Rose at 6. ― Wrote to F.L. & others. Letter from Dr. Henry. Outlined & coloured all the morning. At 2, letter to say the packages are on their way. I went out ― to Pantechnicon1 ― & to Mrs. Beadon’s, whom I saw. Returned, & walked to Zoo’s gardens. Saw there Thomson of other days. Then to Dr. Rimbault’s, where I played & sang variegated music.

Drawing of the front of the Pantechnicon's northern building

Back, & tried to find Penrose ― but could not. Home ― dressed ―. No boxes yet. ― “One single sketch beneath a hill” ― viz. ― Mt. Lebanon, seems lost: ― whether it may turn up in the boxes or not, chi sa?2 Lovely warm dry. At 6½ walked to Beadon’s, meeting J. Godley at the Corner of Portman Sqr. Whom I was very glad to see ― & am to go to tomorrow. At 9 Stratford Place was noch ein anderer3 Cockburn ― & nephew, & a very nice fellow. All the evening there passed very pleasantly. Only there is still a look of nearness to death in W.B. which frightens me at times ― & I cannot think he can be alive in 10 years hence, if even half as long. ― After dinner, I sang on that splendid piano ― & far better than usual. ―

1.    The Warrior ―
2.    Break break break
3.    Come not when I am dead
4.    When thro’ the Land
5.    The time draws near ―
6.    O! let the solid ground ―
7.    O! that t’were possible

These are the 7 songs I wish to put down. ―4

Came away at 10½.

No Μποξες5 yet. ―

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

  1. The Seth Smith brothers, originally from Wiltshire, were builders in the early 19th century and constructed much of the new housing in Belgravia, then a country area. Their clients required storage facilities and this was built with a Greek style Doric column façade, and called Pantechnicon, Greek for “pertaining to all the arts or crafts.” [↩]
  2. Italian, “who knows?” [↩]
  3. German, “yet another” (Helen Schinske): [↩]
  4. Poems and Songs by Alfred Tennyson, set to music and inscribed to Mrs Alfred Tennyson by Edward Lear, London, Cramer, Beale & Co., 1859, reprints four settings first published in 1853 and only adds five new ones: ‘Home They Brought her Warrior Dead’, ‘As through the Land at Eve We Went’, ‘Come Not When I am Dead’, ‘O Let the Solid Ground not Fail’, and ‘The Time Draws Near’. [↩]
  5. “Boxes” written in Greek letters. [↩]