THE LAUREATE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 103, 3 May 1930, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE LAUREATE.

BRIDGES' PREDECESSORS. SMALL POETS AND GREAT. \ 7 (By CYRANO.) "It is hard for an Englishman of this generation to take Poets Laureate seriously," wrote an English critic eight years ago. "He can take Dr. Bridges seriously, of course. Indeed, he had better. But that is because he is Dr. Bridges. One can safely say that Dr. Bridges did not become more important to anybody, except the Lord Chancellor's bookkeeper, by becoming Poet Laureate. Perhaps a few people tried to read his poems who had never tried before, but they gave it up. ... The appointment of Alfred Austin killed the Laureateship. It takes much less to kill such an office than to revive it." Mr. Middleton Murry is a critic to be taken seriously, but what ho says here is only half the truth. Dr, Bridges did become more important by being made Poet Laureate, for the simple reason that numbers of people with quite a genuine lsve of literature were through that fact introduced to him. Tennyson had been a gainer through the same distinction. Professor Saintsbury goes so far as to say that the enormous popularity enjoyed by Tennyson in the last forty years of his life was due rather more to the, Laureateship than to the intrinsic merit of his poems. But let us begin at the beginning and trace briefly the history of the Laureateship. The office may be said to have some connection with the times when kings had their minstrels. "Poet Laureate," however, originally meant a distinguished or crowned poet—one crowned with bays—and not necessarily a Court Singer. Chaucer has been considered the first of the Poets Laureate in the more modern sense; he received a pension and a perquisite of wine. But according to a present-day historian of the office Chaucer was so honoured because he was something much more distinguished. He was a Gentleman of the Household, with a taste for poetry, and his pension and his wine were for ordinary services rendered. Spenser received a pension, but no office. Ben Jonson was given £100 a year and a tierce of canary wine for the services of his "witt and penn," and though he was never actually Poet Laureate. Mr. Muray says it is reasonable to regard the office as having begun with him; Dryden was the first man actually gazetted Poet Laureate. He combined the office with that of Historiographer Royal, and eventually was paid £300 —and the • wine. There are few poets who make £300 a year to-day, and £300 was worth far more then than now. Odes to Order. , , After Dryden the Laureateship became ridiculous for two re&sons Among the holders were versifiers of no account, and the custom of writing to order was extended to please the Georges. Shadwell, Nahum Tate, Nicholas Rowe, Laurence Eusden, Colley Cibber, William Whitehead, .Thomas Warfcon and .H.J. Pve —it is not an impressive list. Eusden lives only by a couplet in Pope. Tate has suffered obloquy owing to his version (which he made with Brady) of the Psalms, but he also wrote "While shepherds' watched their flocks by night. Rowe produced the first critical edition of Shakespeare. "I wrote < more to be fed than to be famous," said the candid Colley Cibber. The Georges required two odes in their Honour a year, to ,be sung to music; it was only natural, remarks Mr. Murry, for if the Poets Laureate did not so honour the King, who would? So we come to Pye, whose claim to fame is that he commuted the canary wine into cash, and to poor Southey, who took the office because he wanted the money. Scott declined it, and recommended Southey for that reason. Southey continued the Royal ode custom and drew on himself the wrath of Byron. He held the office for thirty years, and was succeeded by Wordsworth, who stipulated that he should not be required to write formal verses, a fact that should have been remembered by the vulgarians who complained that Dr. Bridges was not earning followed Wordsworth, and the Laureateship entered its period of greatest glory. Not all Tennyson s official utterances were happy, but no other Laureate has so enriched our literature as he did. His first effort, the magnificent Wellington Ode, was _ his greatest, yet it was severely criticised. It was not only that Tennyson was a <n-eat poet, but that he had the temperament required to produce fine "official verse. He wrote well on such occasions because he really believed in what he wa* writing. He believed in the monarchy, in patriotism, in freedom broadening "slowly down from precedent to precedent," and he saw nothing incongruous in expressing his convictions publicly. Tennyson was the professional seer, a poet who not only from choice, but from the deepest conviction, was occupied nth moral and political problems as well as with the pursuit of beauty. He had a for "occasional" verse, as we in the splendid but insufficiently known poem that lie wrote 011 Vergil at the request of the'Mantuans. , .

*************************** v. Lord Salisbury's Joke. The best poet in England would have found if difficult to follow Tennyson, and that poet was disqualified. Swinburne's fiery Republicanism and- his sympathy for "Eve's -| one red star, Tyrannicide," prevented him from being "persona grata" at WindsdV Besides, he was but a shadow, of his young glory. Mr. Kipling was a young writer, and "Recessional" was some years ahead. Lord. Salisbury appointed Alfred Austin. That Austin was or had been a leaderwriter on the Conservative "Standard" seems to have counted more with that cynical old statesman than his voluminous output of verse. That Austin had merit as a poet is indicated by the fact that Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch gives him some pages in his "Victorian Book of English Verse," but the appointment was a joke, which was broadened by Austin s official T>erformances. Then came Dr. Bridget, appointed by Mr. Asquith, who knew a poem when he read one. The news of the appointment must have puzzled many journalists, for Bridges was at that time known only to a select few. Not even hie appointment made him popular, though it has greatly widened the circle of his readers, but there is no question as to the high quality of his best work. Two proofs may be cited. His jaUovr poets acclaimed him as the head of tueir profession, and it may be added that he won their affection as well as tncir esteem. Not long after his appointment the English Association issued, a small anthology called "Poems of To-day, which has gone into many editions, At contains no fewer than eleven examples of Bridges' work. The Future. Will another Laureate be appointed? If it is to' be expected of him that he shall regularly write official odes, let us hope not. Can anyone imagine Mr. Masefield, Mr. de la Mare, or Mi. Blunden celebrating the marriage of the Prince of Wales ? Sir William Watson mi"ht. He has the Tennysonian attitude toward such 'Yings, as witness his noble "Coronation Ode." He has even written sonnets in the grand manner to Mr. Lloyd George. So might Mr. Kipling. If, however, the nation is - wise it' will not expect such service. It will leave the celebration of Royal events to the horde of verse-writers who plague editors. The itch to write occasional verse is more universal than even the urge of spring and love, and the products range from the respectably majestic to the banal: Along the wire the electric tidings came: He is no better, he is just the same. Our King and Queen are never proud, They mingle with the densest crowdGreatest sorrow England ever had When Death took away our dear Dad; A king was he from head to' sole, Loved by his people one and all. There is a strong case for retention of the Laureateship. "The State, let us hope, will recognise the arts far more than it does," says Mr. J. C. Squire. "At present it is entirely engaged in questions of business management and - finance. It is true that, >one must have food to live; it is equally true that man cannot live by bread.. alone. Modern attention has beeii chiefly concentrated upon bread, and it is something that even lip-service should be paid to -Beauty—which is Truth and Good—by the continuance of the Laureate qflice." But he must be a real poet, th'c best poet, and we must leave him alone to follow the dictates of his artistic conscience. •