this distinguished ancestry has a peculiar significance. It indicates to those who do not "smile at the claims of long descent" an intermixture of noble blood worthy to rank with that of the owners of the proudest titles, and a family distinction appreciable by persons not "too proud to care from whence they came."

A halo of romantic interest always hangs about the birth-places of distinguished men. The homes and haunts of genius are hallowed spots-shrines invested by the pilgrim and the worshipper with unique and memorable interest. In years to come Somersby, by reason of Tennyson having been born there, will be detached in the world's esteem from the multitude of English villages with which

it possesses features in common. Any one

picturing it without the guidance of description would probably fancy that it partook of the characteristics popularly supposed to belong to Lincolnshire. But Somersby, although not far from the fens, is not the flat uninteresting spot one might imagine from this ominous propinquity. Years ago, William Howitt, in his delightful descriptions of the haunts of the British poets,

pictured the locality in which Tennyson was born, and where he spent the early years of his life: "The native village of Tennyson is not situated in the fens, but in a pretty pastoral district of softly sloping hills and large ash-trees. It is not based on bogs, but on a clean sandstone. There is a little glen in the neighbourhood, called by the old monkish name of Holywell. Over the gateway leading to it some by-gone squire has put up an inscription, a medley of Virgil and Horace; and within, a stream of clear water gushes out on a sand rock, and over it stands the old school-house almost lost among the trees, and of late years used as a wood-house, its former distinction only signified by the Scripture text on the walls, 'Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth.' There are also two brooks in this valley, which flow into one at the bottom of the glebe field, and by these the young poet used to wander and meditate." The physiography of Somersby is described in a few bold touches by the Rev. D. Rawnsley, a connection of the poet's by marriage. "To the north," he says, "rises the long peak of the wold, with its steep

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white road that climbs the hill above Thetford; to the south the land slopes gently to a small deep-channelled brook, which rises not far from Somersby, and flows just below the parsonage garden."

Amid the picturesque associations of this Lincolnshire rectory, beneath its leafy elms and within the sound of its ever-brawling brook, Tennyson's childhood was passed. That these associations wove themselves into the web of his being is certified by the vividness of his description of their smallest details. In the "Ode to Memory," he speaks of

"The woods that belt the gray hill-side,

The seven elms, the poplars four

That stand beside my father's door,

the brook that loves

To purl o'er matted cress and ribbèd sand,
Or dimple in the dark of rushy coves,
Drawing into his narrow earthen urn,

In every elbow and turn,

The filtered tribute of the rough woodland."

The inspirations of Somersby scenery, with its "ridgèd wolds," may be traced in more than one passage of Tennyson's early writings, and have

given local colour to some of the maturer ones. The brook which "prattled the primrose fancies. of the boy," was no doubt the same that with memorable repetition babbled the assertion of its own changeless character of unrest. The "gray old grange" on the hill-slope, "the sheep-walk up the windy wold," the "hoary knoll of ash and haw," the "pastoral rivulet that swerves to left and right through meadowy curves," the rectory garden, where the sunflower, shining fair, rays round with flames her disc of seed," and, about all, "the circle of the hills," were the meet environment of a poetic childhood.

Not less happily was Tennyson placed in his parentage. All gracious influences of pious living, redeemed from austerity by the refining quality of cultured tastes, shed their warm and mellowing rays over that tranquil Somersby home. Dr. Tennyson was a tall, striking man, remarkable for great strength, accomplished in many ways, "something," we are told, "of a poet, painter, architect, and musician, and also a considerable linguist and mathematician." As in the case of most men of strong and well-defined character, his conduct was

charged with a large measure of energy. One friend of the family seems to give us a rough and ready means of estimating his quality, in the two expressive epithets, "high-souled and hightempered." How large a place he had in his son. Alfred's affections, finds expression in the lines to J. S. This tribute, in which the heart of the poet speaks its regrets, suggests, although perhaps but faintly, the reverence inspired in the family circle at Somersby by its head, and the mingled love and gratitude with which his authority was in after years remembered. The poet's mother—if we may farther draw aside the curtain from this sacred home-life-was a lady of a grave and gracious sweetness. "Mrs. Tennyson," says Mrs. Thackeray-Ritchie, who had the information from one who was personally acquainted with her, was a sweet and gentle and most imaginative woman; so kind-hearted that it had passed into a proverb, and the wicked inhabitants of a neighbouring village used to bring their dogs to her windows and beat them, in order to be bribed to leave off by the gentle lady, or to make advantageous bargains by selling her the worth