PATER'S CHAT WITH THE BOYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2199, 23 April 1896, Page 47

PATER'S CHAT WITH THE BOYS.

Alfred Austin : the New Poet Laureate.

Some weeks ago Mr J. A. Johnson, M.A,, wrote on the almost unknown poet, Alfred Austin. Ido not profess to be a poet critic, and in any case I should not think of trying to equal, much less excel, anything Mr Johnson has written, or may write, on poets and their works. Bat I can let you know from my reading what is thought at Home of Austin, whom Mr Johnson wrote about so opportunely. I had no intention of doing so, however, until I read a little booklet, " The Purple East," by William Morris, who, by many was thought to have superior olaims to the laureatesbip.

The British Weekly, which is a wellconducted paper, says of him : — " He is a thoroughly respectable gentleman. , . • He is also an intelligent lover of flowers and the country. As a poet he has no olaim. . ... On the other hand, he can tarn out sonnets of a political colour with facility. He . is. also an expert manufacturer of the loyal odes which have figured so largely in the daily press since Tennyson died." And then fSllows a burlesque piece, manufactured to imitate Mr Austin's style, and entitled " Ode to a New-born Prince." Appended to the poem is a paragraph stating that a very large quantity of this sort of thing ought to be supplied for £100 a year, and there is no doubt that Mr Austin will act with strict commercial honesty, and supply it. Mr Austin's appointment to the Laureateship is looked upon merely as an acknowledgement for political services, and takes us back to the times when, before Tennyson and Wordsworth, not the be3t poet, but the best party versifier had the ohief claim to the laurel. The British Weekly says that so long as this is acknowledged, and that nobody worth speaking about maintains that he has a olaim, it is all right, for we do not wish people to think that we have lost all sense of poetry and all discernment of what is good in literature.