Arthur Hallam, 1828–34

Abstract

Such developments clouded Tennyson’s second year at Cambridge, though his happiness grew, chiefly in friendship with Arthur Hallam. Son of a leading historian, and a close friend of Gladstone at Eton, Hallam had enormous talent; he was an eloquent debater, and a charming enthusiast whose gaiety and idealism were tempered by good sense. More than a year younger than Tennyson, he had spent several months in Italy, where he had fallen under the spell of Italian art and literature, Dante especially, and of an English girl he met at Rome. He entered Trinity in October 1828, and made Alfred’s acquaintance in 1829, perhaps through an exchange of their poems. A sonnet written by Arthur at the beginning of the summer term, implying that Tennyson would have been ‘first of friends in rank’ had not Providence bestowed ‘one perfect gem’ on the writer’s ‘early spring’, expresses confidence in their friendship. The closing line (‘Thou yearner for all fair things, and all true’) gives a clue to their mutual attraction.