CHAPTER V. POET LAUREATE: PATRIOTISM AND POLITICS. "For some cry "Quick' and some cry 'Slow,' But, while the hills remain, Up hill 'Too-slow' will need the whip, -Politics. WORDSWORTH died in 1850, and the question of his successor as Poet Laureate aroused considerable interest. The office was either created under a misconception of a poet's powers, or it was abused. Its actual origin is uncertain. Kings in old days had their minstrels just as they had their fools, and probably the one was esteemed no higher than the other. Skelton was the first actually to bear the title "Laureate," but he used the word simply in the sense of meaning that he had been crowned with bays at the University. Edmund Spenser heads the list of Laureates who had an office and duties assigned to them, and who received payment for writing to order. Samuel Daniel succeeded him, and thereafter came Ben Jonson, whose salary was a hundred marks and a tierce of wine. Who would be a Laureate bold, With his cask of sherry asked Sir Theodore Martin in the "Bon Gaultier" parody of Tennyson's poem on The Merman. As a matter of fact, the cask of sherry is now a myth, for in the time of the "poet Pye" the allowance of wine was commuted for £27 a year. Part of the duty of the Laureates was to write an ode on the monarch's natal day, "his quit-rent ode, his peppercorn of praise," as Cowper scoffingly termed it; but in the time of George III. this absurd practice fell into abeyance. Looking down the list of Laureates one comes across names quite forgotten, and the inevitable conclusion is reached that the office, ridiculous in its inception, has been disgraced by many who held it. Who cares for Whitehead, Pye, Laurence Eusden, Nahum Tate, or Thomas Shadwell?-who respects Colley Cibber or Thomas Warton?—who reads any of their works save in a spirit of curiosity? Yet these are the men who were crowned Laureate. Men like Spenser, Jonson, Dryden, Southey, and Wordsworth, were too great for the office, and the others were too mean. A poet who is willing to sing to order is in truth no poet at all, and if he is unwilling he ought not to have the task forced upon him. Prince Albert's letter to Rogers offering him the Laureateship very cleverly explained why, and under what circumstances, the office was to be retained, "MY DEAR MR ROGERS,-The death of the lamented Mr Wordsworth has vacated the office of Poet Laureate. Although the spirit of the times has put an end to the practice (at all times objectionable) of exacting laudatory odes from the holder of that office, the Queen attaches importance to its maintenance from its historical antiquity and the means it affords to the Sovereign of a more personal connection with the poets of the country through one of their chiefs. I am authorised, accordingly, to offer to you this honorary post, and can tell you that it will give Her Majesty great pleasure if it were accepted by one whom she has known so long, and who would so much adorn it ; but that she would not have thought of offering it to you at your advanced age if any duties or trouble were attached to it.--Believe me always, my dear Mr Rogers, yours truly, ALBERT." "BUCKINGHAM PALACE, "8th May 1850." To this letter Rogers replied-" How can you forgive me, Sir, for having so long delayed to answer a letter which I have had the honour to receive from your Royal Highness? But I was so affected by it as to be utterly unable to do justice to my feelings." In the end he declined the honour. Sir G. C. Lewis proposed that Sir Henry Taylor should be appointed Laureate, on the ground that Tennyson was "but little known." Rogers himself deprecated the appointment of Tennyson and advocated the claims of Charles Mackay. Leigh Hunt, "Barry Cornwall," and Browning all had the suffrages of a section; but the first-named wrote in his Journal-" With regard to the Laureateship, the editor of this journal has particular reasons for wishing to give his opinion on the subject in his own person; and his opinion is, that if the office in future is really to be bestowed on the highest degree of poetical merit, and on that only (as being a solitary office it unquestionably ought to be, though such has not hitherto been the case), then Mr Alfred Tennyson is entitled to it above any other man in the kingdom, since of all living poets he is the most gifted with the sovereign poetical faculty-Imagination. May he live to wear his laurel to a green old age, singing congratulations to good Queen Victoria and human advancement long after the writer of these words shall have ceased to hear him with mortal ears." This noble tribute of a brother-bard may have assisted to bring about the final result; but Tennyson had an admirer also in the Queen, whose heart he had won with The Miller's Daughter, and Prince Albert himself took a conspicuous part in urging Tennyson's claim by merit to the office. Sydney Dobell told the story that a servant, opening the door to a visitor when the poet was out, asked what message she should give. "Merely say Prince Albert called," was the reply. So far as the Laureateship was concerned, however, it seemed likely that Tennyson would have been completely overlooked by the Premier, Sir Robert Peel, who, on learning from Monckton Milnes that "Tennyson was certainly the man," replied, "I am ashamed to say that, busied as I have been in public life, I have never read a line of Tennyson's. Send me two or three of his poems." Milnes selected Locksley Hall and Ulysses. Peel was delighted with both, but especially with Ulysses, and promptly made the appointment. On March 6th, 1851, "Mr Tennyson was presented" at Buckingham Palace. He wore the same court-costume that Wordsworth and Southey had worn before him at their installations, and Sir Henry Taylor in his Autobiography has an amusing story to tell in connection with this. In 1869, when the veteran poet was knighted, he was in great difficulty about a fitting costume in which to do homage, and he wrote, “I have a new cause to lament the loss of my old friend Samuel Rogers. Two successive Poets Laureate went to Court on their appointment in borrowed plumes, and the plumes were borrowed from him. I well remember (how can I forget it?) a dinner in St James's Place, when the question rose whether Samuel's suit was spacious enough for Alfred. The elder poet turned to his man waiting behind his chair. I dare say, Edmund, you remember how Mr Wordsworth wore them when he went to Court; I think it was you who dressed him on the occasion?' 'No, sir, no,' said Edmund, 'it was Mr and Mrs Moxon, and they had great difficulty in getting him into them.' No such suit remains for me, nor, if it did, would the same assistance be available." Monckton Milnes had been Tennyson's best friend, and the Poet Laureate was soon to be again indebted to him for timely service. In Mr Wemyss Reid's account of that remarkable man of letters, an amusing piece of history may be found as to how Tennyson obtained his pension :— "Richard Milnes,' said Carlyle one day, withdrawing his pipe from his mouth, as they were seated together in the little house in Cheyne-row, 'when are you going to get that pension for Alfred Tennyson?' 'My dear Carlyle,' responded Milnes, 'the thing is not so easy as you seem to suppose. What will my constituents say if I do get the pension for Tennyson? They know nothing about him or his poetry, and they will probably think he is some poor relation of my own, and that the whole affair is a job.' Solemn and emphatic was Carlyle's response. 'Richard Milnes, on the Day of Judgment, when the Lord asks you why you didn't get that pension for Alfred Tennyson, it will not do to lay the blame on your constituents; it is you that will be damned.' "Nobody knew better than Carlyle that there was not the slightest danger of Milnes incurring the Divine wrath on this score. As a matter of fact, Peel was already in communication with him on the subject of Tennyson's pension, and very singular were the circumstances surrounding the question. Two applications had been made to Peel for a pension of £200. One was on behalf of Tennyson, a young man in whose glorious future comparatively few in that time believed, whilst the other came from the friends of Sheridan Knowles, the dramatic author, on whose behalf age and infirmity, as well as past services to English literature, were the reasons pleaded. Peel consulted Milnes as to the course which he ought to take, accompanying the appeal by the statement that for himself he knew absolutely nothing either of Mr Tennyson or of Mr Knowles. 'What?' said Milnes, 'have you never seen the name of Sheridan Knowles on a playbill?' "No,' replied Peel. "And have you never read a poem of Tennyson's?' 'No,' was again the answer. Milnes offered the opinion that if the pension were merely to be bestowed as a charitable gift, Sheridan Knowles, infirm and poor, and past his prime, was the proper recipient of it; but that if, on the other hand, it were to be bestowed in the interests of English literature and of the nation at large, then, beyond all question, it should be given to Alfred Tennyson, in order that his splendid faculties might not be diverted from their proper use by the sordid anxieties of a struggle for existence. Peel took the public view of the question, and bestowed the pension upon Tennyson, though it is satisfactory to know that before very long he was enabled to confer a pension of the same amount upon Sheridan Knowles." Of the spiteful letter of Rogers on Tennyson's "unfitness" for a pension nothing need here be said. On a first view it seems inconsistent on the part of a man who had expressed himself strongly on the subject of pensions, and who had exhorted his fellowmen not to Toil for title, place, or touch that he should himself accept both title and pension. But at least the pension was earned, and we know now that Tennyson only consented to be ennobled at the earnest and repeated request of his friend the Premier, Mr Gladstone.1 The new Laureate, immediately on his appointment, 1 See Talks with Tennyson in the Contemporary Review, March 1893. |