The Dominion. FRIDAY, JULY 18, 1913. THE NEW POET LAUREATE.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1805, 18 July 1913, Page 6

The Dominion. FRIDAY, JULY 18, 1913. THE NEW POET LAUREATE.

The news has come that Dr. Robert Bridges has been appointed Poet Laureate in succession to the late Sir Alfred Austin. It was announced a few days ago that it was not intended to abolish this office, which has been called the one official link between literature and the State. It is also a to the continuity of the nation's life and history. In these -self-sufficient modern davs, we are apt to forget the great debt which we owe to our forefathers, and what we owe to them in literature is more than any man can estimate. Centuries ago King Richard I had his versificaior regis, and Henry 111 appointed Master Henry to a similar _ post. Chaucer, wo are told, was given a pension by Edward 111, and Queen Elizabeth bestowed a similar favour on Spenser. S\(ch poets as these have been called the "volunteer Lauthe first official Poet Laureate being Ben Jonson, who was appointed to tho position in 1617 by Charles I. He was succeeded by Sir William Davenant, and the title was conferred on Dryden in 1670, together with a pension of £300 a year and a butt of canary wine. Coming to more recent times, the position has been held by Southey, Wordsworth, and Tennyson'. Alfred Austin, who died at the beginning of last month, became Poet Laureate in 1896. His selection was the subject of a good deal of adverse criticism, and indeed everyone had to admit that a great gulf yawned between Austin and his immediate predecessors; but it must also be admitted that it was by no means an easy task to make the choice at the time, for the two outstanding men, William Morris and Swinburne, could not be regarded as in any sense Court poets, and they had to be passed over. The Laureate in former days was supposed to write suitable verses for State occasions, but Wordsworth, before accepting the office, made it clear that mere formal lines of this character were not to be expected from him. Tennyson, however,. did some line work dealing with great national events, and it was no easy task to follow such a man. On the death of Austin some people suggested that the office should be done away with, but the Prime Minister thought otherwise. The Times rcccntly stated that "Mn. Asquitu, since the days when lie rehearsed beneath the stars of midsummer in their nocturnal pomp in the garden quad at Balliol, has been a regular devoteo of the double-flute, , He not only knows tho young poets

of the day, but he actually quotes their immortal works. Never surely since the institution of the office have the auguries been so favourable." A multitude of councillors hastened to Mr. _ Asquith's assistance, and, according to the Tablet (London), no fewer than fourteen names were suggested in the newspapers, namely : Eudyard Kipling. W. B. Yeats. Robert Bridges. Thomas Hardy. Henry Newbolt. John. Masefield. William Watson. Airs. Alice Meynell. W. H. Davies. Stephen Phillips. Maurice Hewlett. Richard le Gallienne. Austin Dobson. Alfred Noyes. The Tablet's own choice was MiiS. Meynell, but Mr. Asquith has preferred Robert Bridges. The estimation of a poet's work is so largely a matter of temperament and personal opinion that the appointment of a Laureate cannot be-expected to give universal satisfaction, unless there happens to be one man who stands out unmistakably above all the others, and this unquestioned superiority can hardly bo claimed for Dr. Bridges. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannicd he "stands rather apart from the current of modern English verse, but his work has had great influence in a select circle by its restraint, purity, precision, and delicacy yet strength of expression; and it embodies a distinct theory of prosody." He maintains that English prosody depends on the number of "stresses" in a line, not on the number of syllables, and that poetry should follow the rules of natural speech. His best work is to be found in his Shorter Poems (1890). This, of course, is only one opinion, but it certainly goes to show that Dr. Bridges is a man of ideas, and that his work has a character of its own. He has also made his mark as a literary* critic. It will be interesting to know what his contemporaries have to say about his qualifications for the Laureateship. The man-in-the-strcet has his likes and dislikes in poetry, but finds it difficult to analyse them. He leaves it to 'those who make it their study to explain the why and wherefore.