d did not take much part in the debates, preferring to sit silent
and listen to what was said. All his friends had unbounded admiration
for his poetry and unlimited faith in his poetic powers. This faith was
strengthened by the award of the University Prize for English Verse to
Alfred in June, 1829. He did not wish to compete, but on being pressed,
polished up an old poem that he had written some years before, and
presented it for competition, the subject being _Timbuctoo_. The poem
was in blank verse and really showed considerable power; in fact it was a
remarkable poem for one so young.

Perhaps the most powerful influence on the life of Tennyson was the
friendship he formed while at Cambridge with Arthur Henry Hallam, the son
of the historian, Henry Hallam. The two became inseparable friends, a
friendship strengthened by the engagement of Hallam to the poet's sister.
The two friends agreed to publish a volume of poems as a
joint-production, but Henry Hallam, the elder, did not encourage the
project, and it was dropped. The result was that in 1830, _Poems,
Chiefly Lyrical_, was published with the name of Alfred Tennyson alone on
the title page. The volume was reviewed enthusiastically by Hallam, but
was more or less slated by Christopher North in the columns of
_Blackwoods' Magazine_. Tennyson was very angry about the latter review
and replied to the reviewer in some caustic, but entirely unnecessary,
verses.

In the same year Hallam and Tennyson made an expedition into Spain to
carry aid to the rebel leader against the king of Spain. The expedition
was not by any means a success. In 1831 Tennyson left Cambridge, without
taking his degree, and shortly after his return home his father died.
The family, however, did not remove from Somersby, but remained there
until 1837. Late in 1832 appeared another volume entitled _Poems by
Alfred Tennyson_. This drew upon the unfortunate author a bitterly
sarcastic article in the _Quarterly_, written probably by its brilliant
editor, John Gibson Lockhart. The result of this article was that
Tennyson was silent for almost ten years, a period spent in ridding
himself of the weaknesses so brutally pointed out by the reviewer.

In 1833, Arthur Henry Hallam died, and for a time the light of life
seemed to have gone out for Alfred Tennyson. The effect of the death of
Hallam upon the poet was extraordinary. It seemed to have changed the
whole current of his life; indeed he