Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/78

 Tennyson A corresponding song for the navy ('Jack Tar'), first printed in the poet's 'Memoir' by his son, was composed under the same influences.

From the publication of the first 'Idylls' until the end of the poet's life his fame and popularity continued without a check. The next years were years of travel. In 1860 he visited Cornwall, Devonshire, and the Scilly Islands; and in 1861 Auvergne and the Pyrenees, where he wrote the lyric 'All along the Valley' in memory of his visit there thirty years before with Arthur Hallam. In this same year the prince consort died, and the second edition of the 'Idylls' was prefaced by the dedication to his memory. Tennyson was now at work upon 'Enoch Arden' (or the 'Fisherman,' as he at first called it), and in April 1862 he had his first interview with the queen. Later in the year Tennyson made a tour through Derbyshire and Yorkshire with F. T. Palgrave. In 1863 'Aylmer's Field' was completed, and the laureate wrote his 'Welcome to Alexandra' on occasion of the marriage of the Prince of Wales. The volume entitled 'Enoch Arden' appeared in 1864, and was an instantaneous success, sixty thousand copies being rapidly sold. It contained, besides the title-poem and 'Aylmer's Field,' 'Tithonus' (already printed in the 'Cornhill Magazine'), the 'Grandmother,' and 'Sea Dreams,' and a fresh revelation of power hardly before suspected the 'Northern Farmer: Old Style.' This was to be the first of a series of poems in the dialect of North Lincolnshire, exhibiting a gift of humorous dramatic characterisation which was to give Tennyson rank with the finest humourists of any age or country. The volume (mainly perhaps through 'Enoch Arden,' a legend already common in various forms to most European countries) became, in his son's judgment, the most popular of all his father's works, with the single exception of 'In Memoriam.' Translations into Danish, German, Latin, Dutch, Italian, French, Hungarian, and Bohemian attest its widespread reputation.

The years that followed were marked by no incident save travel, unremitting poetic labour and reading, the visits of friends, and converse with them. He printed a few short poems in magazines, but published no further volume until the 'Holy Grail' in 1869. The volume contained also 'Lucretius,' 'The Passing of Arthur,' 'Pelleas and Ettarre,' 'The Victim,' 'Wages,' 'The Higher Pantheism,' and 'Northern Farmer: New Style.' In this same year Tennyson was made an honorary fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. On 23 April (Shakespeare's birthday) 1868 he had laid the foundation-stone of a new residence, named Aldworth, near Haslemere, and this now became a second home. In 1872 the Arthurian cycle received a further addition in 'Gareth and Lynette.' In 1873 the poet was offered a baronetcy by Gladstone, and declined it, though he would have accepted it for his son. The same distinction was again offered by Disraeli in 1874, and again declined. In 1875 he gave to the world his first blank-verse drama, 'Queen Mary,' carefully built on the Shakespearean model. This new departure was not generally welcomed by the public, the truth being that any imitation of the Elizabethan poeticdrama is necessarily an exotic. Moreover, Tennyson had never been in close touch with the stage. He used playfully to observe that 'critics are so exacting nowadays that they not only expect a poet-playwright to be a first-rate author, but a first-rate manager, actor, and audience, all in one.' There is an element of truth in this jest. It was just because Shakespeare had filled all the situations here mentioned that his plays have the special quality which the purely literary drama lacks. Adapted to the stage by Henry Irving, 'Queen Mary' was produced at the Lyceum with success in April 1876. The drama 'Harold' was published the same year.

In 1879 Tennyson reprinted his very early poem, 'The Lover's Tale,' based upon a story in Boccaccio. It was written when its author was under twenty, and printed in 1833, but then distributed only among a few private friends. The ripening taste of the poet had judged it as too florid and redundant; and he published it at this later date only because it was being 'extensively pirated.' In December of this year the Kendals produced at the St. James's Theatre his little blank-verse drama 'The Falcon' (based upon a story in the 'Decameron'), which ran sixty-seven nights. Fanny Kemble rightly defined it as 'an exquisite little poem in action;' and, although the plot is perilously grotesque as a subject for dramatic treatment, as produced and played by the Kendals it was undoubtedly charming. The play was first published (in the same volume with 'The Cup') in 1884. In March 1880 Tennyson was invited by the students of Glasgow University to stand for the lord-rectorship; but on learning that the contest was conducted on political lines, and that he had been asked to be the nominee of the conservative party, he withdrew his acceptance. Ordered by Sir Andrew Clark to try change of climate, in consequence of illness from which he had suffered since the death of his