Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 January 1887 — ALFRED TENNYSON. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ALFRED TENNYSON.

Poet Laureate of England, For several weeks past the press and literary people generally have been discussing Teunj son’s last poem, “Locksley Hall Sixty Years After.” It is not generally known that Alfred Tennyson is nearly eighty years of age. He was bom August C, 1809, at Somersby, a village in Lincolnshire, about half way between Spilsby and Horncustle. He was one of the twelve children (of whom seven were sons) of the Reverend G. Clayton Tennyson, LL.D., rec or of Somersby and vicar of Grimsby. Alfred was taught the rudimentary subjects partly at home and partly at “Cadney’s village school." Alfred Tenny-

son’s first verses were written upon the model of Thomson’s “Seasons.” In 1828 he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, and in 1829 gained a gold medal for a poem on Timbuctoo. He publish d his first volume of poetry about this time, and in 1832 his second volume was published by Edward The storj* that “Locksley Hall” was based upon personal experience is said to have not the slightest foundation. In the year 1850 he was married to Miss Emily Sellwood, and in the same year succeeded Wordsworth as poet laureate, and produced on the day of the funeral of the Duke of Wellington (November, 1852) his immortal “Ode.”