PREFACE.

MOST students of Tennyson have, at some time or other, felt the want of an accurate and fairly complete account of the poet's life; and as contemporary biography is now the vogue, no apology, it may be hoped, is needed for the present modest attempt to supply that want, at least until the time comes for a more exhaustive undertaking. Without disparaging existing attempts in the same direction, I may claim for the following pages that they contain much more information respecting Lord Tennyson than has hitherto been published in a connected form. Particular pains have been taken to render the record trustworthy, even to the rigid exclusion

of anecdotes, more or less familiar, which were proved on inquiry to have had no foundation in fact.

Wherever it has been possible, I have let those who knew the poet personally in his younger days speak of him in their own words; and with a desire to give a true portrait, I have not hesitated to quote freely from any sources that could contribute faithful details either of story or character.

Without attempting to hide my own admiration of Tennyson's writings, I have not presumed to encumber this little work with any efforts at elaborate or analytical criticism; the incidental opinions I have ventured to express cannot, therefore, be regarded as in any sense adequate to the requirements of fully appreciative literary judg

ments.

Even were the public incidents of Lord Tennyson's life far more numerous and exciting than

they are, it would still be to his poetry that one

would have to turn for the true presentment of the man. The poet, of all men, lives in his works. In comparison with their revealing flashes, a matter-of-fact record of dates and events throws but a dim and uncertain light.

Nevertheless,

such a record has an interest of its own, and in the case of a poet who holds so large a place in the world's esteem as Lord Tennyson, it may be regarded as more or less indispensable.

HANDSWORTH WOOD,

September, 1884.

H. J. J.

LORD TENNYSON.

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CHAPTER I.

THE materials for a biography of Lord Tennyson, apart from the purely literary incidents of his life, are not considerable. Few among the noteworthy personages of our time have more assiduously shrunk from the public gaze, or have shunned with a more sensitive persistency the "fierce light” which, in this prying age, beats upon the domestic concerns of eminent men. His life has been essentially one of retirement, yielding little to the "literary leeches" who swarm in these "days that deal in ana." Seldom, during a long life, to be met with in that vortex of wasted ambitions which one calls "fashionable society,”—taking but small part in public affairs,—avoiding with something of shyness whatever of conventional cere

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