WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY F. J. ROWE M.A. AND W. T. WEBB M.A. PROFESSORS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, PRESIDENCY COLLEGE, CALCUTTA London MACMILLAN AND CO. AND NEW YORK 1890 [All rights reserved] 23483.27.3 First Edition, 1888. Reprinted March and October, 1889 ; January, 1890. HARVARD GENERAL INTRODUCTION. ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, was born on August 6th, 1809, at Somersby in Lincolnshire, a village of which his father was rector. The wold scenery surrounding his home, and the fen some miles away with its "level waste" and stagnant waters where "the clustered marish mosses crept," and the sea as it appears on the Lincolnshire coast with "league-long rollers" and "tåble-shore" he has often pictured in his poems.1 He went, when seven years old, to the Louth Grammar School, and after a few years returning home was educated along with his brother Charles by his father. Alfred and Charles the elder, while yet boys, published a small volume of poetry entitled "Poems by Two Brothers." In 1828 he entered the University of Cambridge, where he gained the Chancellor's Gold Medal for a poem on "Timbuctoo," and where he formed an intimate friendship with Arthur Henry Hallam (son of the historian), whose memory he has immortalised in "In Memoriam." In 1830 he published "Poems chiefly Lyrical," among which are to be found some 60 pieces that are preserved in the present issues of his poems. In 1832 another volume of his poetry appeared, and then, after an interval of ten years, "Poems by Alfred Tenny 1E.g. Mariana, The Dying Swan, The May Queen. vii |