The warrant for Lord Tennyson’s appointment as Poet-Laureate declared that he was “to have, hold, exercise and enjoy all the rights, profits and privileges of that office; and the salary which he received was said to be £72 yearly. His official productions were not numerous, but their excellence was unchallenged. In 1851 he dedicated a volume of poems to the queen, and his Epic of Chivalry was most beautifully dedicated to her kingly, kindly husband. His ‘Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington’ is of itself sufficient to stamp the poet’s force upon the office. The ‘ Welcome to Alexandra,’ and ‘A Welcome to Marie Alex- androvna,’ are manifestos of his official dignity, written with his characteristic grace and good taste.
“The laurel greener from the brow
Of him that uttered nothing base”
has gained new beauty, new verdure, from the brow of the favorite among the Victorian poets, who died on a calm, moonlit evening in early October, with the winds sighing a requiem through the trees that surrounded his home. No artificial light lent a glare to the peaceful scene; only the soft, silvery moonbeams dispelled the darkness and encircled the pale features of the dying man with a halo of serenity. His life was all gentleness; his death the fitting sequel to such a life.
Among his country’s honored dead he sleeps, in her vast fune- ral pile, — his countrymen, from the sovereign upon the throne to the tradesman in the shop, uniting to do him reverence. While the choir chanted the last melody framed by his mortal lips, he was borne to the Poet’s Corner, where his place, in death as in life, is by the side of his cherished fellow-singer. Within the casket was placed a copy of Shakespeare, the last volume held by his trembling fingers. There
“In the vast cathedral leave him ;
God accept him, Christ receive him.”
Charlotte Newell.
