He led a polka-round his skull And then-he went and changed his shirt! And so he drove a thriving trade, Of masques, his fortune thas he made. The In Memoriam verses are scarcely so good, I will, therefore, only quote the first and the last: RICHMOND, 1855. I HOLD it truth, when I recall Last London's season's joyous spell, 'Tis better to have danced not well. Than never to have danced at all. In 1856 a little sixpenny pamphlet was published by J. Booth, of Regent Street, entitled Anti-Maud, by a Poet of the People. Tennyson had been accused of fanning the warlike spirit then rampant in the land, and his Maud contained -in exquisite poetry-many of the stock arguments in favour of war and glory. The "Poet of the People," in his Anti-Maud, adopted the other, and less popular view. Read in the light of subsequent events this scarce little pamphlet seems more correct in its deductions, than the Laureate's war cry in Maud. The author asserts that Anti-Maud is not merely a jeu d'esprit, but something of a more earnest character, and he disclaims any intention of depreciating the Laureate's poetry. I can quote a few only of the best of the fifty odd stanzas: ANTI-MAUD. I hate the murky pool at the back of the stable yard, For dear though it be to the ducks and geese, it has an unpleasant smell; If you gaze therein at your own sweet face, the reflection is broken and marred, And echo, there, if you ask how she is, replies, "I feel very very unwell." was France, next it was Russia, and latterly some of his writings have been well calculated to revive our long forgotten animosity to Spain. In so doing Tennyson has narrowed the circle of his admirers, for war is far from being the popular game it once was; and the poet, who would be loved of all, should avoid controversial topics. The Laureate's patriotic muse has certainly sung a few noble songs, but many which have been deservedly ridiculed; in his official capacity he has written some of the most exquisite lines in which adulation of Royalty has ever been expressed; for whilst we know that his laurelled predecessors credited the Stuarts and the Georges with precisely the same virtues which he has ascribed to members of the present Royal Family, their official poems were laughed at at the time, and are now forgotten; whilst his have been greatly admired, especially in high quarters, and the coronet which is to reward his poetical loyalty confers on him, and the latest of his descendants, a perpetual title to rule over the people of Great Britain. All honour to the Poet, as Poet, as a titled Legislator the choice rather reminds one of the saying of Beaumarchais' hero;-" It fallait un calculateur, ce fut un danseur qui l'obtint," a saying which I may perhaps be allowed to parody thus :-" Il fallait un Legislateur, ce fut un chanteur qui l'obtint." THE LAST PEER. "Is not a poet better than a lord?" Robert Buchanan. Blood on their heads, and blood at their doors; the blood of our own brave men, The blood of the wretched serfs who fight for their Faith and their Czar. 46 I have quoted so much of this parody because it was one of the first to draw attention to the Laureate's love for the pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war, a bellicose spirit which breathes quite as fiercely in his later writings, as in his early songs; in all cases, indeed, where he has attempted any Patriotic poem, the main idea seems to be a bloodthirsty hatred of some Alfred the Loved, the Laureate of the Court, And as they voyaged homeward to the shores "We are but Commoners, both you and I,” Then Alfred sate him down, his good grey hairs "Turn, Gladstone, turn thy followers into lords, 'Tis mine alone, and mine shall always be. Turn into lords the owners of broad lands, Leave the name that all the people know. Made by myself, and not by station, great.” Could scarce distinguish his resolves from doubts, And one who knew the name, and honour'd it, *The song in Enid, here alluded to, runs thus: Turn, fortune, turn thy wheel and lower the proud; Smile and we smile, the lords of many lands; O fair, full name, o'er which I used to dream, Until they came, a Kingdom's pride, with thee; But he, the poet, listened, and was dumb, From The Echo, Dec. 7, 1883. Nothing yet written about this unpopular title (which jars on the ears of the people), approaches the severity of the following caustic parody which appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette, 12th December, 1883: BARON ALFRED VERE DE Vere. Of me you win no new renown; And cockneys when you came to town. The last of some six hundred Earls Baron Alfred Vere de Vere, We thought you proud to bear your name, Your pride is yet no mate for ours, Too proud to think a title fame. We hail the genius-not the lord: We love the poet's truer charms. A simple singer with his dreams Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms. Baron Alfred Vere de Vere, I see you march, I hear you say, "Bow, bow, ye lower middle classes!" Is all the burden of your lay. We held you first with at a peer, And princely by your noble wordsThe Senior Wrangler of our bards Is now the Wooden Spoon of lords. Baron Alfred Vere de Vere, You put strange memories in my bend; For fast five decades now have fiv Since we all mourned young Arther dead Oh, your wet eyes, your low replies! Our tears have mingled with your tears: To think that all such agony Baron Alfred Vere de Vere, Our England has had poets too : Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere? Baron Alfred Vere de Vere, Robe, now your bays are sere and spent : The King of Snobs is at your door, To trace your long (and deep) descent. And rich on forty pounds a year; Trust me, Baron Vere de Vere, When nobles eat their noblest words, The grand old gardener and his wife Smile at the airs of poet-lords. Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 'Tis only noble to be good. Plain souls are more than coronets, And simple lives than Baronhood. I know you, Baron Vere de Vere: Is wearied with the flood of praise. You needs must play such pranks as these. Alfred, Alfred Vere de Vere, If Time be heavy on your hands, Are there no toilers in our streets, Nor any poor in all these lands? Oh! teach the weak to strive and hope, Or teach the great to help the low, Pray Heaven for a noble heart, And let the foolish title go. For the curious in such matters I give the following extract from the St. James's Gazette relating to Mr. Tennyson's lineage:-That Mr. Tennyson comes of an ancient house is generally known; not every one perhaps is aware of the number of princes, soldiers, and statesmen, famous in British or European history, from whom he can claim descent. Without pretending to give an exhaustive list of his royal and noble ancestors, it may be interesting at the present moment to point out a few of the more renowned among them. The Laureate's descent from John Savage, Earl Rivers (from which stock came Johnson's friend), implies descent from the Lady Anne, eldest sister of Edward IV., and so from sixteen English kings-namely, the first three Edwards, Henry III., John, the first two side, Ethelred the Unready, Edgar the Peaceable, Edmund I., Edward the Elder, Alfred, Ethelwulf, and Egbert, But Edward III. was the son of Isabella, daughter of Philip the Fair, King of France, who descended from Hugh Capet, and nine intervening French Kings, among whom were Robert II., Philip Augustus, Louis VIII., and St. Louis. The last is not the only saint who figures in this splendid pedigree. The mother of Edward II. was Eleanor, daughter of Ferdinand III., King of Castle and Leon, who was canonized by Clement X. Again, through the marriage of Edmund of Langley, Duke of York, with Isabel, daughter of Peter the Cruel, Mr. Tennyson descends from Sancho the Great and Alphonso the Wise. Other crowned ancestors of the poet are the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, and several Kings of Scotland, notably Malcolm III. and the "gracious Duncan," his father. In truth, the Shakespearean gallery is crowded with portraits of his progenitors-e.g., besides those already mentioned, John of Gaunt, Edmund Mortimer Earl of March, Richard Earl of Cambridge, Richard Plantagenet "the Yeoman," Edmund Beaufort Duke of Somerset, Lord Hastings (of the reigns of Edward IV. and Richard III.), and Lord Stanley. Mr. Tennyson is not only descended from the first Earl of Derby and that third earl with whose death, according to Camden," the glory of hospitality seemed to fall asleep," but from the "stout Stanley" who fronted the right of the Scots at Flodden, and whose name in Scott's poem was the last on the lips of the dying Marmion. "Lord Marmion," says Scott, "is entirely a fictitious personage: but he adds that the family of Marmion, Lords of Fontenay in Normandy, was highly distinguished; Robert de Marmion, a follower of Duke William, having obtained a grant of the castle and town of Tamworth. This Robert's descendant, Avice, married John, Lord Grey of Rotherfield, one of the original Knights of the Garter, whose great-granddaughter became (in 1401) the wife of John, Lord D'Eyncourt, another ancestor of Mr. Tennyson's; whose uncle, the Right Honourable Charles Tennyson, many years Liberal member for Lambeth, assumed the name of D'Eyncourt by royal licence." Probably the learned compiler of this abstruse genealogy has no time to study the poets, or he might have read of one who claimed an even more ancient descent: NOBLES and HERALDS, by your leave, Here lies, what once was, MATTHEW PRIOR, The son of ADAM and of Eve, |