Of his Cambridge life, 1828-30, two main points stand out: the grievous want he felt of any real stimulus or inspiration in the instruction provided by the authorities; and, secondly, the remarkable group of distinguished men of his own age with whom his college life was passed. As to the first, the scathing lines written at the time, and published with his express consent in the biography, are more eloquent than any description could be. After naming all the glories of the Colleges--their portals, gardens, libraries, chapels, "doctors, proctors and deans"--"all these," he cries, "shall not avail you when the Daybeam sports, new-risen over Albion ..." and the poem ends with the reason: Because your manner sorts Not with this age wherefrom ye stand apart, Because the lips of little children preach Against you,--_you that do profess to teach And teach us nothing, feeding not the heart_. On the other hand, this lack (of official wisdom) was more than supplied by the friends with whom he lived--James Spedding, Monckton Milnes (afterwards Lord Houghton), Trench, Alford, Brookfield, Blakesley, Thompson (afterwards Master), Merivale, Stephen Spring-Rice, J. Kemble, Heath, C. Buller, Monteith, Tennant, and above all Arthur Hallam. Thirty-five years later Lord Houghton justly said of this group of friends that "for the wealth of their promise they were a body of men such as this University has seldom contained." To this should be added the special influence of the "Apostles," to which Society most of these friends belonged, who had organized from the first regular weekly meetings for essays and discussions, where no topic was barred, and speech was absolutely free. The immense stimulus of such discussion to thought, to study, to readiness and power of argument, to widening the range of intellectual interests and literary judgment and appreciation, must be obvious to all. And we must not forget that the years covered by young Tennyson's residence at Cambridge were precisely the period of the keenest intellectual stir and the stormiest political warfare that preceded the great Reform Bill. To return to the poetry. Passing over the purely juvenile _Poems by two Brothers_ printed in his eighteenth year, we have, in 1830, the first book of poems which have partially survived the mature and fastidious taste which suppressed so much of the early work. Even here, half the pieces have been withdrawn, and much of the rest re-written: what remains is rather slight--the Isabels and Claribels and Adelines and Lilians and Eleanores, poems which in some critics' views border on the trivial. Really they should be regarded as experiments in lyric measures: and the careful student will note the signs of the poet's fine ear and keen eye for nature: but the depths were not sounded.