Flower In The Crannied Wall

English poet

Arthur Henry Hallam (1 Feb 1811 – 15 September 1833) was an English language poet, best known every bit the bailiwick of a major work, In Memoriam, by his close friend and fellow poet Alfred Tennyson. Hallam has been described as the jeune homme fatal (French for "doomed boyfriend") of his generation.^[ane]

Early life and didactics [edit]

Hallam was born in London, son of the historian Henry Hallam. He attended school at Eton, where he met the future prime government minister, William Ewart Gladstone. Hallam was an of import influence on Gladstone, introducing him to Whiggish ideas and people. Other friends included James Milnes Gaskell.

After leaving Eton in 1827 Hallam travelled on the continent with his family, and in Italy he became inspired by its culture and fell in beloved with an English beauty, Anna Mildred Wintour, who inspired eleven of his poems.^[2]

In October 1828, Hallam went up to Trinity College, Cambridge,^[three] where he met and befriended Tennyson. Equally Christopher Ricks observes, 'The friendship of Hallam and Tennyson was swift and deep.'^[4]

Friendship with Tennyson [edit]

Hallam and Tennyson became friends in April 1829. They both entered the Chancellor'due south Prize Poem Competition (which Tennyson won). Both joined the Cambridge Apostles (a private debating society), which met every Saturday night during term to hash out, over coffee and sardines on toast ("whales"), serious questions of faith, literature and social club. (Hallam read a paper on 'whether the poems of Shelley accept an immoral tendency'; Tennyson was to speak on 'Ghosts', but was, co-ordinate to his son's Memoir, 'as well shy to deliver it' - only the Preface to the essay survives).^[5] Meetings of the Apostles were not always so intimidating: Desmond MacCarthy gave an account of Hallam and Tennyson at one coming together lying on the basis in guild to laugh less painfully, when James Spedding imitated the lord's day going backside a cloud and coming out once more.^[six]

During the Christmas holidays, Hallam visited Tennyson's dwelling in Somersby, Lincolnshire; on twenty December he met and fell in love with Tennyson's 18-year-old sis, Emilia, who was but vii months younger than Hallam.^[7]

Hallam spent the 1830 Easter holidays with Tennyson in Somersby and declared his love for Emilia. Hallam and Tennyson planned to publish a volume of poems together: Hallam told Mrs Tennyson that he saw this "as a sort of seal of our friendship".^[4] Hallam'south father, nonetheless, objected, and Hallam'south Poems was privately published and printed in 1830.^[2] In the summer holidays, Tennyson and Hallam travelled to the Pyrenees (on a undercover mission to take coin and instructions written in invisible ink to General Torrijos who was planning a revolution confronting the tyranny of Male monarch Ferdinand Seven of Spain). In Dec, Hallam again visited Somersby and became engaged to Emilia. His male parent forbade him to visit Somersby until he came of age at twenty-i.

In February 1831, Tennyson's father died, with the issue that Tennyson could no longer afford to go on at Cambridge. In August, Hallam wrote an enthusiastic article 'On Some of the Characteristics of Modern Poesy, and on the Lyrical Poems of Alfred Tennyson' for the Englishman's Magazine. He introduced Tennyson to the publisher Edward Moxon.

In February 1832, Hallam visited Emilia: 'I dear her madly,' he wrote. She was overjoyed by his 'bright, angelic spirit and his gentle, benevolent manner.'^[viii] In July Tennyson and Hallam travelled to the Rhine. In Oct Hallam entered the role of a conveyancer, Mr Walters, of Lincoln's Inn Fields. In December, thanks largely to Hallam'due south support and applied help, Tennyson's second volume of poesy was published.^[7] Hallam once again spent Christmas at Somersby.

Expiry [edit]

In July 1833, Hallam visited Emilia. On three August, he left with his father for Europe. On 13 September, they went to Vienna, with Hallam lament of fever and chill. It was apparently a recurrence of the "ague" he had suffered earlier that year, and, although it would delay their divergence to Prague, at that place seemed to exist petty crusade for alarm. Quinine and a few days rest were prescribed. Past Sunday 15th, Hallam felt sufficiently better to accept a short walk with his father in the evening. When he returned to the hotel he ordered some sack and lay downwardly on the sofa, talking cheerfully all the fourth dimension. Leaving his son reading in front of the fire, his begetter went out for a further stroll. He returned to find Hallam nonetheless on the sofa, apparently asleep apart from the position of his head. All efforts to rouse him were in vain. Arthur Hallam was dead at the age of twenty-two.^[8]

The medical report on the death certificate listed 'Schlagfluss' – that is, a stroke. A blood-vessel near the brain had suddenly burst. The autopsy alleged 'a weakness of the cognitive vessels, and a want of sufficient energy in the heart.'^[9] The coffin was rapidly sealed and sent to the nearest seaport, to be returned to England for burial.

In the first calendar week of October, Tennyson received a letter from Arthur Hallam's uncle, Henry Elton:

Addressed to Alfred Tennyson Esqre: if Absent, to be opened by Mrs Tennyson
Somersby Rectory
Spilsby
Lincolnshire

Clifton. one Oct. 1833

My Dear Sir —

At the desire of a most afflicted family unit, I write to you considering they are unequal from the grief into which they have fallen to it themselves.
Your friend, Sir, and my much-loved Nephew, Arthur Hallam, is no more — it has pleased God to remove him from this his beginning scene of Existence, to that ameliorate world for which he was Created.
He died at Vienna, on his render from Buda, past Apoplexy, and I believe his Remains come past Sea from Trieste.
Mr Hallam arrived this morning in 3 Princes Buildings.
May that Being in whose easily are all the Destinies of Human being — and who has promised to comfort all that Mourn - pour the Balm of Consolation on all the Families who are bowed down past this unexpected impunity!
I take only seen Mr Hallam, who begs I will tell you lot that he volition write himself as soon as his Heart will let him. Poor Arthur had a slight attack of Ague — which he had often had — Order'd his fire to exist lighted — and talked with every bit much cheerfulness as usual — He of a sudden became insensible, and his Spirit departed without Pain — The Doctor endeavour'd to get any Blood from him — and on Exam it was the General Opinion that he could not have lived long — This was also Dr The netherlands's opinion — The business relationship I have endeavour'd to give y'all, is merely what I have been able to gather, but the family of grade are in also great distress to enter into details —

I am, dear Sir —
your very Obt. Servt.

Henry Elton.^[8]

Tennyson broke the news to Emilia and caught her as she fainted.^[7] Gladstone received the news on 6 October: 'When shall I see his like?' he wrote. 'I walked upon the hills to muse upon this very mournful event, which cuts me to the centre. Alas for his family and his intended helpmate!'^[eight]

To his friends, Hallam'southward death came every bit 'a loud and terrible stroke from the reality of things upon the faery building of our youth'^[eight] They remembered him in vivid elegy: he had been 'the almost charming and the well-nigh promising' of his contemporaries; 'his heed was more original & powerful than the minds of us his contemporaries'; 'he had a genius for metaphysical assay', 'a peculiar clearness of perception', and an 'always agile mind'; an 'celestial spirit', 'he seemed to tread the globe as a spirit from some better world; 'his mighty spirit (beautiful and powerful as it had already grown), withal bore all the marks of youth, and growth, and ripening promise.'^[viii] ^[10]

Tennyson said: "He would take been known, if he had lived, equally a peachy man but not every bit a bully poet; he was as about perfection every bit mortal man could be.".^[11]

Gladstone hoped 'that some part of what Hallam has written may be [...] put into a more durable form [...] his letters I call back are worthy of permanent preservation.' Hallam'south father collected together many of his son'southward writings - excluding his letters and poems he thought unsuitable - and published them privately: Remains in Verse and Prose of Arthur Henry Hallam (1834). On being asked by Henry Hallam to contribute to an introduction, Tennyson replied: 'I attempted to draw a memoir of his life and grapheme, but I failed to do him justice. I failed fifty-fifty to please myself. I could scarcely have pleased you lot.'^[10]

Hallam is cached at St Andrew'south Church, Clevedon, Somerset.

In Memoriam [edit]

That Hallam's expiry was a significant influence on Tennyson's poetry is clear.^[eleven] Tennyson defended one of his most popular poems to Hallam (In Memoriam), and stated that the dramatic monologue Ulysses was "more written with the feeling of his [Hallam'southward] loss upon me than many poems in [the publication] In Memoriam". Tennyson named his elder son after his late friend. Emilia Tennyson as well named her elder son, Arthur Henry Hallam, in his honor. Francis Turner Palgrave dedicated to Tennyson his Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics (MacMillan 1861), declaring in the Preface that 'It would take been hence a peculiar pleasure and pride to dedicate what I have endeavoured to make a true national Anthology of three centuries to Henry Hallam'. It can be argued that some of Tennyson'southward other works are linked to Hallam, for example, Break, Break, Break, Mariana, and The Lady of Shalott.

Notes [edit]

^ Anne Isba, Gladstone and women, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006, p.fifteen.
^ ^a ^b Timothy Lang, Arthur Henry Hallam, Oxford Online Dictionary of National Biography, 2005
^ "Hallam, Arthur Henry (HLN827AH)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
^ ^a ^b C. Ricks Tennyson, Macmillan, London, 1972.
^ Tennyson, Hallam (1899). Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir past his Son. London: Macmillan. pp. 36, 861.
^ J.A.Gere and John Sparrow (ed.), Geoffrey Madan's Notebooks, Oxford Academy Press, 1981, at folio 15
^ ^a ^b ^c R. B. Martin Tennyson: The Unquiet Centre, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1983.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f J. Kolb, The Messages of Arthur Henry Hallam, Ohio Land University Press, 1981.
^ H. Hallam Remains in Verse and Prose of Arthur Henry Hallam, 1834
^ ^a ^b H. Hallam Remains in Poesy and Prose of Arthur Henry Hallam 1834
^ ^a ^b H. Tennyson, Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir by His Son, New York, MacMillan, 1897.

Run into as well [edit]

Thomas Chatterton

References [edit]

Blocksidge, Martin, A life lived speedily: Tennyson'southward friend Arthur Hallam and his legend , Sussex Academic Press, 2010 ISBN 978-1-84519-418-5
Jenkins, R. (1995). Gladstone. Macmillan. ISBN0-333-66209-1. pp. xvi–18.
Kolb, J. The Messages of Arthur Henry Hallam 1981 Ohio State Academy Press 0814203000
Martin, R. B. Tennyson; The Unquiet Heart 1983 Clarendon Press Oxford 0571118429
Ricks, C. Tennyson, Macmillan, London, 1972 0333486552
Hallam, H. (ed.) Remains in Verse and Prose of Arthur Henry Hallam 1834
Lang, C. Y. and Shannon Jr. The Letters of Alfred Lord Tennyson 1982 Clarendon Press Oxford

External links [edit]

Arthur Hallam at Find a Grave
Works past Arthur Hallam at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)