Arthur Hallam, a son of that Henry Hallam who is generally alluded to as “the historian”—although it would puzzle most of those airy, allusive folk to name offhand the historical works of which he was the author—would appear to have been _in posse_ an Admirable Crichton. He composed poetry and wrote philosophical essays at a tender age, thought great and improving things, and had already begun to set up as something of a paragon, when death rendered impossible the fulfilment of this early promise. There were at that time some terribly earnest young men, ready and willing—if not realty able—to set the world right. Prophets and seers abounded in that dark first half of the nineteenth century, when religion was at odds with the comparatively new era of steam and machinery. Each one had a panacea for the ills of the age, and each had his own little band of devoted admirers, devoted on condition that he should in his turn spare a little admiration for those who hung upon his words and doings. Prigs and prodigies stalked the earth, preaching new gospels. They formed mutual-admiration societies, wherein each protested how vastly endowed with all the virtues and all the intellect possible was the other; and before they had outgrown their legal definition of “infants” and had come of age and become technically men, were ready with criticisms and appreciations of Virgil, Dante, and Shakespeare, and were laying down the laws of conduct in this life, with speculations upon what awaits us in the next. It was a morbid, unhealthy generation; but at the same time, these sucking philosophers were not without the tradesman instinct, and zealously combined to advertise one another. Thus, the early Tennysonian circle at Cambridge was a Society of Mutual Encouragement, with its eyes well fixed on publicity. How valuable were some of these early friendships may well be guessed from the one outstanding fact that it was Monckton Milnes, afterwards Lord Houghton, one of this circle, who at an early date, when Tennyson himself was little more than a hopeful promise as a poet, procured by his influence with Sir Robert Peel, the then Prime Minister, a pension of £200 a year for his friend. It fortunately proved a wise selection; but in the case of Tennyson’s over-elaborate post-mortem praise of his friend Hallam, we have foisted upon us a very high estimate of one who, although engaged to the poet’s sister, Emily, and thus additionally endeared to him, had not yet proved himself beyond this narrow circle. He was, therefore, no fitting subject for the “rich shrine,” as Tennyson himself styled it, of “In Memoriam,” but should have been mourned privately. The connection of the Hallams with Clevedon was through the mother of Arthur. She was a daughter of Sir Abraham Elton, of Clevedon Court. Arthur Hallam died in Austria, and his body was brought to Clevedon for burial; hence the allusion in the poem, in that metre Tennyson fondly imagined himself had originated: