his first efforts made their appear- 
 ance in the circle of which he formed a part. 
 
 But in that college circle everything was at that time 
 favorable. While still a student at the university he 
 produced the piece to which reference was made by 
 Blakesley. On Saturday, June 6, 1829, the Chancel- 
 lor's gold medal for the best English poem by a resi- 
 dent undergraduate w^as adjudged to Alfred Tenny- 
 son. He had not been a willing contestant for the 
 prize he secured. It was at his father's ^^'ish that he 
 competed. The subject given was Timbuctoo. Accord- 
 ingly he furbished up an old poem entitled 'The Battle 
 of Armageddon,' to do duty in celebrating a city of 
 
 1 Ibid., p. 50. 
 
78 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 which he and every one else knew nothing — a city 
 accordingly which imagination could endow with 
 stately palaces, fair gardens, argent streets, pagodas, 
 obelisks, minarets, and towers, even though reason 
 whispered that these visionary objects would in reality 
 shrink into a settlement of huts low-built and mud- 
 walled. The poem itself consisted of about two hun- 
 dred and fifty lines. The distinguishing peculiarity 
 of it was that it was written in blank verse; for the 
 revolutionary spirit that was then in the air extended 
 even to poetical composition. Hallam's competing 
 production, too, was in terza rima. Both the measures 
 chosen outraged all academical tradition; for from 
 the beginning the rh>Tned heroic verse had been conse- 
 crated to prize poetry. Of the unsuccessful contest- 
 ants we know the names of Arthur Henry Hallam, of 
 Richard Monckton Milnes, and of George Stovin Ven- 
 ables. Doubtless there were several others. The piece 
 itself was printed the same year in the 'Prolusiones 
 AcademicaB. ' It was later reprinted several times, 
 though not until a comparatively recent period has it 
 been included in the editions of the poet's works. 
 
 No satisfactory reason has ever yet been furnished 
 for the subjects chosen for prize poems. These are 
 usually as wonderful as the verse to which they give 
 birth. We have seen that the one named for 1829 was 
 Timbuctoo. To most men the selection will now 
 appear absolutely incomprehensible. Wliy of all the 
 places in the world this city on the southern verge of 
 the Sahara Desert with its affluence of mud houses and 
 its penury of palaces should have been picked out as 
 
UNIVERSITY LIFE 79 
 
 the subject of a prize poem will be explained by them 
 as due to that inscrutable providence which seems to 
 have designed that the character of the topics to be 
 treated in this sort of literature should be adapted to 
 the character of the literature itself. 
 
 At the same time there were then some special rea- 
 sons which were of weight in dictating the choice. 
 Attention had for many years been directed to that 
 portion of the dark continent in which lay this city. 
 To the civilized world it was known only by report. 
 There was something of the same desire to reach it 
 as there has been to see Mecca; but it was at that 
 particular time much more intense and widespread. 
 Interest, too, had long been aroused in the equally 
 mysterious river near which it stood. To find either 
 the source or mouth of the Niger and to trace its course 
 had been before the period under consideration, and 
 long after continued to be, one of the baffling problems 
 of African exploration. But during the decade from 
 1820 to 1830 special interest had been awakened in the 
 city itself. It had flourished for centuries, it had been 
 the seat of successive kingdoms and the prize of con- 
 tending nations; yet it was now hid in an obscurity 
 which no efforts seemed able to dissipate. Neither its 
 character nor its extent was known, not even its pre- 
 cise situation. Vague dreams of its magnificence 
 floated in the imaginations of some, with pretty con- 
 fident belief in its meanness on the part of others. 
 Everything was possibly existent in a place which no 
 European eyes had ever beheld. Mungo Park had 
 passed by its port in 1805. In 1826 Major Laing had 
 
80 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 reached it and sojourned in it for some weeks; but 
 on his return he fell a victim to the jealousy which had 
 long guarded the secret of the city's situation and 
 character. Perishing in the desert his papers never 
 saw the light. In 1828 the Frenchman, Rene Caillie, 
 visited it and remained in it fourteen days. So at least 
 he said, though his account, now admitted to be true, 
 was at the time received with suspicion, if not with 
 positive incredulity. Naturally, therefore, about the 
 city itself still remained an atmosphere of mystery and 
 of consequent curiosity. That is pretty clearly the 
 reason why Timbuctoo was selected as the subject. 
 
 When Pendennis asks Warrington, who had told 
 him he was a poet, whether it was his * Ariadne in 
 Naxos' or his Prize Poem on which he based his fav- 
 orable opinion, that kindly but rough critic is repre- 
 sented as yelling out to his inquiring friend this genial 
 outburst: ''Of all the miserable, weak rubbish I ever 
 tried, 'Ariadne in Naxos' is the most mawkish and 
 disgusting." "The Prize Poem," he continued, "is 
 so pompous and feeble that I'm positively surprised, 
 sir, it didn't get the medal." This somewhat pro- 
 nounced criticism is unfortunately sustained by the 
 character of many and perhaps most of the poems 
 which have attained this distinction. Still, several of 
 them have been the work of men who subsequently 
 acquired more or less poetic reputation — such as 
 Heber, Bulwer, Milman, Macaulay, Praed, and Mat- 
 thew Arnold. Yet the common view is justified by the 
 literary quality of these pieces. As a general rule 
 there is only one sort of poem which is fuller of sus- 
 
UNIVERSITY LIFE 81 
 
 tained and imposing tediousness than a prize poem: 
 and that is a competing poem which has not taken the 
 prize. Nor can it well be maintained, as it seems to 
 me, that the 'Timbuctoo' of Tennyson varies mate- 
 rially from the estimate implied in the words which 
 Thackeray puts in the mouth of Warrington. Indeed, 
 Tennyson's own opinion seems not to have differed 
 from this. Sometime during the decade from 1830 
 to 1840 — his son is inclined to put it as perhaps about 
 1831 — a letter was sent the poet by a printer who 
 asked leave to include 'Timbuctoo' in a collection of 
 prize poems. Tennyson gave to the application a 
 somewhat reluctant assent. He took care at the same 
 time to indicate his opinion of works of this nature. 
 ''Prize poems," he wrote, "(without any exception 
 even in favour of Mr. Mihnan's 'Belvidere') are not 
 properly speaking 'Poems' at all, and ought to be for- 
 gotten as soon as recited. I could have wished that 
 poor 'Timbuctoo' might have been suffered to slide 
 quietly off, \vith all its errors, into forgetfulness." 
 
 Nor was this merely the feeling of the moment. 
 About the middle of the century he expressed the same 
 sentiment to a subsequent gainer of the prize who 
 had also written his poem in blank verse. "I could 
 wish that it had never been written," he said of his 
 own production.^ Still whatever may have been the 
 poet 's own estimate of his work, there is no doubt as to 
 the opinion entertained of it in the little circle to 
 which he belonged. The enthusiasm of his admirers 
 found at once vociferous vent. 'Timbuctoo' was hailed 
 
 iF. W. Farrar's 'Men I have Known,' 1897, p. 20. 
 
82 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 as a masterpiece of genius. On the strength of the 
 excellence displayed in it, prophetic anticipations of 
 the future greatness of its author were loudly pro- 
 claimed. There was little hesitation, little restraint 
 in the language of the band of admirers who sur- 
 rounded the young poet. Two of the competitors for 
 the prize expressed their admiration in extravagant 
 terms. In a letter dated September 14, 1829, Hallam 
 wrote about 'Timbuctoo' to his friend Gladstone, then 
 a student at Oxford. In this he gave utterance to the 
 following bit of prophecy inspired by the poem. ' ' The 
 splendid imaginative power that pervades it," he 
 wrote, 'Svill be seen through all hindrances. I con- 
 sider Tennyson as promising fair to be the greatest 
 poet of our generation, perhaps of our century."^ A 
 little later Milnes bore similar testimony. ''Tenny- 
 son's poem has made quite a sensation," he wrote to 
 his father in the latter part of October. "It is cer- 
 tainly equal to most parts of Milton." 
 
 These extravagant words express, to be sure, the 
 opinion of boys still under age, and of boys further- 
 more who had been unsuccessful competitors for the 
 prize; and if one is beaten in a poetical contest, it is 
 certainly more creditable to be beaten by the equal of 
 Milton or by the greatest poet of the century than by 
 some one destined to be a nameless nonentity. Yet 
 almost as high praise came from another and entirely 
 disinterested quarter. Charles Wordsworth, the fu- 
 ture bishop of St. Andrews, was an Oxford man. 
 There is no ground for supposing him to have had a 
 
 1 ' Memoir, ' Vol. I, p. 46. 
 
UNIVERSITY LIFE 83 
 
 personal acquaintance with Tennyson. Yet he thought 
 'Timbuctoo' ''a wonderful production," though he 
 admitted that if such a piece had been sent up at 
 Oxford, its author, instead of receiving the prize, 
 would have been more likely to have been rusticated 
 with the view of his passing a few months at a lunatic 
 asylum. Still, he added, ''if it had come out with 
 Lord Byron's name, it would have been thought as 
 fine as anything he ever wrote. ' ' This was as ridicu- 
 lous a remark as anything that Tennyson's Cambridge 
 friends had said. It is, however, fair to take into 
 account that the production of a poem as fine as any- 
 thing Byron ever wrote would not have been deemed 
 by the utterer extravagant praise, if it came from a 
 member of the Wordsworth family. 
 
 Such opinions, absurd as they now strike us, re- 
 flected with some accuracy the prevalent sentiment 
 of the coterie which had gathered about the young 
 poet. It found indeed published expression in a 
 critical periodical which was then in the beginning of 
 a long and yet unended career. Early in January, 
 1828, ' The Athenaeum ' had been set on foot by James 
 Silk Buckingham, an inveterate founder of periodicals. 
 For the first few years after its creation, it maintained 
 a somewhat precarious existence. It early passed into 
 the hands of Frederick Denison Maurice. He in 1829 
 resigned the editorship to John Sterling, though he 
 continued to contribute to its columns. Both these 
 graduates of the university were connected by the 
 closest ties with the younger body of men who made 
 up the Cambridge set to which Tennyson belonged. In 
 
84 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 August, 1828, Trench wrote to Kemble that Maurice 
 and ''that gallant band of Platonico-Wordsworthian- 
 Coleridgean-anti-Utilitarians" were at the helm of 
 'The Athenaeum' with undivided sway. In the follow- 
 ing month he informed the same correspondent that 
 this periodical was written entirely by Apostles. 
 
 Naturally no hostile criticism would come from such 
 a quarter. But what was hardly to be expected, highly 
 favorable criticism came instead. It is something 
 unusual for prize poems to receive the notice of 
 reviewers. It was the connection of the then editors 
 of 'The Athenaeum' with the members of the Apos- 
 tolic band that led to the exception which was made 
 in this particular case. In July, 1829, appeared in 
 that periodical a highly eulogistic notice of 'Timbuc- 
 too.' Included in the article was an extract from the 
 poem itself to the extent of fifty lines. "We have 
 accustomed ourselves," said the critic, "to think, 
 perhaps without any good reason, that poetry was 
 likely to perish among us for a considerable period, 
 after the great generation of poets which is now pass- 
 ing away. The age seems determined to contradict us, 
 and that in the most decided manner: for it has put 
 forth poetry by a young man, and that where we 
 should least expect it — namely, in a prize poem. 
 These productions have often been ingenious and ele- 
 gant, but we have never before seen one of them which 
 indicates really first-rate poetical genius, and which 
 would have done honor to any man that ever wrote. 
 Such, we do not hesitate to affirm, is the little work be- 
 fore us; and the examiners seem to have felt it like 
 
UNIVERSITY LIFE 85 
 
 ourselves, for they have assigned the prize to its 
 author, tho' the measure in which he writes has never 
 before, we believe, been thus selected for honor." 
 Then, after quoting the passage from lines 62 to 112 
 the reviewer solemnly added: ''How many men who 
 have lived for a century could equal this ? ' ' 
 
 Of course it is idle to pretend that this is an out" 
 side impartial estimate of the production. It is 
 equally idle to celebrate its courage and foresight, 
 now that later achievement has shown that this partic- 
 ular poet has realized the anticipations of his early 
 admirers. For 'Timbuctoo' was in no sense whatever 
 a great poem. There are fine lines in it and even fine 
 passages. Still, none of them belong to poetry of the 
 highest order. Had not Tennyson written many 
 things far better, his name would scarcely be heard 
 of now, if heard of at all. It was not his fault that 
 what appeared in the poem could hardly be said to 
 have the slightest connection with the place which did 
 duty for its title. Nobody knew anything about Tim- 
 buctoo. Accordingly it was excusable for the poet not 
 to say anything about it, though he was careful to 
 drag in its name. It was consequently inevitable that 
 there should be in it an indefiniteness which verged 
 closely upon the incomprehensible. In fact, this was 
 the view taken at the time in Cambridge itself. Even 
 the enthusiastic Hallam, who saw in the production the 
 promise of the greatest poet of the century, declared 
 that the examiners by striking out the prose argu- 
 ment, which the author had prefixed to the piece, had 
 done all in their power to verify the concluding words, 
 
86 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 *'A11 was dark," which he quoted, however, as ''All 
 was night." 
 
 Naturally a poem which depended for its comprehen- 
 sibility upon a prose argument prefixed, cannot strictly 
 be deemed entitled to the praise of clearness. In 
 truth, several years after — in 1836 — appeared in the 
 then rowdy, rollicking monthly, 'Fraser's Magazine,' 
 an article in the shape of a letter from Cambridge, pur- 
 porting to give the philosophy of the art of plucking. 
 It was followed by another article in the number for 
 July which pretended to give pluck examination 
 papers.^ In the first of the two the Chancellor's medal 
 was disrespectfully designated as the annual medal for 
 the discouragement of English poetry. In the second 
 there was a series of questions in a critical examina- 
 tion paper. One was to this effect: "What is Pro- 
 fessor Smythe's opinion of the Nebulous and Incom- 
 prehensible in Poetry! Illustrate your explanation by 
 extracts from Tennyson's Timhuctoo." 
 
 In truth, 'Timbuctoo,' after Tennyson had founded 
 a school of his own, might have been produced by a 
 score of his best imitators without exciting any par- 
 ticular remark. It would certainly in such a case have 
 had no result of producing a prediction that a new 
 great poet had arisen. Still, it is easy now to under- 
 rate the piece as it was then to exalt it. There was a 
 certain just foundation for the admiration that was 
 felt and the enthusiasm that was displayed. For 
 'Timbuctoo' was a poem written in a distinctly new 
 style. It was no echo of any writer that had preceded. 
 
 iVol. XIV, p. 117. 
 
UNIVERSITY LIFE 87 
 
 That it was produced under the influence of several 
 different ones has been pointed out by the critical per- 
 spicacity of men who agree on the fact of imitation 
 though not on the person imitated. One or two indeed 
 have been selected for his model whom at that time 
 Tennyson had not even read. It is not an uncommon 
 thing to hear it said that in this poem the influence of 
 Shelley is plainly discernible. Were anything spe- 
 cially due to that author it would be the vague haze 
 pervading it, which at times renders it no easy matter 
 to make out the writer's drift, through the mist of 
 words in which it is enveloped. Still, Tennyson was 
 undoubtedly capable of being obscure on his own 
 account and did not need to resort to Shelley for 
 assistance in that particular. Necessarily every young 
 writer is influenced by poets of the past. But just as 
 in his boyish lines in his first production in the volume 
 brought out in conjunction with his brother, whatever 
 of those which were distinctly best was purely his own, 
 so it was in ' Timbuctoo. ' A new and original poet had 
 come who was to introduce into our literature a method 
 of expression conspicuously different from what had 
 gone before. His admirers recognized it and felt it 
 from the first. They were impressed by its novelty, 
 they were led to celebrate it unduly before its fulness 
 and force had been developed. In consequence, they 
 gave it the credit of possessing a beauty and power 
 which was indicated but not yet attained. 
 
 This fact enables us to understand the fervor of 
 praise with which many of Tennyson's early pieces 
 were received which strike us now as being possessed 
 
88 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 of but ordinary merit. It was a new force in litera- 
 ture which was manifesting itself. The men who 
 admired it welcomed it \vith an enthusiasm which they 
 could not have felt later when it had become familiar 
 to every one. On the contrary, the followers of the 
 old school looked upon it askance or displayed abso- 
 lute indifference. They either refused to read it at 
 all, or read it only for the sake of vituperating it. 
 In these opposite points of view and the states of 
 mind engendered by them lay the tardy recogTiition 
 which waited upon Tennyson's first efforts and the 
 hold he acquired and retained when acceptance of his 
 work had at last become general. The change of atti- 
 tude on the part of the public was indicated by him 
 later in the poem entitled 'The Flower.' Tennyson 
 emphatically denied that in this piece he had made 
 any allusion to himself personally or to his own for- 
 tunes. He called it ''an universal apologue and para- 
 ble." To a writer who had sent him a volume of 
 essays he remarked that "you have fallen into a not 
 uncommon error with respect to my little fable 'The 
 Flower', as if 'I' in the poem meant A. T. and 'the 
 flower' my own verses." 
 
 It is just to accept this disclaimer by Tennyson of 
 any intended allusion to his own personality. It was 
 a universal truth which he had made prominent in his 
 apologue. Still, it is evident a natural, perhaps the 
 natural interpretation of the lines, was that it was a 
 reference to his own fortunes. This little piece 
 appeared originally in the volume entitled 'Enoch 
 Arden, etc.,' which came out in 1864. For nearly a 
 
UNIVERSITY LIFE 89 
 
 score of years Tennyson had been recognized as 
 standing at the head of li\'ing English poets. A crowd 
 of imitators had sprung up in every quarter. They 
 had made his style and method of expression familiar. 
 The ine\i.table reaction from this excessive popularity 
 had already begun to show its face, though it was not 
 till the following decade that it ventured to display 
 its hostility openly. The poet's peculiarities of diction 
 had not only been commented upon, but they had been 
 imitated and reproduced until the queasy taste of the 
 public was beginning to show manifest signs of having 
 become weary of what it had previously cherished. 
 The seed which he had sown had produced the flower 
 which was first called a weed. It had few admirers 
 and many vituperators. Then all had been changed. 
 Everybody praised the flower. Everybody procured 
 the seed. Soon its commonness began to make men 
 tired of it and once more led them to term it a weed. 
 For the seed sown in unsatisfactory soil could not pro- 
 duce the perfect flower; but it could produce some- 
 thing which looked like it, which suggested it, which 
 bore to it, in fact, so close a resemblance that it tended 
 to impress itself as the genuine article upon that large 
 number whose literary perception was not sufficiently 
 keen to detect the presence of that incommunicable 
 something that not merely distinguishes genius from 
 mediocrity but genius from poetic talent of a high 
 order. The reader was reminded of Tennyson; but 
 because of the lack of that subtle something which 
 cannot well be described or defined, he did not feel him 
 as a force. 
 
90 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 One episode there was in Tennyson's career at the 
 university which had little to do with prize poetry or 
 college honors. During the summer of 1830 he made 
 with Hallam a foot-journey across France to the 
 Pyrenees. The trip was undertaken in behalf of the 
 Spanish revolutionists. Readers of Carlyle's 'Life of 
 John Sterling' will remember the account given in it 
 of the exiled general Torrijos, and the tragic fate 
 which overtook him and his little band of followers 
 when he set out upon his hopeless expedition into the 
 south of Spain. Only incidental mention is made of 
 the young Englishmen who cast in their lot with the 
 conspirators. Sympathy had been strongly excited at 
 Cambridge wdth the aims of the patriots seeking to 
 free liberty bound hand and foot in their native land. 
 Especially did this exist in the Apostolic band, as its 
 members had now begun to designate themselves. 
 With these the influence of Sterling was then pre- 
 dominant. He himself was engaged heart and soul 
 in the cause of the Spanish liberalists. The project 
 appealed strongly indeed to men of ardent natures 
 fired with the zeal of youth which often leads them to 
 rush on hopeless enterprises, and sometimes enables 
 them to accomplish apparent impossibilities, under the 
 divine impulse of the belief that what ought to be is 
 to be. Two men engaged in this expedition there were 
 who found themselves w^aiting at Gibraltar for an 
 opportunity to make a descent upon Spain and raise 
 there the standard of constitutional liberty. For- 
 tunately for them, the opportunity was not allowed 
 to present itself. Finding nothing to do, or rather 
 
UNIVERSITY LIFE 91 
 
 that nothing could be done, they returned to England. 
 In consequence, they were saved from having any 
 share in the later tragic end of the enterprise. These 
 two men were John Mitchell Kemble and Richard 
 Chenevix Trench. Considering the nature of their 
 respective careers in life, their participation in this 
 enterprise creates a mild surprise in the modern 
 reader. 
 
 Some of the Spaniards engaged in this revolutionary 
 undertaking were, however, on the borders of France. 
 It was to these conspirators that Hallam and Tenny- 
 son went. To them they bore money and letters 
 written in invisible ink. Early in July the two Cam- 
 bridge students set out to make the journey and to 
 spend in this novel way a part of their long vacation. 
 They accomplished their mission safely. Tennyson, 
 however, was not altogether favorably impressed with 
 the views of some of the revolutionists he met. To 
 Hallam and him, one of them, so far as his imperfect 
 utterance would permit, confided his intention to cut 
 the throats of all the priests. He apologized for the 
 difficulty he experienced in expressing in an unknown 
 tongue various aspirations of this character. He 
 added, however, in French, ''But you know my heart." 
 "And a pretty black one it is," was the comment 
 Tennyson made to himself.^ In a letter sent from 
 Cambridge in December of this year Hallam gave to 
 Trench an account of this trip. ' ' Alfred went, as you 
 know, with me," wrote he, "to the south of France, 
 
 1 Mrs. Ritchie 's ' Recollections of Tennyson, Ruskin and Browning, ' 
 1892, p. 23. 
 
92 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 and a wild, bustling time we had of it. I played my 
 part as conspirator in a small way, and made friends 
 with two or three gallant men, who have been since 
 trying their luck with Valdez." There are two refer- 
 ences in Tennyson's published verse to this passage 
 in his life. One is in the seventy-first poem in 'In 
 Memoriam. ' There he speaks of 
 
 The Past 
 In which we went thro' summer France. 
 
 Again he refers to this trip in the little piece, first 
 published in 1864, which is entitled 'In the Valley of 
 Cauteretz.' In that he speaks of having walked here 
 two and thirty years before with one that he loved. 
 It is characteristic of the demon of accuracy which 
 took possession of Tennyson in his later life that he 
 became much vexed with himself for having written 
 two and thirty years instead of one and thirty; as if 
 any one besides himself would know the precise time 
 when the poem was written. The very year of his 
 death he wished to alter it, and was only persuaded to 
 let it stand because it was the reading with which the 
 public had become familiar. Accuracy of the sort 
 just indicated is of highest importance in a work deal- 
 ing with the facts of history or biography. In a work 
 of the imagination it is of the slightest earthly conse- 
 quence. 
 
 The return journey was not made on foot. On the 
 eighth of September, the two adventurers took passage 
 at Bordeaux on the steamer ' Leeds ' which was sailing 
 for Dublin. Before he went on this journey, however, 
 
UNIVERSITY LIFE 93 
 
 Tennyson had made an appeal to the public in a volume 
 of verse. With it his distinctively literary career may 
 be said to have begun. The work appeared in the early 
 part of that period of transition which was going on in 
 the world of politics and letters. Accordingly, before 
 we can make ourselves really acquainted with the 
 career of the man who was to become the representa- 
 tive voice of his generation or can understand the 
 influences which operated to hasten or retard his recep- 
 tion by the general public, we must get, in the first 
 place, a clear conception of the literary situation as 
 it existed at the time of Tennyson's appearance as 
 an author; and in the second place, a general knowl- 
 edge of the writers who were occupying the attention 
 of the public for the years which followed that appear- 
 ance. Even more important at this point is it to make 
 a survey of the critical literature of the time and of 
 the influence it wielded. This latter indeed is of par- 
 ticular consequence because of the poet's abnormal 
 sensitiveness to criticism and the peculiar influence it 
 exerted upon his course of action. In any account of 
 his career it therefore naturally takes precedence. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE LITERARY SITUATION IN THE TRANSITION 
 
 PERIOD 
 
 Part One 
 Critical Literature of the Period 
 
 Eeaders of 'Pilgrim's Progress' will remember that 
 Christian, when he came to the end of the Valley of 
 the Shadow of Death, saw lying there the blood, bones, 
 ashes, and mangled bodies of men who had traversed 
 that road formerly. These were the remains of those 
 who in old time had been cruelly put to death by two 
 giants dwelling in a cave near at hand. Their names 
 were Pope and Pagan. Pagan, he found, had been 
 dead many a day; and Pope, though still alive, had 
 grown so old and crazy and stiff in his joints, that he 
 could do little more than sit in the mouth of his habita- 
 tion and grin at the pilgrims as they went by, and bite 
 his nails because he could not come at them. 
 
 This description of the part taken by the two giants, 
 so far as it is a portrayal of Puritan feeling, is a not 
 untrue picture of the position which according to the 
 belief of large numbers was held by the 'Edinburgh' 
 and 'Quarterly' reviews during the first third of the 
 last century. The opinion, then quietly but widely 
 
CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 95 
 
 accepted, and sometimes expressed, was that these 
 periodicals, if they could not bring good fortune to 
 those they favored, could bring misfortune and ruin to 
 those they attacked. If for any cause a work failed, 
 which they chanced to notice unfavorably, the result 
 was not attributed by the author to any defect in the 
 work itself, but wholly to the hostile criticism which 
 it had received from one or both of these powerful 
 organs. This was especially true of the 'Edinburgh'; 
 more specially true of it when it reigned without a 
 rival from its commencement in 1802 to 1809, the year 
 in which the 'Quarterly' was set on foot. Even after 
 that time, little limit seems to have been assigned to 
 its power to elevate or depress. Naturally, according 
 to the scale of the particular approval or censure found 
 in its columns, its editor Jeffrey was correspondingly 
 adored or hated. 
 
 The days are gone by so completely that it can 
 hardly be said that they are remembered, when these 
 two great quarterlies were mighty powers both in the 
 world of literature and of politics. The conditions 
 which then gave them their influence have now dis- 
 appeared. It is hardly possible for us even to con- 
 ceive such a state of things existing as is indicated 
 in a letter written from London by Lockhart to Wil- 
 liam Blackrsvood towards the end of January, 1830. 
 He tells his correspondent that in consequence of an 
 article in the last 'Quarterly,' stocks had fallen two 
 per cent. This the Master of the Mint had told the 
 Duke of Wellington. Thereupon the Dictator, as Lock- 
 hart terms the Duke, had sent for Croker and Barrow 
 
96 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 to the Cabinet Council and rowed them. They in turn 
 sent for Murray and rowed him. Then the publisher 
 took his turn and came and rowed Lockhart. "God 
 knows how this may end," he concluded, — "I care 
 not."^ The information given by the author himself 
 of the effect which was wrought by the 'Quarterly' 
 article may have been exaggerated ; but it is manifest 
 that in the eyes of the writer it would seem in no wise 
 surprising to his correspondent. 
 
 Great as was the influence melded by these two peri- 
 odicals in politics, it was even greater in literature. It 
 is rarely the case now that anything they say raises 
 even as much as a ripple on the current of contempo- 
 rary criticism. One indeed would not wish even in 
 these days to be treated disrespectfully by a 'Quar- 
 terly' reviewer; still one would not be likely to lose 
 much sleep over it. Only under peculiar conditions 
 does its most unfavorable notice have marked effect 
 upon the fortunes of the work attacked. Accordingly, 
 in spite of our acquaintance with the ovine nature of 
 man in the matter of literary judgments, we wonder 
 that the educated class of any period could allow their 
 opinions to be manufactured for them by these self- 
 constituted arbiters. Yet this they unquestionably 
 did then. It was done, too, on the grandest scale. 
 Exceptions took place only when the verdicts pro- 
 nounced ran counter to the feelings or prejudices of 
 the reader or came in conflict with his superior knowl- 
 edge. But in the criticism passed upon little-known 
 authors this was rarely the case. Hence the decisions 
 
 1 ' William Blackwood and his Sons, ' by Mrs. Oliphant, Vol. I, p. 246. 
 
CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 97 
 
 announced by these periodicals were usually accepted 
 without hesitation by the public. 
 
 It is fair to say that the possession of this influence 
 was to a large extent honestly earned. There is no 
 question that efforts were put forth by the quarterlies 
 to secure the ablest and best-informed writers. Hence 
 on many topics they spoke with an authority that could 
 not well be gainsaid. On points where knowledge and 
 scholarship were involved, the conclusions they came to 
 were apt to be right. This was not always the case. 
 Certain most woeful blunders have to be charged to 
 their credit, or rather discredit. Still, it was so gen- 
 erally; for learning, unlike genius, is something that 
 can be tested, can be weighed in the balance. Its value 
 can therefore be exactly ascertained and clearly stated. 
 The only exception is when some one happens to come 
 along who is vastly better informed upon a particular 
 subject than any one else. It becomes then a matter 
 of chance whether he shall be deified by those who 
 know less than he or denounced by those who igno- 
 rantly fancy that they know more. 
 
 It is further to be kept in mind that for a long time 
 the quarterlies had the field of higher literary criti- 
 cism practically to themselves. They had come to be 
 the only organs which possessed authority recognized 
 by the general public. For more than half a century 
 preceding their existence there had been periodicals 
 which had paid particular attention to book-reviewing. 
 To that indeed some of the original ones had been 
 exclusively devoted. These were the two which bore 
 the names of the 'Monthly' and the 'Critical'; for 
 
98 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 previous publications, such as the 'Works of the 
 Learned,' were in many ways of an entirely distinct 
 character. The 'Monthly' began in 1749, the 'Critical' 
 in 1756. During the last half of the eighteenth century 
 these flourished with a vigor and repute which was 
 but little affected by periodicals of a similar char- 
 acter — such, for example, as the 'London,' the 'Ana- 
 lytical' and the 'English Review' — which sprang up 
 every now and then, but usually lasted only a few 
 years. These two which had first occupied the field 
 survived into the nineteenth century. But while they 
 continued to retain something of an audience, the 
 general feebleness of their contents and the particular 
 feebleness of their conductors and contributors grad- 
 ually deprived them of influence. So when the 'Edin- 
 burgh' appeared, it had almost a clear field to itself 
 even in the department of literature, though this was 
 but a portion of the ground it set out to cover. The 
 'Critical' gave up the ghost after a number of years. 
 The 'Monthly,' however, continued to exist after a 
 fashion down to nearly the middle of the nineteenth 
 century. But during the latter portion of its career 
 it never had much effect upon public opinion. 
 
 Nor was the influence of the two great quarterlies 
 seriously affected by the several other ventures in the 
 same field, which were either in existence when they 
 themselves came into being or sprang up from time to 
 time afterward. These were usually, though not inva- 
 riably, monthlies. Some of them, like 'The Anti- 
 Jacobin Review,' were the organs of parties. Hence 
 their literary criticism was always more or less influ- 
 
CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 99 
 
 enced by political considerations. A similar statement 
 can be made of periodicals of another kind, such, for 
 example, as 'The British Critic' and 'The Eclectic 
 Ee\'ieAv, ' whose reviewers were largely under the 
 influence of sectarian bodies. On that very account 
 they appealed to a limited class. Besides these there 
 were a nmnber of quarterlies and monthlies that 
 sprang up at intervals and lasted at best but a few 
 years. They produced no profound impression in any 
 quarter. A fair specimen of these was 'The British 
 Review,' which was begun in 1811 and lasted till 1825. 
 This was somewhat disrespectfully described by Lord 
 Byron as "my grandmother's review": a by no means 
 inapj)ropriate title, if we are to judge it by the char- 
 acter of its contents. Naturally, none of these im- 
 paired the influence or diminished the circulation of 
 the two great quarterlies. The only periodical that 
 came to contest their supremacy was 'The Westmin- 
 ster Review,' the organ of the philosophical radicals; 
 but this was much later. It did not make its appear- 
 ance until 1824. 
 
 The first of the real agencies that came to displace 
 the quarterlies from the position of influence in cur- 
 rent criticism which they held during the first third 
 of the nineteenth century was the monthly magazine. 
 The magazine itself had sprung into existence in the 
 earlier half of the eighteenth century. The ones that 
 first appeared — and they soon came to be numerous — 
 contained no original matter. As their name implies 
 they were at the outset nothing but storehouses of the 
 material in the shape of essays which the newspapers 
 
100 LIFE AND TIMES OP TENNYSON 
 
 had previously put forth or of the news which they 
 had collected. Accordingly, they were published at 
 the very beginning of the month following the date 
 they bore — that is, for example, the magazine for Jan- 
 uary came out the first of February. This was a prac- 
 tice which did not disappear entirely till the following 
 century. Naturally they did not at first deal with 
 reviews of current literature. In the change which 
 they underwent in the second half of the eighteenth 
 century, they began to pay some attention to this sub- 
 ject also. But their notices of books were pretty gen- 
 erally meager as regards length and too often feeble 
 as regards character. Serious work of this sort was 
 mainly left to the two leading monthlies, already men- 
 tioned, which devoted themselves exclusively to book- 
 reviewing. All this was changed, however, mth the 
 founding of 'Blackwood's Magazine' in April, 1817; 
 or rather with its second founding in October of the 
 same year. 
 
 This magazine which now came to the front was 
 essentially different in character and conduct from 
 those which had previously borne the name. In its 
 new form it appealed to a far larger circle of educated 
 readers than did the quarterlies. It dealt as did they 
 with political and literary questions; but it mingled 
 with its discussion of topics of current interest matter 
 which they did not pretend to furnish, such, for illus- 
 tration, as fiction and poetry. 'Blackwood's' speedily 
 took the leadership of this class of periodicals. Owing 
 mainly to the talent of its chief contributor who was 
 generally assumed to be the editor, it made for itself 
 
CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 101 
 
 a conspicuous place in the field of literary criticism. 
 From the time it passed out of the hands of its origi- 
 nal editors, Pringle and Cleghorn, it came to be dis- 
 tinguished by the audacity, billingsgate, malice, wrath, 
 and all uncharitableness which when manifested 
 towards others than ourselves — especially towards 
 those opposed to us in opinion — are above all things 
 dear to the carnal heart. Combined also with its 
 horse-play and its abusiveness, often degenerating 
 into blackguardism, was wit of the keenest character. 
 But more than any of these qualities, the critical abil- 
 ity displayed in its columns, with its generally high 
 and cordial appreciation of what was really excellent 
 in literature, recommended it to a class of readers who 
 may or may not have sympathized with its political 
 views. Furthermore, it came out with unvarying 
 regularity, while the quarterlies were not only pub- 
 lished at much greater inters^als, but they were very 
 apt to appear just when it suited the convenience or 
 laziness of their editors. The date on the number of 
 the periodical was a very untrustworthy indication of 
 the date of its appearance. This was particularly true 
 of the 'Quarterly' under Gifford's editorship. 
 
 'Blackwood's Magazine' set a new standard for 
 publications of this sort. It changed very materially 
 their character. Many of them naturally clung to the 
 old methods; but in the path now opened imitators 
 soon pressed in. It is only necessary here to mention 
 'The London Magazine' which was started in 1820 but 
 died before the third decade of the century was com- 
 pleted. During its short career, however, it made for 
 
102 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 itself a lasting reputation by publishing among other 
 things the 'Essays of Elia' and the 'Confessions of an 
 Opium-Eater.' Then 'The New Monthly Magazine' 
 was reconstituted in this same year with Thomas 
 Campbell as its editor, a position he held until 1830. 
 Neither of tliese publications took the place in popular 
 estimation occupied by ' Blackwood 's. ' It was not till 
 the rise in London of a new periodical of its own politi- 
 cal faith that its leadership was at all shaken. This 
 was 'Eraser's Magazine' which was started in 1831 
 by Hugh Eraser, and Maginn, an old contributor to 
 'Blackwood's,' who will live forever in literature as 
 the Captain Shandon of 'Pendennis.' At the outset, 
 this periodical surpassed in its brutality and the gross- 
 ness of its personalities its northern contemporary; 
 but it also gathered to its support many of the very 
 ablest men of letters flourishing already, or just begin- 
 ning their career ; and its columns mil always have to 
 be consulted by him who wishes to ascertain the gen- 
 eral trend of critical opinion prevalent during the 
 transition period among a large and influential class 
 of contributors and readers. 
 
 But with us the magazine has largely ceased to be a 
 vehicle of literary criticism. In those which devote 
 any attention to it at all, it occupies generally a subor- 
 dinate place; in much the largest number of periodi- 
 cals of this class it occupies no place worth consider- 
 ing. The field it once covered is now largely taken by 
 the weeklies and the dailies. The former was the 
 agency which was destined ultimately to occupy, after 
 a fashion, the place once filled by the quarterlies and 
 
CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 103 
 
 to some extent subsequently filled by the magazines. 
 At the opening of the fourth decade, this class of 
 periodicals was slowly making its way to the front. 
 Early in the century there had been several attempts 
 to establish weeklies which should be given up prin- 
 cipally to criticism. None of these met with any per- 
 manent success. At last in 1817 the publisher Col- 
 burn started 'The Literary Gazette and Journal of 
 Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, etc' Of this William 
 Jerdan became in the course of the same year a part 
 proprietor and the editor. After various ups and 
 do^vTis it was placed on a paying basis. At the begin- 
 ning of the period now under consideration, it was 
 much the most influential of the purely literary week- 
 lies then existing in England. Such it remained for 
 some time afterward. This, too, in spite of the fact 
 that its reviews were often produced more largely by 
 the agency of the scissors than of the brains. The use 
 of this mechanical implement perhaps contributed 
 materially to its success ; for the critical acumen of the 
 editor was something that no intelligent man could 
 take seriously. 
 
 The prosperity of 'The Literary Gazette' naturally 
 led to numerous imitators. Especially during the third 
 decade — in particular during its closing years — a num- 
 ber of these new competitors for popular favor sprang 
 into being. This one fact shows clearly that it was in 
 that direction that criticism was finding its natural 
 avenue to expression. Against all these rivals Jerdan 
 held his wav for a while undisturbed. In the 'Noctes 
 
104 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 Ambrosianae ' for May, 1828, Hogg, the Ettrick Shep- 
 herd, is represented as saying, ^'Nane o' a' the new 
 weekly periodicals wull ever cut out the Literary 
 Gazette." ''Never, James," North replies, ''and sim- 
 ply for one reason — Mr. Jordan is a gentleman, and is 
 assisted by none but gentlemen." At the very time 
 these words of Christopher North were printed, the 
 new weekly was in existence — 'The Athenasum' — 
 which was to perform the feat he had declared impos- 
 sible. But the supremacy of 'The Literary Gazette' 
 was as yet merely threatened. Belief in its perma- 
 nence and its power still continued unshaken. Henry 
 Taylor, in commenting upon Southey's uncompromis- 
 ing independence, not to say defiance of criticism, 
 w^rote in 1831 to a correspondent that 'The Literary 
 Gazette' could "do almost anything to the sale of a 
 book"; and yet in spite of this, Southey had written 
 an epigram upon William Jordan, its editor, because 
 he had attacked a volume of Charles Lamb's. It is 
 hardly necessary to observe that no literary journal 
 was ever able to do almost anything to the sale of a 
 book. Undoubtedly a popular critical organ can influ- 
 ence favorably or unfavorably the reputation of a 
 writer or a work for a limited time; for the majority 
 of readers prefer to take their opinions at second hand. 
 But the result is never permanent in any case. The 
 help or harm that is brought or wrought by such 
 means to the repute or sale of a book is always transi- 
 tory. Still, Taylor's remark is worth noting as indi- 
 cating an opinion that was then widely prevalent about 
 
CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 105 
 
 the power ^^^elded by this particular periodical to 
 benefit or to injure. 
 
 Another class of weeklies, which later became com- 
 mon, began to appear in considerable numbers about 
 the beginning of the transition period. They were 
 political as well as literary in their character, perhaps 
 more distinctly political than literary. Their proto- 
 type was 'The Literary Examiner,' which had been 
 started as far back as 1808 by the Hunts, John and 
 James Henry Leigh. By the class to which its then 
 unpopular liberal politics appealed this periodical was 
 held in high favor. As might be expected, both it and 
 its editors were made the subjects of constant vitupera- 
 tion in the Tory press as long as the periodical was 
 under their management. At the beginning of the 
 period under consideration, the control of it had fallen 
 into the hands of Albany Fonblanque. To it came a 
 few years later as literary and dramatic critic John 
 Forster, the personal friend of many of the younger 
 men of letters, notably of Robert Bro\vning and 
 Dickens. The junction of these two writers made the 
 paper for a long time a powerful agent in moulding 
 public opinion. But several periodicals of this nature, 
 some of which were very ably conducted, began their 
 existence a little before 1830. Of these one of the most 
 influential was 'The Atlas.' It was founded in 1826. 
 It had for a long time a high reputation, particularly 
 so during the fourth and fifth decades. Testimony to 
 the estimation in which it was held comes to us from 
 widely different quarters. In 1839 FitzGerald, for 
 instance, speaks of it as "the best weekly critic of 
 
106 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 Music and all other things that I know of."^ In Sep- 
 tember, 1844, Mrs. Browning describes it as the best 
 of the newspapers for literary notices, though in the 
 follo\ving month she modified this opinion by except- 
 ing 'The Examiner.' Of the periodicals of this class 
 then flourishing the only sur\dvor is 'The Spectator' 
 which was established in 1828 and has had a long and 
 honorable career. Particularly was this true of it 
 after its critical columns came under the control of 
 Richard Holt Hutton in 1859. 
 
 The critical literature of the daily papers often car- 
 ries now a good deal of weight. At this time, however, 
 it could hardly be said to exist at all. When it did 
 appear, it was usually of little importance. It was not 
 till the close of the fourth decade that the dailies began 
 to give up any space worth considering to book- 
 re^dewing. Even the position of that was subordinate. 
 Yet noted men, or men destined to become noted, were 
 sometimes employed in this particular sort of work. 
 Thackeray, for instance, was then an occasional con- 
 tributor of such articles to the 'Times.' But develop- 
 ment in this direction was slow. The truth is that 
 during this period of transition a close connection with 
 any newspaper, no matter how influential, was re- 
 garded to some extent as a social stigma. There are 
 singular exhibitions of this state of feeling recorded 
 in the letters and journals of the time. In 1826, for 
 instance, Murray, largely under the inspiration of the 
 then young Disraeli, planned a great Tory organ. It 
 
 1 Letter of April 30, 1839. 'Letters and Literary Eemains,' Vol. I, 
 p. 48. 
 
CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 107 
 
 was a morning paper he projected which was to be 
 called 'The Representative.' In 1826 it began its 
 existence. After a checkered career of six months, in 
 which it had cost the proprietor twenty-six thousand 
 pounds, it gave up the ghost. A great effort had been 
 made to secure Lockhart as its editor. Disraeli visited 
 him, in behalf of the publisher, with that object in 
 view. It gives a vivid picture of the feelings of the 
 time that Lockhart, as well as Lockhart 's father-in- 
 law, felt it to be an impossibility for him to enter upon 
 life in London in the capacity of a newspaper editor. 
 It meant a descent in the social scale. The pill was 
 sugar-coated for him, as well as it could be, by Disraeli, 
 who grandiloquently assured him that he would come 
 to the capital, "not to be an editor of a newspaper but 
 the Director-General of an immense organ and at the 
 head of a band of high-bred gentlemen and important 
 interests." 
 
 This lofty description of his position and powers did 
 not tempt Lockhart. He refused the offer. He refused 
 it too on the ground that it was unsuitable to one of his 
 station in life. By William Wright, a barrister of 
 influence who corresponded ^\dth him on the subject, 
 Canning is also reported to have said that Lockhart 
 could come to London as editor of the 'Quarterly' but 
 not as editor of a newspaper, or at least as a known 
 or reputed editor. '*I told Disraeli before he left," 
 continued AVright, ''he had a very delicate mission, 
 and that though my rank in life was different to your 
 own, having no relations whose feelings could be 
 wounded by my accepting any honest employment, I 
 
108 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 should not receive an offer of an editorship of a news- 
 paper as a compliment to my feelings as a barrister 
 and a gentleman, however complimentary it might be 
 to my talents." To the same effect spoke Sir Walter 
 Scott. *'It is very true," he wrote to Murray, ''that 
 this department of literature may and ought to be 
 rendered more respectable than it is at present, but I 
 think this is a reformation more to be wished than 
 hoped for, and should think it rash for any young 
 man, of whatever talent, to sacrifice, nominally at 
 least, a considerable portion of his respectability in 
 society in hopes of being submitted as an exception to 
 a rule which is at present pretty general. This might 
 open the door to love of money, but it would effectu- 
 ally shut it against ambition."^ These words were 
 written in 1825. That Scott continued to hold the same 
 sentiments is evident from a letter to his son-in-law in 
 1829 with reference to a proposal that the latter should 
 be connected with some journal which the Duke of 
 Wellington was wishing to purchase. "Your connec- 
 tion with any newspaper," he wrote to Lockhart, 
 "would be disgrace and degradation. I would rather 
 sell gin to the poor people and poison them that way. ' '^ 
 To us it seems a peculiar state of things that a posi- 
 tion as the editor of a powerful daily like the 'Times' 
 or the 'Chronicle' of those days should be reckoned as 
 involving social degradation, while the editorship of a 
 quarterly periodical could be taken without risking 
 any loss of standing, if it did not even carry with it a 
 
 1' Memoir of John Murray,' Vol. II, p. 197. 
 
 2 A. Lang's 'Life and Letters of Lockhart,' Vol. II, pp. 51-52. 
 
CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 109 
 
 certain distinction. But such assuredly seems then to 
 have been the case. There is evidence too that this 
 state of feeling continued to exist years later. In 1835, 
 Fanny Kemble Butler published her journal giving 
 an account of her travels in the United States. In the 
 course of it she mentioned a gentleman of the press 
 who called upon her and with whom she was pleased. 
 "He seems to think much," she added, "of having had 
 the honor of corresponding with sundry of the small 
 literati of London."^ This was bad enough; but its 
 atrocity was exceeded by a note which was appended. 
 "Except where they have been made political tools," 
 were its words, "newspaper writers and editors have 
 never, I believe, been admitted into good society in 
 England." It is little wonder that her work was 
 reviewed with a severity to which she had previously 
 been little accustomed. She received in profusion 
 reminders that her own reputation was due to the 
 very men she affected to despise. 
 
 The monthlies and the weeklies were in full activity 
 at the beginning of the fourth decade. They were 
 steadily sapping the influence of the two great quar- 
 terlies, but they had not seriously impaired it to out- 
 ward view. They merely threatened it. True it was 
 that the original editors to whom their success had 
 been largely owing had disappeared from the stage 
 of active management. Jeffrey had been succeeded by 
 Macvey Napier, a man possibly of engaging character, 
 but certainly of altogether less ability than his prede- 
 cessor. In this respect the 'Quarterly' was more for- 
 
 I'.Tournal of a Eesidence in America,' Paris, 1835, pp. 105-106. 
 
110 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 tunate. Gifford, who had imparted to that periodical 
 much of its peculiar acerbity, had retired from its 
 editorship in 1824; he hated authors with a zeal that 
 would have done credit to a feudal baron. Two years 
 later he died. But the spirit in which it had been con- 
 ducted continued to live in Lockhart, who after the 
 brief sway of John Taylor Coleridge, held the reins 
 until the spring of 1853. In consequence of his abilities 
 and the position he held as the head of this review, 
 he was for a long while one of the most prominent 
 figures in the critical world, particularly so during the 
 decade from 1830 to 1840. One result was that the 
 influence of the 'Quarterly,' at least, if not of the 
 'Edinburgh,' appears to have been for a time but little 
 diminished. 
 
 Singular illustrations of the feeling entertained 
 about these two periodicals were manifested in quar- 
 ters where we should least expect to see it. Bulwer, 
 for instance, was the most popular of living English 
 novelists for at least the first half of the thirties. His 
 works, as fast as they were produced, invariably went 
 from edition to edition. That they hit the taste of the 
 public is manifest by their success even when they 
 appeared anonymously. They were spoken of in 
 terms of high praise by men who were none too lavish 
 of their commendation. They were translated into 
 foreign tongues. But all this did not content him. 
 The one thing that rankled above all others in his 
 bosom was that in neither of the two quarterlies had 
 his name been mentioned either for praise or blame. 
 Their failure to review his works was the one distinc- 
 
CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 111 
 
 tion without which all the others apparently were as 
 naught. His friends complained of it, while affecting 
 to hold it in contempt. In May, 1831, Miss Landon 
 contributed to 'The New Monthly Magazine' an arti- 
 cle upon the novelist. It could not have been more 
 eulogistic, not to say fulsome, if it had been dictated 
 to the writer by Bulwer himself. ''We cannot but 
 remark, ' ' she said in the course of it, ' ' on the singular 
 silence preserved toward the most rising author of 
 their day, in the two pseudo-called great Reviews, the 
 Edinburgh and the Quarterly." The former speed- 
 ily repented of its neglect. It published a laudatory 
 criticism of certain of Bulwer 's novels in which it 
 apologized for its delay in not having noticed them 
 before. Not so Lockhart, nor indeed his immediate 
 successor. No review of Bulwer 's works appeared in 
 the 'Quarterly' until 1865. 
 
 The character of Lockhart is something of a puzzle. 
 The notices of him that have been jjublished have very 
 largely come from his friends, or, at all events, from 
 friendly sources. Yet over none of the critics of tliis 
 period hangs so pervasive a cloud of distrust and dis- 
 like. In the so-called Chaldee Manuscript which came 
 out in the seventh number of 'Blackwood's Maga- 
 zine,' and created at the time an unparalleled and to 
 the modern reader a somewhat incomprehensible sen- 
 sation, he was represented, doubtless by himself, as 
 "the scorpion which delighteth to sting the faces of 
 men." The appellation was constantly applied to 
 him later in a way and to an extent he probably came 
 not altogether to like. Whether justly entitled to it 
 
112 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 or not, there clung to him something of the middle- 
 age superstition about that insect which represented 
 it as carrying a flattering face and a stinging tail. 
 The comparison was not altogether appropriate. The 
 latter characteristic might be conceded to Lockhart; 
 but no one ever charged him with exhibiting the 
 former. The Viper was another epithet frequently 
 bestowed upon him. It cannot be maintained that such 
 an appellation carries with it the idea of great per- 
 sonal popularity. 
 
 It is hard indeed to hit upon the exact origin of the 
 general prejudice which seems always to have existed 
 against Lockhart. He was undoubtedly a man of cold 
 and reserved manner ; but it seems as if he must have 
 developed to a disproportionate degree the faculty of 
 making himself disagreeable, to have begot indiffer- 
 ence so universal, where it did not pass over into 
 active dislike. A professional reviewer has naturally 
 his enemies ; but he has also his friends. Of the latter, 
 Jeffrey had hosts. So had John Wilson. Even Gif- 
 ford, the fierce and implacable, had found men to 
 cherish towards him a lukewarm feeling which might 
 perhaps deserve to be styled regard ; and what is much 
 harder to understand, he had found men to admire his 
 lyric verse. But while such persons may have existed 
 in the case of Lockhart, and doubtless did exist, and 
 perhaps in considerable numbers, it is no easy matter 
 to find proof of the fact. Praise is not unfrequently 
 paid to his works. Few are the passages, however, 
 which one comes across in the journals or correspond- 
 ence of this period to indicate that he himself was 
 
CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 113 
 
 looked upon mth affection by any one outside of his 
 immediate family circle, or those with whom he shared 
 the closest personal ties. Two bulky volumes, giving 
 an account of his career, were brought out a few years 
 ago by a brother Scotchman. They are avowedly of 
 the nature of an argument for the defence. Every- 
 thing in his favor that can be directly related or indi- 
 rectly suggested is related or suggested. Everything 
 which seems to bear hard upon his course is either 
 softened or explained away, or even converted to his 
 credit. The reader indeed after finishing the biog- 
 raphy rises from its perusal not quite clear in his mind 
 whether it is the life of Lockhart with which he has 
 been concerned or with the life of one of the saints. 
 Yet the special pleading of the work has done little or 
 nothing towards rehabilitating the character of its 
 subject. It seems rather to have impressed men with 
 the justice of Dr. Johnson's dictum that a Scotchman 
 must be a very sturdy moralist who does not love Scot- 
 land better than truth, and that he will always love it 
 better than inquiry. 
 
 The influence of a critical article depends largely 
 upon the repute of the periodical in which it makes its 
 appearance. This is inevitably the case when the name 
 of the reviewer, as usually happens, is withheld. 
 Nothing marks more distinctly the difference between 
 the past and the present than the incomparably 
 greater importance once attached to the utterance 
 of the quarterlies over those of the monthlies or over 
 those of any other vehicle of criticism. This state of 
 mind was indeed disappearing at the beginning of the 
 
114 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 fourth decade of the century. In time it disappeared 
 altogether. But it continued to prevail then. We 
 cannot indeed understand the feelings of both authors 
 and readers during this period of transition mthout 
 a clear perception of the attitude of the public towards 
 these two classes of periodicals. To all outward 
 appearance the inertia of past movement was still 
 carrying the quarterlies along. Though they had 
 really lost the commanding position they once held, 
 the fact escaped for some time the notice of them- 
 selves as well as that of their readers. A dozen years 
 before, their supremacy could not have been questioned 
 for a moment. The far higher position they occupied 
 in comparison with other organs of criticism is brought 
 out clearly in the difference of the effect wrought upon 
 public opinion by two noted attacks on Keats which 
 appeared in the representatives of these two classes 
 of periodicals — the one in a quarterly, the other in a 
 monthly. 
 
 In 'Blackwood's Magazine' for October, 1817, came 
 out the first of a series of articles upon what was 
 called The Cockney School of Poetry. It was followed 
 by a second article in the same year, and by a third 
 and fourth in July and August of the year following. 
 They were all signed Z. Three of these articles were 
 devoted to an attack upon Leigh Hunt as the chief 
 doctor or professor of the so-called Cockney School. 
 That author whom we are now apt to think of as a 
 lively and amiable essayist was in the early days of the 
 century recognized as an aggressive, trenchant, and 
 outspoken leader-writer. He had for years aroused 
 
CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 115 
 
 the wrath of the government periodicals by the liberal 
 principles he constantly advocated. In particular he 
 had sent a shock through all Torydom by the reflections 
 which he had cast both upon the character and the 
 personal appearance of the Prince Regent. In one of 
 the organs of the government party, the official head 
 of the state had been plastered mth the most sicken- 
 ing adulation. Hardly any laudatory phrases were 
 missed in the encomiums passed upon him. Among 
 other tributes to his perfections he had been styled 
 ''an Adonis in loveliness." The w^hole characteriza- 
 tion aroused Hunt's ire. He had no hesitation in giv- 
 ing vent to it. This Adonis in loveliness he described 
 as "a corpulent gentleman of fifty." He went on 
 further to say that "this delightful, blissful, mse, 
 pleasant, honourable, virtuous, true, and immortal 
 Prince" — all these epithets had been applied to him 
 in 'The Morning Post' — "was a violator of his word, 
 a libertine over head and ears in debt and disgrace, 
 a despiser of domestic ties, the companion of gamblers 
 and demi-reps, a man who had just closed half a cen- 
 tury without one single claim on the gratitude of his 
 country or the respect of posterity.'" Naturally this 
 was not the sort of language to conciliate the favor 
 of the Tory organs. From that time for years to come 
 they let no occasion slip to attack Hunt upon every 
 imaginable pretext. 
 
 'Blackwood's Magazine' especially distinguished 
 itself as his assailant. In the articles just mentioned 
 there was practically no limit to the abuse heaped upon 
 
 1 'The Examiner,' March 22, 1812. 
 
116 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 this underbred person, as he was designated, this ple- 
 beian both in rank and mind as well as in station and 
 society. But it was particularly upon the score of the 
 immorality of his writings that attack against him 
 was here directed. Nobody indeed can be so pure- 
 minded as a critic when he fancies he has an oppor- 
 tunity to vent on this ground his dislike of an author. 
 In particular, the volume entitled 'The Story of 
 Eimini,' which had come out in 1816, was subjected to 
 the most virulent denunciation. In his zeal for purity, 
 the reviewer wrought himself up almost to a frenzy 
 which has now a distinctly comical aspect. It was in 
 the following chastened style that his third article 
 began. ''Our hatred and contempt of Leigh Hunt as 
 a writer," it said, "is not so much owing to his shame- 
 less irreverence to his aged and afflicted king — to his 
 profligate attacks on the character of his king's sons — 
 to his low-born insolence to that aristocracy with 
 whom he would in vain claim the alliance of one illus- 
 trious friendship — to his paid panderism to the vilest 
 passions of that mob of which he is himself a fire- 
 brand — to the leprous crust of self-conceit with which 
 his whole moral being is indurated — to that loathsome 
 vulgarity which constantly clings round him like a 
 vermined garment from St. Giles' — to that irritable 
 temper which keeps the unhappy man, in spite even of 
 his vanity, in a perpetual fret with himself and all the 
 world beside, and that shews itself equally in his 
 deadly enmities and capricious friendships, — our 
 hatred and contempt of Leigh Hunt, we say, is not so 
 much owing to these and other causes, as to the odious 
 
CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 117 
 
 and unnatural harlotry of his polluted muse.'" This 
 is a good illustration of the methods of criticism much 
 in vogue in the early part of the nineteenth century in 
 even the highest literary periodicals. Delicacy of 
 satire, incisiveness, point, were qualities rarely dis- 
 played. Instead was a kind of personal attack, slang- 
 whanging, vociferous, brutal. There were doubtless 
 those who then considered it powerful criticism. 
 
 The first three numbers of the articles on the Cock- 
 ney School had been devoted to Hunt, for the sake of 
 attacking whom the whole series had evidently been 
 undertaken. But as one man could not well be turned 
 into a school, it was necessary to have some one else 
 to assail. Shelley and others were under considera- 
 tion ; but the choice fell at last upon Keats. He was a 
 personal friend of Hunt's, he had been praised by him, 
 and in turn had written lines in his praise. Accord- 
 ingly he was selected as the second subject of abuse. 
 The volume of his 'Poems' which had appeared in 
 1817 had been followed by 'Endymion' in 1818. These 
 two furnished the pretext for the criticism which was 
 directed not against the works but against the man. 
 The article- began with a discourse on the wide preva- 
 lence of the poetical malady which was raging uncon- 
 trolled through the land. The case of Keats in partic- 
 ular was distressing. ''This young man," said the 
 reviewer, "appears to have received from nature 
 talents of an excellent, perhaps even of a superior 
 order — talents which, devoted to the purposes of any 
 
 1 ' Blackwood 's Magazine, ' Vol. Ill, p. 453. 
 2 Hid., Vol. Ill, pp. 519-524. 
 
118 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 useful profession, must have rendered him a respect- 
 able, if not an eminent citizen." He then went on to 
 observe that Keats had been destined to the career of 
 medicine, and had been apprenticed some years before 
 to a worthy apothecary. But all his prospects had 
 been undone by a sudden attack of the poetical malady, 
 though from what cause was unknown. '^ Whether 
 Mr. John," he continued, "had been sent home with a 
 diuretic or composing draught to some patient far 
 gone in the poetical mania, we have not heard. ' ' How- 
 ever, the mischief was done, and of late the symptoms 
 had been terrible. ' ' The phrenzy of the ' Poems, ' " he 
 added, ''was bad enough in its way; but it did not 
 alarm us half so seriously as the calm, settled, imper- 
 turbable, drivelling idiocy of Endymion. ' ' The rest of 
 the article is very much in the same style as this choice 
 beginning. ' ' Mr. Hunt, ' ' said the reviewer, " is a small 
 poet, but he is a clever man. Mr. Keats is a still 
 smaller poet, and he is only a boy of pretty abilities 
 which he has done everything in his power to spoil." 
 The article concluded with this piece of advice. "It 
 is a better and a wiser thing," said the critic, "to be 
 a starved apothecary than a starved poet; so back to 
 your shop Mr. John, back to 'plasters, pills, and oint- 
 ment boxes,' etc. But for Heaven's sake, young San- 
 grado, be a little more sparing of extenuatives and 
 soporifics in your practice than you have been in your 
 poetry. ' ' 
 
 It is safe to say that nothing more coarsely and 
 vulgarly abusive ever appeared under the guise of 
 criticism in what purported to be a respectable periodi- 
 
CKITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 119 
 
 cal. Equally is it true that nothing more insolent was 
 ever written by a man of talent about a man of genius ; 
 for there is really little doubt of the correctness of the 
 general opinion which then and since has ascribed 
 the authorship of these articles to Lockhart. Where 
 the secret has been so jealously guarded absolute proof 
 cannot be furnished. At a later period no one could 
 have been found anywhere eager to claim the credit 
 of the attack on Keats. Indeed it is fair to say that 
 even at the time itself there were those who perhaps 
 sympathizing with the views expressed in the article 
 had yet the grace to be ashamed of its character. 
 Naturally the admirers of Lockhart — ^never a numerous 
 body — have been anxious in later days to relieve him 
 of the discredit of having written it. But the utmost 
 they can say for their view is that the charge is *'not 
 proven." That indeed might be expected to be the 
 case. Still the evidence is morally convincing. The 
 articles signed Z. have all the characteristics of his 
 style. The opinions expressed in them are the opinions 
 he expressed elsewhere. As late as 1828 in his review 
 of or rather invective against Leigh Hunt's 'Lord 
 Byron and Some of his Contemporaries,' he remarked 
 in referring to Keats that ''our readers have probably 
 forgotten all about ' Endymion, a poem, ' and the other 
 works of this young man, the all but universal roar of 
 laughter with which they were received some ten or 
 twelve years ago. "^ He also spoke of 'Endymion' as 
 one of a number of volumes already "sunk to the 
 bottom of the waters of oblivion." In fact, there are 
 
 1 'Quarterly Review,' Vol. XXXVII, p. 416, March, 1828. 
 
120 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 certain phrases in this review which are almost 
 identical Avith those contained previously in the ' Black- 
 wood' article. Furthermore, as Tsill be found later, 
 these opinions about Keats were repeated in his 
 review of Tennyson. 
 
 It is to the credit of the sense of shame of the con- 
 tributors to 'Blackwood' that those connected with 
 the magazine never conceded the fact of any particular 
 person being designated as the author of these scur- 
 rilous articles. They invariably denied the imputation 
 with blushing truth or unblushing mendacity. Often 
 they were hard put to it. Maginn, for instance, 
 writing to William Blaclnvood from London in 1823 
 tells him of having met Croly. ''I dined with him," 
 he said, "in company with an insufferable wretch of 
 
 the name of , who knows everything of 'Maga' 
 
 that Croly knows, and who boasts of enjoying the 
 confidence of L." By L. he meant Lockhart. "I 
 hope," he continued, *'tliis is impossible, for the 
 creature conducts some unheard-of paper in London, 
 and is one of the press gang. He told me many other 
 things, that he knew L. to be Z,, for he had it from his 
 OT\Ti lips. Surely L. could not be such a spoony."^ 
 Maginn lied like a good comrade. He denied flatly this 
 assertion of the authorship, and in the lack of a more 
 satisfactory place to put the writer, he insisted that 
 there was reason to believe that the person who signed 
 himself Z. was at that time in Germany. 
 
 The point, however, which concerns us here more 
 particularly, is, that this notice of Keats in 'Black- 
 
 1 'William Blackwood and his Sons,' by Mrs. Oliphant, Vol. I, p. 397. 
 
CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 121 
 
 wood' for August, 1818, was followed the next month 
 by a review of 'Endymion' which appeared in the 
 thirty-seventh number of the 'Quarterly.' This num- 
 ber, to be sure, bears the date of April. It was, how- 
 ever, not actually published until towards the close 
 of September, 'The Quarterly Review' in those days 
 being usually as much behind the times in its date of 
 publication as it was in its views.^ The author of the 
 article is conceded to have been John Wilson Croker. 
 It consisted of but four pages. The critic began by 
 honestly confessing that he had been unable to read 
 'Endymion' through. He had made efforts, he said, 
 as superhuman as the story itself appeared to be, to 
 finish it, but he had found it impossible to struggle 
 beyond the first of the four books. He had the conso- 
 lation, however, of knowing that he was no better 
 acquainted T\4th the meaning of the book through 
 which he had painfully toiled, than with that of the 
 three into which he had not looked. He affected to 
 doubt that Keats was actually the name of the poet, 
 for he could hardly believe that a man in his senses 
 would put his real name to such a rhapsody. He did 
 not indeed deny that the author had powers of lan- 
 guage, rays of fancy, and gleams of genius; but he 
 was a disciple of the new school of what had some- 
 where been called cockney poetry. This, he added, 
 ''may be defined to be the most incongruous ideas in 
 the most uncouth language." As the disciple of this 
 
 1 No. CXVII advertised as published this day in the ' London Chroni- 
 cle' of September 26. It had previously been advertised as about to be 
 published in the issue of September 23, and September 25. 
 
122 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 new school Keats was a copyist of Leigh Hunt, but 
 more unintelligible, almost as rugged, twice as diffuse, 
 and ten times more tiresome and absurd than his 
 prototjT)e. 
 
 Though this review was contemptuous throughout, 
 it contained nothing of the personal scurrility which 
 disgraced the article in * Blackwood. ' On the whole, 
 too, it was inferior to the latter in interest and power. 
 But it shows the far higher estimate held by the quar- 
 terly over the monthly periodical that the attack in 
 the former was far more noted then and indeed has 
 remained so ever since. To this day it has steadily 
 served as one of the most conspicuous stock examples 
 to show the malignant and absurd criticism which 
 often distinguished that periodical. At the time, it 
 was celebrated by Byron as having caused the death 
 of Keats. It called forth the indignant monody of 
 Shelley on his dead friend. But while the article in 
 the 'Quarterly' created all this sensation, the still 
 more vituperative and much longer one in 'Black- 
 wood' attracted but comparatively little attention 
 from contemporaries. Nor has it excited much com- 
 ment in later times. This result was not at all due to 
 the superiority of the former. It was really deter- 
 mined by the respective positions in popular estima- 
 tion held by the two classes of publications. The 
 unfortunate thing for the periodicals in which the 
 attacks upon Keats appeared, was not their brutality, 
 nor their insolence, but the obtuseness of critical 
 perception which characterized them, the incapacity 
 to comprehend that a great poet had made his appear- 
 
CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 123 
 
 ance. It tends to produce gloomy views of the general 
 banality of criticism to find two of the most noted 
 reviewers of the time speaking of a sky-soarer like 
 Keats as being the disciple of a twitterer of the hedges 
 like Leigh Hunt. 
 
 It has been fashionable in these later days among 
 men who have never read a line of his writings to 
 talk contemptuously of Jeffrey's criticism, as if the 
 supremacy in this particular which he acquired and 
 maintained among the giants of the Georgian era was 
 somehow due to fortuitous circumstances. Here is not 
 the place to discuss his merits or demerits. But it 
 increases immensely one's respect for his literary 
 perspicacity to find him a little later than the appear- 
 ance of the review in the 'Quarterly' declaring of 
 'Endymion' that with all the obscure, unnatural, and 
 absurd passages to be found in it, he who would 
 represent the whole poem as despicable must either 
 have no notion of poetry or no regard for the truth. 
 He went further and added that he did not know of 
 any book which he would sooner employ as a test to 
 ascertain whether any one had in him a native relish 
 for poetry and a genuine sensibility to its intrinsic 
 charm. Jeffrey not merely recognized the genius of 
 Keats, but had no hesitation in proclaiming it — an 
 easy thing to do twenty or thirty years later, but then 
 evident to but few, and certain to meet with unqualified 
 dissent from many and perhaps most. We know how 
 bitterly Byron resented this particular review of 
 'Endymion' by Jeffrey, for he had been irritated to 
 the depths of his soul by the contemptuous opinion 
 
124 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 expressed by Keats of his own poetic god, Pope. His 
 words furnish a still further illustration of the all- 
 commanding position occupied by the periodical over 
 which that critic presided. ''Nobody," he wrote to 
 Murray in 1820, "could be prouder of the praises of 
 the Edinburgh than I was, or more alive to their cen- 
 sure, as I showed in E[nglish] B[ards] and S[cotch] 
 R[eviewers]. At present all the men they have ever 
 praised are degraded by that insane article." Byron 
 did not, but both Lockhart and Croker did, live long 
 enough to see their judgments contemptuously spurned 
 by the cultivated public; yet it is a satisfaction to 
 know that at the time itself their verdict was almost 
 disdainfully set aside by him whom his contemporaries 
 generally recognized as the supreme arbiter of poetic 
 ability. 
 
 Any survey taken of the critical literature of any 
 period almost inevitably leads to a depreciatory esti- 
 mate of its character. Every generation has always 
 the fullest confidence in its own judgment. It is 
 perfectly convinced that the decisions it has reached 
 about the merits of the authors of the past supersede 
 all that have gone before, and will be recognized as 
 binding by those who follow after. It therefore takes 
 but little interest in the attitude of previous genera- 
 tions, save perhaps to wonder at their folly, to point 
 out their blunders, and to indulge as a consequence 
 in an exalted sense and patronizing display of its own 
 superiority. It is perhaps inevitable that this feeling 
 should prevail; certainly it will after familiarizing 
 one's self with the opinions about the authors which 
 
CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 125 
 
 held sway during this period of transition. Were we 
 to draw general conclusions from the specific data 
 furnished by the literary organs of that time, we 
 should be forced to take the ground that contemporary 
 criticism, at least of works of the imagination, was 
 the most untrustworthy and valueless occupation to 
 which the human mind can devote itself. Few as were 
 then the successes of those concerned with the pro- 
 duction of creative literature, they far outnumber the 
 successes of those who sat in judgment upon them. 
 It is not that the works which are now never heard of 
 were then eulogized in the most glowing terms, and 
 works which the world cherishes now among its price- 
 less possessions were either cavalierly dismissed, or 
 inadequately noticed, or were spoken of in the most 
 depreciatory terms. This is characteristic of every 
 period. But the critics of that day professed that they 
 were looking earnestly for successors to the great 
 writers of the previous period. Yet they were unable 
 to discover the rise of any new poetical luminaries 
 above the horizon. The trouble with them was that 
 they could not recognize them after they were risen. 
 There is a curious disagreement between the conclu- 
 sions reached about authors and their works by the 
 reviewers of that time and the conclusions in regard 
 to the same writers and writings which soon came to 
 be held generally by cultivated readers and continue 
 to be so held to-day. And it made no difference 
 apparently from what quarter the criticism came. 
 The wisest and greatest of men were often as much 
 subject to aberration in their views, were as much 
 
126 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 struck by judicial blindness as the obscurest and least 
 esteemed. 
 
 Let us, however, be just to the critical fraternity 
 of this period who shared in certain of the disadvan- 
 tages of critics of all periods, besides having some 
 special disabilities of their own. There is of course 
 the personal equation which leads one man to look 
 with indifference upon what the vast majority of men 
 passionately admire. But far greater than this is the 
 difficulty that attends him who is compelled to give 
 speedily a fair and just judgment of a work which 
 necessarily requires for honest appreciation that 
 thorough familiarity which is begot of frequent 
 examination and of examination in different states 
 of mind. This is true of every single poem of any 
 length. But when it comes to a collection of short 
 poems, the task of judging becomes infinitely harder. 
 * ' There is no forming a true estimate, ' ' wrote Words- 
 worth, ''of a volume of small poems by reading them 
 all together ; one stands in the way of the other. They 
 must either be read a few at once, or the book must 
 remain some time by one, before a judgment can 
 be made of the quantity of thought and feeling and 
 imagery it contains, and what variety of moods of 
 mind it can either impart or is suited to." This is a 
 condition of things that must always confront the 
 critic who has to bring out his notice at a particular 
 time, or under the urgency of early demand. No 
 matter how diligent and open-minded he may be, he is 
 always heavily handicapped by the inadequacy of his 
 opportunity to gain full appreciation of what he has 
 
 I 
 
CRITICAL LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 127 
 
 under consideration. Furthermore, in consequence of 
 the haste and pressure under which he is constantly 
 compelled to form and express opinions, the con- 
 scientious re\iewer is inevitably haunted by the fear 
 that his judgment may be imposed upon by something 
 which has about it for him the attraction or repulsion 
 of novelty, either in its matter or in the manner of its 
 treatment. This may lead him in one case to undue 
 disparagement; or what in his eyes is far worse, it 
 may induce him to attribute to the work under consid- 
 eration an excellence which cannot stand the test of 
 close familiarity. The cautious critic is therefore 
 inclined to express himself with reserve, if not with 
 coolness, even when most favorably disposed; for he 
 feels that while it may turn out, unfortunately as 
 regards himself, that the primrose he fancies he has 
 chanced to meet by the river's brim, may be a good 
 deal more than a primrose, still in the vast majority 
 of instances it is much safer for him to treat it as a 
 primrose and nothing more, and not mistake it for 
 a giant sequoia. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE LITERARY SITUATION IN THE TRANSITION 
 
 PERIOD 
 
 Part Two 
 Surviving Reputations op the Georgian Era 
 
 By 1830 the great Georgian era had reached its 
 close. The force of the mighty intellectual outburst, 
 which had lasted for a third of a century, had been 
 spent. The men who had set it in motion or had 
 carried it forward had largely passed away. Those 
 of them who survived no longer poured forth inspira- 
 tion. There was an interregnum, not infrequent in 
 literary history, between the spirit that had gone out 
 and the spirit that was to come in. The throne of 
 letters was vacant. 
 
 The greatest of the younger race of this vanishing 
 era had all found early graves. Keats had died at 
 the age of twenty-five, Shelley at the age of thirty, 
 Byron at the age of thirty-six. There were still a 
 number alive of the mightiest of the older generation, 
 but as a rule their creative activity had ceased. Scott 
 was already entering the valley of the shadow of death. 
 Coleridge was moralizing or monologizing in the 
 Gilman villa at Highgate. Wordsworth was now 
 
REPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 129 
 
 beginning to rejoice in the fulness of his fame; but 
 his fame was based upon his early work, and was not 
 increased, nor was it to be increased by anything he 
 was now producing or destined to produce. Of the 
 men of the second rank Crabbe was approaching four- 
 score and was incapable of further exertion. Camp- 
 bell, Hunt, Landor, Moore, Rogers, and Southey were 
 to live longer, some of them much longer; but their 
 work was henceforth mainly confined to prose, or in 
 most cases might better have been restricted to it when 
 it was not. 
 
 To take the place of those who were gone, or who 
 were still on the stage but with their work accom- 
 plished, there were no men of promise looming up. 
 So assuredly it seemed to the critics of that time. 
 They scanned the horizon near and far — at least they 
 said so — in search of some new luminary; but in no 
 quarter could they find anything to reward their wist- 
 ful gaze. A feeling of this sort continued during the 
 whole of the decade from 1830 to 1840. In truth, it 
 largely extended down to 1850. Even before the 
 earlier date it had manifested its existence. ''Since 
 the death of Lord Byron," wrote Jeffrey in 1828, 
 ''there has been no king in Israel; and none of his 
 former competitors now seem inclined to push their 
 pretensions to the vacant throne. Scott and Moore 
 and Southey appear to have nearly renounced verse, 
 and finally taken service with the Muses of prose;— 
 and Crabbe and Coleridge and Wordsworth, we fear, 
 are burnt out;— and Campbell and Rogers repose 
 under their laurels, and, contented each with his own 
 
130 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 elegant little domain, seem but little disposed either 
 to extend its boundaries, or to add new provinces to 
 their rule.'" At the period this was written, there 
 could hardly have been an exacter picture of the 
 situation. 
 
 Views to the same effect, but even gloomier, came 
 a few years later from the leading critic of 'Black- 
 wood's Magazine.' ''All the great schools seem 
 effete," said Christopher North. . . . "All the Sacred 
 Band have done their best — their all — but on the 
 horizon I see not the far-off coming light of the fore- 
 heads of a new generation of poets. That dawn will 
 rise over our graves — perhaps not till the forlorn ^hic 
 jacet' on our tomb-stones is in green obliteration. The 
 era has been glorious — that includes Cowper and 
 Wordsworth, Burns and Byron. From what region 
 of man's spirit shall break a new dayspring of Song? 
 The poetry of that long era is instinct with passion — 
 and, above all, with the love of nature. I know not 
 from what fresh fountains the waters may now flow-— 
 nor can I imagine what hand may unlock them, and 
 lead them on their mazy wanderings over the still 
 beautiful flowers and herbage of the dsedal earth — 
 the world of sense and of soul. The future is all 
 darkness."^ 
 
 Such was the melancholy view of the situation taken 
 in the North. From the South came the same wail 
 of woe. No matter whether the review reflected Whig 
 or Tory opinions or was purely literary, a similar 
 
 1' Edinburgh Eeview,' September, 1828, Vol. XLVIII, pp. 47-48. 
 2'Noetes Ambrosianae,' 'Blackwood's Magazine,' February, 1832. 
 
KEPUTATIONS OF THE GEOKGIAN ERA 131 
 
 doleful commentary is to be found. In 1834 ' The New 
 Monthly Magazine' assured us that the condition of 
 literature seemed anything but progressive. "In the 
 department of poetry," it said, "we have had nothing 
 for several years worth mentioning. A desultory 
 effusion now and then finds its way into the periodical 
 journals, as if to show that the fire of genius is not as 
 yet wholly extinct amongst us. But no poem of any 
 length or character has lately seen the light in this 
 country.'" Again and again spoke to the same effect 
 the Tory organ, 'Fraser's Magazine.' In 1834 in a 
 review of 'The Poets of the Day,' the critic summed 
 up briefly his estimate by declaring it to be "sad 
 work." "We recollect," the writer went on to say, 
 "who were they who once in our time gave us some- 
 thing worth reading, and we sorrowfully look for them 
 or their like in vain. Has our poetry departed from 
 us ; and are we sunk to an age of criticism — an age 
 which never affords anything worthy of being criti- 
 cised?" "One by one," he said on another occasion, 
 "these 'mighty masters' have fallen asleep, or ceased 
 to touch their deep-toned lyres." The prospect was 
 dismal. "No sun, no moon," he added, "no stars in 
 their poetical heavens — nothing but a miserable 
 sprinkling of wretched glow-worms." A ray of light, 
 however, came to cheer this despondent soul. He had 
 discovered in one of the contributors to the magazine 
 a writer who was to redeem the period. He had 
 written "one of the noblest poems \^^.th which modem 
 genius has enriched our language and nation — perhaps 
 
 1 AprU, 1834, Vol. XL, p. 498, 
 
132 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 the noblest poem since the days of Milton. ' '^ This was 
 an epic entitled ' The Judgment of the Flood. ' Modern 
 men have largely forgotten not merely the existence 
 of this great work, but even the name of him who 
 wrote it. Its author was John Abraham Heraud, who 
 in course of time subsided from the position of suc- 
 cessor to Milton in order to become a subordinate 
 editor of a London periodical. But even a temporary 
 ray of hope from that quarter was insufficient to 
 alleviate the sorrows of the then leading critical 
 weekly, 'The Literary Gazette.' Much to the wrath 
 of its monthly contemporary, it refused to find in 
 Heraud the coming literary regenerator of the race. 
 Its \dew in consequence was altogether despondent. 
 **We neither lack poetry," it said, *'nor the taste for 
 poetry, but we lack poets." 
 
 Let it not be fancied that these are merely scattered 
 expressions of individual opinion laboriously extracted 
 from the critical literature of the period. Sentiments 
 of a precisely similar character can be found every- 
 where in the reviews of the day — indeed, it is safe to 
 say in every article that dealt directly or indirectly 
 with works which are designed to appeal to the reader 
 for beauty of style or for expression of intense feeling. 
 There was a universal lament that literature in its 
 higher forms met with but slight encouragement; in 
 poetry, its highest form, it met with none at all. Pub- 
 lishers were chary about bringing out volumes of 
 verse by unknown men. They complained too that 
 the productions of men already well and widely known 
 
 1 Vol. IX, p. 534, May, 3834. 
 
EEPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 133 
 
 did not pay their expenses. ' ' Sufficient for our day is 
 the mediocrity thereof, ' ' said in 1832 the same critical 
 weekly already cited. ''There is no encouragement 
 for higher efforts. Literature has become a mere 
 traffic, and Shakespeare and Milton as a property at 
 three and a half per cent would be rejected for Tomp- 
 kins and Jenkins at four." This was the voice of the 
 Aveeklies. The quarterlies were just as pronounced in 
 their opinion. In an article on Taylor's 'Philip Van 
 Artevelde,' 'The Edinburgh Review' characterized 
 the time as " a period of marked indifference to poeti- 
 cal productions."^ The same attitude was taken by 
 the monthlies. "Many a well-educated man," said 
 'Eraser's Magazine,' "can no more read poetry than 
 he can Chinese. The neglect, not to say contempt, of 
 the muses, now in fashion, bids fair to render this 
 Parnassian illiteracy universal. ' '^ These are no single 
 utterances; they are selected from a large number 
 which can be found scattered through the periodicals 
 of the period. There was assuredly so much justifica- 
 tion for the gloomy views here expressed of the 
 literary situation that from 1830 to 1842 not a single 
 volume of poetry which has continued to survive paid 
 then the expenses of its publication. Ten to twenty 
 years before the former date, verse, at least the verse 
 of great authors, was as a rule more salable than prose. 
 The disposition in consequence was not unnatural to 
 dwell upon the glories of the period which had just 
 gone by, and to contrast mth them the mournful 
 
 1 'Edinburgh Eeview,' October, 1834. 
 2 ' Fraser 's Magazine, ' December, 1834. 
 
134 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 realities of the present. Those times are past, said 
 as late as 1839 a writer in 'The Edinburgh Review/ 
 *'and no visible tokens seem to announce their return. 
 Even while many of our best poets are yet alive, 
 poetry herself is dead or entranced."^ 
 
 It is not necessary indeed to limit this despairing 
 sort of utterance to the period in question. It occurs 
 in English literature at intermittent intervals. Pretty 
 certainly it has recurred in all literature since the 
 inscription of hieroglyphics on Egyptian monuments. 
 Of the little estimation in which poetry was held in 
 England at this particular time, as compared with 
 prose, there can be however no question. It was the 
 view taken by writers generally, whether critical or 
 creative, during the twenty years which followed the 
 death of Byron. The fact of the unpopularity of 
 poetry was generally conceded ; the reasons given for 
 the fact ranged all the way from the non-existence of 
 dictators to the levelling influences caused by the 
 spread of democracy. Authority for all sorts of 
 different and differing ^dews can be found on every 
 side. It may not be fair to cite Wordsworth, for he 
 had not much respect for any of the poetry produced 
 in the previous era except his own. During its most 
 brilliant period, had it not been for himself, he would 
 have been discouraged by the outlook. Naturally he 
 was much more despondent in these latter days. One 
 of his visitors observed to him in 1833 that amidst the 
 great political agitations of the times through which 
 they had been passing, poetry seemed to have died out 
 
 1 Vol. LXVIII, p. 335. 
 
REPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 135 
 
 entirely. Wordsworth admitted that this was true but 
 insisted that it was not the only cause. There had 
 been, he said, an overproduction, and in consequence 
 a surfeit.^ 
 
 As already intimated, many and varied were the 
 reasons then given for the general decay of interest 
 in poetry. A common one was the blight of democracy. 
 This from its very nature was asserted to be deadly 
 to literature and the arts. One of its consequences 
 was that poetry received no longer patronage from 
 men of rank. Another reason given was the growth 
 of the utilitarian spirit. Still another was the wide 
 and constantly increasing interest in novels and their 
 consequent prevalence. But of the many different 
 explanations constantly brought forward two stand 
 out prominently. One is general, the other specific. 
 There were those who attributed the conceded lack 
 of interest in poetry to the astounding progress of 
 scientific investigation and the wonders it had accom- 
 plished. The extraordinary physical discoveries of 
 later years, it was asserted, by throwing further and 
 further back the boundaries of the world of practical 
 science, and realizing its most visionary conceptions, 
 had rendered cheap and vulgar the wonders of the 
 imagination. The days of romance had in consequence 
 gone by. Nothing was to be looked forward to but the 
 reign of utility. The achievements of science, it was 
 maintained, tended to substitute interest in the marvels 
 it performed for the interest which had once belonged 
 to the creations of the mind. Such a theory, it is clear, 
 
 iW. Knight's 'Life of Wordsworth,' Vol, III, p. 238. 
 
136 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 presaged, if true, the utter ruin which was eventually 
 to overtake all literature. 
 
 For those who were not disposed to accept as a 
 satisfactory explanation this dismal view, there was 
 for the earlier part of tliis period what has already 
 been suggested as a reason frequently advanced for 
 the decline of poetic production and for the disregard 
 of it when produced. Exciting political questions had 
 loomed up into a prominence they had never held 
 before. They took not merely the first but an almost 
 exclusive place in the minds of men. In the early part 
 of the period under discussion, interest in them had 
 been intensified by the excitement of the July days 
 in Paris, where less than a week had sufficed to crumble 
 into dust the laborious masonry of the Holy Alliance, 
 and to fill Europe ^vith unrest, and with doubt as to 
 what the future had in store. This had been followed 
 in England by the reform agitation, whose approach 
 had been felt before even its outlines could be detected 
 in visible shape, and whose presence, when it actually 
 came, engrossed the thoughts of men and stirred their 
 hearts with alternate hopes and fears. Against the 
 all-absorbing interest in questions which involved the 
 happiness of the individual and of the race, how could 
 poetry hope to maintain itself? But when the same 
 indifference continued to be manifested after the 
 storm had passed away, and men had fallen into their 
 old routine, nothing was left the believers in this 
 particular cause but the conviction expressed by 
 Wordsworth that there had been an overproduction 
 and the consequent surfeit had cloyed the appetite. 
 
REPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 137 
 
 Again and again was tlie remark repeated that scores 
 and even hundreds of books existed in manuscript that 
 would do honor to the country and the age, but for 
 which publication could not be secured. 
 
 Observations of this sort have been given, not 
 because of their truth, but of their prevalence. They 
 are the very same which are heard during every 
 literary interregnum when the old poetic spirit has 
 been worn out and the new has not yet embodied itself, 
 or at least has not yet become distinctly recognizable. 
 It may be indeed that after a period of great intel- 
 lectual fertility the human mind actually needs and 
 demands a season in which to lie fallow in order to 
 recruit its exhausted energies. Even if production 
 continues, it is apt to be of a different character, as 
 if the principle of the rotation of crops were as true 
 applied to the brain as it is to the soil. Nor will the 
 correctness of such an inference be seriously impaired 
 because some sporadic and shining example of vigorous 
 growth shoots up in contrast to the general barren- 
 ness. But whether the theory be well founded or not, 
 there is no question as to the prevalence at this time 
 of those dolorous forecasts about the future of litera- 
 ture, especially of the highest form of it, which 
 regularly follow the subsidence of every period of 
 great creative activity. The old utterances again 
 recur in almost the same words. There is no outlook 
 for the continuance of poetry, we are told; no hope 
 for its proper appreciation. If offered, it will not be 
 published; if published, it cannot be sold. This may 
 be true on a small scale. But the valuable works which 
 
138 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 continue to exist in manuscript form a body of litera- 
 ture, about the greatness of which the mind grows 
 increasing skeptical with advancing years. 
 
 There seems also to have been during the period 
 under discussion a general agreement on the part of 
 the critics that the condition of things just depicted 
 was entirely the fault of the readers and not at all 
 that of the writers. It apparently did not occur to 
 any one of those complaining of the indifference of the 
 public, that the public had a right to be indifferent; 
 that the reason it did not read the new works of the 
 old masters was largely because they were not worth 
 reading. In truth, it may in some slight measure 
 reconcile us to the early death of Keats and Shelley 
 and Byron when we consider how little of value was 
 produced by any of their great contemporaries after 
 reaching the age the most long-lived of these three 
 attained. The reputation of their survivors rests 
 mainly upon what they did, either in youth or before 
 youth had fully passed away. Not that occasional 
 sparks of inspiration did not flash forth afterward; 
 but in the case of most, the poetic fire had almost 
 wholly abated or vanished entirely. The history of 
 the great authors of the older Georgian generation 
 who, though advancing towards later life, were still, 
 in 1830, in the full possession of intellectual force, 
 bears extraordinary testimony to the truth already 
 stated that great poetic performance belongs usually 
 to the period of comparative youth. They produced 
 but little ; and the little they produced was in general 
 worth little. 
 
REPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 139 
 
 There were still several members of the older 
 generation that were more or less actively engaged 
 in literary production in 1830, and in the decade or 
 decades following. They all continued to occupy a 
 high position in the eyes of the public. Those of them 
 who at that period were most conspicuous were Moore, 
 Campbell, Wordsworth, and Southey, to whom is to 
 be added for the brief time he lived, Coleridge. There 
 was another group that ranked then lower in the 
 general estimation, though each of them had a body 
 of admirers and followers of his own, who rated him 
 in some cases higher than most of those just mentioned. 
 The members of this second group were Landor, 
 Leigh Hunt, and Rogers. It can be said justly of the 
 five mentioned of the first group, that whatever poetic 
 reputation they had achieved, they had achieved long 
 before. They were not to add to it by anything they 
 produced after. In the case of Moore the decline of 
 production was due rather to the distraction of other 
 pursuits than to any actual failure of such ability as 
 he possessed. Still in a general way his career bears 
 out the truth of the proposition that the work which 
 made the men of the elder generation famous was the 
 work of the first half of their lives. Moore did not 
 die till 1852. His 'Lalla Rookh' was brought out in 
 1817 when he was thirty-eight years old. The poetry 
 he produced after that date is now so little read that 
 it can hardly be said to enjoy that quasi-distinction 
 which consists in being read about. 
 
 Much more marked, however, in this respect was 
 the case of Campbell, who was still a prominent lit- 
 
140 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 erary figure in 1830, and did not die until 1844. During 
 the period between these years he was living largely 
 upon his past reputation; so far as posterity is con- 
 cerned, he was living entirely upon it. He was in 
 1830, and had been for some time before, the editor 
 of 'The New Monthly Magazine'; but to the fortunes 
 of that periodical he contributed nothing but his name. 
 The mts of 'Blackwood' used to declare that every 
 month the reader was allured by the pleasures of hope, 
 but it invariably ended for him in the pains of 
 possession. The truth about him was voiced by 
 'Eraser's Magazine' with all the brutality of its early 
 utterance. It expressed regret that he did not die 
 after the publication of 'Gertrude of Wyoming.' 
 "Had he had such good fortune," it said, "we should 
 have had the imaginations of the whole world in his 
 favour, fancying what he ynight have done, had he 
 lived, to enhance to extravagance the value of what 
 he had then done."^ In truth, a good deal of Camp- 
 bell's later life was, what he once incidentally called 
 a portion of it, "serious idleness." The works by 
 which his name survives belong almost exclusively 
 to the period of his youth. He was born in 1777. At 
 the age of twenty-two he sprang at once into fame 
 with the publication of 'The Pleasures of Hope.' 
 Between 1799, the year in which that poem appeared, 
 and 1810, when 'O'Connor's Child' came out, nearly 
 all of the poetry, upon which his fame is based, was 
 produced. Two or three short pieces are at most all 
 that is much read now of the works he composed during 
 
 1 'Fraser's MagaziBe,' June, 1830, Vol. I, p. 563. 
 
REPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 141 
 
 the more than thirty years which made up the rest of 
 his life. It was a sort of carpentering at literature 
 in which he henceforth engaged. He wrote criticism; 
 he wrote history; he wrote travels; he wrote biog- 
 raphy; he edited magazines; but he produced no great 
 creative work. In his case the soil was in a certain 
 way rich, but it was also very thin. The growth of one 
 crop exhausted it. This cannot be said of Coleridge 
 now drawing towards the grave ; yet in this particular 
 there was a marked similarity in the lives of the two 
 men. Coleridge was born in 1772, and his career as 
 a producer of poetry, which is now read and studied, 
 may be said to have ended in 1802; for though some 
 of his finest pieces, as for instance, 'Kubla Khan' and 
 'Christabel,' were published many years after the 
 latter date, they had been written many years before 
 they appeared in print. 
 
 In 1830 the position of Wordsworth at the head of 
 living English poets was generally recognized, though 
 in some quarters the old prejudice survived. Still, he 
 had now reached that degree of popularity that every 
 new work he put forth was hailed by the entire critical 
 press with respectful approval if not with enthusiastic 
 commendation. Yet it is as true of him as it is of the 
 others that he had long ceased to produce anything 
 by which he is now generally known and admired. 
 What is greatest in his production belongs to the 
 period of youth. Matthew Arnold was one of the most 
 thoroughgoing of his partisans. He was mlling to 
 rank him just below Milton, and with true British 
 insularity placed him, with the exception of Goethe, 
 
142 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 above all the writers of the Continent after the death 
 of Moliere. Yet he insists that it was between 1798 
 and 1808 that Wordsworth not only produced nearly 
 everything by which he is now remembered, but nearly 
 everything which is worthy of remembrance. This 
 must be regarded as a pretty extravagant way of 
 putting things ; yet, when we take into account certain 
 poems which appeared in the edition of 1815, it is to 
 be conceded that the larger part of his best work was 
 produced within the limits Arnold set. 
 
 One exception there was at the opening of the fourth 
 decade of the century to the general indifference 
 which was manifested towards poetry and poets. 
 This was furnished by Lord Byron. Against his all- 
 conquering personality the partisans of other authors 
 had made little headway during his life. The circum- 
 stances of his death had tended to retard the approach 
 of that depreciatory estimate which is fairly certain 
 to overtake, for a time at least, any exceedingly popular 
 writer, when once the ascendency and sway exercised 
 by his living presence have been withdrawn. Conse- 
 quently, though Byron had been dead several years, 
 his influence still dominated literature. It long con- 
 tinued to prevail over that of the greatest of the 
 contemporaries who survived him. In his case, too, 
 if interest in him and his fortunes had at all begun to 
 wane, it was revived at this very time by the publica- 
 tion of his letters accompanied by Moore's biography, 
 which brought again vividly before the public the 
 incidents of his stormy and checkered career. 
 
 Few at the present day have the slightest conception 
 
REPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 143 
 
 of the profound sensation which the death of Byron 
 created in the whole of Europe. He was still young. 
 He had barely passed the middle point of man's 
 allotted life upon earth. About him there had been 
 from the outset the fascination of brilliant personal 
 achievement. What he did had in one way kept all 
 Europe in a state of astonishment and awe; as in 
 another way and in another sphere had been effected 
 by Napoleon. There was time enough for him to 
 accomplish much more. No one could imagine what 
 new literary enterprises he might undertake, what 
 new conquests he might achieve, when he suddenly 
 passed away. The element of unexpectedness was 
 reinforced by the circumstances under which he died. 
 To the interest felt in him as a poet had been added 
 the interest of chivalric adventure. He himself had 
 always been in fullest intellectual sympathy mth the 
 party of progress. By the liberals of the Continent 
 he was regarded as one of their leaders. The same 
 position he had held while resident in England. No 
 one who familiarizes himself with the newspapers of 
 the time can fail to note that much of the personal 
 hostility that beset Byron after the separation from 
 his wife, and that followed him in Ms retreat from his 
 native land, had been due to the character of his 
 political opinions and utterances, which were pecu- 
 liarly offensive to the Tory party then in the first flush 
 of its triumph over Napoleon. The closing acts of his 
 career had been in fullest harmony with the sentiments 
 he professed. He had fallen while sharing in the 
 struggle of a race to regain its lost liberties. The 
 
144 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 cause for which he gave up his life had for nearly a 
 century enlisted the active interest of the whole 
 educated class in Christendom. It now received a 
 double consecration. To it the most brilliant poet of 
 the century had fallen a martyr in the prime of life. 
 
 It was inevitable therefore that the news of his 
 sudden death should have come upon all Europe mth 
 a sense of shock. But if the sensation produced by it 
 in other countries was great, it naturally reached its 
 culmination in his own. He had been driven from it 
 by unreasoning clamor. Yet his fame and influence 
 grew with the distance which separated him from his 
 native land, and mth the time which elapsed ^dthout 
 his revisiting it. He in turn had disowned it, he had 
 unceasingly satirized it. Yet there can be little 
 question that he gave expression to the deepest feel- 
 ings of his heart, when, after declaring that it was 
 possible for a man to make for himself anywhere a 
 country, he went on to say: 
 
 Yet I was born where men are proud to be, 
 Not without cause ; and should I leave behind 
 The inviolate island of the sage and free, 
 And seek me out a home by a remoter sea, 
 
 Perchance I loved it well ; and if I lay 
 
 My ashes in a soil which is not mine, 
 
 My spirit shall resume it — if we may 
 
 Unbodied choose a sanctuary. I twine 
 
 My hopes of being remembered in my line 
 
 "With my land 's language : if too fond and far 
 
 These aspirations in their scope incline, — 
 
 If my fame should be, as my fortunes are. 
 
 Of hasty growth and blight, and dull Oblivion bar 
 
REPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 145 
 
 My name from out the temple where the dead 
 Are honored by the nations — let it be — 
 And light the laurels on a loftier head ! 
 And be the Spartan's epitaph on me, 
 'Sparta hath many a worthier son than he.' 
 
 In England where nearly the whole body of the 
 younger men of letters recognized Byron as their liege 
 lord, the excitement caused by his death was unprece- 
 dented. There is plenty of evidence as to the existence 
 of the impression created by it which can be found 
 stated not merely in general terms, but given as the 
 expression of individual feeling. Hazlitt in an article 
 in 'The Edinburgh Review' for July, 1824, had spoken 
 of the death of Shelley and of Keats. ''To this band 
 of immortals," he continued, "a third has since been 
 added — a mightier genius, a haughtier spirit, whose 
 stubborn impatience and Achilles-like pride only death 
 could quell. Greece, Italy, the world have lost their 
 poet-hero; and his death has spread a wider gloom, 
 and been recorded with a deeper awe than has waited 
 on the obsequies of the many great who have died in 
 our remembrance. Even detraction has been silent 
 at his tomb; and the more generous of his enemies 
 have fallen into the ranks of his mourners." The 
 description which Tennyson gave of his own state of 
 mind when he heard of the poet's death has already 
 been recorded. 
 
 Yet the enthusiastic worship of the boy pales before 
 the avowal of her early feelings by the delicate and 
 spiritual Mrs. Browning, while still Miss Barrett. 
 She was an ardent but by no means indiscriminating 
 
146 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 admirer of Wordsworth. About him she had many- 
 controversies with her old friend and instructor, Hugh 
 Stuart Boyd, who continued to retain at a later period 
 the prejudices against that poet which had been 
 prevalent in his youth. He admitted, however, on one 
 occasion that she was liberal in conceding the merit 
 of Byron's poetry. She resented the remark warmly. 
 She would not be praised for acknowledging the 
 excellence of works which she had always admired and 
 loved, and always expected to admire and love. ' * Why, 
 when I was a little girl," — this was said in 1842 — '*I 
 used to think seriously of dressing up like a boy and 
 running away to be Lord Byron's page."^ This would 
 not have been hard to conceive in the case of some 
 women ; but it is extraordinary in the view it gives of 
 Bj^ron's hold upon the public when it comes from the 
 lips of a woman like Mrs. Browning. 
 
 Feelings of this kind could not continue. The 
 history of literature shows nothing more distinctly 
 than the rise and fall of reputations, or perhajjs it 
 would be more correct to say, their oscillations from 
 highest popularity to comparative neglect. This is not 
 to say that any great poet is ever forgotten, even for 
 a time, or that he ever fails to have somewhere a body 
 of admirers and partisans ; only that there are certain 
 periods when he occupies in the estimate of the great 
 body of men a loftier position than he does at others. 
 There are apt to be particular stages in the mental 
 growth of an individual when he falls almost com- 
 
 1 Letter to H. S. Boyd of December 4, 1842, in 'Letters of E. B. 
 Browning,' Vol. I, p. 115, 
 
REPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 147 
 
 pletely under the influence of some special writer. 
 He admires him, he celebrates him, he vaunts his 
 superiority to others ; if he himself writes, he is fairly 
 certain to imitate him. But such states of mind are 
 never likely to be permanent. The disciple may 
 always continue to entertain regard for the man he 
 once worshipped; but that exclusive regard which he 
 felt gives way to a less enthusiastic and absorbing 
 feeling. The truth is that there are poets suited to 
 different periods in the lives of each of us, just as 
 there are poets suited to the different tastes and 
 temperaments of all of us. 
 
 What is true of the individual is true of a whole 
 people. A great writer will make himself the special 
 mouthpiece of a generation. To its hopes and fears, 
 its aspirations, its vague longings, he will give their 
 clearest and fullest expression. But when that par- 
 ticular mood is passed — as in time it is destined to 
 pass — he is certain to lose all that element of popu- 
 larity which depends upon community of feeling and 
 of sentiment. He must thenceforth depend upon the 
 general power he has displayed, independent of the 
 circumstances and the times which have given to his 
 writings special vogue. In that he is sure to have 
 rivals ; it is possible that he may have superiors. The 
 revolutions of time and taste may bring, and in some 
 cases are fairly sure to bring, him for a season some- 
 thing of his old vogue ; though it can hardly hope to 
 make his influence a second time overwhelmingly 
 predominant. x\ccordingly we can always rely upon 
 the occasional recurrence of modified Byronic revivals. 
 
148 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 There are certain qualities in that poet which tend to 
 make him a power among men, and at particular 
 periods a great power. There are elements in his 
 work wherein he scarcely finds a competitor. He 
 brought to English literature a force and fire to which 
 it had hitherto been a stranger; and beside the head- 
 long impetuosity and tumultuous energy of his verse, 
 the most strenuous efforts of other men seem often 
 as tame and inadequate as the jets of water spouting 
 from a fountain in a pleasure ground, compared with 
 the rush and roar of a mighty mountain torrent 
 plunging down to the valley from the regions of 
 eternal snow. 
 
 By 1830 the fame of Byron was just beginning to 
 feel the influence of the change in popular taste. It 
 still remained paramount indeed. It affected all 
 classes and all grades of intellect. Men had come 
 under it, and were continuing to come under it, who 
 by the very bent of their minds were utterly unfitted 
 to fall under its sway; who belonged not merely to 
 another party but to a hostile party. Taylor, for 
 instance, the author of 'Philip Van Artevelde,' was 
 one of those persons whom nature designed for a 
 Wordsworthian pure and simple. Yet he tells us that 
 in his youth he was an enthusiastic admirer of Byron. 
 Nay, more, he has carefully preserved for us and 
 published a copy of a little Byronic poem, the sole 
 survivor of a number of others of the same sort. The 
 best of this poetry he produced was not bad in its 
 kind, he assures us; not indeed without a certain sort 
 of fervor and beauty. Still, the specimen which was 
 
REPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 149 
 
 saved from the general wreck, though viewed with a 
 good deal of fondness, and even pride by its author, 
 is not such as to cause deep regret that the others, 
 formed upon the same model, have perished. This 
 early admiration of Byron came to be considered by 
 Taylor morally stultif}ing; not in the sense that it 
 was debasing, but because it supplanted for the time 
 a more elevating admiration, which of course from his 
 point of view was that of Wordsworth. 
 
 These last words of Taylor are worthy of attention 
 because they indicate the hostile attitude which was 
 soon to be assumed towards Byron by large numbers. 
 In 1830 he still remained the most potent force in 
 literature. He was still the one whom nearly every 
 youthful aspirant for poetic honors took consciously 
 or unconsciously as his model. The adherents of other 
 claimants to the throne of letters naturally felt called 
 upon to denounce his pretensions, and in some cases 
 to insist that he had no claim to the title of monarch 
 at all. It ought not to be necessary — though it seems 
 to be necessary — to say that it is as legitimate, as it 
 is common, for any reader to feel and express the 
 preference he entertains for one great author as com- 
 pared ^vith another. It implies notliing either for or 
 against the degree of his intellectual development. 
 The message — to use the most maudlin phrase which 
 modern criticism has concocted — the message which 
 a particular writer bears, may be that which will 
 satisfy the demands of one nature, while to another 
 it will convey little or nothing of interest or value. 
 Even if the beauty of the verse meet ^vith an intel- 
 
150 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 lectual recognition, what the verse contains may 
 supply no spiritual want. It is nothing strange that 
 Wordsworth should be the favorite of some men, 
 Byron the favorite of others, Shelley the favorite of 
 still a third body. Such preference is objectionable 
 only when the appreciation of one author is conjoined 
 with the depreciation of another and a rival author. 
 No writer acquires and continues to maintain a hold 
 upon the cultivated public without the possession of 
 great qualities. The favorable opinion of a large 
 number of educated men is worth infinitely more than 
 the hostile opinion of the very highest genius. Criti- 
 cism that denies the reputation which has been 
 accorded by the consent of one generation and con- 
 firmed by the voice of following generations, serves 
 little other purpose than to reveal the futility of 
 criticism itself and the limitations of the critic. 
 
 Accordingly, we must look at the literary situation 
 as it existed then, not with our own eyes, but with the 
 eyes of the men of 1830. At that time the movement 
 against the hitherto unquestioned supremacy of Byron 
 began to make effective manifestation of itself. Along 
 with it an active propaganda was instituted in behalf 
 of two very dissimilar poets, whose reputation, very 
 high in limited circles, had nevertheless up to that 
 time been largely confined to limited circles. One of 
 them indeed had at last entered upon the fulness of 
 his fame; the other was only beginning to loom into 
 prominence. The former was Wordsworth, the latter 
 was Shelley. Wide apart in many ways as were the 
 views of the adherents of these two writers, there was 
 
REPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 151 
 
 one thing in which they agreed. They united in their 
 hostility to the claims of the partisans of Byron. 
 They did not dread each other; they dreaded the 
 common foe. Shelley in particular, as being in most 
 need of rehabilitation, became an object of enthusiastic 
 advocacy. During the years that had elapsed since 
 his death he had been by no means forgotten ; for from 
 the very outset he had had a band of admirers. Still, 
 in no sense of the phrase could he be said to be well 
 known; in any proper sense he could hardly be said 
 to be known at all. It is natural that revolutions in 
 taste should display themselves most vigorously at 
 great educational centers, if not there receive their 
 origin. The present instance offers no exception. It 
 was at Cambridge University during the term of 
 Tennyson's residence that new critical standards had 
 begun to be set up. Not unnaturally a movement 
 started there into being, designed to further the spread 
 of Shelley's reputation. It was one of the singular 
 features connected with it that some of those most 
 prominent in advocating his claims were equally 
 uncompromising partisans of Wordsworth. The con- 
 junction which would have profoundly shocked the 
 elder poet was, at that time at least, rarely found 
 elsewhere. 
 
 It was in 1829 that Arthur Henry Hallam and a 
 number of Shelley's other admirers caused his 
 'Adonais' to be reprinted at Cambridge in an edition 
 of five hundred copies ; for with the worship of Shelley 
 was united the worship of the altogether less known 
 Keats. This elegy on the death of the latter poet had 
 
152 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 been printed at Pisa in 1821. It was not till the little 
 band of Cambridge enthusiasts reproduced it in the 
 year just mentioned that it was brought out in Eng- 
 land. In fact a not essentially dissimilar state of 
 things was at that time true of most of Shelley's 
 productions. He began his poetical career in 1816 
 with the volume containing 'Alastor, or the Spirit 
 of Solitude'; for the privately printed 'Queen Mab' 
 of 1813 may be disregarded. The 'Revolt of Islam' 
 followed in 1818, 'Rosalind and Helen' and 'The 
 Cenci' in 1819, 'Prometheus Unbound' in 1820, 
 'Adonais' and ' Epipsychidion ' in 1821. Some of 
 these were brought together in a single volume the 
 year after his death, but very few of them ever went, 
 strictly speaking, into a second edition. In truth, 
 Shelley's name, so far as it was known then, was much 
 more associated in the minds of men with his atheis- 
 tical utterances and his extreme social opinions than 
 with his poetry. It is a significant fact that the one 
 production of his which up to 1830 had gone through 
 the largest number of editions was 'Queen Mab'; and 
 'Queen Mab,' it is needless to say, appealed rather to 
 the intellectual sinners than to the lovers of highest 
 poetic art. Even later, the other works, in spite of 
 frequent references to them in the critical literature 
 of the day, were often very hard to obtain. 
 
 There is one noted instance. The youthful Brown- 
 ing chanced to come across in a collection of second- 
 hand books exposed for sale, a volume which attracted 
 his attention by being labelled "Mr. Shelley's Atheis- 
 tical Poem, very scarce." He was so impressed by 
 
REPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 153 
 
 the hasty perusal he was able to give it that he 
 implored his mother to procure for him all the pro- 
 ductions of this author, of whom before he had never 
 heard. It was no easy task to comply with his wishes. 
 The local booksellers all shared in the boy's ignorance 
 of the poet. They were no more familiar than he mth 
 the writer's name, nor did they know the titles of 
 the works he had written. At last the volumes were 
 secured at the shop of the Olliers in Vere Street, by 
 whom most of them had been published. With the 
 exception of 'The Cenci' all were first editions. 
 Bro\vTiing's experience illustrates with a fair degree 
 of accuracy the general indifference about Shelley 
 which existed on the part of the public. This had 
 naturally the effect of stimulating the enthusiasm of 
 his partisans. What they lacked in numbers they 
 made up, as far as they could, in activity. In that 
 brilliant circle which was just at this time assembled 
 in Cambridge University, devotion to this poet was 
 very intense. A Shelley cult was established there. 
 It flourished for a while with both the vigor and the 
 extravagance of youth. Its band of worshippers 
 exalted to the highest place one who to the great body 
 of readers was an unknown god. Like every mis- 
 sionary propaganda, its first aim was to destroy the 
 prevailing religion ; and the prevailing religion was 
 Byron. To proclaim the superiority of Shelley to 
 Byron was accordingly a leading principle of the new 
 creed. 
 
 There is little doubt from their later utterances, that 
 the Cambridge men of 1830 outgrew their enthusiasm 
 
154 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 and came in time to be amused by it themselves — in 
 some instances in a very short time. But their 
 enthusiasm was very earnest while it lasted. They 
 set out to convert the world to their belief. The record 
 of one of their enterprises has been preserved. 
 Shelley had been illtreated, as they thought, by the 
 authorities of the sister university. He had been 
 expelled from it. He who was a glory to the institu- 
 tion had received from it scant favor while he was 
 an attendant upon it, and no recognition of his great- 
 ness since. It struck these youthful admirers who 
 belonged to the Cambridge Union, that it would be 
 a good thing to go over to Oxford and hold a debate 
 with the members of the Union there on the compara- 
 tive merits of Shelley and Byron. Permission was 
 sought for the undertaking from the Master of Trinity, 
 Christopher Wordsworth, the brother of the poet. 
 The delegation consisted of Arthur Henry Hallam, 
 Richard Monckton Milnes, and Thomas Sunderland. 
 In his later year Milnes used to insinuate that it was 
 not made perfectly clear to the venerable dignitary 
 who presided over Trinity, whether it was the supe- 
 riority of Shelley to Byron that they were going forth 
 to maintain, or the superiority of Wordsworth to 
 Byron. At all events, the permission was obtained. 
 Early in December, 1829, they set out on their mission. 
 It was then a long trip of ten hours by the post-chaise, 
 and the pleasure of the journey was not increased by 
 the fact that snow had fallen. On reaching Oxford 
 they were entertained by the members of the rival 
 Union. Of one of these Milnes wrote to his mother 
 
REPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 155 
 
 that lie was sure he was a "very superior person." 
 This very superior person was young Mr. Gladstone 
 of Liverpool. He, however, took no part in the 
 discussion. 
 
 The debate, we are told, went off in very fine style ; 
 but as regards the impression produced, it must have 
 been somewhat disappointing. According to the 
 report of Milnes' as late as 1866, the Cambridge 
 delegation, in all the fervor of their early enthusiasm, 
 had their feelings very much shocked and their vanity 
 a good deal wounded to find that no one at Oxford 
 knew anything at all about Mr. Shelley, either for 
 good or ill. It was a mortifying fact to discover that 
 no small number of the eighty or ninety young gentle- 
 men of the Oxford Union, who sat sprucely dressed 
 in chairs or lounged about the fireplace, fancied that 
 it was Mr. Shenstone they had come to talk about, and 
 declared that they knew of only one poem of his, that 
 beginning with the words, ''My banks, they are fur- 
 nished with bees. ' ' A very little later a contemporary 
 gave an account of the result of this particular 
 missionary enterprise to establish the superiority of 
 Shelley to Byron. ' ' Sunderland, Milnes, and Hallam, ' ' 
 wrote Blakesley to Trench, "made an expedition to 
 Oxford, and spoke there in favor of the former, 
 thereby of course procuring to themselves the repu- 
 tation of atheists. Howbeit they gained some converts 
 and spread the knowledge of the poet, so that some 
 illuminati of the sister university, who at first took 
 him for Shenstone, and then for 'the man who drives 
 
 I'Life, Letters, and Friendships,' Vol. II, p. 163. 
 
156 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 the black ponies in Hyde Park, ' at last went away with 
 the belief 'that he was a man whom Lord Byron 
 patronized, and who was drowned a few years ago. ' ' '^ 
 In his 'Reminiscences,' Sir Francis Hastings Doyle 
 asserts that the statements made about this memo- 
 rable debate by two of its participants — Lord Hough- 
 ton and Cardinal Manning — are hazy and incorrect; 
 but his own version differs from theirs only in unim- 
 portant particulars. Doyle tells us that it was he 
 himself, acting under Cambridge influences, who 
 brought forward for discussion in the Oxford Union a 
 motion that Shelley was a greater poet than Byron. 
 It would, he said, have been a perfectly languid debate, 
 as were all non-political ones, had it not been for the 
 arrival of the Cambridge men. This was sufficient to 
 fill the benches. Of these Cambridge men, Sunderland 
 spoke first. He was followed by Hallam. They in turn 
 were followed by Oldham of Oriel who proceeded vig- 
 orously to pooh-pooh the pretensions of Shelley, of 
 whom he knew absolutely nothing, till he chanced to 
 catch sight of Milnes waiting to fall upon him. At once 
 he lost heart and to the mingled amazement and amuse- 
 ment of his hearers went over to the side he had begun 
 by attacking. After the speech of Milnes a short silence 
 followed. The truth is that the Oxford advocates of 
 Byron were a good deal at a loss what to say: for in 
 general they were not merely unacquainted with the 
 poetry of Shelley, they were unaware of even the 
 existence of the man himself. This explains the 
 hesitation that prevailed. Finally Manning of Balliol, 
 
 1 E. C. Trench 's ' Letters and Memorials, ' Vol. I, p. 50. 
 
REPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 157 
 
 the \drtual leader of the Union, rose to reply to the 
 arguments of the Cambridge men. According to Doyle 
 the substance of his argument was essentially as 
 follows : Byron was a great poet because he had been 
 read by them all. Consequently he was knowTi to them 
 all. If Shelley had been a great poet, he would have 
 been read by them all and necessarily would have been 
 known to them all. As this was not the case, he was 
 not a great poet. All the more it followed that he was 
 not so great a poet as Byron. In this view, when it 
 came to a vote, the Union concurred by a large 
 majority.^ 
 
 Doyle, though he does not mention it, was the one 
 who opened the debate. He was followed by Sunder- 
 land, the first of the Cambridge trio. Sunderland is 
 the person referred to in Tennyson's sketch, entitled 
 *A Character.' From that it may easily be gathered 
 that he was far from being a favorite of the poet. He 
 was further described by him as ''a very plausible, 
 parliament-like, self-satisfied speaker at the Union 
 Debating Society." Sunderland retorted in his turn. 
 When told that he was the one meant in the poem just 
 mentioned, he remarked, "Oh, really, and which 
 Tennyson did you say wrote it? The slovenly one?" 
 The poet's opinion of the man was assuredly not 
 shared by his fellow students. They looked up to him 
 with admiration. To him they awarded the palm of 
 oratory. The highest expectations were entertained 
 of the brilliancy of his future. Whether their antici- 
 pations would have been fulfilled, it is of course impos- 
 
 1 F. M. Brookfield's 'Cambridge Apostles,' p. 130. 
 
158 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 sible to say; for shortly after graduation he was 
 seized by a mysterious malady under which he lin- 
 gered a physical and intellectual wreck until his death 
 in 1867. He ended, it is said, in believing himself the 
 Almighty — which, however, is not an altogether unex- 
 ampled state of mind in men assumed to be perfectly 
 sane. 
 
 But there is no question as to the profound impres- 
 sion wrought by Sunderland on this occasion upon his 
 Oxford hearers, though his two comrades thought at 
 the time that he was hardly up to his usual level. More 
 than two years later Charles Wordsworth in a letter 
 to his brother Christopher spoke of a great oration 
 which Gladstone had delivered in a political debate 
 which had taken place in the Oxford Union. It was, he 
 wrote, ''the most splendid speech, out and out, that 
 was ever heard in our Society — not excepting Sunder- 
 land's Shelleian harangue.'" That harangue, by the 
 profound impression it made, evidently served as a 
 standard to measure the efforts of others. The Oxford 
 men were clearly at a disadvantage in this debate. In 
 addition to knowing nothing about Shelley, the deco- 
 rous and self-restrained men of the sister university 
 were struck with astonishment and almost bewildered 
 by the fervor and fire of the Cambridge speakers. 
 They felt very much, according to their own descrip- 
 tion, as the polished Romans of the later empire must 
 have felt on coming into contact with the rude bar- 
 barians of the North when they swept down upon them 
 
 1 Letter of May 24, 1831, in Charles Wordsworth's 'Annals of my 
 Early Life,' 1891, p. 86. 
 
REPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 159 
 
 from their ^vintry clime. ' ' Both Monckton Milnes and 
 Henry Hallam," wrote Cardinal Manning in Novem- 
 ber, 1866, ''took us aback by the boldness and freedom 
 of their manner. But I remember the effect of Sunder- 
 land 's declamation and action to this day. It had never 
 been seen or heard before among us ; we cowered like 
 birds, and ran like sheep. "^ 
 
 The different accounts of this debate are of interest, 
 because, however much they vary in details, they all 
 agree in their representations of the general ignorance 
 that prevailed about Shelley and his poetry among the 
 educated public at the beginning of the fourth decade 
 of the nineteenth century. Outside of a limited circle 
 he was little spoken of, and when spoken of, it was not 
 unfrequently to his disadvantage. But during the 
 period from 1830 to 1840 his reputation rose rapidly. 
 His still unpublished writings were brought out either 
 separately or in the shape of contributions to periodi- 
 cals. Not merely the willingness but the anxiety of 
 editors to secure them shows how rapidly the interest 
 in the man and in his productions was rising. The 
 references to him in the critical literature of this 
 fourth decade not only increase in number but in the 
 warmth of the testimony they pay to his genius. For 
 the change in opinion that was going on, there was 
 ample reason. The little that had been kno^vn of him 
 pre\dously, especially as reported by his enemies, was 
 usually of an offensive nature. His course had seemed 
 to outrage all the social traditions and moral beliefs 
 of his native land. What information was now cora- 
 
 1 E. S. Purcell's 'Life of Cardinal Manning,' 1896, Vol. I, p. 33. 
 
160 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 ing to light redounded ordinarily to his credit. Much 
 indeed of what he had done could not be palliated by 
 sophistry or condoned by the circumstances by which 
 he was surrounded. A feeling of this sort was almost 
 universal. Even in the most favorable notices of his 
 career or of his writings there was apt to be a regret- 
 ful reference to the life he had lived, and the opinions 
 he had entertained and promulgated. But there was 
 also a disposition to forget and forgive his follies and 
 his faults on the part of the sternest of his critics, as 
 well as to pay due honor to his unquestionable genius. 
 The general critical attitude of the fourth decade 
 towards Shelley may be summed up in the admission 
 that he was a fallen angel, to be sure; but that after 
 all it is a good deal to be an angel, even if a fallen one ; 
 and that for the sake of the noun the adjective could 
 be endured. 
 
 Yet in spite of the steadily increasing regard enter- 
 tained for Shelley there is one bibliographical fact 
 which shows unmistakably how little, comparatively 
 speaking, was the hold which he had gained as yet over 
 the general public of educated men. It was not till 
 1839, fifteen years after his death, that an authorized 
 edition of his works, purporting to be in any way 
 complete, was brought out under the super\'ision of his 
 widow. Even this was not really complete. In defer- 
 ence to what was called morality, 'Queen Mab' was 
 omitted from the first edition. It was not until indig- 
 nant protest came from the admirers of the poet that 
 it was added to the edition which speedily followed. 
 Up to this time the public that wished to read Shelley 
 
REPUTATIONS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 161 
 
 had been obliged to content itself either with the 
 original editions of his writings, even then none too 
 easy to get, or mth the imperfect and vilely printed 
 collections which came out in two volumes from the 
 booksellers. Doubtless had he lived, the general 
 recognition of his genius would have come earlier with 
 the impression made upon the world of readers by 
 the production of new works, or new editions of old 
 works. But it was making rapid progress during this 
 period of transition, and by the end of it he had taken 
 a position from which he has never been displaced. 
 
 To Keats this fortune came even later. During the 
 fourth decade of the century his name is but little 
 mentioned, either with praise or blame, in the critical 
 literature of the period; and when it does occur, it 
 is frequently, perhaps in most cases, spelled wrongly. 
 Many of the few references to him could well have been 
 spared; for they were too often expressions of con- 
 tumely and contempt. Yet, after all, such outgivings 
 are apt to be misleading and in this instance time has 
 shown their utter delusiveness. The acknowledgment 
 of his greatness would have come speedily had he sur- 
 vived. Even at that early period more than one coun- 
 terbalancing view came from high critical authority. 
 There were those, then, who believed that if he lived 
 he would be the head of the follomng generation of 
 poets. * ' Lamb places him next to Wordsworth, ' ' wrote 
 Henry Crabb Robinson in December, 1820 — ''not 
 meaning any comparison, for they are dissimilar." 
 His early death delayed the general recognition of his 
 genius until the fifth decade of the century; but the 
 
162 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 interest in him and his writings had been slowly 
 gathering force and volume during the intervening 
 years. When at last it burst forth into public mani- 
 festation, it overbore at once all opposition. During 
 the period of transition, however, it influenced com- 
 paratively few ; but one of the few it influenced deeply ; 
 and he was the man who was destined to be the domi- 
 nant force in the literature of the Victorian period. 
 Even in that early day, those who were the admirers 
 of Keats recognized in Tennyson the one upon whom 
 his mantle had fallen; but neither of the two then 
 attracted the attention of any but the most limited 
 number. 
 
CHxiPTER VI 
 
 THE LITERARY SITUATION IN THE TRANSITION 
 
 PERIOD 
 
 Part Three 
 Popular Authors of the Period 
 
 The decade between 1830 and 1840 has been styled in 
 the preceding sections the literary interregnum. The 
 limits might perhaps be justifiably extended so as to 
 include the years between the death of Byron in 1824 
 and the publication of the Tennyson volumes of 1842. 
 During this period poems were produced and published 
 which stand now much higher in the public estimation 
 than they did then. Their merit indeed was often little 
 recognized at the time. Only one man is remembered 
 by us at the present day who attained high reputation 
 among those of his contemporaries whose opinion was 
 worth considering. In the decade which witnessed the 
 advent of Tennyson and Browning, the single new 
 poetic reputation, accepted by critical contemporaries, 
 which still survives, was achieved by a writer even 
 then unknown save to a comparatively limited number 
 of readers and never in fact widely known since. Still 
 though his superiority was acknowledged at the time 
 by but a small circle, it was a circle that carried with 
 
164 LIFE AND TIMES OP TENNYSON 
 
 it the most authoritative estimate of contemporary 
 opinion. During the period under discussion, his 
 poetry was generally rated as far superior to that of 
 his two countrymen, whom we look upon as the great 
 representative authors of the Victorian era; and this 
 continued to be the case to some extent to a much later 
 date. 
 
 This man was Henry Taylor, who in 1869 was made 
 Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and 
 St. George. For a good share of his life he was nomi- 
 nally a clerk in the colonial office, but really one of the 
 rulers of the colonies. From his boyhood he had been 
 addicted to literature. Born in the last year of the 
 eighteenth century, he had published in 1827 a play 
 entitled ' Isaac Comnenus. ' It fell dead from the press. 
 A criticism of it by Southey in 'The Quarterly Review' 
 for October, 1828, failed to revive it in spite of its very 
 favorable character. Its ill fortune did not discourage 
 the author w^ho professed himself to be naturally of an 
 unhopeful state of mind; but it prevented his feeling 
 any desire to hurry into print a second time. In fact, 
 several years elapsed before he was ready to try again 
 his fortune with the public. Southey had suggested to 
 him as the subject of a drama the story of the Flemish 
 leader, Philip Van Artevelde. The idea pleased him. 
 In 1828 he began work upon the poem so far as the 
 pressure of official duties would give him leisure. 
 "V\1ien finished, the difficulty was to find a publisher. 
 Murray, who had brought out 'Isaac Comnenus,' had 
 a lively recollection of the failure of that drama, and 
 was not disposed to repeat the experiment. Moxon, 
 
POPULAE AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 165 
 
 to whom he was referred, was likewise not enthusiastic. 
 Still, as the author was willing to bear the expense of 
 publication, he was willing to take the work upon those 
 terms. 
 
 Taylor and his friends belonged to the Wordsworth- 
 ian school, the first article in whose creed was that a 
 work of genius could not be popular until the proper 
 taste had been created to appreciate it. This would be 
 a comfortable doctrine to believe in case of failure, 
 were there not so many thousands of authors, good 
 and bad, and generally bad, with whom one has to 
 share its consolations. Taylor fancied that his work 
 was at issue with the taste of the public and therefore 
 necessarily superior to it. Consequently it could not 
 hope to achieve pecuniary success or to bring him 
 speedy reputation. Nevertheless he made the venture. 
 Accordingly a limited edition in two volumes of five 
 hundred copies of the drama of * Philip Van Artevelde ' 
 came out early in June, 1834. 
 
 The publication had been kept back in order to have 
 the work make its appearance at the same time with 
 the laudatory notice in the 'Quarterly,' written by 
 Lockhart ; for that review practised as one of its first 
 virtues that its contributors should be aided. There 
 were also several other articles in praise of it imme- 
 diately after its appearance, written by personal 
 friends for the leading critical weeklies. How far its 
 favorable reception was due to these notices it is hard 
 to tell; yet there seems little reason to doubt that 
 without them, the merit of the drama would have 
 secured its speedy recognition. At all events, the work 
 
166 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 was a success, at least what the author deemed success. 
 The general tone of approval was such as no other 
 poetical work received from the principal leading lit- 
 erary periodicals during the period from 1830 to 1850. 
 Taylor as a Wordsworthian ought to have been pro- 
 foundly grieved by his good fortune; but such is the 
 perversity of human nature, he was sincerely delighted. 
 His duty was to believe that he had shown himself a 
 middling poet by having at once pleased the public. 
 On the contrary he evinced a most reprehensible pref- 
 erence for present fame to any arrears of renown in 
 reversion. Greville, his intimate friend, tells us in his 
 diary that the author with the vivacity of a sanguine 
 disposition and a confidence in the sterling merits of 
 the poem, believed that edition would follow edition 
 like wave upon wave.^ Taylor himself mentions with 
 pride in his autobiography that the first edition was 
 almost immediately sold, and a new one had to be put 
 in press without delay. 
 
 One may get a somewhat false idea of the success 
 of the work from this account. The first edition con- 
 sisted, as has been said, of but five hundred copies; 
 and whatever was the number of the second, it sup- 
 plied for some time all the demand that existed. The 
 work continued to have a steady and respectable sale 
 but not a great one. In 1835 Moxon informed Brown- 
 ing that 'Artevelde' had not paid expenses by thirty- 
 odd pounds. This refers to the first edition which, 
 though it was all sold, Greville reports as giving a 
 
 1 C. C. F. Greville 's ' Journal of the Reigns of George IV and William 
 IV,' under date of July 24, 1834. 
 
POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 167 
 
 balance against Taylor of thirty-seven pounds when 
 his account with the publisher was made up. One 
 comes in time to have an immense respect for the 
 system of bookkeeping prevailing in the trade, so gen- 
 erally successful is it in bringing the author into debt. 
 Taylor could therefore content himself after all vnth 
 the fact that, however well spoken of by the critics, 
 his work had met with no great sale among the herd ; 
 and this was a state of things which continued to be 
 true during the more than half-century of life that 
 followed. Still, in spite of its comparatively limited 
 circulation, 'Philip Van Artevelde' was a very genuine 
 success. For several years foUomng its publication 
 the estimation in which it was held was sufficient to 
 make Taylor not only a poet of distinction in the eyes 
 of the cultivated, but tJie poet of distinction of the 
 younger men then coming forward. His future was 
 regarded as assured. His society was courted. The 
 doors of Lansdo^^^le House and of Holland House — 
 then the two great literary salons — were, he tells us 
 himself, thrown open. During the rest of the fourth 
 decade and even later, he was a far more prominent 
 figure in literature than any of the great younger 
 writers who were just then setting out on their career 
 of fame. He admits that this period of sudden celeb- 
 rity was overclouded or rather outshone in the course 
 of time ; but he assures us that it was very agreeable 
 while it lasted. The year 1842 that saw the rise of 
 Tennyson marked the beginning of the subsidence of 
 Henry Taylor. Yet many kept up their faith in him 
 as the leading poet of the younger generation for a 
 
168 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 much longer period. Evidence of this feeling can be 
 found plentifully not merely in the critical literature 
 of the day, but in the correspondence of eminent men. 
 
 This contemporary estimate, coming from the per- 
 sons it did, very likely affected Taylor's attitude 
 towards his brother poets. There is found in his auto- 
 biography a curious passage in a letter to him of about 
 1860 from Tennyson's neighbor, Mrs. Cameron. The 
 object of Mrs. Cameron's hero-worship was her corre- 
 spondent. She annoyed some people but amused a far 
 larger number by rating Tennyson inferior to Taylor 
 as a poet. ''Alfred," she writes, ''has grown, he says, 
 much fonder of you since your two last visits here. 
 He says he feels now he is beginning to know you and 
 not to feel afraid of you, and that he is beginning to get 
 over your extreme insolence to him when he was young 
 and you were in your meridian splendor of glory. So 
 one reads your simplicity."^ It may be that it did 
 indicate a misunderstanding on Tennyson's part of 
 Taylor's simplicity — or again it may not. But it cer- 
 tainly makes manifest the position held by the two 
 poets in the general estimation of the time. Whatever 
 may have been the private opinion of their compara- 
 tive merits entertained by the greater author, it is 
 clear that he then recognized plainly that in the eyes 
 of the public his station was much lower. 
 
 Taylor never repeated this early success. From 
 time to time he put forth new dramatic pieces of much 
 more than average merit ; but none of them attained to 
 the popularity of this, his second venture. It is curious 
 
 1 ' Autobiography of Henry Taylor,' Vol. II, p. 193. 
 
POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 169 
 
 to note that the result was foreseen by some of the men 
 who noticed this work; and as literary history is full 
 of illustrations of critical obtuseness, it is just that 
 examples of critical insight should occasionally be 
 given. The reviewer in 'The Literary Gazette,' clearly 
 ignorant of the personality of the author, and indeed 
 f ancjdng him a man of advanced age, praised the work 
 highly under that impression. He declared that it was 
 the fruit of a life. " As it has no precursor, ' ' he wrote, 
 'Sve doubt its having a successor." So far as the pub- 
 lic was concerned, it never had a successor. Taylor's 
 later productions w^ere received with that calm and 
 languid approval which is more disheartening to an 
 author who has once met with favor, than the most 
 ferocious criticism. In 1842 he brought out an his- 
 torical drama entitled 'Edwin, the Fair,' and in 1850 
 still another drama originally entitled 'The Virgin 
 Widow,' and subsequently 'A Sicilian Summer.' This 
 was an effort on his part to revive the Elizabethan 
 comedy of romance. Indeed, all his pieces are imita- 
 tive of the language of the playwrights of that period. 
 It met with no particular success, though he himself 
 preferred it, at least in many ways, to his other pro- 
 ductions. ' ' The World, ' ' he said in 1858, ' ' cared noth- 
 ing about ' The Virgin Widow, ' and would not read it, 
 though it had always seemed to me the pleasantest 
 play I had written, and I never could tell why people 
 would not be pleased ^\ith it.'" His last production — 
 and with it his poetical career terminated — was en- 
 titled 'St. Clement's Eve.' It came out in June, 1862, 
 
 1 ' Autobiography, ' Vol. II, p. 41. 
 
170 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 and according to his own account had a better recep- 
 tion than the previous comedy. Of an edition of fif- 
 teen hundred copies, nine hundred had been sold in 
 six months. But none of these plays attained either to 
 the sale or the reputation of the work which had 
 brought him his first fame. To the day of his death — 
 Taylor lived until 1886 — he was known and spoken of 
 as the author of 'Philip Van Artevelde.' 
 
 There may be many now who will be disposed to 
 smile at the extravagant language which was used by 
 the critics of the thirties and later in praise of this 
 production. Yet there was a good deal to justify the 
 enthusiasm which they expressed. There was much in 
 the work which bore out fully the eulogies which were 
 heaped upon it. The choice of the subject was a par- 
 ticularly happy one, and there was a philosophic tone 
 about the whole production which lifted it into a much 
 higher atmosphere than that of the popular poetry of 
 the day. Though a drama, it was not intended for 
 stage representation. The opening sentence of the 
 preface seems to indicate that its length was the main 
 objection in the author's eyes. He there says that the 
 two parts and the interlude, of which the entire work 
 consists, are equal in length to about six such plays as 
 are adapted to representation. Still in spite of this 
 disclaimer the experiment was tried. Macready, who 
 ought to have been a first-class judge, was profoundly 
 impressed by the drama upon its appearance. His 
 diary contains a number of references to it. He cen- 
 sured what he considered the affectation seen in the 
 coining of unrequired words and the occasional obscur- 
 
POPULAK AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 171 
 
 ity; but withal, he said, ''there is so much truth, phi- 
 losophy, poetry, and beauty, combined with passion 
 and descriptive power of no ordinary character, that I 
 was obliged to force myself to lay the book down." 
 It continued a favorite work with him, and when a 
 dozen years later, he met the author personally, the 
 idea of bringing out the piece on the stage seemed to 
 have occurred to him. The project was carried into 
 effect. On November 22, 1847, it was produced at the 
 Princess's Theater where Macready was then acting. 
 It could not be called successful. It was acted but five 
 times. It may be added that the author tells us in his 
 autobiography that he did not see it until the sixth rep- 
 resentation — a representation at which it never ar- 
 rived. Macready gives an exaggerated account of its 
 failure in a passage in his diary in which occurs from 
 his own point of view a brief comment on the result 
 of the first night's performance. ''Failed. I cannot 
 think it my fault, ' ' he wrote. He was a good deal dis- 
 appointed. "I certainly laboured," he added, "more 
 than my due in regard to the whole play, and much of 
 my own part of Van Artevelde I acted well; but the 
 play was so under-acted by the people engaged in it, 
 that it broke down under their weight." 
 
 In spite of the excellence of its poetry, 'Philip Van 
 Artevelde' had little chance of success as an acting 
 play. This was apparent to the author at the outset; 
 at least he had so expressed himself in the preface to 
 the original work. After it had been produced, he 
 changed his mind, though he conceded that his judg- 
 ment was not worth much. "My opinion," he wrote, 
 
172 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 * * . . . was that the play was by no means ill-suited to 
 the stage, though I should not have hazarded such an 
 opinion had I not seen it there. ' ' Looked at from the 
 purely literary point of view, it undoubtedly was then 
 and is now much better suited to the stage than the 
 immense majority of the pieces brought out ; but when 
 it is contrasted with any great work of its class, its 
 inferiority in this particular is at once recognized. 
 The undramatic character of 'Philip Van Artevelde' 
 is shown in almost every scene. It is really a novel in 
 blank verse, or as the author himself called it, an His- 
 torical Romance cast in dramatic form. The charac- 
 ters are revealed to us ; they do not reveal themselves. 
 Long before they appear, at least before they become 
 prominent, they are carefully described. So far from 
 experiencing any surprise at anything they do, we are 
 prepared for it, we anticipate it. There is in conse- 
 quence a lack of exciting situations; nothing of the 
 startling effect of the unexpected, in which the drama 
 delights. This laborious preparation of the mind for 
 what is coming is conspicuous in the way the chief 
 character is heralded. Philip Van Artevelde is to be 
 the great leader of Ghent against the Earl of Flanders. 
 It takes the whole of the first act to get him into his 
 situation, and by the time he has got there, we know 
 him so well that we feel confident just how he must 
 conduct himself. 
 
 Such a method of depicting characters is legitimate 
 in the novel, but it does not do for the stage. As a 
 drama pure and simple the work fails therefore in 
 dramatic art. Furthermore, while showing throughout 
 
POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 173 
 
 poetic ability of a high order, it does not reach the 
 heights occupied by poetic genius. This is the impres- 
 sion which, it seems, the dispassionate reading of the 
 work ordinarily makes upon the large majority of 
 cultivated men. We respect it, we admire it; but we 
 are not inspired by it. It interests, but it does not stir 
 us profoundly. This is, in fact, the prevailing charac- 
 teristic of all of Taylor's dramas. We see the same 
 condition of things in the play of ' The Virgin Widow, ' 
 the little success of which Taylor professed himself 
 unable to understand. Like 'Philip Van Artevelde,' it 
 is an artificial creation, it is not an organic growth. 
 Both are well-constructed pieces of mechanism, the 
 work of an artist so painstaking and clever, that there 
 is scarcely a place where one can lay a finger on a flaw. 
 But throughout each, life and passion are lacking. 
 Both are anatomical studies, interesting for the skill 
 with which they have been put together, attractive 
 often for the philosophical and poetical garb with 
 which the skeletons are clothed; but they are not 
 living, breathing forces. 
 
 Yet Taylor is and will always remain an interesting 
 poet, attractive to the few if never widely read by the 
 many. Furthermore, he must have been a man of very 
 pronounced personality. The deference paid to him 
 by the ablest of his contemporaries, the respect enter- 
 tained for his opinions and his achievements, show 
 that he must have been possessed of qualities entirely 
 out of the common. To mention two of his most inti- 
 mate associates out of a very large number, he was a 
 favored friend of both Southey and Wordsworth. John 
 
174 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 Sterling, who knew him well, wrote to Trench not long 
 after the publication of 'Philip Van Artevelde' that 
 Taylor had "the best balanced mind — is, on the whole, 
 nearest the perfect man of the ancients — of all I have 
 ever known. His poem seems to me splendid."^ 
 Towards the close of his life Swinburne, while con- 
 troverting Taylor's views about Shelley, paid him a 
 tribute of extreme deference, and expressed the highest 
 admiration of his powers — though it must be confessed 
 that Swinburne as a critic has always been subject to 
 attacks of extravagant and irresponsible enthusiasm, 
 in which praise is ladled out with a dreadful profusion 
 of adjectives and a plentiful lack of discrimination. 
 
 Still, there is no question as to the high estimation in 
 which Taylor was held during his whole life by men 
 whose good opinion was worth having. Yet with so 
 much to be justly admired, there seems to have been 
 something essentially prosaic in his nature. This may 
 explain in part why with his manifest poetical sensi- 
 bility he never attained the highest grade as a poet. 
 His failure there is most conspicuous in his lyric 
 pieces. The facility with which blank verse lends itself 
 to expression induces many men to think that they are 
 writing poetry, and their readers to believe that they 
 are reading poetry, when they are only writing and 
 reading a measured sort of prose. But in the instance 
 of the lyric neither writer nor reader can become the 
 victim of any such delusion. We have plenty of proof 
 of this fact in the poem which is inserted as an inter- 
 lude between the two parts of 'Philip Van Artevelde,* 
 
 1 R. C. Trench's 'Letters,' A^ol. I, p. 159. 
 
POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 175 
 
 and in the songs which are scattered through that and 
 others of his dramas. In a certain way some of the 
 latter are quite perfect. They are finished in more 
 senses than one. They are frequently close imitations 
 of the songs found in the plays of the Elizabethan 
 dramatists. But they are palpable imitations. The 
 element of spontaneity is entirely lacking. The best 
 of them are poems of a very high order of mediocrity — 
 so high indeed that some of them have at times imposed 
 upon the trained judgment — but out of the region of 
 high mediocrity they never ascend. 
 
 The most striking evidence of the essentially prosaic 
 quality of Tajdor's mind is seen in his autobiography. 
 This is a very remarkable work both for what it says 
 and for what it fails to say. There are in it the most 
 astounding revelations in regard to matters which 
 most men are solicitous to keep to themselves. Taylor 
 tells us of his rejection by one woman to whom he 
 made a proposal of marriage. He lets us know fur- 
 ther of the difficulty he experienced, both from her- 
 self and her family, in securing the woman whom he 
 eventually married. There are revelations of feelings 
 about himself and his writings which are remarkable 
 for nothing so much as for the display they make of 
 the most egregious and unblushing vanity. Such feel- 
 ings are not peculiar. Nor are they reprehensible, so 
 long as they are kept to one's self; but in the vast 
 majority of cases the man seeks in time to hide them 
 even from his own consciousness, if in truth they have 
 not been beaten out of him by the friction and conflicts 
 which he comes to have with his fellow men. 
 
176 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 But even more striking in this autobiography is what 
 Taylor did not put in. During the course of his life 
 he was brought into contact with some of the most 
 eminent men of his time. Several of them he knew 
 intimately. He must have come to be acquainted with 
 much that the world would have been glad to hear and 
 remember. But though their names flit across his 
 pages, they do not enliven them. We are told in sev- 
 eral instances of the wise sayings they uttered; but 
 none of these wise sayings are preserved. Something 
 might be said in defence of this course, if it had been 
 due to a determination to respect the sanctity of pri- 
 vate conversation. But no such feeling existed on his 
 part. Many of his pages are filled with records and 
 remarks of men of inferior interest — not in all cases 
 because they were inferior men, but because for some 
 reason they have failed to impress themselves upon 
 their time and their countrymen. Furthermore, he 
 gave up much space to family letters, to little events 
 in his o^vn career, to reflections upon his o^vn thoughts 
 and feelings— all of which, though undoubtedly of 
 much interest to himself, are usually of the least con- 
 ceivable interest to any other human being. The truth 
 is that no one ^vith such opportunities to make an 
 autobiography entertaining could have struggled with 
 much more success to make it dull. 
 
 During the period of transition, Taylor was in the 
 eyes of the highly cultivated easily the most command- 
 ing figure in English poetry among the younger writ- 
 ers. But as regards popular appreciation he was 
 immeasurably inferior to two authors who began their 
 
POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 177 
 
 literary career at about the same time as he. One of 
 them was a Scotch clergyman named Robert Pollok. 
 He died in 1827 at the age of twenty-nine. This event 
 took place a few months after the poem was published 
 which was to achieve a success the greatest author of 
 any age might have envied. It was entitled 'The 
 Course of Time. ' Its sale was extraordinary. In spite 
 of frequent assertions to the contrary, the great w^ork 
 of Milton during the remaining years of the century 
 which followed its publication met with distinct favor. 
 But whatever success it gained pales, as regards gen- 
 eral acceptance, with the popularity which waited on 
 the diffuse, and, as a whole, the feeble poem of Pollok. 
 First published in the middle of April, 1827, its second 
 edition did not make its appearance till January of the 
 following year. This consisted of fifteen hundred 
 copies which were disposed of in a fortnight. By June, 
 the fourth edition had been sold out. In a little more 
 than six months, six thousand copies had found buyers. 
 By the close of 1828, tw^elve thousand copies had been 
 put on the market. This was the beginning of the 
 triumphant career it was to run. Before the third of 
 a century had gone by, eighty thousand copies had been 
 disposed of in Great Britain. The work was received 
 with equal favor in this country. Something of its 
 continued sale here was due to its being frequently 
 used in certain schools as a text-book for parsing — a 
 process which after a fashion kept alive the poem, 
 while necessarily destroying the vitality of what little 
 poetry it actually contained. 
 
 But great as was the impression made by Pollok 's 
 
178 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 work, so far as the public was concerned, it was not in 
 any measure comparable to that produced by the 
 poetry of Eobert Montgomery. The difference of con- 
 ditions under which their respective writings came out, 
 redounded also to the credit of the latter author. 
 Pollok's great success was limited to a single one of 
 his productions. But Montgomery wrote no small 
 number of poems, not one of which — certainly not one 
 of the important pieces — failed to pass through edition 
 after edition. As long as his life lasted, his writings 
 showed no signs of waning popularity. Furthermore, 
 he had not in his favor, as did Pollok, an influential 
 critic like Christopher North, who was indeed so much 
 of a partisan as to find fault more than once with 
 Jeffrey for not sharing in his own enthusiasm about 
 that author. Nor had he behind him the support of a 
 great publishing house like that of * Blackwood.' Still 
 further, he encountered, what Pollok did not, a con- 
 stant storm of depreciation and contemptuous personal 
 abuse at a comparatively early period in his career. 
 This came, too, from critical organs, then wielding 
 wide influence. "With few exceptions, these heaped 
 upon Montgomery the grossest contumely. The prac- 
 tice began with some of the weeklies and was followed 
 at once by certain monthlies. The three great and 
 presumably all-powerful quarterlies joined later in the 
 attack. His only effective defender in the press was 
 ' The Literary Gazette, ' whose editor indeed was about 
 as great as a critic as he himself was great as a poet. 
 Yet all these violent assaults directed against him 
 availed not a particle in retarding his triumphant 
 
POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 179 
 
 progress, so far as that is determined by the wide cir- 
 culation of his writings. In the hostility he encoun- 
 tered and in its absolute ineffectiveness there is noth- 
 ing like his experience recorded in the history of Eng- 
 lish verse. Hostile criticism has occasionally been suc- 
 cessful for a time in delaying the reception of really 
 great work. It was absolutely powerless in the case of 
 this writer of inferior work. The story of his life, 
 personal as well as literary, demands in consequence a 
 certain degree of attention, not due at all to the impor- 
 tance of the man or to the value of his productions. 
 But it is an instructive chapter in the history of Eng- 
 lish literature ; for nowhere can be found a more signal 
 example of the futility of criticism to affect the for- 
 tunes of a popular favorite. 
 
 Robert Montgomery was born at Bath in 1807. He 
 is reported to have been the natural son of one Gomery 
 who acted the part of clown at the theater in that city. 
 He made up to some extent for the lack of legitimacy 
 by prefixing 'Mont' to his father's name, thereby 
 giving himself the more aristocratic appellation of 
 Montgomery. These at least were the statements con- 
 stantly made by hostile critics. The boy acquired in 
 his school days a reputation for ability. By the time 
 he was twenty years old, he had written and published 
 a satire entitled 'The Age Reviewed.' It came out in 
 1827, and passed into a second edition, revised and 
 enlarged, in March, 1828. This last year saw also the 
 production of a similar work entitled 'The Puffiad.'^ 
 
 1 This work is ordinarily put down as having been published in 1830. 
 It came out at the time here stated. It was reviewed in 'The Literary 
 Gazette' for May 31, 1828. 
 
180 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 The satire is remarkable for its denunciation of the 
 process by which according to his enemies he himself 
 was later to gain his own reputation. But this work 
 which appeared in May had been preceded by another 
 of an entirely different character through which he 
 sprang at once into reputation and popularity. This 
 was a poem entitled * The Omnipresence of the Deity. ' 
 It came out at the very end of January, 1828, when its 
 author was only twenty-one years old. Far different 
 was its reception by the critics from that which had 
 waited upon his satires. ' The Literary Gazette ' which 
 had denounced 'The Age Reviewed' as '' unmitigated 
 balderdash" executed at once a change of front. It 
 greeted the work with enthusiasm. In so doing, it 
 reflected a general popular sentiment. It admitted 
 that there were defects in the poem, a feature incident 
 to the early years of the author. But these, it said, 
 were more than atoned for by the beauty and genius 
 displayed in it as a whole. These characteristics 
 placed it in the very highest class of English sacred 
 poetry. This was, in fact, the view generally expressed 
 by the received organs of public opinion which noticed 
 the work at all. 'The Gentleman's Magazine' des- 
 canted especially upon the author's loftiness of style. 
 ''His language," it said, "rises into a sublimity par- 
 taking of inspiration." It had no hesitation in assert- 
 ing that by the strength of its own great merit the 
 work had "ranked itself among the permanent litera- 
 ture of the nation, in whose language it will be immor- 
 tal." So general was this chorus of laudation, so 
 steadily did it continue, that Christopher North, the 
 
POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 181 
 
 reigning critic of 'Black^vood's Magazine,' felt called 
 upon to consider the pretensions of this new claimant 
 for the highest of poetical honors. In the number for 
 May, 1828, he devoted more than twenty pages to a 
 review of the poem which, while not enthusiastic, was 
 not condemnatory. 
 
 Many works have met with this chorus of eulogy 
 which never appealed to a wide public in the matter of 
 circulation. ' Philip Van Artevelde ' is a case in point. 
 It was hailed with perhaps even louder acclaim than 
 this poem of Montgomery's; but far different was the 
 sale of the latter. Published late in January, 1828, a 
 second edition followed in March, a third in April, a 
 fourth in May, a fifth in July, a sixth in August, and a 
 seventh in October. It might be supposed that a sale 
 so enormous would satisfy all possible demands, espe- 
 cially as in October of this same year another volume 
 of religious poems in blank verse made its appearance 
 from the same prolific pen. This one, whose first piece 
 was entitled 'The Universal Prayer,' was expensively 
 printed in quarto "^^ith a portrait of the poet to meet 
 the demand of his admirers. In a few weeks a cheaper 
 edition in octavo followed in order to satisfy the crav- 
 ings of the general public for the intellectual and spir- 
 itual nutriment it contained. But the rivalry of the 
 later work did not interfere with the success of the 
 earlier. In January, 1829, 'The Omnipresence of the 
 Deity' had passed into an eighth edition, and in August 
 of that same year into a ninth. The second poem, too, 
 held its own with the first and had almost as ^ide a 
 sale. It was a source of peculiar gratification to cer- 
 
182 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 tain literary critics, in felicitating themselves upon the 
 fact that they had been the first to welcome the dawn- 
 ing of genius, to note that the public taste had now 
 ratified their o^vn. Only a little later they were enabled 
 to announce that Mr. Eobert Montgomery, who at so 
 early an age had made so powerful an impression in 
 the highest range of sacred poetry, had in the press a 
 new work. At the very end of the year it was pub- 
 lished. It was a poem in blank verse, and entitled 
 * Satan, or Intellect without God.' In this work, the 
 archenemy of mankind was represented as taking his 
 seat on the top of a high mountain. From that point 
 of vantage he contemplated the universe and gave 
 expression to a series of reflections inspired by what 
 he saw and what he felt. But there was nothing 
 Satanic about this Satan. His utterances were in gen- 
 eral unobjectionable, if indeed, they might not be called 
 praiseworthy. A public which, a few years before, 
 had been shocked beyond expression by Byron, who in 
 his 'Cain' had made the devil talk like the devil, was 
 delighted beyond measure in having him discourse 
 very much after the manner of the superintendent of 
 a Sunday school. 
 
 Up to this time, Montgomery had had everything his 
 own way. His two volumes of religious poetry had 
 met with a sale w^hich might be justly called phenome- 
 nal. Furthermore, so far as the leading critical peri- 
 odicals of all sorts were concerned, they had either 
 spoken warmly in his favor or had said nothing in his 
 dispraise. His third religious work had been received 
 by his admirers with even greater enthusiasm than 
 
POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 183 
 
 that which had marked the reception of the two pre- 
 vious volumes. The staid and serious 'Gentleman's 
 Magazine,' for instance, declared that the new poem 
 abounded in passages of beauty and sublimity which 
 had few parallels in modern times. The reviewer, in 
 truth, was left in a state of stupefaction by the con- 
 templation of the greatness of the author. ''When we 
 think of the youth of Mr. Montgomery," he wrote, "we 
 stand amazed at the height to which his genius and 
 talents have raised him. There is a vigour of mind 
 and a maturity of thought and intellect, — a moral 
 daring united to the finest perception of all that is 
 refined and delicate in taste, exciting at once our sur- 
 prise and admiration."^ 
 
 But the critical knives that had been sharpening for 
 this favorite of the public now proceeded to get in their 
 work. Success so pronounced would have been cer- 
 tain to provoke envy and jealousy, even had it been 
 fully merited. The reaction against the ridiculous 
 laudation of which Montgomery had been the recipient, 
 speedily showed itself in the corresponding form of 
 excessive vituperation. Some time before, there had 
 indeed been ominous indications of the coming change 
 of attitude. But it was not till the publication of 
 'Satan' that the long-gathering storm burst in its fury. 
 The onslaught upon the poet was made from every 
 conceivable quarter. Critical missiles were directed 
 against him in periodical after periodical, from the 
 light-armed weeklies to the hea\^-armed quarterlies. 
 The attack was begun by 'The Athenaeum' which had 
 
 1 'Gentleman's Magazine,' January, 1830, Vol. C, p. 45. 
 
184 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 previously been warm in his praise. It had now under- 
 gone a change of ownership and with it a change of 
 view. After speaking of the two previous religious 
 poems as harmless trash, it described the new volume 
 as a wretched production, full of unknown and unne- 
 cessary words, bad grammar, unmeaning nonsense and 
 rigmarole, and summarily characterized its author as 
 ''unpoetical, unlearned, unreasonable, and ungram- 
 matical, with nothing positive about him but his arro- 
 gance and self-conceit.'" This appeared near the 
 middle of January. Towards the end of the same 
 month, it was followed by a similar review in 'The 
 Atlas.' This weekly described Montgomery's 'Satan' 
 as a good-natured, long-winded, and highly fanciful 
 person who selects for the sake of contrast one of the 
 coldest seats in the universe and delivers a long speech 
 in which he discusses in maudlin English all the known 
 and unknown conditions of our nature. He is repre- 
 sented as being altogether above the restraints of 
 grammar, and as having an unmeasured contempt for 
 the received meanings of words ; as a sort of amende 
 honorable for the treatment of those now in existence 
 he coins a number of new ones that never had any 
 currency outside of his own special dominions. A 
 little later a northern periodical charged him with 
 vagueness and bombast, musty morality, and trite 
 sublimity.^ 
 
 Two monthlies followed in even a more violent strain 
 of disparagement. One was the old ' Monthly Review, '^ 
 
 1 January 24, 1830. 
 
 2 ' Edinburgh Literary Journal, ' February 13, 1830. 
 s February, 1830. 
 
POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 185 
 
 which was now approaching the end of the century of 
 its existence. The article appearing in it was devoted 
 to two favorites of the public, Letitia Landon and 
 Eobert Montgomery. That part of it directed against 
 the latter attacked particularly the system of puffing 
 him and his soaring Miltonic genius which it declared 
 had been resorted to in order to bolster up his repu- 
 tation and to increase the circulation of his works. 
 In this matter it anticipated what Macaulay was to 
 say somewhat later, and said it much more effectively. 
 But ' The Monthly Review ' was no longer what it was 
 in the eighteenth century, a power in the land. A far 
 more persistent and thoroughly abusive assailant was 
 'Fraser's Magazine' which had just been set on foot, 
 and surpassed even 'Blackwood's' in the abounding 
 vigor of its blackguardism. In its very first number, 
 it fell foul of the poem of 'Satan.' "We have been 
 bothered and stunned," it began, "with the brawling 
 and brajdng of Arcadian nightingales in praise of the 
 sacred poetry of young Montgomery. ' ' It was in this 
 urbane way that the review opened and the remainder 
 of the article was in accord with its beginning. From 
 that time on for a series of years, few are the numbers 
 of this liveliest and roughest of periodicals in which 
 there was not some sneering reference to the work of 
 Montgomery as a poet or to vituperation of him as a 
 man. In one of them he was included -with Bulwer 
 and Alaric Watts — two favorite objects of aversion to 
 the then conductors of the periodical — among ' ' snakes, 
 rats, and other vermin. ' ' On another occasion he was 
 termed "Holy Bob," and in still another "a rhyming 
 
186 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 monkey." To distinguish him from his veteran con- 
 temporary James Montgomery, he was christened 
 'Satan Montgomery' — and the name elmig to him for 
 a long series of years. 
 
 It was now the turn of the quarterlies. Of these the 
 'Westminster' first discussed the pretensions of the 
 poet. Its review — which appeared in the number for 
 April, 1830 — remains the most entertaining of any 
 produced, partly because it was the politest. It was 
 the fashion of the day, it asserted, to make biography 
 the work of friendship. Campbell writes the life of 
 the painter Lawrence, Moore that of Lord Byron, 
 Eobert Montgomery, in accordance with this practice, 
 naturally takes as his subject Satan. The orthodoxy 
 of the 'Westminster' did not stand high, and there was 
 in this criticism apparently something of that pitying 
 feeling towards the arch-fiend which led the Christian 
 father Origen to hope that the devil himself might at 
 last be saved. "As Milton," it continued, "may be 
 read in Heaven so this is precisely the book fit for 
 Hades, and though we trust we hate the Enemy as 
 vehemently as all good Christians ought to hate him, 
 yet we own we wish him no worse than a patient peru- 
 sal of this work to his honor. He will here bathe in a 
 stream of molten lead." The criticism in the 'Quar- 
 terly' was delayed for some years. Even then it did 
 not take the shape of a formal review but character- 
 istically went out of its way to make a malignant per- 
 sonal attack upon Montgomery in a footnote which was 
 fairly dragged into a notice of a fashionable novel.^ 
 
 1 ' Quarterly Eeview, ' Vol. LII, p. 491, November, 1834. 
 
POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 187 
 
 The now far more noted article by Macaulay in the 
 'Edinburgh' needs the fuller consideration which is 
 to be given later; for about it and the influence it 
 exerted at the time of its appearance the most erro- 
 neous assertions still continue to be made. 
 
 But the enemies of Montgomery did not by any 
 means have things all their own way. If he had his 
 detractors, he had also his defenders and admirers. 
 There were many of these, and several of the many 
 were influential. This was true of both individuals and 
 of the periodical press. Pamphlets were written in 
 his favor attacking his critics and asserting in fullest 
 sincerity that the author of 'Satan' was the coming 
 man destined to occupy the throne of letters. These 
 partisans of the past inveighed earnestly against the 
 notoriously jealous criticism which, they declared, had 
 sought to rob him of his reputation and the individual 
 scurrility to which he had been subjected. There was 
 ground, too, for their thinking lightly of the critical 
 judgment of those who were foremost in decrying their 
 idol. Rarely was the poetical taste of his depredators 
 so flawless that it behooved the reader to pay heed 
 to the dicta they promulgated. They at times went 
 into raptures over productions as marvellous and 
 indisputable works of genius of which nobody knows 
 now even the names. Criticism that could deal in 
 vagaries of this sort was not likely to shake the con- 
 fidence of even the uncritical admirers of Mont- 
 gomery. Their belief, too, in his greatness was sup- 
 ported by the public of readers, or what for him was 
 better, the public of purchasers. All the censure of 
 
188 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 the poetry, all the vituperation of the man had not the 
 slightest effect in retarding the sale of his work. One 
 indeed gets the impression that they increased it. No 
 writer of verse during the period of transition, and we 
 might add during the whole period Montgomery lived, 
 remotely rivalled him in popularity, so far as that is 
 determined by the number of volumes sold. His works 
 were brought out in collected editions. Selections 
 from his poetry were made for the use of schools. 
 Never has the powerlessness of critical attack been 
 manifested more conspicuously. ''Who doffed the 
 lion's hide," asked loftily 'Eraser's Magazine' in 
 1831, "from Mountebank Montgomery and hung a 
 calf-skin on his recreant limbs which he must wear 
 forever?" But the very next year it was forced to 
 confess the futility of its efforts. ''Robert Mont- 
 gomery's Omnipresence of the Deity/' it said in De- 
 cember, 1832, "has supplanted Paradise Lost in vari- 
 ous academies in England. So much for the march of 
 intellect. ' ' 
 
 Nor was Montgomery's literary activity checked in 
 the slightest by the hostile criticism he received. For 
 the years immediately following what might almost be 
 called an organized assault on the part of the greater 
 portion of the periodical press he continued to produce 
 a number of poems, all of which were uniformly suc- 
 cessful as regards their reception by the public. One 
 of them entitled 'The Messiah' came out in May, 1832, 
 "dedicated by permission to her Majesty the Queen." 
 It was received with enthusiasm by his devotees. So 
 rapid was the sale and so great was the demand that 
 
POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 189 
 
 the publishers were obliged to announce in the follow- 
 ing month that a new edition would be brought out as 
 soon as possible. Early in July they gave notice that 
 it would be ready at a fixed date, and to ob\date dis- 
 appointment intending purchasers were requested to 
 make immediate application for the work to their 
 respective booksellers. In October followed the third 
 edition, in August of the follo^ving year a fourth, and 
 a little later a separate edition was advertised to be 
 issued under the title of ' The Sacred Annual. ' It was 
 illustrated by colored and highly finished facsimiles of 
 original pictures of the first excellence painted ex- 
 pressly for the purpose by the most distinguished 
 living artists such as Etty, Martin, Haydon, Yon Hoist, 
 and Maclise. This work, gorgeously bound and sold at 
 a high price, led to a bestowal upon the poet of a medal 
 by the Queen mth her picture upon one side and that 
 of the King upon the other. This was not the only 
 instance of royal recognition which Montgomery re- 
 ceived during his career. As late as 1849 another work 
 of his, entitled 'The Christian Life, a Manual of 
 Sacred Verse,' was published. It was ''inscribed by 
 express permission to her most gracious Majesty." 
 This work, like 'The Messiah,' passed rapidly through 
 several editions. 
 
 As might perhaps be expected, the attacks directed 
 against Montgomery made as little impression upon 
 him personally as they did upon the public. Had he 
 weakly yielded to the hostile criticism he evoked, and 
 had he been led to remain silent as subsequently was 
 Tennyson, his repute as a writer of verse would have 
 
190 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 speedily come to an ignominious close; for there was 
 nothing in what he produced to impart to it vitality, 
 outside of the immediate favor of the public. But he 
 was not in the slightest degree affected by the critical 
 storm which had burst upon his head. He was and 
 continued to be serenely confident in his own greatness 
 and had nothing but compassion or contempt for his 
 detractors. As all the hostile criticism lavished upon 
 his writings had not the slightest influence in lessening 
 his popularity with the public, he felt justified in 
 assuming an exultant and even a patronizing tone in 
 dealing with his assailants. In the text of his poem of 
 'Oxford,' but more particularly in the notes, he com- 
 mented on Macaulay in a way the latter apparently 
 never forgave. He spoke of him as "the hired assas- 
 sin of a bigoted review. ' ' A remark which strikes us 
 now as deliciously absurd occurs at the end of one of 
 his notes. "The reviewer," he said, "is, we believe, 
 still alive ; and from time to time employs himself in 
 making mouths at distinguished men." 
 
 Montgomery indeed would have been a singular 
 young writer if his head had not been turned by his 
 sudden and extraordinary and continuous success. 
 There is no doubt that his head was turned and that 
 it never re-turned to a normal position. To a certain 
 extent also he was justified by the estimate of various 
 persons in the opinion he entertained of himself. 
 The admiration he excited was by no means confined 
 to the members of the vast multitude who are num- 
 bered but not weighed, though it was in its ranks that 
 his poetry had mainly its circulation. Some of the 
 
POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 191 
 
 periodicals Avhich celebrated his merits occupied a 
 high position in the critical world. Several of the 
 persons who stood up for him were men of letters 
 whose names carried respect anywhere and every- 
 where. Sharon Turner and William Lisle Bowles 
 were from the outset his friends and patrons. 
 Southey, while not joining in the unmeasured lauda- 
 tion heaped upon him, had no mean opinion of his 
 abilities and achievements. Nor was Wordsworth's 
 estimate unfavorable. He had read, he wrote to 
 Montgomery, 'The Omnipresence of the Deity' with 
 much pleasure, and while recognizing its faults, he 
 saw also in the work indication of future excellence. 
 Those who are familiar with the somewhat ponderous 
 history of Europe written by Sir Archibald Alison 
 may recall that in one place he mentions ''the noble 
 poem of Satan." 
 
 But no measured and lukewarm praise of this sort 
 would have satisfied the feelings of his partisans. 
 They looked upon Montgomery as a mighty intellectual 
 luminary that had suddenly blazed forth with a 
 splendor all its own. It was with them no unusual 
 subject of congratulation that he had come to take the 
 place made vacant by the death of Byron. As the 
 latter author had in their opinion given up his great 
 gifts to the service of the devil, they felt that his evil 
 influence should be counteracted by furnishing the 
 fullest development to the powers of another author, 
 equal if not greater, who was possessed not only of 
 genius but of piety, and was furthermore disposed to 
 devote himself to the service of the Lord. Accord- 
 
192 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 ingly measures were taken by certain of his admirers — 
 among whom were tw^o of the earliest sponsors of 
 his reputation, Sharon Turner and William Lisle 
 Bowles — to have his education continued and com- 
 pleted. In February, 1830, he was matriculated at 
 Lincoln College, Oxford, and in 1833 received the 
 degree of A. B. He entered the church. Though he 
 never gave up to the end of his life the production of 
 poetry, he was largely diverted from its composition 
 by the duties of the new calling he had chosen. Yet 
 not one of the works he subsequently brought out 
 failed to meet \vith favor from the public of purchasers. 
 Nor did the sale of the poems which had previously 
 appeared fall off while his life lasted, or even some- 
 what later. In 1841 appeared, for instance, the 
 twenty-first edition of 'The Omnipresence of the 
 Deity,' in 1849, the twenty-fifth. In the catalogue of 
 the British Museum is the twenty-eighth, and it bears 
 the date of 1858, three years after its author 's death. 
 
 Full as remarkable too was his success in the new 
 calling he had chosen. After filling the pulpit success- 
 fully in two provincial cities, he came to London in 
 1843 as the minister of Percy Chapel in the parish of 
 Saint Pancras. There he ofiiciated the rest of his life. 
 Wherever he was, he seems to have been as popular 
 as a preacher of sermons as he was as a writer of verse. 
 There is a striking comment on this fact in a letter 
 from Miss Barrett to Richard Hengist Home. ''Are 
 you aware, Orion," she wrote, "that the most 
 popular poet alive is the Reverend Robert Mont- 
 gomery, who walks into his twenty and somethingth 
 
POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 193 
 
 edition 'like nothing'? I mean the author of 'Satan,' 
 'Woman,' 'Omnipresence of the Deity,' 'The Messiah'; 
 the least of these being in its teens of editions, and the 
 greatest not worth a bark of my Flushie's. . . . But 
 is it not wonderful that this man who waves his white 
 handkerchief from the pulpit till the tears run in 
 ri^^llets all round, should have another trick of oratory 
 (as good) where he can't show the ring on his little 
 finger? I really do believe that the 'Omnipresence of 
 the Deity' is in the twenty-fourth edition, or beyond 
 it, — a fact that cannot be stated in respect to Words- 
 worth after all these years. "^ 
 
 Yet in spite of the phenomenal favor of the reading 
 public which waited upon Montgomery from the very 
 beginning of his literary career to the very end of his 
 life, his name would have disappeared as utterly from 
 the knowledge of all men as it has from that of most, 
 had it not been preserved in a sort of quasi-vitality by 
 an attack in ' The Edinburgh Review' intended to crush 
 him entirely. This was the criticism by Macaulay. 
 Had it not been for that article, both the man and his 
 work would have passed away as completely from 
 human memory as have the names and works of 
 several others who have attained to something like 
 the same temporary popularity but who have dropped 
 quietly into the oblivion which sooner or later waits 
 upon all inferior production, though encountering no 
 assault from any quarter carrying weight. Of the 
 innumerable attacks made upon Montgomery this is 
 
 1 ' Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, addressed to Eichard 
 Hengist Home,' 1877, Vol. I, pp. 91-92. 
 
194 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 the single one which has survived ; and it has survived 
 not because of its merits but because it has been 
 included in the collected edition of the author's essays. 
 It is the popularity of these other writings which have 
 given to it a reputation for effectiveness which it did 
 not have at that time and never deserved at any time. 
 Of itself it had no claim to be reprinted. It is not 
 merely inferior to most of the other similar but now 
 forgotten attacks which had previously been published, 
 it is so unfair in its criticism and so misleading in its 
 statements as to be discreditable to its author. 
 Macaulay to be sure, in writing it, was actuated by 
 the noblest of motives — at least he tells us so. They 
 are given in a letter sent by him in March, 1830, to the 
 editor of 'The Edinburgh Keview. ' ''There is," he 
 said, "a wretched poetaster of the name of Robert 
 Montgomery, who has written some volumes of detest- 
 able verses on religious subjects, which, by mere pufifing 
 in magazines and newspapers, have had an immense 
 sale. ... I have for some time past thought that the 
 trick of puffing, as it is now practised both by authors 
 and publishers, is likely to degrade the literary 
 character, and to deprave the public taste in a fright- 
 ful degree."^ It was high time, he thought, to purify 
 literature by exposing the methods by which worthless 
 works succeeded in securing an extensive circulation. 
 He therefore suggested that an attempt should be 
 made to try what effect satire would have upon this 
 nuisance. Accordingly in the April number of 'The 
 
 1 Macvey Napier's 'Correspondence,' 1879, pp. 79-80. 
 
POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 195 
 
 Edinburgh Eeview '^ — which however did not come out 
 till the latter part of May — Macaulay set out to purify 
 the public taste in an article entitled 'Mr. Robert 
 Montgomery's Poems and the Modern Practice of 
 Puffing.' 
 
 A temporate protest against the absurd estimate 
 which had been expressed in numerous quarters of 
 Montgomery's poetic achievement would not have 
 been out of place, if it were deemed desirable to write 
 anything at all about works which were destined 
 ultimately to sink of themselves into oblivion. But 
 such a protest was not likely to come from that quar- 
 ter. Macaulay 's article, as was to be expected, was 
 marked by his usual exaggerated emphasis. But what 
 was much worse, it was disfigured by a series of mis- 
 statements of the methods w^hich had been followed 
 in this case both by author and publisher. His line 
 of reasoning, or rather of assertion, to account for 
 Montgomery's extraordinary success ran essentially 
 to the following effect. Men of letters had once been 
 wont to court the favor of patrons by flattery. Now 
 they sought to gain the favor of the public by means 
 of puffing. He set out to show the various ways in 
 which this nefarious practice of foisting candidates 
 upon the favor of readers was carried on. It was 
 primarily a sort of conspiracy between authors and 
 publishers. By various devices duly enumerated they 
 sought to gull the public. As the best illustration of 
 the practice generally employed at that time he 
 selected the writings of Robert Montgomery ''because 
 
 1 Vol. LI, pp. 193-210. 
 
196 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 his works have received more enthusiastic praise, 
 and have deserved more unmixed contempt, than 
 any which, as far as our knowledge extends, have 
 appeared within the last three or four years." He 
 then proceeded to select extracts from the two poems 
 under review — 'The Omnipresence of the Deity' and 
 'Satan' — to confirm the truth of his assertions. He 
 somewhat grandiloquently closed his article with the 
 declaration that if his remarks gave pain to Mr. 
 Robert Montgomery he was sorry for it ; but at what- 
 ever cost of pain to individuals literature must be 
 purified from this taint of puffing. Not to be outdone 
 in generosity, Montgomery, in his comments upon this 
 review in the notes to his poem of 'Oxford,' expressed 
 regret if his remarks should cause Macaulay any 
 suffering. 
 
 Literature in the long run can safely be left to take 
 care of itself. To whatever cause Montgomery's 
 success is to be attributed, the reasons given for it by 
 Macaulay had not the slightest foundation in fact, so 
 far as this poet was concerned, even were they true 
 in the case of other writers. His publisher, Samuel 
 Maunder, himself a compiler of educational works, 
 was, if all accessible information can be trusted, a 
 man of upright character. Furthermore, while he was 
 a respectable, he was far from being an influential 
 man in his profession. Naturally he felt outraged by 
 the charges and insinuations which had been brought 
 against him from various quarters ; in particular that 
 Montgomery's popularity was due to skilful and per- 
 sistent puffing on his part, carefully planned and 
 
POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 197 
 
 diligently carried out. He speedily made an indignant 
 and effective reply in an 'Address to the Public.'^ It 
 was evidently aimed mainly at Macaulay; but he 
 neglected none of the various accusations which had 
 been preferred by other critics. He began with the 
 assertion that the most illiberal attacks had of late 
 been repeatedly directed against him by certain review- 
 ers, who in their zeal to destroy the popularity of 
 Montgomery and in their attempts to account for the 
 extensive sale of his poems had charged his publisher 
 mth having unduly raised that author into general 
 favor by a system of puffing. He then took up the 
 consideration of the various statements which had 
 been specifically set forth to sustain this accusation. 
 The system of puffing, Maunder observed, had been 
 defined as resting on four grounds. First, the pub- 
 lisher had his own review. Secondly, he exchanged 
 favors with other reviews. Thirdly, he influenced 
 public opinion through the agency of literary coteries. 
 Fourthly, he bribed the periodical press. All these, 
 he declared to be, so far as he was concerned, "a 
 deliberate and malicious calumny." The proof of 
 this fact which he gave was overwhelmingly conclusive. 
 First, he said he had no review of his own. Conse- 
 quently he could not exchange favors with other 
 reviews, and should disdain to do so if he could. He 
 furthermore had no connection with any coterie. As 
 to the final charge, he remarked that he had no money 
 to bribe periodicals ^vith, assuming that they could 
 be bribed, which he did not believe. He said indeed 
 
 1' Literary Gazette,' August 14, 1830, p. 534. 
 
198 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 specifically with some heat that he had ** never bribed, 
 or paid, or offered to pay, any individual connected 
 mth the periodical press, to praise the works of Mr. 
 Montgomery, or any other works" in which he 
 had an interest. That any reputable or influential 
 periodical was open to such inducements to sell its 
 praise or blame was to him in truth inconceivable. 
 In conclusion, he denounced as a gross abuse of criti- 
 cism the attempt which had been made to damage his 
 property and impugn his conduct on grounds, which, 
 to use his own words, were *'at once malicious, scan- 
 dalous, and false. ' ' Macaulay as one of the assailants 
 was wise enough but also disingenuous enough to take 
 advantage of his position in life never to reply to 
 the exposure of his unsupported accusation. But 
 he never mthdrew it: in fact, by reprinting this 
 article in his collected essays, he may be said to have 
 reaffirmed it. 
 
 There was hardly need for any protest on the part 
 of the publisher in the eyes of any fair-minded person 
 acquainted with the facts. Here was a young man 
 who had barely reached his majority. He was a 
 dweller in a provincial city. He was of mean, not to 
 say base parentage. When he produced his first works 
 he had none of the advantages of university training 
 or association. He had no connection with men of 
 influence, no interest with them beyond what their 
 personal opinion of his abilities might excite. His 
 publisher was equally powerless to help him forward 
 in his career. To this new aspirant belonged not a 
 single one of the external agencies which aid an author 
 
POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 199 
 
 in the first instance to rise, many of which were con- 
 spicuously present in the case of his most virulent 
 assailants. Yet his first religious poem was received 
 ^vith enthusiastic acclaim by a body of professional 
 critics, few if any of whom could have known him per- 
 sonally, or even have heard of him ; or if they knew of 
 him, what they knew had not been of a nature to lead 
 them to think of him favorably. The mere recital 
 of these facts proves the utter groundlessness of 
 Macaulay's assertions. It is hardly necessary to add 
 that his criticism, like those which preceded it and 
 followed it, had not the slightest influence in purifying 
 literature, so far as that was to be accomplished by 
 destroying the continued sale of Montgomery's works. 
 It did not hasten a single moment the approach of 
 that oblivion which was sure to overtake them event- 
 ually. It was not till the subject of his criticism had 
 been for some time in his grave and even his name 
 forgotten that this review by Macaulay was given 
 credit for a destruction which it never had the slightest 
 effect in bringing about. 
 
 The names of some of those who believed seriously 
 in Montgomery as a poet have been given, not because 
 a favorable verdict on their part necessarily implies 
 desert, but because it does show that there was some- 
 where a real foundation for his popularity ; that it was 
 no mere creation of the engineering of puffing set in 
 motion by the author or his publisher. Still it remains 
 a legitimate subject of inquiry what was it that led 
 to this extraordinary and prolonged success. A 
 cursory examination of the poems will show that they 
 
200 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 abound in commonplace thoughts set forth in pompous 
 phraseology ; that the epithets are sometimes meaning- 
 less, sometimes inappropriate ; that the lines are inter- 
 spersed %vith unknown words, apparently the coinage 
 of the author himself; that there is no central unity 
 in the treatment of the theme, but that the whole is 
 made up of a series of detached passages which could 
 have been omitted altogether or could have been 
 extended indefinitely, without in the slightest degree 
 interfering with the development of the plot, whose 
 parts have not the cohesion of orderly growth, but the 
 adhesion of accidental suggestion, and were as appro- 
 priate to one subject as to another. On the other 
 hand, it is fair to say that Montgomery had been a 
 diligent student of Dryden, Pope, and Goldsmith, and 
 had learned to reproduce certain characteristics of 
 their style with a good deal of cleverness. This trick 
 of expression caught no small number of those who 
 do not detect easily the difference between an imitation 
 and an original. With all his, verbiage, too, there was 
 occasionally rhetorical pomp ; and while his ideas were 
 commonplace, they were sometimes expressed in a 
 striking way. His verse too was smooth, and as 
 Dryden said of Settle's, it had a blundering kind of 
 melody. Furthermore, what in later life added to his 
 popularity was the excellence of his private life and 
 the good which in many ways he accomplished. One 
 is too often compelled to regret that individuals who 
 intellectually are worthy of contempt will persist in 
 being morally in the highest degree praiseworthy. 
 Still, if we can confidently say that this phenomenal 
 
POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 201 
 
 success — not the passing popularity of a day but 
 extending over a lifetime — was not due to the agency 
 imputed, to what shall it be attributed? The question 
 is much easier to ask than to answer. Who can explain 
 the immense sale of works of fiction in one generation 
 of which the next generation knows nothing at all, or 
 if it knows despises? Yet in the case of Montgomery's 
 productions there is one factor which will account in 
 a measure for their warm reception by a certain por- 
 tion of the public. This is the same agency that has 
 caused the temporary success in the past of several 
 works of a similar or an allied nature, and will cause 
 the like success of others in the future. It is the appeal 
 they make to a particular class of readers. They all 
 treat of moral or religious topics. The subjects upon 
 which Montgomery wrote are important in any view; 
 to a large body of men they will always be of supreme 
 importance. It is hard for a certain class of even 
 well-educated persons, with ample opportunities for 
 observation, to comprehend the fact; but there are no 
 questions which appeal to so vast a multitude as those 
 which treat directly or remotely of the relations of 
 man to his Maker, and of the thousand and one matters 
 of inquiry and discussion which concern the moral 
 government of the universe. The interest they take 
 in the theme not only attracts their attention to works 
 dealing with it, but blunts distinctly the literary sense. 
 By nothing are even able judges so easily imposed 
 upon as by religious poetry, if they themselves are 
 religiously inclined. They are disposed to accord 
 exceptional ability to the writer who expresses in any 
 
202 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 new or striking way opinions which they hold or feel- 
 ings with which they sympathize. It is in truth a 
 singular fact that the moment any poem treats of the 
 truths of religion in a tone indicative of fervent piety, 
 the critical power of many intelligent men deserts them 
 at once. When they find spirituality of sentiment 
 they are easily led to believe in the existence of lit- 
 erary inspiration. The good fortune thus resulting 
 has fallen to the lot of several writers, and it fell to 
 Montgomery on a grand scale. 
 
 If feelings of this sort be occasionally true of per- 
 sons of superior intellectual powers, how much truer 
 are they of that immense body of serious men who, 
 possessing limited literary taste, are insensible to 
 high literary art, but who have ever before their eyes 
 lofty moral and religious standards. Any production 
 which tends to strengthen the hold of these is to them 
 for that very reason attractive. If in addition they 
 get the impression that it is literature in the high sense 
 of the word, they have the satisfaction of feeling that 
 not only is their spiritual nature elevated but their 
 intellectual nature enriched. No composition of any 
 sort will excite more general interest than under 
 favoring circumstances does sacred poetry; for there 
 is nothing a large share of the English-speaking race 
 enjoy more keenly than being preached to. This 
 feeling naturally shows itself in their attitude towards 
 literature or what they consider literature. For them 
 all other pleasures pale beside the reading of plati- 
 tudes seasoned with morality and religion and gar- 
 nished with the ornament of verse. To them is due 
 
POPULAR AUTHORS OF THE PERIOD 203 
 
 the immense sale of works which have little to recom- 
 mend them but the goodness or rather goodiness of 
 the sentiments they convey. They honestly believe 
 that they are appreciating fine poetry when they are 
 simply listening with devout attention to common- 
 place preaching. To this far from limited class 
 of persons Montgomery's writings were addressed. 
 What jarred upon the feelings of men of highly culti- 
 vated literary taste was not to them in the slightest 
 degree offensive. On the contrary it was often 
 attractive. Still if the critics could not affect Mont- 
 gomery's repute seriously with his contemporaries 
 they have had their way with their descendants. 
 They have succeeded in maintaining after his death 
 the distinction which they set up during his life. In 
 the new 'Dictionary of National Biography' several 
 of these writers, whom no one ever reads now or has 
 even heard of, are characterized as poets, while Mont- 
 gomery himself is put down as a poetaster. 
 
 The same fondness for cheap moral commonplace 
 manifested itself in the Victorian period in the success 
 which waited upon a book which was brought out a 
 little later — more precisely speaking, towards the end 
 of the fourth decade. In spite of its great sale 
 in England, Montgomery's poetry had but little 
 circulation in America. Not so with the 'Proverbial 
 Philosophy' of Martin Farquhar Tupper, the first 
 series of which appeared in 1838. Though taking 
 nominally the form of verse it was not essentially 
 different in its subject or its fortune from a prose 
 treatise which came out nearly a century before. 
 
204 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 This was Robert Dodsley's 'The (Economy of Human 
 Life,' which purported to be a translation from a 
 Brahman manuscript. The imputed origin distinctly 
 added to the favor it met; for there has always been 
 a general feeling among the Western nations that 
 wisdom resembles the sun in having its rise in the 
 East. But what contributed even more to its imme- 
 diate success was the report which seems to have been 
 carefully fostered at the outset that the author of the 
 work was Lord Chesterfield. At that time his name 
 would sell anything. But without these agencies it 
 would have achieved popularity; for it was made up 
 of that cheap sort of moralizing which is peculiarly 
 dear to the Anglo-Saxon heart. Though nothing more 
 utterly commonplace was ever produced the work 
 went through edition after edition during the eight- 
 eenth century and even later. This success was more 
 than repeated during the nineteenth century by the 
 'Proverbial Philosophy' of Tupper. The circulation 
 of the work was enormous in England; it was even 
 greater in America. Before a half-century had gone 
 by, hundreds of thousands of copies had been disposed 
 of in the two countries. It is a somewhat striking 
 fact that the three writers just mentioned met with 
 such amazing success in the middle of the nineteenth 
 century, so far as that is indicated by the sale of their 
 works. It is as striking a fact that they are now 
 scarcely known at all, or if spoken of are usually 
 spoken of with derision. 
 
CHAPTER VII .: 
 
 THE POEMS OF 1830 
 
 Tennyson's prize poem had appeared in 1829. It 
 was in the year following that the two brothers, who 
 had brought out their first volume conjointly, appealed 
 separately to the public. On the fourteenth of March 
 appeared at Cambridge a volume of Charles Tenny- 
 son's, entitled 'Sonnets and Fugitive Pieces.' About 
 three months later — towards the end of June — was 
 published at London by Effingham Wilson, Alfred's 
 volume of 'Poems, Chiefly Lyrical.' It had been 
 the original intention to have his productions come 
 out in conjunction with those of Arthur Hallam. 
 The poems of the latter were set up and a few copies 
 were printed and distributed among his friends. 
 But Hallam 's father preferred — very wisely pre- 
 ferred — that his son's pieces should be withheld from 
 publication. Accordingly Tennyson's poems were 
 published by themselves. 
 
 When this volume came out, Tennyson was still a 
 minor. Attention has been called more than once to 
 the fact that he had been early hailed by the little 
 circle to which he belonged at Cambridge as the coming 
 man. Notes and diaries of the men of that time have 
 been preserved and printed. They are singularly 
 unanimous in the tribute of admiration they pay to 
 
206 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 what they conceive to be the greatness of Tennyson 
 and of his assured eminence in the future. But it was 
 something more than the mere praise of a private 
 circle that certain of his admirers sought for him now. 
 They began at once an active propaganda to spread 
 his fame far and wide. Naturally among these Arthur 
 Hallam was foremost. Early the following year he 
 forwarded the volumes of the two brothers to Leigh 
 Hunt. That author had started in September, 1830, 
 a daily journal called 'The Tatler.' It was devoted 
 almost exclusively to literature and the drama. In 
 his letter Hallam declared that Tennyson was the 
 true heir to the kingdom of Parnassus, the throne of 
 which had been vacant since the death of Keats. '*I 
 flatter myself," he wrote of the volume, ''you will, 
 if you peruse that book, be surprised and delighted to 
 find a new prophet of those true principles of Art" — 
 it was Art with a capital letter — "which in this 
 country you were among the first to recommend both 
 by precept and example." He repeated the remarks 
 which by that time had become habitual with all 
 dealers in doubtful poetical wares, that neither of the 
 two poets, whose volumes he had forwarded, was 
 likely to become extensively or immediately popular. 
 They did not appeal to the world at large, which was 
 known to abound in all evil, especially that of bad 
 taste. They addressed on the contrary — here follow 
 Hallam 's exact words — "the elect Church of Urania, 
 which we know to be small and in tribulation. Now 
 in this church," he continued, "you have preferment, 
 and what you preach will be considered by the faithful 
 
THE POEMS OF 1830 207 
 
 as a sound form of words." It was inevitable that 
 the request should follow to which this preliminary 
 flattery had paved the way. *'If you agree," he added, 
 *'you will not perhaps object to mentioning them 
 favorably in the Tatler."^ 
 
 In his letter to Hunt, Hallam called also attention 
 to a criticism of Tennyson's poems which had ap- 
 peared in 'The Westminster Review' for January, 
 1831. He attributed the authorship of it to Bowring 
 who was the editor of the periodical. But he was not 
 certain of it. There seems no sufficient reason to 
 believe the ascription to be true and a good deal to 
 think it to be false. Certainly it is to be hoped so, 
 for the editor's own sake. It is enough to have to 
 endure the responsibility of having admitted the 
 article into the 'Review' without being compelled to 
 bear the additional burden of having written it. Never 
 were more absurd general \dews on poetry combined 
 with more absurd special criticism. It justified all the 
 abuse Christopher North subsequently heaped upon 
 it, though not the way in which that was expressed. 
 
 The article in the 'Westminster' was couched 
 throughout in language which it would be weak to call 
 laudatory. Considering the fact that if Tennyson's 
 reputation had to rest on the volume of 1830, he would 
 hardly be regarded as a poet of the third-rate order, 
 it is difficult not to believe that the criticism contained 
 in this review came from the partiality of personal 
 friendship acting either directly or indirectly. If not 
 
 1 Letter of January 11, 1831, in J. Nichols's 'Literary Anecdotes of 
 the Nineteenth Century,' Vol. I, p. 25. 
 
208 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 due to that, there was displayed a power of fore- 
 seeing the future not often granted to the acutest of 
 critics. For there was no moderation in the expres- 
 sion of the praise. A great poet had arisen, at least 
 a person possessed of great poetical power; and to 
 the proper direction of that power the reviewer pro- 
 fessed to look with anxiety. All this might be for- 
 given to the enthusiasm of personal affection. What 
 is unpardonable is the hopeless imbecility of the views 
 set forth. ^'The great principle of human improve- 
 ment," it declared, "is at work in poetry as well as 
 everywhere else." Such was the thesis maintained 
 and illustrated. Criminal jurisprudence, we were told, 
 was in the way of being reformed ; light was about to 
 be shed over legislation; religion was becoming puri- 
 fied; arts and sciences were made more available for 
 human comfort. All this was due to the ever growing 
 acquaintance that was going on with the philosophy 
 of mind and of man, and to the increasing facility with 
 which that philosophy was applied. Of course, it 
 would be a pity if poetry were an exception to this 
 great law of progression in human affairs. It was no 
 exception. This law of progression it is, said the 
 prophetic reviewer, that will secure also a succession 
 of creations out of the unbounded and everlasting 
 material of poetry. ''The machinery of a poem," he 
 went on to assert, ''is not less susceptible of improve- 
 ment than the machinery of a cotton-mill ; nor is there 
 any better reason why the one should retrograde from 
 the daj'S of Milton, than the other from those of 
 Arkwright. ' ' 
 
THE POEMS OF 1830 209 
 
 This is certainly a comfortable doctrine. It occa- 
 sionally crops out in the history of criticism. Unfor- 
 tunately it is never exemplified in the works with which 
 criticism concerns itself. Of machine poetry the re- 
 marks of the reviewer may be true ; but hardly of the 
 poetry of genius. With that the law of progression 
 does not operate. Homer died fully three thousand 
 years ago; that is, if he ever lived at all. Virgil 
 flourished about two thousand years ago. Yet the 
 world has not yet seen any marked improvement upon 
 the method these two poets followed and the results 
 they obtained. Shakespeare was writing dramas more 
 than three hundred years ago. So far, not alone in 
 England, but in all the countries of Europe, no plays 
 have been brought to the attention of mankind which 
 indicate a marked advance upon what he accomplished. 
 That there will be variations in the form and fashion 
 and creeds of poetry at different periods may be very 
 likely; for the tastes and standards of one generation 
 are not necessarily the tastes and standards of another. 
 In consequence, men often think they have improved 
 when they have merely changed. But genius has no 
 past. It recognizes no law of progression. Certain 
 conditions there may be essential to its birth and 
 development. But these once given, it is independent 
 of time and place and circumstance. It starts into life 
 perfectly formed. 
 
 This, however, was not the opinion of the 'West- 
 minster ' reviewer. He not only praised the philosophi- 
 cal character of the poems of Tennyson, he was confi- 
 dent that they would be the precursors of a series of 
 
210 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 productions which would beautifully illustrate his 
 speculations and convincingly prove their soundness. 
 In order to sustain this forecast of the future he 
 heaped eulogy after eulogy upon individual pieces. 
 The author, he said, had the secret of the transmigra- 
 tion of the soul. He could cast his own spirit into 
 anything, real or imaginary. Scarcely Vishnu him- 
 self became incarnate more easily, frequently, or per- 
 fectly. Two of the poems — 'Nothing will Die' and 
 *A11 Things will Die' — the reviewer contrasted with 
 *L 'Allegro' and 'II Penseroso.' He pronounced no 
 opinion upon the comparative merits of the execution 
 of these four, but he assured us that there is not less 
 truth and perhaps a more refined observation in the 
 point of view from which the subjects had been 
 approached by the modern poet. As Tennyson him- 
 self in the edition of 1842 suppressed these two partic- 
 ular pieces, it is evident that he himself was not so 
 struck by their superiority to Milton's as had been his 
 reviewer. The amatory poems, the critic further re- 
 marked, are expressions ''not of heartless sensuality, 
 nor of a sickly refinement, nor of fantastic devotion, 
 but of manly love." They illustrate, too, he told us, 
 the philosophy of the passion, while they exhibit the 
 various phases of its existence and embody its power. 
 In his observations on the pictures of women as shown 
 in the characterizations of Claribel, Lilian, Isabel, 
 Madeline, and Adeline, he set no bounds to the dis- 
 play of his ecstatic admiration. "His portraits," he 
 wrote, "are delicate, his likenesses (we will answer 
 for them) perfect, and they have life, character, and 
 
THE POEMS OF 1830 211 
 
 indhiduality. " The phrase in parentheses seems to 
 imply that these were real beings who were described, 
 and that the persons meant were known to the re- 
 viewer. Though this is a natural interpretation, no 
 confidence can be felt in any conclusions drawn from 
 the language of an almost crazy panegyrist, and 
 Tennyson himself denied any individual reference. 
 In fact, no fault was found with anything contained in 
 the volume, save a faint objection to the occasional 
 irregularities of the measure and the use of antiquated 
 words and obsolete expressions. 
 
 Leigh Hunt in his turn responded at once to the 
 suggestions which had been thrown out by Hallam. 
 Four articles he wrote upon the poems of the brothers. 
 Two of them appeared in the numbers of ^The Tatler' 
 for February 24 and 26, 1831, and two in the numbers 
 for March 1 and 3. The former were devoted mainly 
 to Alfred Tennyson, the latter to Charles. He hailed 
 them both as great coming poets. However well the 
 prophecy has been fulfilled in the case of the one, it 
 can hardly be called a successful prediction in the case 
 of the other. '*We have great pleasure," he wrote, 
 ''in stating that we have seen no such poetical writing 
 since the last volume of Mr. Keats; and that the 
 authors, who are both young men, we believe at college, 
 may take their stand at once among the first poets 
 of the day." It is an interesting commentary upon 
 the character of these productions that this expe- 
 rienced critic found it difficult to decide as to the com- 
 parative merits of the two brothers. He asserted that 
 he could not make up his mind which of them was the 
 
212 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 better. It is evident, however, that his preference 
 finally went to Alfred, and that the feeling of his supe- 
 riority grew upon him as he continued the examina- 
 tion of the respective volumes. It ought, however, to 
 be added in all fairness that he had been assisted in 
 reaching this point of view by Hallam. In his letter 
 Hallam had said that while the work of Charles 
 Tennyson showed a mind capable of noble sentiments, 
 it was inferior in depth and range of thought to his 
 brother's. This it very certainly was. 
 
 But unlike the 'Westminster' reviewer, Leigh 
 Hunt's criticism was no unmixed laudation. He sin- 
 gled out pieces for blame as well as for praise. To 
 one who is still innocent enough to put faith in the 
 criticism of assumed or presumed literary experts, it 
 will come as something of a shock to discover that the 
 poem entitled 'Recollections of the Arabian Nights,' 
 a few months later to be highly celebrated by Christo- 
 pher North, met with little favor at Hunt's hands. He 
 agreed, however, with the Scotch critic in having little 
 patience mth what may be called the patriotic poems. 
 The 'National Song,' in particular, he condemned 
 unsparingly. "We hold the National Song to be 
 naught," he wrote. This was letting it off easily. 
 There was certainly ample justification for the view 
 he took of this little song, which, after suppression in 
 later editions, Tennyson revived in 1892 in the play of 
 'The Foresters.' There it fits more appropriately the 
 mouth of the performers. In them the braggart char- 
 acter pervading it is not so offensive under the circum- 
 stances as it is in the song taken by itself. Patriotism 
 
THE POEMS OF 1830 213 
 
 is a good thing in its place; but no excess of it can 
 enrich poetry which is itself nothing but commonplace : 
 while the patriotism in turn is rendered cheap by the 
 inadequacy of the words to express the feelings which 
 are entertained. The excited passions of the moment 
 occasionally impart to pieces of this character a sort of 
 vitality, which subsequent perusal in a different state 
 of mind shows to be wholly unjustifiable. Later in his 
 career Tennyson's intense national feeling lifted him 
 at times into an atmosphere of high poetical achieve- 
 ment. 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' 's\ill live far 
 longer in his verse than on the pages of any historian. 
 But too generally and in his early writings particu- 
 larly, his patriotic utterances reach a height little 
 above the vaporings of the commonplace man and 
 manifest a spirit hardly creditable to the prejudices of 
 the narrow man. 
 
 Leigh Hunt, in awarding the superiority on the 
 whole to Alfred, gave expression to the opinion gen- 
 erally entertained by the best judges. That, too, 
 accorded like^sise with the estimate widely held in the 
 circle of personal friends who surrounded the two 
 brothers. Still, among them no confident tone was 
 assumed in this matter. A dissenting opinion came, 
 too, from quarters presumably carrying great weight. 
 There was no recognition of Alfred's pre-eminence on 
 the part of the two chief li\ing poets. They awarded 
 the palm to the elder. Wordsworth was at Cambridge 
 in November, 1830. In a letter he wrote from there he 
 bore witness to the local reputation of both the authors 
 who had come out that year in print. ""We have," he 
 
214 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 said, ''also a respectable show of blossom in poetry — 
 two brothers of the name of Tennyson, one in particu- 
 lar not a little promising. ' '^ There is nothing in these 
 words to indicate which of the brothers the veteran 
 writer had in mind. From subsequent revelations, 
 however, it is clear that it was Charles. In March, 
 1848, Emerson called upon Wordsworth at Rydal 
 Mount. In the course of the conversation the latter 
 told him that ''he had thought an elder brother of 
 Tennyson at first the better poet, but must now reckon 
 Alfred the true one."^ 
 
 The same belief in the superiority of Charles to 
 Alfred seems to have been taken by Coleridge. Written 
 record of his opinions of the work of the former has 
 been left behind in comments on the sonnets contained 
 in a copy of the volume of the elder brother, which is 
 preserved in the British Museum. He expressed much 
 admiration for these sonnets generally and special 
 admiration for several of them, mingled with specific 
 criticism of words and lines. That entitled 'To a 
 Lark' he declared to be one of the best in the language. 
 He spoke of another, and indeed of a large propor- 
 tion of them as standing "between Wordsworth and 
 Southey and partaking of the excellencies of both." 
 There was nothing in the work to justify this over- 
 strained laudation, though it would not have been hard 
 to rival Southey 's efforts in this kind. Coleridge's 
 commendation of them is just as valuable as his glori- 
 fication of the poems of William Lisle Bowles, by 
 
 iW. Knight's 'Wordsworth,' Vol. Ill, p. 188. 
 2 'English Traits,' Chap. XVII. 
 
THE POEMS OF 1830 215 
 
 whose sonnets in particular he tells us that he was for 
 years "enthusiastically delighted and inspired." His 
 further indi\idual censures of words and phrases have 
 now lost their point, if indeed they had any in the first 
 instance. Still, praise from such a presumed authori- 
 tative source was valued highly. John Kemble wrote 
 to his sister that Coleridge had expressed the highest 
 admiration for the sonnets of Charles Tennyson.^ 
 "The old man of Highgate has rejoiced over him," 
 wrote Hallam also to Emily Tennyson.^ Unfortunately 
 very few others rejoiced. His volume of sonnets seems 
 to have fallen dead from the press. The only notice 
 it received, so far as I can discover, is that of Leigh 
 Hunt's which has already been given. One's faith in 
 critical dicta suffers indeed a rude shock to find two 
 of the greatest poets of the time expressing a prefer- 
 ence for mild commonplace with occasional gleams of 
 felicity over genuine originality, crude and undevel- 
 oped as it then was. 
 
 It is undoubtedly easy enough to be wise after the 
 event. Yet, however differently it may have appeared 
 then to Wordsworth and Coleridge, the modern reader 
 has no more difficulty in recognizing the superiority 
 of Alfred to Charles in their respective volumes of 
 1830 than he has in recognizing the same superiority 
 in their respective contributions to the collection, 
 entitled 'Poems by Two Brothers.' Such was mani- 
 festly the sentiment pervading at the time the circle 
 surrounding the two Tennysons at Cambridge. It 
 
 1 'Biographia Literaria, ' Chap. I. 
 2 'Memoir,' Vol. I, p. 75. 
 
216 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 represented the attitude of the general public. The 
 sonnets of Charles encountered indeed both then and 
 at later periods what was far worse than hostile criti- 
 cism. They were not spoken of at all. It is pretty cer- 
 tain indeed that the recej)tion his first volume met 
 from the public did not tempt him to try his fortunes 
 speedily again. The life he led was henceforward a 
 somewhat uneventful one; in some respects it must 
 have been a disappointing one. He entered the min- 
 istry, and in 1835 became curate of Tealby, in his 
 native county. His choice of profession excited the 
 regret of Leigh Hunt. ''I was fearful of what he 
 would come to," he wrote to a friend, ''by certain mis- 
 givings in his poetry and a want of the active poetic 
 faith. ' '^ It was probably not so much a want of active 
 poetic faith — whatever Hunt meant by that expres- 
 sion — that decided his career, as his growing con- 
 sciousness of his want of poetic ability. After two 
 years of his Tealby curacy he became vicar of Grasby, 
 a lonely village about three miles northwest of Caistor. 
 His uncle, Samuel Turner, was a resident of this last- 
 named place. By the will of this kinsman, he became 
 heir to an income of five hundred pounds a year, on 
 condition that he should change his name from Charles 
 Tennyson to Charles Turner. This he did. On May 
 24, 1836,^ he was married at Horncastle to Louisa Sell- 
 wood, the youngest sister of the future wife of his 
 younger brother. According to one report, a separa- 
 tion speedily followed; but in 1849 the couple came 
 
 1 ' Memoir, ' Vol. I, p. 164. 
 2 Ibid., p. 148. 
 
THE POEMS OF 1830 217 
 
 together again, after having lived apart for over a 
 dozen years. ^ 
 
 More than a third of a century passed before Charles 
 Tennyson published another volume of verse. It could 
 not have been the overshadowing success of his 
 younger brother which led him to maintain silence. 
 As we shall see, that success was deferred for a long 
 time. It is much more likely that it was the loftiness 
 of position which his brother had won that later led 
 him to come again before the public. In 1864 aj^peared 
 a volume of nearly one hundred sonnets ^\ith a dedi- 
 cation to Alfred Tennyson prefixed. Additional vol- 
 umes followed in 1868 and in 1873. After his death in 
 1879 his poetical works were collected and brought out 
 in 1880 in a single volume. They were accompanied by 
 an introductory essay of James Spedding, which had 
 appeared in a periodical the previous September.^ It 
 was a most fervent eulogy both of the man and of the 
 poet, though it is manifest that the polemic sonnets did 
 not appeal to this most kindly of critics either for the 
 spirit characterizing them or for their argumentative 
 force. Of the others, however, he thought highly. 
 Spedding indeed predicted that many of these "in- 
 spired strains," would probably '^take place here- 
 after . . . among the memorable utterances of our 
 time." He further spoke of the author as one among 
 the candidates for immortality who '4s entitled to a 
 high place." The lifetime of a generation has gone 
 by since these forecasts of the future were made. So 
 
 I'The Journal of Walter White,' 1898, p. 142. 
 2 ' Nineteenth Century,' September, 1879. 
 
218 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 far the verdict of posterity has failed to confirm the 
 opinion of the reviewer. There is every indication 
 that whatever repute Charles Tennyson may come to 
 have in the future will be due to his brother and not 
 to himself. 
 
 As regards his career as an author, it was the for- 
 tune or misfortune of Charles to give himself up almost 
 entirely to the production of sonnets; and he who 
 chooses to cultivate that field of poetical composition 
 may well make up his mind in advance to leave all hope 
 behind. After nearly a hundred years of intermis- 
 sion this form of verse came once more into vogue in 
 the early part of the second half of the eighteenth 
 century. Resort to the use of it steadily increased 
 after it had once been introduced or rather reintro- 
 duced. From the beginning of the nineteenth century 
 up to the present time addiction to it has raged with 
 extreme violence; never probably more so than now. 
 Perhaps no other form of verse has been for a long 
 time so generally employed. Many certainly have 
 been and still are laborers in the field; scanty is the 
 harvest of value which has been produced. The reason 
 is plain enough. The sonnet is the Procrustean bed of 
 poetry. It is a purely artificial form of verse. It has 
 a precise number of lines, it has a precise number of 
 feet to the line. The expression of the thought may 
 demand more space. That cannot be granted ; it must 
 be cut off. More often the thought could be better 
 expressed in fewer words. That, too, cannot be 
 allowed. It must be stretched out to fill up the speci- 
 fied number of lines. Add to this, that nearly all mod- 
 
THE POEMS OF 1830 219 
 
 ern producers of sonnets conform to the further 
 requirements of a limited number of rhymes and of 
 their precise arrangement. In a language so deficient 
 as is the English in words having correspondence of 
 sound, this fact lends additional difficulty to the task 
 of their composition. ''What do they seem fit for," 
 wrote FitzGerald to Frederick Tennyson, ''but to serve 
 as little shapes in which a man may mould very 
 mechanically any single thought which comes into his 
 head, which thought is not lyrical enough in itself to 
 exhale in a more lyrical measure? The difficulty of 
 the sonnet meter in English is a good excuse for the 
 dull didactic thoughts which naturally incline towards 
 it ; fellows know there is no danger of decanting their 
 muddy stuff ever so slowly ; they are neither prose nor 
 poetry.'" 
 
 It is no wonder in consequence that the results, even 
 with those who are regarded as having succeeded, bear 
 but a small proportion to the labor put forth. In mod- 
 ern times, Wordsworth, of the great poets, has been 
 the most successful cultivator of the sonnet. With his 
 tendency to diffuseness its enforced compression 
 proved often a distinct advantage. Yet it is perfectly 
 safe to say that his fame in this particular rests upon 
 fewer than half a hundred of these productions. All 
 the rest could be dropped from his works without his 
 reputation suffering a tithe of loss, though he wrote 
 in all nearly four hundred pieces of this character. 
 Him as regards number Charles Tennyson rivalled. 
 His sonnets as found in the final volume just men- 
 
 1 E. FitzGerald 's * Letters and Literary Remains, ' Vol. I, p. 73. 
 
220 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 tioned lack one of reaching three hundred and fifty. 
 Many of them are marked by a certain plaintiveness 
 and tenderness of expression; some of them contain 
 fine lines, a few of them fine passages ; but there is not 
 one of them which, as a whole, possesses distinction; 
 and a sonnet without distinction has no ground for 
 existing at all. As regards their content, too, no small 
 number of the later sonnets were deformed by a po- 
 lemic spirit which is characteristic of critical activity 
 rather than of creative. Agnostics and believers in 
 the higher criticism generally met with little mercy at 
 the hands of this clerical dweller of the Lincolnshire 
 wolds. Subjects of such a nature it requires genius of 
 the highest order to lift out of the region of contro- 
 versy into that of poetry; and genius of even a high 
 sort Charles Tennyson did not possess. All of the 
 sonnets taken together are hardly equal in value to 
 'At Midnight,' the prefatory poem to the volume con- 
 taining them, which his brother wrote on June 30, 
 1879. 
 
 Not such, however, was the belief of Alfred Tenny- 
 son. He ranked a few of his brother's sonnets as 
 being among the noblest in the language. He declared 
 them to be * 'wonderful." ''I sometimes think," he 
 said on one occasion, "that, of their kind, there is 
 nothing equal to them in English poetry."^ Nor was 
 he altogether singular in this view. Henry Taylor 
 thought that Burns had not written anything worthy 
 to live twenty years; that ninety -nine per cent of his 
 production was worthless, and that nothing of it was 
 
 1 H. D, Eawnsley's 'Memories of the Tennysons,' p. 101. 
 
THE POEMS OF 1830 221 
 
 of such excellence as to found a poet's fame/ But he 
 made up for his lack of appreciation of the Scotch 
 writer by his enthusiasm for the sonnets of Charles 
 Tennyson. * ' There are none in the language, ' ' he said, 
 ''more beautiful in their sincerity and truth. "^ The 
 general opinion as reflected by their popularity and 
 sale accords rather with the opinion expressed by 
 the Brownings who considered Frederick Tennyson, 
 though not a great poet, to be a distinctly better one 
 than Charles. This conforms little, as we have seen, 
 with Alfred's estimate. He put these sonnets below 
 those only of Milton, Shakespeare, and Wordsworth. 
 "I at least," he said to a visitor, "rank my brother's 
 next to those by the three Olympians.'" The rest of 
 the world may respect the feeling which dictated this 
 verdict of fraternal affection. Individuals may be 
 found to concur with it ; but it is fairly safe to say that 
 it will never become a widely accepted view. 
 
 Hallam's efforts in behalf of the younger brother 
 did not cease with his letter to Hunt. In April, 1830, 
 a new monthly had been started by a London firm 
 under the title of 'The Englishman's Magazine.' 
 After the fourth number it passed into the hands of 
 Moxon, the future publisher of so many poets. He 
 put forth strenuous exertions for its success. He 
 called to its aid all the authors he could command who 
 had already acquired reputation or gave promise of 
 acquiring it. The very first number which bore his 
 
 1 ' Correspondence of Henry Taylor,' 1888, p. 188, 
 
 2 Ibi(J., p. 287. 
 
 3W, A. Knight's 'Retrospects,' 1904, p. 49. 
 
222 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 imprint — that for August — numbered among its con- 
 tributors, Charles Lamb, Motherwell, Hood, Miss Mit- 
 ford, Leigh Hunt, Gerald Griffin, and several other 
 writers more or less prominent at the time. But 
 though generally well spoken of, the undertaking 
 did not succeed. An ominous advertisement, which 
 appeared early in October, to the effect that two share- 
 holders were wanted for the periodical, indicated that 
 its fortunes were not on a secure basis. The two 
 shareholders sought for apparently refrained from 
 putting in an appearance. Accordingly after the issue 
 for October the publisher decided to discontinue the 
 magazine. 
 
 To this first of the three numbers which appeared 
 under Moxon's management — that of August — Hallam 
 contributed an article. It was entitled 'On Some of 
 the Characteristics of Modern Poetry and on the Lyri- 
 cal Poems of Alfred Tennyson. ' At the time he com- 
 plained to a friend that it was ''so execrably printed 
 that every line contains an error, and these not always 
 palpable."^ Unfortunately the error of the criticism 
 was distinctly palpable. A portion of this article was 
 reprinted by his father in the memorial volume which 
 contained some of his son's writings. In that, how- 
 ever, the part of it which dealt specifically with the 
 various pieces of the new poet was omitted — omitted, 
 too, very wisely. There was little restraint upon the 
 praise heaped upon him, and the censure — which every 
 critic feels compelled to bestow — was limited to a few 
 slight cavils on the use of particular words. He spoke 
 
 1 'Autobiography and Letters of Dean Merivale,' Oxford, 1898, p. 160. 
 
I 
 
 THE POEMS OF 1830 223 
 
 of Tennyson as being of the school of Shelley and 
 Keats. Both these he highly praised. He quoted in 
 full the ' Recollections of the Arabian Nights, ' ' Oriana, ' 
 and 'Adeline.' The first of these was on the whole his 
 favorite of all the poems. Some idea of the feeling 
 about it he entertained as well as of the extravagance 
 of his criticism may be inferred from his assertion that 
 its sixth verse was as majestic as Milton and its twelfth 
 as sublime as >(i]schylus. It was remarks like these 
 which aroused the amusement and wrath of Chris- 
 topher North. Leigh Hunt protested, too, at the time 
 against the peculiar absurdity of representing him as 
 the originator of a school to which belonged Shelley 
 and Keats. He said very justly that there was nothing 
 in conmion between those authors and himself but per- 
 sonal regard, a common zeal for mankind, and a com- 
 mon love of the old poets. He further exhibited the 
 difference in the point of view by observing that 
 Hallam's observations on Tennyson's writings were 
 more to the purpose than the specimens he gave of 
 them. In Hunt's opinion he had selected some of the 
 least perfect and effective of the poems, apparently 
 for the reason that they had been omitted by others. 
 
 Facts such as these show how zealously the poet's 
 friends were working in his behalf. There are indica- 
 tions of this action on their part on every side. Milnes, 
 while in Italy, received in February, 1831, a letter from 
 his college friend, Monteith, one of the Apostles. 
 ''Have you seen," wrote the latter, — "by-the-bye you 
 cannot — the review of Tennyson's poems in the West- 
 minster? It is really enthusiastic about him, and is 
 
224 ' LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 very well written on the whole. If we can get him well 
 reviewed in the Edinburgh, it will do." It hardly 
 needs to be said that they did not get him well or ill 
 reviewed in the * Edinburgh.' That lofty periodical 
 was not flying at any such supposedly small game. 
 Still, it would be unjust to suggest that the favorable 
 notices which Tennyson received were in all cases due 
 directly or indirectly to personal friendship. There 
 was much in the poetry of his volume which appealed 
 to those who were in sympathy with the genius of 
 Shelley and of Keats. Accordingly no external agen- 
 cies were needed for such men to give expression to 
 their admiration. 
 
 Two instances may be given in illustration. A re- 
 view of the volume of 1830 appeared in the March 
 number of 'The New Monthly Magazine' for 1831. 
 The estimate expressed of Tennyson's volume was 
 highly favorable. That fact was not due to any pre- 
 vious understanding or any outside influence. On the 
 contrary, the critic confessed that when encountering 
 at the outset some corrections in the list of errata, he 
 was prepared for merriment. It needed the reading, 
 however, of but a few of the pieces to dissipate any 
 expectations of that nature. He recognized at once 
 the coming of a true poet. So far as I have observed, 
 this was the only review of the time which pointed out 
 distinctly the direct influence of Keats upon the new 
 aspirant for poetic honors — for in Hallam's article 
 this was stated only in general terms. But in Tenny- 
 son this critic found all the characteristics which had 
 given its distinguishing mark to the work of his prede- 
 
THE POEMS OF 1830 225 
 
 cessor. "It is full," he wrote, "of precisely the kind 
 of poetry for which Mr. Keats was assailed, and for 
 which the world is already beginning to admire him. 
 We do not mean that it contains anything equal, either 
 in majesty or melody, to the 'Hyperion,' the 'Ode to 
 the Nightingale,' or the 'Eve of St. Agnes.' But it 
 does contain many indications of a similar genius."^ 
 
 The re^dew in truth gave enthusiastic praise to much 
 of the contents of the volume. While the existence of 
 imperfections was conceded, the prediction was made 
 confidently that here was a light which was destined 
 to shine before men. Indeed unless we are to credit 
 the re\dewer udth the possession of prophetic fore- 
 sight, the laudation ^yiU. seem too extreme. Yet there 
 is no question that it was not only sincere, but was 
 altogether unaffected by personal considerations. Nor 
 was this the only one of the favorable notices which 
 came from the outside. 'The Spectator,' which a short 
 time before had started on its long and creditable 
 career, contained also what was on the whole a highly 
 complimentary review. In it the critic confessed to 
 ha^dng experienced an agreeable surprise in finding 
 the work as good as it was. He had evidently been 
 prejudiced against the volume by the knowledge that 
 had come to his ears that its author had written a 
 prize poem. WTiat faults he found vdth him in his 
 criticism were due to the fact that he expected to meet 
 with him again.^ Sentiments of the same general 
 nature, though much more briefly expressed, may be 
 
 I'New Monthly Magazine,' Vol. XXXIII, p. 111. 
 2 No. for May 8, 1830. 
 
226 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 also found in an early notice in 'The Atlas. '^ That 
 periodical, indeed, claimed later to have been the first 
 to recognize Tennyson's genius. It is evident that in 
 these criticisms considerations due to friendship had 
 no weight whatever. 
 
 1 No. for June 27, 1830. 
 
CHAPTEE VIII 
 CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S REVIEW 
 
 We have seen that the criticism of Tennyson's first 
 volume had been generally favorable. Not unnat- 
 urally in the majority of the reviews of the period it 
 was not spoken of at all. But nowhere was active 
 hostility displayed. If there was dissent in any quar- 
 ter from the enthusiastic praise which had been lav- 
 ished upon it by some, it was not manifested publicly ; 
 at least it was not in the organs which had the great- 
 est influence with readers. A good deal of the com- 
 mendation which his work had received was undoubt- 
 edly due to the zeal of personal friendship, acting 
 either directly or indirectly. But this had manifestly 
 not been the case in certain instances. Much of the 
 warm welcome which had been extended to Tennyson's 
 first poems had come from independent and absolutely 
 impartial sources. There is no question that in many 
 quarters the volume of 1830 had made a distinctly 
 favorable impression by its own merits. 
 
 None the less had personal considerations played a 
 great part in the most important notices which the 
 work had received. There is no question that in these 
 early years Tennyson was subjected to an undiscrimi- 
 nating approval and even gross flattery which, had it 
 been left unchecked, would have had a baleful effect 
 
228 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 upon the development of his poetic power. Up to this 
 time he had not produced a single piece of the highest 
 class. He had produced some which later he himself 
 came to look upon with distinct disfavor. There was a 
 great deal of promise in his work ; speaking compara- 
 tively, there was little of performance. Had Tenny- 
 son then died, the world would not only have remained 
 generally ignorant of his achievement, but many of the 
 few that had come to know it would have been dis- 
 posed to deny him the capability of accomplishing 
 anything that could be deemed worthy of much con- 
 sideration. But even at this early period his partisans 
 insisted that he had already accomplished great work. 
 All that was peculiar and sometimes highly ornate was 
 celebrated by them as evidence of a new and original 
 vein. All that was vague was held up as marking 
 depth of thought, as exhibiting penetration into the 
 mysterious recesses of the soul into which it was 
 granted to but few to enter. ''That these poems will 
 have a very rapid and extensive popularity we do not 
 anticipate," said 'The Westminster Review.' "Their 
 very originality "will prevent their being generally 
 appreciated for a time." Originality there certainly 
 w^as; but it was not that which stood in the way of 
 their reception. There was in truth a good deal in 
 these early poems to make a thoughtful critic hesitate. 
 With the possession of a vein of unmistakable genius 
 and perhaps great poetic power plainly indicated, 
 there was a certain proportion of magniloquence, a 
 pomp of language too exalted for the ideas it clothed. 
 There were passages of occasional mistiness, and 
 
CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S REVIEW 229 
 
 what was worse, there were at times prettinesses of 
 expression, a preciosity indeed which indicated that 
 the Tennyson of that day was approaching danger- 
 ously near the verge of namby-pambyism. 
 
 Even had there been no defects of this nature, it is 
 clear that the unmeasured laudation poured forth 
 upon Tennyson by his friends would be certain to meet 
 ^^^Lth protest. If Parnassus is to be taken by assault, 
 it must be by the poet in person. It cannot be done 
 by those who are fighting for him. They can aid ; but 
 they can never put him in possession. In this instance 
 the eagerness displayed by them to celebrate his 
 achievement did him actual though temporary harm. 
 The unwisdom of their course was pointed out at this 
 early period by Trench, though he was thinking rather 
 of the detriment "UTOught to the man himself than to 
 his reputation. In writing to a correspondent he 
 praised some of Charles Tennyson's poems. "I 
 think, ' ' he added, ' ' his brother may be a much greater 
 poet even than he is, but his friends at Cambridge will 
 materially injure him if he does not beware ; no young 
 man under any circumstances should believe he has 
 done anything, but still be forward looking."^ Un- 
 fortunately this was not the sentiment held by his 
 young admirers. Their overstrained enthusiasm in his 
 behalf was not only resented, it led to hostile demon- 
 stration. In the end this latter proved a distinct bene- 
 fit. From the harm which would have been wrought 
 by the indiscriminate adulation he was receiving, 
 
 1 Letter to W. B. Donne of June 23, 1830, in E. C. Trench's 'Letters 
 and Memorials,' Vol. I, p. 74. 
 
230 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 which sought to forestall public opinion and impose 
 upon it a poet almost without asking its consent, 
 Tennyson was saved by agencies which at the time he 
 undoubtedly looked upon with disfavor. 
 
 There was an ominous growl in what was on the 
 whole a fairly favorable reference to Tennyson which 
 appeared in the 'Noctes Ambrosianae' in 'Blackwood's 
 Magazine' for February, 1832. It followed one of 
 those periodic lamentations which came out then with 
 the regularity of the seasons about the decay that had 
 overtaken poetry. Christopher North is represented 
 as saying that he saw no new poets appearing above 
 the horizon. When he is asked if there are no 
 ''younkers," he replies: 
 
 ''A few — but equivocal. I have good hopes of 
 Alfred Tennyson. But the Cockneys are doing what 
 they may to spoil him — and if he suffers them to put 
 their bird-lime on his feet, he will stick all the days of 
 his life on hedgerows, or leap fluttering about the 
 bushes. I should be sorry for it — for though his wings 
 are far from being full-fledged, they promise now well 
 in the pinions — and I should not be surprised to see 
 him yet a sky-soarer. His 'Golden Days of good 
 Haroun Alraschid' are extremely beautiful. There is 
 feeling — and fancy — in his Oriana. He has a fine ear 
 for melody and harmony too — and rare and rich 
 glimpses of imagination. He has — genius." 
 
 To this statement his interlocutor replies, ''Affecta- 
 tions." 
 
 "Too many," North answers. "But I admire 
 Alfred — and hope — nay trust — that one day he will 
 
CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S REVIEW 231 
 
 prove himself a poet. If he do not — then am I no 
 prophet. ' ' 
 
 This is certainly mingling a good deal of praise with 
 a very little censure. It indicates, too, much greater 
 prescience than is ordinarily possessed by the astutest 
 of critics. But Wilson was as keenly alive to Tenny- 
 son's defects as he was to his merits. Still, about the 
 former he would probably have said little, had not 
 his wrath been aroused by the gross flattery which had 
 been heaped upon the poet under the guise of criticism. 
 In 'Blackwood's Magazine' for the following May he 
 returned to the author. It was the first attempt at a 
 discriminating examination of the poems which they 
 received; for Leigh Hunt's article, while condemning 
 some of his pieces, had raised Tennyson to a height 
 to which he had not as yet attained. Wilson's review, 
 on the contrary, was a careful effort to point out what 
 was good and what was bad in the work already accom- 
 plished. His criticism had of course the defects of its 
 writer 's virtues. It was marked by the contempt which 
 all of the Blackwood school of contributors felt or 
 professed to feel for the body of authors whom they 
 designated as Cockneys, and who had previously been 
 accused of doing what they could to spoil Tennyson. 
 Wilson naturally could not refrain from the accus- 
 tomed fling. '*We shall not define poetry," he said at 
 the beginning of his review, "because the Cockneys 
 have done so ; and were they to go to church, we should 
 be strongly tempted to break the Sabbath." 
 
 This feeling it was which led Wilson to attack the 
 praisers of Tennyson before he turned his attention 
 
232 LIFE AND TIMES OP TENNYSON 
 
 to the poet himself. He said nothing directly indeed 
 about Leigh Hunt, whom naturally he would regard as 
 the chief of the Cockney school. His reticence may 
 have been due to the fact that with one glaring excep- 
 tion the views of the London critic generally agreed 
 with his own. It was upon the review in the 'West- 
 minster' and upon Hallam's article in 'The English- 
 man's Magazine' that the weight of his invective 
 mainly fell. His notices of them were characterized by 
 that reckless rowdyism which was apt to be inter- 
 mingled with his most serious utterances. He set out 
 with, the declaration that the besetting sin of periodical 
 criticism was boundless extravagance of praise. None, 
 however, had been splashing it on like the trowel-men 
 who had been bedaubing Mr. Tennyson. Of him, he 
 said, the world knew yet little or nothing; but though 
 his friends called him a phcenix, he hoped that the poet 
 would not be dissatisfied if he designated him simply 
 as a swan. ''One of the saddest misfortunes," he 
 remarked, "that can befall a young poet, is to be the 
 Pet of a Coterie; and the very saddest of all, if in 
 Cockneydom. Such has been the unlucky lot of Alfred 
 Tennyson. He has been elevated to the throne of 
 Little Britain, and sonnets were showered over his 
 coronation from the most remote regions of his 
 empire, even from Hampstead Hill." 
 
 Before setting out to remove a good deal of the 
 plaster with which Tennyson had been bedaubed, Wil- 
 son felt it incumbent to express his contempt for the 
 plasterers. Of these Hallam was the first to fall under 
 his lash. He professed to believe that it was his article 
 
CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S REVIEW 233 
 
 which killed the magazine in which it appeared. * ' The 
 Englishman's Magazine," he wrote, ''ought not to 
 have died ; for it threatened to be a very pleasant peri- 
 odical. An Essay ' On the Genius of Alfred Tennyson ' 
 sent it to the grave. The superhuman — nay, super- 
 natural — pomposity of that one paper, incapacitated 
 the whole work for living one day longer in this uncere- 
 monious world. The solemnity with which the critic 
 approached the object of his adoration, and the sanc- 
 tity with which he laid his offerings on the shrine, were 
 too much for our irreligious age. The Essay 'On the 
 Genius of Alfred Tennyson,' awoke a general guffaw, 
 and it expired in con\nilsions. Yet the Essay was 
 exceedingly well-written — as well as if it had been ' On 
 the Genius of Sir Isaac Newton. ' Therein lay the mis- 
 take. Sir Isaac discovered the law of gravitation; 
 Alfred had but written some pretty verses, and man- 
 kind were not prepared to set him among the stars. 
 But that he has genius is proved by his being at this 
 moment alive ; for had he not, he must have breathed 
 his last under that critique. The spirit of life must 
 indeed be strong within him; for he has outlived a 
 narcotic dose administered to him by a crazy charlatan 
 in the Westminster, and after that he may sleep in 
 safety with a pan of charcoal. ' ' 
 
 Wilson now set out, as he said, to do justice to this 
 ingenious lad, as he termed Tennyson. His object was 
 to save him from his worst enemies, his friends. Praise 
 he should have, but not in lavish profusion. "Were we 
 not afraid," he wrote, "that our style might be 
 thought to wax too figurative, we should say that 
 
234 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 Alfred is a promising plant; and that the day may 
 come when, beneath sun and shower, his genius may 
 grow up and expand into a stately tree, embowering a 
 solemn shade within its wide circumference, while the 
 daylight lies gorgeously on its crest, seen from afar 
 in glory — ^itself a grove." But such a day would never 
 come, Wilson assured him, if he did not hearken to the 
 advice of his critic. ''We desire to see him prosper," 
 he remarked; "and we predict fame as the fruit of 
 obedience. If he disobey, he assuredly goes to obliv- 
 ion. ' ' In the spirit of the loving chastener he prefaced 
 his praise by a number of blows from the accompany- 
 ing crutch with which he was wont to deal out punish- 
 ment to those in need of correction. 
 
 Wilson first proceeded to point out poems in this 
 volume which struck him as failures. The list was a 
 fairly long one ; and it must be admitted that his stric- 
 tures were not distinguished by any restraint in the 
 use of vituperative epithets. The 'National Song' he 
 characterized as miserable, as also the 'English War 
 Song.' Both were fully entitled to the adjective. 'We 
 are Free' was drivel, 'Lost Hope' was more dismal 
 drivel. Even more dismal drivel still was 'Love, Pride, 
 and Forgetfulness. ' All these he accused of a painful 
 and impotent straining after originality, and aversion 
 from the straightforward and strong simplicity of 
 nature and truth. The sonnet beginning 'Shall the 
 Hag Evil die with child of Good' gave, he said, the 
 impression of being idiotic. The piece entitled 'The 
 Poet's Mind' was mostly silly, some of it prettyish, 
 scarcely one line of it all true poetry. 'The How 
 
CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S REVIEW 235 
 
 and the Why' was from beginning to end a clumsy 
 and unwieldy failure. The pervading characteristic of 
 'The Merman' was a distinguished silliness. The same 
 impression appears to have been created on the critic's 
 mind by 'The Mermaid' and 'The Sea-Fairies.' The 
 two pieces 'Nothing will Die' and 'All Things will 
 Die,' so highly praised in the 'Westminster,' were 
 only two feeble and fantastic strains. The poems on 
 the various members of the animal creation further 
 excited Wilson's wrath. 'The Djing Swan' he pro- 
 fessed himself unable to understand; but as he had 
 heard Hartley Coleridge praise the piece, he consented 
 to believe that the lines must be fine. As for 'The 
 Grasshopper,' Alfred was said to chirp and chirrup, 
 though with less meaning and more monotony, than a 
 cricket. The two songs to 'The Owl' next fell under 
 condenmation, and Wilson wound up his attack by 
 assailing 'The Kraken' which he regarded as incom- 
 prehensible. 
 
 It cannot justly be said that a tone of geniality per- 
 vades comment of this sort. Some of the extracts 
 given by Wilson — especially those which the writer 
 in the 'Westminster' had adduced as to the poet having 
 the secret of the transmigration of souls — had been 
 selected for censure not so much to express contempt 
 for them as for their critic. This reviewer Wilson 
 styled at various times and in various places in his 
 article on the poems as a crazy charlatan, a quack, a 
 speculative sumph — a Scotch word for 'dunce' — but 
 most frequently as the Young Tailor. One of the sen- 
 tences about him is worth quoting as a specimen of the 
 
236 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 chastened style of critical disapproval then in use, 
 especially among the contributors to 'Blackwood's 
 Magazine.' Wilson cited an extract from the article 
 of the reviewer he was attacking and then proceeded 
 to comment upon it after this fashion. ''We could 
 quote," he said, "another couple of critics" — he must 
 have meant Leigh Hunt and Hallam — "but as the 
 force of nature could no farther go, and as to make one 
 fool she joined the other two, we keep to the West- 
 minster. It is a perfect specimen of the super-hyper- 
 bolical ultra-extravagance of outrageous Cockney 
 eulogistic foolishness, vdth which not even a quantity 
 of common sense less than nothing has been suffered, 
 for an indivisible moment of time, to mingle ; the purest 
 mere matter of moonshine ever mouthed by an idiot- 
 lunatic, slavering in the palsied dotage of the extrem- 
 est superannuation ever inflicted on a being, long ago, 
 perhaps, in some slight respects and in low degrees 
 human, but now sensibly and audibly reduced below 
 the level of the Pongos." 
 
 This is a specimen of the art of criticism as prac- 
 tised in the first half of the nineteenth century by one 
 of its very foremost professors. But the vehemence 
 of the language, low as well as loud-mouthed as it fre- 
 quently is, must not prevent us from recognizing the 
 good sense that underlay many of the views expressed. 
 It would be besides a gross mistake to fancy that the 
 passages cited and opinions given furnish a true con- 
 ception of this noted article. There is this to be said 
 in the first place that in a number of instances the 
 whole or at least a large part of the piece condemned 
 
CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S REVIEW 237 
 
 was printed. The reader consequently, if lie had any 
 critical sense — which, to be sure, he usually has not — 
 was supplied with the means of forming his own 
 opinion. In the instance of * The Poet's Mind,' Wilson 
 said that as it had been admired by several, he quoted 
 it entire, so that if he were in error, the author would 
 triumph over the critic, and Christopher North stand 
 rebuked before the superior genius of Alfred Tenny- 
 ton. But, furthermore, while he gave up half of his 
 article to heaping abuse upon Tennyson's adulators 
 and upon a number of the poet's own productions, the 
 second half was wholly devoted to his praise. "Hav- 
 ing shown," said he, "by gentle chastisement that we 
 love Alfred Tennyson, let us now- show by judicious 
 eulogy that we admire him ; and, by well-chosen speci- 
 mens of his fine faculties, that he is worthy of our 
 admiration. ' ' 
 
 He carried out this intention fully. Wilson quoted 
 in most laudatory terms the part or more usually the 
 whole of several poems — the 'Ode to Memory,' 'The 
 Deserted House,' 'A Dirge,' 'Isabel,' 'Mariana,' 
 'Adeline,' 'The Sleeping Beauty,' 'Oriana,' and 
 'Recollections of the Arabian Nights.' It is a singu- 
 lar illustration of the different effect wrought upon two 
 persons, specially susceptible to poetic influences, that 
 this last-named poem, which Leigh Hunt had disposed 
 of so cavalierly, was reckoned by Wilson the highest 
 of all Tennyson's achievements. He printed it in full. 
 He further declared himself in love with all the poet's 
 maidens in addition to those already mentioned — with 
 Claribel and Lilian, with Hero and Almeida. Indeed, 
 
238 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 as he approached the conclusion he half apologized for 
 the pre\ious language of depreciation. He declared, 
 in correcting the critique for the press, he had come to 
 see that its whole merit, which was great, consisted in 
 the extracts. ''Perhaps," he said, ''in the first part 
 of our article, we may have exaggerated Mr. Tenny- 
 son's not unfrequent silliness, for we are apt to be 
 carried away by the whim of the moment, and in our 
 humorous moods, many things wear a queer look to 
 our aged eyes, which fill young pupils with tears ; but 
 we feel assured that in the second part we have not 
 exaggerated his strength — that we have done no more 
 than justice to his fine faculties — and that the millions 
 who delight in Maga will, with one voice, confirm our 
 judgment — that Alfred Tennyson is a poet." With 
 some further words of advice and warning ended an 
 article which was indirectly destined to have a marked 
 influence over Tennyson's literary fortunes during the 
 years immediately following. 
 
 Before taking up, as will be done in subsequent chap- 
 ters, the consideration of the part which this review 
 was incidentally to play in the history of Tennyson's 
 reputation, the question naturally arises: Can it be 
 deemed unfair? — unfair, of course, in what was said, 
 not in the way in which it was said. We know that 
 in the mind of the poet, mth his peculiar susceptibility 
 to critical censure, it awakened deep irritation. So it 
 did in the little circle which surrounded him. Hallam 
 was naturally indignant ; for the blow from the crutch 
 which Christopher North professed to wield, fell as 
 heavily upon him as upon the man he had praised — 
 
CHKISTOPHER NORTH'S REVIEW 239 
 
 in fact, more so. But he, as well as the other critics 
 singled out for disparagement, was wise enough to 
 keep silence. Not so, in this instance, was Tennyson. 
 His action was contrary to his usual custom. There 
 were two occasions in his life in which he allowed his 
 resentment to overcome his natural disposition. In 
 the one case he was fully justified in the reply he made 
 to an unprovoked attack; and his retort not merely 
 silenced his assailant, but prevented any further pub- 
 lic display of the antagonism which at heart he con- 
 tinued to feel. Yet even of this reply, fully warranted 
 as it was, Tennyson almost immediately repented. He 
 regretted its publication. But in the present instance 
 there was no real ground for the retort which he made 
 not hastily, but after fullest deliberation. Happy 
 would it have been for his peace of mind, happier still 
 for his immediate success, if he had left entirely to 
 others protest against the action taken by the critic. 
 
 For such protest there was. It came too from 
 sources outside of the circle of Tennyson's enthu- 
 siastic Cambridge friends. The boisterous character 
 of Wilson's article with its alternate contumelious 
 and commendatory utterances naturally attracted 
 attention everj^iere. 'The Spectator,' for instance, 
 in a review of the May magazines, spoke of this 
 particular article as the only one in the 'Blackwood' 
 of that month worth reading. It led the critic to 
 designate it as an extravaganza on account of the 
 alternate blame and praise it gave. "When Wilson 
 sits down to write," said 'The Spectator,' "the world 
 appears to him a mere game at nine-pins or perhaps 
 
240 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 he is the incarnation of the immortal Punch — he sets 
 all law at defiance, slaps, bangs, and stabs both 
 friends and foes, and all in the merest gayety of heart. 
 In the article we are speaking of, which is on the poems 
 of Alfred Tennyson (a young poet of genuine talent), 
 Mr. Wilson first sets to and abuses, with a charming 
 play of the imagination and an unsparing application 
 of slang, Mr. Tennyson and all his critics; he seems 
 animated with the bitterest contempt for the whole 
 party, and withheld no opprobrium; the poet's imbe- 
 cility is proved by extracts of every kind; and the 
 critics fall of course with the work they have praised. 
 When the unhappy bard is sufficiently bespattered — 
 after he has been laid prostrate, has been pommeled 
 and bruised, with all the means of annoyance that 
 science and bottom can apply to his discomfiture, — 
 the writer seems, not to repent of his work, but seized 
 with a sudden passion of setting up the idol he had 
 pulled down. The miserable spectacle of a poet is 
 raised on high ; although the dirt is not cleared away, 
 it is gilded over with praise as hearty as the abuse; 
 and the Ebonite retires with the satisfaction of having 
 both unmade and made a poet. This is the last trick 
 of our Periodical Punch; he is a fellow of infinite wit 
 and talent, but as to their employment he has never 
 yet been troubled with any conscientious scruples. ' " 
 
 In no brief time Tennyson came to have ample 
 reason for regretting the exhibition of the anger, 
 which, as we shall see, he was led to express. But was 
 there much real ground for dissatisfaction? That the 
 
 1' Spectator,' May 5, 1832, p. 424. 
 
CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S REVIEW 241 
 
 article was written, at least a good deal of it, in the 
 rough rollicking style which characterized the re\4ews 
 found in the 'Blackwood' of that early period, it is 
 needless to remark. That magazine did not always 
 treat with respect the writers it really reverenced. 
 No one was safe from its attacks. The foibles and 
 weaknesses of Wordsworth were at times mercilessly 
 pointed out in the periodical which had done most of 
 all to exalt him and to convert unpopularity or indif- 
 ference into partisanship. Naturally if Wordsworth 
 could not escape, there was little likelihood of a new- 
 comer being treated with excessive courtesy. In this 
 instance he was certainly not. Besides the direct 
 denuxLciation of particular pieces in the article, the 
 tone of patronage running through it was unquestion- 
 ably offensive. To a man who had already achieved 
 great reputation it would have been in the grossest 
 possible bad taste, though it is unnecessary to add that 
 this fact would not have prevented Wilson from 
 exhibiting it, if the whim had chanced to seize him. 
 But we have to bear in mind that Tennyson at that 
 time was scarcely known outside of a very limited 
 circle. Accordingly can the review as a whole be 
 deemed unfavorable? Against the unsparing con- 
 demnation of about half of the poems mentioned in it 
 and the tone of condescension which pervades all of it, 
 must be set the unstinted praise of particular pieces and 
 above everything else the ungrudging recognition 
 that at last had come a man who, if his powers were 
 developed along the right lines, would become a poet 
 whom the world would honor. 
 
242 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 Tennyson came to be almost universally recognized 
 by his contemporaries as the supreme poet of the 
 Victorian era — by nearly all of them, it may fairly be 
 added, whose opinions are entitled to much consid- 
 eration. Of course there was no time in his career 
 in which he was not to some extent the mark of hostile 
 criticism — coming too, though in a very few instances, 
 from men of recognized ability. That is an experience 
 which no man of genius has ever escaped or ever will 
 escape. But in general it may be confidently said that 
 the later attitude towards him of the cultivated public 
 was never seriously affected or his own reputation 
 shaken by the attacks of his depredators. This body 
 of censurers, too, was largely made up of broken- 
 winded poets and broken-down critics. Nor has this 
 estimate been really disturbed since his death, as the 
 steady sale of his works proves conclusively. Yet it 
 may also be said that to many of the warmest of his 
 later admirers, Wilson's review will seem — as regards 
 its matter, not its manner — to have erred on the side 
 of partiality. It is doubtless an unneeded proof of the 
 finer and keener critical sense of Christopher North 
 as compared with most modern students of literature, 
 that with all the knowledge we possess of what Tenny- 
 son was and actually accomplished, few there are who 
 would now be disposed to accredit him with genius 
 of a very high order on the strength of the poems 
 contained in the volume of 1830. 
 
 That the work in question displayed poetic ability 
 was certain. But there are many young writers who 
 display poetic ability who never reach the height of 
 
CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S REVIEW 243 
 
 poetic power. Nor will many modern readers share 
 in the intense admiration which Wilson bestowed upon 
 the Lilians, Claribels, Adelines, Isabels, and other 
 somewhat vague female characters which flit through 
 so many pages of Tennyson's early poetry. They 
 certainly disappeared in process of time from the view 
 of the general public. It is fairly safe to assert, with 
 little danger of the statement being successfully chal- 
 lenged, that were it not for his succeeding work, not 
 one educated man in ten thousand would know that 
 these fanciful beings had ever existed at all. They 
 were in a way attractive; but it was the novelty of 
 these characterizations that made them attractive, not 
 so much the characterizations themselves. Nor are 
 the w^armest admirers of the poet now likely to deny 
 that in the first volume were some dreadful things. 
 That Tennyson came to think so himself before the 
 review in 'Blackwood's Magazine' appeared, we know 
 from incontestable sources. These admissions ought 
 to be made here because the later attitude of Wilson 
 to the poet reveals him, as will be seen, as clearly in 
 the wrong as in this case he was in the right. 
 
 Before the publication of his next volume of verse 
 Tennyson was drawn into contributing to a number 
 of periodical publications then in much vogue. These 
 collectively were called the Annuals. During the 
 period of the poet's youth they occupied a conspicuous 
 though not an important place in the literature of the 
 transition period. Their full history has never been 
 written; by some, perhaps by many, it wiU not be 
 thought worth writing. Yet for the part they played 
 
244 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 in the literary activities of the second quarter of the 
 nineteenth century, for the number of great names 
 they enrolled in their list of contributors, but here, 
 in particular, for the connection, slight as it was, which 
 Tennyson had with them, a brief history of their origin 
 and character can hardly be deemed out of place. 
 Consequently before proceeding to the account of his 
 second poetical venture, the story of the Annuals and 
 of his contributions to them will form the subject of 
 the following chapter. In order to make this part 
 of the subject complete in itself, so far as he is con- 
 cerned, it will include the consideration of all the pieces 
 of his which appeared in publications of this nature 
 before the appearance of the 'Poems' of 1842. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 THE ANNUALS 
 
 Paet One 
 The Origin and History of the Annuals 
 
 In the history of literature, at least of modern liter- 
 ature, there appears at pretty regular intervals a 
 class of productions which strike the popular fancy 
 and meet for a while with phenomenal success. 
 Usually they are of the nature of periodical publica- 
 tions. As extent of circulation is the main object of 
 their promoters, with the pecuniary results that attend 
 it, the aim of these persons is to gain for their enter- 
 prise the benefit of great or at least well-known names. 
 They frequently secure the men; they rarely secure 
 the expected corresponding matter. One gets, in 
 truth, from examining most of this class of productions 
 the impression that there seems to be among the best 
 authors, who contribute to them, a real, though 
 unavowed, determination to do their worst; to see 
 just how badly they can write ; as if periodical publi- 
 cations of this kind had been set up mainly for the 
 purpose of carrying off the literary refuse which had 
 been stored away in the garrets of the great; or 
 perhaps for offering a safe means for the expulsion 
 
246 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 of certain noxious intellectual humors wliich had been 
 fermenting in their brains. 
 
 Students of literary history can call to mind the 
 existence at various periods of several sorts of publi- 
 cations which fulfilled the functions just described. 
 The work they are wont to accomplish was performed 
 in the second quarter of the nineteenth century by 
 what were then called the Annuals. Their origin 
 belongs to the early part of the third decade. In the 
 London papers of November and December, 1822, 
 appears an advertisement inserted by Rudolph Acker- 
 mann, a fine-art publisher, who was well and widely 
 known for the illustrated books and periodicals he 
 was in the habit of bringing out. It ran to this effect : 
 <' Forget Me Not; or Annual Pocket Chronicle, to serve 
 as a token of Friendship and Affection at the approach- 
 ing season; with thirteen highly-finished engravings 
 by Agar; containing interesting Tales, Poetry, a 
 Chronicle of Eemarkable Events, a Genealogy of the 
 Reigning Sovereigns and their Families, a list of the 
 Ambassadors at the different courts, and a variety 
 of other useful articles of reference." Then followed 
 the description and price of the volume. 
 
 This book, bearing the date of 1823, was the pioneer 
 of the publications specifically styled the Annuals. 
 These for the next twenty years occupied a con- 
 spicuous if not an important position in the literature 
 of the times. They did not die out entirely till more 
 than thirty years had gone by. As will be inferred 
 from the advertisement, the volume was originally 
 planned for people of diverse tastes. It had engrav- 
 
ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE ANNUALS 247 
 
 ings for those who thought themselves fond of the fine 
 arts. It had poetry and fiction for those who consid- 
 ered themselves lovers of literature. Besides all this 
 it appealed to that thirst for useful information which 
 is supposed to spring perennial in the human heart. 
 It furnished a collection of facts, especially about the 
 courts of Europe, their rulers and the diplomatic 
 bodies connected with them, which, it was assumed, 
 would make it of especial value for consultation and 
 reference. For those^, too, who were fond of statistics 
 the population of the principal cities of the globe was 
 given. 
 
 The venture must have been successful. Not only 
 did a second volume come from the same publishing 
 house at the end of the following year, but another 
 work of a similar character was brought out by a 
 London bookseller, named Lupton Relfe. Its title was 
 * Friendship 's Offering, or the Annual Remembrancer. ' 
 This was described in the advertisement which ap- 
 peared towards the end of 1823 as a Christmas 
 Present and a New Year's Gift for the year 1824. 
 ''This little volume," it added, ''in addition to the 
 usual pocket-book information, contains a series of 
 highly finished continental views by artists of the first 
 eminence, two very splendid emblazoned title-pages, 
 a presentation plate and other embellishments. It 
 contains also a new Tale of Temper, several original 
 poems by Mrs. Opie, songs, quadrilles. Intended to 
 imitate the long and highly celebrated continental 
 pocket-books. ' ' 
 
 These two works— 'The Forget Me Not' for 1823 
 
248 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 and for 1824, and ^Friendship's Offering' for 1824^ 
 are the Annuals in their first stage. As has been seen, 
 they were avowedly imitated from the Almanachs and 
 Taschenbuchs which had long been in use in Germany. 
 They contained a certain portion of purely literary 
 matter with a sprinkling of historical and statistical. 
 Their aim consequently was to appeal on the one side 
 to the lovers of fashion and amusement, on the other 
 to those in pursuit of useful knowledge. The two aims 
 are not absolutely incompatible, but experience has 
 demonstrated that from a business point of view they 
 ordinarily succeed best when prosecuted separately. 
 This fact had not escaped the attention of a man of 
 letters who had the peculiar gifts which fitted him 
 to gain distinction in the management of undertakings 
 of this kind. The person alluded to was Alaric 
 Alexander Watts, who in contemporary literature had 
 the Hunnish Attila frequently added to his Gothic 
 personal name, in place of the Alexander, with v/hich 
 he had been baptized. In 1824 he was successful in 
 persuading the publishing house of Hurst and Robin- 
 son to engage in the production of a literary and 
 artistic miscellany on certain lines which he had 
 marked out. These were distinctly different from 
 what had prevailed before. Accordingly in November, 
 
 1824, came out under his editorship 'The Literary 
 Souvenir, or Cabinet of Poetry and Romance' for 
 
 1825. This new venture discarded everything entirely 
 which partook of a temporary nature. It contained 
 nothing in the shape of useful information. It pan- 
 dered to no diseased appetite for statistics. It even 
 
ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE ANNUALS 249 
 
 abolished the almanac. It based its claim to favor 
 largely upon the contributions of as many of the most 
 famous writers of the day as could be obtained, but 
 also upon embellishments by well-known engravers. 
 On this latter feature special stress was laid. 
 
 The undertaking was looked upon by those concerned 
 in it as an experiment. But in that condition it did not 
 remain long. Even before its publication its success 
 had become assured in the minds of both projector 
 and publisher. At first it was thought that as many 
 as 2,000 copies could be printed with safety. Then 
 the number fixed upon rose successively to 3,000, to 
 4,000, to 5,000 copies, and finally settled upon 6,000. 
 The book had not been out two weeks before the pub- 
 lisher sent to the projector an exulting psean on its 
 triumph, and the failure of envious rivals to retard 
 its majestic march to supremacy. He made no secret 
 of the serene satisfaction he felt in contemplation of 
 the noble motives which animated his own course — 
 emotions which are apt to sway the minds of men 
 when things are moving in a way to suit themselves. 
 *'We are going on gloriously," wrote Robinson to 
 Watts, "with the * Literary Souvenir'; and altogether 
 living above the malice of our enemies; and enjoy in 
 our own breasts nobler feelings, pursuing the direct 
 course of business, disregarding all tricks, and selling 
 more books than they! You may rely upon it, next 
 year we will sell ten thousand copies." 
 
 The success of the new publication was so pro- 
 nounced that there was nothing for the rival firms to 
 do but to follow in the path which 'The Literary 
 
250 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 Souvenir' had marked out. It further led to the 
 setting on foot of numerous undertakings of a similar 
 character. There sprang up in consequence a mush- 
 room growth of these publications which threatened 
 to destroy the prosperity of all by reducing the profits 
 of each to an inadequate amount. Their common aim 
 was to secure the finest engravings for the embellish- 
 ment of the volume in question and to enroll the most 
 celebrated names among their contributors. For a 
 while, their increasing number did not interfere with 
 their success. Towards the end of the third decade 
 of the century the struggle between the various sorts 
 of these publications already established and the new 
 ones constantly projected may fairly be described as 
 fierce. Annuals were devised to meet the tastes, the 
 feelings, and the prejudices of particular classes. If 
 one succeeded, an imitation of it was sure to follow. 
 For instance, 'The Amulet,' founded by Samuel Carter 
 Hall, came out in 1826, with an avowed appeal for 
 support to the religious community. This was plainly 
 indicated by its sub-title of 'Christian and Literary 
 Remembrancer.' As might be expected, a similar 
 publication called ' The Iris ' soon made its appearance. 
 In truth, it was not long before Annuals came into 
 existence which touched upon every subject in which 
 the human mind is, or appears to be, interested. 
 There were geographical Annuals; there were mis- 
 sionary Annuals; there were biblical Annuals; there 
 were botanical Annuals; there were musical Annuals, 
 and inevitably a number of comic Annuals, of which 
 Hood's was the most successful, and retains even to 
 
ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE ANNUALS 251 
 
 this day something of the original reputation it then 
 acquired. Appeals were made also to local and 
 national feeling. There were provincial Annuals; 
 there were English Annuals; there were Scottish 
 Annuals; there were British Annuals. It was about 
 the beginning of the fourth decade that publications 
 of this nature showed the most distinct tendency to 
 specialize. This was particularly true of those of 
 them in which the pictorial was designedly made the 
 main attraction. Of this class, there sprang up among 
 others oriental Annuals, landscape Annuals, conti- 
 nental Annuals. These finally reached their culmina- 
 tion in such publications as 'The Book of Beauty' 
 and 'Finden's Drawing Room Scrapbook.' There 
 were other classes besides. As early as 1829, juvenile 
 Annuals appeared on the scene and for several 
 years maintained themselves successfully. Even 
 infant Annuals were brought out. Furthermore, an 
 Annual — 'Le Keepsake Frangais' — appeared in the 
 French tongue. It was published both at Paris and 
 London, but it is from the latter place that the 
 inspiration for its existence manifestly came. On the 
 list of its contributors appear the names of some of 
 the most eminent Frenchmen of letters. For instance, 
 in its second volume — that for 1831 — are to be found 
 articles by Beranger, Chateaubriand, Dumas, Merimee, 
 Victor Hugo, Lamartine, Sainte-Beuve. 
 
 The most serious rival of the original Annuals was 
 * The Keepsake, ' undertaken by Charles Heath, a noted 
 engraver of the time. It first appeared towards the 
 end of 1826. From the outset this publication was 
 
252 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 remarkable in several ways, and later it became even 
 more so. It was projected on a much more elaborate 
 and expensive scale than any of the Annuals which 
 had preceded it. Against the dozen or so of engrav- 
 ings furnished by its predecessors, it contained twenty- 
 one. It was sold for a guinea while their price had 
 been but twelve shillings. Much money was spent on 
 the illustrations ; some even of the smaller plates cost 
 from a hundred to a hundred and fifty guineas. The 
 contributors to the first volume of this Annual were 
 anonymous, but the engravings had made the work 
 so successful that in the volumes succeeding the initial 
 one of 1827, names were attached. The work became 
 particularly noted for its list of titled contributors, 
 the nobles, the honorables and the right honorables, 
 both men and women. In consequence it speedily 
 assumed a specially aristocratic and exclusive char- 
 acter, the rank of the writer frequently supplying the 
 lack of merit in the writing. This distinguishing trait 
 was remarked as early as the volume for 1832. ' ' The 
 Keepsake," said 'The Literary Gazette' of October 1, 
 1831, **has the most aristocratic list of contributors — 
 there are very few common names. ' ' 
 
 It was of course impossible that all of these publi- 
 cations could continue to flourish in the intense 
 competition that was going on. Several of them died 
 with the year of their birth. Three or four years was 
 the utmost life to which several others attained. Nor 
 was it a long time before they had all entered upon 
 the downward road. A change had taken place in the 
 public taste. Accordingly they began to fall into 
 
ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE ANNUALS 253 
 
 positive disrepute. ''Wliat a few years since," said 
 the preface to the 'Forget Me Not' of 1837, ''it was 
 the fashion to commend and extol, it appears now to 
 be the fashion to sneer at and decry." Their down- 
 ward course was still further noted in the volume for 
 1842 of the same publication. "Certain it is," said 
 the editor, ' ' that the Annuals, from especial favourites 
 of the public, have come to be regarded almost with 
 indifference. ' ' To the observant it was plainly evident 
 that their career was practically closed. Several of 
 them continued to exist much later, and occasionally, 
 a new one was projected. But it had become manifest 
 that the disappearance of all was merely a question of 
 time. 'The Forget Me Not,' the original publication 
 of this class, was discontinued with the volume for 
 1848: its earliest competitor, 'Friendship's Offering,' 
 had died four years before. They dropped out one 
 by one in the fourth and fifth decades of the century, 
 though they continued to survive till the sixth decade. 
 The final volume of ' The Keepsake, ' for instance, was 
 that for 1857. 
 
 During the heyday of their popularity, however, 
 no fear was entertained of their ultimate failure. 
 The main purpose they served was that of supplying 
 Christmas and New Year's gifts. If Emerson's view 
 be correct that things useful are not best fitted for 
 such purposes, the Annuals approached as near his 
 ideal as anything that could have been devised. As 
 the custom of making presents was never likely to die 
 out, it did not occur to the projectors of these volumes 
 that the desire for them would ever disappear. This 
 
254 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 object, wliile the scheme was novel, they admirably 
 fulfilled. In fact, they practically supplanted all other 
 gifts of books and to some extent gifts of any sort. 
 Southey, who was always fertile in devising reasons 
 why his poetry did not sell save the obvious one that 
 people did not care to read it, naturally recognized in 
 these volumes a new obstacle to the circulation of his 
 ovra. works. He gave it as an explanation to his friend 
 Grosvenor Bedford. '*The Annuals," he wrote to 
 him in December, 1828, "are now the only books 
 bought for presents to young ladies, in which way 
 poems formerly had their chief vent." The same 
 sentiments he repeated the follomng March in a letter 
 to Ticknor. ''With us," he wrote, "no poetry now 
 obtains circulation except what is in the Annuals; 
 these are the only books which are purchased for 
 presents, and the chief sale which poetry used to have 
 was of this kind." 
 
 There is no question indeed that for a while the 
 number disposed of for this purpose was very large. 
 They not only drove almost all other gift books out 
 of the market for the holidays, but they also came 
 to be used as birthday presents. Hence their sale 
 continued to some extent the whole year round. 
 Accordingly, it was natural, as already intimated, that 
 during this time of their popularity their promoters 
 should indulge the highest hopes of their continued 
 success and be ready to pay enormous sums in expec- 
 tation of it. "The world (bookselling world)," wrote 
 Scott to Lockhart in February, 1828, "seem mad 
 about 'Forget-me-nots' and Christmas boxes. Here 
 
ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE ANNUALS 255 
 
 has been Heath the artist offering me £800 per annum 
 to take charge of such a concern, which I declined, of 
 course.'" In this same month Southey wrote that 
 Heath had been to see him to ask for a contribution 
 to the 'Keepsake.'- He had told him, Southey says, 
 that fifteen thousand copies had been sold the year 
 before and that for the following year four thousand 
 yards of red watered silk had been bespoken for 
 binding. It is well to remark here that no sooner was 
 the volume for one year out than the work of preparing 
 for that of the following year began. 
 
 No one who examines carefully these publications 
 and studies their history can fail to note certain points 
 as being especially characteristic of all. Between the 
 rival promoters there existed keen emulation as to the 
 number of authors of repute they could secure as 
 contributors. Naturally their attention was directed 
 at first to the highest names. But just as naturally 
 these were few. Furthermore, they were difificult to 
 get, and as time went on they came to be expensive 
 when got. Like most publishers they preferred articles 
 they did not have to pay for. To some extent they 
 succeeded, especially at the outset. They searched 
 accordingly the whole literary world for contributors. 
 Scarcely any writer, who had even the smallest body 
 of adherents or imitators, was overlooked. No aspir- 
 ant who gave the slightest promise of future fame 
 was frowned upon. Men prominent in the political 
 and social world were cordially welcomed. The 
 
 lA. Lang's 'Lockhart,' Vol. II, p. 22. 
 
 2 ' Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, ' 1850, Vol. V, p. 322. 
 
256 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 conductors of these publications were in fact looking 
 for both old and new names with all the earnestness 
 which characterizes, or at least is said by themselves 
 to characterize, magazine editors of the present day. 
 The consequence was that any one who had the 
 slightest pretension to be regarded as occupying the 
 pettiest of positions in the world of letters was sure 
 to be asked to become a contributor. 
 
 Nobody, in fact, could escape, however much he tried. 
 Youth was pressed into service and age was not 
 exempt. Even Hannah More, who was past fourscore 
 and had lived long enough to survive her reputation, 
 was resurrected. Writings were imported from 
 America, where as a matter of course the fashion 
 had been imitated. Here the engravings were dis- 
 tinctly inferior; and hard as it may seem to have 
 attained that result, the literary matter was even more 
 vapid. Many American authors appear, however, in 
 the English publications. Irving, it was natural, 
 would be secured. The names of Bryant, Whittier, 
 N. P. Willis, and Willis Gaylord Clark are found in 
 volumes of 'The Literary Souvenir.' A prose piece 
 of Hawthorne's, entitled 'Uttoxeter,' appeared in 
 'The Keepsake' for 1857. 'The Forget Me Not' for 
 1839 informs us in the preface that it would be seen 
 "that the fair American contributors whom we last 
 year introduced to our readers have again favoured 
 us with productions of their accomplished minds." 
 These fair American contributors were Mrs. Sigourney 
 and Miss Hannah Flagg Gould. These names are 
 mentioned here not even for the languid interest they 
 
ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE ANNUALS 257 
 
 now excite in us, but for the fact of tlieir appearing 
 at all. Their inclusion is merely indicative of the 
 efforts put forth to secure contributors from every 
 quarter. 
 
 In truth, the wide-embracing maelstrom swept into 
 its vortex the greatest and the poorest authors. The 
 compositions of statesmen, divines, and critics, the 
 unpublished writings of the dead, the hasty effusions 
 of the li^dng never designed to be printed — all these 
 were eagerly searched for and seized upon. Hardly 
 a writer escaped from contributing, no matter what 
 his opinion of the works themselves. For a while 
 Wordsworth held out. He wrote to a personal friend, 
 who was an editor of one of the Annuals, that he had 
 laid down for himself a general rule not to contribute 
 to these publications. But later the price offered 
 seems to have been too much for his literary austerity ; 
 at least no other reason for his change of view is 
 apparent. Generally, however, contributions were 
 secured, wherever possible, without payment. At 
 least no payment was made where at times it was 
 manifestly expected. Charles Lamb was one of the 
 sufferers of this sort. No one had a greater contempt 
 than he for these ''combinations of show and empti- 
 ness,"^ as he designated this class of publications. 
 His feelings about them had been naturally aggra- 
 vated by their failure to pay for his contributions. 
 "Do not let me be pester 'd mth Annuals," he wrote 
 to Bernard Barton in August, 1830. ''They are all 
 rogues who edit them, and something else who write 
 
 1 Letter to Bernard Barton, October 11, 1828. 
 
258 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 in them. ' ' He spoke from experience ; for he had been 
 inveigled into enrolling himself in the class of fools 
 in spite of his assertion that the sight of one of these 
 year-books made him sick. ''I have stood off a long 
 time from these Annuals, which are ostentatious 
 trumpery," he had written to Barton in 1827; but 
 he had finally been obliged to succumb at the urgent 
 request of a friend. A little later he bore witness to 
 their success in gaining the highest names. *' Words- 
 worth, I see," he wrote in 1828, ''has a good many 
 pieces announced in one of 'em. . . . W. Scott has dis- 
 tributed himself like a bribe haunch among 'em. Of 
 all the poets, Gary has had the good sense to keep 
 quite clear of 'em, with clergy-gentlemanly right 
 notions. . . . Coleridge . . . too is deep among the 
 prophets, the year-servers, — the mob of gentlemen 
 Annuals. But they'll cheat him, I know."^ 
 
 But after all, the body of writers, be it great or small, 
 is limited. This fact brings us to the consideration of 
 another point. It soon came to be noticed that the 
 same names appeared year after year as contributors 
 to the same Annuals. Landor, Disraeli, and Bulwer, 
 for instance, could be regularly found among the 
 authors of the articles contained in Heath's 'Book of 
 Beauty.' But even more noticeable is the extent to 
 which the same names appear during the same year 
 as contributors to different Annuals. There was 
 naturally a desire on the part of some of the publishers 
 to secure for themselves certain authors and a refusal 
 on the part of these to write for others. In their view 
 
 1 Letter to Barton, October 11, 1828. 
 
ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE ANNUALS 259 
 
 it was a case where silence was golden. On account 
 of the keenness of the competition, however, this was 
 by no means easy to carry into execution. Further- 
 more, it was pecuniarily burdensome. Accordingly 
 when it did happen, it was due more to the indolence 
 of the writer than to the enterprise or willing expendi- 
 ture of the publisher. The consequence was that a 
 somewhat monotonous list of names turns up with 
 almost unfailing regularity in these publications. 
 Campbell, Montgomery, William Lisle Bowles, Mil- 
 man, Allan Cunningham, Southey, Hogg, Barry 
 Cornwall, Horace Smith, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, 
 Mrs. Hemans, Miss Mitford, came upon the scene 
 everywhere. These are but a few taken at random 
 from the number of those who might be mentioned. 
 
 Less frequently met with are other names in dif- 
 ferent Annuals, but they are far from infrequent in 
 some one or two. This is true in particular of writers 
 like Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, Moore, Rogers, 
 Mackintosh, Lockhart, Bulwer, Disraeli, Landor, Car- 
 lyle, and Miss Barrett, to mention a few. But the 
 general truth is that the greater the number of con- 
 tributors he raked together, the prouder was the pro- 
 jector and the more confident was his appeal to the 
 public. Ackermann prefixed to 'The Forget Me Not' 
 for 1831 a poem entitled 'An Incantation.' It was 
 designed to celebrate the glories of what had been 
 accomplished in the realms of art and literature in the 
 Annual for that year. It was in this way he signalized 
 his poetical contributors and justified the demand he 
 made upon the public for its support: 
 
260 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 Croly shall our page inspire 
 
 With his grandeur, strength, and fire; 
 
 And Montgomery's holy strain 
 
 Win back earth to heaven again. 
 
 Here with Campbell's taste is blent 
 
 Delta's heart-felt sentiment; 
 
 Here is Landon 's sweetness stealing ; 
 
 Here is Hemans ' depth and feeling ; 
 
 Here is Cornwall's manly mind, 
 
 . . . not to tell of hosts behind. 
 
 The publisher unquestionably felt that it would require 
 peculiar hardness of heart on the part of the purchaser 
 to resist so stirring an appeal to his higher nature. 
 
 It is clear indeed that one of the causes which led 
 to the disrepute into which the Annuals fell was the 
 too frequent recurrence of the same names. The usual 
 contributors soon became too usual to suit the taste 
 of the public. Complaints on this score, if not then 
 loudly expressed, were very plainly implied. But 
 there was a further justification of this fickleness of 
 public opinion. It was an unfortunate but it was none 
 the less a distressingly manifest fact that the majority 
 of contributors seem to have labored to do their 
 poorest. In the case of some of them, to be sure, there 
 was no necessity for any particular exertion in that 
 direction. But poorness of work was often charac- 
 teristic of articles which were the production of the 
 greatest authors. The array of names was splendid; 
 but to that adjective the contributions were not 
 entitled. This state of things began to be noticed 
 early. 
 
ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE ANNUALS 261 
 
 The degeneration in the character of the poetry in 
 particular speedily attracted general attention. It 
 was admitted even by the projectors of these works, 
 especially by those of them who had not always been 
 successful in securing the most eminent authors. "It 
 has been justly observed," said the editor of 'The 
 Forget Me Not' for 1830, ''in regard to the contri- 
 butions of persons of the highest literary repute to 
 works of this class, that the merit of such contributions 
 has generally been in an inverse ratio to the fame of 
 the writers." The poorness of the contributions in 
 verse, as contrasted even with those in prose, speedily 
 became one of the most distinct impressions made upon 
 the minds of readers. As early as 1829 one of the 
 reviewers of the Annuals drily remarked that Helicon 
 was running low that year. It must not indeed be 
 inferred that these publications did not contain pieces 
 that were of permanent value from the point of view 
 of literature pure and simple. In fact, some of the 
 best or at least the best-known poems of certain 
 authors made in them their first appearance. In 
 'The Gem' for 1829 appeared, for instance. Hood's 
 'Dream of Eugene Aram,' and Lord Houghton's 
 song of 'I wandered by the Brookside' came out in 
 'The Book of Beauty' for 1839. Still the occurrence 
 of fine poetical compositions in these publications is 
 exceptional. It may be added that in 'Friendship's 
 Offering' appeared more than a score of Ruskin's 
 poems, though this fact is more interesting to bibliog- 
 raphers than to lovers of poetry. 
 
 In truth, as time went on, one of the most noticeable 
 
262 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 features connected with the Annuals was the poorness 
 of their literary matter. Such a result was inevitable. 
 Alaric Watts, in setting the fashion which the Annuals 
 came to assume, had taken the step he did because he 
 was convinced that a book of entertainment and a 
 book of reference could not be joined in a publication 
 of this sort with much success as a business invest- 
 ment or as an artistic venture. It was now to be 
 demonstrated that literature and pictures could not 
 be united in the same publication without one yielding 
 the precedence to the other. The result was in the air 
 from the beginning. From the very outset the work 
 of the engraver had been of more importance than 
 that of the writer. The picture was not so much 
 designed to illustrate the letter-press as the letter- 
 press was prepared to illustrate the picture. There 
 is one of Thackeray's novels which gives a very vivid 
 view in many ways of the literary decade from 1830 
 to 1840. Its readers will remember that the Honorable 
 Percy Popjoy 's contribution describing the view of a 
 lady entering a church was a little too bad to be 
 endured in spite of its aristocratic origin. Pendennis 
 accordingly supplies its place by writing the well- 
 known poem entitled 'The Church Porch.' 
 
 Rarely was it the case, if ever so, in which the place 
 was so well supplied as in this imaginary instance. 
 The articles of the Percy Popjoys are the articles 
 that are pretty uniformly found in the Annuals. The 
 picture might or might not be good; but the text 
 written to illustrate it was fairly certain to be poor. 
 The history of these publications shows in spite of 
 
ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE ANNUALS 263 
 
 occasional exceptions a steady tendency towards 
 degeneration in the literary matter they contain. 
 The two things were in a measure incompatible. 
 Scott ^vith his practical sense saw this plainly. When 
 the editorship of 'The Keepsake' was offered to him, 
 he gave to the projector a perfectly clear reason why 
 nothing could be gained by the union of two things 
 which had little in common. ''I pointed out to Mr. 
 Heath," he wrote, ''that having already the supe- 
 riority in point of art, I saw no great object could be 
 obtained by being at great expense to obtain as great 
 superiority in literature, because two candles do not 
 give t^^ice as much light as one, though they cost 
 double price." The advice too was sound for another 
 reason. The Muses, as daughters of the same parents, 
 have doubtless a good deal of family affection among 
 themselves; but after all they are women, and natu- 
 rally and justly tolerate unwillingly a di\dded alle- 
 giance. Each one is inclined to be jealous of the others, 
 and is not apt to bestow her full favor upon him who 
 wavers in his devotion between her and one of her 
 sisters. Literature in particular is a jealous mistress 
 of the mind. The moment her art is subordinated to 
 that of another, whether it be music or painting, she 
 is apt to become ungracious. 
 
 In fact, it may be doubted if the commercial spirit 
 which was at the bottom of these ventures was itself 
 favorable to art, even though it purported to make art 
 the supreme object. Popularity must be secured no 
 matter how much truth might be defied. Nothing 
 therefore must be done which would stand in the way 
 
264 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 of a large sale. William Bell Scott tells us how one 
 day he called upon Kenny Meadows who painted the 
 water-color heads for Heath's Annuals. He found 
 him contemplating in a meditative way two drawings 
 on his easel representing Mrs. Page and Anne Page. 
 ''What do you think of these now as a pair — mother 
 and daughter?" he asked of his visitor. Scott of 
 course did the only safe thing in giving them praise. 
 "Well," rejoined Meadows, "I have shown them to 
 Heath, and he insists on Mrs. Page being as young as 
 her child! I objected, for many reasons," continued 
 the artist, though to men generally one alone would 
 have seemed all-sufficient. ''Oh," replied Heath to 
 Meadows 's remonstrance, "I don't care about her 
 maternity, or Shakespeare, or anything else. You 
 must not make her more than twenty, or nobody wiU 
 buy! If you won't, I must get Frank Stone to do her 
 instead. All Frank Stone's beauties are nineteen 
 exactly, and that's the age for me!'" 
 
 1 William Bell Scott's 'Autobiographical Notes,' Vol. I, p. 114. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 THE ANNUALS 
 
 Part Two 
 Tennyson's Contributions to the Annuals 
 
 Tennyson, as the man whom the little knot of 
 Cambridge enthusiasts looked upon as the poet of the 
 future, was not likely to be neglected by the editors 
 of the Annuals. Accordingly in the very same year 
 which witnessed the publication of his earliest inde- 
 pendent book of verse, three poems of his came out 
 in 'The Gem.' This was an Annual which had origi- 
 nally made its apj^earance towards the end of 1828. 
 Its first volume was under the editorship of Hood, 
 though he retained that position only a year. Tenny- 
 son's contributions appeared in the volume for 1831, 
 and were of course published in the autumn of 1830. 
 They were entitled, respectively, *No More,' 'Anacre- 
 ontics, ' and 'A Fragment. ' It cannot be said that there 
 is anything remarkable or particularly promising in 
 any one of the three. The first leaves on the mind 
 the impression that the author is trying to say some- 
 thing which it is beyond his power to express. The 
 sense of inadequacy is made perhaps unduly apparent 
 because both poem and subject inevitably suggest the 
 
266 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 unrhyined song in 'The Princess,' usually entitled, 
 when separated from its context, 'The Days that are 
 no more ' ; and that is one of the few pieces which have 
 reached the high-water mark of lyrical achievement 
 in our tongue. 'Anacreontics' again is very ordinary. 
 The third and longest contribution is the best of all, 
 but it cannot be justly spoken of as in itself specially 
 distinctive, still less distinguished. It is written how- 
 ever in blank verse, and displays fully the character- 
 istics of that measure as it was to be exemplified in 
 the poet's later work. 
 
 Three sonnets of Tennyson also made their appear- 
 ance in these Annuals. One of them, 'Check every 
 outburst, every ruder sally,' was originally published 
 in August, 1831, in the short-lived 'Englishman's 
 Magazine. ' As that periodical died two months after- 
 ward, and never had a large circulation, some of the 
 pieces which had been published in it were republished 
 in 'Friendship's OjEfering' for 1833. Among them was 
 this poem. The year before another sonnet had 
 appeared in one of these publications, entitled 'The 
 Yorkshire Literary Annual.' This particular volume 
 seems to have been designed to appeal to the inhabi- 
 tants of the North of England. It was dedicated to 
 Lord Morpeth, who contributed an opening poetical 
 address celebrating the merits of Yorkshire. The 
 work, according to the editor's introduction, was 
 intended "to aiford amusement for the leisure hour, 
 and to promote the hilarity of the winter's evening, 
 by a diversity of subject; and to dispose it in such a 
 manner as to form a combination at once pleasing to 
 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ANNUALS 267 
 
 the eye, and gratifying to the taste." The result 
 hardly answered to the lofty language of the preface, 
 and this particular Annual never appeared again. 
 Tennyson 's contribution began with the words : 
 
 There are three things which fill my heart with sighs. 
 
 It was apparently an outcome of his summer trip to 
 the Pyrenees in 1830. It purports to be inspired by 
 a maiden whom he had seen of late. 
 
 In old Bayona nigh the Southern sea. 
 
 It may be added that this Annual contained also a 
 sonnet by Edward Tennyson, the brother next in age 
 to the poet. Finally another sonnet beginning 
 
 Me my own fate to lasting sorrow doometh 
 
 appeared in 'Friendship's Offering' for 1832. None 
 of all these contributions just mentioned were included 
 by him in the editions of his poems which appeared 
 either in 1832 or in 1842. They did not deserve to be. 
 These just-mentioned contributions to the Annuals 
 made up everything which Tennyson published inde- 
 pendently after the volume of 1830, and before the 
 appearance of the volume of 1832. In them he had 
 remained faithful, even if unconsciously, to the un- 
 written but understood rule which proscribed distin- 
 guished merit to anything which appeared in the 
 columns of these publications. Yet the same critical 
 admiration on the part of his Cambridge friends which 
 greeted all his efforts, waited also upon these produc- 
 
268 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 tions. Milnes, who was travelling at the time upon 
 the Continent, wrote to his father to send him 'The 
 Gem.' The request evidently surprised the parent, 
 though he forwarded him the desired volume. ''If 
 you had only looked at the Gem," the son wrote in 
 reply from Venice in March, 1831, "you would have 
 seen that I only sent for it, because it contained some 
 of Tennyson's finest poetry." It would have been a 
 pretty poor outlook for his permanent reputation, had 
 this estimate been true. The opinion of disinterested 
 or indifferent readers was by no means so favorable. 
 The only notice of his contributions which appears 
 in any prominent critical journal can hardly be deemed 
 enthusiastic. In fact, Tennyson had already begun to 
 get a faint foretaste of the hostile criticism which was 
 to teach him the folly of expecting to have reputation 
 conferred upon him either by the agency of personal 
 friends or of professional reviewers. 'The Gem' was 
 noticed in ' The Literary Gazette ' for October 16, 1830. 
 It praised the volume highly and made a number of 
 extracts. But to the three pieces for which this 
 Annual for that year is now chiefly valued — not, to be 
 sure, for their worth, but for the fact of their exist- 
 ence in it — the following contemptuous comment was 
 accorded. "To Mr. Tennyson's poems," remarked the 
 critic, "we can only say, in the words of Shakespeare, 
 'They are silly, sooth.' " The punctuation of the 
 quotation, whether intentional or not, is the reviewer 's 
 own. 
 
 But if none of these early contributions to the 
 Annuals had particular merit, no such criticism can be 
 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ANNUALS 269 
 
 passed on the two poems which are the only pieces of 
 his which broke the ten years' silence that followed 
 the publication of the volume of 1832. For the sake 
 of completing the subject these are to be considered 
 here. During the four years which followed his second 
 venture, nothing new of Tennyson's writing appeared 
 in any of the Annuals or anywhere else. For those 
 which had previously appeared in them he had received 
 no pay. He doubtless expected none ; but he probably 
 had a preference for being treated with common 
 decency. ''Provoked by the incivility of editors," he 
 wrote in December, 1836, ''I swore an oath that I 
 would never again have to do with their vapid books. ' ' 
 The oath, however, had not been kept. In ' The Keep- 
 sake' for 1837 — which came out early in November, 
 1836 — appeared one of the most exquisite of his minor 
 poems, 'St. Agnes.' This Annual was then under the 
 editorship of Lady Emmeline Stuart Wortley, who 
 after a fashion was herself a poetess. It was appar- 
 ently through the agency of his college friend. Brook- 
 field, that Tennyson was induced to contribute. It is 
 manifest from her conduct that the editress had as 
 little conception as the average critic of that day of 
 the treasure she had secured. 
 
 A second time he broke his oath. In the spring of 
 1836 a gift-book, got up according to the usual form 
 of the Annuals, was projected for the benefit of a 
 graduate of Cambridge University, who was at that 
 time the editor of the 'Encyclopaedia Metropolitana. ' 
 This person was a clergyman of the name of Edward 
 
270 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 Smedley. He was a writer of popular historical works 
 which have now been forgotten and of poetical pieces 
 which have never been remembered. Smedley was, in 
 truth, a very facile writer of verse and seems to have 
 been taken seriously by some of his friends as a poet. 
 In this fourth decade of the century, his health was 
 breaking down, partly under the burden of literary 
 exertions which his strength did not permit him to 
 endure. In fact, shortly after the project designed 
 to aid him was set on foot, he died. The scheme, 
 however, was not abandoned. The preparation of the 
 volume was continued with the intention of devoting 
 the proceeds of its sale to the support of his family. 
 Its editor was a lord, the Marquis of Northampton. 
 A great eifort was put forth to gather as contributors 
 the most considerable names in literature ; and though 
 nothing was paid for the articles, it was fairly success- 
 ful in this particular. Wordsworth, Southey, Moore, 
 Landor, Henry Taylor, James Montgomery, and scores 
 of others more or less noted in letters, were repre- 
 sented, besides a large number of men prominent in 
 political life. The work appeared at the end of August, 
 1837, under the title of 'The Tribute, a Collection 
 of Miscellaneous Unpublished Poems by various 
 Authors, edited by Lord Northampton.' Strictly 
 speaking, the work cannot be included among the 
 Annuals. It corresponds rather to the volumes under 
 the title of Miscellanies which came out in the reign 
 of Queen Anne and the first Georges ; but in spirit as 
 well as in form it was like the publications of the 
 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ANNUALS 271 
 
 gift-book character, which had so long been the rage. 
 Here accordingly the account of it belongs. 
 
 The articles for this volume were not secured with- 
 out considerable effort. Among the most active of Lord 
 Northampton's coadjutors was Eichard Monckton 
 Milnes. He sought to lay under contribution all his 
 poetical friends, or perhaps it would be more compre- 
 hensive to say — it is certainly more exact — all his 
 friends who wrote poetry. Trench, Alford, Spedding, 
 Aubrey De Vere, Julius Hare, even Whewell were 
 called upon by this indefatigable solicitor. In most 
 cases he succeeded. Tennyson of course could not 
 escape. From him, however, he met at first with a 
 gruff refusal. That the Marquis had been assured by 
 Milnes that Tennyson would write for the publication 
 something exceeding the average length of contribu- 
 tions to the Annuals, or that he would write for the 
 volume at all, was treated as an elegant fiction. The 
 poet recited his previous oath and his failure to keep 
 it. "I brake it," he went on to say, ''in the sweet 
 face of Heaven when I wrote for Lady What's-her- 
 name Wortley. But then her sister wrote to Brook- 
 field and said she (Lady W.) was beautiful, so I could 
 not help it. But whether the Marquis be beautiful or 
 not, I don 't much mind ; if he be, let him give God 
 thanks and make no boast. To write for people with 
 prefixes to their names is to milk he-goats; there is 
 neither honour nor profit. Up to this moment I have 
 not even seen The Keepsake: not that I care to see it, 
 for the want of civility decided me not to break mine 
 oath again for man nor woman. And how should such 
 
272 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 a modest man as I see my small name in collocation 
 with the great ones of Southey, Wordsworth, R. M. M., 
 etc., and not feel myself a barndoor fowl among 
 peacocks I ' * 
 
 Great was the wrath of Milnes at the reception of 
 this letter. He at once wrote an angry reply to his 
 friend — of a nature indeed which he certainly would 
 never have ventured upon in later days when that 
 friend's name and fame filled the land. What he said 
 has not been preserved. The epistle went up Tenny- 
 son's chimney, and its contents can be inferred only 
 from the reply it received. From that it is evident 
 that Tennyson's banter had been spoken of by Milnes 
 as ''insolent ironj'-," and that several personal reflec- 
 tions were indulged in as to the character and conduct 
 of his correspondent. The letter grieved as well as 
 surprised the poet. His reply was perfectly good- 
 tempered and in every way deprecatory of the wrath 
 he had unwittingly aroused. Unjustifiable in some 
 ways as was much which Milnes manifestly said, like 
 many other unjustifiable things, it was productive of 
 good. Tennyson himself not only agreed to contribute 
 but to procure contributions from his brothers Fred- 
 erick and Charles. In this he was partially successful. 
 When the volume appeared, it included two poems of 
 the latter. 
 
 Neither of the poems of C. T. Tennyson, as his name 
 appears in this volume — and not Charles Tennyson 
 Turner — need now be regarded. Nor are the contri- 
 butions of scores of men prominent at that time in 
 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ANNUALS 273 
 
 literature or society or politics worthy of attention. 
 The real value of this so-called Annual consists almost 
 exclusively in the one poem with the simple heading 
 of 'Stanzas,' which Alfred Tennyson then contributed. 
 It began with the line ''Oh that 'twere possible." 
 This, we all know now, was the nucleus about which 
 was subsequently built up the poem of 'Maud.' It is 
 unfortunate that this piece should never have been 
 reprinted in its entirety in the editions of his works 
 authorized by the poet himself. In the form by which 
 it is now known the variations from the original are 
 both numerous and important. These extend not only 
 to details of versification and to the content of the 
 piece but to the central idea underlying it. There are 
 differences in expression as well as in conception. The 
 poem, as it appears in 'Maud,' has thirteen stanzas; 
 one of these — the sixth — is not found in the original. 
 As it appeared in 'The Tribute,' it had sixteen, or 
 really seventeen, for the last, though printed as one, 
 consists strictly of two. In the stanzas which have 
 been preserved in the modern form of the poem there 
 is no small number of variations of language from that 
 found in the form as it first came out. Beside the 
 added stanza, there are verbal changes, all of which 
 are distinct improvements. There are, furthermore, 
 transposition of lines and transposition of verses. 
 Much the most noticeable difference of all is the 
 omission from 'Maud' of the four concluding stanzas 
 of the poem as it appeared in ' The Tribute. ' 
 
 Their omission was a necessity in consequence of 
 
274 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 the variation in the central idea of the two pieces. 
 Throughout there are of course resemblances in the 
 conception. In both there is the same intention to 
 portray poetically insanity in the form of mental 
 hallucination which, as suggested in this piece, was 
 later to be fully developed and clothed with beauty 
 and power in 'Maud.' In both appears in particular 
 the ugly shadow, not of the lost bride but of the ghastly 
 one like unto her, who stands by the lover's bedside 
 at night, and haunts him during the day in crowded 
 streets and the hubbub of market places. There it is, 
 always stealing upon him whithersoever he goes, 
 crossing here and crossing there through the noisy 
 confusion of thronging streets, never leaving him in 
 spite of his repeated imprecations to avoid his sight. 
 These are the resemblances ; but the differences are 
 just as pronounced. In 'Maud' the taint of hereditary 
 insanity in him who tells the tale is plainly indicated 
 at the very outset, and the tendency is developed by 
 circumstances that have already taken place or are 
 speedily to take place. His father has perished in a 
 manner which suggests suicide. By the hand of the 
 hero in the course of the story, falls the brother of 
 the woman he loves and has won. From the very 
 beginning there is a tragic shadow of positive wrong 
 and of doubtful death hanging over the leading char- 
 acters and those akin to them; and an atmosphere of 
 blood envelops both the wooer and his destined bride 
 as events move on to their inevitable consummation in 
 the grave which receives the body of the one and in 
 the madness towards which the blot upon his brain 
 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ANNUALS 275 
 
 is steadily driving the tortured spirit of the other, 
 tut in the original version there is no violence 
 imputed or implied. In them mental hallucination has 
 been brought on by sorrow alone for the bride who has 
 been lost. 
 
 The recovery too is in both cases different. In 
 'Maud' the hero is brought back to sanity by the 
 elevating influence of a righteous cause, by the aspira- 
 tions of a great people waking up to a war in defence 
 of the right. In the original, however, the hope for 
 recovery is based entirely upon the recollections of 
 the one he has lost, picturing her to himself sweet and 
 lovely as he had known her in the days of her earthly 
 life. It is indeed but a phantom of the mind which 
 he recalls; but in this case it is a phantom fair and 
 good, bringing peace and rest to the troubled soul and 
 healing to the wounded heart ; guarding his life from 
 ill, displacing the dreary brow and dismal face of the 
 ghastly sister phantom that had dogged his footsteps 
 both in hours of solitude and in the midst of thronging 
 crowds. It is to her, and to her alone, he turns for 
 relief from this dull mechanic ghost, this juggle of the 
 brain, born not of the conscious ^vill, but of the invol- 
 untary moving of the blood. Happily for him this 
 dreary apparition cannot pass the limits of the grave ; 
 and in the life beyond he will be welcomed by the 
 original of the fair and kindly spirit, who clad in light 
 waits to embrace him in the sky. The poem concludes 
 with the following thirty-four lines, omitted in ' Maud, ' 
 which in the original follow the twelfth stanza : 
 
276 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 But she tarries in her place, 
 And I paint the beauteous face 
 Of the maiden, that I lost, 
 In ray inner eyes again. 
 Lest my heart be overborne 
 By the thing I hold in scorn. 
 
 By a dull mechanic ghost 
 And a juggle of the brain. 
 
 I can shadow forth my bride 
 As I knew her fair and kind, 
 
 As I woo 'd her for my wife ; 
 She is lovely by my side 
 
 In the silence of my life — 
 'Tis a phantom of the mind. 
 
 'Tis a phantom fair and good; 
 I can call it to my side, 
 
 So to guard my life from ill. 
 Though its ghastly sister glide 
 
 And be moved around me still 
 With the moving of the blood, 
 
 That is moved not of the will. 
 
 Let it pass, the dreary brow. 
 
 Let the dismal face go by. 
 Will it lead me to the grave? 
 
 Then I lose it ; it will fly : 
 Can it overlast the nerves? 
 
 Can it overlive the eye? 
 But the other, like a star. 
 Thro' the channel windeth far, 
 
 Till it fade and fail and die. 
 To its Archetype that waits, 
 Clad in light by golden gates — 
 Clad in light the Spirit waits 
 
 To embrace me in the sky. 
 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ANNUALS 277 
 
 This most exquisite of poetical productions, which 
 was reprinted in 'The Annual Register' for 1837/ 
 attracted in a few cases the attention of persons 
 outside of the circle of Tennyson's acquaintance. But 
 so little was it generally appreciated at the time, so 
 utterly was it lost to sight in the jungle of poetical 
 weeds by which it was surrounded, that all memory 
 of it speedily passed away from the minds of men. 
 Save by the comparatively small number who pur- 
 chased 'The Tribute,' it was hardly known at all. 
 Even to many of these purchasers it was manifestly 
 not known. So completely, in fact, had the very 
 knowledge of its existence disappeared in a few years 
 that Charles Astor Bristed, then pursuing his studies 
 at Cambridge University, secured and transmitted a 
 part of it to 'The Knickerbocker Magazine' in New 
 York. In that it had for its title 'My Early Love.' 
 Both Cambridge student and American editor were 
 ignorant of its fragmentary character and of its 
 previous appearance. Accordingly it was printed in 
 the magazine as a hitherto unpublished poem. Bristed 
 had informed the editor that these lines "he had been 
 permitted to read in the manuscript of the author." 
 If it were exactly transcribed and reproduced from 
 its original, this copy besides being only a part of the 
 poem presents distinct variations from the form of 
 it which came out in 'The Tribute.' In that there 
 were one hundred and ten lines; as it appeared in 
 the magazine there were but sixty-six. Furthermore, 
 there are distinct discrepancies between the two forms. 
 
 1 Vol. LXXIX, p. 402. 
 
278 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 In the 'Knickerbocker,' stanzas were run together. 
 The punctuation was largely different. The order of 
 the lines was occasionally changed. Some of those 
 found in ' The Tribute ' are omitted, and in one instance 
 there is a line which appears in neither the earlier nor 
 the later form. This condition of ignorance of its 
 original appearance continued mth the editor. In a 
 particularly feeble review of 'Maud' which was pub- 
 lished in the number of the magazine for November, 
 1855,^ he reprinted the stanzas as found in that poem, 
 taking care to preface them with the complacent 
 remark that "the very best thing in the volume is the 
 following which will find thousands of new readers in 
 these pages, although it was originally contributed to 
 the Knickerbocker ten years ago." 
 
 1 Vol. XLVI, p. 525. 
 
CHAPTEE XI 
 THE POEMS OF 1832 
 
 In the early part of the year 1831, Tennyson was 
 summoned home by the illness of his father. He left 
 the university apparently mth little regret for the 
 education he was losing but probably with some 
 regret for the degree. In a letter to one of his friends, 
 dated February 26 of this same year, Merivale spoke 
 of Charles Tennyson as having put off till the next 
 term his graduation, upon which, according to his 
 own statement, all his property depended. *' Alfred," 
 Merivale continued, '4s trying to make his eyes bad 
 enough to require an aegrotat degree."^ This was 
 pretty surely spoken in jest; for there is no question 
 that the condition of these organs, more indispensable 
 to him than even to most men, then disturbed Tennyson 
 very much. We are told indeed that for a time he 
 feared that he might lose his sight altogether. Much 
 later in life the motes floating before his eyes con- 
 tinued to fill him \^ath apprehension. In 1847 he wrote 
 to his aunt suffering from the same affliction that these 
 distressed him a great deal. ''Mine increase weekly," 
 he said, "in fact, I almost look forward with certainty 
 
 1 ' Autobiography and Letters of Charles Merivale,' Oxford, 1898, 
 p. 151. 
 
 
280 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 to being blind some of these days. ' '^ Still if Merivale 's 
 remark were spoken in earnest, it is enough to say- 
 here that Tennyson never succeeded in making suffi- 
 cient impression of his disability upon the authorities 
 to induce them to confer upon him his degree except 
 upon condition of passing the prescribed examinations. 
 Accordingly he left the university without one. 
 
 It w^as but a short time after his return to his home 
 that his father died. On Wednesday, March 16, after 
 about a month's illness, the Reverend George Clayton 
 Tennyson passed away peacefully from what had been 
 to him a troubled and somewhat bitter life. Fortu- 
 nately for his family, the new incumbent had no desire 
 to live at the rectory. In consequence its occupants 
 were permitted to retain it as their residence. There 
 they continued to dwell until 1837. There Tennyson 
 had his regular home, varied indeed by frequent 
 temporary absences. Though he had abandoned his 
 academic course of study, none the less was he deter- 
 mined to devote himself to a purely literary career. 
 To this resolution he adhered through good report 
 and ill report. The consciousness of his destiny was 
 upon him. There was one life for him to lead and but 
 one. He recognized fully then what Wordsworth was 
 to say later, that ''poetry is no pastime, but a serious 
 earnest work, demanding unspeakable study. ' ' Though 
 possessed in those early days of a small income, he 
 was, strictly speaking, a poor man. ''Alfred," wrote 
 Hallam to Leigh Hunt in November, 1832, "has 
 resisted all attempts to force him into a profession, 
 
 1 ' Memoir, ' Vol. I, p. 243. 
 
THE POEMS OF 1832 281 
 
 preferring poetry and an honourable poverty." As 
 it turned out, the pursuit of the one freed him at last 
 from the pressure of the other. This however could 
 not have been foreseen or even anticipated at the 
 outset. It was indeed no easy road he was compelled 
 to travel at first. As things turned out, it was prob- 
 ably far harder than he himself had expected ; but from 
 the faith which led him to embrace it, he never once 
 swerved. 
 
 While at the university, after the publication of the 
 volume of 1830, he was still engaged in the production 
 of new poems. Trench speaks of meeting him there 
 and of hearing him repeat pieces as yet unpublished. 
 ''I saw him," he wrote to a friend, ''for a few hours 
 at Cambridge, and heard recited some of his poems, 
 which were at least as remarkable as any in his book. ' '^ 
 Naturally in the leisure and seclusion of country life 
 this practice of composition would be continued. In 
 the early part of 1832, Arthur Hallam visited him at 
 Somersby. He had himself just attained his majority, 
 and was rejoicing in his new position of acknowledged 
 lover and accepted suitor of Emily Tennyson. It was 
 while there at this time that according to his o\\ti 
 account the now officially recognized wooer of the 
 sister succeeded in persuading the brother to bring out 
 a new book of poems. 
 
 Even before this time the project had been under 
 consideration. Limited as he was in his means, 
 Tennyson, like all other authors, turned to the pub- 
 
 1' Letters and Memorials of Archbishop Trench,' Vol. I, p. 91; letter 
 of May 29, 1831. 
 
282 LIFE AND TIIVIES OF TENNYSON 
 
 lishers. Moxon had wished him to contribute to the 
 magazine — the 'Englishman's' — which he had just 
 taken over from its projectors. Tennyson, in conse- 
 quence, had, as we have seen, sent him one poem. To 
 Merivale, then in London, Hallam wrote in his friend's 
 behalf from Hastings in August, 1831. He wished him 
 to interview Moxon and ascertain what he would pay 
 the poet for regular contributions. A further inquiry 
 was made if he would give anything for the copyright 
 and if so what, provided Tennyson were to get together 
 material enough to fill a second volume. The ticklish 
 state in which the magazine soon showed itself to be 
 doubtless led the publisher to fight shy of arranging 
 to secure articles for it — at least if he had to pay for 
 them. From the result, however, it is manifest that 
 Moxon either then or later agreed to bring out 
 Tennyson's new work. In a letter to Trench of March 
 30, 1832, Hallam announced the probability of its 
 appearance that year. Incidentally he gave also his 
 own impression of the man. 
 
 '' Alfred," wrote Hallam, "I was glad to find better 
 than I had apprehended. I see no ground for thinking 
 that he has anything 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 inter- 
 preter of the man, and wears off on further knowledge. 
 Perhaps you could never become very intimate, for 
 certainly your bents of mind are not the same, and 
 
THE POEMS OF 1832 283 
 
 at some points they intersect; yet I think you could 
 hardly fail to see much for love, as well as for admira- 
 tion. I have persuaded him, I think, to publish 
 -svithout 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, ' '^ 
 
 Accordingly during the middle of the year 1832 this 
 new volume was going through the press. In the 
 month of November, Hallam announced its speedy 
 appearance to Leigh Hunt. In the communication, he 
 gave further his own opinion as to its character. 
 *'I hope soon," he wrote, "to have the pleasure of 
 presenting you a second collection of poems by my 
 friend Alfred Tennyson, much superior in my judg- 
 ment to the first, although I thought, as you know, 
 highly of those. "^ The same opinion was expressed 
 in more extravagant terms by other friends of the 
 author. ''Alfred Tennyson," wrote Kemble to Trench, 
 ''is about to give the world a volume of stupendous 
 poems, the lowest toned of which is strung higher than 
 the highest of his former volumes." The work 
 appeared in the first week of December, 1832. On 
 the title-page it bore, however, the date of 1833. In 
 consequence it is frequently designated as belonging 
 to that year. The collection consisted of thirty poems 
 and covered one hundred and sixty-three pages. 
 
 iK. C. Trench's 'Letters and Memorials,' Vol. I, p. 111. 
 2 J. Nichols 's ' Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century, ' Vol. 
 I, p. 27; letter dated November 13, 1832. 
 
284 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 No one who compares the contents of this second 
 venture with those of the first can fail to perceive 
 how great had been the growth of Tennyson in power 
 and felicity of execution during the more than two 
 years which had elapsed between the publication of 
 the two volumes. Time, the severest, but also the 
 justest critic of all, has settled this point in a way 
 that cannot be gainsaid. Few of the pieces that 
 appeared in 1830 are now much read or quoted. Many 
 of them are referred to as indicating the rise of a new 
 and original poetic genius; some only of the number 
 are cited as exhibitions of that genius risen and fully 
 developed. The Lilians, the Claribels, the Isabels, 
 with which Christopher North declared himself in 
 love, rarely inspire feelings of that nature now, and 
 with but occasional exceptions no very profound 
 sentiments of admiration. Curiosity is much more 
 the emotion they arouse. The contents of the volume 
 of 1832 were, indeed, distinctly surpassed by many 
 of his later productions. Nevertheless, it contains a 
 number of pieces that have held their own during the 
 countless changes of taste that have gone on during 
 the more than four fifths of a century which have 
 elapsed since their publication. In that volume are 
 to be found, in particular, ' The Lady of Shalott, ' ' The 
 Miller's Daughter,' 'The May Queen,' 'The Lotos- 
 Eaters,' 'CEnone,' 'The Palace of Art,' and 'The 
 Dream of Fair Women.' Some of these poems under- 
 went more or less of alteration in the edition of 1842, 
 two or three of them somewhat extensive alteration. 
 But in their original form they were all there. They 
 
THE POEMS OF 1832 285 
 
 were worthy then of the honor in which they have 
 since been steadily held. The most skeptical of men, 
 in contemplating these pieces as the production of a 
 man less than twenty-three years old at the time of 
 tlieir publication, and in many instances much younger 
 at the time of their composition, could not have 
 failed to recognize the fact that a great poetic genius 
 had arisen. To do otherwise required unusual lack 
 of critical discernment or unusual abundance of 
 prejudice. 
 
 But as not unfrequently happens, lack of perspi- 
 cacity was prevalent and abundance of prejudice 
 blinded. A decided change had come over the opinion 
 of the critical w^orld. For the chorus of praise which 
 had welcomed the first work was now substituted a 
 cold dispassionate approval in the most favorable 
 instances; in others a snarl and a bark. The volume 
 of 1832 not only surpassed its predecessor, but it 
 contained a good deal which the world has come to 
 reckon among its treasures. But such was not the 
 sentiment of the time. Scarcely anywhere — it would 
 be nearly true to say now^here — was there any display 
 of enthusiasm by the professional reviewers. By 
 certain of the most influential among them it was 
 spoken of depreciatingly. By some it was not even 
 noticed at all. Prevalent too in the most favorable 
 notices was that calm and languid approval which is 
 more disheartening to an author than the most fero- 
 cious criticism; for this last shows that he has made 
 some impression, even if it be an adverse one. But 
 one point of view was almost universal. There was 
 
286 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 a general agreement among the critics that the second 
 venture was inferior to the first. 
 
 In spite of a few pieces contained in it, which it 
 would have been well never to have included, the 
 superiority of the second volume to the first is now 
 so manifest that it seems almost incredible that it 
 should have escaped then the notice of even the 
 stupidest of critics. Yet no one can make a study 
 of contemporary opinion, as manifested in the reviews 
 of the period, without becoming aware that its infe- 
 riority to its predecessor was generally taken for 
 granted. All men would now be indignant at being 
 accused of entertaining such a view. It was naturally 
 not held by the members of the immediate circle 
 surrounding Tennyson. Nor was it held by those 
 outside who had made themselves really familiar with 
 the poet's writings. Yet this preposterous critical 
 estimate, utterly discreditable to human taste and 
 intelligence, speedily became the prevailing conven- 
 tional criticism. It was echoed and re-echoed during 
 the ten years which preceded the publication of the 
 poems of 1842. It was repeated not alone by men 
 who lacked sense enough to know any better, but it 
 occasionally came from the lips of some who were 
 presumed to possess judgment. Nor did it entirely 
 cease when Tennyson broke at last his ten years of 
 silence and in a short time placed himself at the head 
 of contemporary poets. It is almost a natural infer- 
 ence from some of the remarks of Christopher North, 
 in his subsequent attacks upon Tennyson, that he held 
 this belief. Still if so, he never stated it in direct 
 
THE POEMS OF 1832 287 
 
 terms. Far different was it with the wordy and windy 
 Gilfillan, who as late as 1847 expressed such an opinion 
 in an article on Tennyson's writings. This critic had 
 not at that time succeeded in making up his mind 
 whether Tennyson was a great poet or not. He 
 informed us however that "his second production was 
 less successful, and deserved to be less successful, than 
 the first. It was stuffed with ^xilful impertinencies 
 and affectations." It is uncertain whether this utter- 
 ance of the writer was due to his particular ignorance 
 of the two volumes or to his general incompetence 
 of appreciation. Possibly both were united. At all 
 events it is a proof of the remarkable vitality fre- 
 quently inherent in silly criticism that any one at that 
 late day could be found foolish enough to revive this 
 then long-exploded nonsense. 
 
 A contemporary article there was, the only one of 
 the early notices of the work so far as I can discover, 
 which not merely spoke of the new volume in the 
 highest terms, but in this particular took the modern 
 view. It proclaimed that a distinct advance had been 
 made in this second venture over the first. Yet even 
 in that it was intimated that, superior as was the later 
 collection, it was not so much superior as it ought to 
 have been, taking into consideration the fact that 
 more than two years had elapsed since the earlier 
 collection had been published. With that modification, 
 however, the praise was cordial, and indeed might be 
 called enthusiastic. The article here referred to came 
 out in 'The Monthly Repository,' the organ of the 
 Unitarian body. The editor of the periodical, and 
 
288 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 unquestionably the writer of the criticism, was the 
 noted pulpit orator and social reformer, William 
 Johnson Fox, whom Browning was wont to style his 
 literary father. His article appeared in the number 
 for January, 1833. As apparently the only cordial 
 and thoroughgoing praise the work received at the 
 time in any review of the slightest pretension what- 
 ever, it deserves a certain amount of consideration for 
 that very reason. It deserves this further because it 
 is the only criticism of that period whose general 
 conclusions have received the sanction of later times. 
 Fox tells us in this article that it was in the autumn 
 of 1830 that he had first read any of Tennyson's 
 poetry. He was then seeking a temporary rest from 
 the stormy political strife in which he had been 
 engaged. It was a time of tumult and confusion. 
 In France the red flower of revolution had once more 
 burst into triumphant bloom. In England the spirit 
 of reform had come into conflict mth the reactionary 
 conservative spirit headed by the great English 
 captain of the age. The battle was still going on. 
 From these feverish and tumultuous scenes the writer 
 of the re\dew informs us that he had escaped for a 
 while into the country. With him he carried a little 
 book, which according to his account no flourish of 
 newspaper trumpets had announced, and in whose 
 train no newspapers had waved their banners. What 
 he read, however, made him feel that a new poet had 
 arisen in the land. This little book was the Tennyson 
 volume of 1830. ''It was," he said, ''the poetry of 
 truth and nature and philosophy; above all, it was 
 
THE POEMS OF 1832 289 
 
 that of a young man, who, if true to himself and his 
 vocation, might charm the sense and soul of humanity 
 and make the unhewn blocks in this our wilderness 
 of society move into temples and palaces." The rest 
 of the article was in accord with this opening. He 
 praised with little restraint the volume which had 
 followed the first. He even found the songs to 'The 
 Owl' in the earlier work "amusing specimens of 
 humor." As amusing examples of this same humor 
 in the latter, he mentioned the lines to Christopher 
 North. Vagaries such as these may be pardoned; 
 for in general the remarks of the critic were just and 
 discriminating. It may be worth while to specify that, 
 while commending and quoting other pieces. Fox 
 declared that "the best combined play of the author's 
 powers, reflection and imagination, description and 
 melody is in the 'Legend of the Lady of Shalott.' " 
 
 But this single distinctly favorable notice came out 
 in a periodical of limited circulation and necessarily 
 of comparatively limited influence. Its attitude was 
 far from being that of the general critical body. 
 Lukewarm praise there was of certain pieces ; positive 
 condemnation of others. It is just to say that to some 
 extent Tennyson was himself responsible for the 
 treatment his work received. The opening pages of 
 his new volume, to which the reader's eyes would 
 ordinarily be first directed, were largely taken up with 
 sonnets. These belong to a species of verse in which 
 the poet never attained distinguished excellence. But, 
 in particular, the book contained towards its end two 
 little pieces which were to have a marked influence 
 
290 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 upon the estimation in which its author was for a long 
 time held. One of these pieces never reprinted by 
 him in later editions of his works was headed '0 
 Darling Room.' This was to become speedily and to 
 remain long the object of constant derisive attack. 
 It rejoiced his enemies, it grieved even his warmest 
 friends. 
 
 One illustration of the feelings of the latter will 
 suffice. Fanny Kemble, then in America, did not have 
 an opportunity to read the second collection of poems 
 till the summer of 1833. She was entirely ignorant 
 of what had been said and written about them in 
 England. While expressing the highest admiration of 
 most of the pieces contained in the new volume, she did 
 not conceal her disapproval of one or two, but espe- 
 cially of the particular one just mentioned. She hated, 
 she tells us, the little room with two white sofas. She 
 could easily fancy both the room and the feeling. 
 Still, she recognized clearly that such was not the sort 
 of sentiment out of which good poetry was constituted. 
 It "lends itself temptingly," she observed, 'Ho the 
 making of good burlesque.'" At the time of her 
 writing, these verses had already been not so much 
 burlesqued as derided. Such we shall discover they 
 continued to be many years after the poet had dropped 
 them from later editions of his works. 
 
 But the one piece which had the most damaging 
 effect upon Tennyson's immediate fortunes was that 
 addressed to Christopher North. While the second 
 collection was going through the press, Wilson's 
 
 1 Letter of August 17, 1833, in 'Eecords of a Girlhood.' 
 
THE POEMS OF 1832 291 
 
 criticism of the first, already described, made its 
 appearance in 'Black^vood's Magazine.' Though the 
 praise was really more lavish than the blame, Tenny- 
 son, with that extraordinary sensitiveness to criticism 
 which was a distinguishing weakness of his nature, 
 resented the article deeply. What was supremely 
 foolish, he resented it openly. Nothing could have 
 been more impolitic, especially for a young and little- 
 known author. Even at that early age Tennyson ought 
 to have been aware that however much professional 
 critics may hate each other, they are fairly sure to 
 band together in the defence of any one of their 
 number attacked from the outside. Hallam, whose 
 affection for his friend had led him to speak of the 
 'Darling Room' as ''mighty pleasant," felt and 
 expressed anxiety about the lines to Christopher 
 North, though he himself had been attacked more 
 severely by that reviewer than the poet himself had 
 been. The epigram in his opinion was good. He 
 added, however, "I have scruples whether you should 
 publish it. Perhaps he may like the lines and you the 
 better for them ; but ' ' — and here he used a Greek word 
 to express his apprehension.^ He would have been 
 much more pronounced in his dissuasion had he known 
 that the sensitiveness to criticism of the critic rivalled 
 if it did not even surpass that of the poet. 
 
 Tennyson was not influenced by the hesitation of his 
 friend. He paid no heed to the doubt expressed as to 
 the expediency of publishing the epigram. Accord- 
 
 1 ' Memoir, ' Vol. I, p. 88. 
 
292 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 ingly when the volume appeared it contained the 
 following lines addressed to Christopher North: 
 
 You did late review my lays, 
 
 Crusty Christopher; 
 You did mingle blame and praise, 
 
 Rusty Christopher. 
 When I learnt from whom it came, 
 I forgave yon all the blame, 
 
 Musty Christopher; 
 I could not forgive the praise. 
 
 Fusty Christopher. 
 
 It is speaking too well of the cheap sarcasm expressed 
 in these verses to call them puerile. Under the circum- 
 stances they better deserve the title of babyish. They 
 are hardly worthy of an angry schoolboy. But the 
 lines brought with them their own punishment, without 
 speaking of that which came from outside sources. 
 They constituted the one poem which would be sure 
 to arrest the attention of the most careless reader. 
 From it he would be apt to form his estimate of the 
 man. 
 
 Tennyson himself came speedily to be ashamed of 
 this foolish outburst. Apparently also after he had 
 run the gauntlet of a good deal of hostile criticism, he 
 feared that he might be made the subject of a further 
 attack from the then all-powerful reviewer. In 
 February, 1834, was brought out a poem entitled 
 'Criticism and Taste, a Satire.' It was the work of a 
 certain John Lake, who was apparently by birth a 
 Scotchman, certainly by occupation a tailor, and who 
 further was a writer that perpetrated several poems 
 
THE POEMS OF 1832 293 
 
 and plays hardly heard of at the time and now abso- 
 lutely forgotten. He had met with a good deal of ill 
 success in putting his literary wares upon the market. 
 He had no special spite against Wilson. Furthermore, 
 according to his ovra confession, he knew nothing what- 
 ever of Tennyson, and had never read any of his 
 poems. Nevertheless he took it upon him to come to 
 his defence against his critic. He versified a number 
 of the characterizations which Wilson had made of 
 particular pieces of Tennyson, especially those which 
 had been stigmatized by a number of derogatory 
 epithets. He then ended with the words of encourage- 
 ment given by the critic to the poet : 
 
 And yet, " of us if he will take advice, ' ' 
 "Us," in whose hands all power and talent lies, 
 ' ' The day may come, " " with our assistance, ' ' he 
 "May grow expanding to a stately tree;" 
 But if he pride or disobedience "shews, 
 Assuredly he to oblivion goes. ' ' 
 
 Lake forwarded this poem to Tennyson with the 
 implied if not openly expressed intimation that he 
 ought to promote the circulation of the satire which 
 had been written in his defence. This was far from 
 being the A^dsh or intention of the poet. He seems 
 indeed to have feared that the appearance of this little 
 work would furnish a pretext for the infliction of a 
 further castigation of himself in 'Blackwood's Maga- 
 zine, ' in addition to that which he had already received 
 from the most influential critical organs of the day. 
 At any rate, he was led to write Wilson a letter in 
 
294 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 which he defended himself from the suspicion of 
 having any sympathy with the spirit or matter of 
 Lake's satire. Further, he apologized for the ''silly 
 squib" which he had written upon his re\T.ewer. He 
 remarked also that he could wish that some of the 
 poems which had been broken on the critical wheel 
 in 'Blackwood's Magazine' were deeper than ever 
 plummet sounded, and that he had no desire to see 
 them or hear them again.^ There is perceptible indeed 
 throughout this whole letter a dread of further attack 
 from Christopher North. No reply seems ever to have 
 been made to it. From later developments it will be 
 found that it failed entirely to placate the angry 
 reviewer. 
 
 There was indeed little to be hoped for from the 
 general verdict of critical opinion when the only really 
 favorable notice of his new volume came from a 
 periodical of distinct ability indeed but of limited 
 circulation ; and when the only man who came forward 
 earnestly to the support of the poet was a London 
 tailor who had never read the writings of the author 
 he had undertaken to champion. On the other hand, 
 there were plenty to assail. One of the first to fall 
 foul of him was ' The Literary Gazette. ' The existence 
 of that periodical is but little known now. Even then 
 it was at the beginning of its do^vnward career; but 
 as has previously been pointed out, it still continued 
 to be a power; it was still generally reckoned the 
 leading critical weekly. Its editor, William Jerdan, 
 had been concerned during his career in various 
 
 1' Memoir,' Vol. I, pp. 95-96. 
 
THE POEMS OF 1832 295 
 
 literan^ enterprises ; but the main business of his life 
 had been for some time the conduct of this periodical. 
 In general terms he may be characterized as ordi- 
 narily a good-hearted but invariably fat-witted man. 
 It shoM^s the benefit of anonymousness, but is of itself 
 the most damaging comment that can be made upon 
 the business of reviewing, that such a literary judge 
 should have been for j^ears at the head of the most 
 important critical weekly of the time. Jerdan's lack 
 of mental qualifications was, however, more than made 
 up by the abundance of his moral ones. In the manage- 
 ment of 'The Literary Gazette' he was animated by 
 the loftiest motives. This fact we know for a certainty, 
 for he has told us so himself. In the account he 
 furnished of his life he gave a fairly affecting por- 
 trayal of the unremitting and occasionally herculean 
 efforts he put forth to discharge worthily his duties 
 as a critic, so as to do equal and exact justice to all. 
 He labored assiduously, to use his own words, *'to 
 cherish talent and to proclaim genius — to commingle 
 the lesson of truth with the incitement to praise — to 
 foster the aspirations of the young and pay the tribute 
 due to older votaries in the path of authorship." It 
 is not very surprising that any one animated by 
 motives so exalted should in a world of imperfect 
 creatures occasionally meet the fate of all pure-minded 
 souls in having his efforts derided. 
 
 It has already been mentioned that Jerdan had been 
 made the subject of a violent and rather coarse attack 
 by Southey for the review he had written in 1830 of 
 the volume by Charles Lamb entitled 'Album Verses.' 
 
296 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 This was the first work which had come from the press 
 of the young publisher, Moxon. For two years Jerdan 
 brooded in silence over the onslaught made upon him 
 by the poet laureate. Then he seized the occasion of 
 another book issuing from the same house to relieve 
 his feelings. This chanced to be Tennyson's second 
 volume. The work had hardly come out when he 
 proceeded to review it, or rather he used it largely 
 to reply to the attack made upon him by Southey for 
 his pre\dous criticism of Lamb's verses. What 
 possible connection he could find between the writings 
 of the two men beyond the fact that they had the same 
 publisher he does not tell us. What possible pretext 
 there could be for putting their poetry in the same 
 class was a puzzle too intricate to be solved by the 
 reader of to-day. It certainly required unusual obtuse- 
 ness of literary perception to discover the slightest 
 similarity. Still in this particular qualification, 
 Jerdan abounded. He could furthermore plead in 
 his justification the example of Lockhart who bad 
 found Keats to be a disciple of Leigh Hunt. 
 
 But Jerdan on his o^sm behalf was fully equal to this 
 piece of imbecility. For pure unmitigated idiocy there 
 are times w^hen criticism surpasses the most sanguine 
 expectations. This was one of them. Jerdan 's review 
 of Tennyson's new volume took up seven columns of 
 'The Literary Gazette.'^ Of his article about a third 
 had not the remotest connection with the work osten- 
 sibly under review. It was given up to a consideration 
 of the grievances of the editor in connection with his 
 
 1 No. for December 8, 1832. 
 
THE POEMS OF 1832 297 
 
 pre\doiis criticism of Lamb's 'Album Verses,' in which 
 he had questioned the infinite beauty and excellence 
 of this pretty slip-slop, as he now termed it. For so 
 doing he had aroused against himself, he declared, the 
 rage of all the members of the school to which that 
 author belonged. These had hastened to pour out their 
 impotence upon 'The Literary Gazette.' They not 
 merely bespattered the paper from their little period- 
 ical vehicles, whence they could open their tiny 
 batteries, but they actually procured Southey, as an 
 old friend of Lamb's, to thunder some verses in the 
 'Times' at the reviewer. What earthly relationship 
 this preliminary exhibition of wrath had to the work 
 nominally under consideration was not apparent on 
 the surface ; but Jerdan was able to supply the missing 
 link which formed the connection. He created a new 
 school of poetry to w^hich Lamb and Tennyson were 
 both represented as belonging. This with great 
 severity he called the Baa-Lamb School. In the 
 following urbane way his notice of the work under 
 review began: 
 
 "Mr. Alfred Tennyson," he wrote, "may be consid- 
 ered a pupil of a poetical school, to offer a fair and 
 candid opinion of the merits and demerits of any one 
 of whom, from the Dux of the highest to the Dunce 
 of the lowest form, is sure to bring the whole about 
 your ears, buzzing, hallooing, yelping, abusing, and 
 pelting with all the fury of an incensed urchinry. " 
 This opening sentence indicated the general nature 
 of the criticism which followed. Jerdan said that 
 Tennyson had previously published a volume which 
 
298 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 he remembered only to have seen through friendly 
 reviews which hailed him as the most gifted bard of 
 the time. ''We thought," he continued, "the speci- 
 mens did not support the judgment; but the writer 
 was young and enthusiastic, evidently warm in the 
 pursuit; and we have seen many worse debutants make 
 very distinguished figures in their riper years. We 
 therefore said nothing to daunt his ardor." This 
 kindly attitude he felt that he could no longer main- 
 tain. Further mercy was out of place. In the volume 
 under review this stern judge found something to 
 admire and something to censure. As is usual in such 
 cases the censure was out of all proportion to the 
 admiration. It naturally exceeded it as much in 
 intensity as it did in length. He damned mth a sort 
 of faint praise a number of pieces which were the least 
 worthy of commendation. He specified as particularly- 
 deserving of censure the pedantry characterizing many 
 pieces, or, as he expressed it, ''the sad disorders of 
 the imagination exhibited in allegories and classical 
 paraphrases." 'The Lady of Shalott' was in his 
 opinion a strange ballad without a perceptible object. 
 At the end he quoted a passage from the beginning 
 of 'CEnone,' which he spoke of as "the sheer insanity 
 of versification." Low diet and sound advice, he 
 thought, might eventually restore the patient. But in 
 the meantime the critic felt it to be his duty to commit 
 him to what his publication does not deserve to have — 
 a madhouse cell. As the creation of the Baa-Lamb 
 School had been a silly imitation of Jeffrey's Lake 
 School and of 'Blackwood's' Cockney School, so his 
 
THE POEMS OF 1832 299 
 
 advice to Tennyson to retire to an insane asylum was 
 a still sillier imitation of Lockhart's previous advice 
 to Keats to go back to his gallipots. 
 
 This was the severest criticism of the volume which 
 appeared in any of the weekly and monthly periodicals 
 of the time. But the inadequacy of the others was as 
 manifest as the forcible feebleness of 'The Literary 
 Gazette.' Most of the criticisms which the work 
 received were of that perfunctory character which is 
 sometimes as damaging in its effects as the most 
 furious attack, and not unfrequently more so. They 
 were all marked by the same wearisome repetition of 
 the charges of obscurity and affectation and of the 
 reprehensible use of obsolete words. For years criti- 
 cism went on reproducing these particular accusations. 
 They constituted the burden of the regularly recurring 
 commonplaces of the stock censures that were dragged 
 to the front during the whole period which elapsed 
 between the volume of 1832 and the edition of 1842. 
 Even after the appearance of the latter they were still 
 made to do duty for a long while in certain quarters. 
 
 The charge of affectation in particular had to some 
 extent waited upon the volume of 1830. But upon its 
 successor special stress was laid for its exhibition of 
 this failing by about all of the new weekly periodicals 
 which were struggling into prominence. The parrot- 
 like repetition of this same senseless criticism becomes 
 at last wearying almost up to the point of nausea. 
 Though the estimate of the work given by these new 
 periodicals was in general more favorable than that 
 of the oldest and most influential of their number, in 
 
300 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 no case could it be termed cordial. 'The Atlas,' for 
 instance, had welcomed the volume of 1830 "with some 
 warmth, though with little critical discernment. It 
 had advanced of course the authorized remarks about 
 the poet's affectation and his disposition to allow his 
 thought to run riot in search of obsolete modes of 
 utterance. Still it was gracious enough to admit that 
 on the whole it was greatly pleased with Mr. Alfred 
 Tennyson.^ When, however, it came to the consid- 
 eration of the poems of 1832, it was clearly not so much 
 pleased. It proclaimed that it had been the first to 
 introduce the previous volume to the public. It is 
 proper to add that it now bestowed upon the second 
 one a fair share of commendation. It gave the poet 
 credit for genius. It quoted in part or in whole 'The 
 Miller's Daughter,' 'Eosalind,' and 'The Death of the 
 Old Year. ' But a good deal of its notice was taken up 
 with that particular sort of censure which was to rage 
 unchecked for the next half-score years and even 
 longer. Tennyson was declared to belong to a school 
 that ran a constant risk of spoiling all its excellence 
 by the varnish of affectation. Fault was specifically 
 found with his taste for coining words that had a 
 picturesque look upon paper, but really hurt the force 
 of his meaning by distracting the attention from that 
 to the garb in which it was clothed. A still greater 
 fault found with him was his refining his metaphysics 
 so extravagantly that while the poet believed that he 
 was working in the subtle depths of passion, he was 
 really wasting himself upon air. No illustrations were 
 
 iVol. V, p. 411, June 27, 1830. 
 
THE POEMS OF 1832 301 
 
 given of this fault. To determine what the critic meant 
 must accordingly be left to the reader ; for the reviewer 
 had so refined his own metaphysics that he was himself 
 incomprehensible.^ 
 
 Not essentially different was the view taken by 'The 
 Athenaeum.' This periodical had now passed into 
 other hands than those of the Apostolic band which 
 had been concerned in its early management. Never- 
 theless it gave the volume what was on the whole a 
 somewhat favorable though far from enthusiastic 
 notice. It quoted with high praise a large proportion 
 of 'The Miller's Daughter,' the whole of the 'New 
 Year's Eve,' 'The Death of the Old Year,' and a part 
 of ' CEnone. ' But it devoted also a good deal of space 
 to a denunciation of the poet's faults or assumed 
 faults. Necessarily the ever recurring charge of 
 affectation was prominent. "He takes," said the 
 critic, "an unaccountable delight to the verge (nay, 
 till he is often lost to us within the precincts) of unin- 
 telligibility. " "Either what is antiquated," he con- 
 tinued, "or that which is palpable innovation (be it 
 in thought, or expression, or orthography,) possesses 
 an irresistible charm for him; and accordingly his 
 poetry is marred, and its beauty disfigured and some- 
 times absolutely concealed, not only by discarded 
 phrase and obsolete pronunciation, but by words newly 
 compounded after the German model." Censure of 
 some pieces was accordingly mingled w4th the praise 
 given to others. "The poem of 'The Hesperides,' " 
 the critic concluded by saying, "we confess, is beyond 
 
 1 Vol. VII, p. 842, December 16, 1832. 
 
302 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 us, and we will at once hand it over to Christopher 
 North. Neither do we greatly care if he take charge 
 of the allegorical poem, ' The Palace of Art. ' ' '^ 
 
 The two notices just considered were on the whole 
 the most favorable ones which the volume received 
 from the weeklies. Neither, as we have seen, was 
 characterized by any display of enthusiasm. Even 
 less so were some of the others. In the friendliest 
 comments, if any can be called friendly, the note of 
 critical depreciation is apparent. By several of the 
 periodicals the work was ignored altogether. But the 
 most striking and what to modern times will seem the 
 most singular attitude taken towards the new work 
 is its already mentioned assumed inferiority to its 
 predecessor. Nor was this "vdew confined entirely to 
 literary critics. Hallam wrote to his friend that 
 Rogers defended him publicly as the most promising 
 genius of the time ; but he added that the veteran poet 
 thought the first volume was decidedly superior to the 
 second. He expressed his surprise at such a view 
 coming from such a quarter. Naturally he said that 
 he could not comprehend it.* Yet in it Rogers appar- 
 ently reflected a very widely entertained, if not the 
 generally received opinion. Outside of the circle of 
 his personal friends there is scarcely to be found at 
 the immediate time any real recognition of the advance 
 which had been made by the poet. In fact, the 
 ordinary critical attitude taken on this point may be 
 exemplified by the review in 'The Spectator.' This 
 
 1 December 1, 1832. 
 
 2 ' Memoir, ' Vol. I, p. 92. 
 
THE POEMS OF 1832 303 
 
 periodical had given a good deal of praise to the 
 earlier volume.^ Of course the usual attacks had been 
 made upon his fondness for old words, his love for 
 old modes of pronunciation, and furthermore upon the 
 vicious and irregular system exhibited in the arrange- 
 ment of his rhymes. But when it came to review the 
 second venture, there was an entire alteration in its 
 tone. ''It does not appear to us," it said, ''from a 
 very attentive perusal of the volume that Mr. Tenny- 
 son has either consulted his fame by its publication or 
 at all approached the beauties of his first publication." 
 There are critics whose attentive perusal of a work 
 has a more disastrous effect upon their judgment than 
 a careless one. This is a case in point. The volume, 
 it declared, seemed to be but an echo of the pre\T.ous 
 work, and that a faint one. It quoted 'Eleanore' as 
 being the poem apparently most on an equality with 
 those found in the former work. "The author," it 
 concluded, "seems to have been studying some new 
 model. He has grown far more shadowy and obscure ; 
 and in his attempts to seize upon beauty and power 
 not of earth, he has, like Ixion, embraced a cloud. ' '^ 
 
 Essentially the same view is expressed in the brief 
 notice of the work which appeared in 'Tait's Edin- 
 burgh Magazine' for January, 1833.^ "Mr. Tenny- 
 son's new volume," it said, "contains many good and 
 a few beautiful poems ; but it scarcely comes up to our 
 high-raised expectations of the author of Poems 
 chiefly Lyrical. We must return to it more at leisure. ' ' 
 
 1 August 21, 1830. 
 
 2 December 15, 1832. 
 
 3 Vol. II, p. 540. 
 
304 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 Naturally the leisure was never found to return to it 
 at all. A change of attitude had also come over 'The 
 New Montlily Magazine.' In the review of the first 
 volume the likeness of Tennyson to Keats had been 
 distinctly pointed out by one of the few who were 
 then admirers of the latter poet. That fact which had 
 recommended it to the earlier critic had the opposite 
 effect upon the later. The editorship of the magazine 
 had now passed into the hands of Bulwer. It may or 
 may not be that the review of the volume of 1832 
 which appeared in it was the work of that author; 
 but as it reflected his sentiments there is every reason 
 to believe that it was. At all events Tennyson many 
 years after asserted it to have come from his pen.^ 
 
 Bulwer was an admirer of the old school of poetry 
 whose sway was now threatened with subversion. His 
 re^dew, like the preceding one in the same magazine, 
 detected, while in this case it disapproved, the 
 presence of the new spirit which was manifested in 
 the verse under consideration. He held that Keats 
 and Shelley were abominable models. Their genius 
 scarcely redeemed their faults. It was more than 
 doubtful, he asserted, if the former would ever rank 
 with posterity among the classic names of the age. 
 As a representative of this new school, Tennyson fell 
 accordingly under the castigation of the critic. He 
 was censured for his imitation of these writers whose 
 originality was of the kind to be avoided. ''There is 
 a metaphysical poem in the volume," he said, "called 
 'The Palace of Art'; — we shall only say of this edifice, 
 
 IE. Garnett's 'Life of William Johnson Fox,' 1910, p, 284. 
 
THE POEMS OF 1832 305 
 
 that Shelley found all the materials;— 'A Dream of 
 Fair Women,' — a most conceited title, has also a 
 strong Shelleyan savour. Other poems, called 'The 
 Hesperides' and 'CEnone' again are of the best Cock- 
 ney classic; and Keatesian to the marrow." 
 
 Of course Bulwer — or whoever was the reviewer — 
 censured Tennyson for affectation. No critic of that 
 time would have felt that he could go to bed happy if 
 he had not resorted to that convenient word as a 
 method of disguising the fact that he did not know 
 what he was talking about. He quoted also the '0 
 Darling Room' and the lines to Christopher North. 
 ''The severity of the last poem," was his comment, "is 
 really scalding; an infant of two years old could not 
 be more biting." With all this, the criticism, though 
 it cannot be called favorable, was not actually un- 
 friendly. In a way Bulwer was then a half-hearted 
 admirer of Tennyson. He exhibited in this review an 
 altogether different attitude from that which later, 
 unfortunately for himself, he was to assume. The 
 hard language he had employed about the author was 
 due, he declared at the conclusion, to the fact that he 
 had more hopes of him than of most of his contem- 
 poraries. In their case he saw Folly sitting compla- 
 cently in its fetters. But in Tennyson, who seemed 
 to him in many respects the incarnation of modern 
 poetry, it was genius struggling to escape. As a proof 
 of this he quoted appro\dngly some of the pieces.^ 
 
 More than enough has been furnished of the sort of 
 hostile critical comment to which Tennyson's work 
 
 1 Vol. XXXVII, pp. 69-74, January, 1833. 
 
306 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 was subjected during this early period of his career. 
 There was nothing exceptional about the time itself 
 so far as the estimate taken of his writings was con- 
 cerned. It extended more or less to the day of his 
 death. Still no student of the poet's literary life can 
 fail to be struck not only with his own fairly ridiculous 
 sensitiveness to criticism, even to that which was but 
 slightly unfavorable, but to the fact that he had at the 
 outset to encounter so much that was unfavorable and 
 often hostile. Tennyson, before he had reached middle 
 age, had won his way to the foremost place among 
 living English poets. He lived a great many years 
 longer; but the commanding position he had then 
 acquired, though often threatened, was never lost. 
 Yet no man ever owed less than he to the aid of favor- 
 able criticism. Any complete record of his literary 
 career will show conclusively that in the vast majority 
 of instances, the reviewing fraternity followed, and 
 often followed grumblingly, the popular taste instead 
 of preceding and guiding it. Once and once only on 
 the occasion of the publication of his first volume, his 
 friends made an effort to forestall the judgment of 
 the public. The sole result achieved was to retard 
 his recognition and not to advance it. If it did not 
 actually provoke, it gave increased virulence to the 
 critical storm which burst out with violence. But 
 there was in this experience nothing exceptional. 
 When we come to consider the reception given to most 
 of the several volumes he from time to time put forth, 
 we find that on the appearance of each the professional 
 critical estimate was rarely enthusiastic. In fact it 
 
THE POEMS OF 1832 307 
 
 was usually more or less depreciatory, when not 
 actually hostile. The exceptions to this state of things 
 are merely sufficient in number to make more notice- 
 able the Tulet 
 
 It may be well to observe at this point that when 
 the volume of 1832 was on the point of appearing, 
 Tennyson decided to suppress a poem which he had 
 destined to form its conclusion. This was 'The 
 Lover's Tale,' written in his nineteenth year. Two 
 of the three parts had been already printed when 
 Tennyson, feeling, as he said later, the imperfection 
 of the work, decided to withdraw it from publication. 
 Against the resolution to exclude it Hallam earnestly, 
 one might say violently, protested. ''Don't give up 
 the Lover's Tale," he wrote to Tennyson on the 
 twentieth of November. "Heath is mad to hear of 
 your intention, I am madder. You must be point- 
 blank mad. It will please vast numbers of people. It 
 pleases the wise. You are free from all responsibility 
 for it's faults by the few lines of preface. Pray — 
 pray — pray — change your mind again. I have ordered 
 Moxon to stop proceedings till I hear from you again. ' ' 
 But Tennyson was not to be turned from his purpose. 
 Still the poem, though withdrawn at the time, was not 
 entirely suppressed. The story of it and of his origi- 
 nal conclusion not to publish it, he tells us himself in 
 the preface to the poem as published in 1879. "One 
 of my friends, however," he added, "who, boylike, 
 admired the boy's work, distributed among our 
 common associates of that hour some copies of these 
 two parts, without my knowledge, without the omis- 
 
308 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 sions and amendments which I had in contemplation, 
 and marred by the many misprints of the compositor." 
 It was the fortune of one of these copies to fall later 
 into the hands of a not overscrupulous publisher. He 
 determined to reprint it, and did so. This eventually 
 led Tennyson to publish the poem thoroughly revised. 
 With it in three parts was joined its concluding fourth 
 part as a sequel. This was entitled 'The Golden 
 Supper, ' and was the work of his later years. 
 
 While the volume of 1832 was going through the 
 press, Tennyson made an excursion up the Rhine 
 from Rotterdam to Bingen. Early in the year he had 
 received a gift of one hundred pounds from his aunt, 
 Mrs. Russell. It was probably with that or with some 
 of it that he was enabled to carry into effect the 
 project of surveying the now familiar scenery of that 
 river, but which Byron in the third canto of his 
 'Childe Harold' had for the first time brought vividly 
 to the attention of his countrymen. So during the 
 summer he went up to London and persuaded Hallam 
 to accompany him on this trip. It was the year when 
 the cholera was ravaging Europe. In consequence 
 the two travellers underwent various experiences, 
 certain of which could not have contributed to enjoy- 
 ment. They were quarantined for a week on the Maas, 
 moored by a muddy island on which were buried at 
 night the corpses of those taken from the cholera ships 
 on the river. On this journey, among other places 
 they visited Cologne and Bonn, climbed the Drachen- 
 fels, and put up at the isle of Nonnenwerth at the old 
 Benedictine convent which had been converted into 
 
THE POEMS OF 1832 309 
 
 a hotel. On their return from Bingen, they avoided 
 retracing the journey by the tame scenery of the lower 
 Rhine, but went back by way of Aix-la-Chapelle and 
 Brussels. On reaching England both repaired to 
 Somersby. From there Hallam wrote to a friend: 
 *'We went up the Ehine for a month, and as we had 
 little coin between us, talked much of economy; but 
 the only part of our principles we reduced to practice 
 was the reduction of such expenses as letter writing, 
 etc." Tennyson himself commemorated certain 
 details of this expedition in a poem already referred 
 to, which, short as it was, he had ample reason to 
 regret writing. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 LOCKHART'S REVIEW OF TENNYSON'S SECOND 
 
 VOLUME 
 
 We are told by one of the dramatists of the period 
 following the Restoration that hell has no fury like a 
 woman scorned. However that may be, literature has 
 no fury like a professional critic despitefully scouted. 
 Never has this fact been more signally illustrated than 
 in the case of Wilson and Lockhart. No two men were 
 ever more reckless in their attacks upon others, more 
 abusive in their personalities, more unrestrained in 
 their own denunciatory utterances. Accordingly it is 
 not strange to find that no two men were more keenly 
 sensitive to attacks upon themselves. They exhibited 
 their resentment not merely with little restraint in 
 expression but with no attempt at disguise. 
 
 In 1818, appeared, for illustration, an anonymous 
 pamphlet entitled 'Hypocrisy Unveiled.' It was a 
 review of the recently founded 'Blackwood's Maga- 
 zine.' The publisher it assailed by name, as well as 
 Murray, his then London partner in the enterprise. 
 Lockhart and Wilson were designated, respectively, by 
 the titles given them in the so-called Chaldee Manu- 
 script as the Scorpion and the Leopard. Their 
 identity was, however, merely intimated; it was 
 perhaps not positively known. The publishers men- 
 
LOCKHAKT'S REVIEW 311 
 
 tioned by name msely kept silence; but the two 
 principal contributors of the objectionable person- 
 alities contained in the magazine were so enraged 
 by the attack made that they revealed themselves as 
 authors of the offences charged upon them, by each 
 sending a challenge to the anonymous pamphleteer. 
 Of course their action did not induce him to come out 
 of his hiding-place. Instead he exultingly rejoined in 
 a further attack in which he published the challenges 
 he had received. ''I really can recollect," wrote 
 Murray to Blackwood, ''no parallel to the palpable 
 absurdity of your two friends. If they had planned 
 the most complete triumph to their adversaries, 
 nothing could have been so successfully effective."^ 
 
 Wilson further was specially sensitive, were he 
 deprived of the least modicum of praise to which in 
 his own opinion he was entitled. Singular instances 
 of this craving for flattering notices of himself and 
 his works are revealed in his correspondence. In 
 1822 came out his work entitled 'Lights and Shadows 
 of Scottish Life.' This was given to the veteran 
 essayist and novelist, Henry Mackenzie, to review for 
 'Blackwood's Magazine.' The proof of the contem- 
 plated article was manifestly submitted to the author 
 of the book. The reading of it filled him with some- 
 thing more than indignation. He wrote from his 
 retreat at Kelso a violent letter to the publisher. In 
 it he vented his fury both on the character of the 
 criticism and of the critic. "I consider old M.," he 
 amiably began, "to be the greatest nuisance that ever 
 
 1' Memoir' of John Murray, Vol. I, p. 488. 
 
312 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 infested any Magazine." The dull vile falsehoods, 
 he went on to say, to which the old dotard gave vent, 
 sprang however not so much from mendacity as from 
 self-conceit and sheer incapacity. ** Miserable drivel- 
 ling," *' execrable" misstatement, gross and false 
 misquotation from the work **for a despicable pur- 
 pose" — these are a few of the choice rhetorical gems 
 with which he characterized special remarks of his 
 critic. The foolish, false, and disgusting observations 
 scattered by the ''old captious body" through the 
 article, made the whole of it, he said, actually loath- 
 some — so loathsome that it ' ' gives me and Mrs. W. the 
 utmost disgust." After these unimpassioned obser- 
 vations his concluding remarks are especially edifying. 
 "It is not," he wrote, ''as you well know, that I can 
 possibly be such an ass as to dislike criticism." 
 Obviously not, the words just quoted show. "But 
 this," continued he, "is mere drivelling falsehood and 
 misrepresentation — calculated to injure the book, I 
 declare, even in my own eyes, and to do it the greatest 
 injury with the public. It is the most sickening dose 
 of mawkish misrepresentation I ever read."^ 
 
 Naturally, after this furious remonstrance from 
 'Blackwood's' indispensable contributor, Mackenzie's 
 review of the book was not permitted to see the light. 
 We cannot tell, therefore, what there was in it which 
 produced this angry outburst. So far as inferences 
 from certain passages in the letter as to its character 
 are justifiable, it seems to have been far from a hostile 
 criticism. At its possible worst, it could have been no 
 
 1' William Blackwood and his Sons,' Vol. I, pp. 271-272. 
 
LOCKHART'S REVIEW 313 
 
 more than a review of the sort so cherished by feeble 
 men of not daring to condemn while not desiring to 
 praise. But a highly eulogistic notice was the kind 
 of one which Wilson demanded. The old essayist who 
 had been asked to review his book had doubtless too 
 much sense as well as self-respect to minister to the 
 author's vanity in that way, and to pay the work a 
 tribute which he evidently did not think it deserved 
 then and nobody thinks now. In the place of it accord- 
 ingly appeared a highly laudatory review of the 
 volume in question. It reads as if it might have come 
 from Wilson's own hands. Some of it probably did. 
 It was certainly revised by him before being published, 
 for it contains a note of his own. In fact, before its 
 publication he intimated to the publisher the sort of 
 criticism which he desired. ^'I do not object," he 
 wrote, shortly after the letter just mentioned, *'to a 
 nice little eulogistic touch of censure now and then, 
 but I must always do these with my own hand."^ He 
 exhibited indeed no hesitation in avowing his attitude 
 towards criticism. WiUing as he was to assail others, 
 the sanctity of his own personality must be guarded. 
 * ' Though averse to being cut up myself, I like to abuse 
 my friends," he wrote in a later letter.^ 
 
 If Wilson could get into the state of mind here 
 described about a review from a veteran man of letters 
 which, if in parts blundering, seems to have been as 
 favorable on the whole as his work deserved, we can 
 conceive something of the wrath he felt at reading the 
 
 1 ' William Blackwood and his Sons, ' Vol. I, p. 272. 
 2 Ibid., p. 274. 
 
314 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 little squib directed against ''crusty, rusty, musty, 
 fusty Christopher" by a young man not known outside 
 of a limited circle. The audacity of the act was 
 rendered the more distasteful from the change which 
 had taken place in his own position. The half-score 
 years which had gone by since Mackenzie had written 
 his article had materially affected the estimate in 
 which Wilson was held. Then he was rising in general 
 repute ; but his authority was not established. With 
 the retirement of Jeffrey from the editorship of 'The 
 Edinburgh Review' he had come to be widely con- 
 sidered as the reigning critic of the time. Naturally 
 he was as much astounded by the presumption of the 
 poet in attacking him as he was made indignant. It 
 was, however, hardly consistent with his own position 
 and dignity to display publicly then the annoyance and 
 irritation he felt. Least of all could he manifest his 
 resentment in his own magazine. That would be too 
 plain an admission of the extent to which he had been 
 galled by the lines addressed to himself. Fortunately 
 for him there could be brought into play a much more 
 effective agency than anything he himself could 
 directly provide. At his command was his old friend 
 and associate, the editor of 'The Quarterly Review.' 
 Criticism from that periodical would carry far more 
 weight with the public than anything which appeared 
 in the northern magazine. To Lockhart, accordingly, 
 was passed over the task of inflicting punishment 
 upon the insolent stripling. 
 
 It would be utterly unwarranted by any positive 
 knowledge we possess to assert that Wilson directly 
 
LOCKHART'S REVIEW 315 
 
 inspired the attack made upon Tennyson in the 
 'Quarterly.' Certainly no evidence has ever been 
 published even to suggest that it was at his instigation 
 that Lockhart wrote his review. But with the intimacy 
 and alliance existing between the two men, he could 
 not have failed to be cognizant of Lockhart 's intention, 
 if he did not prompt his action. The editor of the 
 'Quarterly' doubtless needed no solicitation to under- 
 take the business of chastening the assailant of his 
 old companion in arms. But the attitude of Wilson, 
 to be exhibited later, is sufficient to prove beyond 
 question that the review of Tennyson met with his 
 fullest concurrence, even if it was not written at his 
 request. It is assuredly safe to say that had the lines 
 addressed to Christopher North never appeared, either 
 there would have been no review of the poet's work 
 in the 'Quarterly' at all, or if there had been one, it 
 would have been of a totally different character. 
 Accordingly that periodical proceeded to add still 
 another instance to the series of critical blunders 
 which are strewn up and down its early pages. The 
 same man who in 'Blackwood's' had told Keats to go 
 back to his gallipots set out to carry on the traditions 
 of the 'Quarterly' by inserting an attack of a similar 
 nature upon Keats 's legitimate successor, Tennyson. 
 It was in the number for April, 1833, that the review 
 came out of the volume of poems dated that same 
 year. Were there any real doubt as to the authorship 
 of the scurrilous abuse which had characterized the 
 so-called criticism of Keats in 'Blackwood's' fifteen 
 years before, it would be removed by the opening 
 
316 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 paragraph of the article on Tennyson. It began with 
 a reference to the criticism of the earlier poet 
 which had given a peculiar temporary notoriety to 
 the 'Quarterly' at the period of its appearance, but 
 has permanently added to its discredit in later times. 
 That article — the work of John Wilson Croker — had 
 been criticism of a particularly stupid sort. But while 
 it followed the not unusual method of the anonymous 
 reviewer, in being contemptuous as well as condemna- 
 tory, it contained nothing of the gross personal vilifica- 
 tion which signalized the corresponding article in 
 'Blackwood's Magazine.' For the attack now made 
 upon Tennyson a sort of provocation might fairly be 
 alleged in the foolish retort he had made to the 
 criticism of Wilson. But for the fat-wittedness which 
 led Lockhart to follow in the footsteps of Croker by 
 again assailing Keats there was neither sense nor 
 excuse. 
 
 The extent of the critic's folly will not be fully 
 appreciated unless one makes himself familiar with 
 the situation then existing. Keats had died, clearly 
 conscious of his great genius but as clearly under the 
 conviction that it had not been given him to demon- 
 strate it to the world. "Here lies one whose name 
 was writ in water ' ' were the deathbed words in which 
 he expressed his belief that the little he had accom- 
 plished, compared with what he was sure he could 
 have accomplished, would be insufficient to dissipate 
 the storm of detraction which had gathered about his 
 head. For a long while it seemed as if his prophecy 
 would be realized. Not an edition of any one of his 
 
LOCKHART'S REVIEW 317 
 
 poems appeared in England after the volume of 1820 — 
 the last published during his lifetime — till his works 
 were brought out collectively in 1840 in a cheap form 
 in William Smith 's Standard Library. Few, too, were 
 the references made to him in critical literature during 
 the score of years that passed between those two 
 publications. So unfamiliar indeed to professional 
 critics was even his name that it was frequently spelled 
 Keates. 
 
 It was the little knowledge then possessed of that 
 poet outside of a limited circle, it was the consequent 
 little demand for his works, which furnished Lockhart 
 with a pretext for making a mock apology for Croker 's 
 previous review. With what seems now indescribable 
 thick-headedness but which most of his readers doubt- 
 less then regarded as Avit, he affected to believe that 
 Keats had become a special favorite of the public, and 
 that his poetry was circulated and read everywhere. 
 He indulged in an ironical lament over the inability 
 which had been displayed by the 'Quarterly' to foresee 
 the unbounded popularity which that poet had unex- 
 pectedly gained. He therefore, to use his own lan- 
 guage, took occasion to sing a palinode on the subject 
 of 'Endymion,' "We certainly did not discover," he 
 wrote, "in that poem the same degree of merit that its 
 more clear-sighted and prophetic admirers did. We 
 did not foresee the unbounded popularity which has 
 carried it through we know not how many editions; 
 which has placed it on every table; and, what is still 
 more unequivocal, familiarized it in every mouth. All 
 this splendour of fame, however, though we had not 
 
318 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 the sagacity to anticipate, we have the candour to 
 acknowledge; and we request that the publisher of 
 the new and beautiful edition of Keats 's works now 
 in the press, with graphic illustrations by Calcott and 
 Turner, will do us the favour and the justice to notice 
 our conversion in his prolegomena." The malicious 
 irony of this reference to the dead poet was undoubt- 
 edly entertaining to many men at that time. As we 
 have seen, it had for its basis the fact that no complete 
 edition of the works of Keats had as yet appeared in 
 England; that indeed no such edition was procurable 
 anywhere save as part of a volume published in Paris ; 
 and that while his fame was slowly making its way, 
 it was making it very slowly; that consequently his 
 poems were no more upon every one's table than were 
 his words in every one's mouth; and that of course 
 no such illustrated edition of his works as is here 
 dwelt upon, had ever been contemplated, far less under- 
 taken, by anybody. Lockhart clearly fancied that 
 nothing of the sort would ever exist because it did not 
 exist then. 
 
 It is not often given to the same man to distinguish 
 himself by two such examples of crass incompetence 
 of appreciation of a poet, whose greatness he could 
 not comprehend, as in the article on Keats in 'Black- 
 wood's Magazine' and by the further reference to him 
 in the beginning of the article on Tennyson. For 
 Lockhart, though far from being a man of genius, was 
 a man of great ability. In many ways too he was of 
 fine poetic taste and literary acumen. This makes it 
 harder to comprehend how totally unconscious he was 
 
LOCKHART'S REVIEW 319 
 
 of the genius of the writer he was assailing and how 
 utterly unsuspicious of the agencies which were then 
 at work to place Keats at no distant period among the 
 very greatest of his contemporaries. But his previous 
 achievements in criticism of the dead poet were now 
 to be rivalled by his criticism of the living one. Credit 
 indeed must be given to him for his sagacity in detect- 
 ing the relationship of Tennyson to Keats in spite of 
 his indisposition or perhaps of his incapacity to 
 recognize the greatness of either. On the later poet 
 he began his review in the same strain of ironical 
 praise which he had bestowed upon the earlier. "This 
 is," he said, **as some of his marginal notes intimate, 
 Mr. Tennyson's second appearance. By some strange 
 chance we have never seen his first publication, which, 
 if it at all resembles its younger brother, must be by 
 this time so popular that any notice of it on our part 
 would seem idle and presumptuous; but we gladly 
 seize this opportunity of repairing an unintentional 
 neglect, and of introducing to the admiration of our 
 more sequestered readers a new prodigy of genius — 
 another and a brighter star of that galaxy or milky 
 ivay of poetry of which the lamented Keats was the 
 harbinger." Then followed the comments upon the 
 latter poet which have just been quoted. 
 
 It was in the same strain of mock laudation with 
 which Keats had been spoken of that Lockhart pro- 
 ceeded to notice the work under review and its author. 
 Warned, he said, by his former mishap, wiser by 
 experience, and improved as he hoped in taste, he now 
 set out to offer Mr. Tennyson a tribute of unmingled 
 
320 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 approbation. His present task would be therefore to 
 bring together for the delight of his readers a few 
 specimens of the poet's singular genius and to point 
 out, now and then, some of the gems that irradiate his 
 poetical crown. This was done by selecting a number 
 of passages from the poems and dwelling upon them 
 in a strain of pretended admiration. This would have 
 been legitimate enough had not the verses been 
 mangled and their meaning perverted in order to give 
 point to the attack. So long as the purely ironical 
 tone was maintained, the review, however unfair in its 
 criticism and, in the light of subsequent events, how- 
 ever damaging to its author, is entertaining for its 
 malice. But the moment the poet is assailed directly, 
 the observations often degenerate into what is nothing 
 more than a cheap abusiveness. There was not the 
 slightest effort made to give any real conception of the 
 nature of the work under examination. In fact the 
 effort was made to prevent any such conception being 
 gained. All the tricks to which disreputable criticism 
 resorts were employed. The least valuable pieces 
 were largely selected for extended comment. Lines 
 and passages were wrenched from the context explain- 
 ing and modifying them, so as to give a pretext for 
 the employment of what may be designated as a sort 
 of horse-raillery. In truth, the review, taken as a 
 whole, is a peculiarly bad specimen of a bad class ; for 
 while some of it is witty, it is dishonest throughout 
 and at times little more than vulgarly vituperative. 
 
 The article concluded with quoting in full the lines 
 to Christopher North and commenting upon them and 
 
LOCKHART'S REVIEW 321 
 
 the attitude towards criticism displayed by the poet. 
 It was for the sake of this one piece that the review 
 had been really written. If anything were needed to 
 render it morally certain that, in this criticism of 
 Tennyson's second volume, Lockhart was acting as 
 the mouthpiece of Wilson, it would be the dispropor- 
 tionate attention which was given to this little poem 
 of nine lines taken out of a volume of one hundred and 
 sixty-three pages. To it alone w^ere devoted two of 
 the fifteen pages which made up the whole of the 
 review. It was, he said, one of ' ' two pieces of lighter 
 strain which the volume affords." Accordingly he 
 purposed to delight his readers with the "severe 
 retaliation on the editor of the Edinburgh magazine 
 which, it seems, had not treated the first volume of 
 Mr. Tennyson with the same respect that we have, we 
 trust, evinced for the second. ' ' Had the review of the 
 whole work been as honest as it was dishonest, this 
 would have been a thoroughly justifiable retort. As it 
 is, this article in its entirety deserves, as FitzGerald 
 said of Croker's previous article on Keats, to be bound 
 up with every edition of the poet as a standing warning 
 to critics. 
 
 But before entering upon the consideration of these 
 lines to Christopher North, Lockhart seized with 
 eagerness upon another little poem in the collection 
 in which Tennyson had laid himself peculiarly open 
 to attack. This was the one entitled ' Darling Room. ' 
 Special attention was called to it by printing the whole 
 of it with a running comment on its text. The reviewer 
 had in this piece the best justification for the malice 
 
322 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 he displayed. As this poem is no longer found in any- 
 authorized edition of the poet's works, it is given here 
 precisely as printed in the 'Quarterly,' where certain 
 words and syllables were intentionally italicized. The 
 poem, began Lockhart, ''is elegant and playful; it is 
 a description of the author's study, which he affec- 
 tionately calls his Darling Room." Then follow the 
 lines as they appear in the review: 
 
 O darling room, ray heart's delight; 
 Dear room, the apple of my sight ; 
 With thy two couches, soft and white, 
 There is no room so exquisiYe; 
 No little room so warm and bright. 
 Wherein to read, wherein to write. 
 
 For I the Nonnenwerth have seen, 
 And Oberwinter's vineyards green, 
 Musical Lurlei; and between 
 The hills to Bingen I have been, 
 Bingen in Darmstadt, where the Rhene 
 Curves towards Mentz — a woody scene. 
 
 Yet never did there meet my sight. 
 
 In any town to left or right, 
 
 A little room so exquisite, 
 
 With two such couches soft and white; 
 
 Not any room so warm and bright. 
 
 Wherein to read, wherein to write. 
 
 This distinctly dreadful poem has probably never had 
 a friend to say anything in its favor. By it Tennyson 
 gave a sort of pretext for the title of "School-Miss 
 Alfred, ' ' which Bulwer in an anonymous work applied 
 to him later; though as we shall see, he came out of 
 
LOCKHART'S REVIEW 323 
 
 the conflict which ensued with the feeling that he had 
 been in the gripe of an opponent who bore a closer 
 resemblance to a grizzly bear than to a schoolgirl. 
 Assuredly, however, the treasure-house of namby- 
 pambyism never had a better representative specimen 
 of its contents than this poem. It is so bad of its kind 
 that it fairly deserves the title of good. 
 
 To seize upon these two little pieces as fairly repre- 
 sentative of the volume was however worse than a 
 crime in criticism; it was a stupendous literary 
 blunder. Had Tennyson been the poetaster Lockhart 
 tried to give the impression of his being, there might 
 have been a pretence that he deserved the sarcasm 
 which was lavished upon his productions, unfair as it 
 would have been even then under the conditions given. 
 Unfortunately for the reviewer, Tennyson was very 
 far from being a poetaster. Never was he so regarded 
 then or later. Never could he have been termed so, 
 save by envious men who had approved themselves 
 fully entitled to the appellation. Accordingly, as 
 things turned out, it was more than inappropriateness 
 that characterized his article. It was inept beyond the 
 justifiable limits of captious blundering. Few profes- 
 sional reviewers there are who do not perpetrate at 
 times literary criticisms of which later they come to 
 be ashamed themselves; or if they have not enough 
 sense for that, they come to learn that their perform- 
 ances have brought mortification to their friends and 
 hardly concealed glee to their enemies. But it is 
 doubtful if in the annals of literary history two grosser 
 examples of critical blundering can be found than in 
 
324 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 Lockhart's article on Keats in 'Blackwood's Magazine' 
 for 1817 and in the article on Tennyson in 'The 
 Quarterly Review' for 1833. It is a hea^der burden 
 to carry down to posterity than even a far greater 
 man than he could well bear. Lockhart lived long 
 enough to regret for his own sake the composition of 
 these two effusions. He lived long enough to see the 
 two men whom he had attacked lifted in public esti- 
 mation to a pinnacle to which it was hopeless for him 
 even to venture to aspire. 
 
 For the moment, however, the triumph remained 
 with him. Though the influence of the great quarter- 
 lies was then beginning to decline, it was still potent, 
 more potent than that of the other agencies which were 
 coming to displace it. By it were still affected the 
 opinions of a great body of cultivated men. Its dicta 
 were accepted as gospel by thousands of readers who 
 honestly supposed they had minds of their own. 
 There is little danger of our underrating the effect 
 Lockhart's article had in confirming and intensifying 
 the tone of depreciatory criticism which had begun to 
 show itself in many of the minor periodicals of the 
 time. To this effect Tennyson's own action contrib- 
 uted. The general character of the criticism to which 
 he was subjected as well as his own behavior under 
 it naturally come up now for consideration. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 
 
 1832-1837 
 
 From no quarter of much influence was warm praise 
 accorded to Tennyson's second venture. On the con- 
 trary, it had met with almost universal disparage- 
 ment, none the less potent in its effect upon the public 
 because of its incompetence ; for it appeared in an age 
 when the practice of reading reviews of books instead 
 of the books themselves had at last fully established 
 itself. The volume of poems had, as we have seen, 
 been made the object of hostile and occasionally 
 virulent attack from numerous quarters, and particu- 
 larly from the most influential critical weekly of the 
 time. But far more damaging than all these combined 
 was Lockhart 's review. He who has not made himself 
 familiar with the power which the two great quarterlies 
 still continued to wield can little comprehend the effect 
 wrought by this article upon the estimation in which 
 Tennyson soon came to be held. It lasted all through 
 the fourth decade of the century. It extended into the 
 decade following. It did not even die out entirely after 
 Tennyson's reputation had begun to carry everything 
 before it. Echoes of it continued to appear until the 
 poet was so effectually established in the regard of 
 his countrymen that it was no longer felt safe even 
 
326 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 by the envious, the malignant, and the intellectually 
 feeble to avow publicly their hostility. 
 
 At the time itself, however, there was no restraining 
 influence of this sort. Lockhart's article set the 
 fashion which largely prevailed during the years 
 immediately succeeding its appearance, either of 
 depreciating the poet or of treating him as altogether 
 unworthy of consideration. There have been occa- 
 sional efforts put forth in these latter days to designate 
 this review as a sportive exhibition of what is termed 
 chaff, somewhat malicious to be sure, but on the whole 
 laughable. Clearly no such impression was intended 
 by the writer; no such impression certainly was then 
 made on the reader. It did not seem such to Tenny- 
 son's indignant friends and admirers. Nor even did 
 it seem such to indifferent onlookers. They too felt 
 its gross injustice. The fact that a particular work 
 did not sell largely did not impress them as a decisive 
 factor in settling its merits. ^ ' The article on Tennyson 
 in the Quarterly," said 'The Athenaeum,' ''is strangely 
 provocative of comment. No sane man imagines that 
 Tennyson is the Homer which the Westminster 
 affected to believe ; but he has much fine poetry about 
 him; and if we are to give the name of poets only 
 to those whose works are illustrated by Turner and 
 Calcott, then Wordsworth is no poet, neither is 
 Wilson."^ 
 
 Others again regarded Lockhart's attack unfavor- 
 ably in contrast with the criticism in 'Blackwood' 
 which Tennyson had foolishly resented. This feeling 
 
 I'Athenseum' for April 13, 1833, p. 234. 
 
THE TEN YEAKS' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 327 
 
 comes out distinctly in an article on reviewing which 
 appeared in the first number of 'The Oxford Univer- 
 sity Magazine.' It was in March, 1834, that this 
 particular periodical began. It did not overlive a 
 year. In it attention was called to the different 
 •character of the reviews of Tennyson which had 
 appeared respectively in the two Tory organs. 
 "Compare," it said, "the article in the Magazine 
 with that in the Quarterly Eeview. Here \^rulent and 
 even coarse abuse ; no mitigation and no praise of any 
 sort; there ridicule where ridicule was due — praise in 
 its right place ; the best things extracted for commen- 
 dation — the worst for blame ; all fair and above-board. 
 No one now doubts which was the fairer; if Alfred 
 Tennyson is still more laught at than wept over, it is 
 for the same reason that the philosophy of Democritus 
 was more easily learnt than that of Heraclitus; any- 
 body can laugh, some eyes are naturally dry. ' ' 
 
 The very words contained in this protest against the 
 character of the article in the 'Quarterly' — that 
 Tennyson was more laught at than wept over — ^bear 
 witness to the effect it had had in covering him with 
 ridicule. Its sentiments were echoed and re-echoed 
 by the members of that far from limited class of 
 readers of little taste and less discernment, who, 
 lacking entirely the courage of their own convictions, 
 exhibit a desperate hardihood in standing up for the 
 convictions of others. It became the fashion to speak 
 disparagingly of the poet whenever it was thought 
 worth while to speak of him at all. Men who were 
 disposed to give expression to their admiration of him 
 
328 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 were apt to do so mth bated breath. A letter of 
 Arthur Stanley reveals incidentally this attitude. It 
 was written in September, 1834, from the rectory of 
 Hurstmonceaux. In it he says that Julius Hare, with 
 whom he was staying, '* often reads to us in the even- 
 ing things quite new to me, for instance (tell it not 
 in Gath), A. Tennyson's Poems. "^ The fear of the 
 Philistines did not prevent the future dean of West- 
 minster, though then only a boy, from liking much that 
 he heard. But this sort of courage could hardly be 
 expected of the mass of men. The followers of Dagon 
 were not merely kept from caring about the poet but 
 were deprived of the disposition to become familiar 
 with his writings. This feeling naturally extended to 
 persons who would have been fairly certain to admire 
 his work, had they once come to read it. 
 
 The attack in the article did not indeed hurt Tenny- 
 son in the eyes of the chosen circle which had early 
 gathered about him. As his decriers had formed their 
 opinion of his poetry not from reading it, but from 
 reading a particular review of it; so to some extent 
 the adherents of Tennyson largely retorted in kind. 
 His admirers, far from heeding Lockhart's criticism, 
 often disdained even to look at it. Unfortunately for 
 the reputation of the poet his readers were few, while 
 the readers of the 'Quarterly' were many. Illustra- 
 tions abound on every side both of the fervor of his 
 partisans and of the ignorance and indifference of the 
 general public. For instance, Fanny Kemble tells us 
 of the intense admiration she and her family felt for 
 
 1' Memoir,' Vol. I, p. 206. 
 
THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 329 
 
 Tennyson's poetry in these early days of his author- 
 ship ; and of the indignation and scorn with which they 
 received the slightest word of adverse criticism. The 
 contrary state of mind then existing is brought out 
 distinctly in a story she relates in the 'Records of a 
 Girlhood. '^ From it we can get a fairly good concep- 
 tion of the attitude taken by the admirers of the poet 
 as well as that of those who obtained all their knowl- 
 edge of him from the article in the 'Quarterly.' "I 
 remember," she wrote, "Mrs. Milman, one evening at 
 my father's house, challenging me laughingly about 
 my enthusiasm for Tennyson, and asking me if I had 
 read a certain severely caustic and condemnatory 
 article in the Quarterly upon his poems. 'Have you 
 read it?' said she; 'it is so amusing! Shall I send it 
 to you?' 'No, thank you,' said I; 'have you read the 
 poems, may I ask?' 'I cannot say that I have,' said 
 she, laughing. 'Oh, then,' said I (not laughing), 
 'perhaps it would be better that I should send you 
 those.' " 
 
 The person who is designated as Mrs. Milman could 
 hardly have been other than the wife of the future 
 historian and dean of St. Paul's, in whose play of 
 'Fazio' the actress had early in 1831 achieved great 
 success in the part of Bianca. But the conversation 
 could not have taken place much before the end of 
 1836 at best, and it may have been a good deal later; 
 for Fanny Kemble left England for America before 
 the publication of Lockhart's article and did not 
 return from this country till near the close of the year 
 
 ip. 184. 
 
330 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 just mentioned. A review, the memory of which could 
 last for so long a time as this, must have produced 
 a profound impression on many minds. Certain it is 
 that this atmosphere of disparagement continued to 
 dwell about the poet for many years to come. In later 
 days when Tennyson's name and fame filled the whole 
 land, when periodicals were eager to pay the highest 
 of prices for his most ordinary productions, his old 
 Cambridge associates were wont to contrast the respect 
 if not enthusiasm which waited upon his poorest 
 achievement with the ridicule which the early believers 
 in his genius encountered on almost every side. In 
 1859 Stephen Spring-Rice, one of the band which had 
 surrounded the poet at the university, expressed his 
 astonishment at the change which had taken place in 
 public opinion. *'I hear," he wrote in a letter to a 
 friend, ''that McMillan has given Alfred £250 for a 
 poem to come out in the next number of his new 
 magazine. What a change! I sometimes feel a sort 
 of amazed perplexity, reaching across a few years to 
 pluck a fragment of the past to compare it with the 
 present. It seems an unreality to recall old times at 
 Cambridge when all the world was ready to laugh 
 at us for our faith in Alfred and to compare it with 
 his present popularity. ' '^ 
 
 This attitude of indifference or hostility on the part 
 of the public had undoubtedly been caused largely by 
 criticism, especially by that of ' The Quarterly Review. * 
 For its long continuance, however, Tennyson himself 
 must be held almost wholly responsible. His literary 
 
 1 ' Mrs. Brookfield and her Circle, ' Vol. II, p. 482. 
 
THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 331 
 
 activity did not cease with the appearance of his second 
 volume, though in all probability it is likely to have 
 been curtailed. What did cease was the publication 
 of the poems he then wrote. This course of action, or 
 rather of inaction, which he adopted, was a fatal 
 mistake. One consequence of the mistake was that 
 the general recognition of his genius was distinctly 
 retarded. Tennyson's repute, high in a very limited 
 circle, would speedily have extended to the world at 
 large, had the publication of successive productions 
 brought his name to its attention. A far more serious 
 consequence was a failure in the quantity if not the 
 quality of the work he produced ; for, as has been said, 
 though an author may go on composing as good prose 
 or even better until an age is reached when life is no 
 longer so much enjoyed as it is endured, it is not so 
 with the writer of verse. In 1835 Tennyson was 
 twenty-six years old. Before that date no small 
 proportion of the poems had been written which 
 contributed specifically to the success of the edition 
 of 1842. But though composed thus early, they never 
 travelled beyond the circle of his personal friends. 
 To the world at large he would not give them. The 
 result has already been indicated in the delay of the 
 appreciation of his genius by the public, and too 
 probably by the loss of much fine work which he would 
 have written under its encouragement. Had Tennyson 
 then continued to go on publishing, his early career 
 would have undergone distinct change. He had 
 learned by experience how unsubstantial is the repu- 
 tation conferred by favorable criticism; he would 
 
332 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 equally have learned how slight is the injury wrought 
 by unfavorable criticism in the face of continuous 
 great production. In that case the article in the 
 * Quarterly' would speedily have had at the time itself 
 a more damaging effect upon the reputation of the 
 review and the reviewer than upon the reputation of 
 the poet. Consequently the only successful answer to 
 the critic was not merely to write but to print. There 
 were not wanting those who were anxious that he 
 should take this course. In the latter half of 1834 
 his brother Frederick, then in Italy, wrote to him 
 urging him to publish the following spring. This he 
 would not do. Lack of health, lowness of spirits, were 
 the reasons alleged for the refusal. He thus played 
 directly into the hands of his depreciators. 
 
 Had Hallam lived, his influence might have been 
 sufficient to overcome Tennyson's reluctance to try 
 once more his fortune with the public; for no opinion 
 was so potent as his with the poet. But Hallam was 
 dead. To entreaties from others he refused to listen. 
 There was no encouragement in England, he believed, 
 for poetic production. The son tells us that his father 
 was so far persuaded that the English people would 
 never care for his verse that he was not disposed to 
 write, at all events not to publish. The atmosphere 
 of his own country he looked upon as so unsympathetic 
 that he at one time half resolved to live abroad in 
 Jersey, or in the south of France, or in Italy.^ There 
 is a letter he wrote undated — but probably belonging 
 to 1840 or 1841 — to a friend of his residing in Florence, 
 
 1 ' Memoir, ' Vol. I, p. 97. 
 
THE TEN YEAKS' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 333 
 
 telling him that he had sometimes tried, though with- 
 out effect, to persuade his family to live abroad.- It 
 "was the result of this belief of his and his consequent 
 attitude that with the exception of the contributions 
 already mentioned, to the Annuals — and these wrung 
 from him rather than contributed — nothing of Tenny- 
 son's was printed during the ten years which followed 
 the publication of the volume of 1832. So far as his 
 reputation at the time was concerned, it has already 
 been described as a fatal mistake; to some extent 
 indeed it may have affected his reputation for all time. 
 For his inaction belonged to that period of life in the 
 career of a great poet when his intellectual activity is 
 most in evidence and the result of it usually most 
 successful. 
 
 Many have been the attempts to account for this 
 prolonged silence ; various have been the reasons given 
 for it. Two of these explanations have appeared 
 frequently. One is that his grief for the death of 
 Hallam paralyzed for a long period all effort. As a 
 matter of fact, the loss of his friend stimulated his 
 poetical activity. A more plausible though equally 
 worthless explanation of his failure to come before 
 the public is that it sprang from his desire to perfect 
 himself in his art, and his determination not to appear 
 in print until that result had been satisfactorily 
 achieved. Both these considerations may perhaps 
 have had some slight influence upon his course of 
 action. It is possible indeed that Tennyson may have 
 tried to persuade himself that they had great influence. 
 
 2 'Memoir,' Vol. I, p. 178. 
 
334 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 But they were certainly never controlling ones. Too 
 much stress indeed cannot be placed upon their futility. 
 No far-fetched or elaborate explanations of this sort 
 are necessary. No one can understand Tennyson's 
 conduct throughout his whole career who does not 
 recognize his abnormal sensitiveness to criticism. It 
 mattered little or notliing how despicable was the 
 source from which it came. This sensitiveness was 
 more than morbid ; it partook almost of the nature of 
 actual disease. It was manifest from his earliest 
 years. Even in the admiring circle which gathered 
 about him in his college days, it was understood that 
 when he read a poem no words of critical censure were 
 to come from his hearers. The same infirmity clung 
 to him in later life when the greatest of his contem- 
 poraries were the loudest in his praises ; when to him 
 belonged the countenance of the mighty as opposed 
 to the carpings of those who could do little more than 
 make faces; when indeed dissent from his supreme 
 poetical pre-eminence was scarcely heard from any 
 quarter entitled to consideration. 
 
 But even then the poet's sensitiveness did not desert 
 him. No writer, to be sure, is likely to read hostile 
 criticism with unmixed pleasure. But many authors 
 read it with indifference. More than that, they not 
 unfrequently read it with contempt, when they recog- 
 nize it as the product of stupidity, envy, or malice. 
 Such, however, was never the case with Tennyson. 
 Even in the height of his fame the sting of the puniest 
 literary insect gave him as much pain as the applause 
 of the loftiest intellect gave him pleasure. It is 
 
THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 335 
 
 probably safe to say that the pain it gave him was 
 greater. He himself admitted this fact. He was so 
 sensitive to hostile criticism that "I have heard him 
 say," remarked one of his friends, "all the praise he 
 had ever received didn't outweigh for the moment a 
 spiteful and unkindly criticism, even though the 
 criticism (he once added) was directed against the 
 straightness of his toe-nail.'" This sensitiveness he 
 himself recognized as a weakness; he was in a way 
 ashamed of it; but he could not escape from it. He 
 knew as a matter of fact that there are men by whom 
 it is discreditable to be praised; that disparagement 
 is the highest compliment it is in their power to pay. 
 But while he could see this, he could not feel it. He 
 knew he ought to rejoice in the censure of criticasters ; 
 but he did not rejoice. ''What is the gadfly of irre- 
 sponsible criticism to youf said to him one of his 
 visitors, while he was at the height of his fame. ''How 
 should you mind?" "But I do mind," was the quick 
 rejoinder, as of an inconsolable child.^ Consequently, 
 however contemptible was the source from which the 
 attack came, no matter how impotent was the hand 
 which hurled the dart, the wound it inflicted festered. 
 It is hard for most of us to recognize the ability of 
 the petty nature to inflict pain upon the higher. The 
 most wretched of poetasters, writhing under the sense 
 of his inferiority, could feel assured that his attack, 
 however powerless to affect the poet's reputation with 
 
 1 'Memoir,' Vol. II, p. 86. 
 
 2 Miss E. E. Chapman in ' The Eeview of Eeviews ' for November, 
 1892. 
 
 I 
 
336 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 the public, could be relied upon to cause suffering to 
 the poet himself, if it chanced to meet his eye. 
 
 There was a partial justification for this sensitive- 
 ness, however absurd it may seem, in the constantly 
 repeated absurdity of the criticism received. All 
 through his ten years of silence there was a steady 
 uniformity in the character of the charges brought 
 against Tennyson's work. They were echoed and 
 re-echoed, furthermore, down to the middle of the 
 century and even later. In the account of the volume 
 of 1832, it has already been recorded that again and 
 again he was taken to task specifically for ''affecta- 
 tion." This accusation fairly ran rampant in the 
 criticism of his early writings. For at least a score 
 of years it was never omitted when any pretext could 
 be devised for lugging it in. It seems to have made its 
 first public appearance in 'Blackwood's Magazine'; 
 at all events its occurrence there gave it standing. 
 Having gained a foothold in that periodical, it was 
 repeated with wearisome iteration hj every critic of 
 the time. It was a fairly safe charge to bring; for 
 it was vague. It saved all trouble of thinking. It is 
 manifestly clear that many and probably most who 
 used it had not the slightest idea of what they meant 
 by it ; for at the time there were others against whom 
 the same accusation was brought. Accordingly it is 
 none too easy for the modern reader to comprehend 
 what the bringer of the charge manifestly did not. 
 Still as commonly understood, at least as then fre- 
 quently stated, it seems to have consisted largely in 
 three things. First, there was the poet's asserted 
 
THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 337 
 
 practice of making Greek compounds out of honest 
 Saxon phrases. Thej were joined together so as 
 to seem one word instead of being kept apart so as 
 to form two. Consequently there was no small num- 
 ber of compounds such as altarthrone, Maymorning, 
 mountainstream, lily garlands, cloverhills, turretstairs, 
 and particularly a large collection of those beginning 
 with the word summer, such as summerflowers, 
 summermoon, summerplain, summer pride, summer- 
 vault, summerview, and summerwoods. This was due, 
 as Tennyson himself said late in life, to an absurd 
 aversion he had at that time to hyphens. This aversion 
 did not last long, and the practice w^as abandoned after 
 the publication of his first volume. But of itself it 
 manifestly had not the slightest weight in determining 
 the value of the poetry as poetry. 
 
 A second evidence of affectation was the employment 
 of archaic or obsolete or unusual words. These 
 Tennyson's familiarity with our earlier literature led 
 him occasionally to introduce. As with them the critic 
 was usually not acquainted, he was led by his igno- 
 rance to regard them with peculiar disfavor. He 
 seemed to feel it a sort of personal affront that his 
 author should be familiar with something he himself 
 knew nothing about. But the third and the most 
 common of the acts which subjected him to the charge 
 of affectation was that he printed his words as no one 
 had ever printed them before. Pie had, it was asserted, 
 so much more faith in the length of his readers' ears 
 than in their quality, — it was a faith fully justified 
 in the case of certain of his critics — that he took pains 
 
338 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 to provide at his own care and cost the music of his 
 verse by accenting the final ed of the past participle, 
 when it was to be pronounced as a separate syllable. 
 It is obvious that the practice censured is, like the 
 first, a peculiarity of printing and not of expression. 
 Like that, too, it has no bearing upon the value of the 
 verse as verse. 
 
 One however would infer from the frequency with 
 
 which this purely conventional proceeding is mentioned 
 
 that critical imbecility had exalted it into a matter 
 
 of dearest concern and direst consequence. It finds 
 
 expression in article after article which appeared 
 
 during the ten years of silence. Even after the 
 
 publication of the edition of 1842, it turns up at first 
 
 not infrequently. It is found even in John Forster's 
 
 review of the poems in ' The Examiner. ' He observed 
 
 there that the affectation in the way of printing had 
 
 been quietly dropped. This charitable view was not 
 
 taken by all others. The asserted affectation still 
 
 continued to be insisted upon. With the growing fame 
 
 of the poet this once prevalent kind of criticism 
 
 generally disappeared. Still it was always liable to 
 
 turn up if the reviewer had nothing else to say when 
 
 he had undertaken the task of finding fault. It is 
 
 occasionally heard even in our own time; for few 
 
 things have the vitality of feeble criticism. But under 
 
 any conception of what was meant by the term 
 
 ''affectation," altogether too much stress was laid 
 
 upon it. Poe, in speaking mth a good deal of scorn 
 
 of the method of decrying impliedly the higher merits 
 
 of an author by insisting upon the lower, drew one 
 
THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 339 
 
 of his illustrations of the practice from remarks of 
 this kind made upon the poet. ' ' Tennyson, ' ' he wrote, 
 * * perceiving how vividly an imaginative effect is aided, 
 now and then, by a certain quaintness judiciously 
 introduced, brings the latter, at times, in support of 
 his most glorious and most delicate imagination; — 
 whereupon his brother poets hasten to laud the imagi- 
 nation of Mr. Somebody, whom nobody imagined to 
 have any, ^and the somewhat affected quaintness of 
 Tennyson.' " 
 
 Two other charges there were which frequently 
 appeared in the criticism of Tennyson during this 
 fourth decade and even later. They are apparently 
 contradictory. One is that he was obscure; the other 
 that he failed in the exhibition of profound reflective- 
 ness. Contradictory as they might seem, they flour- 
 ished vigorously side by side. The former turns up 
 with a fair degree of frequency; the latter was heard 
 rather more often. It was not uncommon to have it 
 asserted that Tennyson concealed his lack of ideas 
 behind a gorgeous raiment of words. It was in a 
 measure a just penalty for his own one-time charac- 
 terization of Byron's poetry as rhetoric, that he him- 
 self should have been made later the recipient of this 
 same sort of cheap critical comment. It was intimated 
 again and again that he lacked Thought — it was 
 invariably thought mth a capital letter in which it 
 was implied that he was deficient. This want of 
 thought w^as much deplored by critics who had some- 
 how got the impression that they themselves were in 
 the habit of thinking. 
 
340 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 There seems indeed to be a belief among many that 
 poetry, to be really great, must be surcharged with 
 profound thought. Verse which lacks this quality 
 can never be deemed of a high order. Now thought 
 in the finest and highest sense of the word is always 
 likely to occur in great poetry. But it is not necessary 
 to its existence, nor to the effect produced by it. In 
 truth, the passages which require the least intellectual 
 exertion on the part of the reader are very frequently 
 those which make the most powerful appeal to the 
 heart. For the poet it is amply sufficient to utter in 
 a way no one else can that which we all think and feel 
 but for which none of us are able to find adequate 
 expression. The great artist comes along and says 
 for us what we say clumsily or at best unimpressively. 
 He says it too in such a way that it never has to be 
 said again. The idea has had its definite setting. 
 The history of scores of the most famous poems prove 
 the truth of this contention. It is in the power of 
 genius alone to lift the common out of the region of 
 the commonplace and clothe it with imperishable 
 beauty. It cannot be maintained that *L 'Allegro' and 
 *I1 Penseroso,' with their opposing views of life, 
 convey observations which are peculiarly profound. 
 Few of the great elegiac poems contain reflections that 
 startle us by their novelty or impress us by their depth. 
 To do anything of the sort is not their business. That 
 is to give utterance to sentiments which are common 
 to all of us but which are for the first time expressed 
 in words that all of us feel. 
 
 There is nothing, for instance, in Gray's 'Elegy in 
 
THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 341 
 
 a Country Churchyard' which is novel or startling 
 in the way of a contribution to thought. There is not 
 a sentence in it which cannot be comprehended by any 
 one at a single reading. There are in it no allusions 
 to perplexing problems of life or duty or destiny. The 
 reflections it embodies are such as would occur to any 
 one who reflected at all. Yet no poem of its character, 
 perhaps no short poem of any character, ever attained 
 a popularity so immediate and has retained it so 
 unbrokenly during all the revolutions of taste which 
 have gone on since its publication. Gray himself was 
 so conscious that there was in the 'Elegy' nothing 
 which had not been thought and felt and said by 
 thousands that he was a good deal astounded and 
 apparently somewhat disgusted by the phenomenal 
 success which at once waited upon it. He considered 
 it as being little more than a collection of common- 
 places. There was nothing in it, he said, which any 
 one might not have uttered. In one sense this was 
 true. What he failed to take into consideratiou was 
 that the reflections we all make and the feelings we all 
 entertain it requires genius to convey in a permanent 
 and effective form — the felicity of expression, the 
 beauty which make them linger in the memory and 
 cause them to become part of the imperishable riches 
 of the literature of the language in which they appear. 
 The foolish criticism of the various kinds here 
 specified painfully affected Tennyson's peculiarly 
 sensitive nature. To a man so constituted the ill 
 reception accorded to his second venture had an effect 
 which it is almost impossible for the ordinary writer 
 
342 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 to conceive. He had described the poet as dowered 
 not only with the love of love and the hate of hate, but 
 also with the scorn of scorn. If this last attribute be 
 essential to the poetic nature, no one was ever more 
 signally lacking in it than himself. After the gener- 
 ally hostile criticism the volume of 1832 had received, 
 but more especially after the attack in a periodical 
 wielding the wide influence of the 'Quarterly,' he was 
 averse to having his name brought before the public 
 in any form, even indeed for praise. A singular 
 illustration of this state of mind comes to light in 
 connection with criticism of which there will be occa- 
 sion to speak later in detail. He had heard from a 
 friend that John Stuart Mill was going to review him. 
 Furthermore, he was going to review him favorably. 
 Against any action of the sort Tennyson protested. 
 * ' It is the last thing I wish for, ' ' he wrote to Spedding. 
 ''I would," he continued, ''that you or some other 
 who may be friends of Mill would hint as much to him. 
 / do not wish to he dragged forward again in any shape 
 before the reading public at present, particularly on 
 the score of my old poems, most of which I have so 
 corrected (particularly 'OEnone') as to make them 
 much less imperfect, which you who are a wise man 
 would own if you had the corrections."^ The italics 
 here are the poet's own. 
 
 In the generally unfavorable criticism to which he 
 was subjected during the years immediately following 
 the publication of the volume of 1832, there was 
 occasionally a half-hearted recognition of his genius 
 
 1 ' Memoir, ' Vol. I, p. 145. 
 
THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 343 
 
 based e\ddeiitly not so much on the critic's apprecia- 
 tion of it as on his appreciation of the fact that behind 
 the poet was a body of small but earnest and able 
 admirers. In 1833 Allan Cunningham contributed to 
 'The Athenaeum' a series of papers upon the literature 
 of the preceding fifty years. Towards the conclusion 
 he gave an account of the younger writers. These 
 articles were subsequently collected and published in 
 a volume. The criticism it contains is usually of the 
 most commonplace character. To us now, the work, 
 however, is interesting for the cautious way in which 
 it dealt with Tennyson, its careful repetition of the 
 current critical cant about his language and expres- 
 sion, but above all for the acknowledgment it makes 
 of the existence of a band of men who had more insight 
 than their contemporaries. *' Alfred Tennyson," 
 wrote Cunningham, "has a happy fancy; his origi- 
 nality of thought is sometimes deformed by oddity 
 of language; and his subject has not unfrequently to 
 bear the weight of sentiments which spring not nat- 
 urally from it. He has lyrical ease and vigour, and 
 is looked upon by sundry critics as the chief living 
 hope of the Muse. ' ' 
 
 There was during this period one specific piece of 
 criticism, of which Tennyson was made the subject, 
 that is worth recording here, because singularly 
 enough it has been frequently cited as an evidence of 
 the high appreciation in which he was beginning to 
 be held at that early time. It is a sort of appreciation 
 from which a man of sense might well pray to be 
 delivered. Coleridge had died in 1834. In May, 1835, 
 
344 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 appeared two volumes of specimens of his 'Table 
 Talk' under the editorship of his nephew and son- 
 in-law, Henry Nelson Coleridge. It is too often the 
 misfortune of a man of genius that his foolishest 
 observations are recorded and cherished as evidence 
 of almost superhuman insight. Coleridge's table talk 
 is an interesting collection of his utterances on all sorts 
 of subjects, full of wisdom and of unwisdom, contain- 
 ing reflections of profoundest significance and of 
 keenest appreciation intermixed with the display of 
 the most senseless prejudices and at times of astound- 
 ing ignorance. In this work under date of April 24, 
 1833, he is represented as paying his respects to the 
 poet in the following words. '*I have not," he said, 
 ''read through all Mr. Tennyson's poems, which have 
 been sent to me ; but I think there are some things of 
 a good deal of beauty in what I have seen. The 
 misfortune is, that he has begun to write verses 
 without very well understanding what metre is. Even 
 if you write in a known and approved metre, the odds 
 are, if you are not a metrist yourself, that you will 
 not write harmonious verses ; but to deal in new metres 
 without considering what metre means and requires, 
 is preposterous. What I would, mth many wdshes for 
 success, prescribe to Tennyson, — indeed without it he 
 can never be a poet in act, — is to write for the next 
 two or three years in none but one or two well-known 
 and strictly defined metres, such as the heroic couplet, 
 the octave stanza, or the octo-syllabic measure of the 
 Allegro and Penseroso. He would, probably, thus get 
 imbued with a sensation, if not a sense, of metre. 
 
THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 345 
 
 without knowing it, just as Eton boys get to write 
 such good Latin verses by conning 0\n.d and Tibullus. 
 As it is, I can scarcely scan his verses. ' ' 
 
 This pretentious piece of ad^dce has been given here 
 in full not because it is intrinsically of the slightest 
 earthly importance, but because on the one hand it 
 has been spoken of as conveying an appreciative 
 tribute to Tennyson himself; and on the other hand 
 because of the various attempts that have been made 
 to reconcile its oracular utterances with its complete 
 failure to conform to later fact, and mth its assump- 
 tion of superiority in a matter in which the speaker, 
 great as was the genius he possessed, was distinctly 
 inferior to the writer upon whose performance he was 
 commenting J The whole criticism is indeed on a level 
 ^vith some of Coleridge's linguistic and even literary 
 pronouncements in which the extreme of ignorance 
 was often combined with the extreme of positive 
 assertion, Tennyson, we know, saw and read this 
 passage. It is hardly necessary to observe that he 
 did not follow the patronizing advice given in it ; that 
 for the next two or three years he did not confine 
 himself to the three measures prescribed for Ms 
 guidance, though unless he did so, he was assured that 
 he would never become ''a poet in act." In spite of 
 his disregard of this volunteered counsel, there is a 
 general impression that he did become a poet — a much 
 greater one indeed than his counsellor. Coleridge's 
 critical discernment was in this instance about equal 
 to his prophetic vision. His appreciation was no more 
 illuminating than it was enthusiastic. 
 
346 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 The only critical utterance of this period on the 
 productions of the poet which still remains worth 
 reading after the lapse of four fifths of a century, 
 came from a quarter from which it would hardly have 
 been expected. It was the work of John Stuart Mill. 
 Tennyson had protested, as we have seen, against the 
 publication of this review, even though he had heard 
 it was to be of a favorable character. If his objection 
 ever came to the ears of the writer, it had no effect 
 whatever upon his action. The name of Mill indeed 
 might seem to be one that would not suggest a man 
 who would be inclined to sjnupathize with the peculiar 
 characteristics which distinguish Tennyson's verse. 
 But nowhere was there published then — perhaps it is 
 safe to add nowhere has there been published since — a 
 more appreciative criticism of the work which the poet 
 had up to this time produced, a keener and more dis- 
 criminating study of its merits and defects than can be 
 found in the article which the future political econo- 
 mist then published. The criticism appeared in the 
 second number of 'The London Review," a short-lived 
 quarterly which had been started in 1835 in conse- 
 quence of the dissatisfaction of the so-called philo- 
 sophical radicals with the course of the 'Westminster.' 
 In the following year, however, the two periodicals 
 were united. Not merely for its coming from the man 
 it did, but for the character of its criticism, this article 
 merits a detailed examination. 
 
 ** Towards the close of 1830," Mill began, ''appeared 
 a small volume of poems, the work of a young and 
 
 1 Vol. I, p. 402, July, 1835. 
 
THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 347 
 
 unknown author, and which, with considerable faults 
 (some of them of a bad kind), gave evidence of powers 
 such as had not for many years been displayed by any 
 new aspirant to the character of a poet. The first 
 publication was followed in due time by a second in 
 which the faults of its predecessor were still visible, 
 but were evidently on the point of disappearing ; while 
 the positive excellence was not only greater and more 
 uniformly sustained, but of a higher order." In these 
 opening sentences, the general tone of Mill's criticism 
 was indicated. When it came to detail, he pointed out 
 as Tennyson's most characteristic excellence the power 
 of scene-painting in the higher sense of the term — 
 that is, not the cheap representation of external 
 phenomena, but the power of creating scenery to 
 harmonize with the state of mind of the individual 
 portrayed. His principal illustration is the sufficiently 
 marked one of the poem in the volume of 1830 entitled 
 * Mariana.' In this piece the love story at the base 
 of it is suggested in the refrain alone; even in that 
 it is only suggested, it is not detailed. The whole 
 strength of the writer is put forth in the portrayal 
 of the desolation of the moated grange to correspond 
 with the wretchedness and gloom of the woman 
 abandoned by her lover. The level waste, the black- 
 ened waters of the sluice, the decay of all objects 
 pertaining to the once busy household life, the flower- 
 pots crusted by the encroaching moss, the creaking of 
 doors upon rusty hinges, the shriek of the mouse 
 behind the mouldering wainscot, these and numerous 
 other details impart to the situation of the deserted 
 
348 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 maiden a sensation of dreariness which pages of 
 description could not convey. Furthermore, Mill 
 quoted in full the second part of 'The May Queen,' 
 termed 'New Year's Eve,' as a specimen of simple 
 genuine pathos arising out of situations and feelings 
 common to all mankind, and therefore fitted for a 
 more extensive popularity than any other poem in 
 the two volumes. But the reviewer's o^vn favorite 
 was ' The Lady of Shalott. ' With the exception of its 
 last stanza which, as it appeared in its original form, 
 he disliked, he gave this piece in full. He asserted that 
 it must be ranked among the very first of its class in 
 the combination of the powers of narration and of 
 scene-painting. Though he deemed its versification 
 less exquisite, he placed the poem in other respects 
 by the side of 'The Ancient Mariner' and ' Christabel. ' 
 Mill 's criticism was as much a review of the volume 
 of 1830 as of that of 1832. Of the poems contained 
 in the former he spoke with commendation of the 
 'Recollections of the Arabian Nights,' *'The Dying 
 Swan,' 'The Kraken,' 'The Sleeping Beauty,' and of 
 the two poems beginning "In the gloomy light" and 
 "A spirit haunts the year's last hours." These last 
 in his opinion were improperly called songs. The 
 pieces in the second volume which he specifically 
 praised — frequently mth more or less of quotation — 
 were 'Isabel,' 'Eleanore,' 'The Sisters,' 'CEnone,' 
 'The Palace of Art,' and 'The Lotos-Eaters.' With 
 the mention of all these he declared that he had by 
 no means exhausted the variety of beauty to be found 
 in the two volumes. But Mill, though he pointed out 
 
THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 349 
 
 the qualities in which in his opinion Tennyson excelled, 
 was not in the least blind to what he deemed his 
 defects. Accordingly it may be worth while to specify 
 what a man of so much intellectual power found to 
 censure as well as to praise in poems upon the exact 
 value of which the consensus of the generation had 
 not even begun to settle. Mill looked upon 'Claribel,' 
 the verses headed 'Elegiacs,' and 'A Dirge' as com- 
 parative failures. Worse failures than these were 
 'The Merman' and 'The Mermaid.' In them the poet 
 was actually puerile. Upon the patriotic productions, 
 as we may call them, he was especially severe. Of two 
 pieces in particular, the 'English War song' and the 
 'National Song,' he was of the opinion that "unless 
 they are meant for bitter ridicule of vulgar nation- 
 ality, and of the poverty of intellect which usually 
 accompanies it, their appearance here is unaccount- 
 able." The same remark was made about the sonnet 
 on Bonaparte. If not so childish in manner, it had 
 still something of the same spirit which characterized 
 the preceding two just mentioned — that is, if these 
 were to be taken as serious. 
 
 Certain too of the small poems Mill regarded as 
 without meaning; or at least, if the author had a 
 meaning, he had not been able to express it. The ones 
 he specified as liable to this censure were the two songs 
 to the 'Owl,' the verses entitled 'The How and the 
 Why,' and a little poem of eight lines beginning with 
 the words "Who can say." This Mill entitled 'Today 
 and Yesterday.' These and two others are the only 
 ones in the second volume which he cared to have 
 
350 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 omitted, though there were two more which he looked 
 upon as unsatisfactory, though not positive failures. 
 These two were the poem beginning "All good things 
 have not kept aloof," and the one entitled 'Hes- 
 perides,' notwithstanding what he conceded to be its 
 fine opening. The two to be positively rejected were 
 the lines on Christopher North and the stanzas of 
 *0 Darling Room' which he characterized as a ''little 
 piece of childishness." 
 
 In nothing did Mill show the superiority of his 
 estimate of the poetry that Tennyson had up to that 
 time produced over the silly criticism which had then 
 current vogue, than in his treatment of the volume 
 of 1832 as compared with that of 1830. He spoke with 
 the contempt it deserved of the common assertion that 
 the late volume had fallen off from the poetic power 
 displayed in the earlier. The superiority of the 
 second venture he emphatically proclaimed. There 
 were but few pieces in it to which he took exception. 
 More than that he did not fail to make emphatic that 
 not only had there been no falling off but how almost 
 immeasurable had been the advance which Tennyson 
 had made during the nearly thirty months that had 
 elapsed between the publication of the two volumes. 
 This we all see now; then it had been hid from the 
 majority of professional critics, and continued to be 
 hid for many years later. The first volume, he said, 
 gave evidence of powers such as had not for many 
 years been displayed by any new aspirant to the 
 character of poet. In the second, while the faults of 
 its predecessor were still visible, they were evidently 
 
THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 351 
 
 on the point of disappearing. The positive excellences 
 of the poet were not only greater and more uniformly 
 sustained, but they were of a distinctly higher order. 
 His imagination and his reason had alike advanced. 
 Mill did not predict positively his future; but he 
 clearly indicated, that if the poet corrected the few 
 faults he still possessed, a high place in English 
 literature would be securely his. 
 
 Mill's article was the first public manifestation of 
 the reaction against the estimate of Tennyson which 
 had been generally current in periodical literature 
 after the publication of the volume of 1832. But it is 
 full as noticeable for the review of Tennyson 's re- 
 ^dewer — though his name was not mentioned — as for 
 his criticism of the poet. The different character of 
 the two notices w%ich the volumes had received, the 
 one in 'Blackwood's Magazine' and the other in the 
 'Quarterly,' had, as we have seen, more than once 
 attracted attention. Mill in turn discussed these 
 articles. To the one in the monthly he did exact 
 justice. That it displayed the usual levity and 
 flippancy of that periodical he conceded. But it also 
 evinced one of its better characteristics, a genuine 
 appreciation and willing recognition of genius. The 
 praise or blame in it, though shovelled out rather 
 than measured, was on the whole fairly discriminating. 
 Accordingly in his opinion, Tennyson's lines to 
 Christopher North merely expressed in a common- 
 place way the author's resentment against a critique 
 which merited from him no resentment, but rather, all 
 things considered, a directly contrary feeling. On the 
 
352 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 other hand, Mill had hardly language sufficiently 
 contemptuous to express his opinion of the article 
 in 'The Quarterly Re\dew. ' The method its writer 
 had followed he declared to be the abundantly hack- 
 neyed one of selecting the few bad passages in the 
 volume — not amounting to three pages in all — and 
 such others as, by being separated from the context, 
 might be made to appear ridiculous. These were then 
 held uj) as specimens of the whole work. Not only 
 was the method bad, but in his opinion the execution 
 was worse. The criticism was in a strain of dull irony, 
 the point of which consisted in its ill nature. Mill's 
 treatment of the reviewer cannot itself be deemed a 
 triumph of amiability. He styled him in one place 
 *'the small critic of the Quarterly," in another ''the 
 egregious critic," and the second epithet conveys not 
 even so complimentary a sense as the first. He cites 
 some of his remarks to comment on their imbecility. 
 His general impression of 'The Quarterly Review' 
 itself may be summed up in his assertion that the 
 periodical in question, both under its original and 
 under its present management, never recognized any 
 new claim upon its admiration unless it was recom- 
 mended by party interest or was forced upon it by 
 the public voice. 
 
 During the years which followed his father's death 
 till the time of his own marriage, Tennyson's regular 
 home was with the family. As it continued to remain 
 at Somersby until 1837, that was naturally his resi- 
 dence during this particular period. From the place 
 itself, however, he constantly made excursions of 
 
THE TEN YEAKS' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 353 
 
 greater or less length. Their frequency and extent 
 indeed depended largely upon the contents of his 
 pocket-book; but we hear of him at times in various 
 parts of Great Britain. It was on one of these excur- 
 sions that his previously slight acquaintance with 
 FitzGerald ripened into friendship. FitzGerald was 
 born the same year as he. He entered Cambridge 
 University in 1826 and was graduated in 1830. But 
 though during two years of this time he was a member 
 of the same college as Tennyson, they seem never to 
 have met until some little time after they had both 
 left the institution. This too in spite of the fact that 
 FitzGerald himself was intimate with two or three 
 persons who were special friends of the poet. One of 
 these was Spedding. It was while on a ^dsit to him 
 at his father's residence, Mirehouse on Bassenthwaite 
 Lake, that Tennyson and he became intimate. The 
 acquaintance indeed was without doubt largely helped 
 on by the weather ; for during the three weeks of their 
 stay, that was simply abominable. Eain prevailed 
 constantly. This naturally threw them much of the 
 time upon each other for entertainment. 
 
 Spedding 's father was what is called a practical 
 man, and he manifestly had no great admiration for 
 the two unpractical visitors who were special friends 
 of his son, particularly for the poetical one. He was, 
 however, very courteous to his guests. All he asked 
 for himself was to be let alone; and interested as he 
 was in the care of his farm, and absent much of the 
 daj^ from the house, it was an easy matter to comply 
 with his wishes in this particular. A man evidently 
 
354 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 of a high ty^ie of character, he was from the purely 
 literary point of view a fair representative of the 
 hard-headed, middle-class Philistine. So far as poets 
 were concerned, the best he could do was to regard 
 them as specimens of a mild type of lunatic. In that 
 region Coleridge and Shelley had resided for a longer 
 or shorter time. The older Spedding had seen too 
 much of them and other verse-makers to think very 
 highly of them or their trade. He naturally could not 
 see much sense in the interest manifested by his son 
 in such trifles as lines about the death of Arthur and 
 about the Lord of Burleigh and other pieces which 
 were later to make up part of the volumes of 1842. 
 FitzGerald indeed heard read during this visit 'The 
 Day Dream,' 'Dora,' and 'The Gardener's Daughter.' 
 Polite as Spedding 's father was, it was probably with 
 no great grief that he saw his two visitors take their 
 departure in company with his son, at the end of May. 
 The three repaired to Ambleside on Lake Winder- 
 mere where two of them stayed a week. But though 
 Wordsworth's home was in the immediate neighbor- 
 hood, Tennyson could not be induced to visit him in 
 spite of Spedding 's urgency. For that his invincible 
 shyness stood in the way. His refusal he must have 
 remembered with gratification in later years when 
 visitors from all parts of the globe were knocking in 
 season and out of season at his own doors. Tennyson, 
 however, did come in contact with Hartley Coleridge 
 who took to him mightily, and after the fourth 
 "bottom" of gin thanked the Lord for having brought 
 them together. But he manifestly did not make any 
 
THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— FIRST HALF 355 
 
 such favorable impression upon some of those he had 
 left behind. If while he was at Mirehouse the sun, 
 as Spedding tells us, did not display itself to advan- 
 tage, neither apparently did Tennyson. According to 
 his friend and host he was "very gruff and unmanage- 
 able.'" The contrast between the quietness and 
 optimism of FitzGerald and the discontent with every- 
 thing of his companion struck Spedding sharply. 
 After the departure of his guests he wrote to Donne 
 an account of the visit. Tennyson, he said, ''stayed 
 three weeks, or it may be a month, but the sun did not 
 shine to advantage, and it must be a very capable and 
 effective sun that shall make his soul rejoice and say, 
 'Ha! Ha! I am warm.' "- There was, however, a 
 good deal to account for the depression under which 
 Tennyson with his peculiar temperament then labored. 
 During the whole of these ten years of silence the 
 future must have looked to him far from bright. 
 High appreciation there was for him in certain quar- 
 ters ; but in general depreciation. It manifestly never 
 occurred to him that this condition of things was due 
 to his own neglect to publish the pieces which had 
 excited the enthusiastic admiration of his comrades. 
 
 It is another proof of the influence which Tennyson 
 exerted over all with whom he came in contact during 
 the early days before his genius was universally 
 recognized that the same profound impression of his 
 superiority which he had previously made upon the 
 men of the Cambridge circle who surrounded him, he 
 
 1 Hallam Tennyson 's ' Tennyson and his Friends, ' p. 403. 
 
 2 F. M. Brookfield 's ' The Cambridge Apostles, ' p. 267. 
 
356 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 made also upon FitzGerald. The latter recognized his 
 new friend 's oddities and eccentricities ; he was amused 
 by them. The poet was always subject to fits of 
 despondency ; but it was during the years immediately 
 following the death of Hallam that the burden of life 
 seems to have weighed with peculiar heaviness upon 
 his spirit. The feelings to which this gave rise did 
 not affect, however, FitzGerald 's estimate of the man. 
 *'I will say no more of Tennyson," he wrote to a 
 friend, ''than that the more I have seen of him, the 
 more cause I have to think him great. His little 
 humours and grumpinesses were so droll, that I was 
 always laughing: and was often put in mind (strange 
 to say) of my little unknown friend. Undine — I must 
 however say, further, that I felt what Charles Lamb 
 describes, a sense of depression at times from the 
 overshadowing of a so much more lofty intellect than 
 my own: this (though it may seem vain to say so) I 
 never experienced before, though I have often been 
 with much greater intellects: but I could not be mis- 
 taken in the universality of his mind; and perhaps I 
 have received some benefit in the now more distinct 
 consciousness of my dwarfishness.'" 
 
 1 Letter to John Allen of May 23, 1835, in his Letters edited by W. A. 
 Wright, Vol. I, p. 28. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— SECOND HALF 
 1837-1842 
 
 In April, 1835, Browning went to Moxon with his 
 poem of 'Paracelsus.' Him he sought on account of 
 his good name and fame Avith authors. That publisher 
 had himself brought out a volume of verse. Conse- 
 quently all poets with reputations to make either went 
 to him of their own accord or were recommended to 
 go by personal friends or by rival publishers. Nat- 
 urally he had begun to grow weary of dealing in wares 
 which so far from bringing in profit were attended 
 with actual loss. BroT\Tiing presented himself with 
 a letter of introduction. No sooner was the letter read, 
 Bro^\Tiing tells us, ''than the Moxonian \dsage lowered 
 exceedingly thereat — the Moxonian accent grew dolo- 
 rous thereupon." 'Artevelde,' he assured him, had 
 not paid expenses by thirty-odd pounds. "Tennyson's 
 poetry is popular at Cambridge," he continued. His 
 further remark, however, gave the impression that 
 Cambridge was the only place where it was popular. 
 "Of 800," he said, "which were printed of his last, 
 some 300 only have gone off. "^ Under the influence 
 of these and other depressing facts, Moxon assured 
 his visitor that it was doubtful if he would ever again 
 
 1 Mrs. Orr 's ' Life and Letters of Robert Bro^-ning, ' Vol. I, p. 98. 
 
358 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 venture into a transaction so unprofitable as the 
 publication of poetry. There was no money in it at 
 all. Accordingly he begged to decline even the 
 inspection of Browning's manuscript. 
 
 Lapse of time did not cause even the leading pub- 
 lisher of the poetry of the period to change his opinion. 
 The indifference of the public to the highest form of 
 literature continued for many years. As late as 1844 
 the future Mrs. Browning wrote to a friend that in the 
 eyes of all those who brought out books, dealing in 
 poetry was nothing but a desperate speculation. A 
 writer must have tried his public before he tries the 
 publisher — that is, before he expects that individual, 
 as a business man, to run any risk for him. This, too, 
 was said after the success of the Tennyson volumes of 
 1842 had been assured. Accordingly we can get some 
 conception of what must have been Moxon's feelings 
 in 1835. About two years and a third had gone by 
 since the poems of 1832 had appeared, and only three 
 hundred copies had been sold. No one in the book 
 trade could afford to bring out the epics of Homer or 
 the plays of Shakespeare with such returns on the 
 investment. To the publisher it meant pecuniary loss ; 
 to the author it was a petty number upon which to 
 base any claim to reputation. There is no question 
 indeed that during the whole period from 1830 to 
 1842 — especially the earlier half of it — Tennyson was 
 read by a comparatively small number and appreciated 
 by a still smaller. Many seem to have been unaware 
 of even the fact of his existence. To the student of 
 contemporary critical literature during this period 
 
THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— SECOND HALF 359 
 
 there is nothing more noticeable than the little knowl- 
 edge exhibited of him, the little interest taken in him 
 outside of a limited circle. Men whose very names the 
 world has now been quite content to forget were made 
 subjects of serious consideration and in some instances 
 of fulsome eulogy in periodicals which then stood 
 highest in public estimation. Yet in these organs of 
 public opinion Tennyson's name was then mentioned 
 but seldom; in some of them it was not mentioned at 
 all. 
 
 Two illustrations of his obscurity may be given, out 
 of several which exist. During the fourth decade of 
 the century the newly founded 'Eraser's Magazine' 
 gave at intervals an account of the men of letters who 
 were more or less in the public eye. Engravings of 
 them accompanied the page of text describing them. 
 The two together constituted what was called a 
 'Gallery of Literary Portraits.' Naturally the most 
 noted men of the time — such as Rogers, Moore, Scott, 
 "Wordsworth, Coleridge, Carlyle, and Campbell — found 
 there a place. But necessarily men of a much lower 
 grade of distinction were included. There was, 
 furthermore, no particular partiality displayed in the 
 selection made. If the magazine took in its special 
 friends like Jerdan and Lockhart, it did not fail to 
 extend its notice to some of its pet aversions. Noto- 
 riety seems to have been the main reason for mention- 
 ing certain authors. With its usual horse-play it even 
 introduced persons who had no claim whatever to be 
 mentioned at all. In the list is no small number of 
 persons of whom the world knew little then and no 
 
360 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 longer remembers. But among the more than seventy 
 men and women of whom it gave an account, laudatory 
 or disparaging, the name of Tennyson does not occur. 
 
 This state of ignorance continued indeed up to the 
 eve of the appearance of the edition of 1842. How 
 little Tennyson was known even then, one fact of no 
 particular significance in itself shows clearly. In 
 January of the year just mentioned, a volume of 
 selections from poets of prominence or assumed 
 prominence came out. It was entitled 'Modern Poets 
 of the Nineteenth Century.' In all forty-three names 
 were represented. How wide-embracing and not over- 
 particular was the drag-net may be inferred from the 
 fact that the collection began mth Gifford, whose verse 
 was poorer, if possible, than his critical judgment. 
 It ended with a selection from the writings of the 
 unfortunate Lady Flora Hastings. But the collection 
 strove to include specimens from the productions of 
 all the poets of the period, the humblest as well as the 
 highest, who had any claim whatever to recognition. 
 It is significant of the gradual growing appreciation 
 of the greatness of Keats that some of his work is 
 given. But the name of Tennyson is absent just as he 
 was about to take his place at the head of contemporary 
 English poets. 
 
 Yet in spite of the comparatively little sale of his 
 poems and the little recognition he received, the repute 
 in which Tennyson was held was increasing all these 
 years very steadily, even if very slowly. Besides the 
 intrinsic value of a writer's own work, the influences 
 that operate upon his reputation, either to enhance it 
 
THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— SECOND HALF 361 
 
 or to impair it, are usually too complex and manifold 
 to justify labelling any particular one of them as a 
 determining factor in bringing about the result. Still, 
 great weight in extending Tennyson's fame must be 
 accorded to the unhesitating belief in him and unhesi- 
 tating support of him which came from his early 
 associates at Cambridge University. The brilliant 
 band which had there surrounded him, which had from 
 the first admired him, which had hailed him as the 
 coming poet when he had not yet attained his majority, 
 never lost their faith in him during all these years of 
 comparative neglect. The failure of his works to sell 
 did not abate in the slightest their admiration and 
 enthusiasm. Critical weighing in the scales they 
 heeded not; critical disparagement inspired in them 
 no other feeling than contempt. They were confident 
 that the public would adopt their opinions, if once 
 they could be permitted to share their knowledge. In 
 season and out of season they unhesitatingly pro- 
 claimed his greatness as a poet to the dwellers in a 
 world most of whom were unconscious of his existence, 
 and many of those who knew of it were disposed to be 
 unbelievers and scoffers. 
 
 Furthermore, the persons who made up this company 
 of admirers comprised some of the choicest spirits of 
 the age. Naturally they were themselves coming more 
 and more to the front. In the effect wrought upon 
 public opinion it is quality that counts more than 
 numbers. Hence, as time went on, the estimate taken 
 by these partisans of the poet could not be arrogantly 
 set aside by the most pretentious of reviewers. The 
 
362 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 influence of the Cambridge men in particular extended 
 to their successors at the university. They kept up 
 in that institution the belief which they themselves 
 had held. The exhibition of the loyalty to the poet 
 there manifested had from the beginning irritated at 
 times the professional critics to a point almost beyond 
 endurance. There appears to have been a discussion 
 in some Cambridge society, possibly the Union, on 
 the question whether Tennyson was or was not a great 
 poet. This took place, it must be kept in mind, before 
 most of the productions were published by which he 
 is now widely known. The report of this debate, as 
 we shall see later, made Christopher North almost 
 foam at the mouth. 
 
 There was, however, a justification unknown to the 
 general public for this attitude on the part of his 
 admirers. To many of his old associates, if not to 
 most of them, productions which were never to see the 
 light till much later, were then shown. When at 
 Cambridge his intimate friends had had the habit of 
 taking his latest work and copying it out. The practice 
 continued during the whole of the fourth decade. 
 During this period these productions passed from 
 hand to hand among the chosen few. The criticism 
 to which Tennyson had been subjected stood in the 
 way of any willingness on his part to publish what 
 he had composed ; but it did not prevent his composing. 
 That went on uninterruptedly. Unhappily it went on 
 too often without the agency of pen and ink. Tennyson 
 composed a good deal without taking the pains to write 
 it down. He kept it in his memory. It is a habit which 
 
THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— SECOND HALF 363 
 
 he seems to have maintained during much if not all 
 of his life. The result of this dislike to the labor of 
 writing was that he lost the recollection of many things 
 in consequence of his delay in putting them on paper. 
 Once he composed three hundred lines concerning 
 Lancelot and his quest for the Sangreal. These he 
 kept for some time in mind; but he neglected to keep 
 them anywhere else. The result was that they all 
 slipped from his memory before they came to be 
 written down.^ 
 
 Fortunately for him and for us, he frequently 
 deviated from this practice. The poems which we 
 know to have been written and to be passing from 
 hand to hand in manuscript among his personal friends 
 during the ten years' silence, make up no inconsider- 
 able share of the second volume of the edition of 
 1842, and ought to have been published long before. 
 Furthermore, several of the pieces which were subse- 
 quently to form a part of *In Memoriam' had already 
 been written during this early period. The sight of 
 such productions not merely kept alive but increased 
 the reputation of the poet in the circle of his private 
 friends. Necessarily it could not and did not affect 
 the opinion of the ignorant public. It was conse- 
 quently inevitable that this belief in his greatness 
 should not cause any perceptible addition to the sale 
 of his writings. Neither the volume of 1830 nor that 
 of 1832 ever went into a second edition. But as his 
 early friends became themselves more conspicuous, 
 the influence they wielded in his behalf became more 
 
 1 'The Journals of Walter White,' p. 151. 
 
364 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 and more perceptible. In truth, it is manifest that 
 in spite of the comparatively little circulation of his 
 works he was assuming more and more a distinct 
 position in the literature of his time. He was coming 
 to have a body of recognized admirers distinct from 
 his university associates. 
 
 This fact began at last to dawn upon the minds of 
 critics. Mill's remark in his review that Tennyson's 
 poems were mnning their way by slow approaches to 
 a reputation the limits of which it would be just then 
 hazardous to predict, is one of a number of observa- 
 tions that show that the estimation in which he was 
 held was gradually impressing itself upon the minds 
 of men generally. Accordingly as time went on, 
 though he was still under the shadow of earlier depre- 
 ciation, there was manifested more and more of a 
 disposition to treat him with respect. Even persons 
 most disposed to dislike rarely ventured to condemn 
 unqualifiedly. He was usually classed, to be sure, even 
 by those favorably inclined, with Sterling, Trench, and 
 Alford of his own Cambridge set ; or with such respect- 
 able veterans as Leigh Hunt or Barry Cornwall; or 
 even with such wearisome nonentities as David Mac- 
 beth Moir, who had grown up and flourished under 
 the shelter of * Blackwood 's Magazine. ' Of his immeas- 
 urable superiority to each one of these or to all of 
 them combined there was hardly a suspicion enter- 
 tained by the critics of the daj^ To maintain that he 
 occupied a really lofty position, that he gave promise 
 of occupying a much loftier one, would have struck 
 almost every one of even the most well-disposed of 
 
THE TEN YEAKS' SILENCE— SECOND HALF 365 
 
 reviewers as a statement too extravagant to be 
 admitted to the columns of any sanely conducted 
 periodical. There were prominent critics whom an 
 assertion of this sort would have filled with disgust. 
 That he was a ''true" poet was the most favorable 
 \T.ew. That he was a great poet none of them ever 
 imagined. Still, it is to be conceded that his general 
 superiority to his Cambridge contemporaries was 
 admitted, though with no decided conviction that this 
 was the genuine gospel. From some it occasionally 
 met with dissent, sometimes violently, sometimes 
 mildly expressed. 
 
 This state of mind can be recognized in an incidental 
 reference to Tennyson in 'The Edinburgh Review' for 
 January, 1836. In it for the first time his name then 
 appeared. During the fourth decade that periodical 
 reviewed and sometimes reviewed favorably poets who 
 are now known only to the literary antiquarian. It 
 does not seem to have occurred to its editor that 
 Tennyson was worth reviewing. In the number just 
 specified was a criticism of Alford's 'The School of 
 the Heart and Other Poems. ' The article is noticeable 
 for its grudging admission of the slowly growing 
 prominence of Tennyson's position. The reviewer 
 conceded that he was now the "most known of any 
 of the young Cambridge poets who have lately taken 
 wing." Still, it was implied, though not directly 
 asserted, that impartial criticism was forced to point 
 out his inferiority to Alford. This inferiority con- 
 sisted in three things. Alford had the ability to choose 
 his subjects from a higher class, to conceive them with 
 
366 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 greater distinctness, and to express his thought with 
 more precision. But there was something worse 
 behind. This the reviewer attempted sadly but man- 
 fully to show. Tennyson, he said, ''must not set it 
 down to aridity and moroseness, if persons of riper 
 years have regretted that his style was not sufficiently 
 impregnated with thought; — that more mind was not 
 apparent behind his words." The remarks of the 
 reviewer were manifestly those of one worthy of 
 consideration ; for when it came to the display of lack 
 of mind, his article was throughout the work of an 
 expert. 
 
 The publication in 1836 of 'St. Agnes' in 'The Keep- 
 sake' for 1837, and of the 'Stanzas' in 'The Tribute' 
 of the latter year, awakened intense enthusiasm in the 
 admirers of the poet. Scant attention, however, com- 
 paratively speaking, was paid to them by the large 
 majority of the most prominent critical journals of 
 the day. In the few instances in which they were 
 mentioned, there is nothing more noticeable than the 
 cautious attitude assumed by the reviewer about 
 committing himself to unqualified laudation. Yet it 
 is evident that both of these poems made a profound 
 impression upon many who had hitherto been indif- 
 ferent or hostile to the poet. The critic of 'The 
 Athenaeum'^ was so struck by the 'St. Agnes' that in 
 his notice of the Annual in which it appeared he 
 printed it entire. He felt it, however, incumbent upon 
 him to apologize for his admiration. Though the paper 
 was pressed for space, he wrote, "we must, however, 
 
 1 ' Athenaeum, ' November 5, 1836, p. 783. 
 
THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— SECOND HALF 367 
 
 find room for a poem, by Mr. Alfred Tennyson, which, 
 though it has much of the right convent spirit about 
 it, is withal so perversely fantastic, that we extract 
 it as much for its curiosity as its beauty." This criti- 
 cism is extracted here not for its sense but for its 
 curiosity. If there be any one epithet utterly inappro- 
 priate to the poem in question, it is that of fantastic. 
 No more in Tennyson's 'St. Agnes' than in that of 
 Keats 's is there the least direct allusion to the particu- 
 lar tale of fiction which does duty for the life of St. 
 Agnes. The poem of Keats culminates in the flight of 
 the heroine with the man she loves. In Tennyson's 
 poem no feelings of this nature fill the heart of the 
 maiden. No thought of earthly love is there suggested. 
 Instead is depicted the aspiration of a saintly spirit 
 that longs to be the bride of heaven, her eagerness to 
 pass from a world of sin and sorrow to the purity of 
 the celestial life. At the very beginning of the poem 
 the maiden is represented as looking forward from the 
 chill confines of her convent home to the habitation on 
 high to become fit for which is her sole desire. At the 
 very end is represented the ecstatic vision of the 
 purified soul freed from the incumbrance of the flesh, 
 and about to form an eternal union -with the heavenly 
 bridegroom. How perfect is the portrayal of the 
 thoughts and feelings of the white-robed vestal, in 
 whom the spiritual life has eradicated all soil of sense, 
 no one needs now to be told. The epithet of fantastic 
 could be applied to the poem only by one who had no 
 comprehension of its inner meaning. 
 
 There is more excuse for the attitude assumed by 
 
368 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 the writer of the article on 'The Tribute' which 
 appeared in 'The Edinburgh Eeview' for October, 
 1837. The poem of Tennyson contained in it, picturing 
 as it does the hallucination of the lover who has lost 
 his bride, does not reveal its meaning after hasty- 
 reading. This is usually all that the hard-pressed 
 critic is able to give. But in this instance, though he 
 could not fully understand, he could in a measure 
 appreciate. The beauty of the lines impressed him. 
 In his article occurs the second of the two mentions 
 of Tennyson which are found in that stately periodical 
 before the publication of the edition of 1842. The first 
 had found him lacking in thought. The second was to 
 find him mysterious and obscure. Still, on the strength 
 of the 'Stanzas' appearing in 'The Tribute,' the 
 reviewer had got so far along as to be able to recognize 
 Tennyson as a "true" poet. In this notice of 'The 
 Tribute' we are told that it contains "a great deal of 
 pleasing poetry" without "exhibiting any one speci- 
 men of very marked genius or striking originality." 
 There were quoted several of these "pleasing" pieces 
 which are as little worth reading now as they were 
 worth reading then. It ended, however, with citing a 
 number of lines — fifty-eight in all — from the one poem 
 which gives all the value it now possesses to the 
 volume containing it. "We do not profess perfectly 
 to understand," said the reviewer, "the somewhat 
 mysterious contribution of Mr. Alfred Tennyson, 
 entitled 'Stanzas'; but amidst some quaintness, and 
 some occasional absurdities of expression, it is not 
 
THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— SECOND HALF 369 
 
 difficult to detect the hand of a true poet.'" The 
 occasional absurdities the critic unfortunately kept to 
 himself ; no one since has been able to discover them. 
 
 But perhaps the most significant testimony to the 
 growth of Tennyson's reputation is the fact that in 
 the latter part of this fourth decade he was beginning 
 to have imitators. Most of the productions of this 
 nature have disappeared from the memory of all men 
 if they ever fixed themselves at all upon the minds 
 of any. The existence of some of these asserted 
 imitations was doubtless due to the fancy of the critic. 
 Of this there is one noticeable instance. In the middle 
 of 1836, the editorship of 'The Monthly Repository'— 
 which there has been more than one occasion to men- 
 tion — passed from Fox to Richard Hengist Home. 
 After holding it for a year, he was succeeded in the 
 position by Leigh Hunt. Under him the periodical 
 maintained for some months a lingering life but at 
 last gave up the ghost. To the first number that came 
 out under his charge — that for July, 1837 — he con- 
 tributed a poem called 'Blue-Stocking Revels, or the 
 Feast of the Violets.' In the second of its three 
 cantos, entitled 'The Presentation Ball,' came an 
 account in alphabetical order of all the female writers 
 of the day. In it the future Mrs. Browning was 
 described in the following words : 
 
 A young lady then, whom to miss were a caret 
 In any verse-history, named, I think, Barrett, 
 (I took her at first for a sister of Tennyson) 
 Knelt, and received the god's kindliest benison. 
 1 Vol. LXVI, p. 103. 
 
370 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 "Truly," said he, "dost thou share the blest power 
 
 Poetic, the fragrance as well as the flower, 
 
 The gift of conveying impressions unseen, 
 
 And making the vaguest thoughts know what they mean. 
 
 Only pray have a care, nor let Alfred beguile 
 
 Admiration too far into manner and style ; 
 
 Nor divide with the printer your claims to be read, 
 
 By directing our faculties when to say ed. 
 
 Such anxieties do both your geniuses wrong; 
 
 Tend to make things too verbal, the mind not so strong ; 
 
 And besides, my dear, who has not read an old song. 
 
 The matter of the whole poem is poor ; the expression 
 of it is worse ; the asserted charge of imitation is worst. 
 Miss Barrett naturally felt surprise and annoyance, 
 and would have been justified in expressing resent- 
 ment. Yet this same ridiculous charge of imitating 
 Tennyson had been made before and continued to be 
 made afterward. Some time after, she gave vent to her 
 feelings of vexation at this utterly baseless charge in 
 an undated letter, but pretty certainly belonging to 
 1842 or 1843. ''As to Tennyson," she wrote, **his 
 admirer I am, and his imitator I am not as certainly. 
 Nearly everything in 'The Seraphim' was written 
 before I ever read one of his then published volumes ; 
 and even the 'instructing the reader to say ed' was 
 done on the pattern of Campbell's 'Theodoric,' and 
 not from a later example."^ 
 
 Peculiar critical obtuseness it required to charge 
 Miss Barrett mth being an imitator of Tennyson. 
 Still, in that early period when the poet himself had 
 
 1 ' Contemporary Eeview, ' Vol. XXIII, p. 454. 
 
THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— SECOND HALF 371 
 
 but little public recognition, there are testimonies 
 sufficient to show that in the eyes of the men of the 
 time a school of writers were consciously or uncon- 
 sciously forming themselves upon him and adopting 
 his manner and method. That surely was the opinion 
 of critics. We may throw aside the testimony found 
 in a review of the poems of John Clare which appeared 
 in 'Blackwood's Magazine' for August, 1835. In it 
 mention is made of ' ' the inferior followers of Shelley, 
 Keates, Hunt, and Tennysson." The remark carries 
 little weight because it is manifest that the writer of 
 the article was not too well acquainted with the better- 
 known men of whom he was talking. There is far 
 stronger evidence of the existence of a condition of 
 things still little recognized by even well-read students 
 of the poet and of the period. In October, 1838, Henry 
 Taylor was engaged in correspondence with a young 
 Oxford student who had consulted him about his 
 career. The latter, in seeking for advice, had sent 
 him some verses of his own composition. These 
 Taylor of course told him had been read with much 
 pleasure. That is something which the sender of 
 verses is always told, if told anything at all. In this 
 instance the assertion appears to have been sincere. 
 ''I should like to know something," wrote Taylor, 
 **of your English poetical reading, whether it lies 
 amongst the poets of the seventeenth century, or 
 amongst the moderns, whether mth those Miisas 
 severiores qui colunt, or with the lighter authors. 
 Your 'Poet's Dirge' seems to savour a little of such 
 reading as Fletcher's 'Faithful Shepherdess' in the 
 
372 LIFE AND TBIES OF TENNYSON 
 
 better time of English poetry, or perhaps of Tennyson 
 in the present day." 
 
 This is one of several indications that Tennyson's 
 influence was not only beginning to be felt but also to 
 be recognized. Far more marked is the involuntary 
 tribute paid about this time to the slowly increasing 
 appreciation of his poetry in an incidental reference 
 to him by his ancient detractor, 'The Quarterly 
 Re\dew.' It is found in the number for June, 1839. 
 It occurs in a criticism of the volume entitled 'Poems 
 of Many Years,' by Richard Monckton Milnes. This 
 work had come out in 1838. Were internal evidence 
 of much value, one would say that the review must 
 have been the work of John Wilson Croker.^ The 
 sentiments expressed were certainly his sentiments. 
 The attitude towards Milnes was partly favorable, 
 partly unfavorable ; but it inclined more to the former 
 than to the latter. A good deal of hope was expressed 
 for his future. His volume, with all its faults, con- 
 tained in the critic's opinion better English verse than 
 had yet been published by any living writer, not yet 
 on the wrong side of the mezzo del cammin. The 
 'Edinburgh' had inferentially, as we have seen, placed 
 Alford above Tennyson. The 'Quarterly' unhesi- 
 tatingly placed Mines higher. 
 
 But the critic in the course of his article pointed out 
 one danger which beset the author. Milnes, he 
 
 1 The assertion has several times been made that this review was the 
 work of Kinglake. In 'The Cambridge Apostles' (p. 237), it is declared 
 further that Milnes was aware of the fact. The article, however, bears 
 no possible resemblance to Kinglake 's style, and certainly conflicts with 
 the opinions he expressed later. 
 
THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— SECOND HALF 373 
 
 asserted, was meant by nature to be a poet. If he 
 ultimately failed to secure the station to which he was 
 entitled, he would have nothing to blame but his per- 
 verse admiration for absurd models. One is naturally 
 curious to know who these absurd models were that 
 had harmfully kindled mistaken admiration. In 
 another part of his article the critic gives us to 
 understand who at least two of them were. ''We are 
 quite sure," he wrote, ''that he [Milnes] will here- 
 after obey one good precept in an otherwise doubtful 
 decalogue — 
 
 'Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope;' 
 
 and regret few sins of his youth more bitterly than 
 the homage he has now rendered at the fantastic 
 shrines of such baby idols as Mr. John Keats and 
 Mr. Alfred Tennyson." In this disparaging opinion 
 the 'Quarterly' was joined at this very time by the 
 'Edinburgh.' In a review of the poetical works of 
 Shelley which appeared in the latter periodical in July, 
 1839,^ there occurs a reference to ' ' the unbearable cox- 
 combry of the 'intense' and mystic school of versifiers 
 who made him their model — including both the Shellites 
 of the old connexion, and those of the new, or Tenny- 
 sonites. " In these two extracts we find expressed the 
 dying throes of a criticism, which after vaunting itself 
 exceedingly for a decade, hardly ventured a few years 
 later to put forth its face; or if it did, was either 
 contemptuously spurned or was too much despised 
 to be even noticed. 
 
 1 Vol. LXIX, p. 510. 
 
374 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 To go back to the private life of Tennyson during 
 the second half of this ten years' period of silence. 
 After their departure from Somersby in 1837, the 
 family took up their residence at High Beech in Epping 
 Forest. There for about three years they remained. 
 As might be inferred from the name, the place was 
 one of the highest points in the Forest. It was covered 
 with magnificent beech trees and is also in close 
 proximity to Waltham Abbey, whose bells are 
 said to have inspired the Christmas canticle of 'In 
 Memoriam. ' The nearness of the new home to London 
 enabled Tennyson to come into frequent contact with 
 his old associates. It was the evening journey between 
 his residence and the city which suggested to him the 
 couplet of ' Locksley Hall ' : 
 
 And at night along the dusky highway near and nearer 
 
 drawn, 
 Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary 
 
 dawn. 
 
 He was natural y a frequent visitor to his intimate 
 friend and unwa veering admirer Spedding at his law- 
 chambers in Lir coin's Inn. He became one of the 
 members of the club meeting on Tuesday, established 
 in 1838, which speedily took the name of its founder 
 Sterling. There he inevitably saw many of his old 
 friends and fellow students; for fully half of the 
 original members had belonged to the Cambridge 
 Apostles. It was for him in all probability a nominal 
 membership rather than an active one. For much 
 
THE TEN YEAKS' SILENCE— SECOND HALF 375 
 
 participation in the debates his shyness would stand 
 in the way. 
 
 In 1840 the family removed to Tunbridge Wells in 
 Kent. Thither they had been ordered by a London 
 physician, who said it was the only place in England 
 for persons with their constitutions. It turned out an 
 unfortunate choice. The house chosen was too small 
 for comfort. The place itself was in Tennyson's eyes 
 an abomination. According to his statement, it was 
 not long before they were half -killed by the tenuity of 
 the atmosphere and the presence of steel more or less 
 in earth, air, and water. There is nothing peculiar 
 in this particular belief. Most of us are disposed to 
 find detrimental to health the air of any place where 
 we do not care to dwell. With these feelings about 
 Tunbridge, whether well founded or more likely purely 
 imaginary, it was naturally not a spot where they 
 cared to remain permanently. In the autumn of 1841, 
 the family removed to Boxley near Maidstone. One 
 main reason for the choice of this ne v abode was its 
 proximity to Park House, the home of the Lushingtons, 
 one of whom married the follomng ;ear a sister of 
 the poet. In all these changes of residence while 
 Tennyson remained regularly with the family, he made 
 frequent excursions over the country, though doubtless 
 far fewer than he desired. Through all his early 
 career there are references in the correspondence of 
 the period to his changing plans, to his scheme of 
 going somewhere, he hardly knew where, and ending 
 up ^\ith going nowhere, like many of us who start out 
 with the idea of visiting the ends of the earth but 
 
376 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 consider ourselves at last fortunate if we can succeed 
 in getting into the nearest country and sometimes into 
 the next county. 
 
 More than once Tennyson is represented as planning 
 a trip to some place of importance and finally landing 
 in some place which no one had ever heard of, or if 
 heard of, had never cared to see. The failure of many 
 of these projected trips was in all probability due not 
 so much to change of intention as to lack of means. 
 In an undated letter belonging somewhere in this 
 period, Spedding referred to the uncertain movements 
 of his friend. "Alfred Tennyson," he wrote, "has 
 reappeared, and is going to-day or to-morrow to 
 Florence, or to Killarney, or to Madeira, or to some 
 place where some ship is going — he does not know 
 where. He has been on a visit to a madhouse (not as 
 a patient), and has been delighted with the mad people, 
 whom he reports as the most agreeable and the most 
 reasonable persons he has met with. The keeper is 
 Dr. Allen . . . with whom he has been greatly taken. ' ' 
 If this be the Dr. Allen who subsequently induced him 
 to engage in a speculative enterprise, he had ample 
 reason to regret his visit to the madhouse, in the 
 pecuniary trouble and mental distress which beset 
 him in the early forties. 
 
 It must not, however, be fancied that aimless 
 wandering characterized at any time the life of Tenny- 
 son. He was in truth one of the hardest of students, 
 and systematically devoted himself to the acquisition 
 of knowledge in many different fields. Several of 
 these might be considered as lying outside the peculiar 
 
THE TEN YEARS' SILENCE— SECOND HALF 377 
 
 province of a poet. He not merely learned modern 
 languages and made himself familiar with their litera- 
 tures, but he devoted time and attention to the study 
 of the natural sciences. To botany, geology, and 
 astronomy he paid special attention both then and 
 in later life. But as is to be expected, while we hear 
 of his journeys or intended journeys in the corre- 
 spondence of the period, little reference is made to the 
 studies he was pursuing while at home, whether it was 
 at Somersby or High Beech, or at Boxley, where the 
 family remained for a while before their removal to 
 Cheltenham. It was while residing at Boxley that 
 Tennyson broke finally the silence of years by once 
 more appearing in print. As the publication of the 
 poems of 1842 marks the turning-point in his career, 
 it demands fulness of consideration of the circum- 
 stances attending its production as well as of the 
 nature of its reception by the public. It demands it 
 all the more because erroneous statements have been 
 made and still continue to be occasionally made upon 
 both these points. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 THE POEMS OF 1842 
 
 As the fifth decade of the century opened, the inti- 
 mate personal friends of Tennyson had become some- 
 what impatient to have him appear once more in 
 print. Their faith in him, fed as it was by the perusal 
 of unpublished poems, had steadily waxed more 
 intense. Those permitted to read these productions 
 deplored his continued silence. Outside too of his 
 associates there were plenty of men ready to encour- 
 age him who stood far higher in ability than any single 
 one of his detractors. Walter Savage Landor heard 
 read from manuscript in December, 1837, the poem 
 of 'The Passing of Arthur,' which when published 
 appeared under the title of 'Morte d 'Arthur.' In a 
 letter of that year he said of it that ''it is more 
 Homeric than any poem of our time, and rivals some 
 of the noblest parts of the Odyssea."^ 
 
 But no suggestions, no entreaties of any sort could 
 induce Tennyson to publish. At the bottom of this 
 decision was mainly his excessive sensitiveness to 
 criticism and the rough treatment to which his previous 
 volume had been subjected. In addition to this he 
 shared in the general belief that the times were 
 
 1 John Forster 's ' Walter Savage Landor, ' 1869, p. 509. 
 
THE POEMS OF 1842 379 
 
 unpropitious to the publication of poetry. There was 
 no sale for it, at least for that kind of it which was 
 of a high grade. There was accordingly little induce- 
 ment for the author to submit himself to the tender 
 mercies of a public which did not care to read what 
 he wrote, or if by any chance it did read, was inclined 
 to judge it harshly. There was nothing peculiar to 
 Tennyson himself in this state of mind beyond the 
 intensity of the feeling with which he held it. All the 
 writers of that period shared in it more or less. 
 Milnes, for example, wrote in March, 1837, to Aubrey 
 de Vere of the hesitation he felt about publishing his 
 poems. He was not at all disposed to bring them out 
 till he had made them as perfect as lay in his power. 
 ' ' I am too old, ' ' he said, ' ' to produce them as youthful 
 exercises, so that they will have to come forward on 
 their own merits without excuse or veil; hence the 
 assiduous correction of them by judgment and expe- 
 rience is imperative ; and when the world is such that 
 Alfred Tennyson does not think it worth while to 
 write down his compositions, there need be no rash 
 eagerness on my part. "^ In a later letter to the same 
 friend he referred again to this characteristic of the 
 poet. ^'Tennyson," he wrote, ''composes every day, 
 but nothing will persuade him to print, or even write 
 it down."^ 
 
 The pressure upon him to publish became more 
 insistent after the appearance of the two poems which 
 came out in ' The Keepsake ' and ' The Tribute. ' "Do 
 
 I'Life and Letters of Richard Monckton Milnes,' Vol. I, p. 194. 
 2 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 220. 
 
380 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 you ever see Tennyson," wrote Trench to Milnes in 
 March, 1838, *'and if so, could you not urge him to 
 take the field I I think with the exception of myself 
 and him, everybody sent to 'The Tribute' the poorest, 
 or nearly the poorest, things they had by them. But 
 I suppose that as it was only for a charity, it did not 
 much signify. His poem was magnificent."^ These 
 observations could hardly have been altogether grati- 
 fying to Trench's correspondent, who had himself 
 been largely instrumental in procuring pieces for the 
 collection. In it, too, four of his own had appeared. 
 Still the correctness of the criticism no one is now 
 likely to question. But the urgent appeal of Trench, 
 if it ever reached Tennyson, had no effect upon his 
 resolution. Feeble as we now know were the real 
 reasons for his silence, there was in his own mind 
 what would appear a plausible justification for his 
 course. He was well aware that he was little regarded 
 outside of a comparatively small circle. Though this 
 circle had been steadily enlarging, nevertheless it still 
 remained small. Most of the men of the English- 
 speaking world had never heard of him ; most of those 
 who had heard, had been content to accept the con- 
 temptuous estimate expressed of him years before by 
 'The Quarterly Review.' His two published pieces, 
 so warmly admired by those who read them, were read 
 after all by a far from large number. For men 
 generally they were largely lost to sight in the jungle 
 of poetical weeds by which they were surrounded. 
 Nor even in the circle of his immediate friends had the 
 
 1 R. M. Milnes 's 'Life and Letters,' Vol. I, p. 208. 
 
THE POEMS OF 1842 381 
 
 first of these two contributions met always with warm 
 recognition. The poem of 'St. Agnes,' Sterling was 
 not disposed to admire. ''I had heard much more of 
 it," he wrote to Trench, ''than I think it deserves. 
 The great merit, as usual with him, is his eye for the 
 picturesque. An iced saint is certainly much better 
 than an iced cream, but not much better than a frosted 
 tree. The original Agnes is worth twenty of her.'" 
 It is clear from this very shallow comment, in which 
 a comparison is made between Tennyson's poem and 
 the totally dissimilar one of Keats, that Sterling had 
 no comprehension of the piece or of what it was 
 intended to illustrate. His remarks are only of 
 importance because they show that his attention had 
 been called to it by the impression which it had made 
 upon others and by the admiration which it had excited. 
 It was not unnatural therefore that Tennyson should 
 remain unconvinced of the desirability of publication. 
 However much personal friends might exalt him, he 
 was well aware that he was really but little known. 
 There was clearly no eagerness on the part of the 
 general public to read what he had already published. 
 What evidence was there that they would welcome 
 what he might further choose to publish? During the 
 years which had gone by since his two ventures, there 
 was not sufficient demand for his poetry — at least the 
 demand was not urgent enough — to render it advisable 
 to bring out a second edition of either volume. In this 
 respect his fortunes may be said to resemble those 
 of Keats. What was true of his poetic predecessor 
 
 1 E. C. Trench 's ' Letters and Memorials, ' Vol. I, p. 220. 
 
382 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 was to some extent true of himself. It is right to add 
 also that the admirers of the one were largely the 
 admirers of the other. Indeed the resemblance of the 
 two men in their fortunes was indicated in a letter 
 written in September, 1841, by the same John Sterling 
 who had been dissatisfied with the poem in ' The Keep- 
 sake. ' ''Lately," he wrote to Trench, "I have been 
 reading again some of Alfred Tennyson's second 
 volume, and with profound admiration of his truly 
 lyric and idyllic genius. There seems to me to have 
 been more epic power in Keats — that fiery, beautiful 
 meteor. But they are two most true and great poets. 
 When one thinks of the amount of recognition they 
 have received, one may well bless God that poetry is 
 in itself strength and joy, whether it be crowned by 
 all mankind or left alone in its own magic hermitage. ' * 
 These words might fairly be taken as justifying the 
 resolution of Tennyson not to appear. They certainly 
 convey the impression that the public as a whole was 
 indifferent to the merits of both himself and of Keats, 
 or rather ignorant of their existence. In truth the 
 little sale of their works was later given as having 
 had the effect of increasing their reputation. This 
 extraordinary view was taken in a criticism of the 
 volumes of 1842 which was as hostile as it dared to 
 be. ''Until only very recently," remarked 'The 
 Literary Gazette,' "it was difficult to obtain either the 
 poems by John Keats or Alfred Tennyson; and the 
 scarcity of their works has been the means of adding 
 greatly to the reputation of the authors ; they have 
 been more inquired after than read, and their names 
 
THE POEMS OF 1842 383 
 
 better known than their poems. "^ The profound dis- 
 covery that the inability to secure an author's works 
 contributes to the spread of his fame could have come 
 only from the editor of the journal in which the criti- 
 cism appeared. It bears the stamp of Jerdan himself. 
 There is no doubt, however, that at the beginning 
 of the fifth decade of the century, it was coming to 
 be difficult to procure Tennyson 's poems. The number 
 of copies printed had not been large in the first 
 instance. During the years which had passed this 
 number had been well-nigh exhausted. Yet it is 
 doubtful if the scarcity of the volumes, combined mth 
 the urgency of friends and admirers, would have been 
 of avail to break the poet's policy of silence, had not 
 another agency now come forward to force him to 
 action. Pressure for publication showed itself from 
 a quarter he could hardly have anticipated. The 
 information was conveyed to him in 1841 that his 
 poems were to be reprinted in America. That project 
 was not entirely new. As far back as January, 1838, 
 a highly appreciative notice of his writings had 
 appeared at Boston in 'The Christian Examiner.' 
 This was a quarterly re\dew ^vith then a good deal 
 of reputation as the organ of the Unitarian body. 
 The author of the article was John Sullivan Dwight, 
 originally a clergyman, subsequently a member of the 
 Brook Farm community, and later known as a musical 
 critic of authority. It may have been in consequence 
 of this review that a reprint in this country of Tenny- 
 son's two volumes came to be under consideration that 
 
 1' Literary Gazette' for November 19, 1842, p. 788. 
 
384 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 same year. Whether due to the disinclination of the 
 publisher on second thought to risk the venture, or to 
 the remonstrance of Tennyson himself, the under- 
 taking, if seriously contemplated, was not carried out 
 at that time. But in this instance it was evident from 
 the communication sent that there was to be no falter- 
 ing. The news was hardly agreeable. There was a 
 pretty large number of his earlier pieces which Tenny- 
 son had no desire to have brought again to the 
 attention of the public. The faults in many of them 
 and the futility of some of them he had long before 
 come to see more clearly than the most venomous of 
 his critics. Naturally the prospect of their reappear- 
 ance did not please him. But what could he do ? 
 
 It is a proof of the steady advance which had been 
 silently going on in Tennyson's reputation that trans- 
 atlantic eyes had for some time begun to look upon his 
 poems as fit subjects for reprint. Even in England 
 the number of copies issued were showing themselves 
 inadequate to meet the demand, slowly growing as it 
 had been. Mrs. Browning tells us in a letter of 
 September, 1842, that though she had the volume of 
 1832, she had been unable to procure that of 1830, 
 having inquired for it vainly.^ But if his poems were 
 becoming scarce in England, it was practically impos- 
 sible to procure them in America. His admirers in 
 this country, whatever their number, were no longer 
 disposed to rest content with copies of single pieces 
 or with fragmentary extracts. Hence came from them 
 this ominous reminder of what was in store for him, 
 
 1' Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Bro^iiing,' Vol. I, p. 109. 
 
THE POEMS OF 1842 385 
 
 if he neglected any longer to make a renewed appear- 
 ance before the public. The pressure was of a kind 
 against which he could make no effective resistance. 
 The land of the free, as he complained, felt itself free 
 to help itself to his writings, and to reprint them for 
 him, if he were indisposed to take that course on his 
 own responsibility. For it was distinctly, though 
 delicately, intimated that if he himself took no action, 
 action would be taken for him. 
 
 So much has been said and justly said against the 
 book-pirate, and of the wrongs inflicted by him upon 
 authors, that it is well to put on record the few services 
 to literature which he has rendered. He occasionally 
 took the place of posterity and did its work. The 
 pressure he put upon the reluctant writer has been 
 sometimes beneficial. It was certainly so in this 
 instance. Tennyson might have held out against the 
 entreaties of his friends. But against the menace of 
 this new peril he was helpless to protect himself by 
 inaction. ''You bore me about my book," he wrote 
 to FitzGerald some time in 1841; "so does a letter 
 just received from America, threatening, tho' in the 
 civilest terms, that, if I will not publish in England, 
 they will do it for me in that land of freemen."^ In 
 contemplating the reproduction of much of his early 
 verse with which he had come to be dissatisfied, he 
 might well add as he did, "I may curse, knowing what 
 they will bring forth. But I don't care." The action 
 he was led to take showed however that he did care. 
 Something had to be done in order to stop the trans- 
 
 1' Memoir,' Vol. I, p. 178. 
 
386 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 atlantic republication of his earlier volumes, some of 
 which would doubtless triumph over the vigilance 
 of the custom house and find their way into English 
 hands. At this very time copies of Macaulay's essays, 
 collected and printed in America, were stealing into 
 Great Britain in such numbers as to force the reluctant 
 author to bring them out early in 1843 in a revised 
 form. So in this case what the urgency of friends 
 could not accomplish, the pressure of the book-pirate 
 did. The prospect roused Tennyson from his inaction. 
 Groaning in spirit and doubtless with a good deal of 
 inward imprecation and certainly of inward trepida- 
 tion, he resolved to try his fortunes once more with 
 the public. 
 
 It may be added that Lowell took some credit to 
 himself for bringing about this result. The fact is 
 made known to us in a letter of his to Duyckinck, then 
 editor of the short-lived literary periodical entitled 
 'Arcturus.' It bears the date of December 5, 1841. 
 In this letter, Lowell told his correspondent that 
 Tennyson was to bring out ' ' a new and correct edition 
 of his poems." While he did not wish to state the 
 authority for the assertion, he assured him that it 
 could be relied upon, for it came from the author 
 himself. ' ' I have the great satisfaction, ' ' he continued, 
 "of thinking that the publication is in some measure 
 owing to myself, for it was by my means he was 
 written to about it, and he says that 'his American 
 friends' are the chief cause of his reprinting."^ 
 Accordingly an announcement appeared in the literary 
 
 1 H. E. Scudder 's ' James Russell Lowell, ' Vol. I, pp. 96-97. 
 
THE POEMS OF 1842 387 
 
 notices of 'Arcturus' for the following February to 
 the effect that *'it is understood that Moxon, the 
 London publisher, is about to issue a new edition of 
 the poems of Alfred Tennyson, undertaken by the 
 author, we believe, at the solicitation of his American 
 friends and readers." The word here italicized so 
 appears in the periodical. The exact feelings of 
 Tennyson towards his American friends may be 
 guessed but need not be stated. Still, as it turned out, 
 he had far more reason to rejoice in their interference 
 than to regret it. 
 
 The decision to publish was unquestionably a sur- 
 prise to most and probably to nearly all of his English 
 admirers. When at last the news spread about in 
 the latter part of 1841 that Tennyson was about ''to 
 take the field," as Trench expressed it, the statement 
 was received by many with amazement that amounted 
 almost to incredulity. In a postscript to a letter 
 written in October of this same year by FitzGerald 
 to Frederick Tennyson, he communicated to the poet's 
 brother the astounding information. "Just heard 
 from Edgeworth," he said, ''that Alfred is in London 
 'busy preparing for the press' ! ! !" Three exclamation 
 points, it was felt by the writer, were necessary to 
 indicate adequately the wonder of it. On the part of 
 the author himself we are certain that he took the 
 action he did with few anticipations of success and 
 with many misgivings as to failure. It is suggestive, 
 however, of the extreme care that Tennyson inva- 
 riably employed to perfect his work that in this 
 instance, as in so many others, he resorted to the 
 
388 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 precaution of printing a few copies of some of the 
 poems for private examination before offering them 
 to the public. A book of several hundred pages 
 preceded the publication of the edition of 1842. 
 It contained eight of his pieces in blank verse — 
 'Morte d 'Arthur,' 'Dora,' 'The Gardener's Daughter,' 
 'Audley Court,' 'Walking to the Mail,' 'St. Simeon 
 Stylites,' 'Ulysses,' and 'Godiva.' It is hardly neces- 
 sary to add that these were scattered through the 
 second volume of the edition of 1842. 
 
 Now that we know the results of this venture we 
 can observe with curiosity, if not with wonder, the 
 anxiety about its success which beset both the author 
 and his friends. The almost universal belief that 
 there was no market for poetry of a high order is 
 brought out constantly in the correspondence of the 
 period. Equally appears at intervals Tennyson's 
 peculiar sensitiveness to criticism and his dread of it. 
 Early in 1842, while his work was in preparation for 
 the press, he was a good deal dispirited by the 
 departure from England of the one friend upon whom 
 he had relied to come to his support from expected 
 attack. This was Spedding, who had gone to America 
 as secretary to Lord Ashburton, dispatched thither 
 to negotiate the settlement of the northeastern bound- 
 ary of the United States. Spedding, he knew, not 
 only sympathized with him but believed in him fully. 
 Naturally he was downhearted at an absence whose 
 length could not be foretold. "Some fop," he wrote 
 to his future brother-in-law, Lushington, "will get the 
 
THE POEMS OF 1842 389 
 
 start of him in the Ed. Review where he promised to 
 put an article, and I have had abuse enough. ' '^ 
 
 That Tennyson himself should have feared failure 
 after his previous experience was not unnatural. But 
 the same little anticipation of his acceptance by the 
 world at large and consequently of the limited sale 
 of his poetical works was exhibited by his warmest 
 admirers. It continued too for some time after the 
 volumes of 1842 had come out. It was very much in 
 e\T.dence while the business of getting them ready for 
 publication was going on. Xo one was a fuller 
 believer in the man and the poet than FitzGerald. 
 He was indeed no blind worshipper. On the contrary 
 he was wont to amuse himself with Spedding's 
 uncompromising partisanship. Yet while confident in 
 the ultimate success of the work, it is manifest that 
 at the outset he had little expectation of its immediate 
 popularity. "Alfred," he wrote to Frederick Tenny- 
 son in March, 1842, '4s busy preparing a new volume 
 for the press : full of doubts, troubles, &c. The review- 
 ers will doubtless be at him : and with justice for many 
 things: but some of the poems will outlive the 
 reviewers.'" This is so far from being a glowing, it 
 is rather a gloomy prediction of immortality; but it 
 manifestly expressed the feeling which prevailed then 
 in the inner circle of the poet's friends. It cannot be 
 said that it augured hopeful anticipations of success. 
 
 The printing of the work was at last completed. 
 On May 14, 1842, London papers contained the follow- 
 
 1' Memoir,' Vol. I, p. 180. 
 
 2 FitzGerald 's 'Letters and Literary Remains,' Vol. I, p. 94. 
 
390 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 ing advertisement: ''Just Published. Tennyson's 
 Poems in two volumes." This was the simple 
 announcement of the venture, made without the 
 slightest preliminary puffing or the slightest attempt 
 of any sort to arrest the popular attention. It turned 
 out in time that neither had been needed, though the 
 appearance in 1842 of numerous poetical rivals might 
 seem of itself to render the prospects of this particular 
 work precarious. That year saw the publication of 
 volumes of verse by veteran poets whose very names 
 might fairly be expected to challenge the attention of 
 the public. In March had come out Campbell's 'Pil- 
 grim of Glencoe,' and in April Wordsworth's 'Poems 
 of Early and Late Years,' including the drama of 
 ' The Borderers. ' Both of these, it is creditable to the 
 sense of the public, had as little success as if their 
 authors had been utterly unknown to fame. Early, 
 too, in July, Leigh Hunt brought out 'The Palfrey, a 
 Love-Story of Old Times.' 
 
 These were the work of the veterans. But this same 
 year saw also the publication of poems by men of the 
 younger generation who had already established 
 greater or less claim to popular recognition. Bulwer 
 diversified his production of novels by making one of 
 his occasional ventures into poetry with the tale of 
 'Eva.' Henry Taylor, having recovered from the 
 shock of the success of 'Philip Van Artevelde,' had 
 come forward with his third play, the historical drama 
 of 'Edwin the Fair.' Early in the year, Trench pub- 
 lished a volume bearing the title of 'Poems from 
 Eastern Sources: The Steadfast Prince, and other 
 
THE POEMS OF 1842 391 
 
 Poems.' Towards its close he came out again with 
 a volume entitled 'Genoveva.' Robert Browning in 
 his series of 'Bells and Pomegranates' brought to the 
 attention of a world now become unheedf ul, his drama 
 of 'King Victor and King Charles,' and later, what 
 was of far more importance, his 'Dramatic Lyrics.' 
 Even our old friend, the now forgotten Robert Mont- 
 gomery — who as regards the sale of his works had been 
 far the most successful writer of verse of the fourth 
 decade just so long as he continued to write it — turned 
 momentarily aside from the equally successful business 
 of preacMng, and produced a ponderous poem entitled 
 ' Luther. ' This he besought Carlyle to review. Though 
 Carlyle refused to criticise this "rhymed rigmarole," 
 as he termed it — the rigmarole chanced to be in blank 
 verse — the public did not refuse to buy. The work 
 appeared late in February ; early in May it went into 
 a second edition, and a third came out in 1843, and a 
 fourth in 1846. But the great success of the year was 
 Macaulay's 'Lays of Ancient Rome.' The volume 
 appeared in October. It at once gained a popularity 
 which it has never since lost. Altogether 1842 was 
 remarkable for its number of poetical ventures. In 
 the general assault which was made then upon the 
 attention of the public from so many sources of 
 interest, the year is to us now mainly memorable for 
 the production of the two volumes of Tennyson's 
 poems. 
 
 Before describing the reception which these two 
 volumes met, it is desirable to say something of their 
 contents. The second was made up of matter hitherto 
 
392 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 imprinted with the exception of the poem of 'St. 
 Agnes,' and the three stanzas entitled 'The Sleeping 
 Beauty, ' which came now to serve as the nucleus about 
 which was built up ' The Day Dream. ' On the contrary, 
 the first consisted mainly of pieces which had appeared 
 in the previous volumes of 1830 and 1832. Of the 
 fifty-six poems which were found in the former, the 
 majority were discarded. In those which were retained 
 very few alterations were made. Not so of the volume 
 of 1832. Of thirty poems which there appeared, most 
 of the important ones were selected to be included in 
 the new edition. With the exception of the one 
 entitled ' Hesperides ' and two of the feminine portraits, 
 'Rosalind' and 'Kate,' those retained embrace all that 
 were of any length without saying anything whatever 
 as to their quality. But to this same first volume were 
 added seven poems hitherto unprinted. They were 
 entitled 'Lady Clara Vere de Vere,' 'The Blackbird,' 
 the conclusion of 'The May Queen,' and the three 
 pieces dealing with the development of English liberty, 
 which bore respectively as their first lines: "You 
 ask me, why, though ill at ease," "Of old sat Freedom 
 on the heights," and "Love thou thy land, with love 
 far-bought." Finally there was added the poem 
 entitled 'The Goose.' It would have been no loss to 
 the volume had this never appeared. With one 
 exception the composition of the seven belonged to 
 the year 1833. 
 
 It was the changes made in the selections taken from 
 the 'Poems' of 1832 which constituted the most 
 distinctive feature of this first volume. That changes 
 
THE POEMS OF 1842 393 
 
 should be made by Tennyson was inevitable. As 
 regards their methods of composition poets divide 
 themselves into two broadly distinct classes. In the 
 members of the first, the conceptions are struck out 
 at a heat. They find at once adequate expression, or 
 at all events such expression as the writer is either 
 unable or indisposed to modify materially. They 
 come forth perfect in his eyes or near enough per- 
 fection to prevent his bestowing upon them any 
 further care. Now and then one word may eventually 
 be substituted for another, now and then a line or 
 a passage may be remodelled. But beyond this chance 
 attention to details there is no serious effort put forth 
 to alter the original form to any extent worth consid- 
 ering. To use an outworn comparison, Minerva has 
 sprung full-panoplied from the head of Jove. It is 
 consequently felt to be a work of supererogation to 
 make any change in her armor. On the other hand, 
 vdth poets of the second class the expression is built 
 up elaborately. It is by slow degrees that the pile 
 reaches the perfection aimed at. The glow that 
 illuminates their pages is not due to lightning flashes 
 of inspiration. It is the result of steady and prolonged 
 blaze. Poets of this order are not necessarily either 
 greater or lesser literary artists than those belonging 
 to the other; but they are distinctly more conscious. 
 Nor is there justification for claiming superiority 
 for the procedure emploj^ed by the poets of either one 
 of these two classes. In the instance of each the 
 method is followed by the writer which is for him the 
 most suitable for embodying effectually in verse what 
 
394 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 he seeks to say. Furthermore, while these classes 
 have in general a broad line of demarcation, it does 
 not follow that the division between them extends 
 invariably to particulars. The writer of the one class 
 occasionally invades the province of the other. Those 
 of the first sometimes, though not often, employ, at 
 least for short pieces or passages, the slowly elabo- 
 rating processes of the second. More frequently the 
 poets of this second class produce in a moment of 
 inspiration some piece, in which so far as they are 
 concerned, no further change is felt to be feasible or 
 desirable. Furthermore there are poets who seem to 
 belong sometimes to one of these classes and some- 
 times to the other. It is only a broad general division 
 that is outlined here ; it will never hold true of all its 
 details. 
 
 Of this second class of writers whose poetic product 
 is the result of elaborate workmanship, Tennyson is 
 certainly a conspicuous representative. The fact was 
 made very evident in the contents of this first volume 
 of the 'Poems' of 1842. Some of the pieces retained 
 from the volume of 1832 were indeed left unchanged. 
 But alterations there were in others of them on the 
 most extensive scale. This was particularly noticeable 
 in Parts I and IV of ' The Lady of Shalott, ' in ' Mariana 
 in the South,' in 'The Miller's Daughter, in 'OEnone,' 
 in 'The Palace of Art,' in 'The Dream of Fair Women,' 
 and in the choric song of 'The Lotos-Eaters.' No 
 student of Tennyson's writings needs to be told that 
 these are the most important poems of the volume of 
 1832. The changes they individually underwent form 
 
THE POEMS OF 1842 395 
 
 in consequence a curious study in the methods employed 
 by the poet to perfect his work. Stanzas were omitted, 
 stanzas were added. In certain instances the changes 
 were so numerous and on so grand a scale that the 
 sum of them amounted almost to recasting the whole 
 poem or some particular part of it. 
 
 Great was the outcry that arose in consequence in 
 many quarters. The desirability of any of these 
 alterations was doubted by several even of the poet's 
 warmest admirers. By some of them vehement protest 
 was made. It was certainly very hard for those who 
 had become familiar with the lines as they had origi- 
 nally appeared, to accept any change whatever. This 
 is a feeling which must always be taken into consid- 
 eration in any criticism made by those of us to whom 
 the first form of a poem is the form by which we have 
 learned to love it. In such cases we are hardly 
 competent judges of the propriety or excellence of 
 the alterations made. Our ears have been attuned by 
 time and custom to the flow of certain words in a 
 certain order. Anything which disturbs this melody 
 which has become part of our mental equipment is apt 
 to jar painfully upon the literary sense. The old 
 associations have been broken up. The new ones have 
 not only to be created — itself a work of time — but they 
 must displace from remembrance and regard the old 
 ones to which our ears have become accustomed. The 
 music in which we delighted is lost, and we have little 
 inclination to adapt ourselves to any new tune, even 
 if judges, recognized by us as competent and impartial, 
 should proclaim its superiority ; and in such cases the 
 
396 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 only impartial judges are those who come to the con- 
 sideration of the two versions without having been 
 previously familiar with either. 
 
 It was accordingly inevitable that many should be 
 grieved by the changes made, who were far from 
 unfriendly to the poet. Two of these criticisms are 
 worth noting coming from the persons they did. In 
 January, 1844, an article on Tennyson's two volumes 
 appeared in the 'Democratic Review' published in 
 New York. It was the production of Fanny Kemble 
 Butler. Of Tennyson, as we have seen, she had been 
 one of the most extravagant of the original admirers. 
 As the poet was an intimate friend of her brother, 
 John Mitchell Kemble, not only literary taste but 
 family feeling would tend to make her a partisan. 
 Naturally there was no restraint in the expression of 
 her admiration for the genius which had been dis- 
 played in the new poems appearing then for the first 
 time. But along Avith this went unhesitating condem- 
 nation of the alterations which had been made in the 
 old ones. ''He has changed," she wrote, "and in our 
 opinion has very nearly ruined some of his best early 
 poems, at the same time that he puts forth new ones 
 incomparably superior to those at their unaltered 
 best." She regarded this retrograde and progressive 
 process, as she called it, the most singular mental 
 phenomenon in the range of modern literature. All 
 the alterations were in her eyes alterations for the 
 worse. She was unable, for instance, to speak with 
 patience of the changes made in one of the songs 
 found in 'The Miller's Daughter.' The verses, she 
 
THE POEMS OF 1842 397 
 
 thought only tolerable as they stood originally; as 
 they now appeared, they were unmitigated twaddle. 
 
 It is a singular illustration of the force of association 
 working in a person of superior intellect and of 
 refined taste that preference could be given by Fanny 
 Kemble to the conclusion of the choric song in 'The 
 Lotos-Eaters,' as found in the old version, to the far 
 more effective and poetical lines which were found 
 in the new. The most virulent critic of Tennyson never 
 exhibited much more pronounced evidence of incom- 
 petence than did here this enthusiastic admirer. Later 
 in life she admitted that the changes she deplored did 
 not appear deplorable to others, but distinct improve- 
 ments. It is manifest that in regard to the excellence 
 of the alterations made she had come to find herself 
 in a hopeless minority. Her work entitled 'Eecords 
 of a Girlhood' was published in 1878. In it she 
 repeated her previous opinion in regard to these 
 changes, or rather the feelings she had once had about 
 them. But she further confessed that what had 
 seemed to her desecrations did not seem so to the 
 modern reader. ''In justice to Tennyson," she said, 
 "I must add that the present generation of his readers 
 swear by their version of his poems as we did by ours, 
 for the same reason, — they knew it first. ' ' 
 
 As being more open to fair difference of opinion, 
 it may be worth while to set side by side the two 
 versions of the song in 'The Miller's Daughter,' 
 partly to show in small space something of the nature 
 and extent of the changes made by the poet and partly 
 
398 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 to give the reader an opportunity to decide for himself 
 on their respective merits : 
 
 Edition of 1832 
 
 I wish I were her earring, 
 
 Ambushed in auburn ringlets sleek, 
 
 (So might my shadow tremble 
 Over her downy cheek,) 
 
 Hid in her hair, all day and night, 
 
 Touching her neck so warm and white. 
 
 I wish I were the girdle 
 
 Buckled about her dainty waist, 
 
 That her heart might beat against me. 
 In sorrow and in rest. 
 
 I should know well if it beat right, 
 
 I 'd clasp it round so close and tight. 
 
 I wish I were her necklace. 
 
 So might I ever fall and rise 
 Upon her balmy bosom 
 
 With her laughter, or her sighs. 
 I would lie round so warm and light 
 I would not be unclasped at night. 
 
 Edition of 1842 
 
 It is the miller's daughter. 
 
 And she is grown so dear, so dear, 
 
 That I would be the jewel 
 That trembles at her ear ; 
 
 For hid in ringlets day and night, 
 
 I'd touch her neck so warm and white. 
 
THE POEMS OF 1842 399 
 
 And I would be the girdle 
 
 About her dainty, dainty waist, 
 And her heart would beat against me, 
 
 In sorrow and in rest : 
 And I should know if it beat right, 
 
 I'd clasp it round so close and tight. 
 
 And I would be the necklace. 
 
 And all day long to fall and rise 
 Upon her balmy bosom, 
 
 With her laughter or her sighs, 
 And I would lie so light, so light, 
 
 I scarce should be unclasp 'd at night. ^ 
 
 The other criticism came from an even more famous 
 quarter. In a letter of July 13, 1842, Browning gave 
 to Alfred Domett his opinion of the changes which 
 had been made in this first volume, as well as of some 
 
 1 In an article in ' The New London Literary Gazette ' of August 25, 
 1827, on specimens of the early Greek poets, there is an English poem 
 "formed from two or three fragments not inserted in the epigrams of 
 Meleager. " "I have endeavored," says the author of the article, "to 
 give a specimen of a style of love-song so common among the Greek 
 lyric poets." Then follow these verses: 
 
 I wish I were the bowl. 
 
 The bowl that she kisses, 
 I would breathe away my soul 
 
 In the goblet of blisses. 
 
 I wish I were a flower, 
 
 Or the dove which sings 
 In the evening bower 
 
 With sunset on her wings. 
 
 For if I were a flower, 
 
 I should sleep upon her breast ; 
 And if I were a dove, 
 
 I would sing her to her rest. 
 
 And lovely her slumbers, 
 
 And sweet her dream should be, 
 
 And beautiful her waking. 
 If watched by me. 
 
400 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 of the poems contained in the second. ''I send with 
 this," he wrote, ''Tennyson's new vol., and, alas, the 
 old with it — that is, what he calls old. You will see, 
 and groan! The alterations are insane. Whatever 
 is touched is spoiled. There is some woeful infirmity 
 in the man — he was months buried in correcting the 
 press of the last volume, and in that time began spoil- 
 ing the new poems (in proof) as hard as he could. 
 'Locksley Hall' is shorn of two or three couplets. I 
 will copy out from the book of somebody who luckily 
 transcribed from the proof-sheet — meantime one line, 
 you will see, I have restored — see and wonder ! I have 
 been with Moxon this morning, who tells me that 
 he is miserably thin-skinned, sensitive to criticism 
 (foolish criticism), wishes to see no notices that 
 contain the least possible depreciatory expressions — 
 poor fellow! But how good when good he is — that 
 noble 'Locksley Hall,' for instance — and 'St. Simeon 
 Stylites' — which I think perfect. ... To think that 
 he has omitted the musical 'Forget-me-not' song, and 
 'The Hesperides' — and the 'Deserted House' — and 
 'everything that is his,' as distinguished from what 
 is everybody's."^ 
 
 To men who have made themselves familiar -with 
 the changes which are found in these poems, it is not 
 Tennyson's alterations that will seem insane but 
 Browning's criticism. But these remarks of his render 
 it a matter of moment to correct the error on this point 
 into which he fell at this time as well as later. It is 
 one, too, into which friends as well as enemies of the 
 
 1' Browning and Domett,' edited by F. G. Kenyon, 1906, p. 40. 
 
THE POEMS OF 1842 401 
 
 poet have been betrayed. Never assuredly was an 
 author more sensitive to critical attack than was 
 Tennyson, so far as his feelings were concerned. 
 Never was one more independent of it in his action. 
 The only maker of it to whose judgment he paid much 
 heed was himself. Suggestions from friendly quarters 
 he sometimes sought. Even those unsought he fully 
 considered. But there is no evidence that anything, 
 whether coming from favorable or unfavorable 
 sources, determined, save in occasional instances, 
 liis own conclusions. On the contrary, the evidence 
 is overwhelming that it did not. He sometimes looked 
 with a sort of perverse fondness upon poems which 
 his warmest admirers regarded with extreme disfavor. 
 Not merely in spite of the attacks of the hostile, but 
 against the remonstrances of the friendly he persisted 
 in publishing and republishing pieces which it would 
 have been to his credit to have dropped entirely. 
 Hostile criticism had no perceptible effect in dictating 
 the omissions or alterations which were found in the 
 edition of 1842. The poems appearing in his first two 
 ventures which he failed to republish there would have 
 been thrown out in any case. For his feelings about 
 some of those contained in the volume of 1830 we have 
 at an early period the unimpeachable testimony of his 
 most intimate friend. "They little know the while," 
 wrote Hallam, after Wilson's review in 'Blackwood,' 
 **that you despise the false parts of your volume quite 
 as vehemently as your censors can, and with purer zeal, 
 because with better knowledge."^ 
 
 1 ' Memoir, ' Vol. I, p. 84. 
 
402 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 But the opposite impression has been so long preva- 
 lent that it has become prevailing. The view indicated 
 by it has been so stoutly held and so persistently 
 proclaimed that the mere assertion of its falsity will 
 seem to most men like a denial of the self-evident. 
 Accordingly it becomes important to make a critical 
 inquiry into the matter and to bring out the facts too 
 unmistakably to admit of further question. This can 
 be best done by an exposure of two representative 
 misstatements of Tennyson's course, coming as these 
 do from sources more than ordinarily authoritative. 
 It will show beyond question that, however much the 
 poet 's feelings were outraged by attack, his action was 
 never influenced by it. The first of these misstate- 
 ments is found in the biography of Professor Wilson 
 written by his daughter, Mrs. Gordon. In it occurs 
 a comment upon the review in 'Blackwood' of Tenny- 
 son's first volume. "The young poet," wrote Mrs. 
 Gordon, ''although evidently nettled, received the 
 criticism in good part." Whatever the daughter may 
 have thought, the father, it will be seen later, did not 
 deem that his criticism had been taken in good part, 
 and still less did he take in good part the retort. 
 Mrs. Gordon adds that the poet profited by the review. 
 "On reading the paper," she wrote, "I observe that, 
 with scarcely a single exception, the verses condemned 
 by the critic were omitted or altered in after editions." 
 
 The remark does little credit to Mrs. Gordon's keen- 
 ness of observation. Undoubtedly a number of poems 
 which Wilson condemned were omitted from the 
 edition of 1842. So also were a far larger number 
 
THE POEMS OF 1842 403 
 
 of which he had expressed no opinion whatever. But 
 not to the critic's praise or dispraise was this action 
 of the poet attributable. In truth the omissions which 
 Mrs. Gordon could not find and the alterations which 
 she did find must be credited to imperfect examination 
 or to imagination working under no restraint of fact. 
 To dispose effectively of her assertions, it is the easiest 
 course to take a brief journey to the dreary realm of 
 statistics. The volume of 1830, reviewed by Wilson, 
 contained precisely fifty-six pieces. Of these, twenty- 
 four were reprinted in the edition of 1842. Conse- 
 quently thirty-two were discarded. Of the fifty-six 
 poems of this first volume Wilson had specifically 
 mentioned thirty. Of the thirty specified, he had 
 condemned eighteen, and had commended twelve. Of 
 the eighteen censured six were reprinted in the edition 
 of 1842. These were 'The Dying Swan' and the two 
 songs to 'The Owl'; 'The Poet's Mind,' characterized 
 by the critic as "partly prettyish but mainly silly"; 
 'The Merman,' "a sorry affair"; and 'The Mermaid,' 
 "of an amorous temperament, and a strong Anti- 
 Malthusian. ' ' 
 
 All of these, the harsh language employed by Wilson 
 did not prevent Tennyson from reprinting; and if 
 there are any alterations to be found in them, Mrs. 
 Gordon's eyes are the only ones which have discovered 
 them. There was indeed an omission of six lines in 
 'The Poet's Mind,' but the dropping of these was 
 manifestly not caused by the criticism; for that was 
 directed to the whole piece and not to any particular 
 portion of it. Of the poems which Wilson commended 
 
404 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 two were not included in the edition of 1842. One of 
 these indeed, — 'Hero to Leander' — was never reprinted 
 in any authorized collection of Tennyson's works. 
 Furthermore, it is to be added that of the twenty-six 
 poems which Wilson did not mention either for praise 
 or blame, nineteen were thrown out by the author's 
 own decision. These statements are dry ; but they are 
 convincing. They show that in the choice of the poems 
 he determined to discard or to retain, Tennyson made 
 up his own mind independently. It is manifest from 
 his course in this as in later acts that he paid little 
 deference to the mind of his critics. In stating the 
 facts just recorded there is no expression of opinion 
 as to the justice of Wilson's views. They are given 
 merely to point out their ineffectiveness in influencing 
 the action of the poet. 
 
 The next is a far more flagrant instance of misstate- 
 ment, for it lacks even the semblance of truth. It 
 occurs in a letter written in February, 1845, by Brown- 
 ing to the woman later to become his wife. He was 
 engaged in his favorite exercise of proclaiming his 
 own independence of criticism. ''For Keats and 
 Tennyson," he wrote, "to 'go softly all their days' 
 for a gruff word or two is quite inexplicable to me, 
 and always has been. Tennyson reads the Quarterly 
 and does as they bid him, with the most solemn face 
 in the world— out goes this, in goes that, all is changed 
 and ranged. Oh me!" Well might he have said 
 "Oh me!"; for had he taken the pains to make even 
 a superficial examination of the article in the 'Quar- 
 terly' and the poems as republished he would have 
 
THE POEMS OF 1842 405 
 
 discovered that his assertion lacked even that decent 
 homage to fact which characterizes respectable fiction. 
 It sprang largely from his own inability to correct 
 anything which he himself had once written, and the 
 fancy he came to have in consequence that corrections 
 made by others arose out of deference to the opinions 
 of critics and not to the decisions of their own judg- 
 ments which these writers had independently reached. 
 There is indeed palliation, though not pardon, for 
 Browning's misstatement in an even then prevalent 
 belief that Tennyson paid profound respect to Lock- 
 hart's criticisms and modified his poems so as to 
 conform to them. This belief began early and flour- 
 ishes even to this day with all the vigor which 
 characterizes mendacity once started on its travels. 
 It has been repeated again and again by writers both 
 of good and of ill repute ; by writers who were hostile 
 to Tennyson, and by those who have been among his 
 warmest admirers. Take two of the latter class. As 
 early as 1845 Charles Astor Bristed, in a highly favor- 
 able criticism of the volumes of 1842, repeated this 
 utterly baseless statement in speaking of the article 
 in the 'Quarterly.'^ "The harsh censure," he said, 
 ''was to him wholesome advice, which he has used 
 to good purpose. Of all the passages assailed by the 
 reviewer, there is but one which has not been either 
 entirely expunged or carefully rewritten." This one 
 was a line in 'The Dream of Fair Women' in the 
 description of Iphigenia. Similar testimony was borne 
 
 1 ' Knickerbocker Magazine,' June, 1845, Vol. XXV, p. 536. 
 
406 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 by Andrew Lang as late as 1897/ "The illustrious 
 poet," lie wrote, "unlike any other poet known to 
 history, altered the passages which gave such advan- 
 tages to criticism." It will speedily be shown that 
 the illustrious poet did nothing of the kind. 
 
 Unquestionably in the edition of 1842 many changes 
 had been made in those of its poems which had 
 appeared in the volume of 1832. Not only had there 
 been omissions and additions; but in several of them 
 alterations had taken place on a grand scale. Some 
 of the pieces which Lockhart had attacked were with- 
 drawn. Far more were withdrawn of which nothing 
 whatever had been said. The action Tennyson took 
 was not due to the dissatisfaction expressed by his 
 reviewer with what he had done, but was due to his 
 own dissatisfaction with it. No one was a severer 
 critic of his own writings than he was himself. But 
 in this particular case the question that concerns us 
 is how far the changes made in the poems republished 
 were due to Lockhart 's criticism. To that of course 
 could not be attributed the numerous additions which 
 are found. To settle the dispute as to the omissions 
 and alterations, we have again to betake ourselves to 
 statistics. Let us consider first those which were not 
 reprinted. Of the thirty poems contained in the 
 edition of 1832, sixteen appeared in the edition of 1842. 
 Fourteen consequently were discarded. Five of the 
 discarded had been attacked by Lockhart ; of the other 
 nine he had made no mention. Of these five censured 
 by him two would certainly have never appeared under 
 
 lA. Lang's 'Lockhart,' Vol. II, p. 88. 
 
THE POEMS OF 1842 407 
 
 any circumstances in any edition brought out by 
 Tennyson under his own super\dsion. One of these 
 consisted of the lines to Christopher North, of which 
 we know that he himself had become ashamed almost 
 as soon as they were published. The other was the 
 ' Darling Room, ' of which every admirer of the poet 
 was then more or less ashamed. 
 
 Of the other three attacked by Lockhart and dis- 
 carded by Tennyson, one was the sonnet i^ith which 
 the book opened. As the poet in the edition of 1842 
 did not include any of the sonnets contained in the 
 volume of 1832 — there were six in all — it is hardly 
 reasonable to infer that the omission of this particular 
 one was due to the criticism passed upon it in the 
 * Quarterly. ' Another one of the discarded poems was 
 the verses addressed to an unknown friend beginning 
 ''All good things have not kept aloof." The third 
 was the poem entitled 'The Hesperides' — the only one 
 of any length not included in the edition of 1842. In 
 fact this piece never appeared in any edition of Tenny- 
 son's w^orks during his lifetime. But besides these 
 five discarded by the poet there were eight others 
 attacked by Lockhart which were retained. These 
 eight were 'The Lady of Shalott,' 'Mariana in the 
 South,' 'Eleanore,' 'The Miller's Daughter,' 'CEnone,' 
 'The Palace of Art,' 'The Dream of Fair Women,' and 
 'The Lotos-Eaters.' The very titles of these pieces 
 singled out for reprobation by Lockhart will give the 
 modern reader a conception of the taste and acumen 
 displayed by the critic. 
 
 Still, it may be and has been urged that while they 
 
408 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 were not discarded, their character was so changed 
 in consequence of the criticism they received that the 
 effectiveness if not the justice of the attack was proved 
 by the action taken by the poet. It accordingly becomes 
 necessary here to explode this fiction also. Let us 
 consider separately each of the eight poems condemned. 
 'Eleanore' and 'Mariana in the South' had been passed 
 by Lockhart with censure merely, but with no detailed 
 criticism. This was done, he assured us, because he 
 ''could make no intelligible extract." 'Eleanore' 
 appeared in the edition of 1842 with the slightest 
 possible alteration. The poem, accordingly, was left 
 in its original unintelligibility. On the other hand, 
 'Mariana in the South' underwent very marked 
 changes. The opening stanza, as the poem originally 
 appeared, was struck out and another substituted. 
 The fifth and sixth stanzas of the piece as it now 
 stands were added. Furthermore in the body of the 
 poem many important alterations were made. Still, 
 as in the case of this piece nothing had been specified 
 by Lockhart, nothing done to it in the way of omission, 
 addition, or alteration in particulars can well be 
 attributed to any remark of his. The same sort of 
 examination, applied to 'The Lady of Shalott,' 
 specifically criticised by him, mil show a similar 
 result. The words and phrases in it which had been 
 marked for censure — in some instances most foolishly 
 marked — were rarely changed at all. It is further 
 safe to say that none were changed because they had 
 been so marked. There were in the extracts he quoted 
 eleven of these words and phrases which Lockhart 
 
THE POEMS OF 1842 409 
 
 had italicized for the sake of holding them up to 
 ridicule. Of these eleven, nine were retained, two 
 were altered. 
 
 Essentially the same story can be told about 'The 
 Miller's Daughter.' In this the changes were very 
 numerous and very great throughout. For one of the 
 songs contained in it — 'The Forget-me-not' song 
 deplored by Browning — an entirely different one was 
 substituted. The opening stanza of the poem was 
 dropped as were three others. These stanzas were 
 all which Lockhart had ridiculed. Even of two of 
 these four it would be more proper to say that they 
 were condensed rather than omitted; and with the 
 condensation certain words and phrases italicized by 
 the critic were thro^vn out. Among these lines he had 
 censured were the following two: 
 
 The very air about the door 
 
 Made misty with the floating meal. 
 
 What fault could be found which should cause them 
 to be placed in italics in the review, it is hard for the 
 modern reader to discover. It is giving too much 
 credit to Tennyson's susceptibility to attack, extreme 
 as it was, to fancy that he was led to discard them 
 in consequence of the absurd criticism to w^hich they 
 had been subjected. But beside the four stanzas 
 rejected, four others were cut out of which noth- 
 ing had been said. Three others also were added. 
 Furthermore, many were the minor changes made, 
 which nothing in Lockhart 's review had suggested. 
 Men who concede that Tennyson did not pay much 
 
410 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 heed to Lockhart's criticism generally have, however, 
 been found disposed to insist that in the case of 
 * CEnone ' he did. This poem was so thoroughly revised 
 and recast for the edition of 1842 that it was to some 
 extent a new work. From it, as it originally appeared, 
 Lockhart quoted twenty-six lines for ridicule. Of 
 these twenty-six, eight disappeared in the revision. 
 Eighteen were retained unaltered. In these eighteen 
 retained could be found eight words and phrases which 
 had been specifically selected for censure by being 
 printed in italics. In not one of them was the slightest 
 alteration made. But there was one peculiarity of 
 the poem with which the critic had made himself 
 especially merry. This was the formula, repeated 
 again and again with slight variations: 
 
 Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die. 
 
 Lockhart took pains to satisfy himself about the 
 frequency of the occurrence of this line by counting 
 it, whenever it appeared. Sixteen times he found it 
 repeated. The fact he emphasized by italicizing the 
 numeral. If he had taken the additional pains to 
 count it correctly, his heart would have been further 
 gladdened by finding that it did not occur sixteen times 
 but seventeen. Bad as the smaller number was in 
 Lockhart 's eyes, Tennyson showed the abjectness of 
 his deference to the critic by repeating the line nine- 
 teen times in the revision of 1842. 
 
 An examination of the three remaining poems — 
 'The Lotos-Eaters,' 'The Palace of Art,' and 'The 
 Dream of Fair Women' — reveals a similar state of 
 
THE POEMS OF 1842 411 
 
 things. All these had been derisively mentioned by 
 Lockhart ; but the extracts from them were few. ' The 
 Palace of Art' was thoroughly recast in the edition 
 of 1842. Not merely were there in it numerous minor 
 changes, but omissions, additions, and transpositions 
 took place on a grand scale. In truth, over thirty 
 stanzas of the poem, as it originally appeared, were 
 discarded, and nearly the same number added. One 
 is here a little puzzled by Lockhart 's calling attention 
 to the spelling Petrarca in one of the two quotations 
 taken from this poem. He must surely have known 
 that this was the name the poet bore in his own tongue. 
 But if so, why italicize, as he did, the form? 'The 
 Dream of Fair Women' also underwent great changes 
 of all sorts though not so great as the preceding poem. 
 But in all of these pieces not a single alteration can 
 be traced even "svith probability, still less with cer- 
 tainty, to anything found in the review in the 'Quar- 
 terly.' Tennyson, in truth, could hardly have sho^vn 
 more distinctly his opinion of Lockhart 's opinion, or 
 rather his contempt for it, than by his treatment of 
 the words and phrases on which his critic had sought 
 to cast discredit by italicizing them. These were 
 almost invariably retained even when occurring in 
 poems in which numerous alterations of all sorts had 
 been made. 
 
 Furthermore, phrases or passages which had under- 
 gone something more than the criticism conveyed by 
 italics, which had indeed been made the subject of 
 special banter, were left entirely unchanged. Two 
 instances there are in the last two poems considered, 
 
412 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 on which Lockhart laid special stress. He devoted a 
 paragraph to the ridicule of the phrase ''babe in arm," 
 which occurred in the description of the Madonna in 
 'The Palace of Art.' This he compared to "lance in 
 rest," "sword in arm," and spoke of it ironically as 
 "a deep stroke of art." The respect which Tennyson 
 showed to this criticism may be inferred from the fact 
 that it not only occurred in the original edition but is 
 found in every edition since down to the day of his 
 death. Furthermore, he repeated it in ' The Princess. " 
 Another illustration of the influence of the re\dewer 
 upon the poet can be seen in the remark made by the 
 former upon the sacrifice of Iphigenia and in the 
 action taken by the latter. Lockhart quoted from ' The 
 Dream of Fair Women' the four lines follo^ving, in 
 which certain changes were made by him in the 
 punctuation to accentuate the ironic interpretation of 
 them by the reviewer. 
 
 The tall masts quivered as they lay afloat; 
 
 The temples, and the people, and the shore ; 
 One drew a sharp knife through my tender throat — 
 
 Slowly, — and nothing more. 
 
 "What touching simplicity — " was Lockhart 's con- 
 cluding comment on the extract — "what pathetic 
 resignation — he cut my throat — ^nothing more!' One 
 might indeed ask, 'what more' she would have?" Yet 
 in spite of this criticism the stanza, as it appeared in 
 the edition of 1832, reappeared unaltered in the edition 
 of 1842 and in every edition after that until the edition 
 
 1 Canto VI, line 15. 
 
THE POEMS OF 1842 413 
 
 of 1853. Other instances might be cited. Though 
 less significant in themselves, they constitute collect- 
 ively an instructive comment on the accuracy of 
 Browning's assertion that '4n goes this, out goes 
 that, all is changed and ranged" at the bidding of 
 the 'Quarterly.' 
 
 Undoubtedly Tennyson, like every other author, 
 made alterations at the suggestion of friends or in 
 consequence of the criticism of enemies. At times 
 too they were unfortunate. In the poem of 'Lady 
 Clara Vere de Vere' the first line of the couplet, as it 
 originally read, ran as follows: 
 
 The grand old gardener and his wife 
 Smile at the claims of long descent. 
 
 This was changed in very late editions to the hope- 
 lessly prosaic line, 
 
 The gardener Adam and his wife. 
 
 The alteration was made, we are told, "because of the 
 frequent letters from friends asking me for expla- 
 nation." Poetry will be in a sorry state if it is to 
 be revised to adapt it to the comprehension of the 
 unthinking and unintelligent. It was surely hardly 
 worth while to change a fine line into a feeble one 
 to accommodate the ignorance of men who had not 
 heard of the garden of Eden. Still such instances 
 are very rare. Enough has been shown to prove 
 beyond question that Tennyson was not influenced in 
 the alterations he made by hostile criticism, however 
 keenly he felt it. 
 
414 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 It is also easy to establish beyond cavil the truth 
 of the further assertion that he was uninfluenced 
 by friendly criticism when it came in conflict with 
 the conclusions of his own judgment. We have 
 seen that he discarded the poem of 'The Lover's 
 Tale' from the volume of 1832, despite the entreaties 
 of the one friend to whom he was most attached 
 and in whose opinions he had the highest confidence. 
 Both Hallam, and Thompson, the future Master of 
 Trinity, remonstrated strongly as well as wisely 
 against the epithet of ''madman" applied to Bona- 
 parte in the sonnet so entitled. For it they wished 
 him to substitute "dreamer." But their wishes and 
 their objections had no weight with the poet and 
 "madman" was retained. The sonnet was dropped 
 from the edition of 1842, and was not reprinted by 
 him until 1872. It had little merit and represented 
 mainly what Mill termed the vulgar pride of nation- 
 ality in which Tennyson was always too much inclined 
 to indulge. Again, while John Stuart Mill's review 
 of his poems had paid the most cordial of tributes 
 to the genius of their author, he had not hesitated to 
 condemn several of the individual pieces as positive 
 or comparative failures. Those censured numbered 
 seventeen in all, though most of them were very short. 
 When the edition of 1842 appeared six of the seventeen 
 censured continued to be retained. 
 
 It is to be said in conclusion that no inconsiderable 
 number of the early pieces not included in the volumes 
 of 1842, were subsequently inserted by Tennyson in 
 later editions of the poems or in his collected works. 
 
THE POEMS OF 1842 415 
 
 Still, there was more than a score of these rejected 
 pieces that he himself never reprinted. What the 
 reasons were in individual cases which led to their 
 inclusion or exclusion it is no easy matter to deter- 
 mine. Certain it is that several of those he refused 
 to republish will seem to most men not inferior to 
 many of those to which he gave the preference and 
 in one or two cases distinctly superior. There were 
 men among his early admirers who did not take kindly 
 to his rejection of 'The Hesperides' from the edition 
 of 1842. Yet in his refusal to reprint it he adhered 
 all his life. It is far harder to understand the failure, 
 already mentioned, to include the poem entitled 'Hero 
 to Leander. ' The following is its first stanza : 
 
 Oh go not yet, my love, 
 
 The night is dark and vast; 
 The white moon is hid in her heaven above, 
 
 And the waves climb high and fast. 
 Oh! kiss me, kiss me, once again, 
 
 Lest thy kiss should be the last. 
 
 Oh kiss me ere we part ; 
 
 Grow closer to my heart. 
 My heart is warmer surely than the bosom of the main. 
 
 This is undoubtedly the best of the four stanzas 
 constituting the poem ; but the others are good enough 
 to make the whole production one of distinctly higher 
 grade than several he admitted later into his collected 
 works. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 RECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 
 
 Of the somewhat remarkable number of poetical 
 works which came out in 1842, it has already been 
 observed that the two volumes of Tennyson are to us 
 the most memorable. It is now frequently said that 
 they placed him at the head of contemporary English 
 poets. So far as their ultimate effect is concerned, 
 the assertion is correct. But in some quarters the 
 mistaken belief has sprung up that this result was 
 accomplished at once. Specifically it is true of the 
 effect then wrought upon a limited number, and that 
 number, too, belonging to the highest class of minds. 
 But it was not so universally. The growth of Tenny- 
 son's acceptance by the public can be easily gauged 
 by the difference between the enormous number of 
 copies of the editions printed in the fifties to meet 
 the enormous demand which had come to prevail, and 
 the comparatively small number printed in the forties, 
 especially in the early forties. In the latter case the 
 sale was respectable as poetry sold then; but it was 
 by no means remarkable. The first edition of the 
 'Poems' of 1842 consisted of but eight hundred copies. 
 To exhaust this number took more than a year. We 
 can get a fair conception of the modesty of the antici- 
 pations entertained by the poet himself from the fact 
 
RECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 417 
 
 that nearly four months after the publication, he was 
 communicating to a friend with a certain degree of 
 exultation that he had been told at Moxon's that five 
 hundred copies of his poems had been sold/ That 
 evidently seemed to him a great success. The second 
 edition which appeared in the middle of June, 1843, 
 advanced the number over that previously printed to 
 one thousand. 
 
 But though the constituency behind Tennyson was 
 not at first large in numbers, so far as that is indicated 
 by the sale of his works, it was remarkable both for 
 its character and its intellect. To it belonged espe- 
 cially the young men of promise whose opinions were 
 to be the opinions of the immediate future. One 
 condition of things soon revealed itself which was to 
 be repeated again and again in his literary career. 
 The truth of Aristotle's dictum that the mass of men — 
 he meant of course men cultivated and competent to 
 form opinions of their own — were far better judges 
 of poetry than any one man however eminent, has 
 never been better illustrated than in the reception 
 given to Tennyson's successive works. The critical 
 estimate almost invariably lagged behind the estimate 
 reached by the great body of intelligent readers. 
 When the former was adverse — and in his case it often 
 was adverse on the first publication of particular 
 works — it was almost disdainfully set aside by the 
 latter. Never was this fact brought out much more 
 distinctly than in the instance of the 'Poems' of 1842 
 and 'The Princess' of 1847. Professional criticism 
 
 1 Letter of September 8, 1842, in 'Memoir,' Vol. I, p. 212. 
 
418 LIFE AND TBIES OF TENNYSON 
 
 followed and followed reluctantly, and almost protest- 
 ingly, popular appreciation. Tennyson's reputation 
 advanced against a sullen opposition which insinuated 
 a depreciatory estimate which at last it did not venture 
 to proclaim openly. 
 
 It cannot be made too strongly emphatic that the 
 success which Tennyson achieved during his whole 
 career was never achieved by the aid of professional 
 critics. It was the spontaneous tribute paid by 
 intelligent and independent readers. In 1842 the 
 reviewer of poetry hesitated; not so the lover of it. 
 There is nothing more striking in the history of 
 Victorian literature than the masterly manner in which 
 the leading critical organs of that particular time, and 
 even for years later, refrained from committing them- 
 selves too unreservedly as to the nature and degree 
 of Tennyson's poetical achievement. They seemed 
 at first dazed by the apparition of this luminary, which, 
 so long in obscuration, had suddenly blazed in the 
 literary heavens as a star of the first magnitude. 
 There were none who expected to deal in unmixed 
 praise. There were some prepared to scoff and ready 
 to prove that the light by which a few erring souls 
 appeared to be dazzled was a mere meteoric exhalation 
 which would speedily vanish from view. But it soon 
 became apparent that the temper of the educated 
 public was such as to make an action of this sort 
 perilous. Never was the critical fraternity more at a 
 loss as to what they should say, or rather what it was 
 safe for them to say. It took the large majority of 
 them a good deal of time to make up their minds what 
 
RECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 419 
 
 to do. They were really waiting for public opinion 
 to declare itself unmistakably; they themselves did 
 not attempt to lead it. This refusal on their part to 
 commit themselves unreservedly was remarked at the 
 time by Fanny Kemble in the review, already men- 
 tioned, which she wrote of the edition of 1842 for an 
 American periodical. "The public," she said, ''has 
 been quicker than the reviewers in appreciating Mr. 
 Tennyson's merits." 
 
 Only two of the leading critical weeklies paid any 
 speedy attention to the work. The first to review it 
 was 'The Examiner.' Its notice^ appeared about a 
 fortnight after the publication of the volumes. It was 
 undoubtedly written by its literary editor, John 
 Forster. His article was in general commendatory, 
 and indeed might fairly be called cordial. Still it 
 exhibited none of that enthusiasm of appreciation or 
 rather of panegyric which he had previously bestowed 
 upon Browning. But though somewhat colorless, it 
 was discriminating; it praised what was worthy of 
 praise and its censure was given to pieces which 
 deserved censure. About a week later followed in 
 'The Spectator' the only other early notice of the 
 work in a periodical of importance. It was manifestly 
 too early for the reviewer to gain any acquaintance 
 with the volumes he set out to criticise. He labored 
 under the impression that the poems contained in 
 them were little more than a reprint of what appeared 
 before. "These elegant little volumes," he said, 
 
 1' Examiner,' May 28, 1842, 
 
420 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 "whose contents at first sight appear to be original, 
 are discerned on examination to be a corrected, 
 re\dsed, and enlarged edition of the author's Poems." 
 Such was the opening sentence in which he recorded 
 this notable discovery. Still he felt that in spite of 
 the lack of novelty, poetry was not so rife in the land 
 that the appearance of the work should be allowed to 
 pass in silence. The opinions of a critic who, not 
 content with the possession of ignorance, started out 
 with the proclamation of it, were not likely to be 
 marked by any originality of treatment. Naturally 
 he rehashed the stale comment on the two previous 
 volumes which had long come to serve as a means for 
 saving the reviewer from the necessity of using his 
 own brains. But as one of apparently only two critics 
 who has reckoned * The Skipping Rope ' among Tenny- 
 son 's better pieces, his notice deserves full recognition. 
 ''Among the elite of the volumes," he wrote, *'may 
 be reckoned most of the poems in the nature of ballads 
 or pastorals — for Tennyson is strongest upon old or 
 rustic English grounds ; a few of the lighter personal 
 poems, as The Skipping Rope, and some not reducible 
 to any class, as The Talking Oak. The gem of the 
 whole for variety, delicate perception of character, 
 rustic grace, spirit and pathos, is the pastoral tale 
 embraced in The May Queen and its two sequels. ' ' 
 
 These two notices remained for a long time the only 
 ones which appeared in any periodical of distinct 
 repute. There was for a while indeed a somewhat 
 ominous silence in most of the leading organs of 
 critical opinion. ''As to Alfred's book," wrote Fitz- 
 
RECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 421 
 
 Gerald to Frederick Tennyson on the sixteenth of 
 August, * ' I believe it has sold well : but I have not seen 
 him for a long while, and have had no means of hearing 
 about the matter except from Thompson, who told me 
 that very many copies had been sold at Cambridge, 
 which indeed will be the chief market for them. 
 Neither have I seen any notice of them in print except 
 that in the Examiner; and that seemed so quiet that 
 I scarce supposed it was by Forster."^ This was 
 written, as is seen, three months after the publication 
 of the poems. Even then one of the warmest admirers 
 of the author fancied that the chief market for them 
 would be in Cambridge. It is clear that at that period 
 no expectation was entertained of the success which 
 the work was to have. This feeling existed, too, in 
 spite of the fact that individual poems even then were 
 gaining wide currency through the agency of the 
 newspaper press. 
 
 Cambridge, however, failed to fulfil FitzGerald's 
 prophecy of continuing to be the chief market for the 
 sale of the poems. It shows indeed how far from 
 general had been Tennyson's previous repute that 
 he was hardly known at all at the sister university 
 during the ten years of silence. Bradley, the dean 
 of Westminster, tells us that previous to the publica- 
 tion of the edition of 1842, the men of whom they 
 talked at Oxford were Keble, Shelley, Byron, and 
 Wordsworth.- But all this was speedily reversed 
 after the appearance of the Tennyson volumes. It 
 
 1 'Letters and Literary Remains' of Edward FitzGerald, Vol. I, p 
 2 'Memoir,' Vol. I, p. 206. 
 
 98. 
 
422 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 was mainly his poetry that then came up for consid- 
 eration and discussion. It took the university by 
 storm. The change was significant of the sentiment 
 prevailing everywhere among the young and highly 
 educated. They celebrated Tennyson in season and 
 out of season not as the great coming poet but as 
 the poet who had come. The fervency of admiration 
 expressed by them — it is largely reflected in the 
 correspondence of the period, so far as it has been 
 published — was in striking contrast to the frequently 
 indifferent, usually patronizing, and occasionally 
 hostile attitude of the critical press. Against the 
 cool tone of the re^dews was the ardent appreciation 
 of the general public. That indeed had found out the 
 greatness of the poet long before it dawned upon the 
 consciousness of its self -constituted literary advisers. 
 Men in general who did not feel that they had any 
 reputation at stake for critical perspicacity expressed 
 their admiration unhesitatingly and enthusiastically. 
 Single poems from the work and extracts of poems 
 were circulating far and wide. Hence they were early 
 made known to the reading public out of all propor- 
 tion to the sale of the work itself. The praise of 
 critics was little needed; their blame was certainly 
 little regarded. Even before FitzGerald had written 
 the letter just quoted, another one of the periodicals, 
 with a reputation to take care of, had mustered up 
 sufficient courage to express a measured approbation 
 without danger of destroying its own reputation for 
 discriminating sobriety of judgment. 
 
 This periodical was ' The Athenaeum. ' On August 6, 
 
RECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 423 
 
 a review of the work appeared in its columns. It was 
 favorable on the whole, though the critic was careful 
 to maintain a proper decorum by not expressing any 
 wild enthusiasm. It expressed the usual regret at the 
 interpolations and alterations which had been made 
 in the contents of the previous volumes and at the 
 omission of certain poems which they had contained. 
 It would, it declared, have retained the lines to 
 Christopher North in spite of their pertness and the 
 'Darling Room' in spite of its puerility rather than 
 have lost 'The Deserted House.' It was obliged 
 further to dissent from the opinion of those who 
 praised the poet as having emancipated himself from 
 the crotchets which distinguished his earlier efforts. 
 His newer offerings supplied as many as those he had 
 expunged. This was doubtless aimed at the notice in 
 'The Examiner.' With the other likes and dislikes 
 conveyed in the article, it is not worth while to dally. 
 The general conclusion is all that needs to be given. 
 With the various critical abatements to Tennyson's 
 genius which the reviewer's strict sense of justice 
 compelled him to make, he nevertheless felt justified 
 in asserting that the extracts from the volumes sub- 
 stantiated the writer's claim to a high place among 
 modern poets. To a high place among modern poets 
 was the result reached by this thoughtful critic after 
 three months of time and apparently of some moments 
 of reflection. Incidentally however he made one most 
 significant admission. Everything which he had said, 
 he remarked, had been already anticipated. His work 
 was largely one of supererogation; he could do no 
 
424 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 more than furnish additional evidence. ** Though we 
 are late in noticing Mr. Tennyson's new volume," he 
 observed, ''neither critics, readers, nor author will 
 suffer from our delay or self-denial. Large as have 
 been the quotations of our contemporaries, they have 
 left still a treasury unrifled!" But the reason given 
 for one of his omissions is noticeable as showing how 
 rapidly popular appreciation had outrun critical. 
 Not a line was quoted from 'Locksley Hall' and one 
 or two other poems. That course was avowedly taken 
 on the ground that they were already familiar to 
 every one. 
 
 The critic of 'The Athenaeum' was Chorley/ The 
 re\dew in the other literary weekly — 'The Literary 
 Gazette, ' now fully entered upon its downward road — ■ 
 did not appear until the nineteenth of November. It 
 had taken it six months to make up what it deemed 
 its mind. Six minutes would have been ample for the 
 result it reached. This review must be described as 
 not only ridiculous in itself — that might be expected 
 from our knowledge of the editor, who in this case 
 was very certainly the writer of the criticism — but as 
 being under the circumstances a peculiarly impudent 
 performance coming from a man who had devoted 
 several columns to depreciation of the volume of 1832 
 with as much severity as his limited intellectual powers 
 would permit. 'The Literary Gazette' would have 
 been glad to attack the work unreservedly; it lacked 
 the courage. Most of its article was given up to the 
 
 1 'Henry Fothergill Chorley,' by H. G. Hewlett, 1873, Vol. II, p. 2. 
 
RECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 425 
 
 task of finding fault — which had now begun to grow 
 wearisome — with the changes which had been made 
 in the poems as previously printed. It expressed 
 regret for the disappearance of some pieces and for 
 the alterations in others which years before had been 
 furiously assailed by the same writer in the same 
 periodical. Hardly a word was said about the contents 
 of the second volume beyond the assertion that it 
 contained many new beauties. The only value the 
 review has is the reluctant e\T.dence it bears to the 
 place which Tennyson had now begun to occupy in 
 the public estimation. 
 
 Jerdan 's connection with * The Literary Gazette ' did 
 not cease until 1850. He was, however, beginning 
 already to be "the time-worn but not reverend indi- 
 vidual" who called upon Hawthorne just as the 
 novelist chanced to be reading, ''between asleep 
 and awake," what he justly termed the "wretched 
 twaddle" of his visitor's autobiography. It is a 
 singularly suggestive tribute to the advantages of 
 anonymousness that this "disreputable senior," as 
 Ha^vthorne styled him, should for a long period of 
 years have held a commanding position in critical 
 literature. He had come in consequence to believe 
 that great weight was to be attached to his opinion. 
 There was a delicious impertinence in this fat-"VYitted 
 writer setting out to patronize Tennyson as he did in 
 this review. He conceded that he was a "true and 
 sterling poet." That was all the more reason for 
 subjecting him to discipline. We love him, he wrote, 
 "just well enough to 'chasten him' for his faults, as 
 
426 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 we have done before time; — and shall continue so to 
 do, until he leaves off his evil practices." There was 
 a fine affectation of friendliness in assuring the poet 
 how many of his critics had *'in the kindest manner" 
 taken pains to point out "the unsightly blots with 
 which he had disfigured his pages." "We may be 
 wrong," he concluded, "in ranking him among the 
 foremost of our young poets, as one whose step is near 
 that throne which must ere long be vacant ; and whose 
 own fault it will be if he misses the crown to which 
 he is * heir-apparent. ' " The critic doubtless meant 
 heir presumptive. "For," he added with fine critical 
 impartiality, "there are others who, with steady eye 
 and firm hand are slowly hewing their way to the same 
 height. ' '^ 
 
 Nevertheless it gives from another point of view 
 an idea of the little importance that Tennyson still 
 had in the eyes of a large portion of the public that 
 no reviev/ of the 'Poems' of 1842 appeared in one of 
 the three leading politico-literary weeklies which were 
 then in existence. This was 'The Atlas,' held by 
 many to be the ablest of all. On the other hand, it 
 may be regarded as proof of the impression which 
 Tennyson had made upon a large portion of the 
 public and the importance he had suddenly assumed 
 in its eyes that the quarterlies no longer deemed it 
 inconsistent with their dignity, but actually felt it 
 incumbent on their position to devote special articles 
 to the review of his poems. In each case, too, the 
 work of criticism was entrusted to some one connected 
 
 1 ' Literary Gazette, ' November 19, p. 788. 
 
RECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 427 
 
 with the author by ties of near or remote personal 
 acquaintance. This indeed was not a proceeding 
 which tended to produce an undue estimate of his 
 achievement. In no case did the enthusiasm of friend- 
 ship w^anton into extravagant eulogy. Perhaps in no 
 case was it permitted to do so. In truth, in reading 
 these criticisms, one is reminded of the remark of 
 Rogers that if you wish to have your works coldly 
 reviewed, get your intimate friend to write an article 
 upon them. 
 
 Three reviews there were which appeared in periodi- 
 cals of this class during the year 1842. These were 
 the work of John Sterling, of Richard Monckton 
 Milnes, and of Leigh Hunt. They came out respect- 
 ively in the 'Quarterly,' the 'Westminster,' and the 
 'Church of England Quarterly.' The first to appear 
 was that of John Sterling. This was published in 
 the number for September. We have been frequently 
 told that this periodical made amends for its con- 
 temptuous attack upon the volume of 1832 by the 
 appreciative criticism which it now published. For 
 this very reason it has been made a subject of exceed- 
 ingly laudatory mention, especially by those who have 
 manifestly never read it. It could not indeed have 
 been an altogether grateful thing to Lockhart to open 
 the 'Quarterly' to a friendly review of the work of 
 the man whose reputation he had set out years before 
 to demolish and which for a time it was believed by 
 many that he had demolished. The dose must have 
 been a bitter one to swallow. Still, as it apparently 
 had to be taken, it was made as palatable as possible 
 
428 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 to the patient. Lockhart has constantly been praised 
 for his generosity in admitting to the columns of the 
 periodical over which he presided this thoughtful and 
 favorable article, as it has been termed. To neither 
 of the two epithets is it really entitled. 
 
 Thoughtful certainly is one of the most inappro- 
 priate of words with which to describe it. On the 
 contrary, with an appearance of profundity, it is 
 really shallow. Its author owes to friends a reputation 
 which it would not have been in his own power to 
 acquire. His memory has been consecrated to pos- 
 terity by the pen of a man of genius. Shortly before 
 this period his name, as we shall see later, had been 
 solemnly placed in the limited roll of true English 
 poets by one of the most influential critics of the age, 
 if not then its most influential critic. Tennyson him- 
 self had been asked by implication to equal him if 
 he could. From Sterling, indeed, great things had 
 been anticipated from the outset. He was to a marked 
 degree a representative of that not infrequent type 
 of men whose spoken words produce an impression 
 which is never borne out by their written. They some- 
 how convey the idea that they are going to accomplish 
 something remarkable, but never actually accomplish 
 anything worthy of particular mention. There is no 
 question as to the charm of Sterling's personal 
 presence and the belief in the greatness of his ability 
 which he inspired. It affected many of the most 
 eminent of his contemporaries, perhaps all of them 
 who came mthin the sound of his voice. It is the 
 written word that fails. When he set out to commu- 
 
RECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 429 
 
 nicate to the reader what had so charmed the hearer, 
 the beauty of it and the effectiveness of it somehow 
 vanished. Hence the inability of the men who did not 
 know him to understand the enthusiasm of those who 
 did. Hence his owti failure in life. He died compara- 
 tively young. Still when he died, he had lived long 
 enough to demonstrate that his performance would 
 always lag far behind his promise. He never produced 
 a single work which contemporaries cared to cherish, 
 still less posterity. Sterling's writings, in truth, show 
 that the highest rank he could ever have hoped to 
 attain would have been that of a 'Quarterly' reviewer; 
 and his poetry belongs to that ephemeral class of 
 pieces which live their short life in the pages of 
 magazines. 
 
 Nowhere does his real lack of critical insight display 
 itself more distinctly than in many parts of this 
 particular review. Much of it was taken up with a 
 general discussion of poetry which had no more to do 
 with Tennyson's than with that of any other writer. 
 Indeed it seemed to be with difficulty that Sterling 
 refrained from giving up the whole of his article to a 
 criticism of Wordsworth as he did a portion of it. 
 Much of it, too, was devoted to those poems of Tenny- 
 son which had been long before the public. About 
 these comparatively brief mention would seem to have 
 been all that was required. Still, with these Sterling 
 had had time to make himself familiar ; and it is about 
 them generally that his critical opinion was happiest 
 and most worthy of consideration. For one thing in 
 particular we may be thankful. He refrained from 
 
430 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 echoing the cuckoo cry which had been going on of 
 deploring the alterations which had been made in the 
 poems previously published. In general he com- 
 mended these changes. He found fault with several 
 of these early pieces, especially those headed with 
 the names of women. They were, as he expressed it, 
 mere ''moonshine maidens." Others of them are 
 cavalierly — and as it seems to me rightfully — disposed 
 of as good enough for publication but not good enough 
 to spend upon them detailed criticism. But one bad 
 slip there was in his criticism of these early poems. 
 This was the utterly inadequate, not to say absurd 
 notice he gave of the 'Ode to Memory,' which had 
 excited, in particular, the warmest praise of Wilson. 
 Sterling concluded his remarks upon it with quoting 
 its six final lines. These in his opinion exhibited 
 Tennyson's unfitness for the production of what he 
 called "Orphic song," whatever he meant by that 
 Orphic utterance. "Philosophy," he wrote, "that 
 sounds all depths, has seldom approached a deeper 
 bathos." No other word could have given a truer 
 idea not of the poem, but of his criticism of it. 
 
 One further merit Sterling's article had. He 
 recognized the great advance which had been made by 
 the poet as shown in the pieces constituting the second 
 volume. For many of them — especially the 'Idylls' — 
 he had unqualified praise. 'The Gardener's Daugh- 
 ter,' 'Dora,' and 'Locksley Hall,' he specially singled 
 out for eulogium. But along with the lavish commen- 
 dation of certain poems went some of the most 
 extraordinary judgments about others which ever 
 
EECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 431 
 
 found their way into print from a reputable quarter. 
 It seems so hard to believe that they could have come 
 from the pen of a friend and admirer, that one is 
 tempted to suspect that the language underwent more 
 or less of modification at the hands of the editor. 
 There is in truth a singular tone throughout the whole 
 review. Few poems that are praised are praised 
 without a qualification. Such a piece was well; but 
 it might have been so much better ; or it was inferior 
 to something that somebody else had written. In 
 truth, the curious inaptitude — almost partaking of the 
 nature of ineptitude — to penetrate into the poet's 
 meaning, which had been exhibited in the remark 
 previously quoted upon 'St. Agnes,' was frequently 
 manifested here on a grand scale. Sterling praised 
 'Ulysses' highly. But why, he asked, should not the 
 poem have been written instead upon some one of the 
 great modern voyagers, like Columbus, Gama, or even 
 Drake? Why should it not indeed? The man who 
 does not feel the absolute inappropriateness of any 
 such substitution can hardly be expected to be made 
 to see it by any process of reasoning. 
 
 To 'Godiva' Sterling also took exception. Admirably 
 well done he admitted it to be; but the singularity 
 and barbarousness of the fact related did not make it 
 fit to be told in verse. The same feeling was even 
 more strongly expressed about 'St. Simeon Stylites.' 
 The subject, we were assured, was entirely inappro- 
 priate for poetry. "She has better tasks," said the 
 critic, "than to wrap her mantle round a sordid, 
 greedy lunatic." There are expressions of opinion 
 
432 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 even more singular than these. 'The Palace of Art' 
 was *'a many-colored mistake." 'The Two Voices' 
 was a long and dull production, a dispute on immor- 
 tality which added nothing to our previous knowl- 
 edge — of which Sterling had apparently a good deal — ■ 
 and which in substance might better have been given 
 in three pages, or rather in one, than in thirty. The 
 Moralities, indeed, as he called the poems of this 
 nature, almost all appeared to him as decided and 
 remarkable failures. He had further a rather poor 
 opinion of the 'Morte d 'Arthur. ' It is a further 
 illustration of Tennyson's sensitiveness to criticism 
 that he told his friend AUingham twenty-five years 
 later that he had been prevented from doing his Arthur 
 epic in twelve books by this silly criticism of Sterling. 
 *'I had it all in my mind," he said, ''could have done 
 it without any trouble. The King is the complete man, 
 the Knights are the passions."^ Nor was Sterling 
 altogether satisfied with 'The Talking Oak.' "An 
 ancient oak," he sagely observed, "that is won by a 
 poet to utter its Dodonsean oracles, would hardly, we 
 conceive, be so prolix and minute in its responses." 
 
 The specimens of Sterling's criticisms have been 
 given here on a somewhat large scale because this 
 article has been usually spoken of as a specially favor- 
 able review of the ' Poems ' of 1842. It has been further 
 characterized as an amende honorable on the part of 
 Lockhart. To neither of these characterizations has 
 it any real claim. By its contrast with the previous 
 review in the 'Quarterly' it may be called favorable. 
 
 1 William AUingham 's 'Diary,' 1907, under 1867, p. 150, 
 
RECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 433 
 
 It is perhaps as cordial a criticism as could be expected 
 from the mau who had failed over the man who had 
 succeeded ; but it was not really cordial. Still by way 
 of contrast, it made a good deal of an impression upon 
 the popular mind; for the wonder was that anything 
 save disparagement could come from the quarter in 
 which it appeared. Its grudging praise was accord- 
 ingly exalted into panegyric. To be sure, the effect 
 of the many individual censures was to some extent 
 counteracted by frequent commendation of the work 
 as a whole. But particulars always make more 
 impression than generals; and in spite of the praise 
 lavished in a loose way upon the poet, it is doubtful 
 if the article in question, if taken by itself, would have 
 done as much towards extending Tennyson's reputa- 
 tion with the public as a whole, as it would towards 
 detracting from it in the minds of those whose knowl- 
 edge of him was limited entirely to what was here 
 said. Much indeed of the special criticism contained 
 in it could hardly have come from a mind that was 
 not in many ways essentially prosaic. For him, too, 
 who is disposed to rely upon the opinion of others for 
 his own literary opinions, there is something startling 
 in the contrast presented here of the estimate taken 
 by Sterling on particular pieces and those expressed 
 a little later by Fanny Kemble in her previously 
 mentioned review of these poems. In her eyes 'The 
 Talking Oak' was a "work of absolute perfection." 
 "It is faultless," she added. Furthermore 'The Two 
 Voices' is described as "Mr. Tennyson's finest poem."^ 
 
 1' Democratic Eeview,' January, 1844, p. 77. 
 
434 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 Nor was the review which followed in the * West- 
 minster' for October of an enthusiastic character, 
 though it was the work of a personal friend, Richard 
 Monckton Milnes, and was signed with his initials. 
 It is indeed far warmer in its praise than the article 
 in the 'Quarterly.' Still it is slight in texture and 
 character, though we may be thankful that, unlike 
 Sterling's review, it did not affect a profundity which 
 it did not possess. Its insufficiency appears perhaps 
 more glaring to us because of its inferiority in appre- 
 ciation and insight to the already mentioned article 
 of John Stuart Mill which had appeared years before 
 in the periodical with which the * Westminster ' had 
 been united. One or two peculiar specimens of 
 Milnes 's criticisms may be worth citing. He would 
 like to have had *St. Simeon Stylites' out of the 
 volume. He also thought 'The Talking Oak' some- 
 what too long — a difficulty which lapse of time seems 
 to have removed entirely. The review is, however, 
 more especially noteworthy to us now for the little 
 expectation of the success of the venture that was 
 entertained among the author's closest friends. "Mr. 
 Tennyson's poems," wrote Milnes, "will, we doubt 
 not, obtain such attention as the circumstances of the 
 time permit to be given to poetry." In this equivocal 
 prognostic once more appears that then prevalent 
 distrust of the success of any production in the form 
 of verse, of which there has already been so frequent 
 occasion to give illustration. 
 
 Of the reviews which appeared in the quarterlies 
 of this year, the poorest in all respects was that by 
 
RECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 435 
 
 Leigh Hunt.' During his career, Hunt had been made 
 the subject of a good deal of silly and occasionally 
 of malignant criticism. But he was never the recipient 
 of more of the former variety than he himself con- 
 tributed on this occasion. He went so far as to repeat 
 the old rigmarole about Tennyson's affectations, his 
 use of hyphens and other assumed peculiarities. 
 These, men of sense were now beginning to leave to 
 fifth-rate critics, by whom they regularly continued 
 to be reproduced for years to come. Hunt reproached 
 Tennyson for having left out some of his second 
 and third best productions while retaining most of 
 those peculiarly objectionable. Consequently his first 
 volume constituted neither an entire collection nor 
 a thoroughly satisfactory selection. He furthermore 
 did not recognize any advancement in the new volume 
 upon the best to be found in the former two, though 
 he conceded that there was negative improvement ' ' in 
 the articles of fantasticism and whimsicality." His 
 favorite was 'The Two Voices,' the production which 
 Sterling had found unnecessarily long and unreason- 
 ably dull. This Hunt was at first disposed to think 
 proved an advance. On looking closer, however, he 
 discovered that 1833 was given as the date of its 
 composition. He was consequently denied the con- 
 solation of belief in the poet's progress. He thought 
 it would be well for him to get out a new volume which 
 if less in bulk would have a greater real abundance. 
 * * He is a genuine poet in his degree, ' ' was the opinion 
 
 I'The Church of England Quarterly Review,' Vol. XII, pp. 361-376. 
 
436 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 with which he concluded. It is manifest from the 
 whole article that ''his degree" was not a high one 
 in Hunt's estimation, apparently not so high as his 
 own. Certain it is from some of his later utterances 
 that it took him a long time to learn that Tennyson 
 was a greater poet than himself. Perhaps he never 
 came to understand how much greater a one he 
 was, though he must have become aware before his 
 death that the belief of that sort met with universal 
 acceptance. 
 
 The 'Edinburgh' was the last of the great quarter- 
 lies to review the work,. Its notice did not appear 
 until 1843 in the number for April, which came out 
 in the middle of that month. At the time the second 
 edition of the 'Poems' was going to press. The 
 criticism had been delayed by the absence of its author, 
 James Spedding, who during several months of 1842 
 was in America. As soon as the negotiations for 
 the treaty of Washington were completed, Spedding 
 returned. His article was more outspoken in the 
 praise of the work than any one of the others which 
 had appeared in the quarterlies. It was, in truth, 
 as enthusiastic as it was allowed to be; but it was 
 not allowed to be too enthusiastic. From the editor, 
 Macvey Napier, Spedding had obtained leave to review 
 the 'Poems.' But coupled with this consent was the 
 condition that he would not seek to commit the periodi- 
 cal to a too undue estimate of what the author had 
 already accomplished or to any prophecies as to what 
 he might yet be expected to accomplish. The reputa- 
 tion of the "Review" must be preserved at all hazards. 
 
RECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 437 
 
 Cordial, therefore, as was Ms criticism in comparison 
 with those found in the other quarterlies, it was not 
 permitted to be too cordial. Spedding had promised 
 to be good, and earnestly tried to be good. But with all 
 his self-restraint he found that in one instance he had 
 gone too far. A sentence in the concluding paragraph 
 of his article, as originally written, underwent at the 
 chastening hand of the editor, an alteration ''slight 
 in itself" he said, ''but considerable in effect and 
 significance." "Powers are displayed in these vol- 
 umes," he had written, "adequate to the production 
 of a very great work." This sentence w^as modified 
 to read "Powers are displayed in these volumes, 
 adequate, if we do not deceive ourselves, to the pro- 
 duction of a great work." The change was hardly 
 worth making or worth noticing when made. When, 
 however, Spedding came to republish this article in 
 1879 in his volume of 'Essays and Discourses,' he 
 restored the original reading, the reputation of the 
 "Review" being no longer at stake by the adoption of 
 this course. 
 
 It is clear that in writing this article Spedding had 
 had in mind certain criticisms which charged the poet 
 with the extravagances which in the view of some had 
 disfigured the early poems. To a certain extent there 
 was foundation for an accusation of the sort. From 
 the very outset there were pieces contained in the 
 edition of 1842 against the insertion of which his 
 strongest friends had protested. Their remonstrances 
 had no effect upon the man who has been held up to 
 us as altering or omitting lines and passages to suit 
 
438 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 the views of hostile critics. There was unquestionably 
 justification for this attitude in regard to certain 
 productions. Especially was it true of those written 
 in a lighter vein. While Tennyson, rarely as he chose 
 to resort to it, had the power of producing trenchant 
 satire, there was never a great poet more unfitted than 
 he for the composition of those elegant trifles which 
 go mth us under the foreign title of vers de societe. 
 He could not write his best save under the pressure of 
 deep feeling. It was consequently no personal hos- 
 tility which dictated the condemnation of certain 
 pieces wliich he persisted in retaining. "I agree with 
 you," wrote FitzGerald to Pollock, on May 22, 1842, 
 ' ' quite about the skipping-rope, &c. But the bald men 
 of the Embassy would tell you otherwise. I should 
 not wonder if the whole theory of the Embassy, 
 perhaps the discovery of America itself, was involved 
 in that very poem. Lord Bacon's honesty may, I am 
 sure, be found there. Alfred, whatever he may think, 
 can not trifle — many are the disputes we have had 
 about his powers of badinage, compliment, waltzing, 
 &c. His smile is rather a grim one. I am glad the 
 book is come out, though I grieve for the insertion of 
 these little things, on which reviewers and dull readers 
 will fix ; so that the right appreciation of the book will 
 be retarded a dozen years.'" 
 
 FitzGerald 's criticism was just, but his forebodings 
 were far from being realized. It is significant of the 
 hold which Tennyson had gained almost at a stroke 
 over his generation that none of these few objection- 
 
 1 ' Letters and Literary Eemains of Edward FitzGerald, ' Vol. I, p. 95. 
 
RECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 439 
 
 able pieces were seized upon in any quarter to turn 
 his whole work into ridicule. They w^ere quietly 
 ignored. It took no dozen years, as FitzGerald had 
 feared and foretold, for the educated public to appre- 
 ciate the new poems brought to its attention, though 
 the attention of critics had been largely confined to 
 the old ones. For it was the contents of the second 
 volume which raised Tennyson to the proud position 
 which he was soon to hold. This second volume it is 
 which comprises a large share of his poetry which has 
 become a part of the permanent riches of our litera- 
 ture. It contained in all twenty-nine titles. It opened 
 with the 'Morte d 'Arthur. ' In it were to be found 
 pieces so diverse in character as the idyllic 'Garden- 
 er's Daughter' and 'Dora' on the one side, and such 
 metaphysical questionings as 'The Two Voices' and 
 'The Vision of Sin' on the other. Scattered through 
 the volume were 'St. Simeon Stylites,' 'Sir Galahad,' 
 'Ulysses,' 'The Talking Oak,' 'Godiva,' and numerous 
 other poems, diverse in character but differing only 
 in the degree of their sustained excellence. In truth, 
 one secret of the success of the work was that it 
 contained so many pieces suited to different and 
 differing orders of mind. We who have become 
 familiar with them, as with a tale that has been told 
 scores of times, are little able to realize the impression 
 they made upon that generation of young and ardent 
 spirits to whom they came with the suddenness of an 
 inspired revelation. 
 
 Individuals naturally had their preferences for 
 particular pieces. But one poem there was which 
 
440 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 became at once known throughout the English-speaking 
 world. This was 'Locksley Hall.' The popularity it 
 achieved was instantaneous. It was reprinted and 
 circulated everywhere. Nor has the favor of it gained 
 at the very outset ever suffered serious diminution. 
 This is not to maintain that the piece in question is 
 Tennyson's greatest work any more than it is his 
 longest. There are others of his productions which 
 display characteristics of a higher grade of achieve- 
 ment. Still this is the one poem which has appealed to 
 the widest circle of sympathies and tastes ; and so long 
 as youth continues a portion of life, so long is likely 
 to last the popularity of a production which embodies 
 the hopes and dreams, the experiences and the aspira- 
 tions of youth. For this one reason alone 'Locksley 
 Hall' will never lack readers and admirers in any 
 and every age. Forster in his early review in 'The 
 Examiner' anticipated the general contemporary 
 verdict in asserting that this "grand poem," as he 
 called it, was likely to become the favorite piece of 
 the whole collection. Such it became at once ; such it 
 remained. As late as 1850 Charles Kingsley spoke of 
 it as the one production which had had the ''most 
 influence on the minds of the young men of our day. ' '^ 
 Forster 's prediction accordingly turned out to be 
 true. But at the time it appeared there were special 
 reasons which contributed to the unbounded popu- 
 larity of 'Locksley Hall.' No other poem interpreted 
 so fully the spirit of the age, its unrest, its hopes, and 
 aspirations, its boundless belief in what the future 
 
 1' Eraser's Magazine,' Vol. XLII, p. 249, September, 1850. 
 
RECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 441 
 
 had in store, and its equally boundless belief in its 
 ability to accomplish all that it dreamed. The period 
 was one of exultant anticipation. This feeling, it was 
 believed, was not the vague mental intoxication which 
 heralded the approach of the French Revolution, but 
 a just expectation of the future based upon a calm 
 and clear-sighted survey of the forces that were then 
 in operation for the improvement of mankind. Modern 
 science had begun to enter upon its career of immeas- 
 urable conquest. It had already accomplished much 
 and was fairly reckless in its promises of what further 
 it was to accomplish. Distance of space seemed 
 already on the road to annihilation through the further 
 application of steam to motive power. Electricity was 
 already bringing the most distant regions of the earth 
 into the closest proximity of intercourse. The barriers 
 that parted man from man and nation from nation 
 were in consequence speedily to be burst asunder. 
 These wonder-working achievements of science it was 
 that held out the hope of a happy solution of the 
 numerous vexing problems which had long been lying 
 hea\^ on the hearts of all who thought and felt. 
 
 Accordingly as a result of these transforming 
 processes, when at last they had been brought into 
 full and active operation, little limit was placed on 
 the moral and political progress of humanity. Under 
 the influence of these agencies, life would be made 
 purer and loftier. A better race than ours would come 
 to inherit the earth, men would be braver and nobler 
 than now and women fairer and purer. That younger 
 day w^as about to dawn w^hen the conventions that 
 
442 LIFE AND TIIVIES OF TENNYSON 
 
 made man the sport of the accidents of birth and 
 fortune were destined to disappear ; that younger day 
 which, in the fulness of time, when war had ceased, 
 was to witness the federation of man, the parliament 
 of the world. It was a fascinating picture which the 
 youthful poet held before the minds of men ready to 
 sympathize with its most glowing promises. It was 
 and perhaps will always remain a gorgeous \dsion 
 to uplift the hearts of enthusiasts and to inspire the 
 efforts of reformers. But when it appeared it was in 
 strictest accord with the dominant feeling of the 
 younger generation of the time. In its glowing lines 
 were recorded the optimistic views which prevailed 
 about the future of the race. It is little wonder 
 accordingly that an age which found its most cherished 
 ideals expressed in loftiest language should have 
 welcomed Tvdth enthusiasm the poem and placed the 
 poet in the highest rank of li\dng authors. 
 
 The truth is that the success which came to Tenny- 
 son in the first instance and remained the secret of his 
 continuous popularity at times in face of frequent 
 depreciation or intermittent attack, was largely due 
 to the fact that he mirrored, as did no other poet of 
 his period, the changing feelings and the varying 
 moods of the generations to which he successively 
 appealed. As in the 'Locksley Hall' of 1842 he 
 reflected the hopes and aspirations of the era of his 
 youth, so in the 'Locksley Hall' of 1886 he reflected 
 the fears and disappointment of the generation which 
 had succeeded. The optimism of the earlier time had 
 given place to the despondency, almost partaking of 
 
RECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 443 
 
 the nature of pessimism, which had come largely to 
 characterize the later. Tliis second poem has often 
 been termed a palinode. It is a palinode in so far as 
 it gives a vivid picture of the change which had come 
 over the minds of men, as they contrasted the realities 
 which confronted them mth the high-wrought expec- 
 tation which had once been cherished of the brilliant 
 results that were to follow man's increasing conquests 
 over the forces of nature. Reflected accordingly in 
 the later poem was the reaction of the closing years 
 of the century against the hope and confidence of its 
 prime. The gods in whom men had been taught to 
 trust had turned out to be vain gods. Distance of 
 space and length of time were, it is true, on the road 
 to annihilation. Luxuries once deemed possible only 
 for the few had become the indispensable necessities 
 of the many. Marvels, once even undreamed of as 
 belonging to the realm of reality, had shrunk by usage 
 into the most matter-of-fact commonplace. Much had 
 been added in many ways to man's material comfort. 
 But how about man himself! Was he who was 
 whirled fifty miles an hour along the Thames any 
 Aviser or better than he who more than a score of 
 centuries ago sauntered slowly by the banks of the 
 Ilissus? It was inevitable that the conviction should 
 come that the material agencies from which so much 
 had been expected, while they might increase man's 
 resources and capabilities, could not of themselves 
 add either to his real happiness or to his moral eleva- 
 tion ; that the progress of humanity would be no result 
 of external forces triumphing over the inert resistance 
 
444 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 of matter, but of the slow processes of those internal 
 changes which purify and elevate the soul; that the 
 uplifting of the indi\T.dual must invariably precede the 
 uplifting of the race; and that he accomplishes most 
 for the regeneration of the world who in his sphere, 
 whether high or humble, according to his means, 
 whether vast or limited, gives up his life to the service 
 of his fellow men. 
 
 But no disturbing feelings of this nature were 
 prevalent in the earlier time. So great indeed was 
 the interest inspired by this poem that it became a 
 favorite belief of some that Tennyson was recording 
 in it his own personal experience. In a review of his 
 poems several years after the publication of the 
 volumes of 1842, Gilfillan with that fine critical per- 
 spicacity of the sort he w^as wont to display spoke of 
 this particular piece as telling "a tale of unfortunate 
 passion with a gusto and depth of feeling, which 
 (unless we misconstrue the mark of the branding iron) 
 betray more than a fictitious interest in the theme. "^ 
 Still later Taine made a suggestion to the same effect 
 in his 'History of English Literature' — a book which 
 would be as valuable as it is delightful, had it more 
 frequently occurred to the author that it was desirable 
 to read the works on which he set out to pass judg- 
 ment. ''Personal memories, they said, had furnished 
 the matter of Maud and Lochsley Hall,'^ are his words. 
 But this attribution was not limited to the author 
 himself. On account of the Avide popularity of the 
 poem, several persons were induced to pose as its hero 
 
 1 'Tait's Edinburgh Magazine,' Vol. XIV, p. 230, April, 1847. 
 
RECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 445 
 
 or heroine. There was manifestly no lack of candi- 
 dates for this honor. Tennyson's son represents his 
 father as saying that some time after he had left 
 Cambridge, two undergraduates were walking together 
 when one of them chanced to mention the poet's name. 
 The other replied that he hated the man ; for he himself 
 was the unhappy hero of Locksley Hall. *'It is," he 
 said, ''the story of my cousin's love and mine, known 
 to all Cambridge when Mr. Tennyson was there, and 
 he put it into verse." Dates contribute a good deal 
 of perplexity to this particular tale of woe. As 
 'Locksley Hall' did not appear until ten years after 
 Tennyson left Cambridge, it is hard to see how his 
 student contemporary could have been much afflicted 
 by the report of his unfortunate experience unless he 
 had achieved a noteworthy place in the history of the 
 university for the length of time he remained an 
 undergraduate. But this was merely one of several 
 instances. Mary Russell Mitford, for example, tells 
 us in a letter of August 7, 1847, that "William Harness 
 had been dining with the heroine of 'Locksley Hall' 
 and her husband."^ Doubtless there were many 
 similar heroes and heroines of small circles whose 
 names have never reached the ears of the public. 
 
 1 ' Letters of Mary Eussell Mitford, ' 2d series, edited by Henry 
 Chorley, 1872, Vol. I, p. 235. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 AMERICAN RECEPTION OF THE POEMS OF 1842 
 
 The American edition of Tennyson's poems followed 
 a few weeks after the appearance of the English. It 
 came from the Boston house of Ticknor & Company. 
 Doubtless by an arrangement with the poet or his 
 London publisher, the edition was almost an exact 
 reproduction of the one brought out on the other side 
 of the Atlantic. It was hardly to be expected that 
 the work would meet with the success in America 
 which had greeted it in England, in spite of the fact 
 that it was from this country that the heaviest pressure 
 to publish had come. For a rapid and extensive 
 circulation of the volumes in the United States the 
 ground had hardly been prepared. Here the previous 
 productions of the poet had been practically inacces- 
 sible. There is still in existence a manuscript volume 
 in the handwriting of James Russell Lowell which 
 contains a number of Tennyson's early poems. These 
 had been copied by him at the time and were circulated 
 among a group of private friends.^ To such shifts 
 were the American admirers of the poet forced to 
 resort. In consequence, there had been little oppor- 
 tunity for men to become acquainted with his writings ; 
 by vast numbers of the educated even his very name 
 
 1 F. Greenslet 's ' James Eussell Lowell, ' p. 42. 
 
AIVIERICAN RECEPTION OF THE POEMS 447 
 
 had hardly been heard. Furthermore, the piratical 
 reprinting of British periodicals, brought about by 
 the absence of international copyright, had noticeably 
 destroyed here the spirit of independent criticism. 
 Men were largely in a state of intellectual servitude. 
 Accepting views at second hand which had not been 
 worthy of being heeded at first hand, and retaining 
 them after the originators had outgrown them, or had 
 become ashamed of them, will account for most of the 
 hostile criticism to which Tennyson was here subjected 
 at the outset. 
 
 A somewhat hesitating attitude, to be sure, was 
 occasionally taken which was not at all due to that 
 cause. To a certain extent, both in England and 
 America, the perfect finish of Tennyson's poetry has 
 constantly militated against the loftiness of the esti- 
 mate placed upon it. Men have always shown a 
 disposition to become tired and at times resentful of 
 anything approaching flawless achievement. It is a 
 feeling which is never entirely absent from human 
 nature, and has undoubtedly often expressed itself in 
 action long before Aristides was ostracized by his 
 irritated fellow citizen for being everywhere termed 
 the Just. Something of a sentiment of the same general 
 character has been, even from the beginning, more or 
 less prevalent about Tennyson. With a particular 
 class of readers there is a disposition to believe that 
 poetry which possesses smootlmess must on that very 
 account be deficient in strength. It lacks strength 
 because it lacks roughness. This is very much as if 
 a great piece of architecture should be deemed wanting 
 
448 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 in solidity and stability because it possesses through- 
 out the beauty of grace and exquisite proportion. 
 
 Echoes of this sort of feeling were heard then and 
 long afterward even from those honestly disposed to 
 admire. Early in August, 1842, Charles Sumner wrote 
 to Milnes of the appearance of the American edition. 
 ''Tennyson's poems," he said, ''have been reprinted 
 in Boston, and the reprint is a precise copy of the 
 English edition in size, type, and paper, so that it is 
 difficult to distinguish the two editions. It is reprinted 
 for the benefit of the author, to whom the publisher 
 hopes to remit some honorarium. Emerson and his 
 followers are ardent admirers of Tennyson, and it is 
 their enthusiastic, unhesitating praise that induced a 
 bookseller to undertake the reprint. There are some 
 things in the second volume which I admire very much. 
 ' LocksleyHall ' has some magnificent verses, and others 
 hardly intelligible. 'Godiva' is unequalled as a narra- 
 tive in verse, and the little stories of Lady Clare and 
 the Lord of Burleigh are told in beautiful measure. 
 I am struck with the melody of his verse, its silver 
 ring, and its high poetic fancy; but does it not want 
 elevated thought and manliness? And yet, in its way, 
 what can be more exquisite than (Enone making 
 Mount Ida echo with her complaints'? Was her story 
 ever told in a sweeter strain in any language ? ' '^ 
 
 It is pretty hard for us at this late day to discover 
 what any one could then have found unintelligible in 
 ' Locksley Hall. ' But the sentiments just quoted, little 
 
 1 ' Life, Letters and Friendships of Richard Monckton Milnes, ' Vol. 
 I, p. 279. 
 
AMERICAN RECEPTION OF THE POEMS 449 
 
 as they would have satisfied Tennyson's ardent admir- 
 ers in this country, doubtless represent fairly the view 
 taken then by many cultivated men who came for the 
 first time to the perusal of these poems. But here, in 
 truth, possibly more than in England, did the dispo- 
 sition to underrate prevail in certain quarters. At 
 all events, it had here the courage, which it lacked 
 there, of expressing to the full its hostility. Conse- 
 quently the old depreciatory remarks, forgotten or 
 suppressed in England, continued to be repeated in 
 America in certain quarters. Tennyson's career was 
 strewn throughout with the absurdities of English 
 criticism; and it is not fitting that those exhibited on 
 this side of the Atlantic should escape commemoration. 
 They lacked here even the slight merit of originality. 
 Two utterances in particular, which then appeared, are 
 worth citing because they show conclusively that the 
 impression created by Lockhart's article was even at 
 that late day still exerting its influence in this country. 
 A peculiarly choice specimen of this sort of pilfered 
 severity can be found in 'The Southern Literary 
 Messenger,' published at Richmond, Virginia. For the 
 view expressed in it, its author cannot plead that 
 hastiness of impression which results from the limita- 
 tion of time which is afforded for forming an opinion. 
 The criticism did not appear until April, 1844. 
 Accordingly the writer had had the benefit of two 
 years to make up his mind. He gained nothing by 
 the delay. He did little more than repeat in an 
 intensified form the opinions expressed in the 'Quar- 
 terly' of 1833, though at this date their very author 
 
450 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 had been forced to repent of tlieir publication if lie 
 had not gained the grace to feel ashamed of their 
 character. The American reviewer rehashed all the 
 old criticisms apparently under the belief that they 
 were his own. He actually went back to Lockhart's 
 article and quoted from it the lines to Christopher 
 North; for the volume in which these had appeared 
 he had manifestly never seen. *'Mr. Tennyson," was 
 his conclusion, ' ' appears to be a man of slender intel- 
 lect, who has inflamed his imagination by believing 
 himself a poet, and has supplied its numerous vacuities 
 by studying the works of others. ' ' 
 
 Fortunately for his repute the name of this gifted 
 southern critic has either been forgotten or more 
 probably has been studiously withheld from the knowl- 
 edge of the public.^ Unfortunately such good luck has 
 not fallen to the lot of his northern rival. In the same 
 quarterly, in which six years before a cordial welcome 
 had been extended to Tennyson's early verse, appeared 
 a review of the poems of 1842 altogether different in 
 character.^ It came too from an honored name. It 
 was the work of Felton, professor of Greek at Harvard 
 College. Felton was a scholar and a man of culture ; 
 but he was as little alive to the new influences that 
 were beginning to dominate literature as was Croker 
 on the other side of the Atlantic. He belonged to the 
 
 1 ' ' An anonymous reviewer of Tennyson 's poems is not at all com- 
 plimentary." — 'The Southern Literary Messenger, 1834-1864,' by Benja- 
 min Blake Minor, Editor and Proprietor from 1843 to 1847, 1905, p. 123. 
 One gets the impression that the anonymous reviewer was the editor 
 himself. 
 
 2 'Christian Examiner,' Vol. XXXIII, pp. 237-244, November, 1842. 
 
AMERICAN RECEPTION OF THE POEMS 451 
 
 old school of critics who accepted fully the belief that 
 the poetry at this time coming into vogue — that of 
 Keats and Tennyson — lacked the severe simplicity and 
 classic spirit of the former age. Such persons had 
 been somewhat discouraged by the defection of the 
 'Quarterly' in allomng a so-called favorable notice 
 of Tennyson to appear in its columns. Its authority, 
 however, was not sufficient to dispose them to bow 
 do"v\Ti and worship at the shrine of the new deity which 
 the men of the younger generation had set up. 
 
 Of these recalcitrants on this side of the Atlantic, 
 Felton w^as one of the most conspicuous. His article 
 indeed is of particular interest because it reveals how 
 wide-reaching had been the influence of Lockhart's 
 criticism, and how intense was still the prejudice 
 against Tennyson which had been set in motion by the 
 hostile treatment which had been accorded him in his 
 own land. Here we find it manifesting its old char- 
 acter and vigor in what must be called not the most 
 abusive but distinctly the silliest criticism which the 
 poet's new venture received anywhere. 'The Quar- 
 terly Review' might yield to the change which had 
 been going on in public sentiment and retract its 
 pre^dous censures. Not so its faithful followers in 
 this country. Fate has been kind to many critics 
 during their lives in hiding behind a bulwark of tj'pe 
 all public knowledge of the authorship of their pro- 
 ductions. It has been even kinder in death, when not 
 merely is their memory forgotten but the memory of 
 what they wrote. Hard, therefore, has been the fortune 
 of this particular reviewer, who could so little forecast 
 
452 LIFE AND TBIES OF TENNYSON 
 
 the future that, disdaining the shelter of anonymous- 
 ness, he signed his initials to his article. Few are the 
 men who would like to go down to posterity mth their 
 names attached to the criticism now to be considered. 
 A curiosity it assuredly is both for the ridiculousness 
 of the opinions which it expressed and for the ridicu- 
 lousness of the facts which it stated. It is in the 
 following way that Felton paid his respects to the 
 new poet. 
 
 ''Mr. Tennyson's poetical fortunes," began the 
 review, "have been singularly various. Some six or 
 seven years ago he first became known, partly by his 
 own extraordinary demerits, and chiefly by a stringent 
 review in the London Quarterly. It was supposed 
 that he was, poetically speaking, dead; he certainly 
 was, theatrically speaking, though not theologically, 
 damned. Strange to say, his poems found their way 
 across the Atlantic, and gained favor in the eyes of 
 a peculiar class of sentimentalists. Young ladies were 
 known to copy them entire, and learn them by heart. 
 Stanzas of most melodious unmeaningness passed 
 from mouth to mouth, and were praised to the very 
 echo. The man who possessed a copy was the envy 
 of more than twenty persons, counting women and 
 children; until at length Mr. Tennyson came into 
 possession of a very considerable amount of reputa- 
 tion. His ardent admirers sent to England for copies ; 
 but singularly enough, not one was to be had. The 
 poet had bought them all up and committed them to 
 the flames ; but moved by the transatlantic resurrection 
 of his poetical character, he set about convincing 
 
AMEEICAN RECEPTION OF THE POEMS 453 
 
 people that he was alive too at home. He broke upon 
 the world in the twofold splendor of a pair of volumes, 
 published in Mr. Moxon's finest style. His former 
 writings were clipped of many puerilities, and brought 
 nearer the confines of common sense; to them were 
 added many poems never before printed, some of 
 which are marked by a delicate frost-work kind of 
 beauty. The London Quarterly Journalists came out 
 immediately mth a long and highly laudatory critique, 
 and ranked Mr. Tennyson among the foremost poets 
 of the age, ^\'ithout an allusion to the homicidal attack 
 they had made on him only a few short years before; 
 and without the least apology for surrendering the 
 infallibility of re\dewers." 
 
 Whether it was owing to inaccuracy of information 
 or to sportiveness of spirit manifesting itself in a 
 somewhat elephantine way, it is clear that several of 
 the statements made in the foregoing paragraph are 
 not to be recommended for their rigid conformity to 
 fact. But these were left far behind by the critical 
 estimate and imaginary personal portrayal, honestly 
 intended to be facetious, which followed. Along with 
 his severity ran Felton's stern determination to be 
 jocose at all hazards. He did not deny the poet the 
 possession of some genius. There was even an 
 affectation of candor in his remark that Tennyson 
 looked ^ ' on things with a poetical eye ' ' — which is some- 
 thing more than could be said for his critic. But he 
 modified even this praise by adding that the things he 
 looks on are "small things, and his eye is none of the 
 largest. . . . He has a remarkable alacrity at sinking. " 
 
454 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 Further we were told that while he was ''a dainty 
 poet," he was deficient in manly thought and strong 
 expression. "He is," said the critic, "a curious 
 compound of the poet, the dandy, and the Delia Crus- 
 can. ' ' As was to be expected, affectation was declared 
 to be his prevailing intellectual vice. The critic added 
 a playful mental picture of the bodily presence of the 
 man, the verisimilitude of which must have much 
 impressed those who were aware of the poet's care- 
 lessness in dress. "We cannot help fancying him," 
 said Felton, "to be altogether finical in his personal 
 habits. He is a sweet gentleman and delights to gaze 
 upon his image in a glass ; his hair is probably long, 
 and carefully curled; he writes in white kid gloves, 
 on scented paper; perhaps he sleeps in yellow curl- 
 papers. We are certain he lisps." But with all this 
 distressing facetiousness, the critic was not altogether 
 unfair. It may be maintained indeed that he unde- 
 signedly made much more than amends for what he 
 said by what he did. As a sort of offset to a review 
 intended to be mildly satirical and wholly humorous, 
 he printed the whole of ' Locksley Hall. ' It is not often 
 that a critic of poetry is willing to disclose to the 
 intelligent reader so manifest an exhibition of his own 
 critical incapacity. 
 
 There were other unfavorable notices in American 
 periodicals, but none quite so hopelessly inane as the 
 two which have just been cited. It must not be fancied, 
 however, that these reflected the prevailing tone of 
 criticism. Even hostile as these were, they admitted 
 the fact that the poems had met with success. The 
 
\ 
 
 AMERICAN RECEPTION OF THE POEMS 455 
 
 writer in the northern periodical bore reluctant 
 witness to their popularity, especially to their popu- 
 larity with those who lacked the austere taste and 
 intellectual virility of the critic, and his disdain for 
 the meretricious charms with which the poet had 
 bedecked his muse. The re\'iewer in 'The Southern 
 Literary Messenger' felt obliged to concede the fact 
 that they had been received favorably. ''They have 
 been republished here, ' ' he said, ' ' and we are informed 
 that they have met with a ready and extensive sale." 
 For in America as in England, the poems found read- 
 ers who had been brought up on more nourishing 
 intellectual diet than old 'Quarterly Reviews.' As 
 time went on, even Felton, while retaining his hostility, 
 felt that he must concede to the poet genius of a certain 
 sort as well as the popularity which he deplored. In 
 'The North American Review' for April, 1844, there 
 was a criticism by him of the poems of Lowell.^ In 
 the course of it he spoke of the feeble and flat imita- 
 tions of Mrs. Hemans which had appeared. "And 
 now," he continued, "feebler and flatter imitations of 
 Alfred Tennyson wear out the forbearance of a long- 
 suffering public." He found the same fault with the 
 American poet that 'The Quarterly Review' had 
 previously found with Milnes. He warned him against 
 the tendency to imitate Tennyson. He discovered in 
 him "a disposition to mimic the jingle of a man who, 
 with much genius, and an exquisite ear for musical 
 rhythm, has also a Titanian fondness for quaint and 
 
 1 Vol. LVIII, p. 286. 
 
456 LIFE AND TIIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 dainty expressions, affected turns, and mawkishly 
 effeminate sentiment." 
 
 To Felton indeed and to men like him in control of 
 'The North American Eeview,' there continued to be 
 a persistent ignoring of the work of Tennyson which 
 was not in the least due to ignorance. For a long 
 series of years, he was the one English poet whom 
 that periodical sedulously refrained from noticing. 
 Though time and space were given up to elaborate 
 criticisms of English writers of far inferior grade, no 
 review of Tennyson appeared for many years in its 
 columns. Incidental references only are to be found. 
 Naturally there was nothing said about the volumes 
 of 1842. But likewise there was nothing said of 'The 
 Princess,' of 'In Memoriam,' of the 'Ode on the Death 
 of the Duke of Wellington.' It was not until 1855 
 when his reputation had swept aw^ay all unfavorable 
 criticism of the slightest significance, that a single 
 article on his works was allowed to appear. It was 
 a review of 'Maud.' It was not very long, nor as a 
 piece of criticism was it broad. Still, feeble as it was, 
 it was intended to be complimentary. But by that 
 time it had become a matter of indifference to readers 
 whether any notice of his poetry appeared in 'The 
 North American Re^dew' or not. Every one had then 
 made up his mind — that is, every one who had a mind 
 to make up — and cared little what any critic said either 
 for or against the poet. It is, however, justice to add 
 that in the periodical in question various incidental 
 references to Tennyson appeared during the interval. 
 Some of them too were highly laudatory ; for contribu- 
 
AMERICAN RECEPTION OF THE POEMS 457 
 
 tors to the review had sense, even if its conductors 
 did not. 
 
 There Avas doubtless a certain amount of truth in 
 the satirical references made by Felton to the class 
 of persons who had welcomed with special enthusiasm 
 Tennyson's earlier volumes. The pressure from 
 America to publish had come to no small extent from 
 the group of disciples who had gathered about Emer- 
 son. It was far from being confined to them, but in 
 them it found its noisiest manifestation. They 
 belonged to the so-called Transcendental School which 
 in 1841 had established as a sort of oflQcial organ the 
 quarterly periodical called 'The Dial.' Of this pub- 
 lication Margaret Fuller was the original editor. 
 Testimony to the admiration felt for Tennyson by 
 the members of this band is met with frequently. A 
 belated notice of his two early volumes appeared in 
 'The Dial' for July, 1841.^ It pretty certainly came 
 from the pen of its editor. "Tennyson is known by 
 heart," said the writer, "is copied as Greek works 
 were at the revival of literature; nothing has been 
 known for ten years back more the darling of the 
 young than these two little volumes. ' ' 
 
 Accordingly it was inevitable that the members of 
 the circle which surrounded Emerson — who, though 
 an admirer of the poet, was far from being as enthu- 
 siastic a one as his followers — it was inevitable that 
 they should hail A\ath intense gratification the prospect 
 of the publication of additional poems by their favorite. 
 The forthcoming work was duly announced in 'The 
 
 1 Vol. II, p. 135. 
 
458 LIFE AND TIIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 Dial' for July, 1842.^ '' Alfred Tennyson," it said, 
 ''moved by being informed of his American popularity, 
 has given himself to the labor of revising and reprint- 
 ing a selection of his old poems, and adding as many 
 new ones, which he has sent to Mr. Wheeler of Harvard 
 University, who is republishing them here." It is 
 evidence of the distance of time as well as of space 
 which then separated the two continents that the work, 
 which Tennyson is here described as preparing for 
 the press, had already been before the English people 
 for several weeks. By the group of persons already 
 indicated, the volumes when they came out in this 
 country were received with intense enthusiasm. A 
 most cordial review of them appeared in 'The Dial' 
 for October of the same year, which by its fervor 
 contrasts sharply with the staid tone of the English 
 quarterlies. This again was probably the work of 
 Margaret Fuller. It certainly corresponds in spirit 
 to the words in her journal of August, 1842, in which 
 she records her impression of the work which had just 
 appeared in America. "I have just been reading," 
 it said, "the new poems of Tennyson. Much has he 
 thought, much suffered, since the first ecstasy of so 
 fine an organization clothed all the world w^ith rosy 
 light. He has not suffered himself to become a mere 
 intellectual voluptuary, nor the songster of fancy and 
 passion, but has earnestly revolved the problems of 
 life, and his conclusions are calmly noble. In these 
 later verses is a still, deep sweetness; how different 
 from the intoxicating sensuous melody of his earlier 
 
 1 Vol. Ill, p. 135. 
 
AJMERICAN RECEPTION OF THE POEMS 459 
 
 cadence." In the article itself there was little limit 
 to the praise bestowed. Approbation indeed was given 
 to poems for which few have been found to say a good 
 word. ''Nothing is more uncommon," said, for 
 instance, the writer, "than the lightness of touch, 
 which gives a charm to such little pieces as the 'Skip- 
 ping Rope.' " It ought to be more than uncommon; 
 it should be impossible. 
 
 But the article represented fairly, in general, the 
 attitude of the early American admirers of the poet 
 who had been instrumental in urging upon him the 
 necessity of appearing once more in print. It was of 
 course far from being universal. In the various criti- 
 cal utterances in this country, as well as in England, 
 there was at times displayed ignorance; there was 
 indifference ; there was to a certain extent hostility. 
 Depreciatory opinions came occasionally from quar- 
 ters where we should least have expected it. Even in 
 'The Dial'^ itself, as at about the same time in 'The 
 Cambridge University Magazine,' appeared re^dews 
 of Tennyson's poems which did not err on the side of 
 undue praise. The writer in the former periodical 
 objected to him as being too superfine, as lacking what 
 he called rude truth — whatever he meant by the phrase. 
 "We must not make our bread of pure sugar," he 
 remarked. "The poem," he added, "of all the poetry 
 
 1 It has been a very common statement that it was Emerson's admira- 
 tion of the poems that caused their publication in America. But it was 
 not so much the admiration of Emerson as that of his followers. When 
 Margaret Fuller ceased to edit 'The Dial,' its tone immediately changed. 
 Under Emerson 's editorship no one could accuse it of extravagant 
 praise of Tennyson. In it appeared some of those extraordinary literary 
 judgments which eminence indulges in for the comfort of its inferiors. 
 
460 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 of the present age, for which we predict the longest 
 term, is 'Abou ben Adhem' of Leigh Hunt."^ In the 
 English periodical the writer repeated the old formu- 
 las, criticised the poet for his quaintnesses of spelling 
 and expression, and in particular for his doggerel. 
 Of this last 'Will Waterproof's Lyrical Monologue' 
 was cited as a peculiarly objectionable specimen. 
 These expressions of opinion need no comment ; for of 
 themselves they indicate unmistakably the literary 
 status of the critics. It will probably occasion no 
 surprise to learn that both the periodicals in which 
 they appeared speedily died. 
 
 But articles like these were after all mere eddies in 
 the general stream of approbation. There was a great 
 deal of genuine appreciation early manifested in this 
 country which had not been fed on previous knowledge, 
 although it was not till the following decade that it had 
 had time to become practically universal. Not to speak 
 of various anonymous printed utterances, a cordial 
 tribute was paid the poet in 1845 by Edwin Percy 
 Whipple, w^ho at that period held, especially in New 
 England, high repute as one of the country's most 
 eminent critics. This is a sort of reputation, which, 
 whether deserved or undeserved, is of the most tran- 
 sitory nature. Eufus Wilmot Griswold, an industrious 
 but not illuminating compiler, had brought out a 
 volume entitled 'The Poets and Poetry of England 
 in the Nineteenth Century.' In it he assured us with 
 delightful gravity that the writings of Alfred Tenny- 
 son have sufficient merit to place him '4n the third 
 
 1 April, 1843, Vol. Ill, pp. 517-518. 
 
AMERICAN RECEPTION OF THE POEMS 461 
 
 or fourth rank of contemporary English poets. " With 
 this solemn pronouncement Whipple naturally made 
 himself merry in his review of the second edition of 
 the work which appeared in 1844. To outspoken praise 
 of the poet he devoted several pages. ^ 
 
 But no published criticism at this early date, either 
 in America or any other country, rivalled that of Foe 
 in the estimate placed upon Tennyson's achievement. 
 It found expression again and again. It must be borne 
 in mind that Poe died in 1849. This was before a 
 great deal of the work by which Tennyson is now 
 largely known was in existence, or at least had come 
 to the knowledge of men. Accordingly, he was familiar 
 only with his comparatively early verse, which still 
 continued to be disparaged by many. But Poe, who 
 never lacked the courage of his convictions, had no 
 hesitation in proclaiming the superiority of Tennyson 
 to all the poets of his generation. His criticism of 
 other authors varied widely at times — at least it 
 seemed to vary — as to the nature and extent of their 
 merits or demerits. But in regard to Tennyson he 
 never wavered; though he would persist — or at least 
 his publishers did — in printing 'CEnone' as *^none.' 
 His conclusions were based largely upon the poems 
 found in the edition of 1842. As early as August, 1843, 
 he had expressed his admiration. It went far beyond 
 what most admirers were then willing to go, or at least 
 were permitted to go in their published utterance. 
 ''For Tennyson," he wrote, '*as for a man imbued 
 with the richest and rarest poetic impulses, we have an 
 
 I'The American Eeview, A WTiig Journal,' Vol. II, p. 45. 
 
462 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 admiration — a reverence unbounded. His 'Morte 
 d 'Arthur,' his 'Locksley Hall,' his 'Sleeping Beauty,' 
 his 'Lady of Shalott,' his 'Lotos-Eaters,' his '^none,' 
 and many other poems, are not surpassed in all that 
 gives to Poetry its distinctive value, by the composi- 
 tions of any one living or dead."^ A little more than 
 a year after, he went much farther than any one else 
 had ever gone, at least in print. He was not content 
 with merely putting him at the head of contemporary 
 writers. "I am not sure," he wrote, "that Tennyson 
 is not the greatest of poets. The uncertainty attending 
 the public conception of the term 'poet' alone pre- 
 vents me from demonstrating that he is. Other bards 
 produce effects which are, now and then, otherwise 
 produced than by what we call poems; but Tennyson 
 an effect which only a poem does. His alone are 
 idiosyncratic poems. By the enjoyment or non-enjoy- 
 ment of the 'Morte d 'Arthur,' or of '^none,' I would 
 test any one's ideal sense. "^ Nor did the attitude here 
 indicated ever change. His last recorded utterance 
 about Tennyson was not printed till after his own 
 death. In the essay entitled 'The Poetic Principle,' 
 in citing from 'The Princess' the four stanzas begin- 
 ning "Tears, idle tears," he asserted of their author 
 that "in perfect sincerity I regard him as the noblest 
 poet that ever lived. "^ 
 
 Still it is manifest from the evidence that has been 
 presented that the appreciation, great as it was, which 
 
 I'Our Amateur Poets,' No. 3, 'Graham's Magazine,' August, 1843. 
 2 'Democratic Eeview,' December, 1844, Vol. XV, p. 580. 
 3'Sartain's Union Magazine,' October, 1850, Vol. VI, p. 238. 
 
AI^IERICAN RECEPTION OF THE POEMS 463 
 
 at that early time waited upon Tennyson, had as yet 
 neither in England nor America become universal. 
 Little of the enthusiasm which prevailed among the 
 most cultivated class of readers, especially among the 
 younger members of that body, found expressions in 
 the organs which professed to represent and guide 
 public opinion. The only review of that period which 
 gave full and unreserved utterance to the sentiment 
 which was ultimately to prevail can be found in 'Tait's 
 Edinburgh Magazine' of August, 1842. But another 
 voice from that same region was silent. It was a voice, 
 too, which under ordinary conditions might well have 
 been expected to be the very first to greet the man 
 who had so unexpectedly to most exhibited his poetical 
 supremacy. Yet from it no welcome was heard. Of 
 the new work which cultivated readers all over the 
 land were talking about, no notice was taken by the 
 then renowned critic of ^Blackwood's Magazine.' In 
 its conduct his influence still remained predominant. 
 Not for some years after the publication of the volumes 
 of 1842 was the name of Tennyson so much as men- 
 tioned in the columns of that periodical. But more 
 than simple omission had characterized the critic's 
 course ; there had been aggressive action. At the time 
 itself the poet indeed was not assailed by name ; but he 
 was so by implication. The appearance of another 
 work was seized upon as the occasion to minimize 
 or rather to depreciate his achievement. No notice 
 has ever been taken of these attacks upon Tennyson 
 either by his biographers or by students of the literary 
 history of the times. But the attitude assumed towards 
 
464 LIFE AND TIMES OF TEN^^YSON 
 
 the first poet of the age in the early years of his career 
 by him who was generally rated as the first critic of 
 the age is a matter of sufficient importance to demand 
 full recital. It assuredly forms a distinctly curious 
 story in the history of criticism; and as it has never 
 been told, to its narration the following chapter shall 
 be devoted. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS ON 
 TENNYSON 
 
 In spite of its bluster and rowdyism and occasional 
 mad antics of all sorts, 'Blackwood's Magazine' for 
 the quarter of a century following its foundation in 
 1817 was one of the best-conducted of British literary 
 periodicals. Furthermore it was on the whole one 
 of the fairest. That, too, it was in spite of its virulent 
 Toryism and frequent lapses into the most reprehen- 
 sible outbursts of abuse. Its editor is now known to 
 have been its publisher. By the great body of its 
 readers, however, John Wilson — better known by his- 
 pseudonym of Christopher North — was credited with 
 holding that place. He was so called indeed by Lock- 
 hart. The belief was to this extent true in that he 
 was the great mainstay of the magazine. Without 
 his help it certainly could never have kept the position 
 it speedily secured, even if it could have reached it 
 at all. 
 
 Wilson's criticism of the Tennyson volume of 1830 
 was, as we have seen, followed by the petulant and 
 foolish lines addressed to Christopher North in the 
 volume of 1832. These were unworthy both in their 
 matter and in their spirit. In spite of the swaggering 
 tone of the article, its patronizing airs, its denunciation 
 
466 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 of particular pieces, and that general assumption of 
 superiority which is part of the stock in trade of the 
 reviewer, the impression given by it as a whole was 
 distinctly favorable. Wilson indeed had a right to feel 
 indignant at the way, both petty and pettish, in which 
 his criticism had been taken by its subject. He how- 
 ever took no notice — at least no public notice — at the 
 time of the attack upon himself. What he might have 
 said was said vicariously through Lockhart's article 
 in the ' Quarterly. ' He kept silence indeed for several 
 years, so far certainly as any published utterances in 
 his own magazine were concerned. Nor was there in 
 that periodical any exhibition of hostility to Tennyson. 
 On the contrary, it contained a few of what might have 
 been deemed then fairly flattering references to his 
 work, however inadequate they may seem now. In a 
 highly laudatory review of Trench's 'Story of Justin 
 Martyr' praise was given to the sonnets of Tennyson.^ 
 These, to be sure, were the poems of his least deserv- 
 ing of commendation. Nor would the junction of his 
 name with the other writers mentioned — Leigh Hunt, 
 David Moir, Barry Cornwall, and John Clare — ^impress 
 men of the present day as conveying much of a compli- 
 ment. Still, it is always unfair to judge of the 
 criticism of the past by the estimation of the present. 
 Every great writer attains in time to a certain wealth 
 of reputation, not indeed an unearned increment, but 
 an amount of compound interest which has been 
 accruing since the investment was first made. 
 
 But though he said nothing for a time, Wilson's 
 
 1' Blackwood's Magazine,' September, 1835, Vol. XXXVIII, p. 425. 
 
CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS 467 
 
 resentment for the attack made upon him never 
 slumbered. We hear often of the irritability and 
 sensitiveness of authors. There are assuredly among 
 them individuals easily affected by hostile criticism; 
 but as a body they are no more sensitive than any 
 other class of men. Similar displays of feeling occur 
 on every side and by the members of every profession ; 
 but the knowledge of these never reaches the ears of 
 any beyond the circle of their immediate personal 
 acquaintance. But the resentment of authors is not 
 merely vocal; it is also permanent. It is fairly sure 
 to be printed and widely circulated. If they have 
 achieved popularity, it is talked about everywhere. 
 So long as their works continue to be read, it is never 
 forgotten, while the resentment of the critic, no matter 
 how eminent in his day, is little likely to be known 
 to posterity, for the knowledge of it never reaches 
 posterity. The cases are very exceptional when criti- 
 cal literature interests and influences any one but 
 contemporaries. Rarely indeed is it even heard of 
 save by contemporaries. Consequently, as in the case 
 of other men, with the passing away of the life of the 
 reviewer passes away all memory of the resentment 
 he may have displayed. 
 
 If, however, sensitiveness to disparagement of their 
 work can be predicated of authors as a body, it is the 
 most marked in the case of those of them who are 
 specially critics by profession. Accustomed to attack 
 others with little restraint, they become furious at any 
 attack upon themselves. There has already been 
 occasion to record the excitement and wrath displayed 
 
468 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 in this particular on one occasion by both Lockhart 
 and Wilson. It is with the latter only that we have 
 to deal here. Never was susceptibility to a petty 
 personal quip more signally exhibited than it was by 
 him in his later attitude towards the poet. Great as 
 had been the sensitiveness shown by Tennyson to 
 Wilson's review, it was more than equalled, it was far 
 surpassed by the sensitiveness of Wilson to Tenny- 
 son's retort. The latter had had the grace to become 
 ashamed of his outburst almost as soon as he found 
 it too late to have it recalled. But his apologetic 
 letter did not placate the critic. Wilson brooded over 
 it. As time went on, it loomed up more and more 
 distinctly in his thoughts. Some years indeed passed 
 before he gave expression to his resentment, at least 
 public expression. It seems likely that at first he 
 fancied Tennyson's career would be too inconspicuous 
 for him to add anything to the assumed crushing 
 attack which had come from the 'Quarterly.' But as 
 years went by, the poet's reputation, though increasing 
 slowly, was still increasing. The faith in him of his 
 original friends and admirers, so far from wavering, 
 was steadily becoming more intensified. But, further- 
 more, it was beginning to be shared by those who had 
 with Tennyson no ties of personal acquaintance. This 
 slow but steady advance in the estimation of the public 
 began at last to attract the attention of Wilson. More 
 and more he noted it, more and more he took it amiss. 
 He became embittered enough at last to assume the 
 offensive. 
 
 Foolish as had been Tennyson's manifestation of 
 
CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS 469 
 
 resentment at Wilson's article, the critic was now to 
 show himself far more censurable in the matter of 
 what he said, in the spirit with which he said it, and 
 in the addition of reprehensible conduct for w^hat he 
 pretended he had said but what he had failed to say. 
 Nor did the attacks he soon came to make have the 
 excuse of momentary irritation. On the contrary, they 
 followed years after the offence had been originally 
 committed; they were continued as long as he dared 
 to oppose his own view of the poet to that of the public. 
 Though no notice has ever been taken of these utter- 
 ances, though all knowledge of them seems to have 
 died from the memory of men, they present a curious 
 picture of the importance which the editors of the 
 leading critical periodicals then attributed to their 
 own opinions, and the sanctity they assumed for 
 themselves. 
 
 In this matter one sees the reason why Jeffrey 
 gained the hold he did upon his generation. Whatever 
 were his other critical shortcomings, he cherished no 
 resentment for attacks upon himself, when he came to 
 express a literary judgment. Take his attitude upon 
 the publication of the first two cantos of 'Childe 
 Harold.' This came out at a time when a verdict of 
 'The Edinburgh Re\^ew' usually carried life or death 
 for the time being to the work it criticised. Jeffrey 
 had been fiercely attacked by Byron in his 'English 
 Bards and Scotch Reviewers.' In a note to his new 
 venture the poet gave further expression to the feel- 
 ings of enmity which he still cherished against the 
 periodical and its editor. But none of these things 
 
470 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 affected in the slightest the estimate which Jeffrey- 
 gave of the new work. At the close of his article he 
 made merely the slightest of references to the hostility 
 of Byron towards himself personally. ''For our own 
 parts, ' ' he concluded, ' ' when we speak in our collective 
 and public capacity, we have neither resentments nor 
 predilections; and take no merit to ourselves for 
 having spoken of Lord Byron's present publication 
 exactly as we should have done, had we never heard 
 of him before as an author. ' ' Men may take exception 
 to Jeffrey's critical views; but fault can rarely be 
 found with his critical attitude. In that it is easy to 
 see one great reason why he so powerfully impressed i 
 his contemporaries as a literary judge. 
 
 Not so with Wilson. He never forgot or forgave. 
 The resentment he cherished for Tennyson's con- 
 temptuous refusal of any praise he had bestowed 
 continued to rankle in his bosom, though it was not 
 until nearly four years after the publication of the ; 
 volume of 1832 that it made first public manifestation ,; 
 of itself. This occurred in a review of the 'Miscella- - 
 neous Plays' of Joanna Baillie. That authoress had ': 
 in 1836 broken the silence of several years by bringing j 
 out three volumes of dramatic pieces. They received \ 
 the usual laudatory notice from the regular critics and j 
 were received with the usual indifference by the public. : 
 The fortunes of that play^vright, it may be said here, i 
 were peculiar. Rarely has any one been more praised j 
 by those whose praise was worth having. From the ] 
 time of her first appearance as a dramatic writer in I 
 1798 until the publication just mentioned, the most | 
 
CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS 471 
 
 authoritative reviewers expressed unqualified com- 
 mendation of her work. By minor critics she had been 
 attacked ; but of the great ones Jeffrey seems to have 
 been the only one who managed to retain his judgment 
 along ^ith his admiration. By Scott she was called 
 the bold enchantress who had awakened the inspired 
 strain of Shakespeare. 
 
 The practice of so celebrating her began early and 
 continued late. Her plays were extolled as exhibiting 
 the development of the pure dramatic faculty with the 
 least possible aid from external influences. Her lyrics, 
 which were but ordinary productions, were spoken of 
 in terms of extravagant eulogy. But while her plays 
 were warmly praised by critics, they met with com- 
 paratively little success upon the stage. Yet powerful 
 influences were several times at work to make them 
 succeed. In 1800 the Kembles brought out 'De Mont- 
 fort' at Drury Lane. The aristocracy lent the produc- 
 tion its fullest support. Members of it wrote prologue 
 and epilogue. More than anything else, the principal 
 female part was taken by Mrs. Siddons. Yet with all 
 these aids, direct and adventitious, it was with difficulty 
 the play was made to run eleven nights. In spite of 
 occasional successes, this experience represents in 
 general the fortune which befell the representation 
 of her pieces. They were unfitted for the stage, it 
 was said, in consequence of the theory of composition 
 she had adopted. Her whole object in each one was 
 to represent the development of a single passion. 
 While this method might be good for the closet, it 
 practically debarred the use of stage effect. Unfor- 
 
472 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 tiinately for tliis explanation, these plays succeeded 
 no better with the reading public than they did with 
 the frequenters of the theater. Her works had a 
 respectable sale; but they were never popular then 
 and certainly have had time since to be largely 
 forgotten. 
 
 Wilson's review of these volumes appeared in 1836 
 in the January and February numbers of ' Blackwood. ' 
 It repeated the same eulogies of the excellence of these 
 dramas which had been current among the critics 
 of Joanna Baillie from the beginning of the century. 
 He felt that Scott had been justified in linking her 
 name with that of Shakespeare. He contrasted the 
 superiority of her work with the inferiority of what 
 was then being produced. He gave vent to his usual 
 lamentation about the decay of poetry which had 
 followed the passing away of the great authors of the 
 Georgian era. *' Where are the young poets'?" he said 
 with a sigh — at least he said he sighed. Dim in his 
 eyes and somewhat small were the few luminaries that 
 were then in ascension. Poetical ability, it was true, 
 was not then entirely lacking ; but it was not poetical | 
 ability of a high grade. On the strength of these | 
 introductory remarks, he went out of his way in his 
 second article to rebuke the folly of the little band of ■ 
 admirers whose belief in the greatness of Tennyson ^ 
 was at last beginning to make itself distinctly felt. ■• 
 Though it could in no sense be said to extend andii 
 increase perceptibly the sale of his works, it waSi 
 sufficient to arouse the hostility of those who denied 
 his claims. It affected Wilson notably. It might, 
 
CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS 473 
 
 almost be said indeed that the second of these articles 
 appears to have been written about as much for the 
 disparagement of Tennyson as it was for the glorifi- 
 cation of Joanna Baillie and incidentally of himself. 
 ''Not but that there is poetical genius," wrote 
 Wilson, ' ' among our young aspirants — the Tennysons, 
 the Trenches, the Alfords, and others, whom we have 
 delighted to praise ; and whom we should rejoice to see 
 shining as fixed stars of the first magnitude in the 
 poetical firmament. Fixed stars of the first magnitude I 
 Why, it was debated in a spouting society at Cam- 
 bridge— 'Is Alfred Tennyson a GREAT POET'! 
 Shakespeare, Homer, Milton, and Wordsworth are 
 Great Poets ; and it might have been thought that the 
 mere mention of such names would have silenced the 
 most flatulent of all the praters. The 'bare imagi- 
 nation' of such a debate must bring the blush of 
 shame on the face of every man of common sense; 
 and Mr. Tennyson himself must have wept with 
 vexation at the ineffable folly of his friends who 
 maintained the affirmative. Let him lay to heart the 
 kind counsels of Christopher North, who alone has 
 done justice to his fine faculties, and the laurel crown 
 ^^ill erelong be placed on his head. He has yet written 
 but some beautiful verses — a few very charming 
 compositions, that are in truth little poems — not great 
 ones — his feeling is exquisite, and so is his fancy — 
 but oh! how feeble too often his Thought! Feeble 
 because he is a wilful fribble — flattery has made him 
 so — but would he but scorn his sycophants, his strength 
 
474 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 would be restored, and nature would be glad to see 
 him, what she designed him to be, a true poet." 
 
 This quotation is noteworthy for the grudging 
 recognition it gave of the ability of the man it per- 
 functorily praised. Wilson could not deny Tennyson 's 
 genius as a poet. He was too thoroughly sensitive to 
 intellectual beauty to commit so gross an absurdity 
 as that, even with the resentment he continued to 
 cherish at the provocation he had received. Still his 
 words plainly imply also that he was disposed to 
 regard him as a poet of inferior rank, and that such 
 he would always remain. His place was among the 
 ''true" poets, not among the great ones. Wilson 
 honestly believed that he was doing Tennyson sufficient 
 honor by putting him in the same class mth Alford, 
 with Trench, and several others whom he included 
 under the general name of the Young Poets. In a 
 certain way and to a certain extent, he approved of 
 all of them; but that any one of their number had 
 furnished e\ddence of being a great poet, even any 
 greater poet than himself for example, had probably 
 never occurred to him as conceivable. He has left us 
 no doubt of his feelings on this point; a little later 
 in this same article he made his state of mind e\ddent. 
 ' ' To speak the plain truth at once, ' ' he went on to say, 
 **not one of our young poets — and some of them are 
 full fledged — has taken a single sustained flight higher 
 than the cock on the spire of a village church. Not 
 one of them has written a poem that has taken posses- 
 sion of the nation's heart. Each bardling has his 
 admirers, who commit bits of him to a treacherous 
 
CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS 475 
 
 or tenacious memory — but when they quote a response 
 of their oracle, it falls dead on the ears of the ground- 
 lings — and all are groundlings, in their estimation, 
 who will not fall down and worship such 'despicable 
 gods.' " 
 
 Though this language was general, there was but 
 one specific application of it possible. There was no 
 person whom the critic could have had in mind but 
 Tennyson. No one but he of these younger poets could 
 boast of a body of professed admirers. In censuring 
 them for the zeal they displayed, Wilson might well 
 have remembered his o^\ti position a quarter of a 
 century before. At that time he was himself one of 
 a very small band who celebrated to an indifferent 
 or contemptuous world the greatness of Wordsworth. 
 What he now said of Tennyson would have been then 
 true of the writer who had aroused his own early 
 enthusiasm. No poem of Wordsworth at the period 
 Wilson began to chant his praises had taken possession 
 of the nation's heart. The lines which that poet's 
 admirers then committed to memory fell dead upon 
 the ears of the groundlings, or were more frequently 
 made the subject of derision. He had lived to see this 
 all changed. He had lived to find Wordsworth's finest 
 pieces not merely cherished by multitudes of readers, 
 but unqualified praise bestowed upon his prosiest 
 performances. 
 
 Still later in this same article Wilson unconsciously 
 revealed how heavily Tennyson lay on his mind and 
 how much he continued to be irritated by the admira- 
 tion entertained and expressed for the poet by the 
 
476 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 men of Cambridge. It occurs in the midst of the 
 laudations with which the writers in ' Blackwood ' were 
 everlastingly bedaubing themselves and the assump- 
 tion they persistently maintained that the reputation 
 of authors was not so much the result of their own 
 personal achievement as of the way in which they 
 were spoken of in this periodical. Wilson discoursed 
 about the Young Poets and what he individually had 
 done for them. ''Were it not for Us," he wrote, 
 ''where would they be I Nowhere. Out of Cambridge 
 and Cockneydom, how many scores of Christian 
 creatures have ever seen either of Alfred Tennyson's 
 Volumes? Not fourscore. In Maga many of his best 
 compositions have been perused with delight by tens 
 of thousands — and as sympathy is what every poet 
 most fervently desires, how deep ought to be — and 
 how deep must be — his gratitude to Christopher 
 North ! ' Fit audience find though few ' was a sentiment 
 all very well at the time — for the Poet of Paradise 
 Lost. But a young lyrical poet of the present day 
 cannot, do what he will, be satisfied with the applauses 
 of a coterie of under-graduates, though graced with 
 the countenance of the Wooden Spoon of the year, 
 shining in the gloss of novelty almost like a horn. 
 He longs for a 'waking empire wide as dreams,' and 
 he finds it in the most beneficent of perennials whose 
 smile is fame, and whose praise is immortality." 
 
 For the sake of glorifying himself Wilson in these 
 remarks had taken the pains not to worry about exact- 
 ness of statement. There are those who would call 
 it deliberate misrepresentation. The clientele of 
 
CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS 477 
 
 Tennyson was assuredly at that time small ; but it was 
 altogether larger and wider than the critic gave the 
 impression of its being. It was made up, too, of men 
 who besides being of superior ability, were coming to 
 have that superiority widely recognized. Such persons 
 were not in the habit of going to any periodical what- 
 ever in order to have their opinions formed or formu- 
 lated. Their very independence contributed to the 
 growth of their influence. A much more reprehensible 
 parsimony in the use of truth was perceptible in the 
 assertion that the readers of 'Blackwood's Magazine' 
 had seen the poet's best compositions. The only 
 criticism found in it had been of the volume of 1830. 
 Not the slightest notice had been taken of the much 
 superior work found in the volume of 1832. So far 
 from a single poem it contained having been quoted 
 there, not even so much as an allusion had ever been 
 made to the volume at all or to anything of merit 
 appearing in it. But the passages are interesting as 
 showing how keenly the man who was so ready to 
 criticise others felt any blow that was aimed at himself 
 in return. It is evident also that he had an uneasy 
 consciousness that Tennyson, however un"\villing his 
 critic was to concede him greatness, was in possession 
 of powers outside of his own capacity of expression. 
 
 This latter state of mind was more than indicated, 
 it was openly confessed in a review which appeared 
 a few months later of a work of Alford's, entitled 
 'The School of the Heart.' It is noteworthy that in 
 this re\^ew, while Wilson affected to rank Tennyson 
 among the other Cambridge poets who were his 
 
478 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 contemporaries, his critical sense was too keen to 
 allow him to perpetrate a blunder of that kind unquali- 
 fiedly. He recognized and admitted that the work of 
 this particular author was essentially different from 
 that of the rest, though it might be hard to tell whether 
 in his opinion it was a difference for the better or the 
 worse. He declared that in reading the new poems 
 that were coming out he felt as if they had been written 
 by himself. They reflected dimly or clearly his own 
 emotions. ' ^ This may be the secret cause, ' ' he wrote, 
 *'of the delight which we derive from almost every 
 publication, whether in prose or verse, called new by 
 the public, and fondly believed to be so by the nominal 
 author. It is a mirror dimly or clearly reflecting our- 
 selves. There have been some exceptions — and among 
 them perhaps the most conspicuous were the Poems, 
 chiefly Lyrical, by Alfred Tennyson. They contained 
 numerous beauties which we feel to be original and 
 out of our sphere ; and on our expressing our delighted 
 admiration of them, we gave vent to the most unselfish 
 and disinterested feelings that could expand a critic's 
 breast. Their follies were so peculiarly his own, that 
 in printing them, almost without comment, we left 
 them to speak for themselves, and they did so to the 
 general scorn.'" 
 
 The reader may well hesitate in accepting without 
 qualification the assertion that a criticism of particular 
 pieces which designates them as ''drivel," ''miserable 
 drivel," "more dismal drivel," "distinguished silli- 
 ness," and similar summary expressions of opinion 
 
 1' Blackwood '8 Magazine,' May, 1836, Vol. XXXIX, p. 578. 
 
CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS 479 
 
 can have a just title to be regarded as printing them 
 almost without comment. This was true as regards 
 space, but can hardly plead for itself ambiguity of 
 condemnation. Wilson's further and final statement 
 serves as an introduction to the unconscious revelation 
 which he was now to make of how much he had been 
 stung b}^ the lines which had been addressed to 
 Christopher North in the volume of 1832. Years had 
 gone by since their appearance. Had he been really 
 indifferent to them, they would have been forgotten. 
 Had he received the poet's apology for them in the 
 spirit in which it was sent, they would have been 
 forgiven. But he was now to show that the bite of the 
 midget, as he now styled it, which he characterized 
 as impotent, had been singularly effective and painful. 
 It is possible indeed that his feelings may have been 
 further irritated by allusions to it by his enemies; 
 though, so far as I am aware, no evidence exists of 
 any such fact. 
 
 After glorifying as we have seen, the nobility and 
 impartiality of the course he had followed in reference 
 to the poet, Wilson entered into the particulars of his 
 own grievance. "For conduct so judicious and 
 benign," he wrote, "Mr. Tennyson commissioned a 
 midge to madden and murder us with its fatal sting. 
 A billion midges attacking the face and hands of one 
 old man on a summer tmlight might annoy him 
 sorely, and drive him from his avenue into his house. 
 But one midge, the first and last of his race, could 
 not rationally expect to send Christopher North to 
 Hades. . . . We survived the onslaught of the unhappy 
 
480 LIFE AND TIIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 little insect, who impotently expired ' even in the sound 
 himself had made,' to afflict, on the earliest oppor- 
 tunity, the ingenious lyrist with our intolerable pane- 
 gyrics. We are not without hopes of driving him 
 absolutely mad ; for his genius is unquestionable, and 
 no comfort he may derive from our ridicule will 
 suffice to make his life endurable under the opprobrium 
 of our praise. True that Wordsworth, Scott, Cole- 
 ridge, Southey, Campbell, Crabbe, Byron, Moore, 
 Bowles, Montgomery, and Elliott have received 
 kindly what Alfred Tennyson 'with sputtering noise 
 rejected'; but they are gluttons, he an Epicure: 
 
 He on honey dew hath fed, 
 And breathed the air of Paradise," 
 
 Never under an affectation of jovial indifference did 
 a critic betray keener sensitiveness. The wound 
 inflicted by the bite of the midget had manifestly begun 
 to fester. After years had passed, Wilson continued 
 to pay an attention to the little squib directed against 
 himself which it had not deserved at the time of its 
 appearance when it was fresh in memory. Yet his 
 perspicacity did not fail him. Inflamed as were his 
 feelings, he fully recognized that Tennyson was a 
 writer of a new school. He was, as he admitted, out 
 of his own sphere. His language may have been 
 ironical ; but whether the words expressed his genuine 
 sentiments or not — and they pretty surely did express 
 them — there can be no question that unwittingly or 
 wittingly he had spoken the truth. The poetry of 
 Alford or of Trench which he had reviewed favorably 
 
CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS 481 
 
 was not essentially different in character from the 
 elegant but somewhat vapid verse which he himself 
 had written. But in making a critical estimate of 
 Tennyson he was dealing not only with a new writer 
 but "\\ith a new force. Him it was not in his power 
 to appreciate fully. He could venture to assume that 
 he himself could have written the productions of the 
 other bards whom he had mentioned with praise; but 
 it hardly needed his own disclaimer that he never 
 could have fancied himself the author of 'Poems, 
 chiefly Lyrical.' The real difficulty with Tennyson in 
 Wilson's eyes was that he not only had more genius 
 than it was quite proper to possess, but it was genius 
 of a different kind from that which his critic was 
 disposed to approve. 
 
 Wilson had said that in spite of the lines addressed 
 to Christopher North he had continued to afflict 
 Tennyson ^vith his panegyrics. If so, he must have 
 confined them to his conversation : he has been careful 
 not to put them in print. Nor furthermore did he 
 content himself mth casting ridicule upon the claims 
 made for Tennyson by his partisans. He proceeded 
 to set up a rival of his own. There is something 
 extraordinary in the fatuousness he displayed, when we 
 bear in mind that, when he was acting untrammelled 
 and unprejudiced, his literary appreciation was keen 
 and his literary discernment was usually trustworthy. 
 About this time he fancied that he had discovered a 
 new poet — a poet altogether superior to any of those 
 of the modern generation, whom he was now learning 
 
482 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 to term disdainfully the Young Poets. The opinion 
 of his merits was contained in the leading article of 
 'Blackwood's Magazine' for November, 1837/ It was 
 entitled 'Poetry by Our New Contributor.' Him he 
 lauded in the highest terms ; from him he quoted 
 several pieces. According to the critic, one of them 
 which was on a French subject surpassed everything 
 found in the recently published 'French Revolution' 
 of Carlyle, whose name somewhat strangely he spelled 
 Carlisle. But it was not till the number for May of 
 the following year that he pronounced definitely the 
 superiority of this new contributor to all his contem- 
 poraries. This critical estimate was given in an article 
 entitled 'Our Two Vases.' 
 
 In this article he gathered together the poetical 
 pieces sent which he specially approved. With them 
 was conjoined a running comment of his own. "Who 
 are the best," he wrote, "of our rising or risen Poets, 
 since the burst-out of Byron? We leave the older 
 Heroes by themselves — living or dead — from Words- 
 worth to Hunt. Moir, Motherwell, Tennyson, Alford, 
 Trench — any more? Knowles, Beddoes, Taylor, Tal- 
 fourd, Bulwer, are Dramatists — and though as unlike 
 to one another as may well be, belong to another 
 Class — and must be treated accordingly, should we 
 ever find ourselves in a promising mood for such a 
 Series. But of the Poets aforesaid, think ye the very 
 best — whoever he may be — could have written the 
 follo\ving stanzas — by ArchsBusI Could he — and if he 
 
 1 Vol. XLII, pp. 573-598. 
 
CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS 483 
 
 can — will he write something as good? We opine 'tis 
 a solemn strain worthy of one of the laurel-crowned 
 
 Serene Creators of immortal things."^ 
 
 After this glo^ving introduction followed a poem 
 entitled 'Lady Jane Grey.' It was a very good piece 
 of work of the highly superior prize-poem order. This 
 was the production of the much-vaunted new con- 
 tributor who wrote under the signature of Archaeus. 
 In the magazine of the following month this poem 
 was followed by another from the same author called 
 'Aphrodite. ' With it Wilson was more than delighted. 
 He placed but little restraint upon the expression of 
 his praise. This, he said, * ' places Archseus among the 
 POETS OF ENGLAND. ' '^ The clevatiou to which the critic 
 had raised him was indicated by printing the last three 
 words in small caps. Who, it may be asked, was this 
 new contributor, before whom Tennyson, of whom 
 Wilson knew too much, and Browning, of whom he 
 apparently knew nothing at all, were to fade into 
 insignificance? He was an author whose memory has 
 been mainly preserved, so far as it has been preserved, 
 by what others have written about him, not by any- 
 thing he wrote himself. It was John Sterling. The 
 praise of Wilson was grateful at the time to the man 
 whom death had already marked for his own; but it 
 never lifted him into any public recognition even then 
 and it has assuredly not done so since. To speak of 
 
 iVol. XLIII, p. 698. 
 
 2 June, 1838, Vol. XLIII, p. 735. 
 
484 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 him as a poet alongside of Tennyson was criticism run 
 mad. 
 
 The feeling about Tennyson which had now laid hold 
 of Wilson was again displayed in an article which 
 appeared in April of the following year.^ It was 
 entitled 'Christopher in his Alcove.' In this he 
 brought together a number of poems written by those 
 he called Our Young Poets. Special emphasis was 
 laid upon the our in contrast to those whom before 
 and afterwards he derisively termed the Young Poets, 
 when he did not choose to call them '^sumphs." His 
 remarks are of interest and value for another reason. 
 They confirm the statement previously made that a 
 school of writers were consciously founding themselves 
 upon Tennyson even at that early date, when his 
 reputation could scarcely be said to have spread out- 
 side of a comparatively limited circle, and when he 
 was slightingly spoken of by the ordinary professional 
 critic. "All our young poets," wrote Wilson, **are 
 fine, unaffected fellows, full of force and fire ; and they 
 would all, every mother's son of them, disdain them- 
 selves, did their consciences convict them of the sin 
 of a single stanza, indited purposely to mystify some 
 worthless truism, through the embroidered veil of its 
 envelopment of gorgeous and gaudy words. The 
 SuMPHS are all now of the Shelley, or of the Tennyson 
 school — and, hear, heavens! and give ear, earth! 
 disciples of Wordsworth ! Surely the soles of the feet 
 of at least half a score of them must now be tingling, 
 prescient of the bastinado." Wilson had not yet 
 
 1 Vol. XLV, p. 546. 
 
CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS 485 
 
 become conscious of the fact — he was at a later period 
 to learn it — that a generation was coming on which 
 was to pay little heed to the blows inflicted by the 
 bastinade or the crutch he wielded. 
 
 This w^as the state of mind in regard to Tennyson 
 of the most influential critic of the fourth decade of 
 the nineteenth century. In the review of Joanna 
 Baillie in which began this series of attacks upon the 
 poet, occurred the following passage- in the general 
 bespattering of praise which Wilson was wont to give 
 to his own influence. There was indeed — at least there 
 had been — a certain justification for what he said 
 about it, though it was hardly from his lips that it 
 could come with propriety. ' ' Christopher North, ' ' he 
 wrote, **is the tutor, the guardian, and the patron of 
 the young poets. As they reverence him, they pros- 
 per — wanting the light of his countenance, they sicken 
 in the shade, and prematurely die. But none who 
 deserve it want the light of the countenance of the old 
 man benign." These words attracted the attention 
 of another reviewer who was at that very time 
 proclaiming in the columns of 'The New Monthly 
 Magazine' the merits of a young and but little-known 
 poet whom he placed by the side of Shelley and 
 Coleridge and Wordsworth. This reviewer was John 
 Forster. He expostulated with his ' * esteemed contem- 
 porary," as he termed the critic of 'Blackwood's 
 Magazine.' Accepting him at his own valuation, he 
 called upon him to redeem his omission of a poet who 
 was both young and great. Why had he not mentioned 
 Mr. Browning, he asked? "Here is a young poet," 
 
486 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 he said, ''or rather — for greatness takes no account 
 of age — a great poet, and his book has been buzzed 
 at by the critics, and Christopher' North has remained 
 silent." This could not continue, he was confident; 
 the reason that it existed at all he suggested. ''The 
 old man eloquent," Forster went on to say, "prepares 
 himself for a discourse on greatness in poetry, as 
 distinguished from the 'small luminaries now in 
 ascension'; and the illustration shall be 'Robert 
 Browning.' "^ But Wilson was neither moved by the 
 flattery nor affected by the appeal. If indeed Tenny- 
 son's poetry was not in the range of his adequate 
 appreciation, we can easily understand what would 
 be his attitude towards that of Robert Browning. No 
 criticism of that writer ever appeared in that magazine 
 while Wilson was connected with it. Not even his 
 name can be found in it for some time after a good 
 deal of his best work had been produced. 
 
 Wilson had one final opportunity to demonstrate 
 beyond question that resentment for a foolish attack 
 could not merely blind his critical judgment but cause 
 him to display a crowning ineptitude. The occasion 
 came to him in 1842. It was duly improved. The first 
 part of that year had seen the publication of Tenny- 
 son's two volumes. Of them he took no notice what- 
 ever. So far were they from being reviewed at the 
 time in 'Blackwood's Magazine,' not even was the 
 name of their author to be found for a long while 
 anywhere in its pages, though it was now beginning 
 to be heard on the tongue of every cultivated man. 
 
 1 Vol. XLVI, p. 308, March, 1836. 
 
CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS 487 
 
 But in the latter part of this same year appeared 
 Macaulay's 'Lays of Ancient Rome.' From the outset 
 the work was the greatest of successes. It was pub- 
 lished in October. Before the end of December it 
 had gone into a second edition, speedily to be followed 
 by a third the foUo^ving year. These were the 
 precursors of innumerable others. It deserved all 
 the success it won. Nor is it any denial of its excel- 
 lence to assert that no competent critic would now 
 pretend to put it on a level with the poetry contained 
 in Tennyson's two volumes. Under ordinary condi- 
 tions there would have been no one quicker than 
 Wilson to recognize that, however good it was, it was 
 nevertheless a work on a lower plane of achievement. 
 But there were then a few critics who ranked it higher. 
 Chief among these was Christopher North. By no one 
 was it welcomed with more enthusiasm than by him. 
 
 Wilson had been a political opponent of Macaulay. 
 In some, too, of the literary controversies in which the 
 future historian had been engaged, the critic had taken 
 him sharply to task. But in the number for December, 
 1842,^ he rose, at least in his own opinion, above all 
 purely partisan considerations. He sang a paean in 
 praise of the 'Lays of Ancient Rome' which was so 
 remarkable for the fervor and extravagance of its 
 eulogy that it ought to be printed alongside of 
 Matthew Arnold's later disparagement. But though 
 the fact is forgotten now, and perhaps was not much 
 noticed then, it was equally remarkable for its oblique 
 depreciation of Tennyson. There was really no 
 
 1 Vol. LII, p. 802. 
 
488 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 occasion to go out of his way to attack compositions 
 so entirely different in character and subject from 
 those of Macaulay that there was hardly a common 
 ground for comparison. Yet this was the very course 
 taken. Tennyson's name, to be sure, was not men- 
 tioned in Wilson's article. He may not indeed have 
 been the only one the critic had in mind; but it is 
 indisputable that it was he who was the one prin- 
 cipally aimed at in the passages celebrating the 
 superiority of Macaulay to the Young Poets, as he 
 still continued disdainfully to designate them. These 
 were spoken of as belonging to the Small Beer School. 
 ''The beer," he said, "may, like that of Trinity, be 
 a very pretty beer, but it ought to learn to take things 
 quietly, and be less ambitious." 
 
 *'For a good many years," said Wilson later in the 
 article, ''have we been praising the Young Poets — 
 not without a sense of the ludicrous, patting their 
 puerile heads. . . . Our Young Poets, as Fanny 
 Kemble used to say of herself in her Journal, potter, 
 potter, potter, and all about themselves; morning, 
 noon, and night, they potter, potter, potter all about 
 their own dear, sweet, consumptive, passionate, small, 
 infantile selves — trying at times to look fierce, nay 
 facetious — and in the very whirlwind of passion, 
 sufficiently tropical to lift up a curl tastefully disposed 
 on their organ of identity three inches broad, are they 
 seen picking obsolete-looking words out of a pocket 
 edition of Walker's Pronouncing Dictionary." This 
 and much more like this can be found in the article 
 which celebrated the superiority of Macaulay to these 
 
CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS 489 
 
 young poets. It is a striking illustration of the want 
 of discernment wliicli in the case of Tennyson had 
 come to overcloud the perspicacity of him who was 
 generally regarded as the foremost literary critic of 
 the time. It reminds one of the sort of judgment 
 passed on Shakespeare by the criticasters of the period 
 following the Restoration. 
 
 This however was the last outburst of a like character 
 on the part of Wilson. As time went on a public 
 opinion was forming about the poet which he with 
 all his recklessness and hardihood dared no longer 
 defy — at all events his publisher did not. Henceforth 
 Wilson did not venture to speak of Tennyson in the 
 jaunty way in which he had at first patronized him or, 
 to use his own phrase, patted his head. Nor can there 
 be much doubt that susceptible as the critic was to 
 literary achievement, he could not easily refrain from 
 admiring the excellence of much of the work the poet 
 had accomplished. Scattered through the pages of 
 the magazine during the years following the appear- 
 ance of the volumes of 1842 are a few references to 
 Tennyson which are fairly complimentary in their 
 character, though none are unduly so. The highest 
 published compliment Wilson ever paid the poet can 
 be found in what is on the whole a favorable review 
 of Miss Barrett's works.^ This appeared in November, 
 1844. While making as a matter of course his usual 
 remarks about the existing dearth of poetical genius, 
 Wilson gave to her productions high and discerning 
 praise. He did not neglect to point out her faults 
 
 1 ' Blackwood 's Magazine/ Vol. LVI, pp. 621-639. 
 
490 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 but lie treated them merely as blemishes. He further- 
 more spoke of 'Lady Geraldine's Courtship' as belong- 
 ing to the Tennysonian school. This was a discovery 
 of his not much relished by the authoress. While he 
 accorded the poem a certain amount of praise, he 
 declared it as ''deficient throughout in that finished 
 elegance of style which distinguishes the work of the 
 great artist from whom it is imitated." Tennyson 
 had not been advanced by him to the rank of a great 
 poet : but he had got along far enough to be recognized 
 as a great artist. 
 
 This was the sole instance in which Wilson wantoned 
 into anything which looked like extravagance of 
 admiration. During these years he gave a grudging 
 recognition to the genius of Tennyson; but he never 
 abandoned the belief that while he was what he had 
 once called him, a true poet, he was by no means a 
 great one. His criticisms throughout furnish one of 
 the most striking exemplifications of the fact that a 
 man brought up in one school of poetry is often found 
 absolutely incapable of appreciating the greatness of 
 a writer belonging to a new school. Wilson never 
 ceased to deplore the falling off in literary achieve- 
 ment from the men of the Georgian era of the men 
 belonging to the Victorian era. "After Scott's time," 
 he wrote in 1844, "till the middle of the nineteenth 
 century not a single novelist ; after the death of Byron, 
 not a poet!" The belles-lettres in his opinion were 
 utterly in abeyance. "As regards the state of litera- 
 ture," he remarked in another place in this same 
 article, "take out your pencils . . . and make out a 
 
CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS 491 
 
 list of the works published during the last five years, 
 likely to be known, even by name, a hundred years 
 hence. "^ Wilson ignored the poems of Tennyson; he 
 was apparently ignorant of the existence of Browning ; 
 he seemed to forget the lays of Macaulay over which 
 he had not long before waxed enthusiastic. But not 
 to speak of other authors in prose, three novels of 
 Dickens — 'Nicholas Nickleby,' 'The Old Curiosity 
 Shop,' and 'Barnaby Rudge' — had appeared during 
 the five years preceding as well as a good deal of the 
 early work of Thackeray, though that writer had not 
 then obtained a general recognition of his greatness. 
 Fortunate it is for most criticism that its verdicts and 
 conclusions sleep unknown and undisturbed in the 
 forgotten pages of contemporary periodicals. 
 
 Yet Wilson's attitude towards the writers who were 
 coming forward to take the place of their elders was 
 not different from that of many of those who belonged 
 to his own generation or the one immediately succeed- 
 ing. Insensibility to Tennyson's claims in particular 
 was far from being a characteristic peculiar to himself. 
 But the sins of others were largely due to pure 
 unadulterated ignorance. They knew little, or often 
 absolutely nothing of the literature produced by the 
 men of the younger generation. It is quite manifest 
 from his biography that Macaulay, at the time just 
 spoken of and later, had never looked at a poem of 
 Tennyson's. It was not till towards the close of his 
 life that he tells us that the reading of 'Guinevere' 
 in the 'Idylls of the King' brought tears to his eyes. 
 
 1 ' Blackwood 's Magazine, ' May, 1844, Vol. LV, p. 560. 
 
492 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 But this was not so with Wilson. With him it was 
 not lack of knowledge, but lack of appreciation; or 
 rather the disposition not to appreciate which for 
 years he had been sedulously cultivating. He was 
 perpetually complaining of the prevailing dearth of 
 poetical genius. The men of to-day were in his eyes 
 very respectable men; but it was useless to compare 
 them with the men of the immediate past. Wilson 
 never could be persuaded that the best of the poets 
 then on the stage were equal to the poorest of the 
 earlier generation. In 1844 a German traveller records 
 an inter^dew he had had mth him while in Scotland. 
 * ' It seemed to me, ' ' he wrote in his report of it, ' * that 
 the Professor, though cheerful, spoke rather hope- 
 lessly of the rising English literature — and especially 
 of the young poets.'" To this view his own direct 
 utterances conform. *' Poetry appears for the time 
 wellnigh extinguished," he wrote in 1845. *'We have 
 some charming ballads from Tennyson ; some touching 
 lines from Miss Barret ; but where are the successors 
 of Scott and Byron, of Campbell and Southey?"^ A 
 good deal can be said for the introduction of the first 
 two names; but the bathos of critical inbecility is 
 reached when Campbell and above all Southey are 
 reckoned superior to Tennyson and Browning. 
 
 This doleful state of mind continued on Wilson's 
 part to the day of his death. As late as April, 1850, 
 he expressed the same sentiment of modified despair 
 in a review of 'Festus.' ''We seem to have amongst 
 
 I'Tait's Edinburgh Magazine,' October, 1844, Vol. XI, p. 642. 
 2 'Blackwood's Magazine,' September, 1845, Vol. LVIII, p. 341, 
 
CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS 493 
 
 us good poets still," he wrote, **but they have ceased 
 to produce good poems. We have much genuine 
 poetry diffused through our literature, and not a new 
 work of art added to our possessions."^ But as time 
 went on, it became apparent to the publisher of 
 * Blackwood's Magazine,' if it did not to its leading 
 contributor, that it would no longer do for a periodical 
 of its literary pretensions to persist in ignoring the 
 claims to consideration of the one man who was daily 
 becoming more and more the favorite of the public. 
 It could not afford to content itself with mere refer- 
 ences to him either depreciatory or laudatory. He 
 was a new force that had to be reckoned with. He 
 could neither be pooh-poohed nor patronized. The 
 maintenance of silence on its part would have no effect 
 upon the reputation of Tennyson but would have a 
 good deal upon that of the magazine. So in April, 
 1849, seven years after the publication of the two 
 volumes of poems, and a little more than a year after 
 the publication of 'The Princess,' came out a belated 
 review of both productions.^ It was on the whole very 
 complimentary. In fact such was getting to be the 
 temperament of the public that it was becoming a 
 somewhat risky procedure for either reviewer or 
 review to be otherwise. There was accordingly a 
 respectful tone preserved throughout towards the poet, 
 even where an unfavorable opinion was expressed of 
 particular pieces. 
 
 1 ' Blackwood 's Magazine,' Vol, LXVII, p. 416. 
 
 2 IMd., Vol. LXV, pp. 453-467. 
 
494 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 But along with its laudatory passages the review 
 was a good deal disfigured by the offensive assumption 
 of that highly superior attitude on the part of the 
 critic who makes it a point to find unendurable what 
 the vast majority of cultivated men have learned to 
 love. The verdict, however, pronounced on particular 
 pieces shows conclusively that Wilson had no hand 
 in the article either in the way of composition or 
 correction. Its opinions w^ere directly contrary to 
 those he had previously expressed. He had been 
 enthusiastic about the 'Ode to Memory' which the 
 general voice has always regarded as one of the finest 
 poems of Tennyson's first volume. He had described 
 it as eminently beautiful. Not so felt the succeeding 
 critic in the same magazine. In one place he spoke 
 of it as incomprehensible. In another he described 
 it as a poem ''which craves to be extinguished, which 
 ought in charity to be forgotten." He succinctly 
 described it as an utter failure. "We cannot read it 
 again," he continued, "to enable us to speak quite 
 positively, but we do not think there is a single 
 redeeming line in the whole of it." 'Mariana,' too, 
 which Wilson had quoted in its entirety for its 
 profound pathos, was condemned as was also 'Oriana,' 
 which he had characterized as perhaps the most 
 beautiful of Tennyson's ballad compositions. There 
 is always a certain interest in the resuscitation of 
 these dead and buried specimens of asinine criticism. 
 For this reason it may be well to rescue from the 
 grave to which they have been consigned the remarks 
 
CHRISTOPHER NORTH'S LATER ATTACKS 495 
 
 here found on one of the most famous of the poems 
 of the second volume which Wilson never reviewed. 
 In it Tennyson is spoken of as ''torturing himself to 
 unite old balladry with modern sentiment in his Lady 
 of Shallott, forever rhyming with that detested town 
 of Camelot." 
 
 For such exhibitions of crass incompetence of 
 appreciation Wilson can be fully absolved. But he 
 never broke his silence about Tennyson. We talk of 
 the sensitiveness of authors. Can anything be shown 
 surpassing this display of it by him whom no small 
 number of cultivated readers looked upon as the first 
 critic of his time ? Wilson did not die until 1854. His 
 connection "with 'Blackwood's Magazine,' though 
 naturally becoming less close with the advance of age, 
 did not cease entirely until 1852, when the last con- 
 tribution from his pen came out in its September 
 number. During the half-score years which preceded 
 his retirement the fame of Tennyson had been steadily 
 rising and broadening. New editions of the 'Poems' 
 of 1842 were coming out with increasing frequency. 
 The whole English-speaking world had their eyes fixed 
 upon everything and anything which came from his 
 pen. 'The Princess' of 1847 had been followed by 
 the 'In Memoriam' of 1850. The publication of the 
 latter volume had been the great literary event of the 
 year. Acclaim practically universal had attended a 
 few months later the appointment of its author to the 
 poet laureateship. But during all these years inci- 
 dental references to Tennyson — and they not numer- 
 
496 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 ous — are all that the once catholic critic thought fit 
 to make. To the very last Wilson did all that lay in 
 his power to justify the application to himself of the 
 epithets of ''crusty, rusty, musty, fusty Christopher,'* 
 by which he had been designated. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 TENNYSON'S PENSION AND BULWER'S ATTACK 
 
 Frequently has it been said that the success of the 
 'Poems' of 1842 was both immediate and unmeasured; 
 that Tennyson leaped at once into universal accept- 
 ance. Such an assertion would be very far from 
 conforming to fact. The truth is that the growth of 
 Tennyson's reputation after the appearance of these 
 volumes, while in one sense rapid, was in another 
 gradual. It could not well have been otherwise. Both 
 in thought and expression his poetic utterance was 
 widely different from anything which had gone before. 
 If it had a resemblance to the utterance of any preced- 
 ing poet, it was to that of Keats ; and at that time, so 
 far as the mass of even educated men was concerned, 
 Keats had not yet become a potent factor in English 
 literature. The poetry of Tennyson accordingly, as 
 it was of a distinctly new type, was in its nature 
 revolutionary; and like all things revolutionary had 
 to fight its way to general acceptance. It found at 
 once, it is true, a large body of admirers, who were 
 not at all under the bondage of the past. But those 
 who had been brought up in the admiration and enjoy- 
 ment of the utterance of other poetic schools — and 
 necessarily to this class belonged a large body of 
 highly cultivated men — were disposed to look askance 
 
498 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 upon this new aspirant who had a most distinct manner 
 of his own and a manner to which they were not in 
 the slightest degree accustomed. Their prejudices 
 gave way slowly. They were reluctant to concede that 
 a new literary dynasty had been established, that a 
 new literary monarch had arisen. To him they were 
 little disposed to pay their allegiance. 
 
 There is no doubt that men of the old school were 
 a good deal astounded by the welcome which Tenny- 
 son's poetry had received and by the enthusiasm with 
 which his partisans hailed him. They were usually 
 puzzled by it and occasionally made indignant. These 
 poems, so highly praised, did not impress them favor- 
 ably in most cases ; in some cases they impressed them 
 very unfavorably. Readers of Thackeray will recall 
 how amazed and bewildered was Colonel Newcome by 
 the opinions he heard expressed on his return to 
 England after thirty years spent in India. They were 
 not the opinions of his time. He learned from the 
 men who were his son's companions that young Keats 
 was a genius to be estimated in future days with young 
 Raphael, and that a young gentleman at Cambridge 
 who had lately published two volumes of verses might 
 take rank with the greatest poets of all. He tried in 
 vain to construe 'CEnone.' Though he understood 
 'Ulysses,' he could not see any sense in the prodigious 
 laudations it received. Thackeray, writing in the 
 sixth decade of the century, can be forgiven for his 
 anachronism; for the time of this part of his novel 
 is that of the fourth decade and one of the two works 
 he specifies and all the sentiments he records belong 
 
TENNYSON'S PENSION 499 
 
 to the fifth. But for that last period they represent 
 accurately the feelings prevalent among the men of 
 the younger generation and the bemlderment and 
 frequently the disquiet of those of the older. 
 
 Still, all great work in art steadily rises in estima- 
 tion under constant examination. The converts that 
 Tennyson made, he kept. They belonged, furthermore, 
 to the class whose influence was grooving steadily ; and 
 the effect of their appreciation showed itself in a 
 rapidly enlarging circle of admirers. Before the 
 earnest advocacy of these, indifference and hostility 
 rapidly gave way. The changing attitude of this band 
 of readers who began with a prejudice against the 
 poet can be seen faithfully reflected in the correspond- 
 ence of Mary Russell Mitford. Her letters re-echo at 
 first all the critical platitudes about Tennyson which 
 had been current during the preceding ten years of 
 silence. ''Do you know Alfred Tennyson's poems?" 
 she wrote to one of her friends on the eighth of June, 
 1842. ''They are in the last degree mannered and 
 obscure (I always doubt if these dark people know 
 their own meaning), still some of his things, especially 
 'Mariana in the Moated Grange,' have great merit, 
 so that I have been pleased at finding one of the 
 best of the new poems taken avowedly ' from a pastoral 
 of Miss Mitford 's,' 'Dora Creswell.' " Before a 
 year had gone by, this patronizing appreciation had 
 changed into enthusiastic admiration. She then had 
 learned to prefer Tennyson to any poet of the age. 
 On the twenty-seventh of February, 1843, she commu- 
 nicated to this same friend certain facts about the 
 
500 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 success of his work. ' ' Dear Miss Barrett, ' ' she wrote, 
 ''whose health is better, has a volume ready, but no 
 bookseller will incur the risk of publishing poetry. 
 Moxon says that he has lost by every one except Alfred 
 Tennyson; to be sure, the exception proves a growing 
 taste for high poetry, for I think his three lovely 
 volumes the most delicious that have appeared for 
 many years. Indeed I know nothing in modern times 
 equal to 'Mariana,' 'The Sleeping Beauty' and 
 'Locksley Hall.' " 
 
 If this remark of Moxon be accurate as well as 
 accurately reported, and not subject to that modifica- 
 tion which it is frequently desirable to make in the 
 statements of the most scrupulous publisher, it does 
 give a somewhat gloomy view of the fondness for 
 verse then prevalent; for Moxon had brought out or 
 was bringing out the works of the most eminent poets 
 of the day; at least of the generation just going off 
 the stage, like Wordsworth and Campbell and Rogers, 
 as well as of the younger men like Henry Taylor and 
 Trench and Browning. His views of what constituted 
 success could indeed have been hardly deemed extrava- 
 gant, for the edition he had just about disposed of 
 consisted, as we have seen, of but eight hundred copies. 
 The sale, to be sure, was steadily going on; yet it 
 took two years more to exhaust the thousand copies 
 of the second edition. As a consequence of so doing, 
 it became necessary to bring out a third, which 
 appeared duly in the middle of June, 1845. This 
 consisted of an unrecorded but manifestly larger 
 number of copies. In July, 1846, Browning wrote to 
 
TENNYSON'S PENSION 501 
 
 the woman soon to become his wife that he had been 
 that morning mth Moxon. The publisher told him 
 that he had sold fifteen hundred of Tennyson's 'Poems' 
 during the year and that he was about to bring out 
 another edition in consequence/ 
 
 But while such a number was respectable, and even 
 seems large, as the sale of poetry of a high grade went 
 then, while indeed it proved that the reputation of 
 Tennyson had already begun to overshadow that of 
 his contemporaries, it is obvious that at this rate it 
 was hopeless to entertain expectations of pecuniary 
 support from that source. As if this were not enough, 
 a new embarrassment was now added to the poet's 
 situation. His means had been far from ample to 
 start on ; but such as they were, they had now become 
 largely dissipated by an injudicious investment. He 
 had been led to take part in one of those alluring 
 enterprises which, occasionally crowned with great 
 success, ordinarily result in dismal failure. This 
 instance proved no exception to the general rule. 
 Resident near the family at High Beech was a 
 physician, a certain Dr. Matthew Allen, described by 
 Carlyle as a '^ speculative, hopeful, earnest-frothy 
 man." He had become interested in a scheme which 
 he had invented or adopted for making oak furniture 
 by machinery. The enterprise was to be both philan- 
 thropic and pecuniarily profitable, two results which 
 are not often easy to harmonize, at least at the outset. 
 It was expected that by the process such furniture 
 could be put within the means of all, besides securing 
 
 1 ' Browning Letters, ' Vol. II, p. 335. 
 
502 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 the fortunes of those concerned in promoting it. In 
 this enterprise the enthusiastic physician succeeded 
 in gaining the co-operation of the Tennysons. Espe- 
 cially was this true of the poet. He invested in it the 
 proceeds of a little estate in Grasby, Lincolnshire, and 
 a legacy of five hundred pounds left him by an aunt 
 of Arthur Hallam. The scheme collapsed entirely, 
 necessarily with disastrous results to Tennyson's 
 means. The blow was to some extent broken by his 
 brother-in-law, Edmund Lushington, insuring in 1844 
 Dr. Allen's life for a portion of the debt due to the 
 poet. The physician on his part atoned, so far as lay 
 in his power, for the misfortune he had caused, by 
 obligingly dying in January, 1845. 
 
 Consequently, while the literary prospects of Tenny- 
 son were brightening, his pecuniary prospects, never 
 up to this time brilliant, were perceptibly darkened. 
 Still less than ever was he in a position of independ- 
 ence. To a man who desired to devote himself to the 
 pursuit of literature pure and simple, the outlook for 
 the future could hardly have failed to seem peculiarly 
 disheartening. His feelings during this period are 
 portrayed in a letter to a friend written after the 
 receipt of his pension in October, 1845. **I have 
 gone," he said, 'Hhro' a vast deal of suffering (as to 
 money difficulties in my family etc.) since I saw you 
 last, and would not live it over again for quadruple 
 the pension Peel has given me. "^ Personal troubles 
 were added to pecuniary. The correspondence with 
 her who was subsequently to become his wife had 
 
 1' Memoir,' Vol. I, p. 226. 
 
TENNYSON'S PENSION 503 
 
 been for years forbidden. The prospect of marriage 
 had been poor enough before. Still less was there 
 now anything to justify the belief that he would be 
 in a position to support a family. Troubles afilicting 
 either the heart or the pocket-book are never conducive 
 to vigor. Coming together, they affected Tennyson's 
 physical condition so seriously that we are told that 
 his friends despaired of the continuance of his life.^ 
 Hypochondria had set in with all its morbid anxieties 
 about health and its utter depression of spirits. 
 Reports about him and his condition are conflicting 
 in the correspondence of the period. At one time 
 they are favorable, at another time they are unfavor- 
 able. We know that in 1844 he resorted for a while 
 to a hydropathic establishment at Cheltenham. This 
 same method of re-establishing his health he tried 
 years later. 
 
 The mention by Tennyson of his pension brings to 
 the front the question of the agency by which it was 
 secured. Wliile the tributes that were increasingly 
 paid to his eminence were unquestionably agreeable, 
 they were not of a nature to contribute to his support, 
 save indirectly. As the earnest desire existed among 
 his friends, who were also friends to literature, that 
 he should have the means to give himself up to his 
 life-work, undisturbed by pecuniary anxieties, they 
 conceived the idea of securing him a pension from the 
 Literary Fund at the disposal of the government. 
 In this they were eventually successful. One story 
 of the way in which it was secured — the one commonly 
 
 1' Memoir,' Vol. I, p. 221. 
 
504 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 accepted — was told by Wemyss Reid in his life of 
 Lord Houghton. As given there, it has been adopted, 
 too, in what may be called the official biography of the 
 poet by his son, who himself heard more than once 
 the details recited in the presence of his father. 
 Accordingly, it may seem to have received the sanction 
 of the latter ; that he accepted as true all that is implied 
 by it. At any rate, the account deserves not merely 
 relation but precedence. 
 
 Among the friends of the poet who were most 
 earnest in the movement for securing the pension 
 was Carlyle. He found in Tennyson, as he wrote to 
 Emerson, one of the few figures ''who are and remain 
 beautiful to me." "I do not," he said further in the 
 same letter, "meet in these late decades such company 
 over a pipe." As early as October, 1844, he had 
 written to FitzGerald that "it has struck me as a 
 distinctly necessary Act of Legislation that Alfred 
 should have a Pension of £150 a year."' FitzGerald 
 undoubtedly sympathized with this view ; but he could 
 not furnish any help. Naturally Carlyle turned to 
 quarters more likely to be of influence in securing the 
 result. He it was who one day in his home at Cheyne 
 Row addressed one of Tennyson's friends, who was 
 a member of Parliament, and was supposed to have 
 some influence with the prime minister. 
 
 "Milnes," said he, as he took his pipe out of his 
 mouth, "when are you going to get that pension for 
 Alfred Tennyson?" 
 
 1 ' New Letters of Thomaa Carlyle, ' edited by Alexander Carlyle, 
 Vol. I, p. 322. 
 
TENNYSON'S PENSION 505 
 
 *'My dear Caiiyle," answered Milnes, ''the thing 
 is not so easy as you seem to suppose. What ^vill my 
 constituents say if I do get the pension for Tennyson? 
 They know nothing about him or his poetry, and they 
 will probably think he is some poor relation of my own, 
 and that the whole affair is a job." 
 
 "Richard Milnes," replied Carlyle solemnly, '*on 
 the Day of Judgment when the Lord asks you why 
 you didn't get that pension for Alfred Tennyson, it 
 vnll not do to lay the blame on your constituents; it 
 is you that will be damned." 
 
 Milnes according to this account had not needed any 
 entreaties to spur him to the effort. A pension of 
 £200 was available. Application had already been 
 made to Sir Robert Peel to bestow it upon two different 
 persons. One was Tennyson, the other the veteran 
 dramatist, James Sheridan Knowles. The latter was 
 now over sixty years of age, and though his plays had 
 in general been successful, he was far from being in 
 affluent circumstances. Peel applied to Llilnes for 
 advice, accompanying his request with the remark that 
 he knew absolutely nothing about either man. 
 
 "What," said Milnes, "have you never seen the 
 name of Sheridan Knowles on a playbill?" 
 
 "No," was Peel's answer. 
 
 "And have you never read a poem of Tennyson's!" 
 Again the answer was "No." At Peel's request that 
 he should enable him to see something which Tennyson 
 had written, Milnes sent him 'Locksley Hall' and 
 'Ulysses.' How he managed to do it without sending 
 him the volume containing the rest of the poems we 
 
506 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 are not told. With these pieces went a letter in which 
 Milnes said that if the pension was granted as an act 
 of charity, it should go to Knowles, who was infirm 
 as well as advanced in years; if, on the contrary, in 
 the interests of English literature and the English 
 nation, it should be given to Tennyson. 
 
 That Peel should never have read at that time a 
 poem of Tennyson's, however much it may have 
 surprised Milnes, would have been in itself far from 
 surprising. Very few men of his years, occupied as 
 he constantly was with the consideration of great 
 political questions, have the leisure, even if they have 
 the desire, to keep up with the literature which has 
 sprung up during their absorption in affairs of state. 
 If they maintain their acquaintance with any literature 
 at all, it is fairly certain to be that with w^hich they 
 have become familiar in earlier years. Occasional 
 exceptions may be found. Of Peel himself it is 
 reported that he made it a point of learning a verse 
 every night before he went to bed, to take away, he 
 said, the taste of the House of Commons.^ If so, he 
 had never lost his appreciation of poetry as poetry. 
 Furthermore, we learn from his correspondence that 
 he was well acquainted with the writings of contem- 
 porary English authors, of whom it would be natural 
 to suppose he knew little or nothing. In November, 
 1844, in placing a sum of the public money at the 
 disposal of the dying Hood, he assured that author 
 that ' ' There can be little which you have written that 
 I have not read." 
 
 1 'Notes from a Diary, 1892-1895,' by Sir Mountstuart E. Grant Duff, 
 1904, Vol. II, p. 8. 
 
TENNYSON'S PENSION 507 
 
 Still it would be in no mse surprising that a man 
 like liim, constantly engaged in political strife, should 
 never have read any of Tennyson's productions. Well 
 known as the poet's name had become to the men of 
 the younger generation, it was positively unknown 
 to many of the older. Of the insensibility of the men 
 of this older generation to what was going on before 
 their eyes, of their ignorance of it, there are plenty 
 of illustrations. In Macaulay's diary for March 9, 
 1850, occurs, for instance, this extraordinary prophecy, 
 * ' It is odd, ' ' he wrote, ' ' that the last twenty-five years, 
 which have witnessed the greatest progress ever 
 made in physical science — ^the greatest victories ever 
 achieved by man over matter — should have produced 
 hardly a volume that will be remembered in 1900." 
 A little later in the same year we find him writing to 
 Henry Taylor in acknowledgment of the reception of 
 that dramatist's play of 'The Virgin Widow.' He 
 spoke of it as being what its author had meant it to 
 be — cheerful, graceful, and gentle. ''Nevertheless," 
 he continued, " 'Philip Van Artevelde' is still, in my 
 opinion, the best poem that the last thirty years have 
 produced; and I wish that you would deprive it of 
 that pre-eminence, a feat which nobody but j'ourself 
 seems likely to accomplish."^ Could a more suggestive 
 illustration be furnished of the worthlessness of con- 
 temporary criticism of the productions of the imagi- 
 nation? The quarter of the century, whose intellectual 
 poverty was so strongly pointed out by Macaulay, 
 
 1 Letter dated from the Albany, June 6, 1850, ' Correspondence of 
 Sir Henry Taylor,' p. 188, 
 
508 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 had witnessed the production of much of the best 
 work of both Tennyson and Browning in poetry; of 
 Dickens and Thackeray and Carlyle in prose; not to 
 speak of no small number of writers like Bulwer, 
 Disraeli, Kingsley, and others who still continue to 
 be remembered and read. 
 
 Accordingly, if a man like Macaulay, whose interests 
 lay primarily in literature, was utterly unfamiliar 
 with Tennyson's poetry in 1850, Peel can hardly be 
 blamed if several years earlier he had never even 
 heard of his existence. Yet there is evidence that a 
 long while before the pension was conferred upon the 
 poet, the statesman was acquainted with his name, if 
 not with his writings. On the death of Southey in 
 1843, Fanny Kemble, at the instigation of Bryan 
 Waller Procter, had written to Lord Francis Egerton, 
 later Earl of Ellesmere, to engage his interest in 
 securing for Tennyson the post of poet laureate. The 
 reason she gave for her application was the somewhat 
 distressful circumstances in which the poet had been 
 left by the failure of Dr. Allen's scheme for wood- 
 carving. Procter indeed had told her that Tennyson 
 had been ''utterly ruined" by it. The nobleman to 
 whom she applied, informed her that he had discovered 
 that Wordsworth had already been selected for the 
 position. On March 31, he added, however, ''a 
 suggestion of Sir Robert Peel's, involving a palliation 
 of Mr. T.'s complaint.'" What the ''palliation" was 
 is not specified, but it was probably the same which, 
 as we shall see, was later offered through Hallam and 
 
 1 ' Memories of the Tennysons, ' by H. D. Rawnsley, p. 89. 
 
TENNYSON'S PENSION 509 
 
 not accepted. It is a reasonable inference from this 
 communication that Peel had even then some knowl- 
 edge of the poet and his writings. At all events, his 
 correspondence, as published, renders it necessary to 
 receive Milnes's statements about the prime minister's 
 ignorance with certain grains of allowance, if not to 
 revise them altogether. Other friends besides him 
 were certainly active, other agencies were at work 
 besides his tow^ards securing the pension. It ought to 
 be added that it was secured without Tennyson's 
 privity or co-operation, as had been the previous 
 application of Fanny Kemble. '^ Something in that 
 word 'pension' sticks in my gizzard," he wrote not 
 long after its reception; ''it is only the name, and 
 perhaps would 'smell sweeter' by some other." But 
 he had the consolation of feeling that it had been 
 secured for him by others, and not by any efforts 
 of his o^vn. "I have done nothing slavish to get it," 
 he wrote to one of his friends ; " I never even solicited 
 for it either by myself or thro' others."^ Further- 
 more, he had been assured by the prime minister in 
 offering it that he need not be hindered by it in the 
 public expression of any opinion he chose to adopt. 
 
 So far as can be gathered from Peel's correspond- 
 ence, it was not Milnes, but Henry Hallam who first 
 called his attention to both the merits and the needs 
 of the poet.^ On the eleventh of February, 1845, the 
 historian wrote a letter to the prime minister on the 
 subject of securing a pension for Tennyson, "whose 
 
 1' Memoir,' Vol. I, p. 227, 
 
 2 Sir Robert Peel, from his Private Papers, London, 1899, Vol. HI, 
 pp. 439-442. 
 
510 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 name," he added, "must be familiar to you, even if 
 you have never looked at his writings. Perhaps I do 
 not overstate the fact when I say that he is considered 
 by many as the very first among the younger class of 
 living poets. He is at least a man of a fertile and 
 thoughtful mind, and few would hesitate to ascribe 
 to him the high praise of genius." Hallam then went 
 on to refer Peel to Rogers and to Henry Taylor for 
 their estimate of the man in whose behalf he was 
 writing. He could easily mention others, he said, 
 **Mr. Milnes, for example, whose judgment in poetry 
 deserves considerable regard." He concluded his 
 letter with observing that Tennyson was by no means 
 prosperous in worldly circumstances, but much the 
 reverse. 
 
 Four days later Peel replied to this application. It 
 is evident from his words that he was favorably 
 disposed towards the request but lacked the means 
 to comply with it. Furthermore, we have his own 
 assurance that Tennyson's poetry was not at that 
 time wholly unfamiliar to him, though there is nothing 
 to show when or how he first became acquainted with 
 it. * ' I have read, ' ' he wrote, ' ' some of Mr. Tennyson 's 
 works and have formed a very high estimate of his 
 powers." The words italicized were italicized by the 
 prime minister himself. He added, however, that he 
 had no means for making any permanent provision 
 for the poet. Every shilling, he said, of the miserable 
 pittance granted by the Crown for Civil List pensions 
 had been appropriated. He could, however, relieve 
 any temporary embarrassment from a very limited 
 
TENNYSON'S PENSION 511 
 
 public fund occasionally used for the relief of men 
 of letters. Out of this he could grant Tennyson £200, 
 and would do so if acceptable to his feelings. Mani- 
 festly it was not acceptable to his feelings, or to the 
 feelings of Hallam. Such a gift would imply a 
 necessity which did not exist. So the matter slumbered 
 for seven months. 
 
 But Peel neither lost sight of the poet nor forgot 
 Hallam 's application in the poet's behalf. On the 
 twenty-first of September, he wrote to the historian 
 that he now had at his disposal £400 for pensions. 
 Two hundred of this he was purposing to grant to 
 Professor James Da\dd Forbes, of the University of 
 Edinburgh, for the services he had rendered to science. 
 Then he went on to speak of Tennyson. ' ' The impres- 
 sions left on my mind by the poems," he wrote, 
 ''confirmed as they are by the highest testimonies I 
 could receive in his favour — your o^vn and that of 
 Mr. Rogers — will induce me, should it be agreeable 
 to Mr. Tennyson, to submit his name to the Queen, 
 with my humble recommendation to her Majesty that 
 a pension of 2001. per annum should be granted to 
 him for his life." Hallam replied the following day, 
 thanking Peel warmly. In it he spoke of Tennyson 
 as ''a man of great poetical genius, and one, as I can 
 add, of almost chivalrous honour and purity of 
 character; and that you will have the response of 
 applause from the lovers of poetry, especially the 
 younger of both sexes, who regard Tennyson as the 
 first name among the later cultivators of that sacred 
 field. ' ' Hallam at once communicated the information 
 
512 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 to the poet ; and Tennyson wrote to the minister from 
 Cheltenham on the twenty-ninth of tliis same month 
 gratefully accepting the offer. On the first of October, 
 Peel informed him of his intention to advise the Crown 
 to confer this mark of royal favor '*on one who has 
 devoted to worthy purposes great intellectual powers." 
 On the fifteenth of this same month the pension was 
 granted. 
 
 From the account which has just been given, two 
 facts become evident. One is that Milnes's could not 
 have been the only agency, hardly even the principal 
 agency, in securing the pension for the poet. He may 
 indeed have been the first to call the attention of the 
 prime minister to the matter, possibly in conversation ; 
 for no contemporary record of his efforts has so far 
 appeared in print. In this way the account of his 
 action given in his biography may be harmonized with 
 the facts as they appear in Peel's correspondence. 
 Still, it is manifest that the statesman made up his 
 mind independently — a circumstance all the more 
 complimentary to the poet. It is Hallam who refers 
 to Milnes; it is not Peel. It is a natural inference 
 indeed that the latter relied little upon the judgment 
 of his colleague as compared with that of the historian 
 and of Eogers. The second fact which is brought out 
 distinctly is the general acknowledgment which had 
 then come to prevail of the superiority of Tennyson 
 to all the poets of his generation. This was especially 
 true of the view taken by the younger men ; and their 
 opinion would necessarily become in a few years that 
 of the whole nation. 
 
TENNYSON'S PENSION 513 
 
 There was unquestionably some doubt entertained, 
 and even occasionally expressed, as to the policy of 
 conferring a pension upon a man of letters who was 
 then in the prime of life. Still the same objection 
 would have applied to a man of science like Professor 
 Forbes who was born in the same year as the poet. 
 Nevertheless, a feeling of this sort prevailed even in 
 friendly official quarters. Gladstone, whom Peel con- 
 sulted, observed that Tennyson was but a young man 
 for a pension. '*As to his genius," he remarked, '*I 
 will not trouble you with any eulogy of mine, but will 
 observe that Mr. Eogers told me he considered him 
 by much the first among all the younger poets of this 
 generation. ' ' Then followed an expression of personal 
 opinion which reveals the general sentiment existing 
 at that time that little pecuniary return could be hoped 
 for or expected by him who gave up his life to the 
 cultivation of literature pure and simple. The fore- 
 boding entertained, contrasted with the subsequent 
 fortunes of the man who was made its subject, reads 
 somewhat strangely now. "Still it appears estab- 
 lished, ' ' concluded Gladstone, ' ' that though a true and 
 even a great poet, he can hardly become a popular, 
 and is much more likely to be a starving one. ' ' 
 
 There was, however, nothing peculiar in the belief 
 just recorded. Much the same feeling about the poet's 
 worldly success in the calling to which he had devoted 
 himself is indicated rather than expressed in an 
 unpublished letter of Rogers. From this an extract 
 has been taken by one of Tennyson's biographers. 
 It is dated October 20 of this same year, thus following 
 
514 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 close upon the gift of the pension. It is peculiarly- 
 characteristic of the writer, who was wont to couple 
 the doing of generous things with the saying of ones 
 frequently far from being entitled to that epithet. 
 '^ Tennyson," wrote Rogers, ''is by many thought unfit 
 for a pension; but he has many infirmities, such as 
 to you I hope will be ever unknown, and such as make 
 him utterly incapable of supporting himself. Of his 
 genius I need say nothing, and have only to wish that 
 I could always understand him. "^ The praise given 
 in this extract can hardly be called unduly enthu- 
 siastic ; but it distinctly surpassed the gift of prophecy 
 which he took occasion to utter. Eogers lived long 
 enough to recognize the folly of his prediction of 
 Tennyson's incapacity to support himself. It is one 
 of the misfortunes of old age that it is constantly 
 compelled to witness the failure of most of its 
 prophetic utterances, in particular of those about 
 contemporaries. 
 
 However satisfactory the gift of the pension was 
 to the admirers of the poet, it was unquestionably a 
 subject of vexation to his detractors. Especially was 
 this the case with those of them who were still affected 
 by the traditions of the eighteenth century. Such 
 persons too were much more numerous than might 
 have been supposed. We have seen that the praise 
 given by the leading periodicals had never gone beyond 
 the limits of proper critical decorum. We cannot tell 
 in any given case, to be sure, how much the enthusiasm 
 
 I'Lord Tennyson, a Biographical Sketch,' by Henry J. Jennings, 
 1892, p. 106. 
 
TENNYSON'S PENSION 515 
 
 of the writer may have been tempered by the judicial 
 discretion of the editor; for those were the days in 
 which the conductors of periodicals assumed the right 
 to tamper not only with the language but mth the 
 opinions of the contributors, even those most noted, 
 to an extent which, if exercised now, would tend to 
 sever all relations between the two parties. In the 
 review, for instance, which Leigh Hunt wrote of the 
 'Poems' of 1842, a paragraph containing gross per- 
 sonal abuse of John Mitchell Kemble was inserted by 
 the editor without the writer's knowledge or consent. 
 Even the mild praise given in the 'Quarterly' to 
 Tennyson's work excited the indignation of some of 
 its old supporters. It was hard enough for Lockhart 
 to be compelled to eat his own words by admitting 
 to the periodical he edited an article which contradicted 
 in numerous ways his previous utterances on the same 
 poet and the same poems. Yet he had to undergo the 
 further discomfort of being censured for allowing so 
 much praise to be given at all. ' ' I may permit myself 
 to mention," he wrote, "that Mr. Croker was gravely 
 offended by the second review favourable to Tennyson, 
 when that poet came forth and broke silence in 1842. ' '^ 
 The old critical guard died discredited and dis- 
 regarded, it is true; but it never surrendered. It 
 never pandered to the depraved taste which had 
 turned aside from the old gods to burn incense at the 
 shrines which had been set up by the worshippers of 
 the new. As Croker lived until 1857, he had ample 
 time and constant opportunity to grieve over the 
 
 lA. Lang's 'Lockhart,' Vol. II, p. 287. 
 
516 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 degenerate taste which had come to reckon Tennyson 
 the greatest of contemporary poets. 
 
 The conferring of the pension led, however, to one 
 memorable attack which came near furnishing a 
 prominent chapter in the quarrels of authors. Such 
 certainly would have been the case if Tennyson's 
 sensitiveness to criticism, excessive as it was, had not 
 been surpassed by his self-restraint. The one respon- 
 sible for the attack was Bulwer, who on his mother's 
 death in 1843 had assumed the surname of Lytton. 
 Up to a certain date the fortunes of the two men had 
 not been dissimilar ; in truth, they may be said to have 
 borne at the beginning a somewhat singular resem- 
 blance. Like Tennyson, Bulwer had begun his career 
 as a poet. Like him he had published a volume when 
 he was only seventeen years old. It bore on the title- 
 page that it was written between the ages of thirteen 
 and fifteen. Like him, too, he had gained the Chan- 
 cellor's medal at Cambridge for a prize poem. Here, 
 however, the comparison practically ends. Before he 
 had taken his degree in 1826, Bulwer had published 
 three volumes of verse. But from none of them did 
 he gain any real literary repute. That came to him 
 with his second novel, 'Pelham,' which appeared in 
 1828, and which made dandyism for a while fashion- 
 able. It is also said, whether truly or untruly, to have 
 introduced the fashion of wearing black coats for 
 evening dress. 
 
 It was upon his novels mainly, but partly upon his 
 parliamentary labors and partly upon his plays, that 
 Bulwer built up his reputation. During his whole 
 
TENNYSON'S PENSION 517 
 
 career, however, he had occasional lapses into verse. 
 One of these he had distinct reason to regret. It was 
 a work which came out in piecemeal. Towards the 
 end of December, 1845, appeared the first part of a 
 poem entitled 'The New Timon.' It was followed 
 on January 12, 1846, by Part II, and on February 4 
 by Part III. A little later appeared Part IV, which 
 completed the work. Though the volume in a few 
 years passed out of notice and has now largely gone 
 out of remembrance, it achieved at the time a tem- 
 porary popularity or at least notoriety, both in 
 England and America. Several editions of it were 
 called for in the course of the year. Attention had 
 been at once attracted to its first part by certain 
 spirited characterizations it contained of men promi- 
 nent in public life. These were the Duke of Wellington, 
 Sir Robert Peel, O'Connell, and Lord Stanley, the 
 future Earl of Derby. To this last-named a phrase 
 had been applied by Disraeli in a speech delivered in 
 the House of Commons in April, 1844. He had there 
 styled him ''the Rupert of debate." This description 
 Bulwer seized upon and may be said to have popular- 
 ized. It has perhaps done more to keep alive the 
 memory of the poem than all the incidents it contained, 
 or the scenes it depicted. 
 
 'The New Timon' was anonymous. It professed 
 indeed to be written by an Anglo-Indian. In a note 
 explaining a phrase found in the text its author spoke 
 of it as "familiar to those who, like the writer, have 
 resided in the vast Empire we govern and forget." 
 Indeed great care seems to have been taken at the 
 
518 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 outset to guard the secret of the authorship, though 
 attention had been sedulously called to the work long 
 before it was published, by copies of this first part 
 having been sent to persons prominent in social and 
 political life. Bulwer himself insisted for a time that 
 he had nothing whatever to do with its composition. 
 Even to his intimate friends he disclaimed having 
 written it. But it speedily came to pass that hardly 
 any one, whether friendly or hostile, went to the 
 trouble of making even the pretence of believing his 
 denial. Those connected with the periodical press 
 who affected to do so, did it for the sake of making 
 more bitter their personal attack upon the assumed 
 unknown author. One favorite method to which they 
 resorted was to point out the resemblances between 
 the scenes and incidents in 'The New Timon' and 
 similar scenes and incidents in Bulwer 's novels. This 
 furnished a pretext for denouncing the plagiarisms 
 of the anonymous poet from the works of the prose 
 writer of fiction. There was indeed no use in Bulwer 's 
 denying the authorship. The work was throughout 
 in his manner. It had his tricks of expression, even 
 his phrases, and followed the lines of development 
 which had characterized some of his novels. But even 
 with the poorest of these it could not compare. As a 
 poem it was a very ordinary performance. When 
 stripped of the adventitious aid of its personal refer- 
 ences, it soon sank into forgetfulness. Bulwer in a 
 short time came to recognize the uselessness as well 
 as the folly of not acknowledging his responsibility 
 for it. His poem of 'King Arthur,' published three 
 
TENNYSON'S PENSION 519 
 
 years later, not only bore his name on the title-page, 
 but also described him as the author of 'The New 
 Timon. ' 
 
 It was in the second part which came out early in 
 1846 that the attack on Tennyson appeared. Without 
 warning and without conceivable pretext the flow of 
 the narrative was suddenly interrupted by the intro- 
 duction of a paragraph in which the anonymous author, 
 while celebrating his own Spartan severity of taste, 
 expressed his lofty disdain of the meretricious charms 
 with which his contemporary had sought to bedizen 
 his muse. The passage began, too, with the same old 
 reference to that mysterious love episode of his early 
 life which Bulwer repeated so often that he seems to 
 have finally come to believe it himself. It is in 
 the following lines that the attack on Tennyson is 
 contained : 
 
 Me Life had skill 'd ! — to me, from woe and wrong, 
 
 By Passion's tomb leapt forth the source of Song. 
 
 The "Quicquid agunt Homines,^' — whate'er 
 
 Our actions teach us, and our natures share. 
 
 Life and the World, our City and our Age, 
 
 Have tried my spirit to inform my page ; 
 
 I seek no purfled prettiness of phrase, — 
 
 A soul in earnest scorns the tricks for praise. 
 
 If to my verse denied the Poet's fame. 
 
 This merit, rare to verse that wins, I claim ; 
 
 No tawdry grace shall womanize my pen ! 
 
 Ev 'n in a love-song, man should write for men ! 
 
 Not mine, not mine, (0 Muse forbid !) the boon 
 
 Of borrowed notes, the mock-bird's modish tune, 
 
 The jingling medley of purloin 'd conceits, 
 
 Outbabying Wordsworth, and outglittering Keates, 
 
520 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 Where all the airs of patchwork-pastoral chime 
 
 To drowsy ears in Tennysonian rhyme ! 
 
 Am I enthrall'd but by the sterile rule, 
 
 The formal pupil of a frigid school, 
 
 If to old laws my Spartan tastes adhere, 
 
 If the old vigorous music charms my ear, 
 
 "Where sense with sound, and ease with weight combine. 
 
 In the pure silver of Pope 's ringing line ; 
 
 Or where the pulse of man beats loud and strong 
 
 In the frank flow of Dryden's lusty song? 
 
 Let School-Miss Alfred vent her chaste delight 
 
 On ''darling little rooms so warm and bright!" 
 
 Chaunt "I'm aweary," in infectious strain. 
 
 And catch her ' ' blue fly singing i ' the pane. ' ' 
 
 Tho' praised by Critics, tho' adored by Blues, 
 
 Tho' Peel with pudding plump the puling Muse, 
 
 Tho' Theban taste the Saxon's purse controuls. 
 
 And pensions Tennyson, while starves a Knowles, 
 
 Rather, be thou, my poor Pierian Maid, 
 
 Decent at least, in Hayley's weeds array 'd. 
 
 Than patch with frippery every tinsel line, 
 
 And flaunt, admired, the Rag Fair of the Nine ! 
 
 As if the attack in the lines were not enough, further 
 comment full as offensive was made in the notes. In 
 them Bulwer reprinted a part of the '0 Darling Room' 
 of the volume of 1832, which Tennyson had silently 
 dropped from his new edition. ''The whole of this 
 Poem (!!!)," he remarked, "is worth reading, in order 
 to see to what depth of silliness the human intellect 
 can descend." The other quotations given in the 
 attack are from 'Mariana.' But it was the pension 
 granted to Tennyson that stirred most Bulwer 's bile. 
 He expressed indignation at the failure of James 
 
TENNYSON'S PENSION 521 
 
 Sheridan Kjiowles to receive one and the preference 
 that had been given to Tennyson. Of the poet himself 
 and his work, Bulwer expressed no uncertain opinion. 
 ''The most that can be said of Mr. Tennyson," he 
 wrote, ''is, that he is the favourite of a small circle; 
 to the mass of the Public little more than his name 
 is kno^^^l — he has moved no thousands — he has created 
 no world of characters — he has laboured out no death- 
 less truths, nor enlarged our knowledge of the human 
 heart by the delineation of various and elevating 
 passions — he has lent a stout shoulder to no sinking 
 but manly cause, dear to the Nation and to Art; yet, 
 if the uncontradicted statement in the journals be 
 true, this Gentleman has been quartered on the public 
 purse ; he is in the prime of life, belonging to a wealthy 
 family, without, I believe, wife or children; at the 
 very time that Mr. Knowles was lecturing for bread 
 in foreign lands, verging towards old age, unfriended 
 even by the public he has charmed! — such is the 
 justice of our Ministers, such the national gratitude 
 to those whom we thank and — starve." 
 
 The accuracy of the information contained in this 
 note as to Tennyson's pecuniary circumstances was 
 on a level with the value of the criticism of his verse. 
 Bulwer was a man of distinct and varied talents ; but 
 there was something preposterous in an author of his 
 grade of poetical achievement venturing to assume a 
 superior critical attitude towards Wordsworth and 
 Keats, to say nothing of the unprovoked attack upon 
 Tennvson. He was speedily to learn that he had 
 
522 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 utterly mistaken the temper of the times. The attitude 
 of the public towards Tennyson since the day that 
 Lockhart could safely venture to publish his insolent 
 review of 1833 had undergone not merely alteration, 
 but a complete revolution. This every one saw and 
 felt save the occasional survivors of outworn poetical 
 creeds. Bulwer's verses were unquestionably relished 
 by some of these even though they may have had 
 no special admiration for the poem in which they 
 appeared. Hostile criticism of Tennyson had come 
 more and more to be kept in restraint with the progress 
 of time ; but the disposition to depreciate still survived 
 and rejoiced in an attack it did not itself venture to 
 make. Both the paragraph in the poem and the note 
 accompanying it were copied with hardly disguised 
 glee in ' The Literary Gazette ' in its review of Part II 
 of *The New Timon.' There was at least one exhibi- 
 tion of the same state of mind in America. Here 
 Bulwer 's work was republished from the third edition. 
 It was highly praised in an article written by Bartol, 
 then a prominent Unitarian clergyman of Boston. 
 This is worth noticing, not for its critical acumen which 
 was less than nothing, but for the sympathy manifested 
 with the attack made upon the poet. It occurs in a 
 review of several volumes of verse, in which 'The 
 New Timon' was singled out from the rest for especial 
 laudation. It was characterized as ''the most fresh 
 and striking work of late English publication ; and its 
 strong style is a wholesome protest against the feeble 
 sentimentality and slender ornaments of the whole 
 
TENNYSON'S PENSION 523 
 
 Tennyson school. ' " The poem received also high and 
 really undeserved praise in a review of it by Lowell, 
 though he censured the attack made in it on Words- 
 worth and Keats and Tennyson.- 
 
 But criticisms of this nature were far from repre- 
 senting the general attitude. Bulwer had unwittingly 
 stirred up a hornet's nest. He speedily discovered 
 that the circle of which Tennyson was a favorite was 
 far from being the small one he had supposed. It 
 must indeed have given him something of a shock to 
 discover that the opinion expressed in his verses was 
 so far from finding sympathizers that, outside of a 
 very limited circle, it could hardly muster even apolo- 
 gists. A host of partisans at once rushed forward 
 not merely to defend the assailed but to attack the 
 assailant. The contemptuous tone often taken in the 
 periodicals which reviewed 'The New Timon' on its 
 completion was largely intensified by the resentment 
 felt for his sneers at Tennyson and the futile efforts 
 of the writer to escape responsibility for the author- 
 ship of the poem in which they were contained. In 
 truth, the storm eventually became too violent to be 
 endured. The scornful attitude which Bulwer had 
 assumed towards the poet had been returned upon 
 him with unexpected intensity. The second edition 
 of the complete work appeared about the middle of 
 March. Shortly after came out the third edition. 
 Later in the year appeared a fourth edition. From 
 
 1 Article on 'Poetry and Imagination,' by the Eev. Cyrus Augustus 
 Bartol in ' The Christian Examiner, ' Vol. VII, 4th series, p. 263. 
 
 2 ' North American Eeview, ' Vol. LXIV, p. 467. 
 
524 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 that the offensive paragraph in the poem and its 
 accompanying notes were silently withdrawn and have 
 never since been reprinted. 
 
 The incident itself brought to the attention of all 
 at the time as well as to Bulwer himself the change 
 which had come over the minds of men since Lockhart 
 had published his review of 1833. Not unfrequent 
 comment was made upon the fact. ' ' Of the hold which 
 his poetry has already taken on the public heart," 
 wrote "William Howitt, for example, in 1846, ''a strik- 
 ing instance was lately given. The anonymous author 
 of The New Timon stepped out of his way and his 
 subject to represent Tennyson's muse as a puling 
 school-miss. The universal outburst of indignation 
 from the press scared the opprobrious lines speedily 
 out of the snarler 's pages. A new edition was quickly 
 announced, from which they had wisely vanished." 
 With the eventual disappearance of all interest in the 
 work itself both these lines in it and the notes accom- 
 panying them were soon forgotten. In process of 
 time, too, Tennyson came to have amicable relations 
 with his assailant, at least outwardly amicable ones ; 
 for it is hard to believe that there could have been 
 any genuine sympathy of feeling between two men 
 so utterly dissimilar in character and motive. Still 
 he prefixed to his drama of * Harold, ' published in 1876, 
 a dedication to the second Lord Lytton. In the course 
 of it he observed that the historical romance of the 
 first lord had been one of his main helps in writing 
 his own work. "Your father," he concluded, ''dedi- 
 
TENNYSON'S PENSION 525 
 
 cated his 'Harold' to my father's brother; allow me 
 to dedicate my Harold to yourself." 
 
 In the temporary tempest which arose, the sym- 
 pathies of the men of the younger generation in 
 particular, were, as might be supposed, almost entirely 
 on the side of Tennyson, Among these were the 
 writers concerned in the publication of * Punch,' which 
 had begun its existence five years before. The 
 periodical came in consequence to take a somewhat 
 memorable part in the controversy which sprang up. 
 In the number for February 7, 1846, appeared the 
 follomng little squib entitled ' ''The New Timon" and 
 Alfred Tennyson 's Pension ' : 
 
 You've seen a lordly mastiff's port, 
 Bearing in calm contemptuous sort 
 The snarls of some o'erpetted pup, 
 Who grudges him his ' ' bit and sup ' ' : 
 So stands the bard of Locksley Hall 
 While puny darts around him fall, 
 Tipp'd with what Timon takes for venom; 
 He is the mastiff, Tim the Blenheim. 
 
 The satire of these lines was poorer than anything to 
 be found in Bulwer's poem. It indicated the resent- 
 ment that prevailed, but was far from giving it 
 adequate expression. But its feebleness was more 
 than made up by Tennyson himself in a poem which 
 appeared in the number for February 28 of this same 
 periodical. It bore the title of 'The New Timon, and 
 the Poets,' and had appended to it the signature of 
 Alcibiades. Though the authorship of the poem was 
 veiled, no one who had become familiar with Tenny- 
 
526 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 son's style could fail to detect the writer who was 
 responsible for the following lines: 
 
 "We knew him, out of Shakespeare's art, 
 And those fine curses which he spoke; 
 
 The old Timon, with his noble heart, 
 
 That, strongly loathing, greatly broke. 
 
 So died the Old : here comes the New. 
 
 Regard him : a familiar face : 
 I thought we knew him: What, it's you. 
 
 The padded man — that wears the stays — 
 
 Who kill'd the girls and thrill 'd the boys. 
 With dandy pathos when you wrote, 
 
 A Lion, you, that made a noise, 
 
 And shook a mane en papillotes. 
 
 And once you tried the Muses too ; 
 
 You fail 'd. Sir : therefore now you turn, 
 To fall on those who are to you. 
 
 As Captain is to Subaltern. 
 
 But men of long-enduring hopes, 
 
 And careless what this hour may bring, 
 
 Can pardon little would-be Popes 
 
 And Brummels, when they try to sting. 
 
 An artist, Sir, should rest in Art, 
 
 And waive a little of his claim ; 
 To have the deep Poetic heart 
 
 Is more than all poetic fame. 
 
 But you, Sir, you are hard to please ; 
 
 You never look but half content : 
 Nor like a gentleman at ease, 
 
 With moral breadth of temperament. 
 
TENNYSON'S PENSION 527 
 
 And what with spites and what ^vith fears, 
 
 You canuot let a body be : 
 It's always ringing in your ears, 
 
 "They call this man as good as me." 
 
 What profits now to understand 
 
 The merits of a spotless shirt — 
 A dapper boot — a little hand — 
 
 If half the little soul is dirt? 
 
 You talk of tinsel ! why, we see 
 
 The old mark of rouge upon your cheeks. 
 
 You prate of Nature ! you are he 
 
 That spilt his life about the cliques. 
 
 A Timon you ! Nay, nay, for shame : 
 
 It looks too arrogant a jest — 
 The fierce old man — to take his name, 
 
 You bandbox. Off, and let him rest. 
 
 The full force of Tennyson's satire will never be 
 appreciated save by the few; for it is the few only 
 who will have either the leisure or the courage to wade 
 through the work which suggested it. The poet him- 
 self never republished the piece. It is not to be found 
 in any authorized edition of his writings ; which is one 
 main reason for reprinting it here. He further dis- 
 claimed all responsibility for its publication at the 
 time. ''I never sent my lines to Punch,^^ he wrote. 
 "John Forster did. They were too bitter. I do not 
 think that I should ever have published them. ' ' How- 
 ever they got there, it is manifest that Tennyson 
 speedily regretted the printing of them, perhaps the 
 writing of them. In the next number of 'Punch' 
 
528 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 indeed appeared a short piece of liis which expressed 
 his real sentiments after he had recovered from his 
 temporary indignation. It bore the same signature 
 of Alcibiades and was entitled 'Afterthoughts.' In 
 modern editions of the poet it is found under the 
 heading of ' Literary Squabbles. ' In this he appeared 
 to express a sense of shame for having been betrayed 
 into taking notice of the unprovoked attack to which 
 he had been subjected. Such undoubtedly were the 
 feelings he had himself soon come to entertain; but 
 to the reader he will seem to have followed the wisest 
 and properest course to vindicate his own reputation 
 and to protect himself from future assaults of a similar 
 character. The trenchant lines he then wrote were 
 unquestionably a main if not the main agency in 
 causing the suppression of the offensive passages 
 about himself ; and it announced in unmistakable terms 
 to the whole tribe of depredators that it would not 
 be satisfactory to their present peace of mind or to 
 their future reputation to presume too far upon the 
 patience of School-miss Alfred. To be safe from 
 contempt, they must either be careful to hide their 
 names or wait till the object of their attack was dead. 
 Whatever may have been the nature of the recon- 
 ciliation between the two men, it is plain that Bulwer's 
 real feelings at this particular period of his life were 
 revealed in the lines he was forced to discard. In a 
 later novel he put the views he still cherished in the 
 mouth of one of his favorite characters. In it Colonel 
 Morley is represented as cursing the critics for having 
 praised the verses of a certain imaginary poet who 
 
TENNYSON'S PENSION 529 
 
 was dead. His words really express Bulwer's poetic 
 creed, and the faith he accepted did not include Tenny- 
 son. The work of this assumed dead author, Colonel 
 Morley declared he had failed to read, not because it 
 was below contempt, but because it was above compre- 
 hension. ''All poetry," says he, ''praised by critics 
 nowadays is as hard to understand as a hieroglyphic. 
 I o^\^l a weakness for Pope and common sense. I 
 could keep up vdth our age as far as Byron ; but after 
 him I was throwTi out. However, Arthur was declared 
 by the critics to be a great improvement on Byron ! — 
 more 'poetical in form' — more 'aesthetically artistic' — 
 more 'objective' or 'subjective' (I am sure I forget 
 which, but it was one or the other, nonsensical, and 
 not English) in his views of man and nature. Very 
 possibly. All I know is — I bought the poems, but could 
 not read them ; the critics read them, but did not buy. ' '^ 
 This was far from an exact representation of the sale 
 of Tennyson's writings, but it was of Bulwer's feel- 
 ings at the time about his great contemporary. This 
 attitude he continued to hold long after and perhaps 
 never abandoned. To a visitor at Knebsworth in 1861, 
 he said that he could not read Tennyson. 
 
 I'What Will He Do with It/ 1859, Vol. Ill, p. 133. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 THE PRINCESS 
 
 On the seventeenth of December, 1847, London daily- 
 papers announced in their advertising columns the 
 appearance '4n a few days" of a new poem by Tenny- 
 son entitled 'The Princess.' On Saturday, the twenty- 
 fifth of the same month, came the further announce- 
 ment that it was that day published. The work had 
 been for some time in preparation. In May, 1845, 
 FitzGerald had met Tennyson in London. "He was 
 looking well and in good spirits, ' ' he wrote to Frederick 
 Tennyson, "and had got two hundred lines of a new 
 poem in a butcher 's book. ' '^ This is one of the earlier 
 notices of the poet's being actually engaged on the 
 work he was contemplating. 
 
 The estimate which had now come to be taken of 
 Tennyson by the educated class, and the interest with 
 which anything from his pen was looked for, are 
 evinced by the fact that talk about the expected poem 
 began in literary circles almost as soon as it was kno^vn 
 to be in course of preparation. The reports which 
 sprang up in regard to it and continued even to the 
 date of its publication bore generally only a remote 
 resemblance to the truth. A peculiarly fantastic one, 
 
 1 Letter of June 12, 1845, in FitzGerald 's 'Letters and Literary 
 Eemains,' Vol. I, p. 154. 
 
THE PRINCESS 531 
 
 learned from her brother, was communicated to her 
 future husband by Miss Barrett nearly two years 
 before the work appeared. At the very end of 
 January, 1846, she wrote to Bro^vning that Tennyson 
 was seriously ill with an internal complaint and con- 
 fined to his bed, as George hears from a common 
 friend. ''Which," she added, "does not prevent his 
 writing a new poem — he has finished the second book 
 of it — and it is in blank verse and a fairy tale, and is 
 called the 'University,' the university-members being 
 all females." Miss Barrett was as much puzzled by 
 the character of this news as Tennyson would have 
 been himself. "I don't know what to think — ," she 
 added; "it makes me open my eyes." 
 
 Rumors, indeed, many fanciful and some almost 
 grotesque, about the nature of the work and the senti- 
 ments expressed in it were prevalent during the years 
 immediately preceding its appearance. Taking into 
 consideration its actual character, perhaps the most 
 extraordinary was that it was marked by peculiar 
 hostility to the female sex. Mary Russell Mitford 
 more than once in her correspondence bears witness 
 to the existence of this impression. In September of 
 1847, she wrote that she had heard of its being very 
 beautiful, but that it gave a low idea of women. She 
 had previously informed a correspondent that Dyce, 
 whom she described as "a man of consummate taste," 
 had reported the same view in almost the same words. 
 The Dyce here mentioned was doubtless the Shake- 
 spearean editor. It is a natural inference from her 
 remark that he had seen the work, but it is probably 
 
532 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 an erroneous one; for Ms description of it precludes 
 the idea of his possessing any real knowledge of its 
 character. This is but one of several mistaken views 
 of it which were pronounced with great positiveness 
 before it came out to confound the utterers. A letter 
 from the younger Hallam gives an account of a visitor 
 in December, 1847, — just on the eve of publication — 
 undertaking to characterize the poem, ''his fixed idea 
 being that it was tremendously comic and that the 
 merit turned on the quaint conceits of the plot." It 
 was certainly fortunate for Tennyson that he never 
 attempted to make the reality in any way correspond 
 to this description. He had in certain ways a keen 
 sense of humor, and was often happy in expressing it. 
 He could produce characterizations which entertain 
 us by their quaintness as well as by their accuracy 
 of representation. He further enjoyed the purely 
 comic ; but it was as impossible for him to write it as 
 it was for Milton. In all his humor there is a certain 
 high seriousness. Behind its manifestations there is 
 fairly sure to be a grim background. But when he 
 comes to the lighter forms of badinage or persiflage, 
 he is never at home. If any serious fault is to be laid 
 to the charge of 'The Princess,' it is to be found in 
 one or two places where he seems to be aiming after 
 a fashion at that effect. 
 
 The work underwent a good deal of revision 
 and alteration during the years which immediately 
 followed its publication. Besides changes in the text 
 of individual lines, these consisted to a slight extent 
 of omissions but mainly of additions. The second 
 
THE PRINCESS 533 
 
 edition indeed, which came out in September, 1848, 
 varied hardly at all from the first. The principal 
 difference between the two consisted of the now pre- 
 fixed dedication of the poem to Henry Lushington, 
 who was not merely a close personal friend but one 
 of the most trusted of Tennyson's literary advisers. 
 But in the third edition which appeared at the begin- 
 ning of February, 1850, numerous changes were made. 
 To some extent they took the form of revision, but 
 mainly of additions. These latter necessarily involved 
 more or less of alteration, usually very slight, in the 
 pre\^ously accepted text. The six intercalary songs 
 were introduced. They had been in the poet's mind 
 from the outset, but he had decided not to include 
 them, because while deeming them the best interpreters 
 of the poem, he had come to the conclusion that the 
 work would explain itself. When he discovered that 
 the public did not see his drift, which was to make the 
 babe the central figure, he changed his mind. Altera- 
 tions were also made in the body of the work as well 
 as in the prologue and conclusion. Furthermore, there 
 was then added the interlude which follows Part IV. 
 Up to the appearance of the third edition, the whole 
 poem had been in blank verse. Even the three songs 
 which from the first it had contained were unrhjTiied. 
 The introduction of these six intercalary lyrics in this 
 edition was its most important feature so far as its 
 effect upon the public was concerned. It gave the poem 
 an attraction to many who had pre\iously been dis- 
 posed to look upon it ^^^th indifference or had been 
 led by foolish criticism to speak of it ^\dth disparage- 
 
534 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 ment. For this result there was ample reason. 
 Effective as Tennyson was in blank verse — never more 
 so than in 'The Princess' — it was his lyric gift that 
 above everything else made him the favorite of the 
 public which he became. Few are the men who have 
 the leisure, even if they have the desire to familiarize 
 themselves with even the greatest of long poems; 
 fewer still have the mental equipment to recognize the 
 consummate perfection of treatment in which part 
 is made to answer to part, the skill with which the 
 incidents are marshalled so as to lead inevitably to 
 their destined conclusion. All this implies not only 
 high cultivation but takes time and thought. Conse- 
 quently such works can become favorites of but a 
 limited number. But a lyric appeals to all. Its 
 sentiment will be felt by the humblest who is perhaps 
 unable to appreciate the exquisite delicacy of work- 
 manship wliich impresses itself upon the intellectually 
 highest. In consequence these six intercalary lyrics 
 were at once circulated far and wide. As naturally 
 they were made the subject of constant comment and 
 critical judgment. A collection of the various and 
 varying estimates put by different readers on their 
 respective merits would be one of the curiosities of 
 criticism, if any particular criticism, no matter what 
 its character, is entitled to be called curious. Each 
 of these lyrics had its partisans. The general voice 
 apparently favored the bugle song which had been 
 suggested by the echoes heard by Tennyson on Lake 
 Killarney. To many what seemed the most effective 
 of them all was the one beginning ''Ask me no more," 
 
THE PRINCESS 535 
 
 indicating the final surrender of the Princess to the 
 feelings against which she had been struggling. 
 
 The fourth edition which followed in April, 1851, 
 was distinguished by the regrettable addition of the 
 ''weird seizures" to which the Prince is represented 
 as being subject. Various changes were in consequence 
 rendered necessary. The conclusion, furthermore, was 
 largely rewritten. The little more than half-dozen 
 lines of the original opening were extended to thirty- 
 two. Further on, forty lines were introduced, occa- 
 sioned by the events which had followed the continental 
 revolution of 1848. There was the usual complacent 
 comparison between the sobriety and law-abiding 
 character of the English as contrasted with the levity 
 of the French. Then followed the fifth edition which 
 was brought out towards the middle of February, 
 1853. In it are found a number of minor changes; 
 but the only important addition was the fourteen 
 stirring lines of the prologue beginning with the words 
 ' ' miracle of women. ' ' This edition presents us the 
 poem in its final definitive form. Very few and of very 
 slight importance were the changes subsequently made. 
 In consequence of the alterations and additions which 
 it had received, the nearly three thousand lines of 
 which it had originally consisted had been extended to 
 over thirty-three hundred in spite of the omission of 
 some twenty or thirty which had been thrown out in 
 the recast made of the work. Furthermore, not only 
 had about three hundred and fifty lines been added but 
 there had been a modification of the language, espe- 
 cially in the prologue and the epilogue, in the always 
 
536 LIFE AND TBIES OF TENNYSON 
 
 hopeless attempt to meet the objections of miintelligent 
 criticism. 
 
 So much for the bibliographical details of the work. 
 Now comes the consideration of its history and char- 
 acter. The subject had been in Tennyson's mind long 
 before he undertook the composition of the poem ; for 
 it was not until about 1845 that he set seriously about 
 the task of preparation. As early as 1839, he had 
 talked over the plan of the work with her who was 
 later to become his wife. Upon the part woman ought 
 to play in life he had very definite opinions. In this 
 as in many other of his speculations he was as much 
 in advance of his age as to some of those whose cause 
 he then championed he would possibly seem behind 
 now. There is nothing in the work, however, to indi- 
 cate what was his position on the subjects of contro- 
 versy to which public attention is at present more 
 specifically directed. But to him the higher education 
 of woman was a social question transcending in 
 importance the great political ones which at that time 
 occupied the thoughts and inflamed the passions of 
 his countrymen. That any mode of education or non- 
 education that tended to restrict her intellectual 
 powers would not only work harm to her but to man 
 also was his firm faith. Naturally he sympathized 
 with every effort put forth to increase the facilities 
 for her fullest development. 
 
 In certain ways the adequate treatment of the 
 subject presented peculiar difficulties ; especially so at 
 that time. It had its serious side in the actual wrongs 
 
THE PRINCESS 537 
 
 which woman had endured in the past and was con- 
 tinuing to endure in the present. There was a further 
 grievance in the obstacles which were encountered in 
 every effort to remedy these wrongs. Upon all 
 measures in this direction contumely had been regu- 
 larly poured by hard-headed men who were in general 
 difficult to con\'ince because they w^ere at the same 
 time usually thick-headed. Nothing but abuse had 
 waited upon the arguments of Mary Wollstonecraft 
 in what to modern ears seems her peculiarly temperate 
 statements of the right of her sex to an inde- 
 pendent career and activity. On the other hand, 
 loud applause was given even by women themselves 
 to the sentimental slipslop of various pious advisers 
 like, for instance, the Eeverend Dr. Fordyce, who 
 in his 'Sermons to Young Women,' assured them 
 that **men of sensibility desire in every woman soft 
 features, a flowing voice, a form not robust, and a 
 demeanour delicate and gentle. ' ' Far more endurable 
 to women of sense than this senile maundering 
 about her proper attitude and character is the brutal 
 proclamation of her essential inferiority and heaven- 
 ordained subjection to man which on more than one 
 occasion Milton put forth; never more energetically 
 than in the words he jolaces in Eve's mouth at the 
 beginning of one of the most beautiful passages in 
 'Paradise Lost.' It is in this way — sufficient of itself 
 to account largely for the unhappiness of Milton's 
 first marriage — that our first mother is represented 
 as addressing Adam : 
 
538 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 My author and disposer, what thou bidd'st 
 Unargued I obey. So God ordains: 
 God is thy law, thou mine ; to know no more 
 Is woman's happiest knowledge and her praise. 
 
 These words unquestionably represent Milton's atti- 
 tude upon the relation of the sexes. It is perhaps 
 needless to add that he who sets out to act upon such 
 a view will ordinarily have in no very long time the 
 consideration of the subject of divorce pressed upon 
 his attention, even if he does not write treatises upon 
 it. 
 
 Naturally any self-respecting woman would feel out- 
 raged at two such representations of her position and 
 aims as those just taken from Fordyce and Milton. 
 She would be more than justified in protesting vio- 
 lently against indignities of this sort placed upon her 
 sex. With these feelings, every intelligent man could 
 sympathize. Unfortunately opposed to the serious 
 side of the subject, there was a ludicrous one; at least 
 to the great majority of the public it seemed ludicrous. 
 This was caused by the hysterical passion with which 
 movements for the elevation of woman had been 
 attended, and the extravagant views and expectations 
 of what not merely could but certainly would be accom- 
 plished as a result of her sharing every privilege 
 possessed by man. Hence in order to get a hearing 
 for his own ideas, Tennyson saw that it was necessary 
 to take into account these two conflicting currents of 
 thought and feeling. To effect this purpose he made 
 the work, what he called it, a medley. The narrator 
 is represented as saying that to relate the story 
 
THE PRINCESS 539 
 
 properly it would be necessary to call back him who 
 had told 'The Winter's Tale'; who had mingled in one 
 artistic whole the past and the present, Christian belief 
 and heathen practice ; who had brought into the same 
 period of time Puritans singing psalms to horn pipes 
 and messengers dispatched to consult the oracle of 
 Apollo; who had given to Bohemia a seacoast and 
 had placed Delphos on an island; who had made his 
 first heroine queen of the Sicilia of classic times but 
 likewise the daughter of the emperor of Eussia; 
 and who in this remote pagan past had introduced 
 sculptures which surpassed the work of the most noted 
 of Raphael's disciples. 
 
 All these diverse and conflicting elements Shake- 
 speare had wrought into a whole so harmonious that 
 only the unhappy pedant is disturbed by their appear- 
 ance. Tennyson had determined to follow Ms example. 
 If he could not do as well as the great master, he 
 would do as well as he could. The whole scheme of 
 his poem contemplated therefore the jumbling together 
 of the past and the present. Not merely was it inti- 
 mated, it was directly asserted, that there was to be 
 confusion; that the manners of different periods were 
 to be brought together ; that into the modes of thinking, 
 into the moods of feeling, into the activities of the 
 existing everyday world were to be thrust the modes, 
 the moods, the activities of an outworn age. Fullest 
 notice of this intention was given. It was implied in 
 the very wording of the sub-title. For any help 
 afforded by it in conveying the knowledge of it to the 
 mind of the average critic, it might as Avell have been 
 
540 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 left unwritten. Never was greater reluctance to accept 
 a work as the author designed it more pronounced and 
 more violently proclaimed than in the sort of welcome 
 with which 'The Princess' was greeted at its first 
 appearance. Stupid as well as malignant criticism 
 fell to Tennyson's lot during the whole of his career. 
 That is the fate which befalls all great poets. 
 But there was a peculiar obtuseness of perception 
 in the immediate contemporary notices of the work 
 in question that exceeded the justifiable inability to 
 appreciate which we accord to the extremest form of 
 critical inanity. 
 
 If Tennyson had expected to secure himself from 
 attack by proclaiming his poem to be, what it was, a 
 medley, he evinced little knowledge of the methods 
 followed by no small number of the reviewing frater- 
 nity. There are men who can never be satisfied with 
 letting a great artist do his work in his own way. He 
 must do it in accordance with some theory of their 
 own of what it ought to be and how it ought to be 
 done. In the opinion of these men, persons with the 
 views the characters in this poem are represented as 
 holding were under obligation to conduct themselves 
 in exact consonance with the proprieties observed in 
 modern life. As according to the framework of the 
 poem, they manifestly could not do it, as they certainly 
 did not do it, the feelings of these sticklers for con- 
 ventional manners were distinctly outraged. They 
 objected stoutly to Tennyson's course in creating a 
 world whose dwellers did not act in conformity to the 
 rules of etiquette which prevailed in the society of the 
 
THE PRINCESS 541 
 
 nineteenth century. From the purely literary point 
 of view they were shocked at his temerity in making 
 the work a medley. This attitude was particularly 
 noticeable in the reviews which appeared in the 
 literary weeklies. These were naturally the first 
 in the field. With only one exception among the 
 more important of these periodicals — the article by 
 John Forster in 'The Examiner' — their verdict was 
 distinctly unfavorable as a whole. In general, it 
 ranged all the way from semi-approval to positive 
 condemnation. Something of this feeling continued 
 to manifest itself even after critics had had time 
 enough to gather their wits together sufficiently to 
 understand what the author was aiming at. But 
 even then they could not repress the desire that 
 Tennyson should have done something else. One 
 reviewer who admitted that in this poem Tennyson 
 had pleaded the rights of women ''with a force and 
 an eloquence which the world has scarcely witnessed 
 before," nevertheless confessed his disappointment in 
 its character. He had hoped and even anticipated 
 from its title that it would be "some -wild and stirring 
 tale of the old heroic time, or, more likely still — . . . 
 some story wondrous, but poetical withal.'" 
 
 Fortunately for these men, their criticisms have long 
 been buried in the pages of forgotten or no longer 
 read periodicals ; and the only reason for raking them 
 now out of their dreary graves, is to make conspicuous 
 the crass lack of appreciation with which Tennyson 
 had to contend before his reputation had become 
 
 1' Eclectic Eeview,' April, 1848, Vol. XXIII (New Series), p. 415. 
 
542 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 so predominant that the most foolish and foolhardy 
 of even anonymous assailants hardly ventured to 
 attack him directly, but was forced to content him- 
 self with insinuating depreciation. But that day had 
 not then dawned. It is accordingly worth while to 
 collect from reviews found in periodicals then existing 
 a few expressions of opinion to denote the sort of 
 welcome which the poem received at the outset from 
 the professed leaders of public opinion. There was, 
 of course, the general employment of the formula 
 which has regularly characterized feeble criticism 
 from a remote and even indefinite past, that the work 
 under consideration would have been improved by 
 care and condensation. Omission and revision might 
 lead closely, at least, to that high and perfect excel- 
 lence clearly comprehended by the keen vision of the 
 reviewer, but not as yet discerned by the writer. But 
 it was not so much to the length of the production as 
 to its character that exception was taken. The cry 
 arose at once on every side. Why had not Tennyson 
 done something else? There was a general conviction 
 expressed that he had been guilty of the grossest 
 impropriety. An essentially correct idea of the 
 twaddle, calling itself criticism, which fairly ran 
 rampant for the weeks immediately following the 
 publication of the poem, may be gained from a few 
 illustrative citations. 
 
 You are mixing up, said one, the manners of the 
 past and the present. The different parts refuse to 
 amalgamate with one another, said a second. The 
 familiar and the conventional are out of keeping with 
 
THE PRINCESS 543 
 
 the earnestness of the ideal, said a third. Lecture 
 rooms and chivalric lists, modern pedantry and ancient 
 romance, Tennyson was told, are antagonisms which 
 no art can reconcile. You are uniting in one piece the 
 grave and the burlesque. The ideal and the literal 
 are constantly intermixed. The union of banter and 
 fancy, of the serious and the satiric, is highly improper. 
 These very phrases, and numerous others just as silly, 
 are found in the leading literary weeklies of the time. 
 The obvious fact that all this had been done inten- 
 tionally, and that this intention had been proclaimed 
 at the outset, did dawn at last upon the mind of some 
 of the reviewers. But that proved no benefit to the 
 author. He could not escape from responsibility by 
 calling his poem a medley. He had chosen to misapply 
 his powers. The point was insisted upon strongly 
 that the poet had no right to compose works of this 
 character. The consciousness of having selected an 
 eccentric plan could not fairly be held to excuse it. 
 One critic, when the fact finally forced itself upon his 
 attention that all his exceptions had been anticipated 
 by the author himself, calmly took the position that 
 the prologue explaining the origin and character of 
 the work was really an apologetic supplement. He 
 derived great satisfaction from this assumption. 
 "There is hope," he remarked, ''that an error spon- 
 taneously discerned and confessed will in future be 
 avoided. ' ' 
 
 One marked exception there was to this almost 
 universal disparagement, or at best cold approbation. 
 
544 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 which the poem at first received. It came from 
 'Howitt's Journal." This was a periodical of repute 
 indeed, though of comparatively small circulation. It 
 praised both the idea of the work and its execution. 
 It hailed Tennyson as the poet of progress ; and there 
 is no question that in regard to the rights and true 
 social position of woman he was far in advance of the 
 men of his day. The article was almost certainly the 
 work of Mary Howitt; at least it represented accu- 
 rately the sentiments she entertained. But her views, 
 regarded then as extreme, would little suit those who 
 are persuaded that the salvation of humanity lies in 
 the possession of suffrage. "Everything," she said of 
 her sex, "which is necessary to develop her powers, 
 to perfect her nature, to establish her independence 
 as a reasonable creature . . . must be secured for 
 her." This involved not only the wife standing on 
 an equal footing with her husband before the law, but 
 the possession of equal property rights. There, how- 
 ever, she stopped. On every attempt to turn woman 
 into "a hard, bold, public and prating she-man," as 
 she expressed it, she looked with aversion. Accord- 
 ingly, she celebrated the "perfect instinct" of the poet, 
 "true to nature and common sense." He had shown 
 in his poem the "inevitable tendency and results of 
 the doctrines of those who, to enfranchise woman, 
 would unwoman her." Then she quoted from it an 
 extract, in which, according to her the true philosophy 
 of the question was given, "clear, simple, strong and 
 
 1 Vol. Ill, p. 28. 
 
THE PRINCESS 545 
 
 irrefragable." This is the passage beginning with 
 the line, 
 
 The woman's cause is man's. 
 
 The words which follow have an interest of their own 
 because they very certainly represented Tennyson's 
 view of the relation of the sexes. 
 
 But favorable notices of the work, involving com- 
 prehension not only of its workmanship but of its 
 purport, were exceedingly rare at the outset. Unin- 
 telligent criticism there was in abundance. By the 
 periodicals ha\ing then the largest circulation and 
 naturally the most influence, the work was generally 
 termed a failure. This view was not limited to such 
 as from the beginning had looked upon Tennyson's 
 production vnth. ill-concealed dislike. It was conceded 
 with apparent reluctance by some who, after a fashion, 
 professed admiration for it and perhaps felt for it a 
 lukewarm regard which they in all honesty mistook 
 for that feeling. With his usual sensitiveness to criti- 
 cism Tennyson was a good deal distressed by the 
 hostile reception which the work met at the very 
 outset. In moments of depression, he expressed him- 
 self as inclined to abandon any further writing of 
 poetry. Later indeed he is said to have felt regret 
 that he did not connect the subject with some stronger 
 and more serious framework than what he called a 
 medley.^ If so, the regret was very needless ; for at 
 the time of its production a framework of the sort he 
 chose was much the most effective for the end he had 
 
 iF. W. Farrar's 'Men I have Known,' 1897, p. 19. 
 
546 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 in view. He was dealing with what was to him a 
 serious theme ; and to most men of that day it was not 
 serious. If, however, the adverse criticism troubled 
 him at first, it could not have troubled him long, as it 
 ought not to have troubled him at all. The hostility 
 of anonymous reviewers, whose opinions, if their 
 names were kno^vn, it would have seemed peculiarly 
 absurd to heed, were soon forgotten in the welcome 
 which the work received from the great body of 
 cultivated men. 
 
 Tennyson himself seems to have been as little aware 
 as were the majority of the early critics of 'The 
 Princess' of the change which had taken place in his 
 position from the time when he had made his first 
 appearance as an author. The sort of hostility which 
 might have brought about an adverse reception of a 
 little-known poet, such as he was in 1832, would have 
 the slightest possible effect upon the fortunes of one 
 whose reputation was now solidly established. It very 
 speedily became evident that he had now gained an 
 audience that evinced not the slightest disposition to 
 take the opinion of his productions from the hasty 
 examination of men engaged under pressure in the 
 weekly task of applause or condemnation. In all 
 great work the sense of its greatness grows upon 
 readers, the more time they have to make themselves 
 familiar mth it. Accordingly the commendation of 
 even the exceedingly few who had been outspoken in 
 their praise at the beginning seemed very faint when 
 contrasted with the fer\id eulogies which later came 
 to appear. 
 
THE PRINCESS 547 
 
 As weeks went on the appreciation of the poem 
 advanced not only steadily but rapidly. With its 
 growing popularity naturally went along its increas- 
 ing sale. The detractors who had been specially 
 vociferous when the book made its first appearance 
 were in no short time reduced to silence if not to 
 repentance. The general interest in it and admiration 
 for it, with the consequent familiarity with it which 
 followed, are made manifest by the number of lines 
 and phrases which have been contributed from it to 
 our stock of common quotations. This is no necessary 
 proof of the excellence of a work ; but it is a conclusive 
 one as to its popularity. The general approbation the 
 poem met soon showed itself in the changed tone of 
 the critical press. It is very noticeable in the case 
 of this publication that the longer the reviews of it 
 were delayed, the more cordial and appreciative they 
 were. When the shock produced by the unexpected 
 character of the work had been dissipated, the exceed- 
 ing foolishness of the early hostile notices of it struck 
 men forcibly. In more than one instance, attempts 
 were made in the later criticisms to correct the 
 unintelligent misapprehensions which had character- 
 ized the earlier. Their complete misunderstanding of 
 the nature and intention of the poem was brought out 
 distinctly. Accordingly, with the progress of time the 
 contemporary praise of *The Princess' was more and 
 more loudly expressed. It may be said to have culmi- 
 nated in Aubrey de Vere 's review in the ' Edinburgh, '^ 
 in which excessive laudation of the work as a whole 
 
 1 Vol, XC, p. 388, October, 1849. 
 
548 LIFE AND TBIES OF TENNYSON 
 
 was mingled with the scantiest measure of criticism 
 of details; and again in the enthusiastic eulogy 
 which Charles Kingsley paid it about a year later in 
 'Fraser's Magazine.'^ 
 
 These later reviews had done indeed little more than 
 record what had come to be the opinion of the educated 
 public. This had declared itself unmistakably in the 
 reception given to the poem. In its case, Tennyson's 
 frequent, one might almost call it his regular, expe- 
 rience had been repeated. This was the cool reception 
 of any new work of his, if not its actual condemnation, 
 by the great body of its early critics, and its enthu- 
 siastic welcome and constantly increasing appreciation 
 by the great body of cultivated readers. As in so 
 many other instances the public was altogether wiser 
 than those who assumed to advise it. The number of 
 copies of the first edition has been given as two 
 thousand;^ but the poet's reputation was now so 
 firmly established that this number must have been 
 exceeded in those which were later put upon the 
 market. The dates of the successive editions bear 
 convincing witness to the steadily growing popularity 
 of the work. Indeed, Charles Kingsley in his review 
 of Tennyson's poetry in 1850, while giving enthusiastic 
 praise to 'The Princess,' forbore to make many 
 quotations from it on the avowed ground that such a 
 course was unnecessary because the poem was already 
 familiar to every one. 
 
 1 Vol. XLII, p. 245, September, 1850. 
 
 2 Wise 's ' Bibliography of the Writings of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, ' 
 Vol. I, p. 100. 
 
THE PRINCESS 549 
 
 Singular, indeed, and altogether exaggerated trib- 
 utes to the greatness of the poem came, too, from 
 quarters where naturally they would seem little to be 
 expected. One in particular was from the Praeraph- 
 aelite circle. Students of literature come to be fairly 
 familiar wdth the critical vagaries of eminent men 
 of letters, their ability to find exquisite pleasure 
 in what the rest of the world finds unendurable, and 
 the height to which they carry their enthusiasm for 
 works which appear to others merely excellent. It 
 is well known that it was only in the Praeraphaelite 
 circle that Browning found approvers and applauders 
 in the days of his obscuration after the publication of 
 his 'Sordello.' Unpopular and unread everywhere 
 else, his works were hailed by them as of highest 
 value and significance. In his diary under date of 
 December 8, 1849, William Rossetti reports a conver- 
 sation between his brother and the sculptor and poet, 
 Woolner. The conclusion at which they aimed mani- 
 festly struck him as bordering on the treasonable. 
 ''Woolner," he tells us, ''came in the evening, when 
 Gabriel read The Princess through to him, and both 
 of them pronounced it the finest poem since Shake- 
 speare, superior even to Sordello/^ The veteran 
 student of literature becomes so hardened to the 
 numerous works which have been pronounced by 
 competent judges the finest since Shakespeare that 
 this particular commendation is not likely of itself to 
 make any special impression. It is the concluding 
 clause, "superior even to Sordello,^^ that brings 
 surprise and delight. But to the reporter of the con- 
 
550 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 versation it brought pain. The younger Rossetti tells 
 us he could not agree with the wild ebullition of 
 enthusiasm which reckoned 'The Princess' superior 
 even to ' Sordello. ' ' ' To the latter opinion, ' ' he added, 
 "I demur.'" 
 
 Reluctant testimony to the favor the poem had met 
 with, had been borne shortly after its publication by 
 FitzGerald, who had now begun to take up the role 
 which he never laid aside, of mourning over the failure 
 of Tennyson to reach some lofty but unnamed ideal, 
 which he himself professed to have in mind but never 
 clearly outlined. In a letter of May, 1848, to Frederick 
 Tennyson, he expressed his dissatisfaction with the 
 poem; but he admitted that he was singular in his 
 opinion. ''I am considered," he added, "a great 
 heretic for abusing it ; it seems to me a wretched waste 
 of power at a time of life when a man ought to be doing 
 his best ; and I almost feel hopeless about Alfred now. 
 I mean, about his doing what he was born to do." As 
 these words prove, FitzGerald was not satisfied with 
 the work. He indeed was not satisfied with anything 
 that Tennyson wrote after the appearance of the 
 volumes of 1842. In his opinion, everything which 
 came out subsequently indicated a falling-off. Some- 
 how the poet had failed to fulfil his early promise. 
 Exactly what he desired his friend to do, it is no easy 
 matter to make out. Had he been called upon to define 
 it himself in precise terms, he would in all probability 
 have abandoned the task in despair. At any rate if 
 it were clear to his own mind, he never made it clear 
 
 1 ' Praeraphaelite Diaries,' edited by W. M. Rossetti, p. 236. 
 
THE PRINCESS 551 
 
 to the mind of any one else. Tennyson manifestly 
 could never have satisfied him. What he wanted him 
 to do, whatever it was, was always something different 
 from what he did do. 'The Princess' did not suit him. 
 'In Memoriam' did not suit him. 'Maud' did not suit 
 him. Both Carlyle and himself, he said, gave the poet 
 up after the production of ' The Princess. ' 
 
 The opinions of two men of genius, but peculiarly 
 crotchety in their notions, are of not much real signifi- 
 cance. FitzGerald in particular was a man of curious 
 tastes and prejudices, of curious likes and dislikes. 
 He rated Frederick Tennyson as being almost as great 
 a poet as Alfred. He could not endure Jane Austen. 
 He could not read George Eliot. With Browning in 
 particular, he had no patience whatever, and even less, 
 were that possible, with the men who were chanting 
 his praises. "I abuse Bro^vning myself," he wrote 
 to Tennyson late in 1867, "and get others to abuse 
 him ; and write to you about it ; for the sake of easing 
 my own heart — not yours. Why is it . . . that, while 
 the Magazine critics are belauding him, not one of the 
 men I know, who are not inferior to the writers in the 
 Athenaeum, Edinburgh, etc. can endure, and (for the 
 most part) can read him at all?" Then he went on to 
 quote the opinions of Cowell, Thompson, Donne, and 
 Carlyle. Even Pollock himself, who was a great friend 
 of Browning, admitted that he could not succeed in 
 getting through 'The Ring and the Book,' though he 
 had tried to do so three times. Accordingly, he pre- 
 tended to have read it and let the poet so suppose. 
 
552 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 "Who then," continued FitzGerald, "are the people 
 that write the nonsense in the Reviews?'" 
 
 FitzGerald 's estimates of English poetry and poets 
 were certainly never of the conventional sort. They 
 make his belief in his own critical insight more a 
 matter of curiosity than of trust. He had little admira- 
 tion for Shelley. "What a fuss," he wrote, "the 
 cockneys make about Shelley just now, surely not 
 worth Keats' little finger."- S\vinbunie met with no 
 favor in his eyes. Matthew Arnold he set do\vn as 
 "a pedant." "Is Mr. Rossetti a Great Poet like 
 Bro^\Tiing and Morris ? " he wrote. ' ' So the Athenceum 
 tells me. Dear me, how thick Great Poets do grow 
 nowadays." On the other hand he clung to Crabbe 
 with a devotion almost pathetic after that author had 
 become to the rest of the world, save the special 
 student of literature, little more than a name. Still, 
 though he professed himself disappointed in Tenny- 
 son's not having accomplished the work, whatever 
 that was, he was appointed to do, he never abandoned 
 his faith in him as the greatest genius of his genera- 
 tion. The regard which existed between him and the 
 Paltry Poet, as he was wont to designate him in the 
 letters he wrote to Tennyson's wife, never knew 
 abatement. It must always be a matter of regret that 
 he did not live to read the affectionate dedication to 
 himself of the volume entitled 'Tiresias,' which his 
 own sudden death snatched from his sight just as it 
 was on the point of coming out. 
 
 1' Tennyson and his Friends,' p. 118, article by Dr. Warren, Presi- 
 dent of Magdalen. 
 
 2 Jbid., p. 121, article by Dr. Warren. 
 
THE PRINCESS 553 
 
 There is, however, no question that there was agree- 
 ment in other quarters with FitzGerald's general view ; 
 though, had it come to specific detail, there would have 
 been wide dissent. It is a striking illustration of the 
 hold that Tennyson had already gained over the minds 
 of men that so many were eager to point out to him 
 the precise path it was his duty to follow. One 
 persistent demand was made upon him by the critical 
 fraternity that he should set out to produce some one 
 great work, apparently some bulky work. Even 
 Spedding, the sagest of all his friends, in his review 
 of the 'Poems' of 1842, pressed upon him the necessity 
 of concentrating his energies upon a production of 
 this character. Exactly what his advisers had in mind 
 was indeed left very vague. The review of 'The 
 Princess' in 'The Examiner' — pretty certainly the 
 work of John Forster — was about the only early 
 article in the influential weekly critical press of that 
 time which was outspoken in its praise. Yet the critic, 
 while conceding the poem to be a great advance upon 
 the previous productions of its author, complained that 
 it was not great enough. Why did he not do something 
 else ? The ' ' set, ' ' he was told, whose tastes and prefer- 
 ences he was too much in the habit of consulting, was 
 not the world for which he should be writing. It soon 
 became manifest that this set embraced about all the 
 w^orld Avhose opinions were worth heeding. 
 
 Why, further, said the critic, does not Tennyson 
 assume his mission? Why had he discredited it with 
 trifling and unworthy puerilities? "Mission" was 
 the burden under which the unfortunate poet of those 
 
554 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 days was compelled to stagger, just as now he is under 
 the necessity of bearing a * 'message." Tennyson's 
 mission, so far as it can be made out from the some- 
 what obscure utterances of the time, was to write a 
 big book, a solemn book, in which there should be no 
 grafting of the burlesque upon the serious, a book 
 which all critics would agree in mentioning with 
 respect if not with praise, and which all persons really 
 fond of poetry would carefully avoid reading. To 
 advice of this sort Tennyson then turned a deaf ear. 
 He wrote much, and in many measures, and on many 
 subjects. But he must have been aware — if he was 
 not, other men were — that he was pre-eminently a 
 lyric poet. As a lyric poet he will alwaj'^s be best and 
 most permanently known. Lyric productions, further- 
 more, have the advantage of being comparatively 
 brief. Long poems will, without doubt, always con- 
 tinue to be written; seldom will they become familiar 
 to many. The instances are rare in which a single one 
 of them will reach more than a limited circle of 
 readers. Even to the majority of these it will not 
 appeal for more than a limited time. There are 
 those who think it will deserve that fate only. 
 Few certainly there are who would not gladly exchange 
 whole books of 'The Excursion' for three compara- 
 tively short pieces equal to the 'Lines on Tintern 
 Abbey,' 'Laodamia' and the 'Ode on the Intimations 
 of Immortality.' 
 
 Besides writing a work, the matter and manner of 
 which did not conform to the preconceptions of his 
 early critics and which did not suit what they called 
 
THE PRINCESS 555 
 
 their taste, and incidentally failing to fulfil his mission, 
 there was in their eyes a still further grievance. In 
 this work, Tennyson had made some daring experi- 
 ments in meter. Certain of them he himself may in 
 time have been led to regard as too daring. He had 
 been a careful student of blank verse, and had come 
 to feel that in order to have it produce its proper 
 effect, the monotony of the regularly recurring rhythm 
 must be varied, so far as the measure would permit. 
 It is manifest to any serious student of the poet's 
 writings that all these variations from the normal 
 were made designedly. They were made, too, with 
 that consummate mastery of versification which 
 Tennyson invariably manifested. But to the critics 
 who counted syllables, to whom any violation of 
 exactitude was a crime, his disregard of conventional 
 rules was an unforgivable offence. It was generally 
 agreed that either the poet could not scan, or that he 
 considered himself too great a person to adapt his 
 verses to any such requirement. The latter was the 
 general view. Accordingly, he was solemnly warned 
 that correct monotony is less displeasing than awkward 
 and unnecessary license. 
 
 As a matter of fact, much of Tennyson's finest 
 metrical workmanship is found in 'The Princess.' 
 Such was his o^vn opinion. ' ' Some of the blank verse 
 in this poem is among the best I ever wrote," he said 
 later. But these daring experiments in versification 
 annoyed and confounded, or rather outraged his early 
 critics. They gave unmeasured vent to their dissatis- 
 faction. They spoke of them as exhibiting not liberty 
 
556 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 but license. ''False and deficient quantities," said 
 one of the London literary weeklies, "occur with a 
 frequency which suggest that they have been deliber- 
 ately adopted." ''The merest mechanics of verse- 
 making are frequently disregarded," said another. 
 Then it proceeded to quote a passage as prose which 
 it said might be broken up into lines but could not be 
 turned into verse. This obstacle more intelligent 
 readers have succeeded in overcoming. "There is," 
 said one of the silliest of these early reviews, "a total 
 indifference to the artistical rules of verse or the 
 commonest semblance of poetry, which not only pre- 
 vents all choice or charm of manner supplying some 
 of the defects of matter and subject, but continually 
 repels the reader unless when it excites his surprise." 
 Such was the general tone of much of the early criti- 
 cism which occasionally extended even to later. It 
 never evidently occurred to any of these writers that 
 a man who was a great poet might possibly under- 
 stand the nature of the vehicle he employed as well 
 as those who could not attain to the dignity of being 
 even small poets; indeed might even understand it 
 better. 
 
 All views of this sort died out finally with the 
 progress of intelligence ; but at the time itself the only 
 defence of Tennyson's practice which has fallen under 
 my own observation came out in an American review 
 of the poem.^ This was the work of Professor Hadley, 
 whose comparatively early death was one of the 
 greatest losses which scholarship in this country has 
 
 1 'New Englander,' Vol. VII, p. 193, May, 1849. 
 
THE PRINCESS 557 
 
 ever been compelled to suffer. Hadley pointed out 
 the extraordinary pains that had been taken in the 
 construction of the verse, and the skill with which 
 this had been accomplished. He spoke in detail of 
 Tennyson's bold adoption of rhythmical and metrical 
 expedients which had once been in regular use, but 
 had now come to be discredited by the finical taste of 
 later times. For this freedom, stigmatized as license, 
 had been substituted a passion for monotonous uni- 
 formity. From this servility to mere form the poet 
 had broken away. Among the various instances of 
 this revolt from modern punctiliousness he specified 
 the occurrence in the line of syllables beyond the 
 orthodox number: the substitution of a trochaic foot 
 for an iambic; the blending of the final vowel of one 
 word ^vith the initial syllable of the one following, 
 especially when the latter begins mth a vowel or weak 
 consonant, or rather its rapid pronunciation so that 
 the foot was apparently not lengthened. As a result 
 of this last proceeding, a short syllable was sometimes 
 treated as if it formed no place in the meter, and 
 a dissyllable was in consequence converted into a 
 monosyllable. 
 
 In America the edition of 'The Princess' was 
 brought out in February, 1848, nearly two months 
 after its appearance in England.' Nowhere have I 
 
 1 In his journal under date of January 25, 1848, Longfellow tells 
 us that he ' ' found Fields correcting the proofs of the second edition 
 of Tennyson's Princess, the first, one thousand copies, having been sold 
 within a few weeks" ('Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,' Vol. II, 
 p, 109). This is somewhat inexplicable. According to all other testi- 
 mony there is no record of the publication of the work in this country 
 before the middle of February, and the first American edition bears 
 the date of 1848. For one proof out of many, the Boston correspondent 
 
558 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 been able to discover in the critical literature of this 
 country anything resembling the hostile attitude 
 assumed towards the poem by the English weekly 
 press on its publication. The commendation in certain 
 instances was more or less half-hearted, but there 
 must have been but little outspoken condemnation. 
 Of course, there prevailed also a certain amount of 
 the usual perfunctory criticism. Especially was this 
 to be found in the quarters where still lingered the 
 habit of re-echoing the opinion expressed in England. 
 The various and varying sentiments entertained by 
 admirers and censurers can be found adequately 
 represented in a dialogue between three different 
 imaginary characters, written by Charles Astor 
 Bristed and entitled *A Talk about the Princess.'^ 
 There is in this article another one of those singular 
 literary prophecies which rise up constantly to con- 
 found those who are disposed to put their faith in 
 the predictions of critics. The man who was soon 
 to become the most popular poet of the century in all 
 English-speaking lands, we are told here, was then 
 and always is to be ^'caviare to the general." Even 
 at the time this view would hardly be borne out by a 
 good deal of the criticism which the work had already 
 everywhere received. There was indeed expressed on 
 
 of 'The New York Literary World,' under date of February 5, announces 
 as the most remarkable event of the year that a new poem by Tennyson 
 was soon to appear, called 'The Princess.' He had been privileged to 
 see the proof sheets and from the work he quoted a number of passages. 
 Furthermore, it was not until the number of the 'Literary World' for 
 February 26 that Ticknor advertised the poem as having just been 
 published. Longfellow apparently must have been told of some new 
 edition of the ' Poems ' previously published. 
 
 1 'The American Review, a Whig Journal,' for July, 1848. 
 
THE PRINCESS 559 
 
 this side of the Atlantic in several quarters a degree 
 of praise for the poem which might justly be called 
 extravagant even by its warmest admirers. It is 
 evident that by this time Tennyson had gained a body 
 of enthusiastic partisans in this country. 
 
 There is remarkable proof of this in one American 
 criticism, which is worthy of special mention. It came 
 from James Russell Lowell and is found in 'The 
 Massachusetts Quarterly Review,' a periodical which 
 flourished from 1848 to 1850.^ As it appeared in a 
 publication which had but a short life, as it has never 
 been included in any reprint of Lowell's works, and 
 is practically no longer accessible to most readers, it 
 is worth while to give a fairly faithful summary of 
 its contents; for it represents very accurately the 
 feelings which had now come to prevail among the 
 young and ardent partisans of the poet, and in par- 
 ticular the contemptuous attitude they had begun to 
 assume towards his decriers. The opening part of it 
 was according to all appearance aimed at the critical 
 comment which had been published in the London 
 literary weeklies; for there is very little to be found 
 in the notices the work received on this side of the 
 Atlantic to deserve the censure to which Lowell gave 
 utterance. His words are further noticeable because 
 the writer came to be somewhat critical of Tennyson, 
 as his own life drew to a close. In Lowell's opinion 
 the poet's later production did not stand on as high 
 a level of achievement as his earlier. It will perhaps 
 be conceded by the majority of his most fervent 
 
 1 Vol. I, pp. 256-259, March, 1848. 
 
560 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 admirers that with a few magnificent exceptions, what 
 Tennyson wrote after the age of fifty did not come up 
 to what he wrote during his first thirty years of 
 authorship. 
 
 Lowell opened his review of this ''delicious poem," 
 as at the end he styled it, with contemptuous remarks 
 upon those who had decried it. He had heard, he said, 
 that Timms had pronounced it an entire failure. 
 Timms, he added, is the man who protects his fellow 
 citizens from being too easily pleased. He has a 
 battery erected, mounted with what he calls the 
 received canons of criticism; is familiar with all 
 schools of poetry and looks at them from the same 
 point of view. The public, he thought, had a curious 
 predilection for having its opinions made up for it 
 by the Timmses. This is perhaps true, at least for 
 a time in the case of unknown authors; but it will 
 hardly hold good of those of them who have already 
 achieved reputation. At all events, it is manifest that 
 in this instance Lowell was very far from sharing in 
 the opinion w^hich he had ascribed to Timms. Nowhere 
 can there be found in contemporary, or for that 
 matter, in later criticism, a more glowing tribute to 
 the excellence of both poem and poet. "We read the 
 book through," he wrote, "with a pleasure which 
 heightened to unqualified delight, and ended in admira- 
 tion. The poem is unique in conception and execution. 
 It is one of the few instances in literature where a 
 book is so true to the idiosyncrasy of its author that 
 we cannot conceive of the possibility of its being 
 written by any other person, no matter how gifted." 
 
THE PRINCESS 561 
 
 Lowell further added a remark to the effect that 
 the very excellence of Tennyson's workmanship had 
 to a certain extent led to the depreciation of it, or, at 
 any rate, to the lack of appreciation. ''His conception 
 is always clear, ' ' he said, ' ' his means exactly adequate, 
 and his finish perfect. So entirely free is he from any 
 appearance of effort, that many have been led to under- 
 rate him, and to praise his delicacy at the expense of 
 his strength. ' ' All of Lowell 's review was in keeping 
 with these preliminary criticisms. Indeed he may 
 almost be said to have rivalled Poe in the degree of 
 praise he gave to the poet. ''Perfection of form," 
 was his conclusion, "seems to be with him a natural 
 instinct, not an attainment." "We must therefore 
 regard 'The Princess,' " he went on to say, "as the 
 work of a master, and it must argue a poverty in our- 
 selves, if we cannot see it as a harmonious whole. 
 For so perfect is Tennyson's appreciation of his own 
 strength, that he has never in a single instance fallen 
 below himself. His self-command is not the least 
 wonderful quality in him." Lowell was especially 
 struck by his profound and delicate comprehension 
 of female character as shown in the poem. One result 
 of it, he pointed out, w^as the gradual absorption of 
 the writer in his subject, the growing predominance 
 of the poet over the mere story-teller, as the higher 
 relations existing between his characters appealed to 
 him, and the creative faculty felt itself more and more 
 tasked. 
 
 It has been worth while to give a full account of the 
 early derogatory contemporary criticism, not so much 
 
562 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 because it is occasionally echoed at the present day, 
 but because it exemplifies the state of mind with which 
 any great work of art is approached by a certain class 
 of persons, if it presents anything novel in its plan 
 or treatment. The one thing that shocks these critics 
 above everything else is originalit5^ They have 
 formed for themselves certain canons by which to 
 judge the works brought to their consideration. If 
 any production fails to conform to these, it never 
 occurs to them that it is not the work under exami- 
 nation which is at fault but the canons they have 
 adopted. We have had occasion to see that the history 
 of this poem shows how speedily the verdict of the 
 general public of the cultivated class overrode the 
 unfavorable pronouncements of its earliest critics. 
 The reason is obvious. In certain ways 'The Princess' 
 is one of the most perfect of Tennyson's works. This 
 is not to say that it is highest in aim or noblest in 
 subject, though both aim and subject are high and 
 noble. But in variety of interest, in the due proportion 
 of means to ends, in the marvellous adaptation of 
 treatment of the varying conditions of the subject- 
 matter, never degenerating into the purely burlesque, 
 never straining beyond the legitimate expression of 
 high-wrought feeling — and both these temptations 
 beset the poet constantly — he has succeeded in pro- 
 ducing within its limitations what might in justice 
 be called a nearly perfect work of art. 
 
 It is observable, as suggested by Lowell, that, as the 
 action proceeds, whatever there is of mock-heroic in 
 the character of the heroine or of the story itself, 
 
 I 
 
THE PRINCESS 563 
 
 fades more and more into the background as the play 
 of the great elemental forces which control the lives 
 of all of us becomes predominant. Inevitably, perhaps 
 unconsciously, the voice of the poet assumes a loftier 
 tone as his high conception of the true relation of the 
 sexes reveals itself with distincter clearness to his 
 mental vision. This more and more absorbed his 
 thoughts and feelings as he proceeded in the narration 
 of the story, and gradually changed the character of 
 the work from its original intention. He himself 
 recognized the fact and acknowledged it in the con- 
 clusion. In the original version, he said, 
 
 Here closed our compound story which at first 
 
 Had only meant to banter little maids 
 
 With mock-heroics and with parody; 
 
 But slipt in some strange way, crost with burlesque, 
 
 From mock to earnest, even into tones 
 
 Of tragic. 
 
 All this was changed in the third edition of 1850. In 
 that the poet dilated still further upon the fact of this 
 transition from the mock to the real heroic. Incident- 
 ally, too, he revealed his own sensitiveness to the 
 criticism of which he had been made the subject. As 
 the conclusion now stands, the words read as follows : 
 
 What style could suit ? 
 The men required that I should give throughout 
 The sort of mock-heroic gigantesque, 
 With which we banter 'd little Lilia first: 
 The women — and perhaps they felt their power, 
 For something in the ballads which they sang, 
 Or in their silent influence as they sat, 
 
564 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 Had ever seem'd to wrestle with burlesque, 
 
 And drove us, last, to quite a solemn close — 
 
 They hated banter, wish'd for something real, 
 
 A gallant fight, a noble princess — why 
 
 Not make her true-heroic — true-sublime? 
 
 Or all, they said, as earnest as the close ? 
 
 "Which yet with such a framework scarce could be. 
 
 Then rose a little feud betwixt the two. 
 
 Betwixt the mockers and the realists : 
 
 And I, betwixt them both, to please them both. 
 
 And yet to give the story as it rose, 
 
 I moved as in a strange diagonal. 
 
 And maybe neither pleased myself nor them. 
 
 The one serious defect in the poem is the essentially 
 uninteresting character of the Prince. We do not 
 expect indeed in the hero of a tale, who is also its 
 narrator, a proclamation, still less an exaltation of 
 the heroic in his own nature. Still, to make him an 
 object of regard for the reader there should be a 
 suggestion of its possibility. Mild and amiable he is 
 represented as being, mth not merely correct but noble 
 sentiments, and with fullest devotion to the woman 
 whom he has never seen but to whom he has been 
 proxy-wedded. Furthermore, we can concede him the 
 fullest sympathy with the ends at which his destined 
 bride aims, though not sharing her belief in the means 
 to attain it or in the proper relation of the sexes. But 
 everywhere in the poem is left on the reader's mind 
 the feeling that there is something lacking in the 
 character — the impression of a certain gentleness, 
 tending to degenerate into feebleness, the attitude of 
 a love-sick boy, not that of a strong, earnest, and 
 
THE PRINCESS 565 
 
 determined man. The Prince is not ignobly weak, but 
 still he is weak; and the sense of his weakness is 
 rendered more emphatic by its contrast with the 
 strength and loftiness of the nature of the Princess, 
 who with all her errors is not only every inch a woman, 
 but every inch a queen. All this was manifest in the 
 poem as it originally appeared; but in the later 
 and definitive form it assumed, it was disagreeably 
 accentuated. 
 
 As a general rule, Tennyson's afterthoughts and 
 changes, whether in the shape of omissions or addi- 
 tions, are distinct improvements. There are a few 
 exceptions, and here is one of the few. It was bad 
 enough so to portray the personages of the story 
 that the hero is completely overshadowed by the 
 heroine and one is almost tempted to think poorly of 
 her for falling in love mth him at all. The character 
 of the Princess was deservedly a favorite with Tenny- 
 son himself. It was doubtless intended that the Prince 
 should not come up to her height. For that matter, 
 as she is depicted, few men would. This, however, can 
 hardly be regarded as a justification for making the 
 inferiority of the hero so pronounced as it was even 
 in the first instance. But not content with having 
 impressed upon the reader's mind at the outset a sense 
 of this inferiority, Tennyson proceeded in the later 
 version of the poem to make the inferiority seem even 
 more inferior by the introduction of a physical defect 
 which conduced still further to his undesirability. To 
 represent him as subject to '' weird seizures," as 
 Tennyson did in the fourth and subsequent editions, 
 
566 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 was still further to widen the gap which existed 
 between the two originally. It is not likely that the 
 affliction, which the court physician politely murmurs 
 as catalepsy, would recommend a suitor to any woman, 
 least of all to one possessed of so lofty a nature, both 
 mental and physical, as the Princess. Certainly, it 
 does not recommend him to the reader. 
 
 One explanation has been given of this addition to 
 the effect that Tennyson himself came more and more 
 to be sensible of the inferiority of the hero to the 
 heroine. Accordingly, he set up the weird seizures 
 as an explanation of the failure of the Prince to reach 
 the height which the Princess occupies without effort. 
 If so, it was an unfortunate expedient to which he 
 resorted; for the characteristic designed to palliate 
 the weakness of the character serves only to aggravate 
 it. Far more likely is it that Tennyson was led to 
 introduce these weird seizures because to a certain 
 extent they were suggested by peculiar experiences 
 of his o^vn. From his boyhood he was subject to what 
 for the lack of a better name he called waking trances. 
 A transcript of these may be found in the ninety-fifth 
 section of 'In Memoriam,' and in the concluding lines 
 of 'The Holy Grail,' in which King Arthur gives his 
 reasons for not taking part in its quest. A prose 
 version of the same mental phenomenon was furnished 
 by Tennyson himself in a letter written in 1874. In 
 it he gave to a correspondent a feeble description, as 
 he said, of a state which in his opinion it was beyond 
 the power of words to represent accurately. "This," 
 he wrote, "has often come upon me through repeating 
 
 I 
 
THE PRINCESS 567 
 
 my o^vn name to myself silently till, all at once, as it 
 were, out of the intensity of the consciousness of 
 individuality the individuality itself seemed to dissolve 
 and fade away into boundless being, and this not a 
 confused state, but the clearest, the surest of the 
 surest, utterly beyond words, where death was an 
 almost laughable impossibility, the loss of personality 
 (if so it were) seeming no extinction, but only the 
 true life."^ All such experience is proper enough for 
 him who leads a contemplative life. Especially is it 
 proper for a poet. To a man of action, however, such 
 as the Prince is designed to be, experiences of this sort 
 are totally unbefitting in circumstances when action 
 is imperatively called for. As a consequence, instead 
 of elevating the character, they tend to lower it. 
 
 1 Letter of May 7, 1874, as cited in John Cuming Walters 's * In 
 Tennyson Land,' p, 38. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 POET LAUREATE 
 
 On the twenty-third of April, 1850, Wordsworth 
 died. He had hardly been laid in his grave when 
 discussion sprang np as to who should succeed him as 
 poet laureate. It extended to the desirability of 
 continuing the office. There were those who thought 
 that it was high time that this post, whose duties had 
 now become nominal, should be abolished. Others who 
 were averse to so radical a measure took the ground 
 that its character should be changed. All sorts of 
 propositions indeed were urged in regard to the 
 position. One, for instance, was to the effect that it 
 should be granted for but a single year with the right, 
 however, of reappointment. It was to be continued 
 in the hands of the same holder during what might 
 be called good behavior. The most powerful of the 
 London dailies advocated the abolition of the title 
 altogether.^ It had become, it said, nothing but a 
 nickname. The emoluments connected with the office 
 should be bestowed upon a deserving man of letters 
 without the ridiculous accompaniment of the bays. 
 "The title," it continued, ''is no longer an honour." 
 The phrase "no longer" presents a certain difficulty 
 to the student of literary history. He would be some- 
 
 1' Times,' April 25, 1850. 
 
 1 
 
POET LAUREATE 569 
 
 what at a loss to discover any prolonged period in the 
 past when it was regarded as an honor by any one else 
 than the actual holder. It required, the writer added, 
 the reputation of a Southey or a "Wordsworth to carry 
 them without injury to their fame through an office 
 so entirely removed from the ideas and habits of the 
 present time, and which in the past had been frequently 
 rendered disreputable both by the character and the 
 abilities of its holder. 
 
 Almost from the beginning, indeed, the office of poet 
 laureate had had a good deal of the time a fairly fatal 
 tendency to fall into contempt. As long as one of its 
 duties was the production of odes for set occasions, 
 this was inevitable; for poetry produced to order is 
 in general one of the most deplorable results of human 
 incapacity. But the degradation of the office had been 
 mainly due to its having been conferred as a reward 
 for party allegiance or political service. After Dryden 
 had been deprived of the position, it was held by a 
 succession of poetical nonentities from the days of 
 Shadwell to those of Pye, the poorness of which is 
 little relieved by the names of Rowe and Warton. 
 Hence the most eminent men were unfiling to accept 
 it. Gray refused it; so did Walter Scott. Southey 
 was willing to take it, for he thought himself as being 
 on the whole the greatest poet of his generation, and 
 accordingly the office was a legitimate tribute to his 
 eminence. He could not bring to the position great 
 poetic ability; but he could and did bring it respecta- 
 bility. His successor, Wordsworth, conferred upon it 
 reputation. Consequently, when he died, no one 
 
570 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 seemed to the men of that day fitted to take his place. 
 Hence arose the demand for the abolition of the office 
 altogether or a complete change in its character. 
 
 Even before Wordsworth died, there had been 
 occasional talk as to the one likely to be chosen as his 
 successor. Some of the names suggested — then as well 
 as afterwards — sound oddly enough now. Writers 
 were occasionally mentioned — and that, too, by men 
 of intelligence — whom it is hard to conceive as having 
 been thought of by any rational being. One of them 
 was the Quaker poet, Bernard Barton. To him 
 in December, 1846, William Bodham Donne wrote 
 expressing the opinion that if the office became vacant 
 he would be selected for the position. ''If the Daddy," 
 he said — Daddy was the name applied to Wordsworth 
 by some of his younger admirers — ''was to die, I 
 think you would be made laureate. ' ' As the death of 
 Barton took place before that of the holder of the 
 office, his name necessarily did not come up for consid- 
 eration ; but his chances for receiving the position were 
 precisely the same after that event as they would have 
 been before it. Another poet thought of by some, 
 especially those of the older generation, was Henry 
 Taylor. He himself informs us that George Cornwall 
 Lewis, then a member of Lord John Russell's first 
 administration, meeting him after the death of Words- 
 worth, told him that he had suggested to the prime 
 minister that the laureateship should be offered to him. 
 Lewis was surprised to hear that Tennyson had been 
 under consideration. In his opinion that poet was but 
 little known, and his claims would not be generally 
 
POET LAUREATE 571 
 
 recognized. ''Living," wrote Taylor, "amongst the 
 men in London who were the most eminent in litera- 
 ture, he had yet lived so far apart from poetry, that 
 the poet who for some years past had eclipsed every 
 other in popularity was supposed by him to be 
 obscure." After reading the account of this conver- 
 sation, we hardly need Taylor's further assurance that 
 the mind of Levvis was essentially prosaic. 
 
 At the time itself, indeed, any one who had the 
 slightest claim to distinction as a writer of verse was 
 fairly sure to be suggested by somebody. In certain 
 cases it was done vrith the consent of the person 
 mentioned, in other cases without it. Even the name 
 of that sorry rhymester, Charles Mackay, was brought 
 to the attention of the public. Mackay 's earlier 
 excursions in poetry were almost as wretched as his 
 later excursions in philology. But he had the good 
 fortune to have certain of his pieces made generally 
 familiar as songs. In consequence he owed to the 
 music to which his words were set a consideration 
 which never could or would have been given to the 
 words themselves. He, however, in all sincerity 
 believed himself to be a poet, and the success secured 
 for his cheap verses by the agency of another art he 
 attributed to their o^\ti inherent excellence. The 
 surprising thing is that others were found at that time 
 to take the same view. Much more deserving of 
 respect was the name of Bryan Waller Procter, better 
 known as Barry Cornwall. He had written some fine 
 lyrics ; but he was too well aware of his own limitations 
 to entertain for a moment any thought of his fitness 
 
572 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 for the post. Richard Monckton Milnes and Robert 
 Browning are said by later writers to have been 
 suggested also. This may very likely have been the 
 case ; though no mention of them has fallen under my 
 own observation in the necessarily limited consultation 
 of the periodical literature of the time. 
 
 No attention whatever was paid to these various 
 proposals by the authorities in whom the power of 
 appointment existed. The post was offered in the 
 first place to Rogers. On the eighth of May a letter 
 was written to him by Prince Albert, acting in behalf 
 of the Queen, tendering him the position.^ One gets 
 the impression that this action seems to have been 
 taken not as a tribute to his poetic eminence, but 
 rather as a recognition of his merit in having lived 
 so long. One of the most perplexing questions with 
 which the modern student of literature has to deal is 
 the vogue which Rogers early attained as a poet and 
 more or less retained during the whole of his long life. 
 His ' Pleasures of Memory, ' upon which his reputation 
 mainly rests, is one of the pleasures in which readers 
 of to-day rarely indulge. The acquisition of its 
 original repute is not so hard to understand. It came 
 out in the interval between the decadence of the 
 eighteenth-century poetical school and the great out- 
 burst of song which marked the very close of the 
 eighteenth century and the first quarter of the nine- 
 teenth. The work originally appeared in 1792. Before 
 the seventh year after its publication had been 
 reached, it had gone through six editions. It was 
 
 1 p. W. Clayden 's ' Eogers and his Contemporaries, ' Vol. II, p. 352. 
 
POET LAUREATE 573 
 
 reprinted again and again during the first half of the 
 nineteenth century. The succeeding productions of 
 Rogers met with a respectable degree of favor. None 
 of them, however, rivalled in popularity 'The Pleas- 
 ures of Memory.' But the glamour of his early 
 achievement still continued to hang about the poet and 
 gave a sort of fictitious repute to whatever he later 
 published. Though his best work was far surpassed 
 by many of his contemporaries, the general voice 
 nevertheless accorded him a high position in the ranks 
 of the poetical fraternity. Nor was the lofty opinion 
 entertained of him the opinion of men intellectually 
 inferior. As late as 1830, Macaulay could not refrain 
 from expressing his surprise at the estimation in 
 which Rogers was held, agreeable enough as he consid- 
 ered his writings to be. ''That such men," he wrote, 
 ''as Lord Granville, Lord Holland, Hobhouse, Lord 
 Byron, and others of high rank in intellect, should 
 place Rogers, as they do, above Southey, Moore and 
 even Scott himself, is what I can not conceive. But 
 this comes of being in the highest society of London. 
 What Lady Jane Granville called the Patronage of 
 Fashion can do as much for a middling poet as for a 
 plain girl like Miss Arabella Falconer.'" 
 
 There were other causes, however, which contributed 
 to the maintenance of the reputation of Rogers. Some 
 of the good opinion entertained of him was due to the 
 generosity displayed by him towards his less fortunate 
 literary brothers. His hand and tongue were always 
 
 1 Macaulay 's 'Life and Letters,' Vol. I, p. 198, Letter of June 3, 
 1831. 
 
574 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 at war. He had a habit of saying about contemporary 
 men of letters sharp and at times bitter things. He 
 rarely failed to comment upon their defects of nature 
 or of intellect. But in the times of their distress and 
 pecuniary trouble he was fairly sure to come to their 
 relief. His aid too was always given unostentatiously 
 and as a general rule secretly. Tested by his utter- 
 ances he would often appear one of the most unamiable 
 not to say malicious of men. Measured by his deeds 
 he was one of the kindest and most generous. This 
 naturally led many of his literary friends to take a 
 peculiarly favorable view of what he had accomplished. 
 Other circumstances there were which contributed to 
 this result besides the reason suggested by Macaulay. 
 At Rogers's house were to be met the men most 
 brilliant in the literary and intellectual world. It was 
 an honor for any young aspirant for distinction in 
 letters to be invited to sit at his table. It was not for 
 the guest at such a gathering to indulge in deprecia- 
 tory, still less sarcastic, comments upon the poetry of 
 his host. Much rather was he disposed to accord him 
 all the praise his conscience would permit him to utter. 
 It was indeed inevitable that the man of letters just 
 setting forth upon his career should be grateful for 
 the privilege of sitting down at a table where he was 
 surrounded on every side by those who had already 
 attained reputation. It was equally inevitable that 
 he should contribute to any periodical with which he 
 chanced to be connected a more or less flattering 
 opinion of the poet and his work. He would certainly 
 
POET LAUREATE 575 
 
 have no disposition to expose faults and imperfections 
 even if he saw them plainly. 
 
 The laureateship indeed seemed almost a perquisite 
 of the literary position to which Rogers had now 
 attained. That it should be offered him partook 
 almost of the nature of necessity. No one seems any- 
 where to have entered an objection. It is a tribute 
 to his owTi good sense that he declined it. Even in 
 the most extreme self -estimate he took of himself, the 
 contrast between his o^vn work and that of Words- 
 worth must have been apparent. What he saw so well, 
 he knew that others would fancy that they could see 
 better. The position afforded tempting opportunities 
 for sarcasm and detraction. He could feel assured 
 that there were those who would only be too glad to 
 avail themselves of them. Furthermore, he was now 
 eighty-seven years old. This gave him a justifiable 
 reason for declining an honor to which in his secret 
 heart he must have felt himself in no wise entitled. 
 Accordingly he pleaded the excuse of age. It seems 
 to have been willingly accepted. By the offer itself 
 due respect had been paid to the oldest survivor of 
 the Georgian era. The filling of the office remained 
 in consequence in abeyance and the claims of the 
 various candidates for the position continued to be 
 warmly pressed, and their qualifications as warmly 
 discussed. 
 
 Before the place had been offered to Rogers and 
 declined, there were several other poets, as has been 
 said, who had been suggested as worthy to hold the 
 office. Of some the claims were earnestly pushed either 
 
576 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 by themselves or by their friends. One of these men 
 was Leigh Hunt. He had a very respectable band of 
 supporters, nor did he himself pretend to disguise his 
 desire for the honor. In the early part of June, 1850, 
 appeared his autobiography. The discussion of the 
 one who was to be or ought to be the future poet 
 laureate was then going on vigorously in the press. 
 Towards the conclusion of the work. Hunt took up 
 the consideration of his own claims to the position 
 and hinted unmistakably that he would not be averse 
 to accepting it, were it offered. He considered dis- 
 passionately the arguments that could be brought in 
 his favor and those that might militate against the 
 bestowal upon him of an office of that character. On 
 the one hand, he had been in the past a sort of volunteer 
 laureate. He had celebrated in verse her Majesty's 
 birthday and also the birthdays of the royal children. 
 To his admiration for the Queen and to the natural 
 loyalty he felt for a female sovereign were to be 
 attributed those effusions of gratitude which had been 
 thought by some to give him a claim to the post. Any 
 such view he disavowed, for, as he observed, gratitude 
 makes no claim. 
 
 On the other hand, conditions might be required 
 which it was impossible for him to meet. '*! do not 
 mean with regard to poetical qualifications," he said; 
 **for without entering into comparison of myself with 
 others, which neither my modesty nor my pride will 
 allow, it would be an affectation and a falsehood in 
 me to pretend that I do not hold myself to possess 
 them. I venture even to think, and this too, without 
 
POET LAUREATE 577 
 
 any disparagement to court taste, that I should make 
 a better court poet than some who are superior to me 
 in respects not courtly. And sure I am, that in one 
 respect I should make a very rare poet, as far as the 
 world has hitherto seen; for I should write from the 
 heart. I have done so already. ' ' Then he went on to 
 discuss the political and religious objections which 
 might be brought against conferring the office upon a 
 man holding the opinions he did. His conclusion was 
 that if these opinions had nothing to do with the post, 
 he should rejoice to be thought worthy of it. It is 
 manifest indeed from his remarks that Hunt con- 
 sidered himself the poetical equal of any person who 
 had been named for the position. This desire for it 
 too must have been expressed elsewhere than in this 
 autobiography. There is a reference to the fact in 
 a letter from Mrs. Browning to Miss Mitford. It was 
 written from Florence and dated the fifteenth of June. 
 By that time the work containing the sentiments just 
 quoted could hardly have reached Italy. "I think," 
 Mrs. Browning expressed herself, '* Leigh Hunt should 
 have the Laureateship. He has condescended to wish 
 for it, and he has 'worn his singing clothes' longer 
 than most of his contemporaries, deserving the price 
 of long as well as noble service."^ 
 
 Not so, however, thought many others. Among 
 those who took a very conspicuous part in the discus- 
 sion of the appointment was Henry Fothergill Chorley. 
 He was at that time musical editor of 'The Athenaeum' 
 and was further responsible for many of its criticisms 
 
 1 ' Letters of Mrs. Browning, ' Vol. I, p. 452. 
 
578 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 of books. He was in many ways a man of fair, though 
 of far from commanding ability. He had led a some- 
 what checkered literary career. He had written novels 
 which had not succeeded, he had written plays which 
 had not succeeded, he had written poetry which had 
 not succeeded. Accordingly he may be said to have 
 answered fully to that ancient ill-natured description 
 of the reviewing fraternity which Disraeli was the last 
 to formulate in a condensed form, that a critic is one 
 who has failed in literature and art. In regard to this 
 particular matter under discussion, Chorley had one 
 set idea in his mind. A woman was on the throne. 
 If the laureateship was to be retained, the proper 
 person to fill it was a woman, provided one sufficiently 
 worthy were found. Such a one did exist. She was 
 Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Her he had had in his 
 eye from the outset. In the number of ' The Athenaeum' 
 for June 1, he announced that as yet there had been 
 no decision as to the holder of the post. Now for the 
 first time he indicated his own choice in unmistakable 
 terms. 
 
 Chorley was not the only one who took the position 
 that since the throne was occupied by a woman, it was 
 peculiarly fitting that the laureateship should be held 
 by a woman. There was a widespread feeling that 
 such action would be a graceful tribute to the Queen 
 herself. Unfortunately for its advocates, she herself 
 manifestly did not share in the sentiment. More than 
 one female name was mentioned as worthy to fill the 
 post. A reviewer, for instance, while urging in an 
 influential periodical that the office should not be given 
 
POET LAUREATE 579 
 
 up, expressed a preference for the selection of a 
 particular woman as its holder. ''Had we a voice on 
 the subject," he wrote, "we should ^Yish. that, in 
 memory of the illustrious dead, and in the feeling of 
 gratitude to one of the most graceful writers li\'ing, 
 the laurel were bestowed on the wife of Southey, as 
 the writer whom we have all known and all admired 
 as Caroline Bowles."^ But such nominations for the 
 post were merely expressions of individual preference. 
 As at this time Mrs. BroA\Tiing stood at the head of 
 all the poetesses of her country in popular estimation, 
 her name was the one almost invariably mentioned, 
 when a woman was mentioned as the proper one to 
 hold the position. ' ' In the reign of a youthful queen, ' ' 
 wrote Chorley, ''if there be among her subjects one 
 of her own sex whom the laurel ^\t.11 fit, its grant to a 
 female would be at once an honourable testimonial to 
 the indi\T.dual, a fitting recognition of the remarkable 
 place which the women of England have taken in the 
 literature of the day, and a graceful compliment to the 
 Sovereign herself. It happens to fall in well with this 
 view of the case that there is no living poet of either 
 sex who can prefer a higher claim than Mrs. Elizabeth 
 Barrett Bro\^^ling." It is clear that the Queen, if 
 she thought of the matter at all, was not in the least 
 impressed by the desirability of appointing a woman 
 to the office because she herself was a woman. She 
 could not help being aware that so far as any glory 
 would redound to her reign from the selection, it would 
 come from the genius and not the sex of the holder. 
 
 1' North British Eeview,' November, 1850, Vol. XIV, p. 167. 
 
580 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 It is a singular illustration of the state of contem- 
 porary opinion that while Mrs. Browning's name was 
 prominently mentioned for the post of laureate, that 
 of her husband seems hardly to have been thought of, 
 though during the fifth decade of the century he had 
 published his series of 'Bells and Pomegranates' con- 
 taining some of his finest work. If he was mentioned 
 at all, it could hardly have been in any quarter which 
 carried weight with the public. Mrs. Browning was 
 doubtless grateful to Chorley for his championship of 
 her claims, though at heart she was probably amused 
 by it. She manifestly never entertained the slightest 
 expectation of being named for the post ; for her good 
 sense never failed her, save in continuing to retain 
 affection for her despicable brute of a father. Never- 
 theless her advocate persisted in vigorously urging 
 her selection. But after the declination by Rogers, 
 Leigh Hunt and Tennyson were the two poets who 
 were the most prominent as candidates in the eyes of 
 the general public. In regard to them Chorley assumed 
 an almost aggressive attitude. In a way which now 
 seems amusing, but must then have seemed presump- 
 tuous, he solemnly warned off both of them from 
 aspiring to the position. It did not please him at all 
 that Leigh Hunt should let it be known that he would 
 be gratified to receive the appointment. No charge of 
 that sort indeed could be brought against Tennyson. 
 Neither directly nor indirectly did he make the 
 slightest effort to push his pretensions, nor did he 
 indicate in any way his desire for the office. 
 
 Still, Tennyson's poetical position had now become 
 
POET LAUREATE 581 
 
 so assured that it was inevitable that his claims should 
 come up for consideration. As we have seen, his name 
 had been proposed for the post on the death of Southey 
 in 1843. That it should then have been suggested at 
 all was evidence of the growth of his reputation; for 
 any mention of him as a candidate for the position 
 would have been hardly possible before the publication 
 of the volumes of 1842. Even at that late day enough 
 of the old prejudice against Wordsworth had still 
 survived to provoke dissent at his selection, though 
 it was in general little audible. But if objection could 
 be raised against the one man who had come to be 
 generally reckoned the first of li\dng English poets, 
 we need not be told what an outbreak of protest there 
 would have been had the choice then fallen upon him 
 who in the eyes of many was little more than the chief 
 of a poetic school, and furthermore of a school for 
 which they had no admiration, even if they did not 
 entertain for it distinct aversion. But by the year 
 1850, the sentiments of the cultivated public had under- 
 gone a complete revolution. Tennyson had now come 
 to stand in its eyes as the recognized head of the poets 
 of his own generation. There was in consequence a 
 widespread sentiment that if the post were to be 
 conferred upon the ground of desert, he was the one 
 upon whom the choice should fall. 
 
 But such were far from being Chorley's sentiments. 
 In the columns of the weekly literary paper with which 
 he was connected he gave again and again expression 
 of his hostility towards any action of this sort. A few 
 days after "Wordsworth's death he observed that he 
 
582 LIFE AND TIIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 had been given to understand that the laureateship 
 was likely to fall to the lot of Tennyson. Against any 
 such action he protested earnestly. He declared he 
 could not believe the report to be true. Tennyson's 
 poetical claims had been already rewarded with a 
 pension of three hundred pounds a year. To give him 
 further one of the few pecuniary provisions set apart 
 for men of letters would be a great wrong inflicted 
 upon his brethren and ''not justified by the pre- 
 eminence of his desert.'" It is manifest from the 
 critic 's subsequent utterances that he was not thinking 
 so much of the poet's literary brothers as of his 
 literary sisters. In the following week he corrected 
 his mistake as to the amount of the poet's pension; 
 but he insisted that this slip left entirely unaffected 
 the objection to what he called the accumulation of 
 literary benefices in a single person.^ It is evident 
 from Chorley's various utterances that in his opinion 
 offices of this sort should be divided round. The 
 eminence of the poet, due to the worthiness of his 
 work, should not be the main consideration in granting 
 this particular prize from the public treasury. ' ' There 
 is more than one worthy recipient of the laurel," he 
 remarked, — ' ' and more than one, unhappily, the state 
 of whose fortunes makes it needful that the leaves 
 should be gilded." According to this view, the 
 laureateship was not to be offered to him most fitted 
 by his genius to hold it, but to be treated as one of the 
 
 1 * Athenaeum, ' April 27, p. 451. 
 
 2 Ibid., May 4, p. 477. 
 
POET LAUREATE 583 
 
 offices to be distributed among the deserving who had 
 the additional recommendation of being poor. 
 
 This ^dew led him later to inveigh more than once 
 against the selection of Leigh Hunt. He became 
 excited when later the rumor reached his ears that 
 this particular author was to receive the laurel. 
 Accordingly he now proceeded to speak much more 
 strongly than before. He observed that many of his 
 contemporaries had urged this appointment. '^We 
 hope," he said, ''no such injustice, in all senses of the 
 word, will be committed." The references he made 
 to his candidacy were far from complimentary. His 
 views as to Hunt's poetical position varied widely 
 from those entertained by Hunt himself. If ability 
 in that particular were to be regarded as the only 
 consideration, his claims were far below those of 
 Tennyson. If the latter was ruled out by the fact of 
 his ha^T.ng received a pension, much more would the 
 former, who, in addition to his having received one, 
 was distinctly inferior as a poet to his contemporary. 
 To give the laureateship to him would be to prostitute 
 the office ''and to do great wrong to yet unpensioned 
 genius which may need the profit that is legitimately 
 its due." Once more he returned to the advocacy of 
 the claims of the poetess whom he had already desig- 
 nated as the one upon whom the choice ought to fall. 
 By conferring the position on Mrs. Browning, a grace- 
 ful compliment would be paid to the youthful sovereign 
 in thus recognizing the remarkable literary place taken 
 by women in her reign. Then followed the only 
 instance which has come under my observation — doubt- 
 
584 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 less there were others — of the fact that Browning 
 himself was looked upon as a poet by any one of those 
 who took part in the discussion. ' ' This appropriation 
 of the laurel," Chorley remarked, ''has another argu- 
 ment in its favour : — it would in a manner recompense 
 two poets by a single act. ' '^ 
 
 But while controversy on the subject was still going 
 on, 'In Memoriam' was published. Tennyson's pros- 
 pects for the gift of the laurel had been bright before, 
 so far as that depended on the favor of the public. 
 Still they could hardly be called certain. The appear- 
 ance, however, of this work changed at once the whole 
 situation. It made his superiority to any possible 
 aspirant so manifest that tlie claims of all others were 
 cast utterly in the shade by comparison with those 
 of the poet, who, by this last poem had established 
 himself firmly in the regard of the English-speaking 
 people every^vhere. With the passing of every week, 
 the recognition of his pre-eminence became more 
 significantly notable and noticeable. In the eyes of 
 the cultivated classes he was the one marked out to be 
 the coming wearer of the laurel. The public voice was 
 heeded by the court. In truth, it was doubtless the 
 same as its ovro. voice. On the third of October, a 
 letter of inquiry about Tennyson was addressed by 
 Lord John Russell to Rogers. Its purport was not 
 to ask about Tennj'"son's poetical fitness, but to gain 
 some knowledge of his personal character. The prime 
 minister was in this instance acting as the mouthpiece 
 of the Queen. He expressly said that her Majesty 
 
 1 ' Athenaeum, ' June 22, p. 662. 
 
POET LAUREATE 585 
 
 was inclined to bestow the office on Mr. Tennyson/ 
 According to the statement made in the authorized life 
 of the poet, his selection for the post was chiefly due 
 to the admiration of Prince Albert for * In Memoriam. ' 
 How the result was actually reached — whether the 
 Queen influenced the Prince Consort or the Prince 
 Consort influenced the Queen, or whether both came 
 independently to the same conclusion — may never be 
 definitely known. What is certain is, that the opinion 
 of the two highest persons in the state accorded with 
 that of the public. 
 
 Tennyson himself had not made the slightest effort, 
 either by word or act, to secure the position or even 
 to indicate the least desire for it. Still he could hardly 
 have been ignorant that his name had been very 
 frequently mentioned in connection with the post. A 
 singular story is told that the night before he received 
 the notice of the intended appointment — which was 
 that of November 4 — he dreamt that Prince Albert 
 came and kissed him on the cheek and that his comment 
 to himself on the act was ''Very kind but very 
 German."- On the following morning the official 
 notice reached him from Windsor Castle that the 
 position had been offered to him as a mark of her 
 Majesty's appreciation of his literary distinction, and 
 as an indication of her desire that the name of the poet 
 appointed should adorn the office. The disbeliever in 
 divination by dreams may well believe that rumor at 
 least of the Prince's desire that the post should be 
 
 1 p. W. Clayden 's ' Rogers and his Contemporaries, ' Vol. II, p. 354. 
 
 2 ' Memoir, ' Vol. I, p. 335. 
 
586 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 conferred upon him had somehow come to the ears 
 of the poet. Tennyson took a day to consider the offer, 
 and on his announcement of his acceptance the appoint- 
 ment was made on the nineteenth of November. 
 
 There is no doubt that there was a substantial 
 agreement among the members of the cultivated 
 classes that the choice was not only the best but the 
 only appropriate one that could have been made. 
 Naturally there was dissatisfaction on the part of 
 some. There was ignorance to be encountered, there 
 was env>^, there was jealousy. All this was inevitable. 
 But the dissatisfied were so comparatively few in 
 number and as a general rule so insignificant in 
 consideration that their dissent tended rather to excite 
 pity for their literary taste than indignation at their 
 attitude. Among the dissatisfied, we are told, were 
 some of the relatives of the dead laureate. They 
 waxed exceedingly indignant at the choice made of 
 his successor, though it is hard to see that it was any 
 concern of theirs. They forgot, too, how unfavorably 
 the appointment of Wordsworth himself had been 
 looked on in various quarters. But there is no question 
 that the selection of Tennyson met general approval 
 and in particular the approval of what may be called 
 Young England. 
 
 But one person there was who was very far from 
 being satisfied. Nor could he be consoled. This man 
 was Chorley. He always had taken himself seriously; 
 and it was hard for him to conceal the indignation he 
 felt that the one he had fixed upon as the recipient 
 of the laurel had not been appointed — had apparently 
 
POET LAUREATE 587 
 
 not even been considered. He gave at once a most 
 amusing exliibition of the wrath he felt for the little 
 deference which had been paid to his \^ews, and 
 incidentally revealed the high importance he attached 
 to his own position as a critic, accompanied though 
 it was with a not unfrequent manifestation of critical 
 incompetence. ''The office of Laureate," he wrote, 
 ''after having been allowed to remain vacant so long, 
 has been finallj^ filled up according to that spirit of 
 caprice which presides ordinarily over Lord John 
 Eussell's bestowal of the national gifts. The laurel 
 has been given to Mr. Tennyson. We have already 
 said, by anticipation, that, against this appropriation 
 as regards Mr. Tennyson's fitness to wear it we have 
 not a word to say. Poetically speaking, it has been 
 often worse bestowed : — and, in fact, Mr. Tennyson is 
 expressly one of those legitimately designated for the 
 honour. But so long as there are others on whose 
 brows it would have been as fitly placed — and so long 
 as the nation has few literary crowns to give away, — 
 we hold that the multiplication of its benefices to a 
 single subject is in so far an abuse of the patronage 
 which the Minister exercises in the name of the 
 country. Mr. Tennyson has already had his unques- 
 tionably high title recognized in the form of a pension ; 
 and there are others the laurel on whose forehead 
 might as fitly have received the Court stamp, — which 
 happens to have a money value as all its worth. ' ' 
 
 Poor Lord John Russell, the prime minister, had in 
 all probability as little directly to do with the selection 
 of the poet laureate as Chorley himself. But when 
 
588 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 we consider the names of those who have filled the 
 post, it is hard to refrain from paying a tribute of 
 deference to the ignorance or impudence of the critic — 
 it is impossible to tell which was the predominating 
 influence — in his remark that poetically speaking the 
 office had been worse bestowed. Chorley returned to 
 his idea that the offices in the gift of the Crown should 
 be doled out, not so much according to the exceeding 
 merit of the recipients as to their real or imagined 
 need of money. This he brought out again in his final 
 lamentation over the failure to bestow the laurel upon 
 Mrs. Browning. ''In particular," he said further, 
 **the opportunity has been lost of doing an act which, 
 while it would have been equally one of justice with 
 any other appropriation of the office that could be 
 named, would, as we have before pointed out, have 
 had a peculiar grace and significance in the reign of 
 a youthful Queen, — over a people, so striking a portion 
 of whose literary force is for the moment constituted 
 by women. This, however, we presume, was too 
 chivalrous a view of the subject for the Minister, — 
 who has a trick of looking for his favourites down the 
 back stairs."^ Exactly what meaning he meant to 
 convey by the phrase "looking down the back stairs" 
 is not clear to the modern reader. The most intent 
 gaze in that direction would not have revealed the 
 presence of Tennyson, who had held himself absolutely 
 aloof from the slightest effort to press his claim for 
 the position. 
 
 1 ' Athenaeum, ' November 23, 1850, p. 1218. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM 
 
 The year 1850 was a peculiarly eventful one in 
 Tennyson's life. In the early half of it he was 
 married ; in the latter half he was made poet laureate. 
 But as regards the growth of his reputation and his 
 acceptance by the world of readers, a still more 
 important event had occurred. This was the publi- 
 cation of *In Memoriam.' About two weeks before 
 his marriage, appeared this collection of poems. It 
 gave its author at once a place in the regard of his 
 countrymen from which the most malignant assaults 
 of his depredators have never succeeded in dislodging 
 him. 
 
 Before entering upon an account of *In Memoriam,' 
 it is desirable to give in detail certain facts — many of 
 which are well known, but some of which have never 
 been recorded — in the life of the man who was 
 its subject. Arthur Henry Hallam was the eldest 
 son of the historian, Henry Hallam. He was born 
 February 1, 1811. His preliminary education was at 
 Eton, which he entered in 1822 and left in 1827. There 
 he made the acquaintance of Gladstone. The two 
 became the closest of friends and companions. Boys 
 at that school regularly breakfasted alone in their 
 rooms; these two usually took that meal together, 
 
590 LIFE AND TBIES OF TENNYSON 
 
 either in the apartments of the one or of the other. 
 They walked together, they talked together. They 
 reached indeed what may be called the height of school- 
 boy friendship by corresponding in vacation. The 
 intimacy is the more remarkable, because the future 
 statesman was then a conservative of the conserva- 
 tives, while the son of the Whig historian was 
 naturally a liberal — though neither of these desig- 
 nations had become at that time a part of political 
 nomenclature. They discussed questions of church 
 and state, in which naturally their opinions conflicted. 
 In his journal of May 14, 1826, Gladstone records 
 ''Stiff arguments with Hallam, as usual on Sundays, 
 about articles, creeds, etc." In his later years the 
 statesman came to believe that his friend was right 
 in his views and that he himself was wrong. Still, at 
 the time itself their religious and political differences 
 did not stand in the slightest in the way of their 
 thorough comradeship. In truth, they probably had 
 the effect of rendering it still closer. 
 
 According to Gladstone 's testimony, Hallam at Eton 
 was ''the best scholar (in any but the very narrowest 
 sense) of the whole school with its five hundred 
 pupils. ' ' After leaving it he accompanied his parents 
 on a tour to the Continent. There he spent a year. 
 Everything was favorable to proficiency in the sub- 
 jects, whatever they were, on which he had set his 
 heart. Those were not as now the days when rapid 
 locomotion left comparatively little opportunity for 
 gaining knowledge at first hand. Men travelled slowly, 
 they observed closely. Instead of gleaning information 
 
ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM 591 
 
 from guide-books, which then had no existence, they 
 had to resort to the use of their own eyes and ears. 
 They naturally did not cover as much ground as now ; 
 but they saw much more of the fewer things they saw 
 and retained the memory of them more vi\ddly. Eight 
 months of the year Hallam spent in Italy. To visit 
 that country still continued to be to most Englishmen 
 the summit of man's travelling ambition. During his 
 stay in it, he devoted himself with peculiar ardor to 
 the study of its language and literature. Tn the 
 tongue itself he made such proficiency that certain 
 sonnets he wrote in it were, after careful reading and 
 re-reading, pronounced by Sir Anthony Panizzi as 
 ''much superior not only to what foreigners have 
 written, but what I thought possible for them to 
 produce in Italian." 
 
 Hallam 's father was a graduate of Oxford, but for 
 some reason he preferred to send his son to Cambridge. 
 This course was possibly taken under the belief that 
 the severe mathematical training there carried on 
 would furnish a better discipline for a mind which 
 apparently tended in the elder Hallam 's opinion too 
 much to obscure speculative theories. This indeed he 
 may be thought to imply in the memoir he wrote of his 
 son. In it he deplored Arthur's indifference to mathe- 
 matical studies. "A little more practice in the strict 
 logic of geometry," he wrote, "a little more famil- 
 iarity \vith the physical laws of the universe, and the 
 phenomena to which they relate, would possibly have 
 repressed the tendency to vague and mystical specu- 
 lations which he was too fond of indulging." At the 
 
592 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 same time, while this belief may have been a factor 
 in determining his choice, it could hardly have been 
 the determining factor; for it was to this same insti- 
 tution he sent his second son, Henry Fitzmaurice. 
 Gladstone thought the selection of Cambridge a mis- 
 take. According to him Arthur Hallam would have 
 found at Oxford studies in which he was pre-eminently 
 fitted to excel, while in those which were essential to 
 success in the sister university he had no interest, and 
 to some of them he had distinct aversion. At Cam- 
 bridge no undergraduate was then allowed to compete 
 for the principal honors of classical study, unless he 
 had attained a certain proficiency in mathematics. 
 No such impediment existed at Oxford. There, accord- 
 ingly, his friend would, in Gladstone's opinion, have 
 attained the highest rank. This may be true. Still 
 it has to be remembered that had Hallam gone to 
 Oxford, he would not have met with Tennyson. The 
 world in consequence would have lost not only one of 
 its greatest elegiac poems, but the memory of the man 
 himself would have passed away almost entirely, 
 instead of being enshrined, to use Gladstone's own 
 words, in 'Hhe noblest monument (not excepting 
 Lycidas) that ever was erected by one human being 
 to another." 
 
 One gets the impression, indeed, that Hallam himself 
 would have preferred to accompany his friend to 
 Oxford, and that the choice of Cambridge was due 
 entirely to his father's wish and not at all to his own. 
 The existence of this state of mind is suggested at 
 least in a letter he wrote to Gladstone after his return 
 
ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM 593 
 
 from the Continent. *'I have been, I believe, some- 
 what changed," he then said, ** since I last saw you. 
 I have snatched rather eagerly a draught from the cup 
 of life, Avith its strange mingling of sweet and bitter. 
 All this should rather have come after my three years 
 of college than before ; but nothing can cancel it now, 
 and I must on in the path that has been chalked out 
 for me. I have no aversion to study, I trust, quite the 
 contrary; though my ideas of the essential do not 
 precisely square with those of the worshipful dons of 
 Cambridge. ' ' These words seem to imply that he was 
 not disposed to take kindly to the studies which in that 
 institution were necessary to scholastic success. If so, 
 his anticipations were realized. To many men of 
 literary and philosophic tastes mathematics is a sub- 
 ject peculiarly repugnant. Such it assuredly was to 
 Arthur Hallam. At times, indeed, he fell into fits of 
 profound mathematical despondency. On one occasion 
 while there, he wrote to Gladstone about the agony he 
 had in dealing with trigonometry. If so comparatively 
 elementary a subject as trigonometry could make him 
 gasp, he would certainly have found insuperable 
 difficulty in breathing at all the rarefied air of higher 
 mathematics. As a consequence of the dislike he 
 entertained for the studies which led to honors at 
 Cambridge, he took no high rank in scholarship. But 
 one far more than counterbalancing advantage fell to 
 his lot. It was in October, 1828, that he came up to 
 the university, where he entered Trinity. This was 
 a few months later than Tennyson's arrival at the 
 same college. Between him and the poet speedily 
 
594 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 sprang up a peculiarly ardent friendship, though, 
 as in the case of Gladstone, he was nearly two years 
 younger. His precociousness, however, and his un- 
 usual attainments, invariably put him on a level with 
 men older than himself. 
 
 After his graduation in January, 1832, Arthur 
 Hallam took up the study of law. This was not because 
 of any fondness for it on his own part but at the wish 
 of his father. It was not a study which appealed to 
 one possessed of his literary and philosophical tastes ; 
 but to it he applied himself dutifully. His health, 
 however, had never been robust. The weakness of his 
 constitution had always prevented him from taking 
 part in the games in which his schoolfellows indulged. 
 More than once indeed appeared ominous indications 
 of the fate ultimately to overtake him, which awak- 
 ened the anxiety of his friends; though probably no 
 one of them anticipated that the end would come as 
 early as it did. In later life, Gladstone observed that 
 in his Eton days marks of his coming doom could be 
 traced, after a period of exertion, in ''a delicate but 
 deep rosy flush upon his cheeks, reaching to his eyes." 
 It is fairly certain that his health was not benefited by 
 this compulsory attention to a study for which he did 
 not care. In April, 1833, he was stricken down by a 
 severe attack of influenza which confined him to his 
 bed for several weeks and from the effects of which, 
 it is probable, he never fully recovered. 
 
 Later in this same year he travelled with his father 
 on the Continent. On the fifteenth of September while 
 
ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM 595 
 
 at Vienna — a city which Tennyson could never be 
 induced to ^dsit — he passed away without warning. 
 The father returned from his daily walk to find Arthur, 
 who had been for some days indisposed, Mng, as he 
 thought, asleep on his couch. For an hour he sat 
 reading, until the singular stillness attracted his 
 attention. He went to look at his son and to his 
 inexpressible grief and horror he found him not asleep 
 but dead. The end could not have been at best a long 
 time deferred. Owing doubtless to some inherited 
 taint of blood, probably on the mother's side, the 
 historian was fated to have die before him with one 
 exception all of a numerous family of children. With 
 a suddenness equal to that of the death of the son, 
 passed away his wife and his eldest daughter Ellen; 
 nor was the illness of his second son protracted. The 
 medical examination in Arthur Hallam's case showed 
 that the death could not have been delayed for many 
 years, though under favoring conditions life might 
 perhaps have been somewhat prolonged. ''Those 
 whose eyes must long be dim with tears," wrote the 
 afflicted father, ''and whose hopes on this side the 
 tomb are broken down forever, may cling, as well as 
 they can, to the poor consolation of believing, that 
 a few more years would, in the usual chances of 
 humanity, have severed the frail union of his graceful 
 and manly form with the pure spirit that it embodied. ' ' 
 Arthur Hallam's body was taken to Trieste and 
 from there transported by sea to England. On the 
 third of January, 1834, he was buried in the manor 
 
596 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 aisle^ of the Clevedon church in Somersetshire about 
 a mile to the south of the \dllage of Clevedon. The 
 church stands on a hill overlooking the water where 
 the Severn empties into the Bristol Channel. In the 
 middle of this same year the father printed for private 
 distribution a limited number of copies of a book of 
 four hundred pages entitled 'Remains of A. H. H.' 
 This volume consisted of selections both of poems and 
 prose pieces. Most of them had been printed sepa- 
 rately before ; but there w^ere a few pieces which had 
 never previously seen the light. The collection was 
 preceded by a brief account of the son's life and 
 character. To it were appended testimonials from 
 three of his associates in school and college. The 
 names of these were not given but they are well known. 
 The first came from his Cambridge friend, Brookfield, 
 the two others from his Eton schoolmates. One of 
 these was Francis Hastings Doyle. The final tribute 
 came from Gladstone. After the death of the elder 
 Hallam this volume was given to the public in a new 
 edition in 1863. In that it was accompanied by a 
 memoir of the younger son, Henry Fitzmaurice, who 
 died at Siena in October, 1850. 
 
 The tie between Hallam and Tennyson had become 
 peculiarly close during their Cambridge life. It was 
 made even closer from the time when the former 
 visited the latter at his Somersby home in 1829. There 
 he met the poet's sister Emily. Between the two 
 
 1 In the memoir of his son, the father spoke of his being buried in 
 "the chancel"; and this Tennyson followed in what was originally the 
 sixty-fifth, now the sixty-seventh, section of 'In Memoriam.' When he 
 came to know the truth, he substituted "the dark church." 
 
ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM 597 
 
 sprang up an attachment which in a short period 
 deepened into intense love on both sides. Early in 
 1831 they had pledged themselves to each other. They 
 were at the time little more than boy and girl. Hallam 
 was then of the age of twenty and Emily Tennyson 
 was about two thirds of a year younger. But on the 
 part of both it was something more than the fancy 
 of the moment which comes and goes with the passing 
 of a few careless months. Hostility to the match on 
 the part of the Tennysons there could well be none. 
 Hallam 's position in life, besides the intimate friend- 
 ship which existed between him and the brother of the 
 woman he loved, precluded the possibility of any 
 objection coming from that quarter to his marrying 
 the sister. It was from the Hallams, if from any one, 
 that opposition to the union was to be expected. In 
 particular, the consent of the father, upon whom the 
 son was dependent, was imperatively needed. 
 
 One cannot well resist the impression that this 
 attachment of the eldest son to Emily Tennyson was 
 looked upon with none too favorable eyes by the 
 Hallam family. At least such seems to have been the 
 case at the outset. It was certainly not unnatural that 
 the feeling should exist. Arthur Hallam had not yet 
 attained his majority. It was pretty early in life for 
 one little more than a mere boy to mortgage his future 
 unreservedly. He was too young to have seen much 
 of society or the world. Wider experience might 
 change, when it was too late, his judgment both of 
 persons and things. To join himself at this early 
 period with any one whatever in a union not to be 
 
598 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 dissolved, might justly seem an act of imprudence, to 
 call it by the least objectionable phrase. There were 
 other reasons, too, which might tend to make the 
 prospect of such a marriage distasteful to the family. 
 Arthur Hallam was their pride and hope. With his 
 abilities, with his prospects in life as well as mth the 
 position and reputation of his father, he might reason- 
 ably look forward to contract what would be a brilliant 
 alliance. From a purely worldly point of view there 
 was assuredly nothing to excite enthusiasm in the 
 marriage of the son to the daughter of a country 
 clergyman who had never been possessed of any but 
 comparatively limited means, and was himself soon 
 after dead. The bride would be practically penniless. 
 Of her and indeed of the family to which she belonged 
 the Hallams knew little or nothing save what the son 
 chose to tell; and long-continued observation has 
 demonstrated that the opinion of an experienced man, 
 to say nothing of that of an inexperienced boy, about 
 the qualities and perfections of the woman with whom 
 he has fallen in love is hardly to be received with the 
 trusting faith which is accorded to the words of a 
 divine revelation. 
 
 Still, the father did not place himself in open 
 opposition to the match. He simply pleaded for delay. 
 He exacted a promise from his son that he should not 
 see the woman of his choice until after a year had 
 elapsed. At the end of that time Arthur Hallam would 
 have attained his majority. In turn the father 
 promised that if the two lovers then remained in the 
 same state of mind, no objection should be raised to 
 
ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM 599 
 
 their entering into a formal engagement. Further- 
 more, while not permitted to see each other during the 
 interval, they were not debarred from corresponding. 
 All these precautions against hasty action, which might 
 later be sorely repented, were fair and just enough. 
 None the less the prohibition of actual meeting was 
 one hardly to be accepted by the lovers with thankful- 
 ness. In writing to Emily Tennyson in July, 1831, 
 Hallam discussed the possibility of her being enabled 
 to go to Cheltenham for the sake of her health. 
 '^Alas," he added, ''change of place ^vill bring you no 
 nearer to me. Whatever place you make a Paradise of 
 by dwelling there, for me the flaming brand waves 
 round it and limits me to the wilderness of earth." 
 Still the long months of weary waiting made no change 
 in the feeling of the lovers. When the time was up, 
 when Arthur Hallam had reached the age of twenty- 
 one, he hastened at the earliest moment possible to 
 Somersby. That place he reached late in the month 
 of February, 1832. He left it after a few weeks' stay 
 as the accepted lover of Emily Tennyson, 
 
 But the troubles of the two were far from being 
 over. Neither one possessed the means which would 
 justify their entering upon a married life. Arthur 
 Hallam was dependent upon his father. At his 
 father's wish he had taken up the study of law. To 
 him it was eminently distasteful. In his eyes it was, 
 what he himself called it, the driest of all branches 
 of learning. Still, he applied himself to it faithfully. 
 The one thing above all which kept up his courage in 
 what he termed his slavery was the expectation that 
 
600 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 through its agency he might realize the possibility 
 of hastening his union with the woman he loved. This 
 indeed he avowed to her more than once. ''It is the 
 hope of securing our happiness, ' ' he wrote to her from 
 Croydon in September, 1832, "that I devote myself 
 to a life so uncongenial to me." In a short time he 
 was to resume his dreary task-work in London. "It 
 would not do," he said in a later letter, "for me to 
 play truant just at the beginning of my slavery ; when 
 I shall have earned my task-master's favour by my 
 diligence, I may be let out of Algiers for a while." 
 More than once he deplored the necessity which kept 
 them so much apart. The long separation, varied 
 though it was by frequent letters and occasional meet- 
 ings, weighed heavily upon his spirits and could not 
 have been favorable to his health. He chafed con- 
 stantly against the bars which delayed their union. 
 "Oh, it is a weary, weary time," he wrote to his 
 betrothed in April, 1833, — ^Hhree years now since I 
 have felt that you were my only hope in life — more 
 than two since we plighted to each other the word of 
 promise. It is indeed a weary time. In gaiety and in 
 gloom, alone and in crowds, the one thought never 
 ceases to cling to my heart, and by shomng me the 
 possibility of happiness makes me feel more keenly the 
 reality of misery." 
 
 It was not till some time after the son's death that 
 the elder Hallam saw the woman who was to have 
 been that son's bride. In fact, for more than a year 
 after the engagement had taken place, there had been 
 no communication between the two families. Conse- 
 
ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM 601 
 
 quently the father knew really nothing of her who was 
 his son's choice, nor of any of her relatives save her 
 brother Alfred; and of him he could have then seen 
 but little. The situation was caused mainly by distance 
 of space which in those days could render the possi- 
 bility of acquaintance difficult, and that of intimacy 
 almost out of the question. It was not till towards the 
 tragic close that this barrier was at all removed. In 
 the spring of 1833 a slight acquaintance sprang up. 
 Tennyson then visited London in company with his 
 sister Mary. There in April the two met the family 
 between which and their own an alliance was in 
 contemplation. The first meeting was not looked 
 forward to vdth any pleasure by the sister, and in fact, 
 ^vith a good deal of trepidation. But everything went 
 off successfully. Mary Tennyson found her way at 
 once into the hearts of her prospective connections. 
 Arthur Hallam himself was overjoyed at the result 
 of this visit, and at the real good which he felt it had 
 done. "Mary," he wrote to his betrothed, "is a 
 decided favorite with all of us, and she has taken, I 
 hope, one of her fancies to my mother. Alfred too has 
 got up in my father 's good graces. " "I feel, ' ' he went 
 on to say, "as if a great barrier was broken down 
 between my family and that of my adoption. I have 
 tasted a rich foretaste of future union. I have shown 
 Ellen a sister. I have heard Somersby tones and ways 
 of speech finding their way to the hearts of those who 
 sit round the Walpole street fireside." 
 
 There is no doubt that this visit did much to recon- 
 cile the Hallams to the projected marriage of their son. 
 
602 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 Unfortunately it had no effect in hastening it, though, 
 according to Tennyson's own words, the time of their 
 union had been definitely fixed before the departure 
 abroad on the last fatal journey/ There is indeed 
 something pathetic in Arthur Hallam's brief career 
 that he should be condenmed to pursue a profession 
 he did not love and at the same time to be deprived 
 of the companionship of the woman he loved. One 
 who familiarizes himself with their story cannot but 
 feel regret that this marriage so fervently desired 
 might not have taken place at once ; that two persons 
 so passionately attached to each other should not have 
 had the privilege of spending together a portion of 
 time which under the most favorable circumstances 
 could have been at most the little that would have been 
 allotted. Yet such is the influence of the mind upon 
 the body that it might have lengthened Arthur 
 Hallam's too brief existence. One, two, three years, 
 or even more of a happy married life might have been 
 theirs before the doom fell which was to separate them 
 forever. At the same time Hallam 's father acted from 
 the best of motives. Prudentially, his course was 
 perfectly justifiable, in spite of the sickness of heart 
 which came to the lovers from hope deferred. Could 
 the death of his son have been foreseen, the father's 
 conduct might and probably would have been different. 
 Very possibly he came to regret that he had not 
 sanctioned the union of the lovers, so that at least some 
 months if not years of married felicity might have 
 fallen to Arthur's lot before his untimely death. At 
 
 1 ' Memoir, ' Vol. I, p. 304. 
 
AETHLT^ HEXRY HALLAM 603 
 
 all events, he granted to his son's destined bride an 
 income of three hundred pounds a year, the sum which 
 he had previously allowed to the son himself ;' nor did 
 he withdraw it after her marriage to Richard Jesse, 
 a lieutenant in the royal navy. This event took place 
 at Boxley in the latter part of January, 1842, the 
 ceremony being performed by the Reverend William 
 Jesse, ^dcar of Margeretting in the county of Kent. 
 Upon the Hallams and their immediate circle the 
 announcement of the engagement and intended mar- 
 riage wrought at first a painful impression. To them 
 Emily Tennyson had seemed almost a widowed member 
 of the house, and the sufferings she had undergone with 
 the physical breakdown which had followed the death 
 of her lover, led to her being regarded with mixed 
 feelings of pity and romantic admiration. But time 
 and reflection brought wiser \iews. Coupled with them 
 was pretty surely the consciousness that it would have 
 been little to the gratification of the generous nature 
 of her dead lover, could he know it, that the woman 
 to whom he had been betrothed should spend her own 
 life in unavailing regrets and let sorrowful memories 
 deprive her of the consolation of a home and children 
 of her own. 
 
 To two members, in particular, of the Tennyson 
 family Arthur Hallam 's sudden and unexpected death 
 came with as great a shock as it did to his own. Both 
 to the brother and to the betrothed sister the blow was 
 temporarily prostrating. Nor did either recover from 
 it speedily. Emily Tennyson's health had been deli- 
 
 I'The Journals of Walter White,' p. 141. 
 
604 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 cate enough to excite her lover's apprehension during 
 the period of their engagement. Necessarily it was not 
 benefited by this unexpected and crushing calamity. 
 For many months she was ill, and though she recov- 
 ered, she recovered very slowly. At times she was 
 almost inclined to despair of her own life. ''We were 
 waiting for her," wrote later one of her friends, '4n 
 the drawing-room the first day since her loss that she 
 had been able to meet anyone, and she came at last, 
 dressed in deep mourning, a shadow of her former self, 
 but with one white rose in her black hair as her Arthur 
 loved to see her. ' " As late as the middle of 1834, she 
 had not met the Hallam family, though from them she 
 had received the kindest messages. Utterly prostrated 
 as she was in mind and body, she could not summon 
 the mental or physical strength to make the journey 
 to their residence. But to them she was at that time 
 purposing to go as soon as she was sufficiently 
 recovered from the state of weakness under which she 
 was still laboring. ''What is life to me !" she wrote to 
 her brother in July, 1834, about the intended visit; 
 "if I die (which the Tennysons never do) the effort 
 shall be made. ' ' She expressed to him the great desire 
 she felt to make the acquaintance of the Hallams, 
 particularly of Ellen, who had been Arthur's confi- 
 dante in his love affair. "She will perhaps," she 
 wrote, "be the friend to remove in some degree the 
 horrible feeling of desolation which is ever at my 
 heart. "^ Upon Tennyson himself the blow was almost 
 
 1' Memoir,' Vol. I, p. 108. 
 2 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 135. 
 
ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM 605 
 
 as severe. Under the influence of the first despondency 
 which came over him, he began the composition of the 
 poem entitled 'The Two Voices,' which consists largely 
 of a discussion of the time-worn question whether 
 life is worth living. Originally it was styled 'The 
 Thoughts of a Suicide.' Then also he began and 
 continued at intervals for a long period of years the 
 composition of the various pieces which were later 
 to make up the volume soon to be considered. 
 
 About Hallam himself and his commanding ability 
 and lofty character there is a singular unanimity of 
 opinion among those with whom he came in close 
 contact. We are far from being limited to the tribute 
 paid by Tennyson to the memory of his friend. The 
 sentiments he expressed were shared by every one of 
 the immediate circle with which the dead man was 
 connected. It is well within bounds to say that no one, 
 whose life was so early cut short, received more 
 genuine tributes of the highest kind to the possibilities 
 that lay in his future. The testimonials are not merely 
 exceptional in the loftiness of the estimate expressed, 
 they are rendered more exceptional from the character 
 of those who express them. They came from men who 
 were themselves to become on various lines among the 
 most noted of their generation. Their utterances 
 show the profound impression which Arthur Hallam 
 made upon all his associates. In the circle by which 
 he was surrounded at Cambridge he was generally, 
 perhaps universally, reckoned the foremost; and this 
 too from the very outset. Individual testimonies all 
 agree. On more than one occasion Milnes bore witness 
 
606 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 to his superiority. In December of the very year 
 Hallam entered the university, he wrote about him to 
 his father. "I have a very deep respect for Hallam," 
 he said. ''Thirlwall is actually captivated with him. 
 He really seems to know everything, from metaphysics 
 to cookery.'" Too much importance may easily be 
 attached to the admiration of a boy for a boy, but the 
 opinion of the historian, then in the full maturity of 
 his powers, cannot so easily be set aside. Later Milnes 
 repeated even more strongly his first impression. He 
 ' ' is the only man here of my own standing before whom 
 I bow in conscious inferiority in every thing, ' ' he said 
 in a letter of February, 1829.' 
 
 The sudden death of Hallam brought out these 
 testimonials to his eminence in profusion. To his sister 
 Frances, John Mitchell Kemble sent the news of the 
 unexpected tragedy. ' ' It is, " he wrote, ' ' with feelings 
 of inexpressible pain that I announce to you the death 
 of poor Arthur Hallam, who expired suddenly from 
 an attack of apoplexy at Vienna on the 13th of last 
 month. Though this was always feared by us as 
 likely to occur, the shock has been a bitter one to bear ; 
 and most of all to the Tennysons, whose sister Emily 
 he was to have married. I have not yet had the 
 courage to write to Alfred. This is a loss which will 
 most assuredly be felt by this age, for if ever man was 
 born for great things, he was. Never was a more 
 powerful intellect joined to a purer and holier heart; 
 and the whole illuminated with the richest imagination, 
 
 1 R. M. Milnes 's ' Life and Letters, ' Vol. I, p. 59, Letter of December 
 8, 1829. 
 
 2 Ihid., p. 62. 
 
ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM 607 
 
 with the most sparkling, yet the kindest wit." In a 
 similar strain Alford paid his tribute. In a letter of 
 1833 he spoke of Hallam in terms of unmeasured 
 admiration.^ *'He was," he wrote, '*a man of a 
 wonderful mind and knowledge on all subjects, hardly 
 credible at his age — younger than myself. He was well 
 acquainted with our own, French, German, Italian, 
 and Spanish literature, besides being a good classical 
 scholar, and of the most tender and affectionate dis- 
 position; and there was something admirably simple 
 and earnest in all he said or did. I long ago set him 
 down for the most wonderful person altogether I ever 
 knew. ' ' 
 
 Later in his poem 'The School of the Heart,' pub- 
 lished in 1835, Alford apostrophized his dead friend, 
 though his name was not mentioned, celebrated his 
 present achievement as the earnest of future achieve- 
 ment which was to be his, had he lived.^ On other 
 occasions, too, he bore in his verse similar emphatic 
 testimony. So in the same style of unmeasured 
 admiration spoke the calm and judicious Spedding. 
 "The compositions which he has left," he said, ''mar- 
 vellous as they are, are inadequate evidence of his 
 actual powers. ... I have met no man his equal as 
 a philosophical critic on works of taste ; no man whose 
 views on all subjects connected with the duties and 
 dignities of humanity were more large, more generous, 
 and more enlightened." Like witness to his repute 
 among his early associates was borne by his Eton 
 
 1 Letter to Fanny Alford in 'Life, Journals and Letters,' 2d edition, 
 1873, p. 93. 
 
 2 Lesson V, Vol. 11, pp. 65-66, edition of 1845. 
 
608 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 school-friend, Sir Francis Hastings Doyle. In his 
 'Reminiscences' he tells us that ''all of us, even Mr. 
 Gladstone, I think, felt whilst conversing with him, 
 that we were in the presence of a larger, profounder, 
 and more thoughtful mind than any one of us could 
 claim for himself." A similar opinion was expressed 
 by Frederick Tennyson, who in 1817 had left the school 
 at Louth, and had gone to Eton to finish his prepara- 
 tion for the university. ''At Eton," he said late in 
 life, "I think our impression was that Hallam, and not 
 Gladstone, was the coming great man."^ 
 
 To the tribute of affection and admiration which 
 Tennyson paid in 'In Memoriam,' Gladstone's testi- 
 mony to Arthur Hallam 's powers ranks next in 
 importance. On several occasions he celebrated the 
 actual ability and possible future of his schoolboy 
 friend. "There was nothing," he said, "in the region 
 of the mind he could not have accomplished. I mourn 
 in him, for myself, my earliest near friend; for my 
 fellow creatures, one who would have adorned his age 
 and country, a mind full of beauty and of power, 
 attaining almost that ideal standard of which it is a 
 presumption to expect an example. When shall I see 
 his like!" At the very close of his life he repeated the 
 same opinion. In an article on Hallam which appeared 
 only a few months before his own death, he celebrated 
 in enthusiastic terms the lost companion of his youth, 
 and showed that the impression which the boy had 
 produced continued still to exist in the mind of the 
 man of advanced years. "It is simple truth," he 
 
 1 ' Memoir, ' Vol. II, p. 407. 
 
ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM 609 
 
 wrote, ''that Arthur Henry Hallara was a spirit so 
 exceptional that everything with which he was brought 
 into relation during his shortened passage through 
 this world, came to be, through this contact, glorified 
 by a touch of the ideal. Among his contemporaries at 
 Eton, ... he stood supreme among all his fellows; 
 and the long life through which I have since wound my 
 way, and which has brought me into contact ^vith so 
 many men of rich endowments, leaves him where he 
 then stood, as to natural gifts, so far as my estimation 
 is concerned."^ 
 
 In considering the weight to be attached to these 
 opinions it is to be kept in mind that those who 
 expressed them were at the time of their utterance, 
 in some cases little more than boys, and boys further- 
 more who were under the influence of strong personal 
 affection. In those of the number who gave the later 
 testimonies, they could hardly fail to repeat the 
 impressions and beliefs of their early years. More- 
 over, Hallam's attainments — and for one so young 
 they were unquestionably exceptional — were largely 
 along lines about which his fellow students were not 
 competent to form a judgment. Remarkable as they 
 were, they were little likely to be characterized by the 
 extent and proficiency with which they were credited 
 by his admiring associates. All of us are disjjosed to 
 attribute special breadth and depth of information to 
 him who is conversant with subjects which lie outside 
 of our own range of studies. He who knows something 
 
 1 Contributed by Gladstone to 'The Youth's Companion,' January 6, 
 1898. 
 
610 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 of which others know little or nothing is fairly sure 
 to gain the reputation of being possessed of much more 
 knowledge than he actually has. This, which is true 
 of men, is much truer of boys. To them knowledge 
 possessed by a schoolfellow along lines upon which 
 they themselves have not travelled, partakes of the 
 nature of the extraordinary. Here was one of their 
 number who was more or less familiar with the tongues 
 of modern Europe, of which most of them knew nothing 
 at all. He spoke of authors who to them were at best 
 only names, even if they were as much as names. It 
 is accordingly not to be wondered at that an exagger- 
 ated estimate should be taken by them of Hallam's 
 acquirements. Alford, as we have just seen, described 
 him as being familiar with the literatures of France, 
 Italy, Germany, and Spain. To have gained a really 
 full and intimate acquaintance with a single one of 
 these would have been almost the work of a lifetime. 
 
 In the regular studies of his course at Cambridge, 
 Hallam did not attain high rank. The fact is not 
 remarkable. It was not because he could not have 
 mastered them; he simply had no taste for them. In 
 some instances he had a distinct distaste. On the other 
 hand, those in which he took delight and showed the 
 highest proficiency were not of the kind that led there 
 to scholastic distinction. Two honors, nevertheless, 
 fell to him during his university career; but neither 
 of these implied proficiency in the special studies of 
 the course. One of them was a prize for an essay upon 
 the philosophical writings of Cicero. This was printed 
 by his father in the collection he made of the writings 
 
ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM 611 
 
 of his son. In 1831 he obtained the college prize for 
 an English declamation on the conduct of the Inde- 
 pendent party during the Civil War. This has never 
 been printed. He was graduated in 1832 without 
 honors. But making the fullest allowance for his 
 failure to achieve success in the distinctive studies of 
 his course, it remains true that the impression he left 
 upon all his associates, several of whom were to become 
 among the most noted of their time in different ways, 
 must be regarded as extraordinary. 
 
 Accordingly, with such testimonials, coming from so 
 many and so varied quarters, it may seem presump- 
 tuous, not to say ungracious, to cast any doubt upon 
 the fullest realization of the forecasts which were made 
 about Hallam's future; to question the absolute 
 correctness of a view which was based upon the knowl- 
 edge which comes from intimate acquaintance. It is 
 hardly credible that the man was lacking in the 
 possibilities of highest distinction, who had attracted 
 the peculiar regard and admiration of two persons in 
 particular who were to become in their respective 
 lines the most prominent men of their generation. 
 There is little reason to doubt indeed that, in certain 
 ways, Hallam, had he lived, would have attained 
 eminence. He might have become what Tennyson 
 prophesied, *'a potent voice in parliament. " He might 
 have come to exercise distinct influence in shaping the 
 policy and destinies of his native land. But even such 
 fortune, high as it was, would hardly have satisfied the 
 expectations of his admirers. It was no ordinary 
 success that was predicted for him; it was to be 
 
612 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 extraordinary. For us it is only by considering what 
 he has left behind that he can be estimated. Tennyson 
 said justly that 
 
 The world which credits what is done 
 Is cold to all that might have been. 
 
 It has to be cold ; for the pages of history are strewn 
 Avith the lives of men of unfulfilled promise, of men 
 whose apparently high prospects of success have never 
 ripened into fruition, and have sometimes ended in 
 dismal failure. All this is not meant to imply that 
 Arthur Hallam, had he lived, w^ould not have fulfilled, 
 at least to a great extent, the hopes of his admiring 
 companions. Still it is noticeable that Gladstone in 
 the last year of his life, in declaring his belief that his 
 friend would have attained high distinction, added ' ' as 
 high as that attained by his distinguished father." 
 But that father, justly eminent in certain ways as he 
 was, was far from being reckoned among the greatest 
 men of his generation. 
 
 So far as his actual achievement, while living, gives 
 any forecast- of the future, it is manifest that Hallam 
 would never have gained distinction as a poet. The 
 verse he wrote was good of its kind ; but it is no better 
 than what scores and even hundreds of accomplished 
 men have written. It would have been worthy of high 
 respect; but the world is overburdened with highly 
 respectable poetry. The only reserve that Tennyson 
 himself made in the estimate of his friend's powers 
 was that though Hallam would have attained the 
 highest summit of excellence in other ways, he would 
 
ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM 613 
 
 never have become distinguished as a writer of verse. 
 But would he have attained distinction as a writer of 
 prose f Here is something more difficult to decide ; for 
 excellence in prose, unlike excellence in poetry, is not 
 so apt to have its existence sharply defined at an early 
 period of life. Still even in that period manifestation 
 of a certain degree of skill in expression is likely to 
 display itself. But in spite of Spedding's designation 
 of Hallam's compositions as marvellous, there is 
 nothing in his extant remains which indicates much 
 promise of that kind. Solid qualities appear in them 
 abundantly. There is every reason to believe that 
 whatever he said would always have been worth consid- 
 ering for the material it contained. The knowledge 
 would have been ample, the matter weighty, the 
 thought occasionally profound ; and it would have been 
 characterized by a remarkable sobriety of judgment. 
 But in what has been preserved, that indefinable some- 
 thing that we call style, which carries us along in spite 
 of ourselves, which gives enduring charm to what 
 would otherwise be perishable, this seems lacking. 
 There is nowhere exhibited any of that lightness of 
 touch, that grace, that peculiar happiness of expres- 
 sion, which indicates the existence of the consummate 
 master of prose. It might have come in time ; all that 
 we can say is that there is little trace of it in his earliest 
 production. As was the case with his father's work, 
 the weight of matter is set off by little charm of 
 manner; and without the latter, prose writing gives 
 little prospect of present distinction or prolonged 
 remembrance. 
 
614 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 To an inquirer who expressed to him the disappoint- 
 ment he felt in reading the writings of Sterling, John 
 Stuart Mill made the following reply. "No one," he 
 said, *Svho had not heard his conversation could form 
 the faintest conception of what he was. ' '^ To account 
 for the effect some men produce upon those with whom 
 they come in contact, the influence of the personal 
 presence must be taken largely into account. So it 
 may have been with Arthur Hallam, though his early 
 death prevents any conclusion on that point reaching 
 any higher range than that of conjecture. Still, the 
 impression produced by the writings of his which have 
 been preserved is that in the pages of 'In Memoriam' 
 a monument has been erected to his memory loftier 
 than any which it would have been in his power to 
 build for himself. 
 
 There is one particular, however, in which no 
 hesitation need be felt in expressing positive opinion. 
 Personal characteristics Hallam possessed unquestion- 
 ably, which to some at least will outweigh all con- 
 ceivable distinctions of the intellect. These were the 
 extreme sweetness and nobility of his nature, and the 
 immeasurable charm of his manner. Character is 
 something which can ordinarily be estimated with as 
 much precision when life is at its beginning as when it 
 has reached its close. To the loftiness and purity of 
 Hallam 's nature there is but one testimony. It makes 
 no difference whether it comes from the affectionate 
 partiality of relatives, or from the intimacy of personal 
 friendship, or from the impression produced by chance 
 
 1 Grant Duff's 'Notes from a Diary,' 1881-1886, Vol. I, p. 75. 
 
ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM 615 
 
 meeting with strangers. Everywhere it is the same. 
 Fanny Kemble was far from sharing in the extreme 
 admiration which her brother expressed for his 
 friend's commanding ability. She was herself never 
 given to effusive overstatement. She never lost her 
 mental balance, or suffered her judgment to be swayed 
 by the enthusiasm of others. This makes the tribute 
 she paid to Hallam's character all the more emphatic. 
 She spoke of the almost angelic purity of his nature 
 in the account she gave in her 'Records of a Girlhood' 
 of the friends who gathered about her as she was 
 entering upon her own career. ''The early death of 
 Arthur Hallam," she wrote, "and the imperishable 
 monument of love raised by Tennyson's genius to his 
 memory, have tended to give him a pre-eminence 
 among the companions of his youth which I do not 
 think his abilities would have won for him had he 
 lived; though they were undoubtedly of a high order. 
 There was a gentleness and purity almost virginal in 
 his voice, manner, and countenance; and the upper 
 part of his face, his forehead and eyes (perhaps in 
 readiness for his early translation), wore the angelic 
 radiance that they still must wear in heaven. ... On 
 Arthur Hallam's brow and eyes this heavenly light, 
 so fugitive on other human faces, rested habitually, as 
 if he was thinking and seeing in heaven. ' ' 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 IN MEMORIAM 
 
 'In Memoriam' was published early in June, 1850. 
 No work of Tennyson's had ever been ushered into 
 the world with any, even the slightest, preliminary 
 flourish of trumpets. But the indisposition to follow 
 customary methods of attracting the attention of the 
 public was never more signally manifested than in the 
 case of this production. Reticence about it, both before 
 and after its appearance, was carried to an extreme. 
 No advertisement, not even the briefest, announced 
 its coming till the actual day of publication. No 
 preliminary notices of the work appeared in the press 
 to excite the curiosity or the interest of readers. No 
 name of the person who had written it was found on 
 the title-page. Indeed, not only at the very outset, but 
 years after its publication, when its authorship became 
 well known everywhere, no indication of the source 
 from which it came was given in Moxon's advertise- 
 ments. It occupied a place by itself in the newspaper 
 columns distinct from the other works of Tennyson. 
 The title-page was blank save for the words 'In 
 Memoriam' and the name of the publisher and the 
 
IN MEMORIAM 617 
 
 place and date of publication. The obverse page bore 
 simply the inscription 
 
 IN MEMORIAM 
 
 A. H. H. 
 
 obiit MDCCCXXXIII. 
 
 These words gave no hint to any one, outside of a 
 very limited circle, of the personality of the man in 
 whose memory the work had been written. Arthur 
 Hallam had not lived long enough to make his name 
 familiar to the public during his lifetime, and beyond 
 a few relatives and personal friends it had at this late 
 day passed into that oblivion which waits even upon 
 those who during the period of their activity are fairly 
 well known. With all this, there was no attempt to 
 hide the authorship of the work celebrating him; 
 equally there was no attempt to reveal it. This latter 
 is certainly true so far as the poet himself was con- 
 cerned. But Moxon was too shrewd a business man 
 to let knowledge of this sort remain hidden. The name 
 of Tennyson had now come to have a distinct commer- 
 cial value. Consequently, though the publisher did not 
 intrude the identity of the writer upon the reader, he 
 doubtless saw to it that adequate information should 
 be conveyed with careful carelessness to possible 
 purchasers of poetry. As a result, both author and 
 subject were at once kno^^^l to many and speedily 
 became known to all. Even a few days before the 
 official appearance of the work, Mudie, who had just 
 
618 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 set out on his conquering career as the founder of 
 circulating libraries, advertised that fifty copies of 
 Tennyson's new poem, 'In Memoriam,' could be had 
 for the use of his regular subscribers at his place of 
 business/ The early notices of the work had no 
 hesitation in proclaiming its author, though they did 
 not always state it as positive fact. 
 
 One amusing exception there was to this general 
 belief and practice. A brief but highly eulogistic 
 notice appeared in the columns of a London weekly a 
 fortnight after the publication of the poem. From 
 internal evidence the critic concluded it to be the work 
 of a woman. The blunder was rendered the more 
 emphatic because this same periodical had previously 
 announced the volume in its list of new books as the 
 work of Tennyson. Of that fact both reviewer and 
 editor were manifestly unaware. ''If by a female 
 hand," WTote the former, "as it purports to be, we 
 welcome to the Muses ' banquet, melancholy though the 
 music be, one of their sweetest minstrels. ' '- Naturally 
 better informed contemporaries were unable to refrain 
 from speaking somewhat derisively of the critic who 
 had hailed the rising of a new poetical star in a 
 widow's cap. Even had the author's name not been 
 judiciously furnished to the reading world, the poem 
 itself would have revealed its authorship to any one 
 who had made himself familiar with Tennyson's 
 previous productions; and this number had now 
 become large. As a reviewer of the time remarked, 
 
 1 London 'Times' of June 3; 'Spectator' of June 1. 
 2 'Literary Gazette,' June 15, 1850. 
 
IN MEMORIA^I 619 
 
 in commenting upon the quiet way in which it had 
 stolen into the world, ''the most unostentatious publi- 
 cation, the most exemplary secrecy, and the blankest 
 title-page, could not long have kept the public in doubt 
 as to the authorship of these poems. "^ 
 
 Singularly enough the work ran the risk of disap- 
 pearing altogether just before it came to be printed. 
 The manuscript book containing it had been left by 
 Tennyson at his lodgings in London on his return to 
 the Isle of Wight. As soon as he discovered his loss, 
 he sent word to Coventry Patmore, asking him to go 
 to the house where he had been staying and recover 
 if possible the work. Patmore acted at once. With 
 some difficulty he succeeded in securing from the 
 reluctant landlady access to the room which the poet 
 had occupied but which had now been again let. The 
 search was successful and the missing manuscript was 
 forwarded to the author. Had it been lost, it would 
 probably have been too much even for Tennyson's 
 marvellous memory of his own productions to have 
 reproduced it, at least in its entirety. 
 
 Only two poems were added to the work as the 
 successive editions appeared. It originally consisted 
 of one hundred and twenty-nine pieces which for the 
 sake of convenience Tennyson himself designated as 
 ''sections," and two poems which served as prelude 
 and as conclusion. The second and third editions, 
 which followed speedily, contained no changes save 
 the correction of misprints. To the fourth edition of 
 1851 was added what is now the present fifty-ninth 
 
 I'Tait's Edinburgh Magazine,' August, 1850, Vol. XVII, p. 499. 
 
620 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 section. This, though written before, had been sup- 
 pressed. Nothing further was added till the publica- 
 tion of the miniature edition of 1870. Then appeared 
 for the first time the present thirty-ninth section. 
 With that the poem assumed its final definitive form. 
 
 *In Memoriam' had one distinction which none other 
 of Tennyson's works had ever enjoyed. From the 
 very moment of its publication it was greeted with an 
 almost unanimous chorus of approval by the critical 
 press. Inevitably there were degrees in the fervor 
 with which the work was received ; but as a whole the 
 reviewers reflected accurately for once the attitude of 
 the educated public. The latter indeed was so enthu- 
 siastic that hardly one of the former dared go so far 
 in defying its verdict as to "hint a fault or hesitate 
 dislike." Those who dissented from the general 
 estimate did so silently; they rarely gave expression 
 to their -sdews in print. There were, however, occa- 
 sional virulent attacks ; and there was, of course, half- 
 hearted appreciation. 
 
 One of the most singular beliefs entertained and 
 expressed in several of the early critical notices was 
 that 'In Memoriam' could not and would not be widely 
 popular — at least this would be true of it at the outset. 
 This was not a view taken by those who were disposed 
 to regard the poet himself with a certain degree of 
 indifference, not to say disfavor. Nor was it the view 
 of the very few who thought poorly of the work itself. 
 On the contrary, it was often held by some who were 
 warm in their admiration both of Tennyson and of 
 'In Memoriam.' Most convincing reasons were given 
 
IN MEMORIAM 621 
 
 for this belief. The subject, it was said, was by its 
 very nature monotonous. A series of variations on 
 what was essentially the same theme could interest 
 only a limited number, in spite of the beauty of the 
 verse in which the theme was presented. 'The 
 Examiner' — its article was doubtless written by 
 Forster — spoke of the work in terms of highest praise. 
 It declared that 'In Memoriam' was ''perhaps the 
 author's greatest achievement." Yet it ended its 
 review with the following prophecy : " It is not a poem 
 to become immediately popular; the nature of the 
 subject, the unavoidable monotony, and as it were 
 weariness of sorrow, in whatever changing forms of 
 beauty presented, would itself prevent this."^ Still, 
 the writer added, that by its appeal to the imagination, 
 the reason, and the faith, it would ultimately acquire 
 and maintain its hold. The same discouraging view 
 of the success of the poems was taken by 'The 
 Atlas. ' ' ' They are too mournfully monotonous, ' ' were 
 its words. ' ' There is too much of the egotism of grief 
 in them to suffer us to encourage the belief that 
 they will find as large a circle of readers as other 
 emanations of Tennyson's muse."" 
 
 It might have occurred to these critics that 'lit 
 Memoriam' was a poem of almost universal appeal. 
 Few are the households in which there are not vacant 
 chairs. Few are the individuals who have not had 
 to mourn the loss of those near and dear. To a world 
 full of sorrowing hearts and of sad but sacred memo- 
 
 1 June 8, 1850. 
 
 2 June 15, 1850. 
 
622 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 ries this work came as a solace and a help. Equally 
 did it appeal to another class. Every\vhere could be 
 found thoughtful men haunted and perplexed by 
 doubts and fears, uncertain where to find a secure 
 resting-place in any possible solution of the ever 
 recurring problems of human life and destiny. To all 
 such it was an unspeakable consolation and a help to 
 dwell upon the struggles of a man who had fought his 
 way through honest doubt, who had triumphed over 
 despair, who had encountered and vanquished the army 
 of fears which had been assailing their own hearts, 
 and had finally secured for himself a firm foothold in 
 faith. In truth his appeal, instead of being limited 
 as even friendly critics thought, could hardly have 
 been addressed to a wider circle of readers. Had 
 Tennj^son been seeking for immediate success, he could 
 hardly have chosen a theme which would arouse the 
 interest of more thousands. The effect it produced is 
 brought out vividly in a letter of Archbishop Benson. 
 *'7n Memoriam,^' he wrote not long before his death, 
 **was inexpressibly dear to me for the best part of my 
 life. It came out just when my mother and Harriet 
 died. I sank into it and rose with it, and I used to 
 teach — to love it.'" 
 
 The result certainly discredited all the vaticinations 
 of the critical prophets. No book of poetry of any 
 author of the Victorian era ever made at once so 
 profound an impression upon the minds of contem- 
 poraries. This refers specifically to its influence ; but 
 
 I'The Life of Edward White Benson,' by his son, 1899, Vol. II, 
 p. 412. 
 
IN MEMORIAM 623 
 
 the influence was reflected in its sale. Never indeed 
 has any elegiac poem in the English language, or 
 perhaps in any language, leaped at once immediately 
 into so wide a popularity. The 'Poems' of 1842 and 
 'The Princess,' from the point of view of great sale, 
 had made their way slowly. Not so 'In Memoriam.' 
 It shows how well recognized had now become Tenny- 
 son's position that the first edition of the poem con- 
 sisted of five thousand copies. It took only six weeks 
 to exhaust this number. In the case of his other works, 
 it usually required some time for the public to recover 
 from the foolish opinions of men of letters ; but in the 
 case of 'In Memoriam' no one troubled himself to wait 
 for the verdict. In the middle of June the second 
 edition followed. It in turn was followed by a third, 
 which came out at the end of November. Nor did the 
 demand then cease. A fourth edition appeared in less 
 than three months, in January, 1851. Accordingly, 
 within the year of its publication, four large editions 
 of the poem had been put upon the market. No 
 information has been published of the number of copies 
 belonging to these subsequent issues; but they could 
 not have been well less than the first, and were in all 
 probability much greater. 
 
 The public indeed had waited for no criticism to 
 declare itself. Its enthusiasm outran all the calcula- 
 tions of its literary advisers. Long before any periodi- 
 cals had had the opportunity to express their judg- 
 ments, the world of readers had taken the matter into 
 their own hands. The very earliest notices of the 
 poem, even when most favorable, were in a measure 
 
624 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 guarded. Not so those which speedily followed. As 
 in the case of ' The Princess, ' the first utterances which 
 were most outspoken in their praise, seem faint when 
 compared with the fervid eulogies which soon came to 
 be the fashion. Before the year was over, before it 
 had in fact got well along, the critical estimate was 
 marked by an enthusiasm which had never been mani- 
 fested for any other of Tennyson's works. The 
 ^Westminster' printed an article which was almost 
 wildly enthusiastic in praise of the work. It gave in 
 full fifteen of the poems, and it was apparently with 
 some difficulty that the writer was kept from giving 
 them all.^ In truth, there was little limit to the 
 panegyrics accorded everywhere. ''No one endowed 
 with a perception of what poetry is, could have closed 
 the volume without a full conviction that it was the 
 creation of the first poet of the day," said 'Tait's.'^ 
 It is ''the noblest English Christian poem which 
 several centuries have seen, ' ' said ' Fraser 's. '^ It went 
 on to add in a reference to the anonymous character of 
 the work, that the poet would have no quarrel with the 
 critics who alluded to him as the author, "were he 
 aware of the absolute idolatry with which every utter- 
 ance of his is regarded by the cultivated young men 
 of our day at the universities." The practical una- 
 nimity of fervent praise which waited upon the new 
 work forms a sharp contrast to the recognition, at 
 times almost grudging, which had been given to his 
 two previous productions, favorable as that must be 
 
 1 October, 1850, Vol. LIV, Dp. 85-103. 
 
 2 Vol. XVII, p. 499. 
 8 Vol. XLII, p. 252. 
 
IN MEMORIAM 625 
 
 considered in certain instances. For the first time in 
 Tennyson's career, critical approval kept pace even 
 remotely with popular approval. 
 
 Two re\'iews, however, may be singled out for their 
 depreciatory character. One comes from an English 
 and one from an American source. The latter is worth 
 mentioning only as a curiosity in criticism. The 
 former deserves a more extended notice, partly from 
 the time when and the place where it appeared ; partly 
 because it embodied the usual stupid objections which 
 were made to the poem; but mainly for the effect it 
 wrought upon the feelings of a distinguished pulpit 
 orator of the Church of England and for the impor- 
 tance he attached to it. From his first appearance in 
 1830 to the publication of 'In Memoriam,' Tennyson 
 had been subjected to all sorts of criticism from silly 
 panegjaic to malignant depreciation. He had encoun- 
 tered feeble criticism, supercilious criticism, patron- 
 izing criticism, appreciative criticism, unappreciative 
 criticism, just and discriminating criticism. But it 
 was now his fortune to receive the attention of a critic 
 who surpassed his contemporaries. To characterize 
 suitably the folly of this particular piece of criticism 
 makes one regretfully aware of the limitations of 
 language. The writer, so far as inferences can be 
 dra^vn from what he said, was a heavy, prosaic, 
 muddle-headed man, who had read up several of the 
 elegiac poems of the language for the sake of fixing 
 pegs upon which to hang his discourse. His review 
 appeared in the London 'Times' a year and a half after 
 the publication of 'In Memoriam' — to be precise, on 
 
626 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 the twenty-eighth of November, 1851. It was headed 
 'The Poetry of Sorrow,' and occupied three columns 
 and a half. The title gave the critic opportunity to 
 disport for a while over the field of elegiac verse ; and 
 he improved it so far as he knew. It was in fact one 
 of those discursive reviews which deal little directly 
 with the matter in hand. Accordingly, no small part 
 of the article had nothing to do with its real subject. 
 But the critic refrained at last from exhibiting his own 
 extensive reading, and bestowed his attention upon 
 what was set before him. In so doing he made two 
 things manifest. One was his assumed knowledge and 
 actually profound ignorance of the poet's literary 
 career. The other was his open confession of his 
 inability to comprehend the meaning of certain pas- 
 sages which it required peculiar incapacity not to be 
 able to understand. There was indeed in this review 
 a sort of perfunctory praise given to certain portions 
 of Tennyson's work. The temper of the English 
 people had now become such that this was an ingre- 
 dient which the most censorious of critics felt it 
 necessary to throw in. 
 
 Tennyson had at last won his way to the headship of 
 English poetry. He had lived through years of 
 indifference and neglect, of depreciation indeed and 
 venomous criticism. With an astounding ignorance 
 of these facts in his literary history, the writer of the 
 article in the ' Times ' began by paying a tribute to the 
 easy path by which the poet had won his way to 
 renown. ** Perhaps of modern poets," he wrote, 
 **Mr. Tennyson has met with fewest obstacles on the 
 
IN MEMORIAM 627 
 
 high-road to reputation. The famous horseman of 
 Edmonton did not find his gate thro\\Ti back mth a 
 more generous abandonment of the tax." Accord- 
 ingly, as the critical turnpike had of late been care- 
 lessly attended, the writer felt it his duty to see that 
 the rules of the road were more rigorously enforced. 
 Thereupon he proceeded to point out certain leading 
 defects in 'In Memoriam.' One was the enormous 
 exaggeration of the grief. This was unreal, we are 
 told. It produced a sense of untruthfulness which 
 could not be removed. Far superior on this account 
 were the lines of Dr. Johnson on the death of Levett. 
 This single remark gives of itself a fairly complete 
 conception of the taste and judgment of the critic. 
 The second defect was the tone of amatory tenderness 
 pervading the poem. This was something quite 
 improper to be addressed by a man to a man. "The 
 taste," he said, "is displeased when every expression 
 of fondness is sighed out, and the only figure within 
 our view is Amaryllis of the Chancery Bar." Still, 
 it is fair to say that the critic was faithful throughout 
 to his intellectual limitations. Shakespeare's sonnets, 
 he tells us, were liable to the same objection. These 
 as well as 'In Memoriam' must be condemned by the 
 "tasteful" critic. 
 
 Another objection to the poem was the obscurity 
 pervading many of its passages. This same sort of 
 obscurity, it was added, ran more or less through aU 
 of Tennyson's productions. It was obscurity which 
 arose not from excess but from want of meaning. The 
 critic found much that it was impossible for him to 
 
628 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 comprehend, — and after the manner of critics in 
 general, he assumed because it was incomprehensible 
 to him that it was beyond the limits of human compre- 
 hension. Unfortunately for himself, he made the 
 mistake of citing several of these incomprehensible 
 passages. ''We have," he said in one instance, 
 ''applied every known test without detecting the 
 slightest trace of sense." His lack of comprehension 
 was due to his own lack of sense. He was furthermore 
 shocked by finding that the language occasionally 
 bordered on blasphemy. As if blasphemy were not 
 enough, he charged Tennyson also with bad grammar. 
 Here again he gave specimens of certain violations 
 of the rules laid down by Lindley Murray. These 
 examples of inaccuracy furnished, as might have been 
 expected, conclusive proof that the reviewer's lin- 
 guistic ignorance was on a par with his literary taste. 
 Then came that solemn pronouncement which is the 
 tag to most cheap criticism. "Small as this book is," 
 he said, "it may be abridged with profit." 
 
 Along with its pretentiousness and arrogance, so 
 much ignorance was displayed that the review excited 
 among Tennyson's admirers merriment rather than 
 irritation. Furthermore it excited amazement. The 
 merriment was due to the character of the article ; the 
 amazement at the place of its appearance. Pope's 
 couplet — 
 
 The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, 
 But wonder how the devil they got there, — 
 
 expressed the feeling that generally prevailed. One 
 of the consequences was that another writer set out 
 
IN MEMORIAM 629 
 
 to review in turn Tennyson's critic. In this he enter- 
 tained himself by shoeing the unusual limitations of 
 knowledge and the unusual obtuseness of perception 
 which had formed an indispensable requirement for 
 writing the review in question. His article had for its 
 title 'The ''Times" and the Poets.'' This heading 
 had evidently been suggested by Tennyson's reply to 
 Bulwer — ' The New Timon and the Poets. ' The writer 
 took delight in explaining, as if to a dull boy, the 
 meaning of passages which according to his own 
 account the newspaper critic had tasked his mental 
 powers in vain to comprehend. It required no David 
 indeed to slay this stupidest of Philistines. In com- 
 menting upon the charge of undue amatory tenderness, 
 he incidentally recalled to the attention of the reviewer 
 the lament of David for Jonathan, and intimated that 
 up to this time no one had dubbed the warrior king of 
 Israel a sickly sentimentalist because of the intensity 
 of affection he had expressed for his fallen friend. 
 
 One of the passages whose meaning he kindly 
 explained to the reviewer is worth citing here because 
 of the opportunity it affords of giving Tennyson's 
 o^m explanation of how he came to write it. These 
 are the lines referring to Hallam — 
 
 And over those ethereal eyes 
 The bar of Michael Aiigelo. 
 
 The reviewer in the 'Times' had not ventured to 
 declare these lines incomprehensible. An uneasy 
 dread that by openly confessing his ignorance he 
 
 I'Tait's Edinburgh Magazine,' January, 1852, Vol. XIX, p. 18. 
 
630 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 might be thought to expose the asses 's ears too con- 
 spicuously led him to express himself with caution. 
 * ' We shall not say, ' ' he wrote, ' * if we can comprehend 
 the closing line. We can keep a secret." The secret 
 which he dared not reveal his critic was kind enough 
 to disclose. He referred him to so common a work 
 as the 'Penny Cyclopaedia.' There under the medal- 
 lion portrait of Michael Angelo which precedes the 
 account of his life, the existence of the mysterious 
 *'bar" was plainly visible. The lines in fact were a 
 remembrance on Tennyson's part of the words which 
 Hallam had applied to himself in their university 
 days. When asked later the meaning of the lines the 
 poet recalled the incident which led him to make use 
 of the phrase. ''Those," he replied, "are almost 
 Hallam 's own words. You must have noticed in all 
 portraits of Michael Angelo the bulging, bony ridge 
 over the eyes, technically called by artists the 'bar.' 
 Hallam had this bony ridge very prominent, and one 
 day, when we were at Cambridge, he came into my 
 room, and while talking, passed his fingers across his 
 brow and said, 'Alfred, I've got the real "bar" of 
 Michael Angelo.' "^ 
 
 To the modern reader the only amusing thing about 
 this mere twaddle of the critic is that any one should 
 have taken it seriously. Of course Tennyson himself 
 would always have to be excepted; for nobody could 
 write anything sufficiently stupid not to give annoy- 
 ance to that most thin-skinned of natures. Strangely 
 
 1 ' Personal Recollections of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, ' by W. Gordon 
 McCabe, 'Century Magazine' (New Series), Vol. XLI, p. 731. 
 
IN MEMORIAM 631 
 
 enough, there was another highly gifted man who 
 shared in this feeling. This w^as the noted divine, the 
 Eeverend Frederick William Robertson. He was at the 
 time incumbent of Trinity Chapel, Brighton. There he 
 melded extraordinary influence both with his hearers 
 and with the outside public by the fervor of his 
 eloquence and the exalted spirituality of his discourse. 
 But though possessing many of the highest qualities 
 of mind and heart, Robertson lacked almost wholly the 
 sense of humor. It led him to underrate the intel- 
 ligence of his fellow men. While other people were 
 laughing not ivith the * Times ' but at it, he was trans- 
 ported with righteous indignation. He apparently 
 fancied that this particular review would do serious 
 harm to Tennyson's reputation, and affect injuriously 
 the circulation of 'In Memoriam. ' This was not 
 because he attached any importance to the matter it 
 contained, but because it had appeared in a paper 
 wielding the supposed influence of the leading London 
 daily. He appeared to believe that readers would 
 forego the right of private judgment because an 
 anonymous writer — very fortunately for his memory 
 anonymous — had inserted a depreciatory review of the 
 poem in this newspaper. 
 
 Accordingly, Robertson set out to show that the 
 critic did not understand the scope of the poem and 
 the idea which underlay it. This he did incidentally 
 in the course of two lectures^ which he delivered at 
 Brighton, in February, 1852, before the members of 
 
 1 ' Two Lectures on the Influence of Poetry on the Working Classes, * 
 Brighton, 1853, 
 
632 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 the Mechanics' Institute. It was no difficult matter to 
 carry out his object. Assuredly it was labor thrown 
 away so far as it aimed to counteract the influence of 
 the article; for the article had exerted no influence. 
 No one in fact but Robertson seems to have paid any 
 serious attention to it. He seems to have forgotten 
 that Tennyson was no longer an unknown and unin- 
 fluential poet. Tennyson had found his audience, and 
 that audience consisted of the immense majority of 
 cultivated readers in all English-speaking lands. Such 
 men paid little heed to an article, no matter where 
 appearing, which did hardly more than leave a mingled 
 impression of the wordiness of him who wrote it and 
 the wordiness of what he wrote. Indeed Tennyson had 
 now become a far greater power in literature than any 
 periodical — whether daily, weekly, or monthly — could 
 ever hope to be. Still, Robertson's attitude is of 
 interest as showing how great was now the hold which 
 the poet had gained over the minds of the thoughtful 
 men of his generation, and how quick they were to 
 resent the derogatory observations of the few who 
 succeeded in getting them into print. 
 
 One charge made by the reviewer excited particu- 
 larly the wrath of Robertson. This was that of 
 blasphemy. For the religious teachings of the poem 
 he had unbounded admiration. ''To my mind and 
 heart," he wrote to a correspondent, "the most 
 satisfactory things that have been said on the future 
 state are contained in the 'In Memoriam. ' "^ This 
 
 1 Stopf ord Brooke 's * Life and Letters of Frederick W. Kobertson, ' 
 1865, Vol. II, p. 79. 
 
 .J 
 
IN MEMORIAM 633 
 
 charge of blasphemy had been enunciated by the 
 reviewer with an unctnousness which would have done 
 credit to Uriah Heep. ''Can the writer," he said, 
 ''satisfy his 0"wti conscience with respect to these 
 verses, 
 
 And dear as sacramental wine 
 To dying lips is all he said. 
 
 For our own part we should consider no confession of 
 regret too strong for the hardihood that indited them." 
 One may well hope that it is not so, but it is to be feared 
 that this piece of affected sanctimoniousness led to a 
 feeble alteration in the first verse. The lines now read 
 
 And dear to me as sacred wine 
 To dying lips is all he said. 
 
 The change was made in the sixth edition, the first 
 which followed the criticism in the 'Times.' It is one 
 of the few changes for the worse which are found in 
 Tennyson's poems. It hardly seems possible that the 
 poet of his own accord could have substituted the 
 prosaic sacred for sacramental. 
 
 It was nevertheless reserved for a reviewer on this 
 side of the Atlantic to produce a criticism of 'In 
 Memoriam' which, in spite of its brevity, made the 
 article in the 'Times' seem painfully inadequate. It 
 was a delightful specimen of original, or more properly 
 speaking, of aboriginal criticism. The most desperate 
 onslaughts on Tennyson of the decadents of the closing 
 years of the nineteenth century and the beginning of 
 the twentieth seem pale and bloodless beside the havoc 
 
634 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 wrought by this wielder of the tomahawk of trans- 
 atlantic criticism who had set out to secure and hang 
 at his belt the scalp of the poet and incidentally those 
 of the poet's admirers. The notice of 'In Memoriam,' 
 short enough to be given in full, appeared in 'Brown- 
 son's Quarterly Review' for October, 1850. If internal 
 evidence be of any value, it came from the pen of the 
 editor himself. Brownson was a man of a good deal 
 of repute in his time, though little remembered in these 
 days. He was a redoubtable theological gladiator who 
 had been at different times during his stormy career 
 the doughty champion of almost every sort of ortho- 
 doxy or heterodoxy, and had never been able to find 
 himself in complete accord with any one form of 
 Christian faith. He had been by turn Presbyterian, 
 Universalist, Unitarian. He had now for some time 
 taken refuge in the Roman Catholic faith. There his 
 orthodoxy was occasionally viewed with suspicion and 
 even underwent investigation. In literature he was 
 one of those who were disgusted with the vogue which 
 Tennyson was more and more gaining. He was 
 incapable of appreciating the poet and made no 
 attempt to hide the fact. In his secret heart he felt 
 that his indifference was a proof of his own supremacy. 
 An inferior race of men lacking in courage and ability 
 might like Tennyson ; not so he. As a consequence he 
 gave utterance to the following piece of criticism which 
 should never be suffered to lie in its present obscurity ; 
 for he said on this side of the Atlantic what certain 
 people on the other side felt but did not venture to 
 express. 
 
IN MEMORIAM 635 
 
 "This poem," remarked the reviewer, ''said to be 
 by Tennyson, is presented us by its publishers in all 
 the luxury of paper and type. We find our contem- 
 poraries in England and in this country speak highly 
 of it, and rank its author at the head of living English 
 poets. We suppose we must be destitute of the bump 
 of poetry, for we certainly are unable to admire 
 Tennyson, or to discover any other merit in him than 
 harmonious verse and a little namby-pamby sentiment. 
 We broke down before reading twenty pages of the 
 volume before us. It is doubtless all our own fault, 
 and owing to our inability to detect or appreciate true 
 poetic gems. In brief words, Tennyson is not a poet 
 to our taste. That he has a poetic temperament, we 
 can believe; that he scatters here and there a real 
 poetic gem in his works, we are not disposed to deny; 
 but to us he is feeble, diffuse, and tiresome. He strikes 
 us as a man of feeble intellect, as wanting altogether 
 in the depth and force of thought indispensable, not 
 to the poetic temperament, but to the genuine poet. 
 He seems to us a poet for puny transcendentalists, 
 beardless boys, and miss in her teens.'" 
 
 There is no question that this is a critical gem which 
 should not be lost. 
 
 With the publication of 'In Memoriam,' Tennyson 
 entered upon the fulness of his fame. All the obstacles 
 which had stood in the way of his acceptance by the 
 public had been surmounted. The long days of depre- 
 ciation or of half-hearted appreciation were now over. 
 For the next twenty years he reigned not merely 
 
 1 ' Brownson 's Quarterly Review,' Vol. IV (New Series), pp. 539-540. 
 
636 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 without a rival but without any poetical contemporary 
 being in what may be called speaking distance. During 
 the period in particular covered by this work, he was 
 in the heyday of his triumphant progress. To find in 
 English literature any parallel to the general accept- 
 ance of his superiority we must go back to the time 
 of Pope in the second quarter of the eighteenth 
 century; or to that of Byron in the first quarter 
 of the nineteenth from the time of the publication of 
 the first two cantos of 'Childe Harold' to his death at 
 Missolonghi in 1824. 
 
 Of course there were dissentients. Hostility there 
 was, though it was rarely open. It found expression 
 in anonymous attacks in newspapers to which the 
 depredator could gain access. But for a long time 
 there was not much even of this. The men who 
 thought poorly of Tennyson 's poetry either kept their 
 opinion to themselves or for their own sakes might 
 better have done so when they published it under their 
 own names. It had no effect whatever upon the repu- 
 tation of the poet so far as the public was concerned; 
 it was upon their own reputation with the public that 
 the greatest damage was wrought. During the sixth 
 decade, indeed, the domination of Tennyson assumed 
 almost the nature of tyranny. The feeling prevailing 
 during this period is strikingly brought out in a 
 communication sent to the biographer of William 
 Morris. It was written towards the end of his life by 
 the church historian and minor poet, Richard Watson 
 Dixon, Canon of Carlisle. Dixon entered Pembroke 
 
IN ME:\I0RIA]VI 637 
 
 College, Oxford, in 1851. While there he became 
 associated ^vith men — especially Burne-Jones and 
 Morris — who were later to form a constituent part of 
 the Praeraphaelite Brotherhood. The testimony lie 
 bore late in life — he died in 1900 — gives the modem 
 reader a fair impression of the extravagant admiration 
 which was entertained at that time for the poet, 
 particularly among educated young men. ''It is 
 difficult," he wrote, "to the present generation to 
 understand the Tennysonian enthusiasm which then 
 prevailed both in Oxford and the world. All reading 
 men were Tennysonians ; all sets of reading men 
 talked poetry. Poetry was the thing; and it was felt 
 with justice that this was due to Tennyson. Tennyson 
 had invented a new poetry, a new poetic English ; his 
 use of words was new, and every piece that he w^rote 
 was a conquest of a new region. This lasted till 
 ' Maud, ' in 1855 ; which was his last poem that mattered. 
 I am told that in this generation no University man 
 cares for poetry. This is almost inconceivable to one 
 who remembers Tennyson's reign and his reception 
 in the Sheldonian in '55. There was the general 
 conviction that Tennyson was the greatest poet of the 
 century; some held him the greatest of all poets, or at 
 least of all modern poets." The intensity of the 
 admiration which then prevailed among the young 
 men of the time is borne out by the Canon's concluding 
 remark. "As to Tennyson," he said, "I would add 
 that we all had the feeling that after him no 
 farther development was possible: that we were at 
 
638 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 the end of all things in poetry. In this fallacy Morris 
 shared. ' '^ 
 
 As already suggested, it is not meant to be implied 
 that there was no discordant note in this unqualified 
 admiration. That which had never happened in the 
 case of anybody, no matter who or what he was, could 
 not be expected to happen in the case of Tennyson. 
 In him special limitations were perceived, or thought 
 to be perceived, even by fervent admirers. The 
 examples given, indeed, sometimes strike the reader 
 as being rather the limitations of the critic than of 
 the poet. Dixon gives as an illustration the attitude 
 of Morris. That he described as a defiant admiration. 
 *'He perceived," wrote the Canon, "Tennyson's limi- 
 tations, as I think, in a remarkable manner for a man 
 of twenty or so." The examples given of this per- 
 ception would now strike men generally as remarkable, 
 though in another sense from that intended by the 
 writer, even had they come from a man of twice twenty. 
 "He said once," continues the Canon, " 'Tennyson's 
 Sir Galahad is rather a mild youth.' Of 'Locksley 
 Hall' he said, apostrophizing the hero, *My dear 
 fellow, if you are going to make that row, get out of 
 the room, that's all.' Thus he perceived a certain 
 rowdy, or bullying element that runs through much of 
 Tennyson's work: runs through 'The Princess,' 'Lady 
 Clara Vere,' or 'Amphion.' " As the only one who 
 ever made this discovery in the pieces specified, the 
 criticism deserves mention. "On the other hand," 
 continued Dixon, "he understood Tennyson's great- 
 
 1 J. W. Mackail's 'Life of William Morris,' Vol. I, pp. 44-46. 
 
IN MEMORIAM 639 
 
 ness in a manner that we, who were mostly absorbed 
 by the language, could not share. He understood it 
 as if the poems represented substantial things that 
 were to be considered out of the poems as well as in 
 them. ' ' 
 
 Xo supremacy of this sort can be wielded by a man 
 in his lifetime save for a limited period of years. 
 Dryden in his great political satire, in speaking of the 
 fickleness of the English people in the matter of 
 politics, observed 
 
 For governed by the moon, the giddy Jews 
 Tread the same track when she the prime renews : 
 And once in twenty years their scribes record, 
 By natural instinct they change their lord. 
 
 The same disposition shows itself in the case of their 
 literary sovereigns. A really great author never loses 
 a commanding position in the world of letters. But 
 that commanding position in which there is scarcely 
 heard a protest against his rule can hardly last much 
 more than a score of years. Rival claimants to the 
 throne will be set up by eager partisans. But after 
 all, these are usually mere eddies in the stream of 
 commendation. He is never displaced from his high 
 position or even from the highest unless some man of 
 indisputably greater genius arises. Tennyson's place 
 at the head of English men of letters, though several 
 times strongly assailed in his later years, was never 
 seriously shaken during his lifetime. The limits of 
 the present work do not permit the consideration of 
 the reaction against his absolute domination which 
 
640 LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON 
 
 first began to manifest itself during the closing years 
 of the seventh decade. It never gained sufficient force 
 to dethrone him; it had to content itself with pro- 
 claiming to select circles the rights of rival claimants. 
 Occasionally cliques could be found who sincerely 
 persuaded themselves that they had disposed of his 
 pretensions to general recognition because they found 
 a ready concurrence with their views in the small body 
 of which they formed a part. As Tennyson himself 
 expressed it, they took the rustic cackle of their bourg 
 for the murmur round the world. 
 
INDEX 
 
INDEX 
 
 Ackermann, Rudolph, 246, 259, 
 
 Addison, 48. 
 
 Adeline, 223, 237. 
 
 .3]lius Lampridius, 48. 
 
 ^schylus, 223. 
 
 Albert, Prince Consort, 21, 572, 
 585. 
 
 Alford, Henry, with Tennyson at 
 Cambridge, 65 ; writes for ' The 
 Tribute, ' 271 ; Tennyson classed 
 with, 364; his School of the 
 Heart, 365, 477, 607; the 
 'Edinburgh' places him above 
 Tennyson, 372; Wilson on, 473, 
 474, 480, 482; his opinion of 
 Hallam, 610. 
 
 Alison, Sir Archibald, 191. 
 
 All good Things have not Icept 
 aloof, 350, 407. 
 
 All Things will Die, 210, 235. 
 
 Allen, Dr. Matthew, 376, 501, 502, 
 508. 
 
 AUingham, William, 432. 
 
 'American Review,' 461, 558. 
 
 Amphion, 638. 
 
 'Amulet, The,' 250. 
 
 Anacreontics, 265, 266. 
 
 'Analytical Review,' 98. 
 
 'Annual Register,' 277. 
 
 'Anti- Jacobin Review,' 98. 
 
 Antony to Cleopatra, 58. 
 
 ApoUonius Rhodius, 47. 
 
 'Apostles,' 69-84, 90, 301, 374. 
 
 Archseus, see Sterling. 
 
 'Arcturus,' 386, 387. 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, his Prize Poem, 
 80; his opinion of Wordsworth, 
 141, 142; on Macaulay's Lays, 
 487; FitzGerald's opinion of, 
 552. 
 
 Ashburton, Lord, 388. 
 
 'Athenaeum,' founded, 83, 104; 
 connection with ' Apostles, ' 84, 
 301; attacks Satan, 183; re- 
 views Poems of 1832, 301; on 
 Lockhart, 326; Cunningham's 
 contributions to, 343; reviews 
 St. Agnes, 366; reviews Poems 
 of 1842, 422, 424; cited by Fitz- 
 Gerald, 551, 552; recommends 
 Mrs. Browning for laureateship, 
 577, 578, 582, 584, 588. 
 
 'Atlas,' founded, 105; FitzGer- 
 ald's opinion of, 105; review 
 of Satan, 184; of Poems of 
 1830, 226, 300; of Poems of 
 1842, 426; of In Memoriam, 621. 
 
 Audley Court, 388. 
 
 Austen, Jane, 15, 551. 
 
 Bailey, Philip James, 492. 
 Baillie, Joanna, 470, 472, 473, 485. 
 Barrett, PJlizabeth, see Browning, 
 
 Mrs. 
 Barrow, Sir John, 95. 
 Bartol, Cyrus A., 522. 
 Barton, Bernard, 257-258, 570. 
 Battle of Armageddon, 77. 
 Beattie, James, 48. 
 Beddoes, Thos. L., 482. 
 
644 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Bedford, Grosvenor, 254. 
 
 Benson, Archbishop, 622. 
 
 Blackbird, The, 392. 
 
 Blackwood, William, 95, 120, 311. 
 
 ' Blackwood 's ' Cockney School, 
 114, 298. 
 
 'Blackwood's Magazine,' founded, 
 100; sets new standard, 101; 
 popular estimation of, 102; Chal- 
 dee MS., Ill; Cockney School 
 of Poetry, 114, 298; assails 
 Hunt, 115-117; assails Shelley, 
 117; assails Keats, 117, 120- 
 124, 315-319, 324; Wilson its 
 leading critic, 130, 181, 463; on 
 Campbell, 140; on Montgomery, 
 181, 185; reviews Tennyson, 230- 
 243, 291, 321, 326, 336, 351, 401, 
 402, 465-496; Tennyson's dread 
 of, 293-294; Hypocrisy Un- 
 veiled, 310; review of Wilson's 
 Lights and Shadows, 311-312; 
 Moir's relation to, 364; reviews 
 Clare's Poems, 371; attitude 
 towards authors, 476; on Ster- 
 ling, 482-483; on Mrs. Brown- 
 ing, 4S9. 
 
 Blakesley, Dean J. W., 16-17, 76- 
 77, 155. 
 
 Bonaparte, 349, 414. 
 
 'Book of Beauty,' 251, 258, 261. 
 
 Boswell's Johnson, 19-20. 
 
 Bowles, Caroline, see Southey, 
 Mrs. 
 
 Bowles, William Lisle, 191, 192, 
 214, 259, 480. 
 
 Bowring, Sir John, 207. 
 
 Boyd, Hugh Stuart, 146. 
 
 Bradley, Dean, 421. 
 
 Bristed, Charles Astor, 277, 405, 
 558, 
 
 'British Critic,' 99. 
 
 'British Review,' 99. 
 
 Brooke, Stopford Augustus, 55-56. 
 
 Brookfield, William Henry, at 
 Cambridge with Tennyson, 64; 
 opinion of Oxford, 72; gets 
 Tennyson to contribute to ' The 
 Keepsake, ' 269 ; letter to, about 
 Lady Wortley, 271; tribute to 
 Hallam, 596. 
 
 Browning, Robert, and publicity, 
 10-11 ; opinion of Frederick 
 Tennyson, 37, 221; friend of 
 Forster, 105; impressed by 
 Shelley, 152-153 ; Moxon 's state- 
 ment about Artevelde, 166, 357- 
 358; his opinion of Charles 
 Tennyson, 221 ; his opinion of 
 W. J. Fox, 288; Moxon declines 
 Paracelsus, 357, 358; his King 
 Victor, 391 ; letter to Domett 
 about the Poems of 1842, 399, 
 400, 409; letter to Miss Barrett 
 about Tennyson, 404, 405, 413; 
 Forster 's panegyric of, 419, 485- 
 486; Wilson's ignorance of, 483, 
 491-492; letter to Miss Barrett 
 about Moxon, 500; Mill's lack 
 of appreciation of, 508; letter 
 from Miss Barrett about The 
 Princess, 531 ; approval from 
 the Praeraphaelites, 549 ; his 
 Sordcllo, 549, 550; FitzGerald's 
 opinion of, 551-552; Pollock's 
 friendship for, 551; suggested 
 for laureateship, 572, 584. 
 
 Browning, Mrs. Robert, opinion 
 of 'The Atlas,' 106; admires 
 Wordsworth and Byron, 145- 
 146 ; letter to Home about 
 Montgomery, 192; contributes 
 to Annuals, 259; publishing of 
 poetry a speculation, 358 ; 
 charged with imitating Tenny- 
 son, 369, 370, 490; unable to 
 
' 
 
 INDEX 
 
 645 
 
 procure Poems of 1830, 384; 
 her work praised by Wilson, 
 489-490, 492; Miss Mitford's 
 letter about her poems, 500; 
 letter to Browning about The 
 Princess, 531; thinks Hunt 
 should be laureate, 577; Chorley 
 recommends her for laureateship, 
 578, 579, 580, 583-584, 588. 
 
 Brownson, Orestes A., 634-635. 
 
 ' BroM-nson 's Quarterly Review, ' 
 634-635. 
 
 Bryant, WiUiam Cullen, 256. 
 
 Buckingham, James Silk, 83. 
 
 Buller, Charles, 64. 
 
 Bulwer, E. G. (Lord Lytton), at 
 Cambridge, 64; writes a Prize 
 Poem, 80; his popularity, 110; 
 reviews of his works. 111; as- 
 sailed by Fraser's, 185; con- 
 tributor to Annuals, 258-259; 
 reviews Poems of 1832, 304, 305; 
 calls Tennyson ' School-Miss 
 Alfred,' 322; publishes Eva, 
 390; Wilson's opinion of, 482; 
 his early verse, 516; his novels 
 and plays, 516-519; his attack 
 on Tennyson, 519-529, 629; re- 
 lation between Tennyson and, 
 524-525; mentioned, 508, 518, 
 520, 521, 522, 523, 528, 529. 
 
 Buonaparte, see Bonaparte. 
 
 Burke, Edmund, 48. 
 
 Burne-Jones, Sir E., 637. 
 
 Buruey, Fanny, 19. 
 
 Burns, Robert, 130, 220. 
 
 Butler, Fanny Kemble, see Kem- 
 ble. 
 
 Byron, Lord, Medwin's Journal, 
 9; influence on Tennyson, 37-38, 
 48-49, 52, 55; Hours of Idleness, 
 41, 42; his posing for effect, 
 49, 50; his influence on Charles 
 
 Tennyson, 51 ; his influence in 
 general, 68, 129, 134, 142-150, 
 421, 482, 490, 492, 636; com- 
 parison with Wordsworth, 68, 
 83, 154; at Cambridge, 71; 
 comparison with Tennyson, S3; 
 opinion of 'British Review,' 99; 
 Lockhart 's review killed Keats, 
 122; on Jeffrey's review of En- 
 dymion, 123, 124, and Childe 
 Harold, 469-470; Wilson's opin- 
 ion of, 130, 480; admired by 
 Taylor, 148 ; comparison with 
 Shelley, 153-157; Cain, 182; 
 Moore's life of, 186; compari- 
 son with Montgomery, 191; 
 Childe Harold, 308; Tennyson 
 calls his poetry rhetoric, 339; 
 attacks Jeffrey, 469; Bulwer 
 compares Byron and Tennyson, 
 529; his opinion of Rogers, 573; 
 mentioned, 44, 48, 49, 119, 128, 
 138. 
 
 Caillie, Rene, 80. 
 
 'Cambridge University Magazine,' 
 459. 
 
 Cameron, Mrs., 14, 168. 
 
 Campbell, Thomas, influence on 
 Tennyson, 49, 53; editor of 
 'Xew Monthly Magazine,' 102; 
 Jeffrey's opinion of, 129; posi- 
 tion and influence, 139-141, 492, 
 500; life of Lawrence, 186; con- 
 tributor to Annuals, 259; ac- 
 count of, in 'Eraser's,' 359; in- 
 fluence on Mrs. Browning, 370; 
 Pilgrims of Glencoe, 390; Wil- 
 son 's criticism of, 480. 
 
 Canning, George, 107. 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, reminiscences of 
 Tennyson, 17; Life of Sterling, 
 90; contributor to Annuals, 259; 
 
646 
 
 INDEX 
 
 account of, in 'Fraser's, ' 359; 
 refuses to review Montgomery's 
 Luther, 391; French Bevolution, 
 482; description of Dr. Allen, 
 501 ; tries to secure pension for 
 Tennyson, 504-505; his prose, 
 508; his opinion of Tennyson, 
 551. 
 Gary, Henry F., 258. 
 A Character, 157. 
 Charge of the Light Brigade, 213. 
 Chaucer, 39, 71. 
 Check every Outburst, 266. 
 Chesterfield, Lord, 204. 
 Chorley, Henry Fothergill, critic 
 of 'The Athenffium,' 422-424, 
 577-578; recommends Mrs. 
 Browning for laureateship, 577- 
 588. 
 'Christian Examiner,' 383, 450. 
 'Chronicle,' 108. 
 'Church of England Quarterly Ee- 
 
 view,' 427, 435. 
 Cicero, 48, 610. 
 Clare, John, 371, 466. 
 Claribel, 349. 
 
 Clark, Willis Gaylord, 256. 
 Claudian, 48. 
 Cleghorn, James, 101. 
 Colburn, Henry, 103. 
 Coleridge, Hartley, 235, 354. 
 Coleridge, Henry Nelson, 344. 
 Coleridge, John Taylor, 110. 
 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, at Cam- 
 bridge, 71, 73; at Highgate, 
 128; Jeffrey's opinion of, 129; 
 his position and influence, 139, 
 141 ; thought Charles Tennyson 
 superior to Alfred, 214-215; con- 
 tributor to the Annuals, 258- 
 259; opinion of Tennyson, 343- 
 345; Spedding's opinion of, 354; 
 accoimt of, in 'Fraser's,' 359; 
 
 Wilson's criticism of, 480; 
 Forster's estimate of, 485. 
 
 'Comic Annual, The,' 250. 
 
 Conversazione Society, see 'Apos- 
 tles. ' 
 
 Cornwall, Barry, see Procter. 
 
 Cowell, Prof. E. B., opinion of 
 BroT\-ning, 551. 
 
 Cowley, Abraham, 55, 72. 
 
 Cowper, William, 48, 130. 
 
 Crabbe, George, comparison of 
 Tennyson with, 44; Jeffrey's 
 opinion of, 129; Wilson's opin- 
 ion of, 480; FitzGerald's opin- 
 ion of, 552. 
 
 Crashaw, Richard, 72. 
 
 'Critical Eeview,' 97-98. 
 
 Croker, John Wilson, Duke of 
 Wellington sends for, 95; re- 
 view of Endymion, 121, 124, 
 316, 317, 321; review of Milnes's 
 Poems, 372; his opinion of 
 Tennyson, 372, 515; his domi- 
 nance as a critic, 450. 
 
 Croly, George, 120. 
 
 Cunningham, Allan, 259, 343. 
 
 Day Dream, 354, 392. 
 
 Days that are no more, 266. 
 
 Death of the Old Year, 300, 301. 
 
 'Democratic Review,' 396, 433, 
 462. 
 
 Deserted House, 237, 400, 423. 
 
 de Vere, Aubrey, 271, 379, 547. 
 
 'Dial,' 457-459. 
 
 Dickens, Charles, 105, 491, 508. 
 
 Dirge, A, 237, 349. 
 
 Disraeli, Benjamin, 106, 107, 258, 
 259, 508, 517, 578. 
 
 Dixon, Richard Watson, describes 
 admiration for Tennyson at Ox- 
 ford, 636; quotes Morris on 
 Tennyson, 638. 
 
INDEX 
 
 647 
 
 Dodsley, Eobert, 204. 
 
 Domett, Alfred, 399. 
 
 Donne, William Bodham, letter 
 
 from Trench about the Tenny- 
 
 sons, 229 ; letter from Spedding 
 
 about Alfred Tennyson, 355 ; 
 
 his opinion of Browning, 551 ; 
 
 letter to Barton about the lau- 
 
 reateship, 570. 
 Dora, 354, 388, 430, 439. 
 Doyle, Sir Francis Hastings, the 
 
 Oxford Union debate, 156, 157; 
 
 tributes to Hallam, 596, 608. 
 Bream of Fair Women, 284, 305, 
 
 394, 405, 407, 410, 411, 412. 
 Dryden, John, 40, 71, 200, 373, 
 
 569, 639. 
 Duyckinck, Evert A., 386. 
 Dwight, John Sullivan, 383. 
 Dyce, Alexander, 531-532. 
 Dying Swan, 235, 348, 403. 
 
 'Eclectic Eeview,' 99, 541. 
 
 Edgeworth, Frank, 387. 
 
 ' Edinburgh Literary Journal, ' 
 184. 
 
 'Edinburgh Keview, ' its position 
 and influence, 94-95, 98, 110, 
 111, 124, 224, 469; notes an in- 
 difference to poetry, 133, 134; 
 on Shelley and Keats, 145; 
 on Montgomery, 187, 193-195; 
 Jeffrey as editor, 314; first ref- 
 erence to Tennyson, 365; on the 
 Stanzas, 368; places Alford 
 above Tennyson, 372; Shelley 
 as model for 'Tennysonites, ' 
 373; Tennyson expects attack 
 from, 389; review of Poems of 
 1842, 436-437; review of The 
 Frincess, 547; FitzGerald's opin- 
 ion of, 551 ; mentioned, 130 n. 
 
 Egerton, Lord Francis, 508. 
 
 Eleanore, 303, 348, 407, 408, 
 
 Elegiacs, 349. 
 
 Eliot, George, 551. 
 
 Elliott, Ebenezer, 480. 
 
 Emerson, K. W., calls upon Words- 
 worth, 214; on gifts, 253; ad- 
 miration for Tennyson, 448, 457, 
 459 n ; letter from Carlyle about 
 Tennyson, 504. 
 
 'English Eeview,' 98. 
 
 English War Song, 234, 349. 
 
 'Englishman's Magazine,' 221, 
 232, 233, 266, 282. 
 
 Enoch Arden, 88. 
 
 Etty, William, 189. 
 
 ' Examiner, ' Tennyson 's lines in, 
 9; editors, 105; Mrs. Brown- 
 ing's opinion of, 106; the Prince 
 Eegent, 115; review of Poems 
 of 1842, 338, 419, 421, 423, 440, 
 541, 553, 621. 
 
 Falconer, Arabella, 573. 
 
 Felton, Prof. C. C, review of 
 Poems of 1842, 450-454, 457; 
 on imitations of Tennyson, 455, 
 456. 
 
 Fields, .Tames T., 557. 
 
 'Finden's Serapbook,' 251. 
 
 FitzGerald, Edward, preserved 
 casual utterances of Tennyson, 
 6 ; comparison of Frederick and 
 Alfred Tennyson, 37, 551 ; Ten- 
 nyson did not consort with him 
 at Cambridge, 65; his opinion 
 of 'The Atlas,' 105; letter to 
 Frederick Tennyson on the son- 
 net, 219; his opinion of Croker'a 
 article on Keats, 321; friend- 
 ship with Tennyson and Sped- 
 ding, 353-356, 389; letter from 
 Tennyson about Poems of 1842, 
 385; letters to Frederick Tenny- 
 
648 
 
 INDEX 
 
 son about it, 387, 389, 420, 421, 
 422; letter to Pollock about it, 
 438; feared lack of appreciation 
 for it, 439; letter from Carlyle 
 about laureateship, 504; letter 
 to Frederick Tennyson about 
 The Princess, 530, 550; esti- 
 mates of English writers, 551, 
 552; of Tennyson, 551-553. 
 
 Fletcher, John, 371. 
 
 Flower, The, 88. 
 
 Fonblanque, Albany, 105. 
 
 Forbes, James David, 511, 513. 
 
 Fordyce, Dr. James, 537, 538. 
 
 Foresters, The, 212. 
 
 Forget-me-not (poem), 400, 409. 
 
 'Forget Me Not' (annual), 246, 
 247, 253, 254, 256, 259, 261. 
 
 Forster, John, joins the 'Exam- 
 iner, ' 105 ; review of Poems of 
 1842, 338, 419, 421, 440; his 
 opinion of Browning, 485, 486; 
 sent The New Timon to ' Punch, ' 
 527; review of The Princess, 
 541, 553 ; review of In Memo- 
 riam, 621. 
 
 ' Fortnightly Keview, ' 54. 
 
 Fox, William Johnson, 288-289, 
 369. 
 
 Fragment, A, 265. 
 
 Fraser, Hugh, 102. 
 
 ' Fraser 's Magazine, ' founded, 
 102; on Prize Poems, 86; esti- 
 mate of contemporary poetry, 
 131, 133; criticism of Campbell, 
 140; of Montgomery, 185, 188; 
 Gallery of Literary Portraits, 
 359 ; review of LocTcsley Hall, 
 440; of The Princess, 548; of 
 In Memoriam, 624. 
 
 'Friendship's Offering,' 247, 248, 
 253, 261, 266, 267. 
 
 Fuller, Margaret, 457-458, 459 n. 
 
 Fytche, Elizabeth, 2. 
 Fytche, Stephen, 45-46. 
 
 Gardener's Daughter, 354, 388, 
 430, 439. 
 
 'Gem, The,' 261, 265, 268. 
 
 'Gentleman's Magazine,' 44, 180, 
 183. 
 
 George IV (then Prince Kegent), 
 115. 
 
 Gibbon, Edward, 48. 
 
 Gifford, William, 101, 110, 112, 
 360. 
 
 Gilfillan, George, his opinion of 
 Tennyson, 287; review of Lochs- 
 ley Hall, 444, 
 
 Gladstone, W. E., letters from 
 Hallam about Maurice, 73, and 
 Timbuctoo, 82; Milnes's charac- 
 terization of, 155 ; as a speaker, 
 158; Tennyson and the laureate- 
 ship, 513; friendship with Hal- 
 lam, 589, 590, 594; thought 
 Hallam should have gone to Ox- 
 ford, 592; letters from Hallam 
 about Cambridge, 593 ; notes the 
 ill health of Hallam, 594; trib- 
 utes to Hallam, 590, 592, 596, 
 608-609, 612. 
 
 God's Denunciations against Pha- 
 raoh-Hophra, 44. 
 
 Godiva, 388, 431, 439, 448. 
 
 Goethe, 67, 141. 
 
 Golden Days of Good Haroun 
 Alraschid, 230. 
 
 Golden Supper, 308. 
 
 Goldsmith, 200. 
 
 Goose, The, 392. 
 
 Gordon, Mrs. J. T., 402, 403. 
 
 Gould, Hannah Flagg, 256. 
 
 ' Graham 's Magazine, ' 462. 
 
 Granville, Lady Jane, 573. 
 
 Granville, Lord, 573. 
 
INDEX 
 
 649 
 
 Grasshopper, The, 235. 
 
 Gray, Thomas, 48, 53, 71, 340, 341, 
 
 569. 
 Greville, C. C. F., 166. 
 Griffin, Gerald, 222. 
 Griswold, Rufus Wilmot, estimate 
 
 of Tennyson, 460. 
 
 Hadley, Prof. James, review of 
 The Princess, 556, 557. 
 
 Hall, Samuel Carter, 250. 
 
 Hallam, Arthur Henry, birth, and 
 education at Eton, 589-590; 
 meets Gladstone, 589-590; visits 
 Italy, 591 ; predicts pilgrimages 
 to Tennyson 's home, 4-5 ; goes 
 to Cambridge, 591-593; friend- 
 ship with Tennyson, 65, 332, 593, 
 596; competes for prize poem, 
 78; reprints Shelley's Adonais, 
 151; letter to Gladstone about 
 Timbuctoo, 82; his opinion of 
 that poem, 85 ; visits Tennyson 
 at Somersby, 281 ; meets Emily 
 Tennyson, 596; engaged to her, 
 3, 281, 597-602; joins the 
 'Apostles,' 76-77; plans to edit 
 poems with Tennyson, 76, 205; 
 the Oxford Union debate, 154- 
 156, 159; journey with Tenny- 
 son to the Pyrenees, 90-92; 
 sends Poems of Two Brothers 
 to Hunt, 206-207, 221; effect 
 upon Hunt, 211-212; letter to 
 Emily Tennyson about Coler- 
 idge, 215; review of the Poems 
 of 1830, 222-224, 232, 236; his 
 indignation at Wilson's review, 
 238; studies law, 594; letter to 
 Hunt on Tennyson 's income, 
 280; letters to Trench and Hunt 
 about the Poems of 1832, 282- 
 283; letter to Tennyson about 
 
 them, 302, 401; anxiety about 
 the lines To Christopher North, 
 291; asks Tennyson not to give 
 up The Lover's Tale, 307; visits 
 the Rhine with Tennyson, 308- 
 309; his influence on Tennyson, 
 332; objects to 'madman' as 
 applied to Bonaparte, 414; his 
 aunt 's legacy to Tennyson, 502 ; 
 letter about The Princess, 532; 
 goes to continent, 594-595 ; death 
 and burial, 595-596; Tennyson's 
 grief, 333, 356, 605; Remains 
 printed, 596; Michael Angelo's 
 'bar,' 629-630; tributes to his 
 character, 605-615; his attain- 
 ments and promise, 609-611; 
 prize essays, 610-611; In Memo- 
 riam, 616-617. 
 
 Hallam, Ellen, 595, 601, 604. 
 
 Hallam, Henry, calls Peel's atten- 
 tion to Tennyson's merits and 
 needs, 509-511; correspondence 
 with Peel and Tennyson about 
 Tennyson's pension, 508, 511- 
 512; on Tennyson's untidiness, 
 517; prints his son's Remains, 
 596; meets Emily Tennyson, 
 600; attitude towards his son's 
 marriage, 601-603; mentioned, 
 589, 591. 
 
 Hallam, Henry Fitzmaurice, goes 
 to Cambridge, 592; dies, 596. 
 
 Hare, Julius Charles, at Cam- 
 bridge, 67; comparison of 
 Schelling, Goethe, and Niebuhr, 
 67; opinion of Wordsworth, 68; 
 asked to write for 'The Trib- 
 ute,' 271; reads Tennyson's 
 poems, 328. 
 
 Harold, 524. 
 
 Hastings, Lady Flora, 360. 
 
 Hawkins, Sir John, 20. 
 
650 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 256, 425. 
 
 Haydon, Benjamin R., 189. 
 
 Hazlitt, William, 145. 
 
 Heath, Charles, 251, 255, 258, 263, 
 264, 307. 
 
 Heber, Reginald, 80. 
 
 Hemans, Mrs., 259, 455. 
 
 Heraud, John Abraham, 132. 
 
 Herbert, George, 72. 
 
 Hero to Leander, 404, 415. 
 
 Herriek, Robert, 72. 
 
 Hesperides, 301, 305, 350, 392, 400, 
 407, 415. 
 
 Hobhouse, Lord, 573. 
 
 Hogg, James, 104, 259. 
 
 Holland, Lord, 573. 
 
 Hoist, Theodore von, 189. 
 
 Eoly Grail, The, 566. 
 
 Homer, 209, 326, 358, 473. 
 
 Hood, Thomas, 222, 250, 261, 265, 
 506. 
 
 Horace, 14, 48. 
 
 Home, Richard Hengist, 192, 369. 
 
 Houghton, Lord, 156, 261, 504. 
 
 jffow and the Why, The, 234, 349. 
 
 Howitt, Mary, 544. 
 
 Howitt, William, 524. 
 
 ' Howitt 's Journal,' 544. 
 
 Hume, David, 48. 
 
 Hunt, John, 105. 
 
 Hunt, J. H. Leigh, starts the 
 'Literary Examiner,' 105; re- 
 flections on the Prince Regent, 
 115; 'Blackwood's' attacks 
 him, 114-118; Loekhart's review 
 of his Lord Byron, 119; Croker 
 calls Keats a copyist of Hunt, 
 122, 123; starts 'The Tatler,' 
 206; reviews Poems of 1830, 
 206, 207, 211-213, 215, 221, 231, 
 237; on Charles Tennyson, 216; 
 criticises Hallam, 223; Wilson 
 on, 232, 236, 296; letters from 
 
 Hallam, 206, 207, 280, 283; edi- 
 tor of 'Monthly Repository,' 
 369; his Palfrey, 390; reviews 
 Poems of 1842, 427, 434-436, 
 515; his Abou ben Adhem, 460; 
 on Kemble, 515; the laureate- 
 ship, 576-577, 580, 583; men- 
 tioned, 129, 139, 222, 364, 371, 
 466, 482. 
 
 Hurst, Thomas, 248, 249. 
 
 Hutton, Richard Holt, 106. 
 
 Idylls of the King, 430, 491. 
 
 In Early Youth I Lost my Sire, 
 
 52. 
 In Memoriam, 92, 363, 374, 456, 
 
 495, 551, 566, 584, 585, 589, 596, 
 
 608, 614, 616-640. 
 In the Gloomy Night, 348. 
 I7i the Valley of Cauteretz, 92. 
 'Iris, The,' 250. 
 Irving, Washington, 256. 
 Isabel, 237, 348. 
 
 Jackson, Messrs., 41, 46, 60. 
 
 Jeffrey, Francis, editor of 'Edin- 
 burgh,' 95; his supremacy in 
 criticism, 123, 314; not resent- 
 ful, 469, 470; had hosts of 
 friends, 112; Byron resents his 
 criticism of Keats, 123; at- 
 tacked by Byron, 470; said 
 Byron had no successor, 129; 
 'Lake School,' 298; on Pollok, 
 178; on Joanna Baillie, 471; 
 succeeded by Napier, 314. 
 
 Jerdan, William, editor of 'Lit- 
 erary Gazette,' 103, 425; his 
 character as a critic, 294-296, 
 425; Wilson on, 104; Southey 
 on, 104, 295-296; review of 
 Lamb, 104, 295-297; 'Baa- 
 Lamb' school, 297-298; reviews 
 
INDEX 
 
 651 
 
 Poems of 1830, 296-299 ; reviews 
 Poems of 1842, 383-384; in 
 'Fraser's' Gallery, 359; Auto- 
 iiography, 425. 
 
 Jesse, Eichard, 603. 
 
 Jesse, William, 603. 
 
 Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 19, 20, 44, 
 113, 627. 
 
 Jones, Sir William, 48. 
 
 Juvenal, 48. 
 
 Kate, 392. 
 
 Keats, John, Tennyson on Milnes 's 
 Life of, 8, 10, 11; a disciple of 
 Hunt, 123; position as a poet, 
 161, 162, 225, 316-318, 360, 382, 
 451, 497, 498; Lockhart's attack 
 in 'Blackwood,' 114-120, 122, 
 123, 299, 315, 318, 324; Lock- 
 hart on Endymion in ' Quar- 
 terly, ' 119; Croker on Endymion 
 in 'Quarterly,' 121-123, 321; 
 Jeffrey on Endymion, 123-124; 
 Lockhart again attacks Keats 
 in 'Quarterly,' 316-319; St. 
 Agnes, 367, 381; Bulwer on 
 Keats, 304, 521, 523; FitzGer- 
 ald on, 552; mentioned, 128, 
 138, 145, 151, 206, 211, 223, 
 224, 371, 373, 404. 
 
 Keble, .John, 421. 
 
 'Keepsake,' 251, 253, 255, 256, 
 263, 269, 271, 366, 379. 
 
 'Keepsake Franqais, ' 251. 
 
 Kemble, Fanny, receives Poems of 
 1830 from her brother, 76; on 
 English newspaper writers, 109; 
 on Poems of 1832, 290; enthu- 
 siasm for Tennyson, 328-329, 
 396; on Poems of 1842, 396, 397, 
 419, 433; De Montfort, 471; 
 letter to Egerton about laureate- 
 ship, 508, 509 ; death of Hallam, 
 
 606; opinion of Hallam, 615; 
 mentioned, 488. 
 
 Kemble, John Mitchell, on the 
 ' Apostles, ' 70, 84 ; on the Poems 
 of 1830, 76; letters from Trench 
 on the 'Athenaeum,' 84; Span- 
 ish expedition, 90-91 ; letter to 
 his sister about Coleridge, 215; 
 letter to Trench on the Poems 
 of 1832, 283; intimacy with 
 Tennyson, 396; Be Montfort, 
 471; Lamb's opinion of, 515; 
 on death of Hallam, 606. 
 
 Kinglake, Alexander William, 65, 
 372. 
 
 Kingsley, Charles, 440, 508, 548. 
 
 ' Knickerbocker Magazine, ' 277, 
 278, 405. 
 
 Knowles, James Sheridan, 482, 
 505, 506, 521. 
 
 Kraken, The, 235, 348. 
 
 Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 392, 413, 
 638. 
 
 Lady of Shalott, 284, 289, 298, 
 348, 394, 407, 408, 462, 495. 
 
 Laing, Major A. G., 79. 
 
 Lake, John, 292-294. 
 
 Lamb, Charles, 104, 161, 222, 257, 
 295-297, 356. 
 
 Landon, Letitia E., Ill, 185, 259. 
 
 Landor, Walter Savage, 77, 129, 
 139, 258, 259, 270, 378. 
 
 Lang, Andrew, 55, 406. 
 
 Levett, Robert, 627. 
 
 Lewis, George Cornwall, 570, 571. 
 
 'Literary Chronicle,' 43. 
 
 ' Literary Examiner, ' see ' Exam- 
 iner. ' 
 
 'Literary Gazette,' started, 103; 
 its position and influence, 104, 
 132, 294; on Taylor, 169; on 
 Montgomery, 178-180; on 'The 
 
652 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Keepsake,' 252; on 'The Gem,' 
 268; on the Poems of 1832, 294- 
 299; on the Poems of 1842, 382, 
 383, 424-426; on In Memoriam, 
 618; mentioned, 62, 197, 522. 
 
 'Literary Souvenir,' 248, 249, 256, 
 
 'Literary Squabbles,' 528. 
 
 Lockhart, John Gibson, editor of 
 'Quarterly,' 110; letter to Black- 
 wood about it, 95; his influence, 
 95, 96, 124, 324-326, 328-330, 
 449, 451, 522, 524; his character, 
 111-113, 118, 119, 310, 318, 468; 
 letters from Scott on newspaper 
 work, 108, and on the Annuals, 
 254; on Taylor, 165; does not 
 review Bulwer, 111 ; on The 
 Cockney School of Poetry, 114- 
 120; on Keats, 296, 299, 316- 
 319; review of Poems of 1832, 
 310-324, 325, 326, 328-330, 450; 
 its effect upon Tennyson, 405- 
 413, 466; in 'Eraser's' Gallery, 
 359 ; opens ' Quarterly ' to friend- 
 ly review of Poems of 1842, 
 427, 428, 432, 433, 515; men- 
 tioned, 259, 465. 
 
 Locksley Hall, 374, 400, 424, 430, 
 440, 442, 444, 445, 448, 454, 
 462, 500, 505, 638. 
 
 'London Chronicle,' 62, 121. 
 
 'London Magazine,' 101. 
 
 'London Eeview,' 98, 346, 434. 
 
 Longfellow, 557-558 n. 
 
 Lost Hope, 234. 
 
 Lotus Eaters, 284, 348, 394, 397, 
 407, 410, 462. 
 
 Love, Pride, and For get fulness, 
 234. 
 
 Love Thou Thy Land, 392. 
 
 Lover's Tale, 307, 414. 
 
 Lowell, J. R., copies Tennyson's 
 early poems, 446 ; the Poem^ 
 
 of 1842, 386; Felton's opinion 
 of, 455; on Bulwer, 523; on 
 The Princess, 559-562. 
 
 Lucretius, 48. 
 
 Lushington, Edmund, 388, 502. 
 
 Lushington, Henry, 533. 
 
 Lytton, Baron, see Bulwer. 
 
 Lytton, Earl of, 524. 
 
 Macaulay, on Montgomery, 185, 
 187, 193-199; on Tennyson, 491, 
 508; on Rogers, 573, 574; Mont- 
 gomery on, 190, 196; Maunder 
 on, 196-199; mentioned, 64, 80, 
 386, 391, 487, 488, 507. 
 
 Mackay, Charles, 571. 
 
 Mackenzie, Henry, 311, 312, 314. 
 
 Mackintosh, Sir James, 259. 
 
 Maclise, Daniel, 189. 
 
 Macmillan, Messrs., 330. 
 
 Macready, W. C, 170, 171. 
 
 Maginn, William, 102, 120. 
 
 Manning, Cardinal, 156, 159. 
 
 Maplethorpe, 34. 
 
 Mariana, 237, 347, 494, 499, 500, 
 520. 
 
 Mariana in the South, 394, 407, 
 408. 
 
 Martial, 48. 
 
 Martin, John, 189. 
 
 Mason, William, 48. 
 
 'Massachusetts Quarterly Review,' 
 559. 
 
 Maud, 273-275, 278, 444, 456, 551, 
 637. 
 
 Maunder, Samuel, 196, 197. 
 
 Maurice, Frederick Denison, 64, 
 73, 83, 84. 
 
 May Queen, 284, 348, 392, 420. 
 
 Me my own fate to lasting sorrow, 
 267. 
 
 Meadows, Kenny, 264. 
 
INDEX 
 
 653 
 
 Medwin, Thomas, 9. 
 
 Meleager, 399. 
 
 Merivale, Charles, 65, 69, 279, 280, 
 282. 
 
 Merivale, John H., 69. 
 
 Mermmd, 235, 349, 403. 
 
 Merman, 235, 349, 403. 
 
 Michael Angelo's 'bar,' 630. 
 
 Mill, John Stuart, review of 
 Tennyson, 342, 346-351, 364, 
 434; its effect upon Tennyson, 
 414; on the reviews of Tenny- 
 son in 'Blackwood's' and the 
 'Quarterly,' 352, 353; on Ster- 
 ling, 614. 
 
 Miller's Daughter, 284, 300, 301, 
 394, 396, 397, 407, 409. 
 
 Milman, Henry Hart, 80, 81, 259. 
 
 Milman, Mrs., 329. 
 
 Milnes, R. M., with Tennyson at 
 Cambridge, 65; letter from 
 Blakesley about Tennyson, 16, 
 17; competes for prize poem, 78; 
 on Timb'uctoo, 82; The Oxford 
 Union Debate, 154-156, 159; 
 life of Keats, 8; letter from 
 Mont€ith about Poems of 1830, 
 223; asks for 'The Gem,' 268; 
 asks Tennyson to write for 
 'The Tribute,' 271, 272; 'Quar- 
 terly' reviews his Poems, 372, 
 373, 455; letters to de Vere 
 about Tennyson, 379; from 
 Trench about him, 380; from 
 Sumner about him, 448; reviews 
 Poems of 1842, 427, 434; the 
 laureateship, 504-506, 509, 510, 
 512, 572; Hallam's opinion of, 
 510; his opinion of Hallam, 605, 
 606. 
 Milton, 39, 40, 48, 55, 59, 71, 
 132, 133, 141, 177, 186, 208, 210, 
 221, 223, 373, 473, 532, 537, 538. 
 
 Mitford, Mary R., 222, 259, 445, 
 499, 531, 577. 
 
 Moir, David Macbeth, 364, 466, 
 482. 
 
 Moliere, 142. 
 
 Monteith, Robert, 223. 
 
 Montgomery, James, 186, 270. 
 
 Montgomery, Robert, 178, 179, 181- 
 203, 259, 391, 480. 
 
 'Monthly Repository,' 287-289, 
 369. 
 
 'Monthly Review,' 97, 98, 184-185. 
 
 Moore, Thomas, 44, 48, 129, 139, 
 142, 186, 259, 270, 359, 480, 573. 
 
 More, Hannah, 256. 
 
 'Morning Post,' 115. 
 
 Morpeth, Lord, 266. 
 
 Morris, William, 552, 636-638. 
 
 Morte d' Arthur, 378, 388, 432, 439, 
 462. 
 
 Motherwell, WUliam, 222, 482. 
 
 Moxon, Edward, publishes 'Eng- 
 lishman's Magazine,' 221, 222, 
 282; Tennyson and that maga- 
 zine, 282; Poems of 1832, 307, 
 357, 358; Poems of 1842, 387, 
 417, 453, 500, 501; In Memo- 
 riam, 616, 617; on Tennyson's 
 sensitiveness to criticism, 400; 
 loses on all poets but Tennyson, 
 500; Moxon and Taylor, 164- 
 166, 357: and Bro^^-ning, 166, 
 357; and Lamb, 296. 
 Mudie, Messrs., 617. 
 Murray, John, 96, 106, 108, 124, 
 
 164, 310, 311. 
 Murray, Lindley, 628. 
 My Early Love, 277. 
 
 Nadir Shah, 49. 
 
 Napier, Macvey, 109, 194, 436. 
 
 Napoleon, 143, 414. 
 
654 
 
 INDEX 
 
 National Song, 212, 234, 349. 
 
 'New Englander, ' 556. 
 
 'New London Literary Gazette,' 
 
 399. 
 'New Monthly Magazine,' 102, 
 
 111, 131, 140, 224, 225, 304, 485. 
 New Timon a7id the Poets, 525- 
 
 526, 629. 
 New Year's Eve, 301, 348. 
 Niebuhr, B. G., 67. 
 No More, 265. 
 North, Christopher, see Wilson, 
 
 John, 
 'North American Review,' 455, 
 
 456, 523. 
 'North British Eeview,' 579. 
 Northampton, Marquis of, 270, 
 
 271. 
 'Notes and Queries,' 4, 60, 61. 
 Nothing Will Die, 210, 235. 
 
 Darling Boom, 290, 291, 305, 
 
 309, 321, 407, 423, 520. 
 Oalc of the North, 43. 
 O'Connell, Daniel, 517. 
 Ode on the Death of the DuTce of 
 
 Wellington, 456. 
 Ode to Memory, 35, 237, 430, 494, 
 CEnone, 284, 298, 301, 305, 342, 
 
 348, 394, 407, 410, 448, 461, 462, 
 
 498. 
 Of old sat Freedom on the Heights, 
 
 392. 
 Oldham, John R., 156, 
 Opie, Mrs., 247. 
 Oriana, 223, 230, 237, 494. 
 Ossian, 48. 
 Ovid, 48. 
 
 Owl, The, 235, 289, 349, 403, 
 ' Oxford University Magazine, ' 
 
 327. 
 
 Page, Mrs., 264. 
 
 Palace of Art, 284, 302, 304, 348, 
 394, 407, 410-412, 432, 
 
 Palgrave, Francis Turner, 14. 
 
 Panizzi, Sir Anthony, 591. 
 
 Park, Mungo, 79. 
 
 Patmore, Coventry, 619. 
 
 Peel, Sir Robert, 502, 505, 506, 
 508-513, 517. 
 
 Persia, 58. 
 
 Phrenology, 51. 
 
 Poe, Edgar Allan, scorns charge 
 of affectation against Tenny- 
 son, 338; proclaims Tennyson's 
 superiority as poet, 461-462, 
 561. 
 
 Poems hy Two Brothers, 41-62, 
 68, 215. 
 
 Poems chiefly Lyrical (the 1830 
 Volume), 35, 56, 76, 205-230, 
 281, 284, 288, 299, 300, 303, 346- 
 
 351, 363, 401-404, 457, 477; and 
 see Wilson. 
 
 Poems of 1832, 279-309, 325, 346- 
 
 352, 358, 363, 398, 401, 406- 
 414, 457, 465, 477, 520; and 
 see Lockhart, and Wilson. 
 
 Poems of 1842, 163, 368, 377-415, 
 
 416-464, 497-501, 515, 550, 553. 
 Poet's Mind, 234, 237, 403. 
 Pollock, Sir Frederick, 438, 551. 
 Pollok, Robert, 177, 178. 
 Pope, Alexander, 36, 55, 71, 124, 
 
 200, 373, 529, 628, 636. 
 Praed, Winthrop Mackworth, 64, 
 
 80. 
 Princess, The, 65, 266, 412, 417, 
 
 456, 462, 493, 495, 530-567, 623, 
 
 624, 638. 
 Pringle, Thomas, 101. 
 Procter, Bryan Waller, 259, 364, 
 
 466, 508, 571. 
 'Prolusiones Academicse,' 78. 
 Pye, Henry James, 569. 
 
INDEX 
 
 655 
 
 'Quarterly Review,' its dating ir- 
 regular, 121; its position and 
 influence, 94, 95, 110, 328, 342, 
 449, 451, 455; Gifford as editor, 
 101, 110; Lockhart as editor, 
 107, 110; silence towards Bul- 
 wer and other rising authors, 
 110, 111; on Keats, 119, 121- 
 123, 373; on Taylor, 164, 165; 
 on Montgomery, 186; on Mihies, 
 372, 455 ; attacks Tennyson, 314- 
 324, 326-330, 342, 351, 352, 373, 
 380, 452, 466, 468; its effect 
 upon Tennyson, 404-413; Ster- 
 ling's review of the Poems of 
 1842, 427-434, 515. 
 
 Racine, 48. 
 
 Radcliffe, Mrs., 48. 
 
 Ra^Tisley, Canon, 3. 
 
 Eecollections of Arabian Nights, 
 212, 223, 237, 348. 
 
 Reid, T. Wemyss, 504. 
 
 Relfe, Lupton, 247. 
 
 'Representative, The,' 107. 
 
 Robertson, Frederick William, 
 631, 632. 
 
 Robinson, Henry Crabb, 161. 
 
 Robinson, Joseph O., 248, 249. 
 
 Rogers, Samuel, contributor to 
 Annuals, 259; on Tennyson, 302, 
 511-514; in 'Eraser's' Gallery, 
 359 ; friends write cold reviews, 
 427; Ilallam refers Peel to him, 
 510; Rassell asks about Tenny- 
 son, 584; laureateship offered to 
 him, 572, 573, 575, 580; Macau- 
 lay and others on, 573; as a 
 poet, 572-574; his character, 
 573, 574; mentioned, 129, 139, 
 500. 
 
 Bosalind, 300, 392. 
 
 Rossetti, William M., 9, 549, 550, 
 
 552. 
 Rousseau, 48. 
 Rowe, Nicholas, 569. 
 Ruskin, 261. 
 
 Russell, Lord John, 570, 584, 587. 
 Russell, Mrs. Matthew, 308. 
 
 St. Agnes, 269, 366, 367, 381, 392, 
 43]. 
 
 St. Simeon Stylites, 388, 400, 431, 
 434, 439. 
 
 SaUust, 48. 
 
 ' Sartain 's Union Magazine, ' 462. 
 
 Schelling, 67. 
 
 Scott, Walter, influences Tenny- 
 son, 36; letters to Murray and 
 Lockhart on newspaper work, 
 108; letter to Lockhart about 
 the Annuals, 254; contributes to 
 them, 258, 259; editorship of 
 'Keepsake' offered to him, 263; 
 in * Fraser 's ' Gallery, 359 ; on 
 Joanna Baillie, 471, 472 ; Wilson 
 on, 480, 490, 492; refuses lau- 
 reateship, 569; his estimate of 
 Rogers, 573; mentioned, 48, 53, 
 128, 129. 
 
 Scott, William Bell, 264. 
 
 Sea Fairies, 235. 
 
 Sellwood, Louise, 216. 
 
 Settle, Elkanah, 200. 
 
 Shadwell, Thomas, 569. 
 
 Shakespeare, 9, 10, 15, 19, 48, 71, 
 133, 209, 221, 264, 268, 358, 471- 
 473, 489, 539, 549, 627. 
 
 Shall the Hag Evil Die with Child, 
 234. 
 
 Shelley, P. B., Adonais reprinted 
 by the 'Apostles,' 151, 152; 
 attacked by 'Blackwood's,' 117; 
 monody on Keats, 122; position 
 and influence, 150-153, 159-161, 
 
656 
 
 INDEX 
 
 421; influence on Tennyson, 87; 
 Browning asks for his works, 
 153, 154; The Oxford Un- 
 ion debate, 154-159; Stopford 
 Brooke on, 56; Swinburne on, 
 174; Hunt on, 223; Bulwer on, 
 304, 305; Forster on, 485; Fitz- 
 Gerald on, 552; the 'Edin- 
 burgh' on, 373; mentioned, 128, 
 138, 145, 224, 354, 371, 484, 
 
 Shenstone, William, 155. 
 
 Siddons, Mrs., 471. 
 
 Sigourney, Mrs., 256. 
 
 Simpkin, Marshall, Messrs., 41. 
 
 -Sir Galahad, 439, 638, 
 
 Sisters, The, 348. 
 
 SMpping Bope, The, 420, 459. 
 
 Sleeping Beauty, 237, 348, 392, 
 462, 500, 
 
 Smedley, Edward, 270. 
 
 Smith, Horace, 259. 
 
 ' Southern Literary Messenger, ' 
 449, 450, 455. 
 
 Southey, Mrs., 579. 
 
 Southey, Eobert, friend of Taylor, 
 173; on the Annuals, 254, 255; 
 contributor to them, 270; on 
 Taylor, 164; on Montgomery, 
 191; on Jerdan, 295, 297; lau- 
 reate, 508, 569, 581; Rogers 
 superior to, 573; Taylor on, 104; 
 Coleridge on, 214; Tennyson on, 
 272; Jerdan on, 296; Wilson on, 
 480, 492; mentioned, 129, 139, 
 579. 
 
 'Spectator, The,' 106, 225, 239, 
 240, 302, 419. 
 
 Spedding, James, with Tennyson 
 at Cambridge, 65 ; Charles 
 Tennyson's Poems, 217; asked 
 to write for ' The Tribute, ' 271 ; 
 letter from Tennyson about 
 Mill's review, 342; FitzGerald 
 
 and Tennyson visit him at Mire- 
 house, 353-355 ; urges Tennyson 
 to visit Wordsworth, 354; Tenny- 
 son visits him in London, 374; 
 letter on Tennyson's movements, 
 376; goes to America, 388, 436; 
 reviews Poems of 1842, 436, 437, 
 553; on Hallam, 607, 613; Fitz- 
 Gerald on Spedding, 389 ; char- 
 acter, 553, 607. 
 
 Spedding, John, 353, 354. 
 
 Spenser, 48, 71. 
 
 Spirit Haunts the Year's last 
 Hours, 348. 
 
 Spring-Eice, Stephen, 330. 
 
 Stanley, Arthur, 328. 
 
 Stanley, Lord, 517. 
 
 Stansas, 273, 366, 368. 
 
 Stephen, Leslie, 74. 
 
 Sterling, John, at Cambridge, 64; 
 influence on the 'Apostles,' 90; 
 editor of 'Athenaeum,' 83; let- 
 ter to Trench on St. Agnes, 381; 
 letter to Trench comparing 
 Tennyson and Keats, 382; re- 
 view of Poems of 1842, 427-435; 
 on Taylor, 174; Carlyle's life 
 of, 90, 428; his character and 
 reputation, 428, 429, 483; Mill's 
 opinion of, 614; poems by 
 'Archaeus, ' 482, 483; mentioned, 
 364, 374. 
 
 Stone, Frank, 264. 
 
 Suckling, Sir John, 72. 
 
 Suetonius, 48. 
 
 Sumner, Charles, 448. 
 
 'Sunday Mercury,' 43. 
 
 Sunday Mots, 51. 
 
 Sunderland, Thomas, 154-159. 
 
 Swinburne, 174, 552. 
 
 Tacitus, 48. 
 Taine, H, A., 444. 
 
INDEX 
 
 657 
 
 'Tait's Edinburgh Magazine,' 303, 
 444, 463, 492, 619, 624, 629. 
 
 Talfourd, Sir Thomas N., 482. 
 
 Talking Oal; The, 420, 432-434, 
 439. 
 
 'Tatler, The,' 206, 211. 
 
 Taylor, Henry, on Southey and 
 the "Literary Gazette,' 104; the 
 'Edinburgh' reviews Artevelde, 
 133; on Byron and Wordsworth, 
 148, 149; on Shelley, 174; on 
 Burns, 220; on Charles Tenny- 
 son, 270; on G. C. Lewis, 570, 
 571; Tennyson and Taylor, 168; 
 influence of Tennyson, 371, 372; 
 Taylor's writings, 164-173, 390; 
 his position and influence, 173- 
 176; friend of Southey and 
 Wordsworth, 173 ; Hallam refers 
 Peel to, 510; the laureateship, 
 570; Swinburne on Taylor, 174; 
 Moxon on, 357, 500; Wilson on, 
 482; Macaulay on, 507. 
 
 Tennyson, Alfred, ancestry, birth, 
 relatives, 2-4, 21-25; the disin- 
 heritance of his father, 22-24; 
 boyhood and youth, 6, 25-36; 
 the school at Louth, 25-28; 
 Alfred and Charles insepara- 
 ble, 27, 28; lines addressed to 
 Charles, 8-11; education at 
 home, 28-30; aversion to pub- 
 licity, 6-21 ; use of tobacco, 16- 
 17; carelessness in dress, 17, 31; 
 early poetical tastes, 36, 37, 48, 
 49, 52, 55, 87; early efforts in 
 verse, 24, 25, 36, 37; Poems by 
 Two Brothers, see that head; 
 Alfred compared with Charles, 
 36, 214, 215, with Frederick, 
 37; goes to Cambridge, 63; his 
 friends there, 64, 65; intimacy 
 with Hallam, 65, 332, 593, 596; 
 
 'The Apostles,' 69-84, 90, 301; 
 impression made by Tennyson, 
 75-77; Timhuctoo, see that 
 head; plans to edit poems with 
 Hallam, 76, 205; Shelley's 
 Adonais reprinted, 151-153; the 
 Oxford Union Debate, 154-159; 
 writes poems, 281 ; Poems chiefly 
 Lyrical, see that head; trip to 
 Pyrenees, 90-93; leaves univer- 
 sity, 279; illness and death of 
 his father, 279, 280; contribu- 
 tor to the Annuals, 243, 244, 
 265-278, 332, 379; adopts lit- 
 erary career, 280; at Somersby, 
 280, 352, 353; Hallam visits 
 him, 281, and predicts pilgrim- 
 ages there, 4, 5; Moxon secures 
 a poem for ' The Englishman ' 
 and agrees to publish a pro- 
 jected volume of poems, 281, 
 282 ; excursion up the Ehine, 
 308, 309, and see Darling 
 Boom; the Poems of 1832, see 
 that head; sensitiveness to criti- 
 cism, 334-336, 341, 342, 378, 389, 
 401, 468, 516; absurd criticism 
 of, 336 ; affectation in employing 
 unusual words, 336-339 ; obscu- 
 rity, 339; lack of thought, 339, 
 340, 366; Tennyson ceases to 
 publish, 331; the ten years' si- 
 lence, 325-377; death of Hallam, 
 595, 596; Tennyson's grief, 333, 
 356, 605; Hallam 's influence on 
 Tennyson, 332; residence at 
 High Beech, 374; at Tunbridge 
 Wells, 375; at Boxley, 375; at 
 Cheltenham, 377; joins the Ster- 
 ling Club, 374; visits Spedding 
 at Mirehouse, 353-355, at Lin- 
 coln's Inn, 374; would not visit 
 Wordsworth, 354; intimacy with 
 
658 
 
 INDEX 
 
 FitzGerald, 353, with Hartley 
 Coleridge, 354; country excur- 
 sions, 375-377; Frederick advises 
 him to publish, 332 ; demand for 
 new editions, 384-387; Poems of 
 1842, see that head; pecuniary 
 affairs and pension, 501-516; 
 The Princess, see that head; 
 poet laureate, 568-588; mar- 
 riage, 589; In Memoriam, see 
 that head; comparison with 
 Alford, 364, 365; with Byron, 
 S3; with Crabbe, 44; with 
 Keats, 162; with Taylor, 168; 
 Campbell 's influence, 49, 53 ; 
 friend of Kemble, 396; altera- 
 tions iu his poems, 393-414, 
 565; imitators, 369-372, 455, 
 
 456, 490; his national feeling, 
 213; reputation, 241, 242, 305- 
 307, 333, 359-373, 384, 416, 418, 
 442, 497-499, 546, 635-640; 
 Tennyson 's opinion of the 
 Prince Consort, 21 ; of Jane 
 Austen, 15; of Byron, 339; of 
 Medwin's Byron, 9; of Milnes's 
 Keats, 8-11; of Southey, 272; 
 of Charles Tennyson Turner, 
 220, 221; of Wordsworth, 221, 
 272; Browning's opinion of 
 Tennyson, 37, 404, 405, 413; 
 Bulwer's, 322, 519-529, 629; 
 Mrs. Cameron's, 14; Carlyle's, 
 17, 504, 551; S. T. Coleridge's, 
 214, 215, 343-345; Croker's, 
 372, 515; Cunningham's, 343; 
 Dixon's, 636; Emerson's, 448, 
 
 457, 459 m; FitzGerald 's, 37, 
 356, 551-553; Gilfillan's, 287; 
 Gladstone's, 513; Griswold's, 
 460; A. H. Hallam's, 28, 213; 
 H. Hallam's, 509-511, 517; 
 Fanny Kemble 's, 328, 329, 396; 
 
 Lockhart's, see that head; Ma- 
 caulay's, 491, 508; Mill's, 342, 
 346-352, 364, 434; Morris's, 
 638; Moxon's, 357, 400, 500; 
 Poe's, 338, 461, 462, 561; 
 Eogers's, 302, 511-514; Sped- 
 ding's, 355, 376; Taylor's, 371, 
 372; George Tennyson's, 25; 
 George Clayton Tennyson's, 25; 
 Trench's, 229, 382; Wilson's, 
 see that head; Wordsworth's, 
 213, 214. See also the titles of 
 individual poems. 
 
 Tennyson, Charles (brother), see 
 Turner, C. T. 
 
 Tennyson, Charles (uncle), 22. 
 
 Tennyson, Edward (brother), 267. 
 
 Tennyson, Elizabeth Fytche 
 (mother), 4. 
 
 Tennyson, Emily (sister), meets 
 Hallam, 596; engaged to him, 
 281, 597, 599-604, 606; letter 
 from him about Charles, 215; 
 death of Hallam, 3, 603, 604. 
 
 Tennyson, Frederick (brother), at 
 Cambridge, 63; Merivale ad- 
 vises his son to meet, 69; 
 Poems by Two Brothers, 43, 44, 
 56; letters from FitzGerald on 
 the sonnet, 219; on the Poems 
 of 1842, 387, 389, 421; on The 
 Princess, 530, 550; asked to 
 write for 'The Tribute,' 272; 
 advises Alfred to publish, 332; 
 FitzGerald 's estimate of, 37, 
 551; the Brownings' estimate 
 of, 221; on Hallam, 608; men- 
 tioned 2, 3. 
 
 Tennyson, George (grandfather), 
 21, 22, 24, 25. 
 
 Tennyson, George Clayton (fath- 
 er), marriage and children, 2; 
 disinherited, 22-24; view of 
 
INDEX 
 
 659 
 
 Alfred's genius, 25; instructs 
 his children, 28; his library, 29; 
 writes verses, 36; friend of 
 Merivale, 69; death, 280. 
 
 Tennyson, Mary (sister), 601. 
 
 Terence, 48. 
 
 Thackeray, W. M., at Cambridge, 
 65; on Brookfield, 64; contribu- 
 tor to the 'Times,' 106; Fen- 
 dennis, 262; his early writings, 
 491, 508; The Newcomes, 498. 
 
 There are three Things which fill 
 my Heart, 267. 
 
 Thirlwall, Connop, 67, 606. 
 
 Thomson, James, 36. 
 
 Thompson, W. H., 414, 421, 551. 
 
 Ticknor, William D., 254, 558. 
 
 Timluctoo, 77, 78, 80-87. 
 
 'Times, The,' 106, 108, 297, 568, 
 618, 625, 626, 629, 631, 633. 
 
 To a Lark, 214. 
 
 To after reading a Life ond 
 
 Letters, 8. 
 
 To Christopher North, 240, 289- 
 292, 294, 305, 314-316, 320, 321, 
 350, 351, 402, 407, 423, 450, 465, 
 468, 473, 476, 479-481, 485-487, 
 496. 
 
 Trench, E. C, at Cambridge with 
 Tennyson, 65, 281 ; letter from 
 Kemble about the Tennysons, 
 76; letters to Kemble about the 
 'Athenffium,' 84; the Spanish 
 expedition, 90, 91; letter from 
 Blakesley about the Oxford 
 Union debate, 155, 156; letter 
 from Sterling about Taylor, 
 174; on Charles and Alfred 
 Tennyson, 229; asked to write 
 for 'The Tribute,' 271; letters 
 from Hallam and Kemble on the 
 Poems of 1832, 282, 283; letter 
 to Milnes about Tennyson, 380; 
 
 letters from Sterling about St. 
 Agnes, 381; about Tennyson and 
 Keats, 382; his Poems and 
 Genoveva, 390, 391; his Justin 
 Martyr, 466; Wilson on, 482; 
 Moxon on, 500; mentioned, 364, 
 387, 473, 474, 480. 
 
 'Tribute, The,' 270, 273, 277, 278, 
 366, 368, 379, 380. 
 
 Tupper, Martin Farquhar, 203, 
 204. 
 
 Turner, Charles Tennyson, Poem 
 to, by Alfred, 8; he and Alfred 
 inseparable, 27, 28; Poems hy 
 Two Brothers, 41, 42, 51, 53; 
 goes to Cambridge, 63 ; his 
 choice of a profession, 24, 216; 
 compared with Alfred, 36, 214, 
 215; Kemble writes to Trench 
 about his Sonnets, 76; Sonnets 
 published, 215-220; writes for 
 'The Tribute,' 272; inherits 
 uncle's property and changes 
 name, 216, 272; Hunt on, 211, 
 212; Hallam on, 214; Coler- 
 idge on, 214, 215; Merivale on, 
 279; Spedding on, 217, 218; 
 Alfred on, 220, 221; Taylor on, 
 221; the Brownings on, 221; 
 Trench on, 229; mentioned, 2. 
 
 Turner, Samuel, 24, 216. 
 
 Turner, Sharon, 191, 192. 
 
 Two Voices, 432, 433, 435, 439, 
 605. 
 
 Ulysses, 388, 431, 439, 498, 505. 
 
 Vale of Bones, 57. 
 
 Van Dyke, Henry, 60. 
 
 Venables, George Stovin, 64, 72, 
 
 78. 
 Vere, Aubrey, see de Vere. 
 
660 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Vergil, 48, 209. 
 Vision of Sin, 439. 
 
 Walking to the Mail, 388. 
 
 Waller, Edmund, 72. 
 
 Walters, John Cuming, 27, 31. 
 
 Warton, Thomas, 569. 
 
 Watts, Alaric Alex., 185, 248, 249, 
 262. 
 
 We are Free, 234. 
 
 Wellington, Duke of, 95, 108, 517. 
 
 ' Westminster Eeview, ' on Mont- 
 gomery, 186 ; on the Poems of 
 1830, 207-212, 223, 228, 232, 233, 
 235, 236, 326; on the Poems 
 of 1842, 427, 434; on The Prin- 
 cess, 624; mentioned, 99, 346, 
 434. 
 
 Wheeler, Charles S., 458. 
 
 Whewell, William, 271. 
 
 Whipple, Edwin Percy, 460, 461. 
 
 Whittier, J. G., 256. 
 
 Who can say, 349. 
 
 Will Waterproof's Lyrical Mono- 
 logue, 8, 460. 
 
 Willis, N. P., 256. 
 
 Wilson, Effingham, 205. 
 
 Wilson, John, his view of contem- 
 porary poetry, 130, 230, 484, 
 490-492; his desire for praise, 
 311-313; Lockhart his mouth- 
 piece, 321; 'The Athenaeum' on, 
 326; on the Poems of 1830, 212, 
 227-243, 284, 401-404, 430; Lake 
 writes satire against, 293, 294 ; 
 Tennyson's letter to, 293, 294; 
 on the Poems of 1832, 286, 287; 
 later attacks on Tennyson, 465- 
 496; on Hallam's reviews of 
 Tennyson, 223, 232, 233; on 
 'Blackwood's', 230, 231; on 
 'Westminster,' 207; on Jerdau 
 and the 'Literary Gazette,' 104; 
 
 on Pollok, 178; on Jeffrey, 178; 
 on Montgomery, 180, 181; on 
 Joanna Baillie, 470-473, 485; 
 on Wordsworth, 475; on Ma- 
 caulay, 487, 488; on Browning, 
 485, 486, 491; on Mrs. Brown- 
 ing, 489, 490; on Sterling, 483; 
 mentioned, 112, 302, 310, 362; 
 and see To Christopher North. 
 
 Wollstoneeraft, Mary, 537. 
 
 Woolner, Thomas, 549. 
 
 Wordsworth, Charles, 82, 158. 
 
 Wordsworth, Christopher, 154. 
 
 Wordsworth, William, his position 
 and influence, 73, 128-130, 139, 
 141, 150, 151, 154, 161, 193, 421, 
 475 ; on contemporary poetry, 
 134-136; on reading a volume 
 of small poems, 126; friend of 
 Taylor, 173; on Montgomery, 
 191; on Tennyson, 213, 214; on 
 the sonnet, 219, 220; attacked 
 by 'Blackwood's,' 241; writes 
 for 'The Tribute,' 270; the 
 Annuals, 257-259; poetry no 
 pastime, 280; Tennyson would 
 not visit him, 354 ; in ' Fraser 's ' 
 Gallery, 359; Poems of Early 
 and Late Years, 390; the lau- 
 reateship, 508, 569, 570, 575, 
 581, 586; death, 568; Hare on, 
 68; Mrs. Browning on, 146; 
 Taylor on, 149; Tennyson on, 
 221, 272; Sterling on, 429; Wil- 
 son on, 475, 480, 482, 484; 
 Forster on, 485; Moxon on, 
 500; Bulwer on, 521, 523; men- 
 tioned, 71, 150, 214, 215, 326. 
 
 'Works of the Learned,' 98. 
 
 Wortley, Lady Emmeline Stuart, 
 269, 271. 
 
 Wright, William, 107. 
 
INDEX 
 
 661 
 
 Xenophon, 47. 
 
 Yon star of eve so soft and clear, 
 
 44. 
 'Yorkshire Literary Annual,' 266. 
 
 You ask me why though ill at ease, 
 
 44. 
 You might have won, 11. 
 Young, Edward, 48. 
 
 Z., see Lockhart. 
 
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