Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 April 1887 — Tennyson’s Early Love. [ARTICLE]

Tennyson’s Early Love.

Those who are familiar with the story of Alfred Tennyson’s life will smile on reading his latest work, “Locksley Hall Sixty Years After, ” over the spirit of self-deception which runs throughout the verses. To the world, “Maud” and “Locksley Hall" are beautiful poems only. A few know that they are something more than poems of the imagination —they are heart records. In the sequel to" “Locksley Hall,” just published, the poet tells his grandson that he could never have loved a worldling like Judith, who has played such sad havoc with the susceptible youth’s feelings, But this is - precisely wbat he did. When Tennyson was a promising young poet, crowned with 'Oxford’s academic lanrels, he wooed his first cousin, the story of which wooing he woye into beautiful verse and gave to the world. Another author, the wealthy heir to the Earldom of Boyne, however, appeared on the scene, and the fair Amy, afterward so liberally adjectived as “false or servile,” became a peeress. Lord Boyne, who is the owner of large estates and valuable coal mines in the County of Durham, the heart of the. Northern coal-fields of England, freely extended his hospitalities to liis bride's

cousin at Brancepeth Castle, a modern but imposing mansion. The poet repaid the kindness by satirizing the good-natnred peer, his brand-new title, and his recently-acquired wealth most mercilessly in his “Maud” and “Locks-/ ley Hall.” Independent of his wife’s very natural indignation, Lord Boyne was not gratified to find his! beautiful home described by a recent guest as a “gewgaw” castle, or at having the world informed in verse, however harmonious, that his wealth had come from the sweat of miners. Neither did lie enjoy the thought that the tongues of the world were wagging over the story of his wealth having bought him a wife who preferred another lover. It is pcfa-~ sible, too, ho failed to see the beauty of those Bembrandt-like touches wherein he is described as a clown and drunken. It might be beautiful poetry, the outraged host urged, but it was not good taste and it was not true. His lordship is certainly one of the most commonplace and uninteresting of peers or of commoners, but he is neither coarse nor drunken, and Brancepeth Castle, with its shivering larches, knew Tennyson no more. —London Cor.