king's fool, or a court jester. That the household poet should have
survived the other wits of the establishment, can only be explained by
the circumstance of his office being more easily converted into one of
mere pomp and ceremony, and coming thus to afford an antient and
well-sounding name for a moderate sinecure. For more than a century,
accordingly, it has existed on this footing; and its duties, like those
of the other personages to whom we have just alluded, have been
discharged with a decorous gravity and unobtrusive quietness, which has
provoked no derision, merely because it has attracted no notice.

The present possessor, however, appears to have other notions on the
subject; and has very distinctly manifested his resolution not to rest
satisfied with the salary, sherry, and safe obscurity of his
predecessors, but to claim a real power and prerogative in the world of
letters, in virtue of his title and appointment. Now, in this, we
conceive, with all due humility, that there is a little mistake of fact,
and a little error of judgment. The laurel which the King gives, we are
credibly informed, has nothing at all in common with that which is
bestowed by the Muses; and the Prince Regent's warrant is absolutely of
no authority in the court of Apollo. If this be the case, however, it
follows, that a poet laureate has no sort of precedency among poets,--
whatever may be his place among pages and clerks of the kitchen;--and
that he has no more pretensions as an author, than if his appointment
had been to the mastership of the stag-hounds. When he takes state upon
him with the public, therefore, in consequence of his office, he really
is guilty of as ludicrous a blunder as the worthy American _Consul_, in
one of the Hanse towns, who painted the Roman _fasces_ on the pannel of
his buggy, and insisted upon calling his foot-boy and clerk his
_lictors_. Except when he is in his official duty, therefore, the King's
house-poet would do well to keep the nature of his office out of sight;