26 MAY 1967, Page 27

Sir: Professor Trevor-Roper may be right in believ- ing that

Matthew Arnold dearly wanted the laureateship in 1892, but the belief might be a little difficult to substantiate, as Matthew Arnold died in 1888. But there was not such a dearth of poets in the 'nineties as to justify Lord Salisbury's choice of Alfred Austin in 1896. Francis Thompson's star was well above the horizon at that time, and among the lesser luminaries there were F. W. H. Myers, Andrew Lang, and George Meredith whose poems are likely to outlive the novels on which his reputa- tion once rested. And disparagement of Austin can go too far, for surely as long as the English lan- guage lives oblivion will never overtake his lines on the illness of the Prince of Wales: Across the wires the electric message came: `He is no better, he is much the same.'