The life and times of Tennyson <from 1809 to 1850>

Part Two: Tennyson's Contributions to

the Annuals 265

XL The Poems of 1832 279

XII. Lockhart's Review of Tennyson's

Second Volume 310

XIIL The Ten Years' Silence— First Half

CHAPTER PAGE

XIV. The Ten Yoars' Silence— Second Half

(1837-1842) 357

XV. The Poems of 1842 378

XVI. Receptionof the Poems of 1842 . . . 416 XVII. American Eeception of the Poems of

1842 446

XVIII. Christopher North's Later Attacks on

Tennyson 465

XIX. Tennyson's Ijension and Bulwer's

Attack . ' 497

XX. The Princess 530

XXI. Poet Laureate 568

XXIL Arthur Henry Hallam 589

XXIII. In Memoriam 616

Introduction

Professor Lounsbury's name, I suppose, is most closely associated by the public with his studies in Chaucer and Shakespeare. His literary taste, however, was singularly catholic. Pope and Dryden, for example, appealed to him strongly because of their pugnacity and the keenness of their satire. Their poems he knew intimately, and he often quoted passages from them in conversation, not always accurately but rather by way of a paraphrase which gave new edge to an epigram. Of later poets the ones he read most were Byron, Browning, and Tennyson. From any one of the three, he would repeat, when in the mood for it, long stretches running to hundreds of verses. Among the poems of Tennyson which he sometimes recited were ^Locksley Hall,' the 'Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington,' and parts of 'Maud,' 'The Princess,' and 'In Memoriam.' Many of the quotations in this volume were first written out from memory.

This admiration for Tennyson began in youth and continued through a long life. It was his habit when a schoolboy to clip from the newspaper any new production of the poet and paste it in a scrapbook, first, I daresay, committing the lines to memory; and the most notable essay that he wrote while in college was a defence of 'Maud' against hostile criticism.

viii INTRODUCTION

Long afterwards, when the second 'Locksley Hall' made its appearance, he contributed to 'The New Englander' a most illuminating contrast and comparison between this poem and the one of sixty years before bearing the same name. The last lectures which he gave at Yale, a decade ago, were on Tennyson and the poet's early contemporaries. Always, the man who had lived through the greater part of the Victorian era set himself squarely against the wave of cheap depreciation which at times threatened to overwhelm Tennyson. Though he admitted the poet 's limitations, he insisted upon his greatness.

It was while Professor Lounsbury was in the midst of his lectures that he planned a literary biography of Tennyson. He never expected to cover the poet's entire career, but he hoped that he might come down to the publication of 'The Idylls of the King.' When compelled to stop he had reached 'In Memoriam,' though he had collected most of his materials for the subsequent decade. In no wise was his book intended as a rival to other biographies of the poet, least of all as a rival to the 'Memoir' of Tennyson by the poet's son. "That work," Professor Lounsbury remarks in notes which he had made towards a preface, "must always be the final authority on the points it deals with directly. All other biographies are under obligations to it. My own obligations are sufficiently shown by the numerous facts borrowed from it, which are duly acknowledged on page after page." At the same time, he goes on to say: "It is a matter of supreme difficulty for one who is united to a man by

INTRODUCTION ix

the closest of personal ties to tell satisfactorily the story of his life. Especially is this so in the case of a son. He cannot say anything in censure. Coming from him, it would seem an act of impiety towards a dead man. Equally he cannot say anything in praise, even that which all the rest of the world would feel to be justly due. It would be attributed in his case to filial affection, not to the conclusion of an impartial judge. Hence whatever appreciation he introduces must come from the outside. Others must be brought forward to say for him what he cannot say for himself without being subjected to malevolent criticism. Such a method of conveying an estimate is always unsatisfactory." This comment on the procedure of the poet's son presents clearly Professor Lounsbury's point of view. Free from the trammels of relationship, he will always speak out as an unbiassed critic in just praise and blame. This is what he did years ago in his ^Life of James Fenimore Cooper.' In no other way can one arrive at a true appraisal of a writer. Professor Lounsbury's studies may be regarded as supplementary to the * Memoir ' by Hallam Tennyson.

The title which the author chose for his book was 'The Life and Times of Tennyson.' Had the work been brought nearer to completion, this would have more properly described its scope than it does now. Still, even in that case, there would have been need of a brief explanation. It was not Professor Lounsbury's purpose to relate anew those well-known incidents in the poet's life which may be easily found

X INTRODUCTION

elsewhere. What he ever kept in mind was the literary career of Tennyson. From many sources, some of them very obscure, he drew such personal incidents as would contribute directly to the end he had in view. This is true even of the chapter on Tennyson's youth. Most of the material that went into those pages has a direct bearing on the poet's future career. It was a difficult chapter to write, for the boyhood of Tennyson has been passed over lightly by all who have written upon him. Indeed, none of them seems to have known much about it. No more was it Professor Lounsbury's intention to make a full survey of 'Hhe times" embraced by the poet's eighty years. That would have been a labor alike valueless and impossible. As the reader will see, he has confined his story to what immediately concerned Tennyson. So much and no more of ''the times" was admitted. Accordingly certain great names of the Victorian era either are casually mentioned or are rendered conspicuous by their absence. They have to give place to men who exerted a measurable influence upon the varying fortunes of the poet's literary career. These men were obviously not Browning and Matthew Arnold; they were, for the early period, "Christopher North," John Gibson Lockhart, and scores of other reviewers whom the world has long since consigned to oblivion. The opinions of these critics then swayed the public for or against an author. This is the reason why many of them are given a new lease of life here. In a note summarizing his plan, I find Professor Lounsbury saying: ''I wish to bring

INTRODUCTION xi

out clearly not only what took place in the life of the poet during the period in question, but the situation in which he found himself as regards literature, the hostility which he encountered at the outset of his career, and the circumstances which brought it about and the influences that were at work both to create it and to dissipate it. This is a field which has been touched upon by none of his biographers, or if touched upon merely alluded to." Though Professor Lounsbury was compelled to shorten the period he once had in mind, he has here depicted Tennyson's long struggle for recognition down to the great triumph of *In Memoriam.' It is the part of the poet's career that has the greatest human interest.

An account of how Tennyson impressed his contemporaries involved, first of all, a consideration of the critical literature of the time. * ' I have gone over, ' ' says Professor Lounsbury, ''every article of Tennyson which appeared in any quarterly, monthly, or weekly of importance, whether in England or America, from 1830 to 1855. Nor have I confined myself to reviews which dealt directly with the poet. There is no article dealing with the literary situation or with the other writers of the period which I have not read with more or less care." It is quite evident that these statements may be extended, with some reserves, to the daily newspapers which contained literary notices. In these unworked mines, Professor Lounsbury discovered fresh material for his volume. Sometimes he used to grumble at the labor, but in his very heart he thoroughly enjoyed it. Time often renders old views xii INTRODUCTION

and old opinions so absurd that they become a source of delight to a man having Professor Lounsbury's extraordinary sense of humor. He finds ''men extolled to the skies whose names are now forgotten, and men contemptuously decried whom the world now cherishes as the greatest representatives of their age. ' ' Through all this critical literature Professor Lounsbury slowly ploughed his way. Some readers, he apprehended, might object to his frequent extracts from it. Them he would console by declaring that he had refrained, out of regard to their sensibilities, from quoting scores of passages which he might have adduced to illustrate further the views once current concerning Tennyson. By way of parenthesis, it may be observed that Professor Lounsbury placed a very low estimate on the intrinsic value of the criticism contemporary with the poet. After admitting that he has met with some articles still worth reading, he goes on to say : ' ' The chief impression produced upon me by them taken as a whole is the general worthlessness of most contemporary criticism. Especially is this true of works of the imagination. When it comes to the description of matters of fact, superior knowledge may point out errors of detail, but where taste and culture are the leading factors, we never have much more than an expression of the reviewer's likes and dislikes. . . . After a careful examination of the criticism which Tennyson received during the twenty-five years under consideration, it is well within bounds to declare that nine tenths of it is not worth the paper on which it was written, and that no small share of this nine tenths

INTRODUCTION xiii

is discreditable to the men who wrote it and to the periodicals in which it appeared." Why, then, it may be asked, should one consider it? Why disturb the dead I Because in contemporary criticism and nowhere else lies the literary biography of Tennyson.

While engaged upon this book. Professor Lounsbury's eyes, never very good, failed him for close and prolonged work. At best he could depend upon them for no more than two or three hours a day. Sometimes he could not depend upon them at all. That he might not subject them to undue strain, he acquired the habit of writing in the dark. Night after night, using a pencil on coarse paper, he would sketch a series of paragraphs for consideration in the morning. This was almost invariably his custom in later years. Needless to say, these rough drafts are difficult reading for an outsider. Though the lines could be kept reasonably straight, it was impossible -for a man enveloped in darkness to dot an i or to cross a t. Moreover, many word^ were abbreviated, and numerous sentences were left half written out. Every detail, however, was perfectly plain to the author himself. With these detached slips of paper and voluminous notes before him, he composed on a typewriter his various chapters, putting the paragraphs in logical sequence. His next step was to subject his typewritten copy to extensive revision with pen and ink. Subsequently he had a fair copy made for him by one more expert in manipulating the typewriter. Nor did composition end there. Besides having highly developed the instinct of the literary artist. Professor xiv INTRODUCTION

Lounsbury strove at all times for perfect accnracy. Before letting his manuscript finally go to the printer, he went over it again with extreme care, modifying where necessary his statements of fact, and rephrasing many sentences in order to gain the effects he aimed to produce. Such was his usual procedure.

It is accordingly to be lamented that none of the chapters printed here received Professor Lounsbury 's final revision. All but three of them, however, had reached the stage of the second typewritten copy ; and on several of these he had indicated some of the alterations which he wished to make; but he had not proceeded far with this work — in no case through an entire chapter. Whenever it was clear just what he desired, I have made the emendations; otherwise I have ventured upon no change except where a wrong word had evidently slipped into the text, or where a quotation was not quite literally given. Of the three remaining chapters the fourteenth was nearly ready for the second typewritten copy, but was being withheld for additions the nature of which is not apparent. The first chapter, which deals with Tennyson's youth, was in a less satisfactory condition. Several of the paragraphs Professor Lounsbury planned to modify and reconstruct in the light of further study; and the views which he illustrates near the close on the precocity of great poets were not fully developed there. Indeed, the chapter, as he left it, broke off at the beginning of a sentence. In order to give an appearance of completeness to this chapter, I have transferred to it a few passages from one that comes

INTRODUCTION xv

midway in the book. Except for this and a few minor corrections, it was necessary to let this chapter stand in its incomplete state. The greatest perplexity arose over what to do with the last chapter — the one on *In Memoriam.' With the theme of this poem Professor Lounsbury's mind was filled during the last weeks of his life. Whenever his health permitted, he wrote out various paragraphs in pencil, and he had begun to organize them into a whole when the end came. Much that he designed to say about *In Memoriam' the reader will find in this chapter as I have attempted to piece it together ; and some passages will as surely be found there which would have been discarded had Professor Lounsbury lived to complete it. Most of all, his friends will miss those remarks on the poem which they have heard from him in conversation and which he intended to incorporate into this or a succeeding chapter. There exist also partial outlines for chapters on the Wellington *Ode' and on * Maud ' ; but they are too faint and uncertain to follow. They contain, however, certain observations of a general nature which I have inserted near the end of the chapter on 'In Memoriam.'

In preparing the manuscript for the press, I have received much aid from Miss Helen McAfee, who has verified the quotations. Mr. Andrew Keogh of the Yale University Library has kindly read all the proofs, and has supervised the preparation of the index. For myself, I have to say that this last book of Professor Lounsbury's is here presented to the public as nearly as possible in the form which in my opinion he would xvi INTRODUCTION

have desired. Nothing that he ever wrote better displays his remarkable qualities as a literary historian, his brilliant wit and humor, and that mastery of style which places him among the foremost prose writers of recent times.

WiLBUK L. Ckoss.

Yale University, September, 1915.

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF TENNYSON

Chapter I Tennyson's Eaely Years

The county of Lincoln, the second in size of the English shires, is, so far as about one third of its area is concerned, a county of marshes and fens. These two words, however, as there employed, hardly convey to the reader in this country the idea that he would be likely to entertain. They mean not tracts of land covered partially or wholly with water, but cultivated soil reclaimed in one case from the sea and in the other from the overflow of streams. Accordingly they are not marshes and fens in the strict sense of the terms. They are level fields separated from each other not by fences or hedges, but by ditches and dykes. The so-called marsh in the neighborhood of Tennyson's boyhood home was a belt, from five to ten miles broad, of rich alluvial soil, stretching along the coast from the upper course of the Humber River to the neighborhood of Wainfleet, and protected from the ocean by sand dunes heaped up by the winds and waves. A few miles to the south of the place of his birth lay the much vaster fen country of the shire.

The surface of the country is for the most part a great plain. Yet in contrast to its ordinarily level character there run through it, in the general direction of north and south, two bold ranges of calcareous hills, which rise in places to the height of two or three thousand feet. The range to the west is called the Cliffs, that to the east the Wolds. The latter extends from Barton-on-Humber to Spilsby. Towards its southern extremity and situated between low hills, lies the village of Somersby. It is rather entitled to the designation of hamlet. It is a very small place now, and such it seems to have been always. In fact, it is too small to be found upon any but the largest maps ; early in the nineteenth century it contained not many more than half a hundred inhabitants. At that time the rector of the parish was the Reverend George Clayton Tennyson. He was a man of lofty stature, of great physical strength, and of wide interests and tastes in many different directions. He paid attention to poetry, to painting, to music, and to architecture. He designed and built as an addition to the rectory a Gothicvaulted dining-room, where on winter evenings his family gathered and spent the time in games and music and readings from favorite authors. In the rear of the house was the lawn which sloped down to the garden, along whose edge ran the little brook which played no unimportant part in the life of the children. Adjoining the garden was the orchard.

George Clayton Tennyson had married Elizabeth Fytche, the daughter of the vicar of Louth. Twelve children were the fruit of this union. Of these eight were sons. The first-born, George, died the year of his birth. Of the eleven others, the eldest was Frederick, born in 1807, the second Charles, born in 1808, and the third Alfred, who was born in 1809. Unlike the father all the children, with a single exception, passed the threescore and ten years allotted to man's life on earth. Some of them approached fourscore and several passed that mark. "The Tennysons never die," was the almost despairing cry of that one of the sisters who was engaged to Arthur Hallam, in the midst of the utter prostration of mind and body which followed the death of her lover. Tennyson himself had passed by two months his eighty-third birthday at liis death, and five of his brothers and sisters survived him, one of them, Frederick, the oldest of all. One of the petty controversies connected with the poet's life has arisen as to the exact date of his birth. In nearly all of the later accounts it is put down as having occurred on the sixth of August. Tennyson himself asserted that it took place on the fifth. His testimony to that effect is given by Canon Rawnsley to whom it came from the poet directly. **I had it," wrote the canon, "from Lord Tennyson himself that, though the 6th is popularly put down as the date of his birth, it really took place a few minutes before midnight of the 5th. "^ In spite of his necessary presence on the occasion his independent testimony cannot be deemed of much value, certainly it is not conclusive. At that time he could not be expected to have any recollection of the event, even if in it he inevitably bore a particularly prominent part. But according to the advocates of this date, his statement is borne out by the evidence of one much better informed. In their

1 ' Memories of the Tennysons, ' by H. D. Eawnsley, 1900, p. 3.

opinion the father labored under the same impression as the son. Tennyson's baptism took place on the eighth of August. The record of the fact appears in the parish register written in the rector's own hand. Under the date mentioned there is the following entry :

Alfred, son of George Clayton and Elizabeth Tennyson born August 5th.

Against this view the advocates of the later date maintain that the fifth is due to a misreading in the parish register. This assertion was made long ago while the poet was still alive by one who professed to have examined with the greatest care the father's entry. According to his account the 6 had been mistaken for a 5, **the top of the back stroke being somewhat square and pointing to the right, and the ink at the back, or left, of the loop is rather faint ; but under a magnifier it can be traced through all the figure."^ At all events this date has been adopted in what may be called the official life of the poet. The fact seems to be that he was born about midnight, and so his birth could properly be assigned to either the fifth or the sixth day. Still, as there has now come to be a pretty general agreement on the adoption of the later date, that will doubtless continue to be considered as his birthday.

In 1832, Arthur Hallam, visiting the home of the Tennysons, is said to have remarked, ''Fifty years hence people will be making pilgrimages to this spot. ' '

1 C. J. C. in 'Notes and Queries,' March 14, 1891,

He certainly wrote in 1831 to Tennyson's sister that many years and even many ages after they were all laid in dust, young lovers of the beautiful and the true would seek the region where the mind of the poet had been moulded in silent sympathy with the everlasting forces of nature ; would point out the places which he would be supposed to have celebrated. Something must of course be pardoned to the enthusiasm of strong personal attachment; perhaps even more to the fact that the speaker was very much in love with his friend's sister, and human nature is so constituted that a circumstance of this sort has a tendency to check the preservation of a calm and judicial attitude of mind towards the qualities characterizing that sister's brother. There is no question, however, that in this case the prediction has been fulfilled. Pilgrimages were made to the spot within less than fifty years afterward. They will doubtless continue to be made when many additional fifty years have gone by. Still, it is not necessary to attribute an inspired clearness of vision to the utterance. How many are the unfulfilled predictions of this sort for which at the time there appeared the amplest justification to their utterers! They have been proclaimed in all sincerity by the easy admiration of youth, reinforced by the magnifying power of personal attachment. When the predictions are not realized, as too generally they are not, we no longer recall them, we forget, in fact, that they were ever made. But the one success in prophecy makes infinitely more impression than a hundred failures, and we cite its verification as a proof of special insight.

In the rectory of the little village, with four poplars then standing before its door, and a brook flowing just below its garden, the childhood and most of the earlyyouth of Alfred Tennyson were spent. Of this period of his life, in spite of the numerous biographies of him which have been written, we have largely to content ourselves with generalities. For this the poet himself was mainly responsible. He was particularly hostile to anything in the shape of reports of his sayings and doings, to secure which seems frequently to be the specially engrossing desire of the modern author. This attitude was as marked in his early years when no one sought to gather information about him as it was in his later when every one was seeking to secure it at any cost. Then as afterward he held himself aloof from others in the intercourse of private life. He was averse to having his personality made in any way conspicuous before the public, or to attracting its attention by the disclosure of what he thought and said. Yet if certain accounts are to be trusted, he would have gained far more by such revelations than he would have lost. His intimate friend, FitzGerald, was wont to express regret that the casual utterances of Tennyson were not preserved. They were, he declared, sayings to be remembered, decisive verdicts. ' ' Had I continued to be with him, ' ' he wrote to a friend in 1872, ^'I would have risked being called another Bozzy by the thankless World ; and have often looked in vain for a Note Book I had made of such things. ' '

This notebook has been found and printed. The reported sayings upon which FitzGerald laid so much stress, when read in cold blood, hardly justify the praise he la\ished. Nothing he has preserved would lead the reader to believe that much would have been lost by silence. This is far, however, from being an uncommon experience. Vapid and lifeless, not to say dull, are often the words when read, which seemed so full of sparkle and charm and brilliancy when heard. Such instances are frequent in the case of men whose conversation has attracted and delighted numbers, but cannot stand the test of publication. The success of the sayings depends at the time on other things than upon what is actually said. The effect produced upon the hearer has not been so much due to the words themselves, or even to the thought or the way in which the thought has been expressed. It is rather the result of attendant circumstances — the sympathetic audience, the by-play that leads up to the utterance, the aptness of the introduction to the comment made upon the subject under discussion, the looks and gestures and intonations with which the sentiments conveyed are accompanied and enforced. Detached from the agencies which contribute to the immediate impression, the effectiveness of the words uttered disappears. Committed to print, they lose the point and force which belonged to them when spoken.

Still, the words of a man of genius are well worthy of preservation without regard to their intrinsic value. The world is neither disposed to be thankless for the gift of the most trivial utterances of its greatest men, nor to blame the giver. There is no doubt, however, as to the state of mind any such action would have inspired in Tennyson himself. His own feelings are distinctly expressed in that verse of 'Will Waterproof's Lyrical Monologue,' when he speaks of that remote past when the great writer could give freest utterance to his thoughts and emotions with no fear of the reporter that travels in darkness or of the interviewer that wastes at noonday :

Hours, when the Poet's words and looks

Had yet their native glow ; Nor yet the fear of little books

Had made him talk for show; But, all his vast heart sherris-warm 'd,

He flash 'd his random speeches, Ere days, that deal in ana, swarm 'd

His literary leeches.

This is far from being the only time or place in which Tennyson expressed his aversion to that remorseless publicity of modern life which waits upon him who has lifted himself up to a high position among his fellow men. Both in his writings and in his conversation he took in this matter the extremest of extreme ground. In one of his poems he manifested his feelings with a vehemence that amounted almost to bitterness. This is the one now entitled, 'To after

reading a Life and Letters.' The person whom he is addressing is generally supposed to be his brother Charles; the 'Life and Letters' which he read, to be the biography of Keats prepared by Milnes, and published in 1848, Tennyson seems later to have desired to disclaim the idea that he had in mind this particular volume. The only reason apparent for this implied denial of the reference to the work is that it might be construed into an attack upon a personal friend. In truth, in his journal, William Rossetti records an assertion of Tennyson that this particular poem was written by him '' in a fit of intense disgust" after reading Medwin's journal of the 'Conversations of Lord Byron. ' It is so easy for the most honest of reporters to give a wrong impression of what has actually been said that the reader may be permitted to doubt that the poet ever made any unqualified assertion of this sort. It may be that Medwin 's work was mentioned by Tennyson as one of those he had in mind. But in itself it could never have been the inspiration of the sentiments expressed in this particular piece.

The lines contained a peculiarly strong manifestation of his personal feelings. They were originally printed in ' The Examiner ' for March 24, 1849. Later they were included in the sixth edition of the 'Poems' which appeared in 1850. It was not till the eighth edition which came out in the latter part of January, 1853, that the words "After reading a Life and Letters" were added. This makes it clear that Medwin 's work could not have been the one to which reference was made. That author had not written a life of Byron, nor had he printed his letters. He simply purported to record his conversations. As, furthermore, his work appeared in 1824, it was rather late in the day to become agitated about what had been reported a quarter of a century before. The poem, it is to be added, had after its title a quotation of the last line of Shakespeare's epitaph, ''Cursed be he that moves my bones. ' ' The words had here not the slightest appropriateness. Shakespeare, or whoever wrote the epitaph, sought simply to express the natural desire that the body should be left undisturbed in the resting-place to which it had been consigned; that it should not, after the lapse of generations, encounter the fate of thousands in the crowded churchyards of England whose bones are dug up to make room for those of some newcomer to the grave. He was not thinking at all of what would be said of him after his death or what revelations would be made of his words and acts. In Tennyson's quotation from the epitaph invoking Shakespeare's curse upon those who will not let his ashes rest, he imputes by implication to Shakespeare feelings which the great dramatist pretty certainly never had, and very certainly never expressed.