The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1875-03-05
Honors to Literary Men.

Mr.. Disraei has not forgotten that his first
steps to fame were through the fowery paths
of literature. A novelist of no mean degree, a
journalist in quiet way, as he once remarked
in public speech, now that he has, to use
Tennysons words, become one of those who
Makes BY force his merit known,
Aud lives to clutch the golden Keys,
TO mould mighty States DEGREES.
And shape the whisper or the throne,
he does not forget his colleagues in literature.
To Carlyle he has offered the CROSS of the Grand
Commander Of the Order Of the Bath, and to
Tennyson a baronetcy. These are very high
honors The Grand Commander of the Order of
the Bath has been bestowed to o few people,
to such men as Bulwer, Lord Stanford de
Radcliffe, Prince Napoleon, and is limited to
only twenty-five for the civil service. 1t is the
next in dignity to the Orders of the Thistle and
the Garter, and therefore when Carlyle declined
it he declined the highest honor, other than
hereditary rank, that England could bestow
upon him. The fact that Carlyle has no inn
mediate descendants probably governed MI
Dsraei in making him the offer, as peerage
would have been o barren compliment to an
old man of nearly eighty, without children.
Tennyson was offered baronetcy, the same
rank bestowed upon Scott. He has declined
it, we understand, as much because he does
not possess the fortune necessary to sustain
the dignity as for any other reason. The
reasons governing Carlyle in declining we do
not know, but we can well understand tho
contempt this scorntul master of humor and
hoyo
like the Collar Of the Bath. He has also ex-
pressed on occasion his dislike to the present
Prime Minister. In one of his latest essays he
speaks of Disraeli in the following fashion:-
Nay. have not . kind OF secret satisfaction OF
the malicious or even the judicial Kind !scnaden-
really it Is justlce-ioy withaD that he they call
.Dizzy" is to do it; that other juggIers of an IN
conscious and deeper type, having sold their poor
mothers body ior mess OF Official pottage, this
clever, conscious juggler steps in. 'Sot, you. my
honorable friends: vii! weigh out the corpse OF
your mother lmother mine she never was, but
only stepmothcr and micn cow. and you shall
nine the superatiye iiebre conjuror. binding
al the great lords, great parties. great interests
of England TO his band In this my country. and
iZed somnolent cattle to sucn sue-dId the world
ever see Jreotte ludtbrium OF such magnitude
before?
Carlyles special grievance was the part
Disraei took in opposing the Reform bill.
But it does seem strange for the Prime Minister
of England to offer the Order of the Bath to
a writer who denounced his ancestry and his
honor in this terrific fashion.
Carlyle and Tennyson are the two men in
England who deserve the highest honors
that can be paid to authors. They
have not dishonored their calling by de-
clining. When man nttains their eminence
he is above such compliments. What peer
age or what decoration would have added
to the fame of Shakespeare? Who thinks of
Sir Walter Scott, tue baronet and who has
forgotten Scott, the novelist? Who cares
about the peerage which fell upon the later
years of Macaulay? Bacon, the philosopher,
is an immortal name, while Lord Verulam, the
title of his peerage, is scarcely mentioned. 1t
is gracious thing, especially on the part of
q Prime Minister like Disraeli, to bestow the
honors in his keeping upon citizens as worthy
and illustrious as Carlyle and Tennyson. At
the same time we cannot but commend the
wisdom which leads these gifted teachers to
prefer the honor that comes through genius to
any that can come through the hands OF a
Queen.