Eugene Parsons

“ For many years no strangers have been admitted to Farringford Park. Visitors, while welcome at Aldworth in the afternoon, have not been allowed to interrupt the accustomed occupations of the master of the house, who is very methodical in his habits. It has long been his custom to rise early and spend the morning hours in his study—writing and dreaming in an atmosphere laden with smoke and the odor of tobacco. He now uses the pen but little, owing to failing eyesight. The Honorable Hallam Tennyson is his secretary and constant companion. ”

“ But former estimates of Tennyson must be revised. The slurs at the euphonious jingler and effeminate Alfred are in place no more. He has abandoned the domain of the legendary and the fantastic. Romance has given way to history, and dreams to reality. Sensuous effects are now subordinate. His verse no longer cloys with sweetness. It is simple, natural, impassioned. ”

“ Alfred Tennyson dined with us. I am always a little disappointed with the exterior of our poet when I look at him, in spite of his eyes, which are very fine; but his head and face, striking and dignified as they are, are almost too ponderous and massive for beauty in so young a man ”

“ Time has dealt gently with the venerable harper, whose hands sweep the strings with surer touch and greater compass than before. Age has brought more forceful speech and clearer vision. Some of his senile efforts betray less of conscious effort, as though long practice in using metrical language as a vehicle of thought and imagery had made it a pure mirror of the poet’s mind. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He is a confirmed pedestrian. “Every morning,” says a newspaper correspondent, “in hail, rain or snow, the poet dons his frouzy cap and his frouzier slouch hat, and promenades for an hour or so, none daring to disturb him.”
Tennyson is taciturn and brusque before strangers, whose presence annoys him, but he is delightfully easy and spontaneous with friends. Edward Fitzgerald, in his letters to Frederick Tennyson and others, alludes again and again, in terms of enthusiastic appreciation, to Alfred’s wise and pointed conversation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Frederick Tennyson (a co-heir of the Earls of Scarsdale) was born June 5, 1807. He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he distinguished himself by writing Greek verse—winning the prize for a Sapphic ode on “Egypt.” He married an Italian lady, Maria Guiliotta, now dead, by whom he had two sons—Julius and Alfred,—and three daughters—Elise, Emily, Matilda. For many years he lived at Tenby in South Wales; at present he resides in Jersey, and devotes himself to his favorite Hellenic studies and to poetry. ”

“ Equally enduring is the melodious wail—“Break, break, break,” one of the sweetest dirges in all literature. Hallam was buried (Jan. 3, 1834) at Clevedon by the Severn, near its entrance to the Bristol Channel, within sound of the melancholy waves. Singularly this exquisite song, which breathes of the sea, was not composed here, but “in a Lincolnshire lane at five o’clock in the morning,” as the Laureate himself has declared. It was written within a year after Hallam’s death, Sept. 15, 1833.
Not much has been learned of Tennyson’s early manhood. ”

“ Such are not the strains that shape a nation’s destiny and are treasured in its heart. In the centuries agone, such a songster would have been a first-class troubadour, much sought and praised in princely circles. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 [Pg 10] 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. ”

“ The sketches of Tennyson in Lippincott’s Biographical Dictionary (1885) and in the Americanized Britannica (1890) may be taken as samples. In the following sentence from Lippincott’s the writer manages to make five or six misstatements:
“In 1851 he succeeded Wordsworth as poet-laureate, and about the same time he married, and retired to Faringford, in the Isle of Wight, where he resided until 1869, when he removed to Petersfield, Hampshire.” ”

“ The latter village is in the western part of Lincolnshire, near Grantham—a considerable distance from Alfred Tennyson’s birthplace. Duyckinck, in his Eminent Men and Women, recklessly says he was born at “Somerby, a small parish in Leicestershire.” [46]
If Europeans are guilty of crass ignorance of the United States, Americans too are open to criticism for their hazy notions of foreign places. An inexcusable blunder is that in Phillips’ Popular [Pg 28] Manual of English Literature, vol. II., p. 497, where Blackdown is loosely referred to as “a hill in the vicinity of Petersfield, Hampshire.” ”

“ Alfred’s university career was cut short by his father’s death. For some years he remained at home—a diligent student of books and a close observer of nature. He roamed back and forth between [Pg 13] Somersby and London, alternately in solitude and with his friends. [4] Fitzgerald tells of his visiting with Tennyson at the Cumberland home of James Spedding in 1835.
Here Alfred would spend hour after hour reading aloud “Morte d’Arthur” and other unpublished poems, which his scholarly friend criticized. ”

“ 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 [Pg 7] Alfred Tennyson has been published which is worthy the name. ”

“ Allibone’s Dictionary of Authors (p. 2371) is a year out of the way. When this ponderous work was first published, not much was definitely known of the poet, but Alden’s Cyclopedia of Literature (1890) , and other unreliable authorities put 1810 or 1811 as the year of his birth.
In the parish registers of Somersby, Dr. Tennyson’s handwriting records Alfred’s birth and baptism among the entries of 1809. Here is an instance where one can put to flight a host—for the names of those who assign 1810 as the year of the poet’s birth are legion. [34]
Tennyson’s Schooldays. ”

“ Demeter, and Other Poems (1889) .
Enough books have been named to give at least half a dozen minstrels a firm footing on Parnassus. The number of Tennyson’s meritorious performances is simply astonishing. But few poets have wrought with such unwearying patience. Not many can present as imposing a catalogue of works that are confessedly of such a high order of excellence. Browning has written more, but Browning has not taken the trouble to perfect himself in form—in short, he is not a finished artist. In literary workmanship, Tennyson stands supreme. ”

“ 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 [Pg 9] 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. ”

“ There is the same imaginative sorcery as of old, and the same consummate style, but the studied elegance and artful devices of earlier productions are less noticeable. There is less of minute finish in form and more of epic grandeur in tone and spirit. ”

“ It is a work occupying a place apart in literature. Its merits and defects are peculiar. There is no other elegy like it, and it may be doubted whether a second In Memoriam will ever be written. Tennyson erected an appropriate and imperishable monument to the memory of his lost friend. In conferring immortality upon his beloved Arthur, he gained it for himself. ”

“ To break the blast of winter, stand;
And further on, the hoary Channel
Tumbles a breaker on chalk and sand.
In 1855, Tennyson received the honorary degree of D. C. L. [Pg 15] from Oxford. [8] His prosperity continued—there being considerable profits from judicious investments and immense sales of his books. In 1867, he bought an estate near Haslemere, Surrey, “for the purpose of enjoying inland air and scenery.” Here he built a fine Gothic mansion, which is an ideal residence for a poet. Aldworth House is situated far up on Blackdown Heath, and overlooks a lovely valley. ”

“ He moved to Somersby in 1808, where he was rector till his death. If the inscription on his tomb is to be trusted, Dr. Tennyson was rector of two neighboring parishes—Benniworth and Bag Enderby—and was vicar of Great Grimsby; [29] and died March 16, 1831. The poet’s mother died February 21, 1865, in her eighty-fifth year.
Alfred Tennyson was the fourth of eight sons—George (who died in infancy) , Frederick, Charles, Alfred, Edward, Arthur, Septimus, and Horatio. The sisters were Mary, Emily, Matilda, and Cecilia. Excepting George and Frederick, all of the children were born at Somersby. ”

“ Personally, his lordship is a man who would attract attention anywhere, with his stalwart form slightly stooping, his noble face, his long flowing hair and bushy beard. He dresses carelessly, and when out of doors wears a shocking bad hat ”

“ For the sake of brevity, I merely correct a few of them without giving full particulars in every case. Tennyson first visited the Pyrenees in 1830—not in 1831; the second visit was in 1862. He received the degree of D. C. L. in 1855—not in 1859. His son Hallam was born at Twickenham, Aug. 11, 1852; Lionel, at Freshwater, Mar. 16, 1854.
Tennyson did not write “Break, break, break” at Clevedon or Freshwater. The intercalary lyrics of “The Princess” were first published in the third edition—not in the second. The plot of “The Cup” is taken from Plutarch’s treatise De Mulierum Virtutibus ”

“ They contain nothing that resembles vivacity or sublimity. They have not the interest which is general and universal as distinguished from the private or the unusual. They are not representative of human nature, but of individual peculiarities. ”

“ Tennyson received the Laureateship in 1850, the year of Wordsworth’s death. Mistake No. 2: he was married June 13, 1850. Mistake No. 3: Farringford is misspelled. Mistake No. 4: Tennyson lived at Twickenham three years after his marriage. Mistake No. 5: in 1853, he first took possession of Farringford, which is still his winter residence. Mistake No. 6: in 1867, the poet built a house near Haslemere in Surrey—not at Petersfield, Hampshire—where he spends the summer months. According to Prof. Church, the Laureate bought the Aldworth estate in 1872. ”

“ It is a satisfaction to get down to a solid substratum of truth.
[43]
Johnson’s Cyclopedia, Vol. VII., p. 755.
Appleton’s Cyclopedia, Vol. XV., p. 652.
Meyer’s Kon-Lex., vol. XV., p. 589.
Hart’s Manual of English Literature, p. 509.
Jenkins’ Handbook of British and American Literature, p. 401.
[44] London Times, March 12, 1884. An item in the Chicago Herald, April 5, 1892, refers to Tennyson as “Baron d’Eyncourt.” Thus he is called in Lives of English Authors (1890) . His title is given as “baron Tennyson d’Eyncourt d’Aldworth,” by Larousse (Dictionnaire Universel, 2d. Supplement, p. 1914) ”

“ Tennyson and family. We are told that Bayons Manor was his native place, [19] and that he was “rector of Somersby and vicar of Bennington and Grimsby.” [20] One writer uncritically imagines him a doctor of divinity. [21] According to some questionable authorities, he died “about 1830;” [22] “in 1830;” [23] “about 1831;” [24] “on the 18th of March, 1831;” [25] and in 1832. [26] Mrs. Tennyson is said to have died “in her eighty-first year;” [27] also “in her eighty-fourth year.” [28]
The number of sons and daughters in the Tennyson household is rarely given correctly. ”