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TENNYSON

1891

TERENCE

ter and three and a half at the posts that support its ends. The court is 78 by 27 feet in area when two people play, but 78 feet long and 36 wide when four play. The object is for one player on one side of the net to knock the ball into the other players' part of the court in such a way that it cannot be returned. The racket consists of a tightly-strung, flat net of gut; the balls, of rubber thinly covered with white flannel or felt. White lines are traced on the court to indicate the base-lines, each 39 feet from the net; the side-lines 78 feet long, connecting the base-lines; the service-lines, each 21 feet from the net; and the half-court line, half-way between the side-lines, parallel to them and dividing the space on each side of the net into the right court and the left court. So the whole court consists of two half-courts, and these each of a right and a left court. One player takes the ball, stands with one foot on the base-line, the other behind, throws the ball into the air and strikes it in order to drive it, not into the opposite court, but into the court diagonally opposite. The other player must hit it on the first bound and return it into the first player's territory. If he does not, the first player, called the server, scores a point which is counted as 15. But if this second player, called the striker-out, return the ball to the server and he fail to return it again, the striker-out scores 15. In this way the game goes on under rules of its own, the second point for either player making the score 30, the third 40, and the fourth winning the game, unless each player has scored 40. In this case the score is called deuce, and two points must be consecutively scored for winning the game. When either player has won six games consecutively, a set has been played. But if each has won five, the set is deuce and two consecutive games must now be won. Serving the ball is done by each player in turn, but courts are exchanged between them only at the end of a set. Three or four players play essentially as do two.

Ten'nyson, Alfred, an English poet, was born at Somersby, Lincolnshire, Aug. 6, 1809. At Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied, he gained a medal for a poem called Timbuctoo. His first publication, Poems by Two Brothers, was written in connection with his brother Charles, and so great an authority as Coleridge pronounced only the poems marked C. T. to have marks of poetical genius. A volume containing The May-Queen* Mariana, A Dream of Fair Women and The Lotus-Eaters, was followed by another collection, which included Locks-ley Hall, Morte d'Arthur, St. Simon Stylites and Ulysses, and from that time Tennyson easily held his place as the first of modern English poets. His great work, In Memo-riam, is a series of poems on death, immortality and kindred.^ themes, suggested by

LORD  TENNYSON

the loss of Arthur Hallam, his friend. It was  first   published   without   Tennyson's

name in 1850. The Ode on the D eath of the Duke of Wellington and The Charge of the Light Brigade, one of his most popular poems, were written as poet-laureate, a position in which he succeeded Wordsworth in November, 1850. Maud, p ub-lished in 1855, was longer in winning public favor than"1 most of Tennyson's work, but the Idyls of the King (q. v.) met with an enthusiastic reception. The first series consists of four stories in verse: Enid, Vivien, Elaine and Guinevere, to which a second series was added which included The Holy Grail, Gareth and Lyneite, Pelleas and Etarre, The Last Tournament and The Passing <?/ Arthur. They are the consummate form into which one of the greatest poets of the igth century wrought those Arthurian legends which have haunted English romance for 700 years. Enoch Arden appeared in 1864: Queen Mary in 1875; Harold in 1876; Becket in 1884; and Demeter and other Poems in 1889. Tennyson lived a retired life, spending a large part of his time at his place on the Isle of Wight. He wrote carefully, altering and improving his poems, until they attained the perfect form in which they were given to the public. He received large sums of money for his later work, in some instances being paid as much as $50 a line. His poems have been translated into German and Spanish. In 1883 he was made a peer. He died at Aid-worth, in Surrey, England, Oct. 6, 1892. One of his last poems, Crossing the Bar, was used in the services at his burtal in the poets' corner of Westminster Abbey. Consult Hallam Tennyson's Alfred, Lord Tennyson; Stedman's Victorian Poets and Frederic Harrison's Tennyson, Ruskin and Mill. Terence (ter'ens), Publius Terentius Afer, a Latin poet, was born at Carthage about 195 B. C. He was a freed slave, and was educated by his master, a Roman senator. His first play, Andria* was brought out in 166 B. C., and was so successful that he had the best young men of Rome for friends. When in Greece he translated 108 of Menander's comedies, and his death is commonly thought to have been due to grief at the loss of his translations. He has left six comedies: The Woman of Andros, The Stepmother, The Self-Tormentor, The