Note 12a — Chapter I · EARLY YEARS

“Eothen,” p. 33. Reading “Timbuctoo” to-day one is amazed it should have gained the prize. Two short passages adumbrate the coming Tennyson, the rest is mystic nonsense. “What do you think of Tennyson’s prize poem?” writes Charles Wordsworth to his brother Christopher. “Had it been sent up at Oxford, the author would have had a better chance of spending a few months at a lunatic asylum than of obtaining the Prize.” A current Cambridge story at the time explained the selection. There were three examiners, the Vice-Chancellor, a man of arbitrary temper, with whom his juniors hesitated to disagree; a classical professor unversed in English Literature; a mathematical professor indifferent to all literature. The letter g was to signify approval, the letter b to brand it with rejection. Tennyson’s manuscript came from the Vice-Chancellor scored all over with g’s. The classical professor failed to see its merit, but bowed to the Vice-Chancellor, and added his g. The mathematical professor could not admire, but since both his colleagues ordained it, good it must be, and his g made the award unanimous. The three met soon after, and the Vice-Chancellor, in his blatant way, attacked the other two for admiring a trashy poem. “Why,” they remonstrated, “you covered it with g’s yourself.” “G’s,” said he, “they were q’s for queries; I could not understand a line of it.”