CROWNING KING COLE

Reynard the Fox has been given the Laureate's Chair by the King; Dauber has left the salt sea for the National Muse; King Cole has been given a throne.

The post of Poet Laureate no longer carries with it the obligation of composing odes at the royal command or even celebrating national occasions with a fitting verse. That interpretation of the office is today scarcely entertained outside the United States. When Wordsworth accepted the post he did so with the understanding that nothing of the sort would be required, and he held it on those terms. Tennyson to some extent revised those terms of his own will, and composed a good deal of court poetry.

There are many today who would fill the place with patriotic dullness; John Masefield can, it is to be hoped, pluck the lyre of the Empire with greater else than some of his predecessors. The late Robert Bridges often refused to sing; may his successor follow the same path. There are more things for a Laureate to do than merely to chirp either at the royal or even the national behest. The position is as much one of honor as a lease upon his genius, and should it deprive us of the vigorous Masefield, and give us a patriotic poet in his place, the loss would be greater than the world can afford. Let Reynard the Fox still run in the forest, and Dauber, occasionally at least, set out to sea again.