POET LAUREATE. The laurel (Lat. laurea) was sacred to Apollo, and as such was used to form a crown or wreath of honour for poets and heroes. The word "laureate" or "laureated" thus came in English to signify eminent, or associated with glory, literary or military. "Laureate letters" in old times meant the despatches announcing a victory; and the epithet was given, even officially (e.g., to John Skelton) by universities, to distinguished poets. The term "poet laureate" was ultimately restricted to the office of the poet attached to the royal household, first held by Ben Jonson, for whom the position was, in its essentials, created by James I. in 1617. (Jonson's appointment does not seem to have been formally made as poet-laureate, but his position was equivalent to that). The office was really a development of the practice of earlier times, when minstrels and versifiers were part of the retinue of the king; it is recorded that Richard Coeur de Lion had a versificator regis (Gulielmus Peregrinus), and Henry III. had a versificator (Master Henry) ; in the 15th century John Kay, also a "versifier," described himself as Edward IV.'s "hum ble poet laureate." Moreover, the Crown had shown its patron age in various ways; Chaucer had been given a pension and a perquisite of wine by Edward III., and Spenser a pension by
Queen Elizabeth. Sir William Davenant succeeded Jonson in 1638, and the title of poet laureate was conferred by letters patent on Dryden in 1670, two years after Davenant's death, coupled with a pension of £300 and a butt of Canary wine. This was the beginning of the official laureateship. The successors of Dryden were T. Shadwell (who originated annual birth day and new year odes), Nahum Tate, Nicholas Rowe, Laurence Eusden, Colley Cibber, William Whitehead, Thomas Warton, H. J. Pye, Southey, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Alfred Austin, Robert Bridges (appointed 1913) and John Masefield (appointed 193o).
The poet laureate, being a court official, was considered re sponsible for producing formal and appropriate verses on birth days and state occasions. Wordsworth stipulated before accept ing the honour, that no formal effusions from him should be considered a necessity; but Tennyson was generally happy in his numerous poems of this class. The emoluments of the post have varied. To Pye an allowance of £27 was made instead of the Canary wine. Tennyson drew £72 a year, and £27 in lieu of the "butt of sack." See Walter Hamilton, Poets Laureate of England (1879), and E. K. Broadus, The Laureateship (1921).