" But it was
the world of the poet, not of the "medium."
The Tennysons stayed on at the parsonage for six years. But,
anticipating their removal, Arthur Hallam in 1831 dealt in prophecy
about the identification in the district of places in his friend's
poems--"critic after critic will trace the wanderings of the brook,"
as,--in fact, critic after critic has done. Tennyson disliked--these
"localisers." The poet's walks were shared by Arthur Hallam, then
affianced to his sister Emily.
CHAPTER II.--POEMS OF 1831-1833.
By 1832 most of the poems of Tennyson's second volume were
circulating in MS. among his friends, and no poet ever had friends
more encouraging. Perhaps bards of to-day do not find an eagerness
among their acquaintance for effusions in manuscript, or in proof-
sheets. The charmed volume appeared at the end of the year (dated
1833), and Hallam denounced as "infamous" Lockhart's review in the
Quarterly. Infamous or not, it is extremely diverting. How Lockhart
could miss the great and abundant poetry remains a marvel. Ten years
later the Scorpion repented, and invited Sterling to review any book
he pleased, for the purpose of enabling him to praise the two volumes
of 1842, which he did gladly. Lockhart hated all affectation and
"preciosity," of which the new book was not destitute. He had been
among Wordsworth's most ardent admirers when Wordsworth had few, but
the memories of the war with the "Cockney School" clung to him, the
war with Leigh Hunt, and now he gave himself up to satire.
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