At the age of seven Tennyson was sent to school at Louth, a market-town which may fairly lay claim to having been a factor of some importance in his early life. His maternal grandmother lived in Westgate Place, her house being a second home to the young Tennysons. The old Grammar School where Alfred received the early portion of his education is now no longer in existence. Tennyson’s recollections of it and of the Rev. J. Waite, at that time the head-master, were not pleasant. “How I did hate that school!” he wrote later. “The only good I got from it was the memory of the words Sonus desilientis aquæ, and of an old wall covered with wild weeds opposite the school windows.”
Tennyson’s first connected poems were composed at Louth, and in this town also his first published work saw the light, appearing in a volume entitled “Poems by Two Brothers,” issued in 1827 by Mr. J. Jackson, a bookseller. The two brothers were Charles and Alfred Tennyson.
After a school career which lasted four years, Alfred returned to Somersby to continue his studies under his father’s tuition. This course of instruction was supplemented by classics at the hands of a Roman Catholic priest, and music-lessons given him by a teacher at Horncastle.
In 1828 Charles and Alfred Tennyson followed their elder brother Frederick to Trinity College, Cambridge. They began their university life in lodgings at No. 12, Rose Crescent, moving later to Trumpington Street, No. 57, Corpus Buildings. Of his early experiences of life at Cambridge, Alfred wrote to his aunt: “I am sitting owl-like and solitary in my rooms (nothing between me and the stars but a stratum of tiles). The hoof of the steed, the roll of the wheel, the shouts of drunken Gown and drunken Town come up from below with a sea-like murmur.... The country is so disgustingly level, the revelry of the place so monotonous, the studies of the University so uninteresting, so much matter of fact. None but dry-headed, calculating, angular little gentlemen can take much delight in them.”
Arthur Hallam (from the bust by Chantrey)
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It was at Trinity College that Tennyson first made the acquaintance of Arthur Hallam, youngest son of the historian, whose friendship so profoundly influenced the poet’s character and genius. “He would have been known if he had lived,” wrote Tennyson, “as a great man, but not as a great poet; he was as near perfection as mortal man could be.”
The Lady of Shalott
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In February 1831 Tennyson left Cambridge without taking a degree, and returned to Somersby, his father dying within a month of his arrival. From this time onward Hallam became an intimate visitor at the Rectory, and formed an attachment for his friend’s sister Emily. In July 1832 Tennyson and Hallam went touring on the Rhine, and at the close of the year appeared the volume of “Poems by Alfred Tennyson,” which contained, amongst others, “The Lady of Shalott,” “The Miller’s Daughter,” “The Palace of Art,” “The Lotos Eaters,” and “A Dream of Fair Women.”