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.
VARIOUS ERRORS.
It is not my purpose to enumerate all the errors that I have come across in my reading relating to Tennyson and his works. For the sake of brevity, I merely correct a few of them without giving full particulars in every case. Tennyson first visited the Pyrenees in 1830—not in 1831; the second visit was in 1862. He received the degree of D. C. L. in 1855—not in 1859. His son Hallam was born at Twickenham, Aug. 11, 1852; Lionel, at Freshwater, Mar. 16, 1854.
Tennyson did not write “Break, break, break” at Clevedon or Freshwater. The intercalary lyrics of “The Princess” were first published in the third edition—not in the second. The plot of “The Cup” is taken from Plutarch’s treatise De Mulierum Virtutibus; this work has been confused by Archer and Jennings with Boccaccio’s De Claris Mulieribus.
Many unpardonable mistakes have been made in dating Tennyson’s published writings, also in wording and punctuating their titles. It has been said that “The Princess” first appeared in print in 1846 and 1849; “In Memoriam,” in 1849 and 1851; “Idyls of the King,” in 1855, 1858, and 1861; “Enoch Arden,” in 1865; “The Holy Grail, and Other Poems,” in 1867 and 1870; “Harold,” in 1877; “Becket,” in 1879 and 1885; “Tiresias, and Other Poems,” in 1886; and “Demeter, and Other Poems,” in 1890. In Hart’s Manual of English Literature, one of Tennyson’s poems is named “The Vision of Art,” and a recent German cyclopedia makes him the author of “Tristam and Iseult.” A newspaper account of the sale of Tennysoniana in London contains the queer bit of misinformation that Poems by Two Brothers “was published by Louth in 1826.” These slips could have been easily avoided. The mystery hanging about the Laureate’s life does not involve his works.
It is believed that the following list, which has been carefully verified, is correct both as to the titles and the dates of first publication of all of Tennyson’s books, viz:
| Poems by Two Brothers | 1826 (dated 1827) | |
| Poems, chiefly Lyrical | 1830 | |
| Poems | 1832 (dated 1833) | |
| Poems, 2 vols. | 1842 | |
| The Princess | 1847 | |
| In Memoriam | 1850 | |
| Maud, and Other Poems | 1855 | |
| Idyls of the King | 1859 | |
| Enoch Arden, etc. | 1864 | |
| The Holy Grail, and Other Poems | 1869 | |
| Gareth and Lynette, etc. | 1872 | |
| Queen Mary | 1875 | |
| Harold | 1876 | |
| The Lover’s Tale | 1879 | |
| Ballads, and Other Poems | 1880 | |
| The Cup and The Falcon | 1884 | |
| Becket | 1884 | |
| Tiresias, and Other Poems | 1885 | |
| Locksley Hall Sixty Years After, etc. | 1886 | |
| Demeter, and Other Poems | 1889 | |
| The Foresters | 1892 |