at Edinburgh, was suggested by the finding of a daisy in a book—the flower having been plucked on the Splugen and placed by Mrs. Tennyson between the leaves of a little volume as a memento of their Italian journey. The poet’s fancy was stirred and revived the delicious hours—

In lands of palm and southern pine;
In lands of palm, of orange blossom,
Of olive, aloe, and maize and vine.

Those who are familiar with Tennyson’s poems know how exalted is his ideal of woman as wife and mother. Lady Tennyson seems to have met the poet’s exacting requirements almost perfectly. What sort of helpmeet she has been he lovingly portrayed in the “Dedication,”—a tender tribute that was fully deserved. “His most lady-like, gentle wife,” Fitzgerald called her. Of superior education and talent, she was a worthy companion for an author. A number of her husband’s songs she has set to music. She has never sought public recognition. Content with the round of duties in a domestic sphere, she has lived for husband and children. Their married life has been exceptionally harmonious.[6]

In 1852, the Laureate’s largely increasing income enabled him to purchase an estate of more than four hundred acres near Freshwater, Isle of Wight. In the lines, “To the Rev. F. D. Maurice,” dated January,[7] 1854, the poet depicts his pleasant life in this delightful retreat:

Where, far from noise and smoke of town,
I watch the twilight falling brown
All round a careless-order’d garden
Close to the ridge of a noble down.

You’ll have no scandal while you dine,
But honest talk and wholesome wine,
And only hear the magpie gossip
Garrulous under a roof of pine:

For groves of pine on either hand,
To break the blast of winter, stand;
And further on, the hoary Channel
Tumbles a breaker on chalk and sand.

In 1855, Tennyson received the honorary degree of D. C. L. from Oxford.[8] His prosperity continued—there being considerable profits from judicious investments and immense sales of his books. In 1867, he bought an estate near Haslemere, Surrey, “for the purpose of enjoying inland air and scenery.” Here he built a fine Gothic mansion, which is an ideal residence for a poet. Aldworth House is situated far up on Blackdown Heath, and overlooks a lovely valley. It is near the northern border of Sussex. “The prospect from the terrace of the house,” says Church, “is one of the finest in the south of England.” The poet thus pictures the place which has been his summer home for more than twenty years:

Our birches yellowing and from each
The light leaf falling fast,
While squirrels from our fiery beech
Were bearing off the mast,
You came, and look’d, and loved the view
Long-known and loved by me,
Green Sussex fading into blue
With one gray glimpse of sea.

In 1883, the Laureate had amassed property estimated to be worth £200,000. He was offered and accepted a peerage during the latter part of this year, and became Baron of Aldworth and Farringford, January 24, 1884. He took his seat in the House of Lords March 11. In 1865, he declined a baronetcy offered by the Queen as a reward for his loyal devotion to the Crown. Whatever distinction may attach to the honorable name of Lord Tennyson, the majority of his numerous readers prefer to call him plain Alfred Tennyson.

It may not be widely known that Baron Tennyson has a splendid lineage, of which he has modestly kept silent, unlike Byron. According to a writer in the St. James’ Gazette, who traced his ancestry back to Norman times, Tennyson is descended from an illustrious house of “princes, soldiers, and statesmen, famous in British or European history.” Some of his remote relatives were crowned heads—one being the celebrated Malcolm III. of Scotland. In Tennyson’s descent “two lines are blended,” says Church, “the middle class line of the Tennysons, and the noble and even royal line of the D’Eyncourts.”[9]

Alfred’s uncle, the Right Hon. Charles Tennyson-D’Eyncourt of Bayons Manor in Lincolnshire, was a man of marked ability and culture, who held various public offices, and represented several boroughs in parliament from 1818 to 1852. Since his death, in 1861, the family estate has successively passed to his three sons—George Hildyard, Admiral Edwin Clayton, C. B. (1871), and Louis Charles (1890), the present inheritor of the D’Eyncourt seat and dignity.

The poet’s last years have been clouded by the bereavement of many old friends and relatives. Septimus, Charles,[10] Mary,[11] Emily,[12] and Edward are dead. He suffered a severe blow in the death of his second son Lionel, while on the homeward voyage from India.[13] He mourns his loss in the touching stanzas—“To the Marquis of Dufferin and Ava.”

Lord Tennyson was the recipient of many congratulations on the occasion of his eightieth birthday, August 6, 1889. The same year was marked by the publication of a new volume of poems, which attest that his intellectual vigor is unimpaired by age or bodily weakness. A dainty little poem of his—“To Sleep”—was published in the New Review for March, 1891, and it is not improbable that others will see the light in the near future.

Tennyson’s health, though quite robust for an octogenarian, has been broken of late. In the spring of 1890, he was troubled with a grievous illness, the result of exposure to cold—he having persisted in taking his “daily two hours’ walk along the cliff” in all kinds of weather. It was expected that the poet would spend the following winter in the South to avoid the rigorous climate of the Isle of Wight, but he recovered sufficient strength to remain at Farringford House amid the scenes he loves so well.

Tennyson has always shunned publicity, living in a world apart—removed from the gaze of the profane crowd. He rarely goes into society, preferring rural retirement to social converse. As poet and man, he has gained by this voluntary seclusion. His delight is to mingle with the world of nature. The woods and skies, the streams and billows have been his comrades. How much they have contributed to his poetic greatness cannot be estimated. He is, however, a recluse with his eyes open. He has watched