orth and Farringford. He died in 1892, at the age of
eighty-three, and was buried beside Robert Browning in Westminster
Abbey.

Early Verse.--Tennyson published a small volume of poems in 1830,
the year before he left college, and another volume in 1832. Although
these contained some good poems, he was too often content to toy with
verse that had exquisite melody and but little meaning. The "Airy,
fairy Lilian" and "Sweet, pale Margaret" type of verse had charmed him
overmuch. The volumes of 1830 and 1832 were severely criticized.
_Blackwood's Magazine_ called same of the lyrics "drivel," and Carlyle
characterized the aesthetic verse as "lollipops." This adverse
criticism and the shock from Hallam's death caused him to remain
silent for nearly ten years. His son and biographer says that his
father during this period "profited by friendly and unfriendly
criticism, and in silence, obscurity, and solitude, perfected his
art."

In his thirty-third year (1842), Tennyson broke his long silence by
publishing two volumes of verse, containing such favorites as _The
Poet, The Lady of Shalott, The Palace of Art, The Lotos Eaters, A
Dream of Fair Women, Morte d'Arthur, Oenone, The Miller's Daughter,
The Gardener's Daughter, Dora, Ulysses, Locksley Hall, The Two
Voices_, and _Sir Galahad_.

Unsparing revision of numbers of these poems that had been published
before, entitles them to be classed as new work. Some critics think
that Tennyson never surpassed these 1842 volumes. His verse shows the
influence of Keats, of whom Tennyson said: "There is something of the
innermost soul of poetry in almost everything that he wrote."

One of Tennyson's most distinctive qualities, his art in painting
beautiful word-pictures, is seen at its best in stanzas from _The
Palace of Art_. His mastery over melody and the technique of verse is
evident in such lyrics as _Sir Galahad,_ and _The Lotos Eaters_. When
the prime minister, Sir Robert Peel, read from _Ulysses_ the passage
beginning:--

"I am a part of all that I have met,"

he gave Tennyson a much-needed annual pension of L200.

These volumes show that he was coming into touch with the thought of
the age. _Locksley Hall_ communicates the thrill which he felt from
the new possibilities of science:--

"For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be.
* * * * *
I the heir of all t