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containing one hundred and two short poems, was published, and the money spent on a tour round the churches of Lincolnshire.

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The scenery of Lincolnshire is faithfully sketched as background to all the early poetry of Tennyson which is not purely derivative; the rich meadow and gradual slope, the ridged wolds," the picturesque wandering lanes, as well as the glooming flats” and less attractive features of the fen country, appear in it, even the

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. . . woods that belt the gray hillside,
The seven elms, the poplars four
That stand beside my father's door."

-Ode to Memory.

In 1828 Charles and Alfred went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, whither Frederick had preceded them. Alfred's rooms were in Corpus Buildings, overlooking the main quadrangle of King's College, and within hearing of its chapel

organ. The change from the quiet, rural At life of his childhood to that of the univer- Cambridge. sity, where many of the lasting friend

ships of his life were made, was fraught with important influences upon Tennyson's career. He became the central figure of a group of brilliant young men, not a few of whom bore names afterwards distinguished: Richard Monckton Milnes (afterwards Lord Houghton), James Spedding (the "J. S.” of the poem, You ask me why, tho' ill at ease"), J. M. Kemble (the "J. M. K." of the sonnet, “My heart and hope is with thee"), Richard Chenevix Trench (afterwards Archbishop of Dublin), W. H. Brookfield (to whom the sonnet, "Brooks, for they

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called you so that knew you best," was addressed), Henry Alford (afterwards Dean of Canterbury), Edward Lushington, Charles Merivale (afterwards Dean of Ely), and Arthur Hallam, the eldest son of Henry Hallam, the historian.* Between Arthur Hallam and Alfred Tennyson grew up a friendship so close and deep as rightly to be named ideal-a friendship which, though cut short by Hallam's death in less than five years (In Memoriam, xxii.), must be reckoned one of the great determining forces of the poet's life. Hallam, Tennyson's junior by two years, was at this time the more widely read and accomplished scholar, and gave equal promise of future name and fame. His engagement, in the year in which he left Cambridge, to Emily Tennyson, Alfred's sister, promised to add another bond to that of friendship (In Memoriam, lxxxiv.), a promise sadly unfulfilled.

Before going up to the University, Tennyson had been at work upon a poem entitled The Lover's Tale. After a few years' interval the first and second parts appeared in print in 1833 (the same year as Browning's Pauline), "when," wrote the author (in the preface to the edition of 1879), "feeling the imperfection of the poem, I withdrew it from the press. Copies were, however, in circulation, and the work. was reprinted without his consent and without the improvements which were in contemplation. In selfdefence a corrected and improved version, with the addition of a third part, The Golden Supper, a work of the author's mature life, was published in 1879. The Lover's Tale contains one line

"A center'd glory-circled memory"—

*Thackeray, afterwards a warm friend, was also a contemporary of the Tennysons at Trinity College.

of which Tennyson had already made use in his now famous university prize poem, a fact which may be noted as an example of his almost parsimonious habit of treasuring a good line like a jewel until he could find for it a suitable setting. Three lines, also from the same poem, appear again in the Ode to Memory.*

In 1829, Milnes, Hallam, and Alfred Tennyson were all competitors for the Vice-Chancellor's medal in English verse-the subject "Timbuctoo." Tennyson was a candidate at his father's request, and the verses sent in were remodelled to some extent from an unfinished earlier poem on the Battle of Armageddon. To him the medal was awarded, despite the fact that it was supposed to be de rigueur that the compositions should be in the heroic couplet, and Tennyson had chosen for his metre blank verse. Promise of great poetry to come was found in Timbuctoo by several acute readers, and it is creditable to the discernment of the examiners that they were able to appreciate its merit. Both here and in The Lover's Tale the influence of Shelley is clearly evidenced, but the ring and movement of the blank verse which we now recognise as Tennysonian unmistakably display themselves.

During the autumn of 1830 Hallam and Tennyson visited Spain-a visit commemorated in The Valley of Cauteretz-to carry money and letters of encouragement to the revolutionists, with some of whose leaders they had interviews. The enthusiasm of the youth

*"Sure she was nigher to heaven's spheres,
Listening the lordly music flowing from
Th' illimitable years."

-Ode to Memory.

"A wild time we had of it," Hallam said.

"I played my part

ful poets had been kindled by the struggle for freedom in the Spanish war of independence, much as the spirits of Wordsworth and Coleridge had been aroused by the hopes of the French Revolution. But, like Wordsworth, Tennyson came to a different and perhaps wiser mind when his knowledge of revolutionary men and methods was nearer and more personal. In this year of the visit to the Pyrenees was published Alfred's first independent volume of verse, Poems, Chiefly Lyrical. The original design had been to include poems by Hallam in the volume, but owing to the disapproval expressed by Hallam's father the idea of a poetic partnership was given up, and the book appeared as we have it. In this year also appeared a volume of poems, Sonnets and Fugitive Pieces, by Charles Tennyson, the brother with whom Alfred had joined in the production of the Poems by Two Brothers. Wordsworth, writing from Cambridge about this time, remarked: "We have also a respectable show of blossom in poetry-two brothers of the name of Tennyson; one in particular not a little promising."

The death of his father in March, 1831, brought Tennyson's University career to a close without a degree, nor does it seem that he had any regard for the traditions of Cambridge or breathed its atmosphere with any keen enjoyment.* He had taken little part as conspirator in a small way, and made friends with two or three gallant men, who have since been trying their luck with Valdes."

* The following sonnet, written in pencil, appears on the fly-leaf of the 1833 volume in the Dyce collection of the South Kensington Museum :

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Therefore your halls, your ancient colleges,

Your portals statued with old kings and queens,

Your gardens, myriad-volumed libraries,

Wax-lighted chapels, and rich carven screens,

in the life a university offers, and was never a candidate for academic distinctions. To a chosen few, a coterie known as "the Apostles" (In Memoriam, lxxxvii.), he was accustomed to read his verses as they were composed, but it was understood that no criticism would be acceptable. From the first the natural sensitiveness of the poet, which increased in later life to an almost morbid degree, made him extremely averse to a word of dispraise. The same sensitiveness debarred him from playing any active part in the world of men, and at no period was his circle of acquaintanceship large. But while impatient of adverse criticism, there was never author who turned it to better account when it came; and the day of its coming was not long delayed. The first rude breath of censure blew from the critical journals, Blackwood and the Quarterly, soon after the appearance of Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, and the Poems of 1832. The article in Blackwood was written by Christopher North (John Wilson) in May, 1832, in the trenchant style of the reviews of the time, and that in the Quarterly (July, 1833), almost certainly by Lock

Your doctors, and your proctors, and your deans,
Shall not avail you, when the day-beam sports
New risen o'er awakened Albion-no!

Nor yet your solemn organ-pipes that blow
Melodious thunders thro' your vacant courts

At morn and eve—because your manner sorts
Not with this age wherefrom you stand apart,
Because the lips of little children preach
Against you, you that do profess to teach,

And teach us nothing, feeding not the heart."

The following note is appended: "I have a great affection for my old university, and can only regret that this spirit of undergraduate irritability against the Cambridge of that day ever found its way into print."

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