POETRY THAT PAYS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 281, 1 June 1917, Page 4 (Supplement)

POETRY THAT PAYS.

SMITH GOT £3,000 FOR EIGHT LINKS. When Straclian and Co. took over the publication of Tennyson's* po:ws in tlio sixtu* they agreed 10 pay Tennyson £3,000 a year in respect to the tJooks already issued, and to pay t-lie poet all prof.ts on new work, loss a modest 10 p. i- o.'iit. commission . This item generally meant £6.000 for each new volurae. For many years U'foro his death Tennyson drew" a steady £IO,OOO per annum trom his publishers. Tli/i high.'st price ever paid for poetry was £370 a line, lames Smith, of

"Rejected fame, being the fortunate, recipient. One evening at djnner ho met Richard .Straclian, the Kind's print r, who, although crippled wit!: gout, conversed so brilliantly that Smith sent him the following tribute :

Your lower limbs scorned far from stout When last I saw you' walk : Tho cans.- I presently found out When you began to talk. The power that props the body's strength. In due proportion spread. In you mounts upwards, and the strength All n ettle.s in tlie head.

On rece'ving this Straclian added a (iodicil to his will, leavng the author £3,000 a.s a reward for h's poem.

It is a remarkable fact that no l>ook of poetry published during the last century had a wider circulation than K<'l>!o» '•Christian Year." Between tin year of its publicafon—lS2"—and 1872, IoS editions were issued from the press, j'nd since it ran out of copyright edition.'; both in England and in America have been Iveyond count. It must have been a little gold-mine, not only to its original publishers, but to many ethers, whilst to the author it would hive been a lifelong and considerable income had he not l<e<n such an uusclnsii man that lie declined to take a penny of it. A large part of it, in the early days of its sale, was devoted to the building of Hurslcy Church, which was certainly not built for a sum less than £12,000. It is probable that these, religioui poems have first and hist, realised a total revenue of a quarter of a million bterl'ng.