of splendour when Shakespeare was the brightest star in a wondrous galaxy; and the Victorian era will most fitly bear comparison with the lustre of the period associated with the royal sway of Elizabeth. But none could have foreseen that the infant child of a Lincolnshire rector living in a remote hamlet, was destined to contribute so bountifully to the glory of his age. Somersby, the birth-place, was at that time a sequestered nook, nestling among the wolds, and containing a population of about one hundred. There in the white rectory-house opposite an old square-towered church lived Dr George Clayton Tennyson, a scion of the house of D'Eyncourt, and his wife, a daughter of the Rev. Stephen Fytche, of Louth. Their first-born son died, but two others, Frederick and Charles, had already been born, and the fourth was baptised and named Alfred three days after his birth. Emerson, in his essay on Plato, tells us that great geniuses have the shortest biographies; and in his essay on Shakespeare he adds that "it is the essence of poetry to spring, like the rainbow daughter of Wonder, from the invisible, to abolish the past, and refuse all history." Whether the days of Alfred Tennyson were deficient in event, or whether his isolation from the world was such that no real insight into what constituted his life as a man and a poet could be obtained, is not now capable of determination. Suffice it that chroniclers have at most times had to depend upon current gossip and occasional personal revelations. Few indeed are the facts made known by the poet himself, and the most diligent gleaner will find the harvest disappointing. Sir Henry Taylor records in his autobiography that in the course of conversation the Poet Laureate told him that he "believed every crime and every vice in the world were connected with the passion for autographs and anecdotes and records; that the desiring anecdotes and acquaintance with the lives of great men was treating them like pigs to be ripped open for the public; that he knew he himself should be ripped open like a pig; 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 thanked God Almighty that he knew nothing of Jane Austen; and that there were no letters preserved either of Shakespeare's or of Jane Austen's that they had not ripped open like pigs." The same extraordinary feeling made itself manifest in more than one of the Laureate's poems, especially in his lines of congratulation to a friend who had miss'd the irreverent doom Of those that wear the Poet's crown." For now the Poet cannot die, Nor leave his music as of old, But round him ere he scarce be cold "Proclaim the faults he would not show: Break lock and seal betray the trust: Ah shameless! for he did but sing A song that pleased us from its worth; No blazon'd statesman he, nor king. The bitterness and the morbidness of the stinging lines are but too apparent; but though the poet's injunction may be regarded as too severe, in these pages at least we will not "tear his heart before the crowd." Alfred Tennyson was happy and fortunate in his parents and surroundings. Of his father and mother nothing but good is known. The "owd Doctor," as he was not irreverently called in the locality, was a learned unworldly man of whom we probably get a portrait in The Village Wife. He was "hallus aloän wi' 'is booöks," and if he had a fault, it was that he "niver looökt ower a bill, nor 'e niver not seed to owt." We are told that he was thing of a poet, painter, architect, musician, linguist, and 66 some mathematician." His wife was a gracious and excellent woman, with a heart of genuine kindness and tenderest sympathy-" No angel, but a dearer being, all dipt In angel instincts, breathing Paradise." "A sweet and gentle and most imaginative woman," is Mrs Ritchie's tribute. To these two were born in all eight sons and four daughters, most of whom proved in after years to possess the poetic temperament more or less developed. Little is known of the poet's youth, but the perfect harmony of the home life is attested in many ways. The strongest ties of friendship seem to have bound the brothers and sisters to one another, and the references to early days in the poems of Alfred and of Charles Tennyson are of such warmth and tenderness that the meaning cannot be mistaken. The boys had their dreams and desires, the poetic instinct striving to make itself felt, and leading them to the love of all beauty. They sang and played together, they told marvellous tales, they loved to dwell upon themes which set their fancy flying, and in imagination their home became an enchanted castle and themselves Arthurian knights. It is recorded that Alfred's first verses were written upon a slate and shown to Charles who approved them. The "great artist Memory" pictured in colours most rich and beautiful those Lincolnshire scenes where the "prime labour of its early days" was wrought. First there was the home with its hoard of treasured recollections-the "well-beloved place Where first we gazed upon the sky," where stood the gray old grange, and where might be seen the lonely fold, the sheep-walk up the windy wold, the woods that belt the gray hill-side, and The seven elms, the poplars four That stand beside my father's door. How great an influence Lincolnshire scenery had upon the poet has already been traced. One, knowing nothing of Alfred Tennyson's origin, but knowing the characteristics of his county, could easily have singled him out as a Lincolnshire man. "All great poetry," said Russell Lowell, "must smack of the soil, for it must be rooted in it, must suck life and substance from it, but it must do so with the aspiring instinct of the pine that climbs forever toward diviner air." If further evidence of the use of environment were needed, what could be more significant and appropriate than the unrestrained admission of Charles Tennyson in the beautiful sonnet which I extract from the rarest of his volumes?— Hence with your jeerings, petulant and low, I learn but now what change the world can bring! Tennyson, like his two elder brothers, received the first part of his education at "Cadney's "-a schoolhouse in Holywell Glen of some repute at that time. It was opened about 1815 by Charles Clark, who, on leaving Somersby, was succeeded by William Cadney. Locally this worthy is now remembered on account of his placing a Latin inscription-a mixture of Horace and Virgil-over the entrance to the Glen, and any particular merit he may 1 William Howitt was the first to describe Tennyson's native place, and his words are worth quoting :-" The native village of Tennyson 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 neighbourhood, called by the old monkish name of Holywell. Over the gateway leading to it some by-gone squire [an error: it should be Cadney] has put up an inscription, a medley of Virgil and Horace; and within, a stream of clear water gushes out on a sand rock, and over it stands the old schoolhouse almost lost among the trees, and of late years used as a wood have possessed, or whatever his special qualification for his work, cannot be related. Until the Tennyson brothers were sent to Louth Grammar School their education may have been partly under the supervision of their father, though it is not unlikely that no regular or systematic course of training was entered upon. I have already disposed of the fiction that Alfred and Charles Tennyson received the major portion of their education at Louth.1 As a matter of fact Alfred was only just eleven years old, and Charles was only thirteen when they returned to Somersby, and Cadney was entrusted with the care of them. Their sojourn at Louth had been absolutely uneventful, and they brought back with them only bitter recollections of the headmaster's severity. Cadney's duty was to teach the boys arithmetic, but a quarrel with the Doctor abruptly terminated the engagement. William Clark, a sharp Bag Enderby boy, only two years Alfred's senior, was then called upon to act as tutor, and having a special aptitude for mathematics, he succeeded in the task. As for Cadney, misfortune appears to have dogged his steps. He was turned out of his cottage in the Glen because the boys in his charge disturbed the game, such as there was; and eventually the schoolmaster ended his days in Spilsby Union-house at Hundleby, at the age of eighty-four. William Clark, the "boy-schoolmaster," is still living at Tetford, near Somersby; and it is interesting to relate that his brother Charles was for some time employed at the Hall at Gantby, which was often regarded as the original of Dickens's "Bleak House." house, its former distinction only signified by the Scripture text on the walls, 'Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth.' There are also two brooks in this valley, which flow into one at the bottom of the glebe field, and by these the young poet used to wander and meditate." I have given a full description of these scenes as they present themselves in later times, and subsequently other "localizers" have done the same. Some interesting facts about Cadney's school were published in the Pall Mall Gazette of June 19, 1890. Previously the history of that interesting place was very obscure. 1 See "In Tennyson Land," pp. 35-37. |