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  • Swinburne and the Poet-Laureateship 1892
  • Paul Knaplund

Footnotes

1. Private Diaries of Sir Algernon West, ed. Horace G. Hutchinson, New York, 1922, p. 19. There seems to have been some discussion whether the laureateship was “in Her Majesty’s gift as a household appointment” or at the disposal of the prime minister (ibid., p. 64).

2. Original MS., Gladstone Papers, British Museum.

3. Copy, Letter Books, XXIII, p. 41: ibid.

4. Original MSS., ibid.

5. Copy, Letter Books, XXIII, p. 45: ibid.

6. Ibid., pp. 47, 52.

7. J. W. Mackail and Guy Wyndham, Lift and Letters of George Wyndham, London, 1925, I, p. 267.

8. West, Diaries, pp. 63–4. In a letter published in the Ahenaeum, March 10, 1877, Swinburne had written about the Poems and Ballads, 1866: “There is not one ‘piece,’ there is not one syllable in anyone copy ever printed of that book which has ever been changed or cancelled since the day of publication.” Acton called this letter to Gladstone’s attention (Acton to Gladstone, Oct. 11, 18, 23, 1892. Original MSS.: Gladstone Papers).

9. Statesman and author who had deserted Gladstone on the Home Rule question.

10. Originai MSS., Gladstone Papers.

11. Copy, Letter Books, XXIII, p. 52: Ibid. One of those “shadows” was Sir Theodore Martin, biographer of the Prince Consort (Acton to Gladstone, Oct. 8, 18, and 23. 1892. Original MSS.: ibid).

12. Original MSS., Ibid. For Notes by an English Republican see The Complete Works of Algernon Swinburne, ed. Sir Edmund Gosse and Thomas James Wise, London, 1925–7, XV, pp. 411–29.

13. Original MSS., Gladstone Papers. Sir Algernon West asserts (Diaries, 69) that Bryce recommended Coventry Patmore for the laureateship, but in a letter to the Queen, Nov. 6, 1892, Bryce lists Patmore and F. W. H. Myers as poets who had ceased to write, and Bridges and W. Watson as having written too little to be considered for the laureateship (Letters of Queen Victoria, series 3, II, pp. 177, 178).

14. Ibid., p. 187. For letters from Gladstone to the Queen and to her private secretary, Sir Henry Ponsonby, concerning the laureateship see ibid., p. 170.

15. West, Diaries, p. 65.

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