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ALFRED TENNYSON.

THE FIRST OF MODERN POETS.

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THER poets have written for particular classes; Browning for the philosophers, Wordsworth for those whose intense love of nature can see beauty and needed truth in the commonest and simplest objects and events. But Tennyson has written for every one who loves the beautiful in nature or the noble in action, or whose heart can be moved by the story of great deeds set to the stirring music. of perfect verse. Tennyson was the son of an English clergyman, and was born in Somersby, Lincolnshire, August 6, 1809. The father was distinguished by a love of learning, and by his devotion to music, painting, and literature. These qualities, as well as his fondness for out-door living, were inherited by his children, and two of Alfred's brothers wrote poetry; indeed, at one time his brother Charles gave greater promise of excelling than did he. Tennyson was educated in Trinity College, Cambridge, where his poem, "Timbuctoo," gained the Chancellor's medal. He did not complete his college course, and very little is known of the details of his life. He always exhibited an intense dislike for publicity in any form, which effectually kept people away. He once wrote to a friend that he "thanked God Almighty with his whole heart and soul that he knew nothing, and that the world knew nothing, of Shakespeare but his writings, and that he knew nothing of Jane Austen, and that there were no letters preserved either of Shakespeare or of Jane Austen."

Tennyson's earliest published volume was a little book, the joint work of his brother Charles and himself, entitled "Poems by Two Brothers." In 1830 appeared another volume, "Poems, Chiefly Lyrical," which contained the promise of much of his best work.

The first reference to the legends of King Arthur, which furnished the subject of so much of his later work, occurs in the volume published in 1832. Among these poems were "The Lady of Shalott," and "The Miller's Daughter," the chief beauty of which lay in the songs included in it, one of which, the most charming, is:

Love that hath us in a net,
Can he pass and we forget?
Many suns arise and set.

Many a chance the years beget.
Love the gift is Love the debt.

Even so.

Love is hurt with jar and fret.
Love is made a vain regret.

Eyes with idle tears are wet.

Idle habit links us yet.

What is love? for we forget;
Ah, no! no!

Tennyson's two volumes, "English Idyls and Other Poems," appeared in 1842, and made him famous. He treated the question of the position of woman in society in "The Princess: A Medley," a poem containing many noble passages, but which has been chiefly valued for the songs it contains. His best known work, "In Memoriam," is an elaborate elegy for his early friend, Arthur Henry Hallam, a young man of marked literary ability, who was betrothed to Tennyson's sister, and who died in 1833. The book is composed of one hundred and twenty-nine short poems, some of which are of surpassing beauty. It appeared in 1850, and seven years later it was followed by " Maud, and Other Poems," which, while admired by many, and containing much very noble verse, was, for some reason, a disappointment to the lovers of Tennyson. In 1859 he published the first of the "Idyls of the King," which were followed later by a number of others, all relating to the Arthurian myth. From this time every year or two added something to his list of poems which, while of unequal merit, well sustained the reputation of the poet.

In 1850 Tennyson had succeeded Wordsworth as poet laureate, and he enjoyed for many years a pension of two hundred pounds a year, granted him when he was comparatively unknown. Mr. Milnes, who was expected to secure this pension, was one day visiting Carlyle, who asked him when it would be done. "My dear Carlyle," replied Milnes, "the thing is not so easy as you suppose. What will my constituents say, if I do get a 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," answered Carlyle, "on the Day of Judgment, when the Lord asks you why you didn't get that pension for Alfred Tennyson, it will not do to lay the blame on your constituents; it is you that will be damned." Peel was prime minister, and asked advice as to whether he should give such a pension to Tennyson or to Sheridan Knowles, saying, "I don't know either of them." "What!" said Milnes. "Have you never seen the name of Knowles on a playbill?" "No." And never read one poem of Tennyson's?" "No." Milnes sent him "Locksley Hall" and "Ulysses," and advised him to give the pension to Knowles, if it were charity, but if it were for the promotion of English literature, to give it to Tennyson.

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Carlyle wrote to Emerson in 1844 that Tennyson was: "One of the finest looking men in the world. A great shock of rough, dusty-dark hair; bright, laughing, hazel eyes; massive, aquiline face-most massive, yet most delicate; of sallow-brown complexion, almost Indian-looking; clothes cynically loose, free, and easy-smokes infinite tobacco. His voice is musical-metallic, fit for loud laughter and piercing wail, and all that may lie between; speech and speculation free and plenteous. I do not meet in these last decads such company over a pipe."

Tennyson lived in and about London until his fortieth year, when he married Emily Sellwood, and took up his residence at Twickenham, until he removed, in the early fifties, to Faringford, in the Isle of Wight, where he lived for many years. About 1869 he purchased a place at Petersfield, Hampshire, and, afterward, Aldworth House, near Haslemere, Surrey, where he continued to live until he died from old age, October 6, 1892.

His physician, Sir Andrew Clark, says of his deathbed: "In all my experience I have never witnessed anything more glorious. There were no artificial lights in the chamber, and all was in darkness save for the silvery light of the moon at its full. The soft beams of light fell upon the bed and played upon the features of the dying poet like a halo of Rembrandt."

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