The poet has outlived these feeble attacks, and now his fame rests on an impregnable basis; his assailants also lived to regret their short-sightedness. But as matters pertaining to literary history, this short account of them will not be considered out of place here.
Of the haunts of Alfred Tennyson during these years, and onwards to 1850, when he purchased the estate of Farringford, and was married (at Shiplake Church, Oxfordshire) to Miss Emily Sellwood,[1] a lady from his own native county of Lincolnshire, and of his personal history during the same time, we are able to give but a very meagre account. For some time he lived at Twickenham, making it, as was said by one who has passed away all too soon from among us, "twice classic."[2] William Howitt writes in 1847: "It is very possible you may come across him in a country inn, with a foot on each hob of the fireplace, a volume
- ↑ June 13, 1850. The ceremony was performed by the Rev. D. Rawnsley, the Vicar, and witnessed by Cecilia Lushington, Edmund Law Lushington, Catherine Ann Rawnsley (wife of the vicar), and Henry Sellwood, father of the bride.
- ↑ From an unpublished letter in blank verse addressed to the Poet Laureate, by the late George John Cayley, author of "Las Alforjas" "Sir Reginald Mohun" &c."I had rather see you in your home
That makes twice classic Twickenham—"
