our Laureate has a firm hold of the reading public, and is an evidence that references to the poet's early years are of great interest to his admirers. That we are not mistaken in attributing to those times the inspiration of his finished productions, is admitted by the Laureate himself.
Bag Enderby church.
In Mr. Jennings' "Biographical Sketch," Lord Tennyson is quoted as follows:—
"There was a period in my life, when, as an artist—Turner, for instance—takes rough sketches of landscape, &c., in order to work them eventually into some great picture, so I was in the habit of chronicling, in four or five words or more, whatever might strike me as picturesque in nature."
But, without doubt, some writers have been too ready to point to this or that local scene, or to particular individuals. Such definite identification precludes claim to any degree of authority. The Rev. Drummond Rawnsley, an old friend of the Laureate's, and who officiated at the poet's marriage, wrote in Macmillan, something like twenty years ago:—
"As a Lincolnshire man and long familiar with the district in which Mr. Tennyson was born, I have often been struck with the many illustrations of our county's scenery and character to be found in his poems. What Wordsworth has done for the English Lakes and Scott for the Highlands, our poet has done for homelier scenes of his boyhood and early manhood in Mid Lincolnshire. They live for us in his pages, depicted with all the truth and accuracy of a photograph."
Stockworth mill.
The identity of "Locksley Hall" has been fought over by the champions of various country houses. Local tradition, however, says that in an old house near the Lincolnshire coast, the Laureate wrote the first "Locksley Hall." Here is an interesting item which does not reflect upon the poet's creative genius. The tradition has never been repudiated, although its existence is known to the Laureate's family. A sketch of the old house as it was seventy years ago is here given. Parts of the old edifice still remain, showing evidences of great age and an old-fashioned manner of construction. A large tract of land is now reclaimed between the house and the North Sea, but the tide formerly flowed to within a few yards of the door of the house.
One who has recently passed away used garrulously to tell of the poet visiting
