--_Nautical Magazine._
* * * * *
ALFRED TENNYSON.
Alfred Tennyson, the poet laureate of England, was born at Sornersby,
Lincolnshire, April 9, 1810, and was the third of a large family of
children, eight of whom were boys and three girls. His father was a
clergyman, a man of remarkably fine abilities; his mother, as should
be the mother of a great poet, was a deeply religious woman with a
sensitive spirit that was keenly attuned to the aspects of nature. It
was from her that Tennyson inherited his poetic temperament combined
with the love of study that was a characteristic of his father.
Tennyson's brother, Charles, superintended the construction of his
younger brother's first poetic composition, which was written upon a
slate when the great laureate was a child of seven. Tennyson's parents
were people who had sufficient of this world's wealth to educate their
sons well, and Alfred was sent to Trinity College, where he as a mere
lad won the gold medal for a poem in blank verse entitled "Timbuctoo,"
which is to be found in all the volumes of his collected works, though
many of the other poems produced in that period are not given place.
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