CORNISH GOSSIP ABOUT THE POET LAUKEATE.

Thames Advertiser, Volume XXVI, Issue 8087, 1 April 1895, Page 4

CORNISH GOSSIP ABOUT THE POET LAUKEATE.

Mr. Henry Sewell Stones, the clerk of the Cornwall County Council, knew Lord Tennyson some years before ho j became Laureate. How he came to'. be a'guest of Mr. Stokes in 1848,! ■while the latter was still resident at Truro, is a curious tale. Tennyson was very friendly with the Rev. Isaac Hawker, of MorwenBbow, as was Mr. So'> 63. This is how; it came about. One day Tennyson came to. Mr Stokes'office, bub refused j to go upstairs to the room. He, not knowing his host, had come hearing the name of Mr. Hawker as intro-1 duction. Mr Stokes was not over ( eisy in his mind on tho matter, and told the poet that his wife and children were away. This faoj- evidently did not strike the poet as an: obstacle to his visit-, and ho told his host that he would dine at 3 p.m. | At a somewhat later date Tennyson stayed for a while with the Cornish poet, and much can Mr Stokes relate of the Laureate as he appeared in his prime ■ f manhood, quiet and nnassuming in manner, and little known to tho great world of letters. He •was short-sinbted even then, though His affliction would not appear to have seriously increased with advancing years. Even then he could see nothing without glasses. Onco in Cornwall he lost his pipe, a black dudeen, but the lady who found it so treasured her prizo that she would not restore it.

His habits wore of tho simplest, though strange. He would be down punctually at three o'clock of an afternoon, and he was visiblo lrom that time until he wont to bed early or late the next morning. Meanwhile ho would bo discussing all subjects that appealed to his active and imaginative brain. When he bade farewell for the night he entered his room and was not seen again until dinner next day. So his stay in Cornwall was passed Ho drank sherry and smoked continuously. .Whilst thus quietly, lazily lying on the stream of life, being gently carried forward, ho was engaged in writing that grand eulogy to his dead friend, Arthur Hallam, the son of the historian. He had just written some of his earlier published poems, among them "Tho Princess," and hi 1850 was published ' ( InMemoriam,"of which he must have written some part in Mr. Stokes' house at Truro. Meanwhile, though engaged on this masterpiece, he was the best of company,