POET LAUREATES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 9 November 1927, Page 10

POET LAUREATES

Though many of the . ancient kings of England had their official minstrels, and’ Spenser, Ben Jonson/and Davenant are / usually regarded as Laureates, the office really began with the . appointment of Drydenj in. 1669. Jonson certainly received, a pension and the butt of canary • wine associated with the office, but the appointment of Drvden was the first official recognition of the laureateship. Dryden, deposed after the Revolution of 1689, was followed by a long line of nonentities. Nahum Tate, who aroused the hilarious scorn of Pope and Swift, is only remembered by his carol, “While shepherds watched their flocks,” while ' L. Eusden, lives in Pope’s fierce description—“a parson much bemused in beer.” It Was not until Wordsworth accepted the post in 1843 that a major poet graced the position. Gray refused the job with a contemptuous “I would rather.be ser-geant-trumpeter or pjnmaker to the palace.”