A common mistake is that of locating Aldworth in Sussex. Mr. Frederick
Dolman, in the _Ladies' Home Journal_ (August, 1891), carelessly speaks of
"the poet's residences in the fair Isle and sunny Sussex." According to
Murray's _Handbook for Surrey_ (ed. of 1888, p. 182), and other excellent
authorities,[45] Aldworth is in the county of Surrey--not far from the
northern borders of Sussex. In Walford's _County Families of the United
Kingdom_, p. 1203, Lord Tennyson's name occurs among the land owners of
Surrey--not with those of Sussex.
Somersby and Somerby have been mixed by many people who are not familiar
with English geography. The latter village is in the western part of
Lincolnshire, near Grantham--a considerable distance from Alfred
Tennyson's birthplace. Duyckinck, in his _Eminent Men and Women_,
recklessly says he was born at "Somerby, a small parish in
Leicestershire."[46]
If Europeans are guilty of crass ignorance of the United States, Americans
too are open to criticism for their hazy notions of foreign places. An
inexcusable blunder is that in Phillips' _Popular Manual of English
Literature_, vol. II., p. 497, where Blackdown is loosely referred to as
"a hill in the vicinity of Petersfield, Hampshire." Another writer is
remiss in accepting statements implicitly and without question. A footnote
in Kellogg's school edition of "In Memoriam," p. 23, says "Hallam was
buried in Cleveland Church on the Severn, which empties into British
Channel." If he had looked up the town for himself on the map of England,
he would have discovered that Clevedon, the birthplace of Hallam, is
situated on the bank of the Severn near its entrance to the Bristol
Channel.