Tennyson's Life and Poetry: And Mistakes Concerning Tennyson

There is already an extensive Tennyson literature. Of books relating to the scenes connected with his life and works, are Walters' In Tennyson Land; Brooks' Out of Doors with Tennyson; also Church's Laureate's Country, and Napier's Homes and Haunts of Lord Tennyson. There is a mass of material, both critical and biographical, in Shepherd's Tennysoniana; Wace's Life and Works of Tennyson; Tainsh's Study of the Works of Tennyson; Jennings' Sketch of Lord Tennyson; and Van Dyke's Poetry of Tennyson. Besides these may be mentioned Brightwell's Tennyson Concordance; Irving's Tennyson; Lester's Lord Tennyson and the Bible; also Collins' Illustrations of Tennyson.

Valuable help for understanding and appreciating In Memoriam is afforded by the volumes on that poem written by Robertson, Gatty, Genung, Chapman and Davidson. Much interesting information is given in Dawson's Study of "The Princess"; Mann's Tennyson's "Maud" Vindicated; Elsdale's Studies in the Idyls; and Nutt's Studies on the Legend of the Holy Grail. A collection of Tennyson's songs, set to music by various composers, has been issued by Stanley Lucas and by Harper & Bros.

Several volumes of selections from Tennyson's writings have appeared as follows: Ausgewählte Gedichte, with notes (in German) by Fischer, Salzwedel, 1878; Lyrical Poems of Alfred Tennyson, with notes (in Italian) by T. C. Cann, Florence, 1887; Lyrical Poems of Lord Tennyson, annotated by F. T. Palgrave; Select Poems of Tennyson, and Young People's Tennyson, both edited by W. J. Rolfe; Tennyson Selections, with notes by F. J. Rowe and W. T. Webb; and Tennyson for the Young, edited by Alfred Ainger.

Among school editions of Tennyson's poems, are The Princess, with notes by Rolfe, also by Wallace; Enoch Arden, with notes by Rolfe, by Webb, and by Blaisdel; Enoch Arden, with notes (in German) by Hamann, Leipzig, 1890; Enoch Arden, with notes (in French) by Courtois, Paris, 1891; Enoch Arden, with notes (in French) by Beljame, Paris, 1891; Les Idylles du roi, Enoch Arden, with notes (in French) by Baret, Paris, 1886; Enoch Arden, les Idylles du roi, with notes (in French) by Sevrette, Paris, 1887; Aylmer's Field, annotated by Webb; The Two Voices and A Dream of Fair Women, by Corson; The Coming of Arthur and The Passing of Arthur, by Rowe; In Memoriam and other poems, by Kellogg.

Innumerable papers on Tennyson and his poetry have been published in newspapers and periodicals. A large number of these reviews and some descriptive articles are contained in the following volumes: Horne's Spirit of the Age; Howitt's Homes and Haunts of British Poets; Hamilton's Poets-Laureate of England; Robertson's Lectures; Kingsley's Miscellanies; Bagehot's Literary Studies; Japp's Three Great Teachers; Buchanan's Master Spirits; Austin's Poets of the Period; Forman's Our Living Poets; Friswell's Modern Men of Letters; Haweis' Poets in the Pulpit; McCrie's Religion of Our Literature; Devey's Comparative Estimate of English Poets; Gladstone's Gleanings of Past Years; Archer's English Dramatists of To-Day; Stedman's Victorian Poets; Cooke's Poets and Problems; Fraser's Chaucer to Longfellow; Dawson's Makers of Modern English; Egan's Lectures on English Literature; and Ritchie's Light-Bearers.

For favorable or unfavorable estimates of Tennyson, the reader is referred to the lectures of Dowden and Ingram in the Dublin Afternoon Lectures on Literature and Art, and to the collected essays of Brimley, Bayne, Hadley, Masson, Stirling, Roscoe, Hayward, Hutton, Swinburne, Galton, Noel, Heywood, Bayard Taylor and others.

Some side-lights are thrown on the Laureate in Ruskin's Modern Painters; Hamerton's Thoughts on Art; Masson's Recent British Philosophy; and Arnold's Lectures on Translating Homer. Stray glimpses of the man in his personal relations are found in the Carlyle and Emerson Correspondence; Fanny Kemble's Records of a Girlhood; Caroline Fox's Memories of Old Friends; Reid's Life of Lord Houghton; and in the Letters and Literary Remains of Edward Fitzgerald.

But with all that has been written concerning Tennyson, no monograph, so far as I am aware, has hitherto appeared which is at once comprehensive and accurate. Mrs. Ritchie's beautiful portraiture of the Laureate, with its touch of hero-worship, lacks a great deal of being a survey of his literary career. No biography of Alfred Tennyson has been published which is worthy the name. For many years students and lovers of the poet encountered difficulty in obtaining full and exact information on the chief events of his life. I undertook to supply this want in the essay entitled "Tennyson's Life and Poetry."

In the preparation of this paper, I had occasion to consult various periodicals and works of reference. With scarcely an exception, I found the articles on Tennyson in cyclopedias and biographical dictionaries faulty in many particulars. Even the sketches in recent compilations and journals are full of misleading and conflicting statements. I became impressed with the thought that these errors ought to be exposed and corrected. The result was the critique--"Mistakes concerning Tennyson." I gathered my materials from a variety of sources, and always aimed to disengage the truth. I depended largely on Rev. Alfred Gatty, Mrs. Ritchie, Mr. Gosse, Prof. Palgrave, Prof. Church, Mr. C. J. Caswell, and Dr. Van Dyke as the most trustworthy authorities.

My thanks are due Dr. W. F. Poole, of the Newberry Library, for placing at my disposal an immense collection of bibliographies, catalogues and bulletins of foreign books. I desire also to express my obligations to Dr. Henry van Dyke, of New York City, for aiding me in my researches.

EUGENE PARSONS.

3612 Stanton Ave., Chicago, April, 1892.

TENNYSON'S LIFE AND POETRY.

I.

Alfred Tennyson was born August 6, 1809, in Somersby, a wooded hamlet of Lincolnshire, England. "The native village of Tennyson," says Howitt, who visited it many years ago, "is not situated in the fens, but in a pretty pastoral district of softly sloping hills and large ash trees. It is not based on bogs, but on a clean sandstone. There is a little glen in the neighborhood, called by the old monkish name of Holywell." There he was brought up amid the lovely idyllic scenes which he has made famous in the "Ode to Memory" and other poems. The picturesque "Glen," with its tangled underwood and purling brook, was a favorite haunt of the poet in childhood. On one of the stones in this ravine he inscribed the words--BYRON IS DEAD--ere he was fifteen.

Alfred was the fourth son of the Rev. George Clayton Tennyson, LL.D., rector of Somersby and other neighboring parishes. His father, the oldest son of George Tennyson, Esq., of Bayons and Usselby Hall, was a man of uncommon talents and attainments, who had tried his hand, with fair success, at architecture, painting, music and poetry. His mother was a sweet, gentle soul, and exceptionally sensitive. The poet-laureate seems to have inherited from her his refined, shrinking nature.

Dr. Tennyson married Miss Elizabeth Fytche, August 6, 1805. Their first child, George, died in infancy. According to the parish registers, the Tennyson family consisted of eleven children, viz.: Frederick, Charles, Alfred, Mary, Emily, Edward, Arthur, Septimus, Matilda, Cecilia and Horatio. They formed a joyous, lively household--amusements being agreeably mingled with their daily tasks. They were all handsome and gifted, with marked mental traits and imaginative temperaments. They were especially fond of reading and story-telling. At least four of the boys were addicted to verse-writing--a habit they kept up through life, though Alfred alone devoted himself to a poetical career as something more than a pastime. Frederick Tennyson's occasional pieces are characterized by luxuriant fancy and chaste diction; the sonnets of Charles won high praise from Coleridge, but the fame of both has been overshadowed by that of their distinguished brother.[1]

The scholarly clergyman, who was an M. A. of Cambridge, carefully attended to the education and training of his children. He turned his gifts and accomplishments to good account in stimulating their mental growth. Alfred was sent to the Louth Grammar School four years (1816-20). During this time he presumably learned something, although no flattering reports of his progress have come down to us. Then private teachers were employed by Dr. Tennyson to instruct his boys, but he took upon himself for the most part the burden of fitting them for college. Only a moderate amount of study was imposed by the rector. A great deal of the time Alfred was out of doors, rambling through the pastures and woods about Somersby and Bag Enderby. He was solitary, not caring to mingle with other boys in their sports. As a child, he exhibited the same peculiarities which characterized the man. He was shy and reserved, moody and absent-minded. Alfred and Charles were devotedly attached to each other, and frequently were together in their walks. The lads were both large and strong for their age. Charles was a popular boy in Somersby on account of his frank, genial disposition--which cannot be said of the reticent Alfred.

One incident connected with the poet's education at home is worth repeating. His father required him to memorize the odes of Horace and to recite them morning by morning until the four books were gone through. The Laureate in later years testified to the value of this practice in cultivating a delicate sense for metrical music. He called Horace his master. Certainly no other bard has ever excelled Tennyson in the art of expressing himself in melodious verse.

From his twelfth to his sixteenth year, Alfred was apparently idle much of the time, yet he was unconsciously preparing for his life-work. He was gathering material and storing up impressions which were afterwards utilized. It was with him a formative period. The hours he spent strolling in lanes and woods were not wasted. The quiet, meditative boy lived in a realm of the imagination, and his thoughts and fancies took shape in crude poems.

This period of day-dreaming was followed by one of marked intellectual activity. The thin volume--_Poems by Two Brothers_, printed in 1826, contained the pieces written by Alfred when he was only sixteen or seventeen. It shows that these were busy years. The Tennyson youths not only scribbled a great deal of verse--they ranged far and wide in the fields of ancient and modern literature. Their father had a good library, and they appreciated its treasures. In the footnotes of their first book were many curious bits of information, and quotations from the classics.

The Tennyson children were fortunate in having cultured parents. They were favored in another respect. Dr. Tennyson was comfortably well off for a clergyman. His means--which he shrewdly husbanded--enabled the family to spend the summers at Mablethorpe on the Lincolnshire coast. Thus Alfred's passion for the sea was early developed. For some time it was the rector's custom to occupy a dwelling in Louth during the school year. In this way the seclusion and monotony of Somersby life were broken. The young Tennysons saw considerable of the world. They were often welcomed in the home of their grandmother, Mrs. Fytche, in Westgate Place, and occasionally visited the stately mansion at Bayons. Especially Charles and Alfred were at times the guests of their great-uncle Samuel Turner, vicar of Grasby and curate of Caistor, who afterwards left his property and parish livings to his favorite, Charles Tennyson Turner. Such were the experiences of the Laureate's youth and childhood, which inevitably influenced his whole life and entered into his poetry. He illustrates the truth that a poet is largely what his environment makes him.