in language that we can understand. Through his poems we catch glimpses of babbling brooks, and gardens, and ivied walls; of Italian skies and summer mornings, of peaceful homes and of battle crash, and as we read we may take in the pure and grand sentiments which cannot fail to have an elevating and inspiring influence upon our hearts and lives."
Alfred Tennyson first saw the light in Lincolnshire, England, in the year 1809. His father was a clergyman, and a man of great abilities, who carefully educated his children, and from whom his sons may have inherited their poetical genius. Of their mother it has been said that "she was intensely and fervently religious, as a poet's mother should be."
The story of Alfred's first attempt at verse-making is this: one Sabbath all the elders of the family were going to church, leaving the child alone. An older brother gave him a slate and a subject, "The Flowers in the Garden," and when the family returned from service he handed the slate to his brother covered over with blank verse, then waited while the critic read! Imagine his satisfaction when the slate was handed back with, "Yes, you can write."
It is also said that the first money he earned by his pen was upon the occasion of his grandmother's death, when he wrote an elegy, at his grandfather's request, for which the old gentleman paid him ten shillings, saying, "There, that is the first money you have earned by your poetry, and, take my word for it, it will be the last."
That must have been rather discouraging. If the old grandfather could know of the honors and the money which have come to his grandson through his writings, he would doubtless be astonished.
He began to write for the press when quite young, and has written much, and I have no doubt his poems are familiar to you all. He was made Poet-Laureate in 1850.
A boy who lived in the neighborhood of Tennyson's home in the Isle of Wight, gave his definition of Poet-Laureate to a lady who asked him if he knew Mr. Tennyson.
"He makes moets for the Queen," was the boy's reply.
"What do you mean?" asked the lady.