[ [170] 266. Soother; used here for more soothing.
[ [171] 267. What are lucent syrops? Note derivation.
[ [172] 277. Eremite; hermit.
[ [173] 292. Keats wrote a poem about this time called La Belle Dame sans Merci.
[ [174] 346. Wassailers was a term originally used for men drinking each other's health with the words wes h[=a]l, be whole.
[ [175] 375. Angela. Have the deaths of Angela and the Beadsman been foretold?
[ALFRED TENNYSON]
Alfred Tennyson was born in Somersby, Lincolnshire, England, on August 6, 1809, and died at Aldworth in Surrey in 1892. He was the third of twelve brothers and sisters, several of whom later showed evidences of genius. As early as 1827 he and his brother Charles published Poems by Two Brothers, for which they received ten pounds. At Trinity College, Cambridge, which he entered in 1828, he won the chancellor's gold medal for a prize poem Timbuctoo. On the death of his father in 1831 he left Cambridge without a degree. Before this in 1830 he had published Poems, chiefly Lyrical, and two years later in 1832 a new volume appeared which was severely criticised, though it contained much excellent work. The death of his close friend, Arthur Henry Hallam, in 1833 was a terrible blow to Tennyson and one from which it took him many years to recover. It was, however, the inspiration for his elegy In Memoriam, written for the most part during the period when the loss was felt most keenly. For some time after, Tennyson lived quietly, gaining in power and expression, and busy training himself for the future. The product of this seclusion came in two volumes of poetry, printed in 1842, which were enthusiastically greeted. In 1845 Wordsworth wrote, "Tennyson is decidedly the first of our living poets." The Princess; A Medley, appeared in 1847, and three years later he gave to the world the completed In Memoriam. This same year (1850) is also notable for his marriage with Miss Emily Sellwood and his appointment as poet-laureate in place of Wordsworth, who had just died.
From this time on his place in literature was secured, and he lived a happy life, making occasional short trips in England and on the continent, but remaining for the most part quietly at his estate on the Isle of Wight. Among his later works are Maud (1855), Enoch Arden (1864), Idylls of the King (finished 1872), a group of Ballads, and Other Poems (1880), and several dramas. He accepted a peerage in 1883. Nine years later he died and was buried in Westminster Abbey.