"SHOULD BE ABOLISHED"

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 11, 12 July 1930, Page 29

"SHOULD BE ABOLISHED"

When Sir Walter Scott was offered the poet laureateship by the Prince Recent in 18.13 he found himself in a quandary, writes Helen Macgregor in the '.'Weekly Scotsman." He had a rooted aversion to the idea of producing two compulsory odes a year,- yet, on the other hand, the £300 or £400 a

year, which he thought was tho emolument attached to tho' laureateship,' would have meant extra comforts for his family. He also was afraid that tho Prince would be insulted .if the offer was refused, so he decided to write and ask the Duke of Buccleuch 's views on the matter.

Buccleuch said he would be mortified to see Scott accept a situation "which by general concurrence of the world is stamped ridiculous." He assured Scott that if his muse was trammelled he would never be able to write poetry of the quality of Marmion, and, ho added as a dreadful warning, "Only think of being chaunted and recitatived by a pareol of hoarse and squeaking choristers."

Scott on receiving the letter of the duke, which leally echoed his own opinions, Wote a courteous refusal, saying that he felt he could not really do justice to the Prince's choice, and he suggested that Southey should be elected instead. From other letters Scott wrote to his friends at the time, however, it is easy to see what his real opinions about the laureateship were. He said that tho necessity of writing under order twice a year was a difficulty which nobody with any poetical character to lose should face,

SCOTT-'ON LAUREATiESHIP

and he maintained that he would find it unbearable to

"Some half meaning half disguise,

And utter neither truth nor lies." Ho said that he would do justice neither to the Prince's choice nor himself if ho, wrote to order, and if he accepted the laureateship without hope of doing something better than writing milk and water verses about "natal day" and "new born day."

It was Scott's contention that tho laureateship should be abolished, because, he said, it was an "absurd and ridiculous usage of compelling a poor devil to writo bad verses twice a year by way of honouring royal family and ministry for time being." -He said that so long as tho compulsory odes system was continued it would be difficult to get a man of real talent to undertake tho office unless for more love of salary. , Ho said that the iaurcateship should bo for thoso who derived money from ho other source than literature, and ho felt that if he accepted it he would be accused of being greedy. As it so happened, the salary was only about a quarter, of what Scott 'thought it was. On Scott's recommendation Southey was awarded the laureateship, and he was tho first to hold that office who was not compelled to write an annual birthday ode, thereby paving the way for tho late Sir Eobert Bridges, who wrote only when he felt the urge, and not on those occasions when the public thought ho should justify the position of "State poet" which he ! held.