University of Virginia Library

I

On October 6, 1865, Tennyson, as his wife records, had begun composing "his new poem of 'Lucretius.'"[4] By the end of 1867, he had brought it close to its final form—the first major work that he had completed in the three and a half years since the publication of the Enoch Arden volume in July, 1864. Throughout his literary career he had always been chary of publishing in annuals and periodicals, and he usually did so only after being importuned. In the first part of 1868, however, "feeling uneasy," according to Sir Charles Tennyson, "at his long lack of contact with the public, and not yet ready with enough poems for a new volume," he published (against his wife's judgment), besides "Lucretius," four poems in journals—"The Victim" in Good Words (January), "On a Spiteful Letter" in Once a Week (January), "Wages" in Macmillan's (February), and "1865-1866" in Good Words (March).[5] The immediate prospect of building a house in Surrey, near Haslemere, as a summer retreat from Farringford, may also have made additional income appealing; and the periodicals paid him handsomely.[6]

There can be no doubt of the urging of publishers and editors. Grove, who for some years had been on cordial terms with the Tennysons,[7] had apparently in the latter part of 1867 solicited a poem from the Laureate and was piqued that Alexander Strahan and the Reverend

Norman Macleod, the publisher and the editor respectively of Good Words, had successfully anticipated him, for on December 23 he informed Macmillan, Macmillan replied the next day, "I am so glad about Tennyson. But for any sake secure them for February" (Add. MSS. 55387(2), fol. 804). An advertisement of the January number of Good Words spurred Grove to write again on Saturday, December 28, "A. T. is making himself very common: I notice a poem announced by him for Good Words. We will talk about it on Monday and see if it will be worth while for me to run down to Farringford" (Add. MSS. 54793, fol. 19). They decided that he should go, and from his residence in Lower Sydenham, he notified Macmillan on January 1, 1868, "The Tennysons will be very glad to have me . . . ." He would have set out for the Isle of Wight that morning; but the day was bitter cold, and he was "pinned—fairly floored" with lumbago (Add. MSS. 54793, fol. 23). He contrived to reach Farringford the next day, on Thursday, January 2, stayed over Friday, and returned on Saturday with Tennyson's commitment not only for "Wages" but for "Lucretius." A letter to his brother-in-law, George Granville Bradley, expresses his satisfaction: Macmillan wrote Tennyson promptly and cordially on Monday, January 6, confirming Grove's arrangements:

Tennyson, recognizing that the style and subject matter of "Lucretius" might be too unconventional for the proprietor of a leading magazine to accept, replied on Wednesday, in a previously unpublished letter, now in the library of Yale University:

On January 11, Macmillan gratefully acknowledged receipt of the manuscript of "Wages" and commended its "very noble and true idea fitly expressed," though he ventured to wish that another stanza "could have been added" and, in the second line of the poem, preferred the first reading to its emended wording ("Paid with a voice flying by to be lost in an endless sea"). The expression "flying by" struck his ear as "too light a sound in the middle of a line" (Add. MSS. 55387(2), fol. 875).[10] On the same date, declaring that the poem "really is very fine," he passed the MS to Grove, who responded the next day, ". . . there is enough in these 10 lines for a whole No. . . . I have sent the Poem to Clay [Richard Clay, Macmillan's printer] . . ." (Add. MSS. 55387(2), fol. 875, and 54793, fols. 40-40v).

By Tuesday, January 14, Macmillan or Grove had received a subsequent letter from the poet containing the additional short poem that he had mentioned previously but also conveying the ominous likelihood that he could not let them have "Lucretius." This undated letter (presumably written on January 12 or 13), now in the Tennyson Research Centre, Lincoln, and here first published, reads as follows:

Macmillan consulted his lawyer, John Hopgood, forthwith and assured Grove on January 14 of the solicitor's having

The publisher was evidently so confident of allaying Tennyson's fears that he promised in a letter to James T. Fields on the same date, "Lucretius you shall have in good time" (Add. MSS. 55387(2), fol. 889); and on January 17, he informed Grove, "I sent off the Büchner to Tennyson last night. I hope you got Hopgoods written opinion which you might forward to Tennyson. I can't see the least difficulty in arranging matters so as to prevent the annoyance he anticipates" (Add. MSS. 55387(2), fol. 900).[12]

An undated letter, written within the following week, indicates that Macmillan's and Grove's efforts had gone far toward eliminating the poet's reservations and that his wife was copying the MS for the press:

Although there is no record in Tennyson's letter diary or in Emily Tennyson's journal, from a letter of January 18, Grove to Macmillan, the Laureate seems to have been at Grove's house on the afternoon of that date; and Grove added in a postscript, "hand a copy of Hopgoods letter to T. tonight" (Add. MSS. 54793, fol. 26). If Macmillan was able to do so, Tennyson should finally have been reassured, but the correspondence between publisher and editor indicates that after this date they were still awaiting a final clearance for "Lucretius" from the poet (Add. MSS. 55387(2), fol. 927). On Friday, January 24, Grove had in hand the MS that Emily had transcribed and, not wishing to delay further, reported to Macmillan, "No news from A. T. yet I shall send the MS. to the Printer on Monday" (Add. MSS. 54793, fol. 45v).

By Monday, however, Grove had received a letter from the poet's wife, and there was a new complication—Tennyson might wish to publish "Lucretius" in a volume of poems before the agreed-upon twelve months subsequent to its appearance in Macmillan's were out. Grove that day brought this letter personally to Macmillan, who at once wrote

graciously to Mrs. Tennyson, saying that he would "not feel it any grievance" if the poem came out in a volume "two or even three months short of the year." He also told her that he and Grove had decided to hold "Lucretius" back until the May issue of the magazine, though "the temptation to let the world have that noble poem is very great. How grand it is!" Now that the February issue of Macmillan's was ready to appear, he enclosed a check for "Wages," which, he added, "we all like exceedingly" (Add. MSS. 55387(2), fol. 950).

With what seemed to be the final impediment removed, Grove, on Tuesday, committed the MS to the printer with the following instructions written on the covering leaf:

Clay's compositors worked swiftly, and it is reasonable to assume that the printer returned the MS and the galley proof which Grove had ordered no later than Thursday. Certainly by the week end (as subsequent letters from Grove and Macmillan, February 2 and 3, verify) the poem was in type, and the MS was again in Grove's possession. Whether or not he sent the galley proof to Tennyson, or whether, if he did, it reached the poet before he left Farringford on Friday, January 31, for Haslemere, to fix the site of Aldworth, his new house, cannot be determined (Memoir, II, 52).

In any case, the very day that Grove dispatched the MS to Clay, he turned his attention to the best way to announce the poem's forthcoming publication—so as to build anticipation and sales—and proposed to Macmillan that they seek to get a notice into the Athenaeum or the Pall Mall Gazette. Enclosing a draft to that purpose, he invited the publisher's revisions (Add. MSS. 54793, fols. 42-42v). Macmillan preferred The Times as the appropriate vehicle, and Grove agreed on Thursday, January 30, to try to place the announcement through George Webbe Dasent, the assistant editor. In the same letter, however, he shared the disquieting information that Tennyson's friend and editorial collaborator in The Golden Treasury (1861), Francis Turner Palgrave, "thoroughly" disapproved "of Lucretius being published in a Magazine I hope to G—he wont ['put h' deleted] unsettle Tennysons mind. He's quite capable

of it—" (Add. MSS. 54793, fol. 28).[15] Having acted vigorously by writing Palgrave to forestall this latest threat, Macmillan responded the following day, "I hope what I have said may keep him from troubling Tennyson. Payne is trouble enough" (Add. MSS. 55387(2), fol. 968).[16] By Saturday he could enclose Palgrave's response and say, "I think he will not do any harm now" (Add. MSS. 55387(2), fol. 974).

Then on Sunday, just as all looked propitious, the blow fell. Tennyson arrived in Town; and when Grove had a long talk with him, he was determined not to publish. The editor wrote Macmillan that night in great annoyance:

Macmillan was not a man to surrender his prize easily. Upon receiving Grove's message on Monday, February 3, he wrote immediately to Lushington in Edinburgh as follows:

Lushington's prompt answer regrettably does not appear in the Macmillan archives, but its tenor can easily be guessed from the publisher's reply dated February 6:

With Lushington's opposition removed, Macmillan was able to mollify Tennyson. Since the poet remained in London until Sunday, February 9, before going on to Cambridge (Emily Tennyson's MS journal, Tennyson Research Centre), the publisher doubtless did so face to face, and by using much the same arguments and assurances that had placated Lushington. With publication of the poem finally certain, attention can now be turned to the textual development revealed in the MSS and the proofs and to subsequent correspondence pertaining to the latter.