as the translator of Omar Khayyam, and also as the man whom two great
authors, Tennyson and Thackeray, named as their most cherished friend.
He was living a hermit's life in Suffolk, dividing his day between his
yacht, his garden, and his books; and writing, when he was in the
humour, those gossipy letters which have placed him as a classic with
Cowper and Lamb. From time to time he would come to London for a visit
to a picture gallery or an evening with his friends; and for many years
he never failed to write once a year for news of the poet, whose books
he might criticize capriciously, but whose image was always fresh in his
affectionate heart. Of his old Cambridge circle Tennyson honoured, above
all others, 'his domeship' James Spedding, of the massive rounded head,
of the rare judgement in literature, of the unselfish and faithful
discharge of all the duties which he could take upon himself. Great as
was his edition of Bacon, he was by the common consent of his friends
far greater than anything which he achieved, and his memory is most
worthily preserved in the letters of Tennyson, and of others who knew
him. In London he was present at gatherings where Landor and Leigh Hunt
represented the elder generation of poets; but he was more familiar with
his contemporaries Henry Taylor and Aubrey de Vere. It is the latter who
gives us an interesting account of two meetings between Wordsworth and
his successor in the Laureateship.[27] The occasions when Tennyson and
Browning met one another and read their poetry aloud were also cherished
in the memory of those friends who were fortunate enough to be
present.[28] Differing as they did in temperament and in tastes, they
were rivals in generosity to one another and indeed to all their
brethren who wielded the pen of the writer. To meet such choice spirits
Tennyson would leave for a while his precious solitude and his books.
London could not be his home, but it became a place of pleasant meetings
and of friendships in which he found inspiration and help.
[Note 27: _Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir_, by his son, vol. i, p.
209 (Macmillan & Co.).]
[Note 28: _Robert Browning_, by Edward Dowden, p. 173 (J. M. Dent &
Co.).]
Thus it was that Tennyson spent the quiet years of meditation and study
before he achieved his full renown. This was no such sensational event
as Byron's meteoric appearance in 1812; but one year, 1850, is a clear
landmark in his career. This was the date of the publication of _In
Memoriam_ and of his appointment, on the death of Wordsworth, to the
office of Poet Laureate. This year saw the end of his struggle with
ill-fortune and the end of his long courtship. In June he was married,
at Shiplake on the Thames, to Emily Sellwood. Henceforth his happiness
was assured and he knew no more the restlessness and melancholy which
had clouded his enjoyment of life. His course was clear, and for forty
years his position was hardly questioned in all lands where the English
tongue was spoken. Noble companies of worshippers might worthily swear
allegiance to Thackeray and Browning; but by the voice of the people
Dickens and Tennyson were enthroned supreme.
To deal with all the volumes of poetry that Tennyson published between
1850 and his death would be impossible within the limits of these pages.
In some cases he reverted to themes which he had treated before and he
preserved for many years the same skill in craftsmanship. But in _Maud_,
in _The Idylls of the King_, and in the historical dramas,
unquestionably, he broke new ground.
Partly on account of the scheme of the poem, partly for the views
expressed on questions of the day, _Maud_ provoked more hostile
criticism than anything which he wrote; yet it seems to have been the
poet's favourite work. The story of its composition is curious. It was
suggested by a short lyric which Tennyson had printed privately in 1837
beginning with the words 'Oh, that 'twere possible after long grief'.
His friend, Sir John Simeon, urged him to write a poem which would lead
up to and explain it; and the poet, adopting the idea, used _Maud_ as a
vehicle for much which he was feeling in the disillusionment of middle
life. The form of a monodrama was unfamiliar to the public and has
difficulties of its own. Tennyson has combined action, proceeding
somewhat spasmodically, with a skilful study of character, showing us
the exaggerated sensibility of a nature which under the successive
influence of misanthropy, hope, love, and tragic disappointment, may
easily pass beyond the border-land of insanity. In the scene where love
is triumphant, Tennyson touches the highest point of lyrical passion;
but there are jarring notes introduced in the satirical descriptions of
Maud's brother and of the rival who aspires to her hand. And in the
later cantos where, after the fatal quarrel, the hero is driven to moody
thoughts and dark presages of woe, there are passages which seem to be
charged with the doctrine that England was being corrupted by long peace
and needed the purifying discipline of war. For this the poet was taken
to task by his critics; and, though it is unfair in dramatic work to
attribute to an author the words of his characters, Tennyson found it
difficult to clear himself of suspicion, the more so that the Crimean
War inspired at this time some of his most popular martial ballads and
songs.
_The Idylls of the King_ had a different fate and achieved instant
popularity. The first four were published in 1859 and within a few
months 10,000 copies were sold. Tennyson's original design, formed early
in life, had been to build a single epic on the Arthurian theme, which
seemed to him to give scope, like Virgil's _Aeneid_, for patriotic
treatment. 'The greatest of all poetical subjects' he called it, and it
haunted his mind perpetually. But if Virgil found such a task difficult
nineteen hundred years before, it was doubly difficult for Tennyson to
satisfy his generation, with scientific historians raking the ash heaps
of the past, and pedants demanding local colour. In shaping his poem to
meet the requirements of history he was in danger of losing that breadth
of treatment which is essential for epic poetry. He fell back on the
device of selecting episodes, each a complete picture in itself, and
grouping them round a single hero. The story is placed in the twilight
between the Roman withdrawal and the conquests of the Saxons, when the
lamp of history was glimmering most faintly. In these troublous times a
king is miraculously sent to be a bulwark to the people against the
inroads of their foes. He founds an order of Knighthood bound by vows to
fight for all just and noble causes, and upholds for a time victoriously
the standard of chivalry within his realm, till through the entrance of
sin and treachery the spell is broken and the heathen overrun the land.
After his last battle, in the far west of our island, the king passes
away to the supernatural world from which he came. This last episode had
been handled many years before, and the 'Morte d'Arthur', which had
appeared in the volume of 1842, was incorporated into the 'Passing of
Arthur' to close the series of Idylls.
With what admixture of allegory this story was set out it is hard to
say--Tennyson himself could not in later years be induced to define his
purpose--but it seems certain that many of the characters are intended
to symbolize higher and lower qualities. According to some
interpretations King Arthur stands for the power of conscience and Queen
Guinevere for the heart. Galahad represents purity, Bors rough honesty,
Percivale humility, and Merlin the power of the intellect, which is too
easily beguiled by treachery. So the whole story is moralized by the
entrance, through Guinevere and Lancelot, of sin; by the gradual fading,
through the lightness of one or the treachery of another, of the
brightness of chivalry; and by the final ruin which shatters the fair
ideal.
But there is no need to darken counsel by questions about history or
allegory, if we wish, first and last, to enjoy poetry, for its own sake.
Here, as in Spenser's _Faerie Queene_, forth go noble knights with
gentle maidens through the enchanted scenes of fairyland; for their
order and its vows they are ready to dare all. Lawlessness is tamed and
cruelty is punished, and no perilous quest presents itself but there is
a champion ready to follow it to the end. And if severe critics tell us
that they find no true gift of story-telling here, let us go for a
verdict to the young. They may not be good judges of style, or safe
interpreters of shades of thought, but they know when a story carries
them away; and the _Idylls of the King_, like the Waverley Novels, have
captured the heart of many a lover of literature who has not yet learnt
to question his instinct or to weigh his treasures in the scales of
criticism. And older readers may find themselves kindled to enthusiasm
by reflective passages rich in high aspiration, or charmed by
descriptions of nature as beautiful as anything which Tennyson wrote.
In the historical plays, which occupied a large part of his attention
between 1874 and 1879, Tennyson undertook a yet harder task. He chose
periods when national issues of high importance were at stake, such as
the conflict between the Church and the Crown, between the domination of
the priest and the claim of the individual to freedom of belief. He put
aside all exuberance of fancy and diction as unsuited to tragedy; he
handled his theme with dignity and at times with force, and attained a
literary success to which Browning and other good judges bore testimony.
Of Becket in particular he made a sympathetic figure, which, in the
skilful hands of Henry Irving, won considerable favour upon the stage.
But the times were out of joint for the poetic drama, and he had not the
rich imagination of Shakespeare, nor the power to create living men and
women who compel our hearts to pity, to horror, or to delight. For the
absence of this no studious reading of history, no fine sentiment, no
noble cadences, can make amends, and it seems doubtful whether future
ages will regard the plays as anything but a literary curiosity.
On the other hand, nothing which he wrote has touched the human heart
more genuinely than the poems of peasant life, some of them written in
the broadest Lincolnshire dialect, which Tennyson produced during the
years in which he was engaged on the Idylls and the plays. 'The
Grandmother', 'The Northern Cobbler', and the two poems on the
Lincolnshire farmers of following generations, were as popular as
anything which the Victorian Age produced, and seem likely to keep their
pre-eminence. The two latter illustrate, by their origin, Tennyson's
power of seizing on a single impression, and building on it a work of
creative genius. It was enough for him to hear the anecdote of the dying
farmer's words, 'God A'mighty little knows what he's about in taking me!
And Squire will be mad'; and he conceived the character of the man, and
his absorption in the farm where he had lived and worked and around
which he grouped his conceptions of religion and duty. The later type of
farmer was evoked similarly by a quotation in the dialect of his county:
'When I canters my herse along the ramper, I 'ears "proputty, proputty,
proputty"'; and again Tennyson achieved a triumph of characterization.
It is here perhaps that he comes nearest to the achievements of his
great rival Browning in the field of dramatic lyrics.
Apart from the writing and publication of his poems, we cannot divide
Tennyson's later life into definite sections. By 1850 his habits had
been formed, his friendships established, his fame assured; such
landmarks as are furnished by the birth of his children, by his
journeyings abroad, by the homes in which he settled, point to no
essential change in the current of his life. Of the perfect happiness
which marriage brought to him, of the charm and dignity which enabled
Mrs. Tennyson to hold her place worthily at his side, many witnesses
have spoken. Two sons were born to him, one of whom died in 1886, while
the other, named after his lost friend, lived to write the Memoir which
will always be the chief authority for our knowledge of the man. His
homes soon became household words--so great was the spell which Tennyson
cast over the hearts of his readers. Farringford, at the western end of
the Isle of Wight, was first tenanted by him in 1853, and was bought in
1856. Here the poet enjoyed perfect quiet, a genial climate and the
proximity of the sea, for which his love never failed. It was a very
different coast to the bleak sandhills and wide flats of Mablethorpe.
Above Freshwater the noble line of the Downs rises and falls as it runs
westward to the Needles, where it plunges abruptly into the sea; and
here on the springy turf, a tall romantic figure in wide-brimmed hat and
flowing cloak, the poet would often walk. But Farringford, lying low in
the shelter of the hills, proved too hot in summer; Freshwater was
discovered by tourists too often inquisitive about the great; and so,
after ten or twelve years, he was searching for another home, some
remoter fastness set on higher ground. This he discovered on the borders
of Surrey and Sussex near Haslemere, where Black Down rises to a height
of 900 feet above the sea and commands a wide prospect over the blue
expanse of the weald. Here he found copses and commons haunted by the
song of birds, here he raised plantations close at hand to shelter him
from the rude northern winds, and here he built the stately house of
Aldworth where, some thirty years later, he was to die.
To both houses came frequent guests. For, shy as he was of paying
visits, he loved to see in his own house men and women who could talk to
him as equals--nor was he always averse to those of reverent temper, so
they were careful not to jar on his fastidious tastes. In some ways it
was a pity that he did not come to closer quarters with the rougher
forces that were fermenting in the industrial districts. It might have
helped him to a better understanding of the classes that were pushing to
the front, who were to influence so profoundly the England of the
morrow. But the strain of kindly sympathy in Tennyson's nature can be
seen at its best in his intercourse with cottagers, sailors, and other
humble folk who lived near his doors. The stories which his son tells us
show how the poet was able to obtain an insight into their minds and to
write poems like 'The Grandmother' with artistic truth. And no visitor
received a heartier welcome at Farringford than Garibaldi, who was at
once peasant and sailor, and who remained so none the less when he had
become a hero of European fame. To Englishmen of nearly every cultured
profession Tennyson's hospitality was freely extended--we need only
instance Professor Tyndall, Dean Bradley, James Anthony Froude, Aubrey
de Vere, G. F. Watts, Henry Irving, Hubert Parry, Lord Dufferin, and
that most constant of friends, Benjamin Jowett, pre-eminent among the
Oxford celebrities of the day. Among his immediate neighbours he
conceived a peculiar affection for Sir John Simeon, whose death in 1870
called forth the stanzas 'In the Garden at Swainston'; and no one was
more at home at Farringford than Julia Cameron, famous among early
photographers, who has left us some of the best likenesses of the poet
in middle and later life.
Tennyson was not familiar with foreign countries to the same degree as
Browning, nor was he ever a great traveller. When he went abroad he
needed the help of some loyal friend, like Francis Palgrave or Frederick
Locker, to safeguard him against pitfalls, and to shield him from
annoyance. When he was too old to stand the fatigue of railway
journeys, he was willing to be taken for a cruise on a friend's yacht;
and thus he visited many parts of Scotland and the harbours of
Scandinavia. Amid new surroundings he was not always easy to please; bad
food or smelly streets would call forth loud protests and upset him for
a day; but his friends found it worth their while to risk some anxiety
in order to enjoy his keen observation and the originality of his talk.
Wherever he went he took with him his stored wisdom on Homer, Dante, and
the 'Di maiores' of literature; and when Gladstone, too, happened to be
one of the party on board ship, the talk must have been well worth
hearing. As in his youth, so now, Tennyson's mind moved most naturally
on a lofty plane and he was most at home with the great poets of the
past; and with the exception of a few poems like 'All along the valley',
where the torrents at Cauteretz reminded him of an early visit with
Hallam to the Pyrenees, we can trace little evidence in his poetry of
the journeys which he made. But we can see from his letters that he was
kindled by the beauty of Italian cities and their treasures. In every
picture-gallery which he visited he showed his preference for Titian and
the rich colour of the Venetian painters. He refused to be bound by the
conventional English taste for Alpine scenery, and broke out into abuse
of the discoloured water in the Grindelwald glacier--'a filthy thing,
and looking as if a thousand London seasons had passed over it'. In all
places, among all people, he said what he thought and felt, with
independence and conviction.
One incident connecting him with Italy is worthy of mention as showing
that the poet, who 'from out the northern island' came at times to visit
them, was known and esteemed by the people of Italy. When the Mantuans
celebrated in 1885 the nineteenth centenary of the death of Virgil, the
classic poet to whom Tennyson owed most, they asked him to write an
ode, and nobly he rose to the occasion, attaining a felicity of phrase
which is hardly excelled in the choicest lines of Virgil himself. But it
is as the laureate of his own country that he is of primary interest,
and it is time to inquire how he fulfilled the functions of his office,
and how he rendered that office of value to the State.
When he was first appointed, Queen Victoria had let him know that he was
to be excused from the obligation of writing complimentary verse to
celebrate the doings of the court. Of his own accord he composed
occasional odes for the marriages of her sons, and showed some of his
practised skill in dignifying such themes; but it is not here that he
found his work as laureate. He achieved greater success in the poems
which he wrote to honour the exploits of our army and navy, in the past
or the present. In his ballad of 'The Revenge', in his Balaclava poems,
in the 'Siege of Lucknow', he struck a heroic note which found a ready
echo in the hearts of soldiers and sailors and those who love the
services. Above all, in the great ode on the death of the Duke of
Wellington he has stirred all the chords of national feeling as no other
laureate before him, and has enriched our literature with a jewel which
is beyond price.
The Arthurian epic failed to achieve its national aim, and the
historical dramas, though inspired by great principles which have helped
to shape our history, never touched those large circles to which as
laureate he should appeal. Some might judge that his function was best
fulfilled in the lyrics to be found scattered throughout his work which
praise the slow, ordered progress of English liberties. Passages from
_Maud_ or _In Memoriam_ will occur to many readers, still more the three
lyrics generally printed together at the end of the 1842 poems,
beginning with the well-known tines, 'Of old sat Freedom on the
heights', 'Love thou thy land', and 'You ask me why though ill at ease'.
Here we listen to the voice of English Liberalism uttered in very
different tones from those of Byron and Shelley, expressing the mind of
one who recoiled from French Revolutions and had little sympathy with
their aims of universal equality. In this he represented very truly that
Victorian movement which was guided by Cobden and Mill, by Peel and
Gladstone, which conferred such practical benefits upon the England of
their day; but it is hardly the temper that we expect of an ardent poet,
at any rate in the days of his youth. The burning passion of Carlyle,
Ruskin, or William Morris, however tempered by other feelings, called
forth a heartier response in the breast of the toiling multitudes.
It may be that the claim of Tennyson to popular sovereignty will, in the
end, rest chiefly on the pleasure which he gave to many thousands of his
fellow-countrymen, a pleasure to be renewed and found again in English
scenes, and in thoughts which coloured grey lives and warmed cold
hearts, which shed the ray of faith on those who could accept no creeds
and who yet yearned for some hope of an after-life to cheer their
declining days. That he gave this pleasure is certain--to men and women
of all classes from Samuel Bamford,[29] the Durham weaver, who saved his
pence to buy the precious volumes of the 'thirties, to Queen Victoria on
her throne, who in the reading of _In Memoriam_ found one of her chief
consolations in the hour of widowhood.
[Note 29: See _Memoir_, by Hallam, Lord Tennyson, vol. i, p. 283
(Macmillan).]
It was given to Tennyson to live a long life, and to know more joy than
sorrow--to be gladdened by the homage of two hemispheres, to lament the
loss of his old friends who went before him (Spedding in 1881,
FitzGerald in 1883, Robert Browning in 1889), to write his most famous
lyric 'Crossing the Bar' at the age of 80, and to be soothed and
strengthened to the end by the presence of his wife. For some weeks in
the autumn of 1892 he lay in growing weakness at Aldworth taking
farewell of the sights and sounds that he had loved so long. To him now
it had come to hear with dying ears 'the earliest pipe of half-awakened
birds' and to see with dying eyes 'the casement slowly grow a glimmering
square'. Early on October 5 he had an access of energy, and called to
have the blinds drawn up--'I want', he said, 'to see the sky and the
light'. The next day he died, and a week later a country wagon bore the
coffin to Haslemere. Thence it passed to Westminster, where his dust was
to be laid beside that of Browning, among the great men who had gone
before. In what mood he faced death we can learn from his own words:
Spirit, nearing yon dark portal at the limit of thy human state,
Fear not thou the hidden purpose of that Power which alone is great,
Nor the myriad world, His shadow, nor the silent Opener of the Gate![30]
[Note 30: 'God and the Universe,' from _Death of Oenone_, &c.
Macmillan, (1892.)]
[Illustration: CHARLES KINGSLEY
From a drawing by W. S. Hunt in the National Portrait Gallery]
CHARLES KINGSLEY
1819-75
1819. Born at Holne on Dartmoor, June 12.
1830-6. Father rector of Clovelly.
1832. Grammar School at Helston, Cornwall.
1836. Father rector of St. Luke's, Chelsea. C. K. to King's College,
London.
1838-42. Magdalene College, Cambridge.
1842. Ordained at Farnham. Curate of Eversley.
1844. Marriage to Fanny Grenfell. Friendship with F. D. Maurice.
1844. Rector of Eversley.
1848. Chartist riots. 'Parson Lot' pamphlets.
1850. _Alton Locke_ published.
1855. _Westward Ho!_ published.
1857. _Two Years Ago_ published.
1859. Chaplain to the Queen.
1860. Professor of Modern History at Cambridge.
1864. Tour in the south of France.
1869. Canon of Chester.
1870. Tour to the West Indies.
1873. Canon of Westminster.
1874. Tour to California.
1875. Death at Eversley, January 23.
CHARLES KINGSLEY
PARISH PRIEST
If Charles Kingsley had been born in Scandinavia a thousand years
earlier, one more valiant Viking would have sailed westward from the
deep fiords of his native home to risk his fortunes in a new world, one
who by his courage, his foresight, and his leadership of men was well
fitted to be captain of his bark. The lover of the open-air life, the
searcher after knowledge, the fighter that he was, he would have been in
his element, foremost in the fray, most eager in the quest. But it was
given to him to live in quieter times, to graft on the old Norse stock
the graces of modern culture and the virtues of a Christian; and in a
peaceful parish of rural England he found full scope for his gifts.
There he taught his own and succeeding generations how full and
beneficent the life of a parish priest can be. Our villages and towns
produced many notable types of rector in the nineteenth century, Keble,
Hawker, Hook, Robertson, Dolling, and scores of others; but none touched
life at more points, none became so truly national a figure as Charles
Kingsley in his Eversley home.