309 OF THE POET LAUREAT. NOVEMBER 19, 1729. THE time of the election of a Poet Laureat being now at hand, it may be proper to give some account of the rites and ceremonies anciently used at that solemnity, and only discontinued through the neglect and degeneracy of later times. These we extracted from an historian of undoubted credit, a reverend bishop, the learned Paulus Jovius; and 8 • A much more entertaining account may be drawn from a discourse and research into the history of Poets-Laureat, of M. L'Abbé Resnel, the same who translated the Essay on Man, inserted in the 15th vol. of the Memoirs of the French Academy, p. 234. He observes, from a passage in Villani, that Dante seems to have been the first modern poet that received this honour, who, in 1325, was interred with great ceremony and pomp, and in the habit of a poet, in Habito di Poeta, which Habito he thinks was the laurel crown. The next he mentions is Albertino Mussato, a native of Padua, who, many years before Petrarch, for he died in exile 1329, wrote Latin Poetry with elegance, and produced an Heroic Poem on the Siege of Padua, many Eclogues and Elegies, and above all two Latin Tragedies, entitled Eccerenis & Achilles, in the style and manner of Seneca; the very first regular dramas that are to be found since the barbarous ages. Petrarch was the next Poet that received the laurel crown. His joy on the occasion, his journey from Vaucluse, and voyage to Naples, to visit Robert king of Naples, his reception by that learned Prince, who himself accompanied him to Virgil's tomb, his conversations with him on many subjects of literature, his are the same that were practised under the pontificate of Leo X. the great restorer of learning. prevailing on the King to permit him to receive this honour at Rome, and not at Naples; all these circumstances are minutely related at the end of the first volume of that most entertaining work, the Memoirs of Petrarch, by Abbé Sade, and in the beginning of the second. The ceremony was performed in April 1341, in the Capitol of Rome, amidst a vast concourse of applauding spectators. See particularly pages 2 and 3. After the ceremony Petrarch recited a Sonnet on the Heroes of Rome, which is not to be found in his works. Philelphus came next, who had the laurel conferred on him, though he was more of an Orator and Grammarian than a Poet, by Alphonsus, king of Naples, 1453. Faustus Andrelini was the next, a favourite of Louis XII. and Francis I. to whose courts he went from Italy. Neither Trissino nor Ariosto desired nor received this honour; which, after all his misfortunes, the great Torquato Tasso was to obtain from the hands of Cardinal Aldobrandini, but died the evening before the day appointed for his coronation. Querno, the only Italian Poet here spoken of by Pope, and said falsely to be the first of the Laureats, was a low and impious Buffoon, and a scandal to the court of Leo the Xth. Though Pope Urban the VIIIth, himself an elegant Latin Poet, patronised and rewarded Chiabrera, a fine and spirited Lyric Poet, yet he gave him not the laurel, which Bernardini Perfetti was the last who received, 1725. Resnel proceeds to give a short, and indeed imperfect account of the Poets-Laureat of Germany, Spain, and England, though to none of them was the laurel given with those ceremonies before mentioned. Gibbon, the Historian, vol. vi. p. 569, writing in the year 1786, has assigned, in the form of a very elegant and wellturned compliment to his present Majesty, and to the then Poet Laureat, a reason why the Birth-day Odes might be laid aside. "The Laureats of our own country have ever been," as Falstaff "the occasion of wit in other men." But never of more says, wit than was thrown away on the last mentioned, Mr. Thomas Warton, who, of all men, felt the least, and least deserved to feel the force of Probationary Odes, written on his appointment to this office, and who always heartily joined in the laugh, and applauded the exquisite wit and humour that appeared in many of those original Satires. But I beg to add, that not one of these ingenious Laughers could have produced such pieces of true As we now see an age and a court, that for the encouragement of poetry rivals, if not exceeds, that of this famous Pope, we cannot but wish a restoration of all its honours to poesy; the rather, since there are so many parallel circumstances in the person who was then honoured with the laurel, and in him, who (in all probability) is now to wear it. I shall translate my author exactly as I find it in the 82d chapter of his Elogia Vir. Doct. He begins with the character of the poet himself, who was the original and father of all Laureats, and called Camillo. He was a plain countryman of Apulia (whether a shepherd or thresher, is not material.) "This man (says Jovius), excited by the fame of the great encouragement given to poets at court, and the high honour in which they were held, came to the city, bringing with him a strange kind of lyre in his hand, and at least some twenty thousand of verses. All the wits and critics of the court flocked about him, delighted to see a clown, with a ruddy, hale complexion, and in his own long hair,, so top-full of poetry; and at the first sight of him all agreed he was born to be Poet Laureat. He had a most hearty welcome in an island of the river Tiber (an agreeable place, not unlike our Richmond), where he was first made to eat and drink plentifully, and to repeat his verses to every body. Then they adorned him with a new and elegant garland, composed of poetry as the Crusade, The Grave of King Arthur, The Suicide, and Ode on the Approach of Summer, by this very Laureat. Apulus præpingui vultu alacer, et prolixe comatus, omnino dignus festa laurea videretur. W. 9 vine leaves, laurel and brassica (a sort of cabbage), so composed, says my author, emblematically, Ut tam sales quam lepide ejus temulentia, brassica remedio cohibenda, notaretur. He was then saluted by common consent with the title of archi-poeta, or arch-poet, in the style of those days, in our's, Poet Laureat. This honour the poor man received with the most sensible demonstrations of joy, his eyes drunk with tears and gladness'. Next the public acclamation was expressed in a canticle, which is transmitted to us, as follows: Salve, brassicea virens corona, All hail, arch-poet without peer ! From hence, he was conducted in pomp to the Capitol of Rome, mounted on an elephant, through the shouts of the populace, where the ceremony ended. The historian tells us farther, "That at his introduction to Leo, he not only poured forth verses innumerable, like a torrent, but also sung them with open mouth. Nor was he only once introduced, or on stated days (like our Laureats), but made a companion to his master, and entertained as one of his most elegant pleasures. When the prince was at table, the poet had his place at the window. When 1 Manantibus præ gaudio oculis. W. |