R,CHARD MONCKTON MILNES was born in the year - OUDL Home

168 Harley Granville-BarkerOr for my cause. And, that done, there is nothingBut thanks and still thanks for your loving-kindnessIn this my sore strait and my doleful prison.'Twas hence I set out for my coronation.All is as it was then. Only a QueenWho goes to take a higher crown than England's.Harmless, lullaby stuff! Tom Taylor, it is true, was nottaken very seriously as a poet. But his plays ranked highin theatrical respectability; they show the furnishing ofthe arena into which Tennyson was to step a yearlater.We do not look for such colourless, ambling, 'rightbutter-woman's rank to market' writing from him. And,to be fair, at a climax we shall not find it. Tennyson isTennyson, and can rise in some sort to an occasion. Butopen the play at random. Here is Gardner at Pole'sreception.We, the Lords spiritual and TemporalAnd Commons here in Parliament assembled,Presenting the whole body of this nationOf England, and dominions of the same,Do make most humble suit unto your MajestiesIn our own name and that of all the State,That by your gracious means and intercessionOur supplication be exhibitedTo the Lord Cardinal Pole....But he is reading a petition. The passage must probablybe a dull one, anyway. Turn a few pages, though. Maryis now rating the Lord Chancellor:I come for counsel and ye give me feuds,Like dogs that set to watch their master's gate,Fall, when the thief is ev'n within the walls,To worrying one another. My Lord Chancellor,You have an old trick of offending us;And but that you are art and part with usIn purging heresy, well we might, for thisYour violence and much roughness to the LegateHave shut you from our counsels....