The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-12-29
A POET AND A POLITICIAN
Queen Victoria's Motives in Making a
Poet Laureate a Baron.
How the Pope's Opposition Helped the Par
nell T~estimonial-A London Divorce
Suit-Temperance Reform.


Correspondence of the Indianapolis Journal.
LONDON, Dec. 15.-Henceforth it must be
Lord Tennyson, for the announcement OF
his elevation to the peerage, doubted by
many and semi-oficially contradicted a week
ago, is this week confirmed on the authority
of the Queen. There are those who find the
immediate motive for this act of royal favor
in a delicate service which the Laureate is
supposed to have performed in connection
with the late lamented John Brown. But
his is rubbish. The facts are that her
Majesty ordered him, some time ago, to pre-
pare a sonnet to Browns memory, and that
Tennysion tried 70 get Mr.. Gladstone to beg
the Queen to excuse him from the task.
Whether the Queen did so, or whether Glad
stone asked her to do so, or whether or not
the onnet has been written, are all, as yet, to
the outside world, matters of conjecture.
But, to associate the comforting upon Tenny-
son of the title he has just received with
such a circumstance as this, is frivolous and
contemplate in the extreme. If the poets
genius, and his simple, noble life do not
furnish a sufficient motive for the act, then
we must look for an explanation of it to
those bonds of loving friendship which have
bound him so long in close and tender init
macy with the two persons from whose con-
Joined good will this last effort to do
him honor has emanated. With the
Queen herself Tennyson has always been a
petted favorite, and the regard in which he
and Mr.. Gladstone have held each other has
been such as to deserve immortalizing in one
of the poets own idylls. To be just, how
ever, we must leave out of the account all
these Interior considerations, and must re-
gard the event as a simple recognition of SUI
perior personal and poetic merit. A charm
ing character is Alfred Tennyson, aside from
anything he has ever ~written-simple as a
child, pure as a saint, noble as a Spartan;
with nothing base or groveling in his nature;
animated by the Hottest purposes, and with
views of the present and future life such as
in the universal ou%tworkiug would make
the world a paradise and mankind fit COM
panions for angelsl As to his literary worth,
You will hear enough OF this from others. 1
have myself never ranked him above Long
fellow, and my observation is that, taken en-
masse, the English people do not. I think.
too, that the American poet is quite as ex-
tensively read here as Tennyson. OF both it
can be said that they have stopped to no low
object and uttered nothing base" AS far
as means are concerned Mr.. Tennyson can
well support the burdens of a peerage. He
lives in magnificent style, though retiring
and economical in personal habits. Besides
his elegant town residence, he has a charm
ing and luxurious country retreat in Surrey,
and another of equal pretensions IN the Isle
of Wight.
= THE POETS PEDIGREE.
The most surprising thing in connection
with Tennyson is the information that has
become public for the first time during the
present week, that he who has been thought
of all along as the son of a country clergy
man has noble and even royal blood in his
veins! His ancestry, we are told, can be
traced backward through a line OF no less
than a bakers dozen of English and Scottish
kingsl What makes this surprising is the
rare modesty and prudence the poet has
shown in keeping the knowledge of his dis
tinguished lineage so long locked up from
the public. In a land where high birth
counts for so much, we might have expected
him to parade the fact of his lofty descent,
and most men in his position would I'M
doubleday have done so. In his course in
this matter he has, however. illustrated most
beautifully his own noble teachings, and
with greater interest now shall we hear him
say:
However it be, it seems 10 me,
TITS only noble to be good.
Kind hearts are more than coronetS,
And simple faith than Norman blood.
Mr.. Parnell, at his Dublin banquet, on
Tuesday, departed somewhat from the path
of moderation he usually pursues in
his public addresses. We are ac-
customed to such language from 9TH
that 1.-THE present Irish executive is charac-
terized by greater incapacity and by greater
meanness than any of its predecessors" and
to have this followed by gross personal abuse
of Lord Spencer and Mr.. Trevelyan was in
the nature of a revelation. Equally surpis-
ing was it to hear Mr.. Parnell boast, with ref
erence to the he leads, that never
was there a movement marked by such an
utter absence of crime and the strong pas
sions which lead to crime" The perplexing
point here is to know whether such violent
language as he used on Tuesday must be
taken as indicating a change of tactics on the
part of Mr.. Parnell, or whether the course
he pursued on that occasion, of claiming ev-
erything and charging everything, was taken
merely to strengthen his hold upon the Irish
masses. If the latter, the English people
will readily forgive his temporary lapse. for
to have the present leader supplanted by
such iDcorrigible fire-eaters as Healey or
Sexton would, they know, be one of the
worst calamities that could befall the two
countries. With Parnell still at the head of
affairs, and maintaining the attitude of APP
proachabieness which has distinguished his
leadership in the past, there is a remote
chance that after a while some compromise
may be effected. but if the reins should fall
into less prudent hands such an
issue would be impossible. 1t
is quite refreshing, on the heels of the Dub
lin banquet, to hear John Bright express the
conviction that "there are those now living
who will see Ireland as contented and happy
~. nc Scnf1nnd u L.. thin r.oAnnnbln .ann L. L I.