Of puny bards and pessimistic rhyme,
Dared to bid men adventure and rejoice.
His "yawp barbaric" was a human voice;
The singer was a man.
To return to native writers, Punch happily linked a great Churchman and a great Victorian novelist in the stanza which appeared at the close of 1882:—
Two men whose loss all Englishmen must rue,
True servants of the Studio and the State.
No manlier Churchman Trollope ever drew
Than History will portray in gentle Tait.
Punch had long acclaimed Tennyson as one of the major poets; but a slight element of reserve mingles in the congratulations on his peerage in 1883. Approval is tempered by chaff, and allusion is made to the Laureate's being prevented from taking his seat in the Lords by having lost his robes. There are no reserves in the tribute to the "beloved Cambridge rhymer" C. S. Calverley, when he passed away in early middle age in 1884. The memorial verses omit all mention of Calverley's genius for high parody, and incorrectly speak of the Ode to Beer as being written in Spenserian stanzas, but are otherwise affectionately appreciative:—