LOVE AND DEATH. WHAT time the mighty moon was gathering light And talking to himself, first met his sight: 'You must begone,' said Death, 'these walks are mine.' Love wept and spread his sheeny vans for flight; Yet ere he parted said, 'This hour is thine: Life eminent creates the shade of death; The shadow passeth when the tree shall fall, ΙΟ ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE NOTES. Bayne, Mr. Peter Bayne's Lessons from My Masters (Amer. ed., 1879). Brimley, Mr. George Brimley's paper on Tennyson in Cambridge Essays, 1855. Collins, Mr. J. Churton Collins's papers on Tennyson in Cornhill Magazine, Feb and July, 1880. Cf. (confer), compare. Corson, Prof. H. Corson's ed. of Tennyson's Dream of Fair Women and Two Voices (New York, 1882). C. T., Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. F. Q., Spenser's Faerie Queene. Fol., following. Forman, Mr. H. B. Forman's Our Living Poets (London, 1871). Id. (idem), the same. Imp. Dict., Ogilvie's Imperial Dictionary (Century Co.'s ed., New York, 1883). In Mem., Tennyson's In Memoriam. P. L., Milton's Paradise Lost. Palgrave, Mr. F. T. Palgrave's Lyrical Poems by Alfred Lord Tennyson (London, 1885). Prol., prologue. Shepherd, Mr. R. H. Shepherd's Tennysoniana (2d ed., London, 1879). Stedman, Mr. E. C. Stedman's Victorian Poets (Boston, 1876). Tainsh, Mr. E. C. Tainsh's Study of the Works of Alfred Tennyson (London, 1868). Wace, Mr. W. E. Wace's Alfred Tennyson, His Life and Works (Edinburgh, 1881). Warren, Hon. J. L. Warren's "Bibliography of Tennyson," in Fortnightly Review, Oct. 1, 1865. Wb., Webster's Dictionary (revised quarto ed. of 1879). Worc., Worcester's Dictionary (quarto ed.). The abbreviations of the names of Shakespeare's plays will be readily understood. The line-numbers are those of the "Globe " edition. 66 TENNYSON AND HIS WORKS. ALFRED TENNYSON, the fourth of eight brothers (there were also four sisters), was born on the 6th of August, 1809, at Somersby, a village in Lincolnshire containing at that time less than a hundred inhabitants. His father, Rev. George Clayton Tennyson, LL.D., was the rector of the parish, a man of energetic character, remarkable for his great strength and stature, and of very various talents, - something of a poet, painter, architect, and musician, and also a considerable linguist and mathematician." Mrs. Tennyson, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Fytche, was the daughter of a clergyman, and is described as "a sweet and gentle and most imaginative woman; so kind-hearted that it had passed into a proverb, and the wicked inhabitants of a neighboring village used to bring their dogs to her windows and beat them in order to be bribed to leave off by the gentle lady, or to make advantageous bargains by selling her the worthless curs.' In those days Somersby was quite out of the world, so much so that the news of the battle of Waterloo did not reach it at the time, but the Tennyson children had a world of their own with its mimic history and romance. "The boys," says Mrs. Ritchie, "played great games, like Arthur's knights; they were champions and warriors defending a stone heap; or, again, they would set up opposing camps with a king in the midst of each. The king was a willow wand stuck into *Mrs. Anne Thackeray Ritchie, in Records of Tennyson, Ruskin, Browning (New York, 1892), to which we are indebted for some interesting particulars of the poet's early life. the ground, with an outer circle of immortals to defend him of firmer, stiffer sticks. Then each party would come with stones, hurling at each other's king, and trying to overthrow him. Perhaps as the day wore on they became romancers, leaving the jousts deserted. When dinner-time came, and they all sat round the table, each in turn put a chapter of his history underneath the potato-bowl, - long endless histories, chapter after chapter, diffuse, absorbing, unending, as are the stories of real life of which each sunrise opens on a new part. Some of these romances were in letters, like 'Clarissa Harlowe.' Alfred used to tell a story which lasted for months, and which was called 'The Old Horse.'" Earlier even than this the boy had begun to "lisp in numbers." When he was only five years old, he exclaimed as the wind swept through the rectory garden, "I hear a voice that's speaking in the wind." Mrs. Ritchie tells how, not long afterwards, he first put his baby poetry into writing. "Alfred's first verses were written upon a slate which his brother Charles put into his hand one Sunday at Louth, when all the elders of the party were going into church, and the child was left alone. Charles gave him a subject, — the flowers in the garden, — and when he came back from church, little Alfred brought the slate to his brother, all covered with written lines of blank verse. They were made on the model of Thomson's 'Seasons,' the only poetry he had ever read. One can picture it all to one's self, the flowers in the garden, the verses, the little poet with waiting eyes, and the young brother scanning the lines. 'Yes, you can write,' said Charles, and he gave Alfred back the slate. I have also heard another story, of his grandfather, later on, asking him to write an elegy on his grandmother, who had recently died, and, when it was written, putting ten shillings into his hands and saying, 'There, that is the first money you have ever earned by your poetry, and, take my word for it, it will be the last.' " Alfred and Charles, who was a little more than a year the elder, were sent together to Louth grammar school; and there, in the latter part of 1826, we find them preparing for the press a collection of juvenile poems written from the age of fifteen upwards. It was published early in 1827 by the Messrs. Jackson, booksellers and printers in Louth, who paid the boys twenty pounds for the copyright. The book was entitled Poems by Two Brothers, with the addition of the modest motto from Martial, "Haec nos novimus esse nihil" (We ourselves know that these are nothing). The pieces, one hundred and two in number, aside from their interest as including the first printed verses of one who has since risen to the highest position as a poet, are worthy of note for their wide range of subjects and the extensive reading in classical and modern authors which they indicate. The themes are drawn from all ages and all lands, as a few of the titles may serve to show: Antony to Cleopatra; The Gondola; Written by an Exile of Bassorah, sailing down the Euphrates; Persia; Egypt; The Druid's Prophecies; Swiss Song; The Expedi tion of Nadir Shah into Hindostan; Greece; The Maid of Savoy; Scotch Song; God's Denunciations against Pharaoh-Hophra; The Death of Lord Byron; The Fall of Jerusalem; Eulogium on Homer: |