The tri-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1866-1868, 1867-05-23
TEyNYSON.

Aweek recently publShed IN London,
entitled Tennysoniana, gives some
curious particulars in regard to the ear
lv literary career of the celebrated Eng
lish poet. It seems that the first poeti-
cal work of Alfred Tennyson appeared
about forty years ago. 1t was printed
and published at Louth, in Lincolnshire
(Tennyson's native county, and was
entitled "Poems by Two Brothers. "
The "two brothers were Alfred and
Charles Tennyson, though their names
did not appear on the title page. Al
fred was at that time in the eli ghteenth
year of his age, and he and his brother,
with becoming modesty, adopted as
their motto the following words from
Martial Hacnos novimus esse nihil'
1--WE know this to be nothing.) Some
Of the titles suggest the old poetical
commonplaces of young beginners:
"Lines to Memory" "The Exile's
Harp" Remorse,,' eve meet no
more" "To Fancy" "To Midnight"
"Friendship," Con Sublimity," Time,
an Ode," &c. Others have an odd tone
of something formal and old fashioned;
as, "Lines to one who Entertained a
Light Opinion of an Eminent Charac-
ter" "On the Death of my Grand
mother" Con being asked fora a Simile
to illustrate the Advantage of keeping
the Passion subservient to Reason"
"Short Eulogium on Homer &c.
Others, again, betray that the brothers
shared in then prevalent excitement in
favor of the Hellenes for we find poems
called " Greece" and Exhortation to
the Greeks" Byron seems to have had
powerful influence on the minds OF
the youthful poets; one Of their pieces
is called Con the death Of Lord By
ron,'' and lines from the author of
Childe Harold" are frequently used
as notices.
The first conspicuous work of Alfred
Tennyson was his Cambridge Prize
Poem, "Timbuctoo," (lS2s) which
was very enthusiastically noticed in the
Athen@um of July % of that year, and
which was certainly distinguished by
some noble passages. In 1880 appear
ed "Poems, chiefly Lyrical, by Alfred
Teunyson." This was the volume which
contained Mariana iii the Moated
Grange" 1t was we'll received upon
the whole; The Westminster Review
(n an article, it is thought, by Mr.. John
Stuart MilD halling it as work of
great promise; Leigh Hunt in The Tat
Ter, contrasting the two brothers in a
series of articles, and concluding by
giving the palm to Alfred; and Pro
fessor Wilson, in Blaekwood's Maga-
zine, "mingling praise and blame," as
Tennyson afterward told US in some
very stinging verses. After the ap
pearance of the volume of 1888, Cole
ridge said of Tennyson that some of his
poems showed "a good deal of beauty"
out he added that he had " begun to
write verses without very well under
standing what meter is. " And he
prescribed to him to write for two
or three years &C. in none but one or two
well known and strickly defined me-
ters, such as the heroic couplet, the oe
taVo stanza, or the octosddlabic mea-
sure" as a corrective to the iooseness
OF his new meters, some of which Cole
ridge said he could scarcely scan.-
Wordsworth, in ls45, spoke of Venny-
son as decidedly the first of cur living
poets" though it seems that he had
od5IgTrhhally, od Thly, unlike Leigh Hunt, regard
GU oharles as the better poet.