OF POETS LAUREATE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18577, 8 December 1923, Page 1 (Supplement)

OF POETS LAUREATE.

POSTS AND PAYMENTS.

JIV MATANGA.

Tho rumour that Rudyurd Kipling, to , whom the Conservative Prime Minister is cousin—or should one say that the poet is a cousin of the politician?is to be made Poet laureate, even before Dr. Bridges takes himself off the stage by tho exit ordinarily used by laureates and the rest of us, revives interest in a quaint and romantic office. Quaint and romantic, but hardly illustrious, in spite of the laurela and some of their wearers. Englishmen in this generation are disinclined to tako the Laureateship seriously —when held by others, that is ; some would take it seriously enough, no doubt, for themselves, if only for the tierce of wine that goes traditionally with it. But I that is beside the point. Dr. Bridges j must be taken seriously, no doubt. One i has no option. But that is not because ! he is Poet Laureate : it is because he is j Dr. Bridges. Nobody but tho Lord I Chamberlain's book-keeper regarded him j as more important because of the appointj ment. Perhaps a few more of the blessed j common people, hearing - thus of him for j the first time, tried to read his poetry. | But, alas ! it was not written for them, for all its real worth. There are some I things to which the rising standard of living has not yet lifted the masses. Supposing it had been Rudvard Kipling instead; the masses would then have understood tho Laureate's poems —the poems would have been no worse on that account even have understood the Laureate-ship. Perhaps it is as well that it was not Kipling then; the hymns of hate ho would, have written during the war would have enriched the vocabulary of venom and been unconscionably long in dying. An Officer of the Household. Alfred Austin's appointment reduced considerably the vitality of the office. After Southey, Wordsworth, Tennyson, came this writer of political articles for tho Standard, not unskilled but taking a small size in wreaths, and the office lost its: lustre at his touch. It was ?ver exposed to this risk, indeed, the idea of a national poet, presumably gifted with the divine afflatus, being made " an officer of the Household of the fourth class," is odd, to say the least ol the arrangement. In the eighteentn century he came in ceremonial order immediately before the Royal itat-Catciicr . that was something, whoever of distinction was on ahead. But even that magnificence has vanished, for the Rat-Catcher | has been abolished. There was a time s when any poet might have been glad to fall in behind the Rat-Catcher, let alone take precedence of him. Shakespeare aid not get even that chance, and Burns went without it, and Tom Moore— Tom Moore was but the bard of Erin. Perhaps, though, that was honour enough! In some manuals of literature there is given a list of Laureates. In Professor Broadus' book, published last year by the Clarendon Press, it is analysed to shreds. Most of us thought that the list began with dear old Chaucer. It doesn t. Ho is not even in the list. Our thought of him as father of the Laureates has arisen, no doubt, from the vague recollection that he got a royal gift of a pension and a cask of wine. The tierce of Canary attached to the Laureat'cship has always struck the imagination; andjjerhaps it was the wine that made Ilryden, and others after him, think that Chaucer was their first forerunner. Really, he was something far more distinguished. He was a Gentleman of the Household rendering quite admirable personal services that had nothing to do with poetry, and his pension and the wine were payment for them. In addition, he had a taste for poetry, no great disqualification for anybody, even a Gentleman of the Household. But there was no Poet Laureate in the Royal Household then. There was one at Oxford, and tho memories of poets in official appointments, like Chaucer, and of these laurel-honoured poets of the university, have somehow got mixed. Skslton was such a university laureate. A Confusion of Traditions. In Bernard Andreas, a blind Frenchman attached to the Court of Henry VII., the two traditions were almost inextricably mingled. Apparently ho was a university laureate; as " versificator regis" he received a royal pension; he was also the Historiographer Royal. But he was not Poet Laureate, for even then there was no such office. Spenser and Daniel, whose names are in the accepted list, have no better right to be t* ?i'o than Chaucer or Andreas. Spenser got a pension of £50, but he had no office at all, and Daniel was Licenser of Plays and Groom of the Bedchamber. Even Ben Jonson's claim is shaky. He got in 1616 a pension of 100 marks; it was increased in 1630 to £100 and a tierce of Canary. He wrote many masques for the Court. But his pensions warrant, for all its gratifying terms, makes no mention of the Laureateship. Yet, after the interregnum of the Commonwealth, there grew a practice of calling Jonson by the title now common. It was ascribed to Davenant, too. Unable to recover his pension after the Restoration, Daver.ant had to find solace in the I fact that his title had recognition at Court. ' Six days after his death the Laureate- | ship had its first official announcement; j a warrant was issued " for a grant to John Drvden of the Office of Poet Laurei ate, void by the death of Sir William i Davenant." The wording of the warrant carries the origin of the office back, then, to Davenant, and possibly Ben Jonson. The Pay of the Poet. However, that does not quite solve the mystery. Davenant could not his pension continued at the Restoration, and Dryden was appointed in 1668 to an office without emolument. It was not until 1670, when ho was made Historiographer Royal, that he received his £200 and his tierce of Canary. Hij predecessor as Historiographer had got £200; so the wine seems to have been the poet's portion in Dry-Jon's salary. But not neccijoarilv; it may have been equivalant to a riio in the historiographer's pay. Dryden got a further increase of £100 for boih offices about ten years later. Shadwell succeeded in both offices. But when, in 1691, Thomas Rymer was appointed Historiographerthere's no certain signi- ; ficance in namesand Nahutn Tate, t.he writer of " While shepherds watched their flocks by night," Poet Laureate, it was necessary to fix the separate salaries, s.nd the poet's was made £10° and a pipe of Canary. Pye, Southey's predecessor, demanded the commutation of the wine for its value in money. He got £27. The fate of subsequent pipes is shrouded | in mystery. | The name of the poet's wine was apI propriate enough, but in many instances ' the poets stopped singing as soon as | they "ot it. Many of the Laureates j have not become immortal. Dr. Bridges ! has precedent for his much silence. Lnj dcr George I. the Laureate had to supply ; two odes a year— on the King's BirthI day. the other on New Year's Day, both ; in* honour of the king. In the days of : the Georges this was certainly earning the j money and the wine: who else would ■ have'written the odes? Cibber, writing Ito Pope, said: "I wrote more to be i fed than to be famous." Cowper laughed I at "his quit-rent ode, his peppercorn of j praise" given by the Laureate to the I king. But the Laureate had earned his i annuity, and for the rest went his own sweet way. Southey exalted his office, and Tonnvson adorned it, but Dr. Bridges' way is Wordsworth's; he writes as it pleases him, with little heed of royal occasion. Kipling would certainly not have done less.