The prince did so with
marked success; and after he had presided at a Labourers' Friend Society,
a noted Socialist remarked, 'If the prince goes on like this, why, he'll
upset our apple-cart.'
The poet-laureate is an official attached to the household of royalty, and
it was long his duty to write an ode on the king's birthday. Towards the
end of the reign of George III. this was dropped. On the death of the poet
Wordsworth on 23d April 1850, the next poet-laureate was Alfred Tennyson.
The Queen, it is said, had picked up one of his earlier volumes, and had
been charmed with his 'Miller's Daughter;' her procuring a copy of the
volume for the Princess Alice gave a great impetus to his popularity. No
poet has ever written more truly and finely about royalty, as witness the
dedication to the _Idylls of the King_, which enshrines the memory of
the Prince-Consort; or the beautiful dedication to the Queen, dated March
1851, which closes thus:
Her court was pure, her life serene;
God gave her peace; her land reposed;
A thousand claims to reverence closed
In her as Mother, Wife, and Queen.
And statesmen at her council met
Who knew the seasons, when to take
Occasion by the hand, and make
The bounds of freedom wider yet.
'It is perhaps natural,' says a contemporary writer, 'for the laureates to
be loyal, but there is no doubt that the sincere tributes which he paid to
the Queen and to her consort contributed materially to the steadying of
the foundation of the British throne.
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