Laureate Masefield

In the King-Emperor's personal household (to be carefully distinguished from His Majesty's ecclesiastical and medical households and from Her Majesty's household) the Poet Laureate ranks below the Groom of the Robes, much below the Yeomen of the Guard, and almost immeasurably beneath the Lords in Waiting.

Nevertheless the Poet Laureate is a member of the Lord Chamberlain's office. He receives -L-72 a year, and, as a bonus, can take his choice between an additional -L-27 or a butt of canary wine. Moreover it was noticed last week, when Poet John Masefield was appointed Laureate, to succeed the late Dr. Robert Bridges, that the sale of his books spurted, both in London and New York, due partly to public clamor, partly to bursts of advertising feverishly concocted overnight by shrewd publishers.

Mr. MacDonald decided last week that the very man for Laureate is a person whom Queen Victoria would certainly not have considered fit for admission to the royal household (her Laureates were Southey, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Austin).

If John Masefield's parents are known, they have escaped the standard works of reference. He was "just born" in grimy Liverpool. At 14 he was not wearing an Eton collar but windjamming on seas high and wild. Instead of matriculating at Oxford he sought, while working as a handyman around a New York saloon, to learn the art of bartending but was never deemed sufficiently adept. No matter-- his poems sold. He went to Oxford in 1922 to be made a D. Litt. honoris causa. Intentionally or not the new Poet Laureate symbolizes the fact that Britain is now ruled by men with almost as little formal education as himself (Messrs. MacDonald and Snowden attended board school).

Masefield's Works. Rough sea stories-in-verse like Dauber, long homely narratives such as The Everlasting Mercy and exciting ones like Right Royal and Reynard the Fox, shorter, more spiritual pieces such as The Passing Strange, these with a bagful of sonnets more notable for content than form comprise the works of the new Laureate, symbol of a new order.

New also is Laureate Masefield's attitude toward wine, immemorial beverage of bards. Perhaps because he worked in a bar he has been for years as complete a teetotaler as Henry Ford. "I don't like the taste of wine," said he last week. "On the other hand I like its appearance. It is after all the essence of sunlight. But one is stimulated by one's feelings. I cannot write verses to order. I do not think any man really writes unless he is deeply stirred."

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