Page:Tennysoniana (1879).djvu/104

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TENNYSONIANA.

"Come not when I am dead." First printed in "The Keepsake" for 1851, under the title of "Stanzas," and included in the seventh edition of the Poems, with a slight alteration, or more probably correction of a misprint.

All these additional pieces, except the lines "To E. L." and "The Eagle," have undergone more or less important alterations in successive editions, since their first appearance.


The Poems in two volumes passed through four editions, bearing the dates of 1842, 1843, 1845, and 1846. They were incorporated into one volume in the fifth edition (1848) and in all succeeding editions. The sixth edition appeared in 1850; the seventh (or first Laureate) edition in 1851; and the eighth in 1853.

Almost immediately on the publication of the volumes of 1842, Alfred Tennyson was welcomed by acclamation as the first poet of the century. Nearly all the choicer spirits of the age conspired to chant his praises and to do him honour, among whom were some little accustomed to bestow lavish or indiscriminating approval. Even the saturnine historian of the French Revolution, who cherishes a supreme contempt