composed of Londoners of the middle-class, supposedly ill-bred and
imperfectly educated. The critics took special delight in dwelling upon
the humble origin of the Cockneys, their lack of university training,
and especially their dependence on translations for their knowledge of
the classics.

142. _When Leigh Hunt left prison_. Hunt had been imprisoned for libel
on the Prince Regent (1812).

146. _Vauxhall_. The Gardens were a favorite resort for Londoners early
in the eighteenth century and remained popular for a long time. See
Thackeray's _Vanity Fair_ (chap. VI). The implication in the present
passage is that the Cockney poet gets his ideas of nature from the
immediate vicinity of London.

147. _East of Temple-bar_. That is, living in the City of London.

150. _Young Sangrado_. An allusion to Doctor Sangrado, in Le Sage's _Gil
Blas_ (1715).

ALFRED LORD TENNYSON

Tennyson's first poetical efforts, which appeared in _Poems by Two
Brothers_ (1827) attracted little critical attention. His prize-poem,
_Timbuctoo_ (1829) received the interesting notice here reprinted from
the _Athenaeum_ (p. 456) of July 22, 1829. _Timbuctoo_ was printed in the
_Cambridge Chronicle_ (July 10, 1829); in the _Prolusiones Academicae_
(1829); and several times in _Cambridge Prize-Poems_. The use of heroic
metre in prize-poems was traditional; hence the award was an enviable
tribute to the blank-verse of _Timbuctoo_.

Tennyson's success was emphasized by the remarkable series of reviews
that greeted his earliest volumes of poems. The _Poems, chiefly Lyrical_
(1830) were welcomed by Sir John Bowring in the _Westminster Review_, by
Leigh Hunt in the _Tatler_, by Arthur Hallam in the _Englishman's
Magazine_, and by John Wilson in _Blackwood's Magazine_. The _Poems_
(1833) were reviewed by W.J. Fox in the _Monthly Repository_, and by
John Stuart Mill in the _Westminster Review_. This array of names was
indeed a tribute to the poet; but the unfavorable review, was, as usual,
most significant. The article written by Lockhart for the _Quarterly
Rev._, XLIX (81-97), has been characterized as "silly and brutal," but
it was neither. Tennyson's fame is secure; we can at least be just to
his early reviewer. It is true that the poet winced under the lash and
that ten years elapsed before his next volume of collected poems
appeared; but Canon Ainger is surely in error when he holds the
_Quarterly Review_ mainly responsible for this long silence.