It is generally admitted that Tennyson's more recent official poetry has added little to his fame, whilst it has often been mercilessly ridiculed, and, of late, his adulatory poems, and protestations of loyalty, have frequently been ascribed to interested motives. As soon as it was definitely announced that he was to be _ennobled_, a genealogy was compiled tracing his descent from the kings who ruled in Britain long before the Conquest. This grand claim (which was quoted at page 28) has since been rather spoilt by the plain statement that Alfred Tennyson's grandfather was a country attorney, practising in a small, quiet way in Market Rasen, North Lincolnshire, who, having made money in his business, retired, and bought some land in the neighbourhood. But for the title just conferred upon him, Tennyson's birth and lineage would have been matters of perfect indifference to his readers. As for raising Tennyson to the peerage, no writer seems seriously to have defended an act which most people look upon as a mistake. Not one parody in its favour has been written, but many against it. You must wake and call me early, call me early, Vicky clear, For to-morrow will be the silliest day we've seen for many a year; For I am a rhyming prig, Vicky, that shoddy and sham reveres, So I'm to be one of the Peers, Vicky, I'm to be one of the Peers. There's many a crazy lyre, they say, but none so effete as mine; It cannot ring out an ode to Brown, that gallant gilly of thine, For there's none so inane as poor old Alf in his sad, declining years; And I'm to be one of the Peers, Vicky, I'm to be one of the Peers. I sleep so sound all night, Vicky, that I shall never wake; So come in the early morn, Vicky, and give me a slap and a shake; For I must gather my scissors and paste and scraps of the bygone years, And I'm to be one of the Peers, Vicky, I'm to be one of the Peers. As I came up the Row, Vicky, whom think you I should see? Lord Queensberry against a lamp, and singing Tweedle-de-dee: He thought of that vile play, Vicky, I wrote in bygone years; But I'm to be one of the Peers, Vicky, I'm to be one of the Peers. He thought I was a fool, Vicky, for I looked dazed and white; He took me for a fool, Vicky--by jingo, he was right. They call me Atheist-hater; but I care not for their jeers, For I'm to be one of the Peers, Vicky, I'm to be one of the Peers. They say men write, and all for love; but this can never be: They say that great men write and starve; but what is that to me? For gold I sell my laughter, for gold I sell my tears, And I'm to be one of the Peers, Vicky, I'm to be one of the Peers. I wrote my "In Memoriam" when I was young and green; I wrote my "Promise of the May" when I was pumped out clean; And I've been the Court's hired lackey for many cringing years; And I'm to be one of the Peers, Vicky, I'm to be one of the Peers.