Tennyson's Life and Poetry Part 2

A mult.i.tude of errors have been perpetrated about Dr. 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. Alfred is called, in a hit-or-miss fashion, one of three, four, six, seven and eight brothers. His sisters are variously reckoned as one, three, four and five.

The Rev. George Clayton Tennyson was born at Market Rasen, December 10, 1778. He graduated at St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1801; he received the degree of M. A. in 1805, and of LL.D. in 1813. He married (August 6, 1805) Miss Elizabeth Fytche of Louth. 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.

ALFRED'S BIRTHDAY.

The discussion as to the poet's birthday is now practically at rest--his lordship himself having authoritatively settled the matter. Would that he would enlighten us on some other perplexing points in his history! Mrs.

Tennyson kept August 6 as Alfred's birthday. Tourists who have hastily examined the parish registers of Somersby have mistaken the figure 6 for a 5, owing to the fading of the ink "at the back, or left, of the loop."[30]

But careless hackwriters, depending upon the compilations published decades ago, continue to a.s.sert that the Laureate was born August 5;[31]

April 9,[32] or April 6.[33]

YEAR OF TENNYSON'S BIRTH.

In Welsh's _English Literature_ is a "biography" of Tennyson which says, amid various other slips, that he was born in 1810. 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 a.s.sign 1810 as the year of the poet's birth are legion.[34]

TENNYSON'S SCHOOLDAYS.

There is a want of precision in many of the statements that have been made by Tennyson's biographers concerning his school days. In the _Encyclopedia Americana_ (1889), vol. iv., p. 660, Dr. C. E. Washburn says Alfred "attended for a time Cadney's village school, and for a brief period the grammar-school at Louth,"--which is partly true, but curiously misrepresents the matter. He was a pupil in Louth Grammar School four years (1816-20)--not a very "brief period." Howitt and others make the length of time "two or three years," and some have the mistaken impression that he pa.s.sed some time in Cadney's school before he went to Louth.

Cadney came to Somersby about 1820, and, in the autumn of the next year, he instructed the Tennyson boys in arithmetic at the rectory. Cook erroneously supposes that Charles and Alfred were at Louth in 1827.[35]

There has been considerable guessing as to the time when Tennyson went to Cambridge. He is said to have entered Trinity College in 1826;[36] in 1827;[37] about 1827;[38] in 1829;[39] and "early in 1829."[40] There is no occasion for such indefiniteness. To be exact, Alfred became a student of Trinity in October, 1828.[41] He left college without graduating, at the time of his father's death. His brothers, Frederick and Charles, finished the course in 1832.

COINCIDENCES.

The cyclopedias also present numerous examples of coincidences as well as variations--some of the incorrect details being repeated almost verbatim, as though successive compilers had copied over and over the mistakes of their superficial predecessors. This ought not to go on forever.

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."

In the biographical supplement of the _Americanized Britannica_, this becomes two or three sentences, viz.:

"He was made poet-laureate in 1851. It was about this time, too, that Tennyson married, returning to Faringford, in the Isle of Wight, where he lived until 1869.... It was in this year the poet moved from the Isle of Wight and took up his residence in Petersfield, Hampshire."

There are similar pa.s.sages in Appleton's and Johnson's cyclopedias. It is perfectly plain that there was not much independent investigation in these unscholarly performances.

MISTAKES.

Mistake No. 1: 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. The latter date is manifestly wrong.[42]

The story of Tennyson's Petersfield establishment may be cla.s.sed as a myth, though supported by several monuments of research called cyclopedias.[43]

Nothing is said of a Hampshire home in Jennings' _Life of Tennyson_, in Church's _Laureate's Country_, or in Van d.y.k.e's admirable book on the _Poetry of Tennyson_; no reference to it is found in the essays on Tennyson by Mr. Edmund Gosse and Mrs. Anne Thackeray Ritchie. Nor is Lord Tennyson's name found in the list of land owners of Hampshire, in Walford's _County Families of the United Kingdom_. One is puzzled to understand how such a report started.

TENNYSON'S ELEVATION TO THE PEERAGE.

It is rather surprising to read in the _People's Cyclopedia_, Johnson's, Lippincott's and elsewhere, that Tennyson was raised to the peerage in 1883 as "Baron d'Eyncourt," etc. This he cannot properly be called, though a descendant from the ancient house of D'Eyncourt--which long ago ceased to be a barony. The pedigree of Alfred's grandfather, who belonged to the Lincolnshire gentry, is traced through ten generations to Edmund, Duke of Somerset, and two centuries further back to Edward III.'s fourth son, John of Gaunt. Dr. Tennyson died in the lifetime of his father, and the D'Eyncourt seat and dignity pa.s.sed to his younger brother Charles. The poet's cousin Louis Charles is the present possessor of the family estate at Bayons. England's n.o.ble Laureate (according to Burke's _Peerage_, ed.

of 1888, p. 1361) was created a peer of the realm Jan. 24, 1884, with the new t.i.tle--Baron of Aldworth, Surrey, and of Farringford, Isle of Wight.

He took his seat in the House of Lords, Mar. 11, 1884.[44]

LAPSES IN ENGLISH GEOGRAPHY.

A common mistake is that of locating Aldworth in Suss.e.x. Mr. Frederick Dolman, in the _Ladies' Home Journal_ (August, 1891), carelessly speaks of "the poet's residences in the fair Isle and sunny Suss.e.x." According to Murray's _Handbook for Surrey_ (ed. of 1888, p. 182), and other excellent authorities,[45] Aldworth is in the county of Surrey--not far from the northern borders of Suss.e.x. In Walford's _County Families of the United Kingdom_, p. 1203, Lord Tennyson's name occurs among the land owners of Surrey--not with those of Suss.e.x.

Somersby and Somerby have been mixed by many people who are not familiar with English geography. 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 cra.s.s 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 Manual of English Literature_, vol. II., p. 497, where Blackdown is loosely referred to as "a hill in the vicinity of Petersfield, Hampshire." Another writer is remiss in accepting statements implicitly and without question. A footnote in Kellogg's school edition of "In Memoriam," p. 23, says "Hallam was buried in Cleveland Church on the Severn, which empties into British Channel." If he had looked up the town for himself on the map of England, he would have discovered that Clevedon, the birthplace of Hallam, is situated on the bank of the Severn near its entrance to the Bristol Channel.

VARIOUS ERRORS.

It is not my purpose to enumerate all the errors that I have come across in my reading relating to Tennyson and his works. 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_; this work has been confused by Archer and Jennings with Boccaccio's _De Claris Mulieribus_.

Many unpardonable mistakes have been made in dating Tennyson's published writings, also in wording and punctuating their t.i.tles. It has been said that "The Princess" first appeared in print in 1846 and 1849; "In Memoriam," in 1849 and 1851; "Idyls of the King," in 1855, 1858, and 1861; "Enoch Arden," in 1865; "The Holy Grail, and Other Poems," in 1867 and 1870; "Harold," in 1877; "Becket," in 1879 and 1885; "Tiresias, and Other Poems," in 1886; and "Demeter, and Other Poems," in 1890. In Hart's _Manual of English Literature_, one of Tennyson's poems is named "The Vision of Art," and a recent German cyclopedia makes him the author of "Tristam and Iseult." A newspaper account of the sale of Tennysoniana in London contains the queer bit of misinformation that _Poems by Two Brothers_ "was published by Louth in 1826." These slips could have been easily avoided. The mystery hanging about the Laureate's life does not involve his works.

It is believed that the following list, which has been carefully verified, is correct both as to the t.i.tles and the dates of first publication of all of Tennyson's books, viz:

Poems by Two Brothers 1826 (dated 1827) Poems, chiefly Lyrical 1830 Poems 1832 (dated 1833) Poems, 2 vols. 1842 The Princess 1847 In Memoriam 1850 Maud, and Other Poems 1855 Idyls of the King 1859 Enoch Arden, etc. 1864 The Holy Grail, and Other Poems 1869 Gareth and Lynette, etc. 1872 Queen Mary 1875 Harold 1876 The Lover's Tale 1879 Ballads, and Other Poems 1880 The Cup and The Falcon 1884 Becket 1884 Tiresias, and Other Poems 1885 Locksley Hall Sixty Years After, etc. 1886 Demeter, and Other Poems 1889 The Foresters 1892

TRANSLATIONS OF TENNYSON'S WORKS.

GERMAN.

_Gedichte_: ub. von W. Hertzberg. Dessau, 1853. Dresden, 1868.

_Ausgewahlte Dichtungen_: ub. von A. Strodtmann (Bibliothek Kla.s.siker in deutscher Uebertragung. Leipzig, 1865-70).