high spirits, rich almost to excess in diction and fanciful imagery, was written by Tennant in 1811, when his brother’s business had failed and he did not know where to look for employment. Its publication in 1812 brought the poet into notice, and employment was found for him as schoolmaster of the parish of Dunino, near St Andrews. From this he was promoted (1816) to the school of Lasswade, near Edinburgh; from that (1819) to a mastership in Dollar academy; from that (1831), by Lord Jeffrey, who had written an admiring review of Anster Fair, to the professorship of Oriental languages in St Andrews. Tennant never fulfilled the promise of his first poem, which reads as if it had been dashed off in a fit of careless and happy inspiration, and never flags in its humorous glee from the first stanza to the last. The Thane of Fife (1822), in which he essayed the same vein, evidently cost him more pains, shows the same high reach of humorous imagination, and is indeed, as he claimed for it, “bold in its style and rare, fantastic, and sublime.” But the subject was more remote from general interest; the mock-epic machinery, with all his wealth of grotesque description, was too far-fetched for the popular taste; and the poem fell flat. A third poem, in the Scotch dialect, Papistry Stormed (1827), though full of the most spirited description, was also in a vein of humour that found few sympathizers. He wrote also two historical dramas. Cardinal Beaton (1823) and John Baliol (1825). His last published work was a series of Hebrew Dramas (1845), founded on incidents in Bible history. He died near Dollar, on 15th February 1848.
A Memoir of Tennant by M. T. Conolly was published in 1861.
TENNENT, Sir James Emerson (1794–1869), English politician and traveller, the third son of William Emerson, a merchant of Belfast, was born there on 7th April 1794. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, of which he became LL.D. After travelling in Greece, where he made the acquaintance of Lord Byron, whose sentiments in regard to the Greek cause he fully shared, he studied for the bar and was called at Lincoln’s Inn in 1831. He published a Picture of Greece (1826), Letters from the Ægean (1829), and a History of Modern Greece (1830). On his marriage to the daughter and heiress of William Tennent, a wealthy merchant at Belfast, he adopted by royal licence the name of his wife in addition to his own. He entered parliament in 1832 as member for Belfast. In 1841 he became secretary to the India Board, and in 1845 he was knighted and appointed colonial secretary of Ceylon, where he remained till 1850. The result of his residence there appeared in Christianity in Ceylon (1850) and Ceylon, Physical, Historical, and Topographical (2 vols., 1859). On his return he became member for Lisburn, and under Lord Derby was secretary to the Poor Law Board from February to November 1852. From then till 1867 he was permanent secretary to the Board of Trade, and on his retirement he received a baronetcy from Lord Palmerston. In his early years his political views had a Radical tinge, and, although he subsequently joined the Tories, his Conservatism was of a mild type. He withdrew from the Whigs along with Lord Stanley and Sir James Graham, and afterwards adhered to Peel. He died in London on 6th August 1869.
Besides the books above mentioned, he wrote Belgium in 1840 (1841) and Wine, its Duties and Taxation (1865), and was a contributor to magazines and a frequent correspondent of Notes and Queries.
Plate II.
TENNESSEE, one of the United States of North America, the third added (June 1796) to the original thirteen, its predecessors having been Vermont (1791) and Kentucky (1792). Boundaries.Tennessee is bounded on the E. by the Unaka Mountains, which divide it from North Carolina, on the S. by the line of lat. 35° N., dividing it from Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi; on the W. by the Mississippi river, dividing it from Arkansas and Missouri; and on the N. by a line which erroneous surveys have caused to vary greatly from the intended boundary,—the line of lat. 36° 30' N.—the variations all being measured to the north of that parallel. The actual boundary commences at the north-east corner of the State 7 miles north of 36° 30', and continues at that distance as far as the frontier of Virginia and Kentucky, where it diminishes to 5 miles; thence to about its intersection with 86° 30' W. it increases to 11 miles; thence a deflexion southwards to a point about 2 miles from the Cumberland reduces it to 10 miles; there it suddenly shoots north again to 12 miles, which distance is increased to 1212 by the time it strikes the Tennessee; on the other side of that river it becomes very nearly coincident with the normal 36° 30'; and to that line it adheres with very slight aberrations until it strikes the Mississippi. The eastern boundary has one deviation from the stipulated line: it runs along the culminating ridge of the Unakas till within 26 miles of the Georgia frontier, when it turns due south, giving to Tennessee a triangular piece of territory which should belong to North Carolina. The area of the State was 41,750 square miles in 1880. Its extreme length is 432 miles and its width 109.
Geology.Configuration and Geology—Commencing at the eastern frontier, the State of Tennessee is divided into several districts, having distinct characteristics and separated by well-marked natural boundaries, whose general direction from north-east to south-west corresponds with the trend of the main valleys (see the geological sketch map inserted on pl. II.).
1. The mountain region of East Tennessee is a long narrow belt of very irregular surface, comprised between the Unaka Range and a disjointed chain of lower mountains, the principal of which are called the Chilhowee Range, and the whole of which may be considered as constituting the secondary mountain system of the State. The intervening space is occupied by broken masses forming hills, mountains, and valleys, some parallel to the principal ranges, some crossing the space at right angles to them. This region varies in width from 28 miles to about 7. All the rocks of this region and the next to it belong to what constitute in England the Silurian and Cambrian systems, the former being found in the western and the latter in the eastern part of the district. It has been contended that some metamorphic rocks near the crest of the mountains belong to the Archaic (Huronian and Laurentian) system; but the preponderance of geological opinion now assigns them to the same formations as the neighbouring rocks, the difference in structure being due to metamorphic action. The lowest of these, called in Tennessee the Ocoee group, is believed to be coeval with the Potsdam group of the American system,—the Lower Silurian and perhaps the Upper Cambrian of the British Isles. It consists chiefly of slates and conglomerates, with the sandstones of the Chilhowee group above. Above these last are the Knox dolomite group, with its shales and limestone more separated from the other two groups and perhaps not exactly corresponding to any other recognized formations. The crystalline metamorphic rocks are mainly syenitic and micaceous gneiss, with micaceous, hornblendic, and talcose schists. Occasional small dykes of diorite, greenstone, and basalt traverse these rocks, sometimes interstratified, but oftener breaking through them.
2. The rocks of the first division are tilted at very high angles; those of the second division, the eastern valley of the Tennessee, are fractured and distorted at nearly every conceivable angle, and, in consequence, it is the edges of the uplifted strata which here form the surface. The strata have been eaten away to form valleys, or left standing as
