Alfred Lord Tennyson

Of his friends, Carlyle described him as “dusty, smoky, free and easy”, Thackeray as “a great poetical boa-constrictor.” The Brownings and Millais were others in his London circle, and when he was driven away by the railway and the smell of cabbages, Cameron became a good neighbour. He was godfather to one of Dickens’ sons. Rossetti was a friend, Lear eventually found him querulous and irritating, Carroll said he was so short-sighted that he had to introduce himself, and Hardy wished he’d visited him more. James said he could he could drink a whole bottle of port at a go; Babbage wrote to correct his maths.