IV. The VOLUNTARY, from the accession of Laureate SOUTHEY, 1813, to
the present day:--


ROBERT SOUTHEY, 1813-1843
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 1843-1850
ALFRED TENNYSON, 1850-


Have no faith in those followers of vain traditions who assert the
existence of the Laureate office as early as the thirteenth century,
attached to the court of Henry III. Poets there were before
Chaucer,--_vixere fortes ante Agamemnona_,--but search Rymer from
cord to clasp and you shall find no documentary evidence of any one of
them wearing the leaf or receiving the stipend distinctive of the
place. Morbid credulity can go no farther back than to the "Father of
English Poetry":--


"That renounced Poet,
Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled,
On Fame's eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled":[1]


"Him that left half-told
The story of Cambuscan bold;
Of Camball, and of Algarsife,
And who had Canace to wife":[2]