The San Francisco call., 1896-01-01
For Over Three Years the Office
and Title Had Been
Vacant.
OTHER TITLES CONFERRED.
Sir Frederick Leighton and Henry
Hucks Gibbs Elevated to the.
Peerage.

LONDON, Eng, Dec. 31.-In accordance
with the usual custom of comforting hon
ors on the occasion of the New Year, the
Queen has elevated to the peerage Sir
Frederick Leighton, president of the
Royal Academy, and Henry Hucks Gibbs,
formerly a member Of the House of Com
mons and later director of the Bank OF
England, and has knighted the Hon. H.
7. T. Crease, Senior Puisne Judge of Brit
ish Columbia. Henry Ii. Gibbs has been
large donor to the purse of the Conserva-
tive party.
Her Majesty also appointed Alfred Aus
tin poet laureate, an Office which has been
vacant since the death OF Lord Tennyson
on October 6, 1892.
Alfred Austin, the new poet laureate, is
poet critic and journalist He was born
at Headingley, near Leeds, May 80, 1885.
His father was merchant and magistrate
of the Borough of Leeds, and his mother
was the sister of Joseph Locke, the emf
nent civil engineer and member of Parlia-
ment for the Borough of Honiton, of
which he was lord of the manor. Both his
parents being Roman Catholics, he was
sent to Stonyhurst College and afterward
to st. Mary's College, Oscott. From
Oscott he took his degree at the University
of London. In 1858 and in 1857 he was
called to the bar of the Inner Temple
But the publication, although anonymous
ly, of poem entitled Randolph" when
he was IS years of age, showed the bent of
his disposition, and it may be stated, on
the authority of Mr.. Austin himself, that
he ostensibly embraced the study of law
only in Difference to the wishes of his
parents, and from his earliest years was
imbued with the desire and determination
to devote his life mainly to literature.
The expression of this resolve is found
in a novel written and published while he
was yet a minor. On the death of his
father, in 1861, he quilted the Northeast
Circuit and went to Italy. His first ac-
knowledged volume of verse, 1.-The Sea-
son, a Satire" appeared in 1861. A third
and revised edition of ''The Season" ap-
peared in 1869. His other poetical produc-
tions are: THE Human Tragedy" 1852
republished in an amended form in 1876
and again finally revised in 1889; '"The
Golden age, q SATIRE 1871; '1nterludes, -
1872; "Rome's Death" 1873; siMadonna's
Child" IN 1873 1.-The Tower of Babel, a.
Drama" in 1874; "Leszke, the Bastard,
Tale of Polish Grief" 1877; "Savonarola, a
Tragedy" 1881; "Soiloquies in Song"
"At the Gate of the Convent Loves
Widowhood, and Other Poems" ;" prince
Lucifer" and English Lyrics" all pub
lished between 1881 and 1890.
He has published three novels-"Five
Years of It," 1858; 'An Artists Proof"
1864, and won by Head" 1866; also
1.-THE Poetry OF the Period" reprinted
from Temple Bar, 1870, and "a Vindication
of Lord Byron" 1862 occasioned by Mrs.
Stoves article, 1.-THE True Story of Lord
Byron's Life
He has written much for the London
Standard and for the Quarterly Review.
During the sittings of the Ecumenical
Council of the Vatican he represented the
Standard at Rome, and he was a special
correspondent of that journal at the head
quarters of the King of Prussia in the
Franco-German war.