He is no better, he is much the same.
Austin is sometimes called the worst Poet Laureate of all time, but Colley Cibber and Henry James Pye may be equal challengers for the title. The list of
Poets Laureate contains many names that resonate little now. It is said that the poetical works of Laurence Eusden, who gained the post at the young age of thirty, on the death of Nicholas Rowe, and on the strength of a recommendation from Joseph Addison and the effects of a flattering poem on
the subject of the Lord Chamberlain's marriage - that office holder being always responsible formally for the appointment - are now 'difficult to find. Addison's assessment was not shared by Alexander Pope, who wrote of Eusden in The Dunciad: "Know, Eusden thirsts no more for sack or praise; He sleeps among the dull of ancient days." Pope's comments have tended to form that Laureate's reputation.
In later times the appointment effectively came to be in the gift of the Prime Minister and it is said that Austin owed his Laureateship to his friendship with Lord Salisbury and his proven willingness to use his versifying in support of Salisbury's government.
Austin's predecessor was Alfred Lord Tennyson, a typical crusty Victorian Grand Old Man, to whose moody unreasonableness on occasions his friend Edward Lear attested, but he was generally agreed to have been such a success as Poet Laureate that after his death an inter-regnum of a few years was left, especially as there were thought to be no sufficiently distinguished
poets to deserve the laureateship except Algernon Charles Swinburne and William Morris who were each ruled unsuitable on non-poetic grounds. After four years, and after Morris had in fact been quietly offered it (despite his socialist views) and declined it, the honour went to Austin.
Austin died in 1913 (of unknown causes, somehow a suitable fate for a poet, even one who began adult life as a barrister), and since then perhaps the laureates have been, if still a little off-centre, rather better chosen on poetic grounds. (Although, who, apart from Mary Warnock, reads Robert Bridges
nowadays? And Masefield's prose is generally thopught better than his verse.) Or maybe we are still too close to recognise the failings of the choices (not
that it took Alexander Pope long to do that). John Betjeman perhaps represented an observable leaning to the middle-brow, although perhaps there has just
been a general tendency of modern English poetry to deliberate subtly in the middle ground, and things were stiffened by the not altogether expected appointment (or performance) of the rather angular Ted Hughes - the Tennyson of our time perhaps?
The first laureate is said to have been appointed by Henry VII: in the Tudor period: poetry, like music and painting was clearly an adornment to the court. As the popular will began to force its way into the manner and choice of government, poetry was seen to have sufficient social force to make it a useful accoutrement of power. In our own times it has become mostly a heritage relic and until recently it glistened a little brighter as such because the payment had traditionally included a butt of sack (see Pope's Dunciad).
The Labour government, however, in its rational way, chose to award Andrew Motion £5000 a year (index-linked of course - can poetry be index-linked?), but, when it saw how much work he was doing in schools, the Department of Education stumped up a further £15,000 to cover his costs. So poetry had become, not a court adornment, not a political weapon, but (in the eyes of the government if not of the poet) a utilitarian means of social improvement. Motion was also the first laureate to be appointed for a fixed term (ten years) rather than life: poetic reputations, or social aims may change. Yet apparently Andrew Motion was quite relieved to be able to step down.
