- Jumbo; and one Pye was Laureate. Pye was
Laureate,—yet Byron lived, and there was a reigning monarch in England, strange as these assorted facts will seem to all intellectual posterity. For a monarch's word,—even a prince's word,—must always carry a certain weight of influence, and one asks wonderingly how, under such circumstances, that word came to be left unsaid? No voice from the Throne called the three greatest geniuses of the era to receive any honour due to their rare gifts and quality. On the contrary they were cast out as unvalued rubbish from their native land, and the Little Poets had their way. Pye continued to write maudlin rhymes unmolested, never dreaming that the only memory we should keep of him or of his twaddle, would be the one scathing line of the banished Byron:
Better to err with Pope than shine with Pye!
And feeble penny whistles played trumpery tunes to the languid votaries of "cultchaw" in those days, and pennywhistle verse was voted "classic" and supreme; but ever and anon the Nation turned a listening ear across the seas and caught the music made by its outlawed singers,—music it valued even then, and treasures now among its priceless and imperishable glories. For the Nation knows what true Poetry is,—and no "discoverer" will ever force it to accept a tallow candle for a star.
The gulf between Great Poets and Little is a wide one,—wider than that which yawned between Lazarus in heaven and Dives in hell. The Great Poet is moved by an inspiration which he himself
