Owing to heavy financial losses Tupper accepted a Civil List pension of £120 at the end of 1873, and _Punch_ supported the grant on the ground that though philosophers might have learned little from _Proverbial Philosophy_, there could be no doubt that a work read by the million had either taught or entertained them a good deal. He also hailed it as an earnest of better times coming for authors in general; for if Tupper had received £120 a year, how many times that sum should be awarded to writers of really durable works? This mitigated approval prepares us for _Punch's_ subsequent malice in publishing a burlesque poem, purporting to come from Tupper's pen, on a Royal wedding in January, 1874. But the bestowal of those pensions too often invited direct censure. The notorious "Poet Close" of Kirkby Stephen, Westmorland, who described himself as "Poet Laureate to the King of Bonny," was patronized by Lord Palmerston (who indirectly compared him with Burns) and had been put on the Civil List in 1861, though the pension was afterwards withdrawn. But when _Punch_ learned in 1863 that the poet was poor in more senses than one, he promised him an immunity from ridicule, and wished success to his next work. The promise was hardly fulfilled in the following year when "English literature was enriched" by Poet Close's _Grand Sensation Book_ and by _Cithara_--a selection from the Lyrics of Martin Tupper. Of the latter _Punch_ cruelly remarks: "it contains some new pieces, in which Mr. Tupper has excelled himself: but _Nemo repente fuit Tupperrimus_." The two poets are bracketed (as in one of Gilbert's _Bab Ballads_) in some ironical stanzas, but the conjunction was hardly fair to Tupper, who at his worst was assuredly a cut above "Poet Close." A lower depth, however, was sounded by the poet Young, whose pension was a positive scandal. Tupper is very generously treated in the D.N.B.; "Poet Close" appears, though more as a curiosity than as a writer of any literary merit whatsoever, his verses being described as "metrical balderdash"; but for Young we have to go to _Hansard_ or _Punch_, whose comment in 1867 runs as follows:-- We had some fun by way of ending an important week. Palmerston had his Close, and Derby has his Young, only the doggerel of the latter is not merely vulgar and foolish, but offensive. However, he is pensioned. Mr. Whalley (probably thinking that Young was author of the _Night Thoughts_) defended the grant, and said that Young's sentiments were truly Protestant. Mr. Disraeli said what he could, which was that Lord Derby had been hoaxed, and that it would be a warning to himself never to sign or believe in a Memorial.