bility greatly. The father's debts amounted to over fifty thousand pounds, but as these were not chargeable to the estate one might suppose Pye would have quietly taken possession of his inheritance and left the debts alone. But his honourable nature prompted him to do far otherwise. He assumed the whole burden of these debts. Other misfortunes came swiftly on the heels of this one; and Pye was at last forced to sell his paternal estate. Some biographers have said that the estate was sold to meet the heavy expenses of Pye's own election to the House, but this is not so. The whole action of the poet tends to raise him in the estimation of all who can appreciate devotion to duty. Respectable in everything but his poetry, we must be sure to remember that! "I would rather be thought a good Englishman than the best poet or the greatest scholar that ever wrote," Pye once said. He had his wish. He was a man of culture and a scholar of distinction, but the world does not consider him a great poet: noble, sincere, a man of high principle-an Englishman in the truest and the highest sense he must be considered. It is well to emphasise this fact about Pye's financial affairs, as even the writer in the Atlantic Monthly articles attributed Pye's appointment as laureate to his having spent a fortune in electioneering for the ministers of state. But he never had the pleasure of feeling he had a fortune to spend. It had gone into a bottomless abyss. He learned from his father's errors and misfortunes many a lesson which helped him in his own life. By economy and thought he lived upon a small amount, and he even maintained his household in comfort, sometimes in elegance. A country magistrate, then elected a member for Berks, his political services commanded respect. Then he afterwards became Police Magistrate of London. He divided his time between his books, his parlimentary and judicial duties, and the outdoor sports in which he took keen delight. His domestic life was pure and happy, his wife a beautiful woman who was devoted to him. His grace of manner, his real charm of character, won him many friends, both in his native county, where he liked to spend much of his time, and in the society of London. Even the endless squibs and burlesques Pye inspired on account of his laureate odes did not really affect his reputation as an industrious and cultured man of letters. One has but to look at the list of his voluminous works to see how faithfully he laboured. His translations of Aristotle's Poetics, of Homer, of Pindar, show accurate scholarship and elegance of phrase; his translation of the " Song of Harmodius and Aristogiton," and of Bürger's "Lenore are fine and spirited; his criticisms on Shakespeare and others show insight and acumen. Pye's most notable book is the " Comments upon the Commentators on Shakespeare. Garrick was at this time doing his utmost to popularise the great dramatist; the crusade begun by Nicholas Rowe in 1709 was bearing good fruit; and Pye's own work was timely and of value. Pye was devoted to the stage, and he tried his hand at writing some plays, but they are wholly forgotten. For a complete list of these we have to go to a foreign dictionary: English encyclopædias ignore this industrious, conscientious worker. Pye's most ambitious work was an epic poem on King Alfred, but even he himself did not speak highly of his effort, and he had no hope that it would live. Indeed, Pye was as modest as Eusden had been egotistical. The contrast between them in this respect is well illustrated in their portraits. Many of Pye's minor poems show graceful fancy and have considerable melody of versification and sparkle of style; but there is no originality of thought in them, no eloquent fervour, no imaginative strength. They are rhetorical efforts merely. His laureate odes are ardent and enthusiastic, even if they do not soar very high. He shows in them an earnest patriotism; and earnestness of itself is a form of strength and power. But Pye, with all his brilliancy of mind and his perseverance and industry, had not the making of a true poet, and his work has passed into oblivion. For twenty-three years he was poet laureate, and during that time a change had come in English poetry. The reaction against the artificialism of the age of Anne had been growing more and more pronounced, and had culminated in the mighty influence of Coleridge and Wordsworth. But Henry James Pye gave up no traditions; he was conservative in his poetry as well as in his politics and his religion. He wrote in obedience to the same models that had inspired Tate, Eusden, and Cibber. But poets like them were henceforth to have no more a place in the annals of the Laureateship. The office was to receive new honour, new dignity, from its being held by poets like Southey, Wordsworth, and Tennyson. Two or three years before his death Pye was forced to live in retirement on account of the severe attacks of gout which afflicted him. His sufferings were so great that at the last he gave up writing the odes which he had hitherto supplied with conscientious care. At Pinner in Herts an end came to his sufferings on August 13, 1813. Two important changes in the Laureateship which took place after the death of Pye deserve notice. For many years the odes which the laureates had written on the royal birthdays or great national anniversaries, were required odes-nothing would have excused their absence except that which excuses a man playing whist from answering his partner's lead in trumps. These odes were set to music by the court musician, and sung at the state drawing rooms. When they were sung it did not matter if the words were poor, nobody heard them. When they were published, however, it became necessary that some degree of poetic merit be found in them. When Pye let fall kis pen from a dying hand, it was determined to abolish these odes at least to make them dependent solely on the convenience or inspiration of the laureate. It is said that this change was first suggested by Robert Southey. Anyway, when the laurel was offered to Southey he was told he could write when and how he pleased, and whatever he wrote should be read aloud, not sung. The other change consisted in commuting the tierce of wine, which had first been granted to Ben Jonson, into an annual grant of twenty-seven pounds, this amount to be added to the original salary of one hundred pounds. The modern era of the Laureateship had therefore commenced.* *From the time that Ben Jonson, by his egotism and dogmatism, awakened the ire of his contemporaries to the era of Southey and Wordsworth there had been a steady stream of abuse and vituperation directed at the unfortunate poets who had worn the laurel wreath. The "Bon Gaultier Ballads," published when Southey died, were but one of many burlesques. These clever verses began with: "Who would not be the laureate bold, With his butt of sherry to keep him merry, Competition for the vacant Laureateship takes place : "He's dead, he's dead, the Laureate's dead! 'Twas thus the cry began, From Grub Street, and from Houndsditch, and from Farringdon Within, Among these poets is Lord Lytton, who steps forward and says: "And oh what head More fit with laurel to be garlanded Than this which, curled in many a fragrant coil, Breathes of Castalia's streams, But among the best of these hits at the poor sons of Apollo are those levelled at Robert Montgomery, who is made to say: "I fear no rival for the vacant throne; No mortal thunder shall eclipse my own! Let dark Macaulay chant his Roman lays. The famous "Bon Gaultier Ballads " end with: "They led our Wordsworth to the Queen, she crowned him with the bays, And wished him many happy years, and many quarter days; And if you'd have the story told by abler lips than mine You've but to call at Rydal Mount, and taste the Laureate's wine!" In view of the many unjust and contemptible things which have been said under the thin veil of satire, is it any wonder that Wordsworth, whose reverent and tender soul recoiled from such degradation of his calling, should have abandoned all thoughts of a journalist's career because he had, he said, "come to a fixed resolution to steer clear of personal satire and devote himself entirely to literature?" SELECTIONS FROM PYE. ODE FOR THE NEW YEAR, 1791. I. WHEN from the bosom of the mine 'Mid desert lands and ruthless skies, New seats of industry shall rise, And culture wide extend its genial reign Free as the ambient gale, and boundless as the main. II. But tyranny soon learned to seize, The white sail courts the distant breeze, Pale Avarice, and her harpy brood, To each affrighted shore in thunder spoke, And bowed the wretched race to slavery's iron yoke. III. Not such the gentler views that urge Britannia's sons to dare the surge; Not such the gifts her Drake, her Raleigh bore To the wild inmates of th' Atlantic shore, |