"£100 & a butt of sack yearly"

Alfred Austin & Robert Bridges

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After Tennyson died, the post of poet laureate was vacant for four years. Swinburne, Kipling and Coventry Patmore were touted as candidates, but in the end, Lord Salisbury chose Alfred Austin (1835-1913), a competent poet, and Tory journalist. Austin took his post seriously, writing laureate verses on the Jubilee, the Queen's death, the centenary of Trafalgar, and so on. His verse drama Prince Lucifer first appeared in 1887. It was dedicated to the Queen.

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Alfred Austin, Prince Lucifer. 3rd ed. London: MacMillan, 1896.
Leith Street, Bliss YI AusYp M

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Robert Bridges (1844-1930) was 69 when Asquith, the Prime Minister, offered him the post of poet laureate. Prior to 1913, Bridges had been building up a solid collection of verse, many privately published. They included Shorter Poems (1890), a sonnet sequence The Growth of Love (1890), the long narrative poem Eros and Psyche (1885) and Nero (1885), the first of his verse dramas. Peace, a limited edition Daniel Press publication, was written in response to the end of the Boer War, in which two of Bridges' nephews were fighting.

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Robert Bridges, Peace. Ode written on the conclusion of the Three Years' War. Oxford: Daniel Press, 1903.
Stk. PR 6141.B6 P4

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Robert Bridges died on 21 April 1930. He wished no biography to be written, and he recalled as many of his own letters as he could, and destroyed them. It was his wish that by his work alone he should be remembered. This 1914 Oxford University edition represents part of his lasting canon.

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Poetical Works of Robert Bridges. London: Oxford University Press, 1914.
Bra. PR 4161 B6 A1 1914