Leader Writer, Poet, and Critic.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXV, Issue XII, 22 September 1900, Page 552

Leader Writer, Poet, and Critic.

The appearance of Mr Alfred Austin in the Civil List as having received a pension of £ 200 a year has been the subject of a good deal of comment. Critics, however, should remember that Mr Austin was a Tory leaderwriter before he was Laureate, and perhaps his reward is rather for his labours in the former capacity than for any eminence attained in the poetic line. Still, of course, it is as Laureate that Mr Austin is known now, and it is interesting to recall that he once issued —in IS7o—a book entitled “The Poetry of the Period,” in which he had something to say of his distinguished predecessor in the same office. One quotation will suffice. He wrote: “Tn Memoriam’ will assuredly be handed over to the dust as soon as a generation arises which has come to its senses.” Thirty years hence, what, one wonders, will be the opinion of Mr Austin’s poetry? —“Westminster Gazette.”