It may not be widely known that Baron Tennyson has a splendid lineage, of which he has modestly kept silent, unlike Byron. According to a writer in the _St. James' Gazette_, who traced his ancestry back to Norman times, Tennyson is descended from an illustrious house of "princes, soldiers, and statesmen, famous in British or European history." Some of his remote relatives were crowned heads--one being the celebrated Malcolm III. of Scotland. In Tennyson's descent "two lines are blended," says Church, "the middle class line of the Tennysons, and the noble and even royal line of the D'Eyncourts."[9] Alfred's uncle, the Right Hon. Charles Tennyson-D'Eyncourt of Bayons Manor in Lincolnshire, was a man of marked ability and culture, who held various public offices, and represented several boroughs in parliament from 1818 to 1852. Since his death, in 1861, the family estate has successively passed to his three sons--George Hildyard, Admiral Edwin Clayton, C. B. (1871), and Louis Charles (1890), the present inheritor of the D'Eyncourt seat and dignity. The poet's last years have been clouded by the bereavement of many old friends and relatives. Septimus, Charles,[10] Mary,[11] Emily,[12] and Edward are dead. He suffered a severe blow in the death of his second son Lionel, while on the homeward voyage from India.[13] He mourns his loss in the touching stanzas--"To the Marquis of Dufferin and Ava." Lord Tennyson was the recipient of many congratulations on the occasion of his eightieth birthday, August 6, 1889. The same year was marked by the publication of a new volume of poems, which attest that his intellectual vigor is unimpaired by age or bodily weakness. A dainty little poem of his--"To Sleep"--was published in the _New Review_ for March, 1891, and it is not improbable that others will see the light in the near future. Tennyson's health, though quite robust for an octogenarian, has been broken of late. In the spring of 1890, he was troubled with a grievous illness, the result of exposure to cold--he having persisted in taking his "daily two hours' walk along the cliff" in all kinds of weather. It was expected that the poet would spend the following winter in the South to avoid the rigorous climate of the Isle of Wight, but he recovered sufficient strength to remain at Farringford House amid the scenes he loves so well.