CHAPTER VII.
THE ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON, AND OTHER PATRIOTIC POEMS.
On the death of Wordsworth,[1] Tennyson was appointed Poet Laureate. On 6th March, 1851, at the Queen's Levee at Buckingham Palace, we read that "Mr. Alfred Tennyson was presented, on his appointment to be Poet Laureate."[2]
- ↑ April 23rd, 1850. This date renders it impossible that Tennyson can be the author of the Farewell Lines to Lord Denman, "recited by the Poet Laureate," on the 2nd April, 1850 ("Addresses to Lord Denman," pp. 69-71), which some have attributed to him; while it is equally difficult to suppose that Wordsworth, in his eightieth year, and only three weeks before his death, should have come up from Westmoreland to Kingston-on-Thames to recite them. Internal evidence is alone sufficient to disprove them to be the production of either.
- ↑ "Household Narrative," 1851, p. 65. Respecting the dress worn by the poet on this occasion, see Tom Taylor's Life of Haydon (London, 1853), vol. iii. p. 279.
