"Alfred Tennyson was born August 5, 1809, at Somersby, a hamlet in
Lincolnshire, England, of which, and of a neighboring parish, his father,
Dr. George Clayton Tennyson, was rector. The poet's mother was Elizabeth,
daughter of the Rev. Stephen Fytche, vicar of Louth. Alfred was the third
of seven sons--Frederick, Charles, Alfred, Edward, Horatio, Arthur, and
Septimus. A daughter, Cecilia, became the wife of Edmund Law Lushington,
long professor of Greek in Glasgow University. Whether there were other
daughters, the biographies of the poet do not mention."
This is the opening paragraph of the Introduction to a school edition of
"The Two Voices" and "A Dream of Fair Women," by Dr. Hiram Corson. Here
are several inaccuracies as to the Tennyson family and the poet's
birthday, and the same mistakes and others are found in nearly all the
sketches of the Laureate in periodicals and works of reference.
It is generally supposed that cyclopedia articles are prepared by
specialists who know what they are writing about. This is the popular
conception, but this is evidently not the case in regard to Tennyson, who
has fared sadly at the hands of his biographers. The brief accounts of his
life given in Appleton's, the Americanized Britannica, and other
cyclopedias fairly bristle with blunders and objectionable features. As
they stand, most of these articles are utterly untrustworthy. Their
assertions are often misleading, or so vague as to be practically
valueless. As a result, most people are more or less at sea in regard to
Tennyson chronology.