Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 19.djvu/173

* TENNIS. 135 TENNYSON. <'rn tennis. Tlio racquet is of the larjii'-lieadod. large-handed variety. It has a smaller faee but is heavier than tlic lawn-tennis raequet. in order to oounteraet the ball, which is heavier than the lawn- tennishall.althouiihabout the same size. Thecourt haswalls on all itsfoursides,anda penthouse along three sides. The spectators are aeeoniniodated in the f7frfo».5. A ball played over the net into this dedans counts as a winning stroke to the striker. In front of the dedans, over the net and down the right-hand wall, is a tambour or protruding buttress. Past the tambour in the wall directly opposite the dedans is the grille. A ball played over the net into this grille makes a winning stroke. In the left-hand side wall there are many openings protected with nettings called galleries, the last gallery being known as the winning gal- lery, owing to the fact that a ball played over the net ijito it counts as a winning stroke. All the way down the left-hand side of the court runs the penthouse above the galleries. The penthouse also extends over the dedans and the grille. In tennis, the set consists of six games, though 'deuce' and 'vantage' games may be played, while 'faults' and 'double faults' score as in lawn tennis. The ball must be hit over the net before it is bounded twice, and the scoring is the same as in the better known forms of the game, e.g. 15 love. 15 all, .30-15. 30 all, 40-30, deuce, vantage, deuce, vantage, game. TEN'NYSON. Alfred, first Baron Tennyson {lS0!l-f)2). The most representative English poet of Victoria's reign. He was horn on August 6, 1800. at Somersby. in Lincolnshire, a village of which his father was rector. Two of his brothers also displayed no slight poetic gifts, Frederick (q.v.). and Charles, afterwards known as Charles Tennyson Turner (q.v.). Alfred spent four years (181f!-'20) at the grammar school of Louth, a few miles from his home, and for the next eight years his education was directed by his father, a man of some literai-y talent. He roamed through the woods, laying the foundations of that knowledge of nature for which his verse is conspicuous, read extensively, and tried his hand in the manner of Pope, Thomson. Scott, Jloore, and Byron. Fragments of this early work found their way into Poems hy Tico Brothers (18'27; reprinted 1893), written in conjunction with his brother Charles. In 1828 the two brothers en- tered Trinity College, Cambridge, to which Fred- erick had gone a year earlier. At the university Tennyson was associated with a remarkable group of young men. most of wlioni formed the famous society known as 'The Apostles.' To this group belonged Thackeray, Spedding. Trench, Jlonckton Milnes. afterwards Lord Houghton, Merivale. Alford. and Arthur Hcnrv' Hallam, son of the historian, who discerned his friend's genius and in 1820 told Gladstone that Tennyson "prom- ised fair to be the greatest poet of our genera- tion, perhaps of our century." In that same year, with Timbiietoo. a poem in blank verse, Tennyson won the Chancellor's gold medal, and while still in residence published the epoch-making volume of Poems, Chie/h/ Lyrieal. In 1830, when the slim little book appeared, po- etry seemed to be dead. JIurray had given up publishing verse, and the novel, under the impulse of the unprecedented success of the ^V(n■erley series, held the field. Showing the influence of Coleridge and Keats, the poems in this volume were in no sense imitative: rather, they contain in germ nearly all of Tennyson's great original qualities. In the same year he traveled in the Pyrenees with Hallam, and there, in the Valiej' of Cauterets, he wrote parts of "tEnone." He left Cambridge w'ithout a degree in Feb- ruary, 1831, for various reasons, but chielly the ill health of his father, who died a few weeks later. The family, however, remained at Som- ersby for six years longer. The second volume of Poems (1833) contained many of his choicest minor pieces: "The Lady of Shalott," "The Mil- ler's Daughter," "The Palace of Art,"' "Tlic Lo- tos-Eaters," and "A Dream of Fair Women." Be- yond the circle of the poet's friends, the collection was not well received : Lockhart wrote an espe- cially brutal review in the Quarierhj for April. In September a life-long sorrow fell u])on the poet in the death of Hallam, his dearest friend, who was at that time engaged to his sister Emily. For ten years he remained silent, reading largely, revising old poems, and writing new ones. By 1836 he had definitely given his heart to his fu- ture wife, Emily Sarah Sellwood, the sister of his brother Charles's wife. But, though deficiency of income seemed an insuperable bar to mar- riage, and though her relatives forbade even correspondence, T'ennyson had no thought of de- serting the art to which his life belonged to take up any profession more lucrative than iioetry. In 1842 he gained his pul)lic with Poems in two volumes, representing a wide range of theme and metrical structure. Here first appeared "ilorte d'Arthur." the first sketch of the Idylls of the Kiny ; "Ulysses." "Locksley Hall," "Godiva," "Break, break, break," and "The Two Voices." Tennyson's place in English poetry was now secure; but fortune seemed far oil. His little capital was shattered by a strange investment in wood-carving machin- ery: and in 1845 Peel was moved by Lord Hough- ton to grant him a civil-list pension of £200. In 1847 appeared The Prineess. a romantic medley in musical blank verse, marked at every point by his "curious felicity" of style, and containing some wonderful lyrics. The year 1850 has been called his annus >nirahilis. In June he published In Memorinm, a tribute to the memory of Arthur Hallam. At first not well understood, it has now definitely taken its place with Lycidas, Adonais, and Thyrsis at the head of English elegies. In the same month he married Miss Sellwood (with whom, he said afterwards, the peace of God came into my life) : and in November he was appointed poet laureate in succession to Words- worth. He settled with his bride at Twickenham, where he lived for three years. Then he leased and shortly afterwards purchased the estate of Farringford, near Freshwater, in the Isle of Wight, where he lived until 1870. After that he divided his time between Farringford and Aldworth. a house which he built on Blackdown Hill, near Haslemere. In 1855 appeared }[aiid. rind Other Poems. "JIaud." a great favorite with Tennyson, puzzled the critics, who tried to find in it the result of the author's own experience, though it is rather a vivid dramatic conception, rare with Tennyson. "No modern poem." said Jowctt, "contains more lines that ring in the ears of men." The same volume contained the popular "Brook" and "The