t least they won him thus early the affection of
the noblest among his compeers, and a fame that is almost unique in
English literature.

Much has been written about the society which these young men formed and
which they called 'the Apostles'. The name has been thought to suggest a
certain complacency and mutual admiration. But enough letters and
personal recollections of their talk have been preserved to show how
simple and unaffected the members were in their intercourse with one
another. They had their enthusiasms, but they had also their jests.
Their humour was not perhaps the boisterous fun of William Morris and
Rossetti, but it was lively and buoyant enough to banish all suspicion
of priggishness. Just because their enthusiasm was for the best in
literature and art, Tennyson was quickly at home among them. Already he
had learnt at home to love Shakespeare and Milton, Coleridge and Keats,
and no effort was required, in this circle of friends, to keep his
reading upon this high level. _Lycidas_ was always a special favourite
of Tennyson's, and appreciation of it seemed to him a sure 'touchstone
of poetic taste'. In conversation he did not tend to declaim or
monopolize the talk. He was noted rather for short sayings and for
criticisms tersely expressed. He had his moods, contemplative, genial or
gay; but all his utterances were marked by independence of thought, and
his silence could be richer than the speech of other men. But for
display he had no liking. In fact, so reluctant was he to face an
audience of strangers, that when in 1829 it was his duty to recite his
prize poem in the senate-house, he obtained leave for Merivale to read
it on his behalf. On the other hand, he was ready enough to impart to
his real friends the poems that he wrote from time to time, and he would
pass pleasant hours with them reciting old ballads and reading aloud the
plays of Shakespeare. His sonorous voice, his imagination, and his
feeling for all the niceties of rhythm made his reading unusually
impressive, as we know from the testimony of many who heard him.

The course of his education is, in fact, more truly to be found in this
free companionship than in the lecture room or the examination hall. His
opinion of the teaching which he received from the Dons was formed and
expressed in a sonnet of 1830, though he refrained from publishing it
for half a century. He addresses them as 'you that do profess to teach
and teach us nothing, f