Chapter C: A. Tait (8)

The point is the more proper for remembrance inasmuch as such forbearance is the last straining of the quality of mercy in this author. Mr. Mackenzie commonly prefers cities to country scenes, although a country scene in his earliest novel yielded him his first opportunity of teasing innocent readers with an unsavoury interior. Since he is a cultured writer you might imagine that Hogarth had tutored him; but Hogarth is immensely masculine, and the origin of our novelist's inspiration need be sought no farther back than the 'nineties. Nothing is more surprising, at any rate to men approaching middle-age, than the fitful incandescence of that spark with which the 'nineties were tinily illuminated. The inferior intelligence and the yet more inferior imagination which impelled certain artists--pleased with the phrase decadent--to magnify the ferment of youthful senses, may now seem even more trivial in their fruition than an Olympian judgment would allow. But it is hard to be impartial when a purely remote contemplation is forbidden by the flashing reflections from living writers who are only in a narrow sense contemporary writers. Coventry Patmore, chief poet and almost chief artist in that church of which we hear so much in Mr. Mackenzie's novels, asserted with more force than originality that what is morally bad is necessarily bad art; and he proceeded to say, less tritely, that the delicate indecency of so much modern art was partly due to deficient virility which, in proportion to its strength, is naturally modest. Pleading for plain-speaking, he maintained that indecency (which only a fool could identify with plain-speaking) is an endeavour to irritate sensations and appetites in the absence of natural passion; that which passes with so many for power and ardour being really, in his certain and indignant eyes, impotence and coldness. The distinction between plain-speaking and delicate indecency is to be remembered when Mr. Mackenzie's most ambitious attempts at the English novel, _Sinister Street_ and _Sylvia Scarlett_, are considered. There may be coarseness of expression, a fondness for trivial bluntness of phrase; but it would be stupid to see in that more than coarseness or bluntness. The theme of _Sinister Street_, says the author, is the youth of a man who will presumably be a priest; a theme developed in nearly four hundred thousand words by something like the process of "annual elongation" which Johnson observed in a Hebridean road. The book moves upon familiar biographical lines--the lonely children, the local school and lesser public school, Oxford, and the betrayed passion for a prostitute. It is an enormous and minute chronicle--of what? Of the externals of a boy's life, of the customs of school, flirtation with vulgar girls, evasions of school tasks, the ways of a decrepit group surviving from the 'nineties, Catholic ritual, and a little introspection here and there; and then, in the second volume, of the same externals of Oxford life drawn to the same scale. Such a scheme must needs attract the tens who have been to public school and University, and delight the tens of thousands who haven't. Is it taking a mean advantage of time's passage to compare _Sinister Street_ with Serge Aksakoff's _Years of Childhood_ and its successors? Aksakoff treats childhood with a simplicity, a quiet intentness, by the side of which Mr. Mackenzie's enormous reconstruction seems loose and artificial. _Sinister Street_ is vast in size and meagre in content. It is packed with superfluities. Three-fourths of it is inessential to the author's declared intention; it is no more than a guide-book cleverly designed (_e.g._, the first week at Oxford) to evoke an illusion of Oxford in Pimlico and Shepherd's Bush; and concentrating upon the remaining fourth, you feel that your author has been aware of little more than the physiology of adolescence and the usual facile religious reactions. Boys from seventeen to twenty-three, girls from sixteen to any age, may find in Henry Meats _alias_ Brother Aloysius, in Arthur Wilmot the last of the Decadents, in the Lilys and the Daisys of the streets, in the whole rank multitude of Mr. Mackenzie's "underworld," the irritation of sensation which adolescents naturally seek. Here may curiosity be half-satisfied, half-stimulated. A Guide to Prostitution could add little to the informations of _Sinister Street_: the dress, the habitation, even the finances of those who have "gone gay," are meticulously recorded. Passed, I am afraid, are the Orient promenade and the underground gilded sty, but their glory is not departed, it is merely transferred, and _Sinister Street_ remains sufficiently lively and up to date to provoke the youngest and make the oldest feel young again. Do you ask why God gives brains for such a use? I cannot even guess. Mr. Mackenzie astonishingly blazons his book with Keats's famous analysis: "The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, etc."--an astonishing phrase for index to this book; whether used in simplicity or in subtle defiance, this also I cannot guess. Clear enough is it that what passes for imagination is no other than the froth of yesty waves of youth.... It is a book written, if offence may be disavowed and avoided, by a boy for boys. Mr. Mackenzie himself, in his introductory letter, refers to his study of Russian writers (this in explanation of the length of his novels), and in his epilogical letter he apparently regards the book as a work of art. An author's opinion of his own intention is to be respected, for who shall challenge it? It does but afford an additional ground for judgment and surprise.

To consider _Sinister Street_ a mere aberration is an extravagant possibility, but possibility itself is left panting behind _Sylvia Scarlett_. Here, again, the author is generous of space, and here he has not been content to write a guide-book. He has chosen a woman for his central figure, and she, unlike the male protagonists of the other books, is no coloured cloudy reflection of a reflection. She is no minikin Michael or Guy or Maurice, but a semblable moving figure. Sinister Street is her place of origin, Vanity Fair her scene of action--a world of music-halls where farce passes for fantasy and women's dress for an exciting theme. Farce? Sylvia is not only farcical in herself, but is, like Falstaff, creative--the cause of farce in others; and though Book One opens so admirably with a paragraph showing how well the author can follow a good model, farce ensues and recurs and makes her chronicle an amusing thing.

But it is amusing only so long as coarseness is not strained through a child's mind, coarseness of phrase only or more significant coarseness of invention. I say more significant, for whether that worse coarseness is intended or involuntary must be immaterial, save as indicating the particular code against which the offence is primarily committed, the code of manners or the code of art. There is here no such gentleness in the treatment of childhood as distinguishes the earlier chapters of _Carnival_.... The point need not be stressed. I dislike the current practice of setting one's wits against the author whose work happens to be the subject of discussion; I don't want to produce an artificial dilemma and pretend that Mr. Mackenzie is inevitably trapped by it. Put it, then, that there are certain obligations of civilised life, and certain obligations of that flower of civilised life which we call art; put it that coarseness of phrase or incident outrages the former, and that an intention to commit that outrage, or an insensibility of having committed it, is equally an offence against the less assertive but not less imperative obligations of art. In a word, the sin is vulgarity, two-edged vulgarity it may be, an offence against both canons or, if you will, both conventions; and the further weight hangs on the charge that it is here committed in the person of a child, and is, therefore, wanton. Shall I add that the immanence of farce just spoken of does in a little degree mitigate the cruelty by generalising the vulgarity? Here is rude, healthy Smollett out-Smolletted, reduced to the uncostly and only half-odious horseplay of a music-hall:

The encouragement put a fine spirit into Danny's blows; he hammered
the unfortunate Cohen round and round the room, upsetting table
and chairs and washstand until with a stinging blow he knocked him
backwards into the slop-pail, in which he sat so heavily that when he
tried to rise the slop-pail stuck and gave him the appearance of a
large baboon crawling with elevated rump on all fours. Danny kicked
off the slop-pail, and invited Cohen to stand up to him; but when he
did get on his feet, he ran to the door and reached the stairs just
as Mrs. Gonner was wearily ascending to find out what was happening.
He tried to stop himself by clutching the knob of the baluster,
which broke; the result was that he dragged Mrs. Gonner with him in
a glissade which ended behind the counter. The confusion in the shop
became general; Mr. Gonner cut his thumb, and the sight of the blood
caused a woman who was eating a sausage to choke; another customer
took advantage of the row to snatch a side of bacon and try to
escape, but another customer with a finer moral sense prevented him;
a dog who was sniffing in the entrance saw the bacon on the floor and
tried to seize it, but getting his tail trodden upon by somebody, he
took fright and bit a small boy, who was waiting to change a shilling
into coppers. Meanwhile Sylvia, who expected every minute that Jubie
and her pugilistic brother would come back and increase the confusion
with possibly unpleasant consequences for herself, took advantage of
Danny's being occupied in an argument with Cohen and the two Gonners
to put on her hat and escape from the shop. She jumped on the first
omnibus and congratulated herself when she looked round and saw a
policeman entering the eating-house.

Sylvia herself is capable enough as well as universally attractive. The citation just made is from a passage following the second amorous attack upon her, when Danny Lewis threatens her with a knife, and she parries with the water in her bedroom. An earlier lover had retired from a similar contest with his underlip bitten through. When, some time after the knife-and-water episode, Sylvia meets the Oxford type in Philip Iredale, she is sent by him (being still but sixteen) for a year's schooling and then marries him. Coquetting with the Church is followed by flight--alone, it must be added; and indeed Sylvia's whole recorded life is fugitive, a pilgrimage between this world and some other. Three months later her husband's Oxford composure is shocked by:

"You _must_ divorce me now. I've not been able to earn enough to pay
you back more than this [ten pounds] for your bad bargain. I don't
think I've given any more pleasure to the men who have paid less for
me than you did, if that's any consolation."

Adventures repeat themselves. A huge Russian officer bursts into Sylvia's room one night and is pitched out of the window by a couple of acrobats. The war begins and spreads itself over Europe as a background for her passages and parleyings; and maybe the Commander-in-Chief and the General Staff of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force have beguiled many a tiresome after-war hour in pursuing Sylvia's wanderings between places familiarised by their late anxieties. Sylvia is differentiated from the other women of these novels, not only by her superior capacity for experiences, but even more by her superior volubility. She is, consciously, mind as well as body, and as the narrative goes on and on she develops a passion for monologue--terrifying in any woman, and rare among women whose occupation Sylvia Scarlett's own name is perhaps meant assonantally to suggest. These monologues, recurrent as the farce and more deadly, might be called shortly the jargon. "I represent the original conception of the Hetaera," she asserts.

"He'll think of me, if he ever thinks of me at all, as one of the
great multitude of wronged women. I shall think of him, though as a
matter of fact I shall avoid thinking of him, either as what might
have been--a false concept, for, of course, what might have been is
fundamentally inconceivable--or as what he was--a sentimental fool."

She meditates upon the art of Botticelli, whose appeal she seems to think is only childlike, upon the conflict of nationality with civilisation. She reads Tolstoi and Dostoieffsky, putting Apuleius by, goes to confession, analyses her sensations, details the errancy of her parentage, and seeks to shock the priest who, when Sylvia acutely suggests that God is "almost vulgarly anthropomorphic," can only murmur, "Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God?" But here is a brief specimen of the almost unbroken monologue to which the priest of the wisest of the churches can make no answer but a profession of the power of the Church:

"I suppose my running away was the direct result of my bringing up,
because whenever I had been brought face to face with a difficult
situation I ran away. However, this time I was determined from some
perverted pride to make myself more utterly myself than I had ever
done. It's hard to explain how my mind worked. You must remember
I was only nineteen, and already at thirty-one I am as far from
understanding all my motives then as if I were trying to understand
somebody who was not myself at all. Anyhow, I simply went on the
streets. For three months I mortified my flesh by being a harlot.
Can you understand that? Can you possibly understand the deliberate
infliction of such a discipline, not to humiliate one's pride but to
exalt it? Can you understand that I emerged from that three months of
incredible horror with a complete personality?..."

Sylvia did not wait for the priest to answer this question, partly
because she did not want to be disillusioned by finding so soon that
he had not comprehended anything of her emotions or actions, partly
because there seemed more important revelations of herself still to
be made.

--Farce at least is unpretentious, but this crude jargon, this retroverted intellectualism, is offensive beyond farce, odious beyond "delicate indecency."

It may not be wholly due to perversity if the characteristics of these long biographical novels should overshadow the sharp merits of, say, _Carnival_. _Carnival_, even better than _Guy and Pauline_, may serve as a measure of Mr. Mackenzie's decline from his promise; since although its conclusion is a disharmony, its best chapters are good enough to cause a reader to sigh over the later novels. Was it, indeed, quite a worthless aim to follow in the footsteps of George Gissing? _Carnival_ suggests that a new Gissing might have grown up before our eyes, with a touch of the same veracity, the same mordancy, and a little less than the same humourless and dishumoured regard for what is wry and hapless; but _Carnival_ stands alone, and the exactions of that difficult sincerity have been put by.... Or take, again, _Poor Relations_, the latest of Mr. Mackenzie's inventions. With its ease and brilliant vivacities, with the comedy of its conception, what a delightful play it would make! But might not the comedy have depended--as comedy must--more surely upon character and less upon incident? The author of _Sylvia Scarlett_, however, has imposed a too-swift facility upon the author of _Poor Relations_. If practice makes perfect, then nothing was wanting to the completeness of _Poor Relations_--but how much is wanting! Admirable are the opening notes, but of the rest too much is a brisk _falsetto_. There is excess in the situations, excess in the characterisation, excess in the style:

When he looked at the old lady he could not discover anything except
a cold egotism in every fold of those flabby cheeks where the powder
lay like drifted snow in the ruts of a sunless lane.

It is equally the virtue and the fault of Mr. Mackenzie that he provokes melancholy regrets, even in the middle of frequent chuckles; and when the chuckling has died away the shadow of _Sylvia Scarlett_ falls upon the book, just as with the same unhappy denigration it is flung backwards over the better qualities of the earlier _Carnival_.

Yet _Poor Relations_, like _Guy and Pauline_, is free from the worst flaw of the longer novels, the crude determination to shock, which breaks most starkly through the superficialities of _Sylvia Scarlett_. That is a breach of the code of art rather than the code of morals, an eruptive _épatism_ which would disfigure a better book, if it could be found there. Can you conceive a more attractive subject, if you are but three-and-twenty, than the philosophic harlot? Or an easier? I do not suppose that it is less interesting to be on the streets than to be in the Ministry of Food; neither occupation can be objectionable as subject of a novel. It would be untrue to say that the subject of a novel is a thing of complete indifference, and that the treatment is everything; for a writer would not do wisely to forfeit the advantage which a subject might offer him. But neither would he do wisely in exploiting a subject only to excite the curiosity or astonish the simplicity of his reader. Merely adventitious at best is the gain. It is to reduce subject and treatment to their lowest terms, and reject the implicit conditions which confront every writer who would explore the imaginative world where there can be no laws save honour, loyalty, and delicacy. The scientific writer is secured against deceiving himself or his readers for long; his assumptions can be verified, his deductions precisely analysed, his whole professions rationally weighed. The imaginative and the quasi-imaginative writer have no such security, nor their readers such protection. Traditional values may be inapplicable; it is hard to discriminate novelty from originality. A book that shocks may be as profoundly conceived as _Jude the Obscure_, as cheaply fashioned as _Sylvia Scarlett_. Incident may be prodigal equally in Dostoieffsky and Mr. Compton Mackenzie, but significance of incident may vary infinitely. Mr. Mackenzie's incidents have no significance; they remain incidents. His thoughts are insignificant except in so far as they indicate a modern intellectual disvertebration. His view of character is insignificant except in so far as it betrays an adolescent apprehension. Who is Sylvia? you ask, and your author is silent. What is she? and the answer is dispersed among eight hundred garrulous pages.

Yet, it must be repeated, Mr. Mackenzie has conspicuous gifts, and, as the letters with which _Sinister Street_ opens and closes indicate, he is aware of them, and has not undertaken these enormous fictions without a sense of his task. But he has accepted the easier way. He can invest his scene with an illusion of activity, if not of reality, but he is unable to picture reality, for he does not distinguish; neither does he create a reality, a world for himself, amenable to its own laws, establishing its own consistency. That would be a wonderful but a hard thing. Amid the booths of his Vanity Fair he moves, not soberly and critically as Christian and Faithful moved, but as one swiftly enchanted by externals. He approaches the field of imaginative art, and I cannot say that his powers and pretensions are such as must discourage entry; but for imagination he learns to substitute invention, chooses the superficial, and does not even trouble to secure the consistency of his characters; Michael Fane's mother, for instance, being declined from an irregular great lady in Volume One to a parish imbecile in Volume Two. He might have chosen otherwise. His alertness, his preoccupation with externals, his fullness of incident, his soft fluency of style might have been flogged into subordination; he need not have been very serious to have taken his work seriously. But all that he promises now is, if the tempting derangement of a line by a modern poet be pardonable:

A torment of intolerable tales.

Mr. Mackenzie has divagated. The task of presenting reality is left to the scientific mind, and the task of creating another reality is left to the poetic mind.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES AND NEWS

_Correspondence from readers on all subjects of bibliographical interest is invited. The Editor will, to the best of his ability, answer all queries addressed to him._

GENERAL NOTES

Mr. Septimus Rivington's recently published book, _The Publishing Family of Rivington_ (Rivington, 1919; 10_s._ net), contains a certain amount of interesting information about the eighteenth-century book trade. Charles Rivington started publishing in 1711. His successor, John, succeeded Jacob Tonson (great-nephew of the original Jacob Tonson who published Dryden's works) as managing partner of the institution known as the "Conger," the association of booksellers formed to share the risks and the profits of publishing ventures. In this volume Mr. Rivington has printed a number of Conger documents in his possession. It is interesting to learn the trade value of well-known books of the period. Thus, one-eighth of Archbishop Tillotson's works is bought by Tonson in 1711 for £87 10_s._ In 1738 a third part of Watts's _Hymns_ is worth £70.

* * * * *

Mr. Rivington prints several extracts from old catalogues in his possession, which show that a book sale in the eighteenth century was a convivial affair. The catalogue of Thomas Osborne's stock-in-trade, consisting of books, copyrights, and shares in publications, is issued "to a select number of booksellers at the Queen's Head Tavern, in Paternoster Row, on Thursday, the ninth day of February, 1743/4, at Eleven of the Clock in the Forenoon. DINNER will be served on the table exactly at One of the Clock, consisting of Turkies and Chines, Hams and Chickens, Apple-pies, etc., and a Glass of very good Wine."

* * * * *

Another recent book by a member of one of our great publishing families is Mr. John Murray's brief memoir of his father, John Murray the Third, the inventor of what was in his day an entirely new literary form, the _Guide Book_. Murray's first guide was issued in 1836. Three years later Karl Baedeker published a _Handbüchlein_ of the same districts. Baedeker, like Shakespeare, disdained to invent his own plots. Murray's eighteen European guides were the _Plutarch_ and _Holinshed_ of the German's stupendous creations.

Those who hope, by taking advantage of the present rate of exchange, to secure German books at an eighth or tenth of their value will be sorry to hear that German publishers are in league to put a stop to such delightful bargains. They are insisting on being paid at the rate of about fivepence to the mark; so that your books will cost you as much as half their real price.

We were surprised, considering the blockade and the general shortage, at the excellent "get-up" of such recent German publications as we have seen. Among them were two illustrated volumes, one on Egyptian and the other on Negro art, published during the war, and produced in the most magnificent style. Almost more surprising were some exquisite little volumes of Czech poetry published at Prague, in which print, paper, and binding were all equally admirable.

A book for which one may search long in vain, but for which it is worth while to take some trouble, is the _Memorie di Lorenzo da Ponte da Ceneda_, three volumes, New York, 1829. Da Ponte is well known as the librettist of a number of Mozart's operas, and should be better known as the author of some of the most charming of eighteenth-century memoirs. His memoirs and poetical works were republished at Florence in 1871, and a French translation of the memoirs only was executed by M. C. D. de la Chavanne (Paris, Pagnerre, 1860). So far as we are aware, no English translation of this work exists. If this is indeed the case, it is high time that the defect was remedied. The _Memorie Inutili_ of Da Ponte's earlier contemporary, Carlo Gozzi (three volumes, Venice, 1797), were translated by John Addington Symonds, and published in a very sumptuous illustrated edition by Nimmo in 1890.

* * * * *

Another important book on the Italian eighteenth century, and one which it is not easy to find a copy of in any edition, is the _Lettres Historiques et Critiques sur l'Italie_ of the Président Charles de Brosses (Paris, Ponthieu, An VII., and under the title _Le Président de Brosses en Italie_, Paris, 1858). De Brosses' letters make the best possible book to take on a voyage to Italy.

* * * * *

Londoners cannot have failed to notice in the past weeks the presence of numerous posters--we have seen them in every part of the city--bearing the legend: "The Bishops must open Joanna Southcott's Box and save the country from ruin." We hope that this faint echo of a vanished notoriety may arouse among book-lovers an interest in Joanna's numerous literary works. The first of them, _The Strange Effects of Faith_, was published at Exeter in 1792, and from that time onwards she poured forth a stream of prophecies in prose and verse. In one of the latest of them (the last part of _The Book of Wonder_, if we remember rightly; but it is some years since we saw the book) is a superb engraving of a cradle subscribed for by Joanna's disciples against the birth of Shiloh. Shiloh, unhappily, was never born, and Joanna Southcott died three months after the presentation of the two-hundred-guinea cot. Enthusiastic bibliographers will find plenty of interest in the study of Southcottian literature; first editions are satisfactorily scarce. As for the box--well, why don't the Bishops open it? Who knows? it might save us from ruin, more effectually perhaps than all the politicians together.

* * * * *

An important collection of autograph letters and historical documents, the property of the late Charles Fairfax Murray, is to be sold at Messrs. Sotheby's on Thursday and Friday, February 5th and 6th. The first 163 lots are autographs of famous artists, and include four letters of Blake, Michelangelo's specification for the tomb of Julius II., a letter of Benvenuto Cellini, a letter of Albrecht Dürer, illustrated by charming little sketches, letters of Gainsborough, Hogarth, Reynolds, and Constable, a letter of Titian written at the age of eighty-five, and a series of notes by Leonardo on the flight of birds.

Lots 164 to 280 are of historical, literary, and musical interest. One of the most interesting items is the MS. of Baudelaire's _La Charogne_, with a drawing of a woman by the poet. A beautifully written letter from Lucretia Borgia to Cardinal D'Este is another remarkable piece.

Lots 281-286 are documents which will appeal to collectors of relics of Mary Queen of Scots. The first is a document signed by Bothwell; four are letters of John Lesley, Bishop of Ross; and the last a document signed by William Davison, Queen Elizabeth's agent in Scotland.

ITEMS FROM THE BOOKSELLERS' CATALOGUES

Messrs. Maggs's catalogue (No. 386) of autograph letters and MSS. contains a number of items which will be of interest to musicians. In a letter to Birchall, the English music publisher, dated October, 1831, Beethoven writes the following sentence: "I have duly received the 5 £s, and thought previously you would not encrease the number of englishmen neglecting their word and honor, as I had the misfortune of meeting with two of this sort." He goes on to offer Birchall a Grand Sonata for the Pianoforte for £40, and a Trio for piano, violin, and cello for £50. The letter is priced at £21. There are also four letters of Wagner, a note in the handwriting of Sir Arthur Sullivan (12_s._ 6_d._), a signed autograph piece by Gounod (£3 10_s._), letters of Berger, Spontini, Balfe, Hiller and Heller, Verdi, Thalberg, Paganini, Brahms, and Liszt; there is an autograph musical MS. of Mendelssohn dated 1844 (£10 10_s._), and another of a Scena composed by Haydn for Signora Banti (£85).

* * * * *

Other pieces of the greatest interest are advertised in the same catalogue. A beautifully written letter in the hand of Benvenuto Cellini is priced £105. Another letter of slightly earlier date than Cellini's is the almost illegible scrawl of Götz von Berlichingen, the Knight of the Iron Hand (£32). The collection also includes several very important letters of Byron: one to John Murray (October 29th, 1819), in which he speaks of his Memoirs, entrusted to Moore, and afterwards solemnly burnt at Murray's house in Albemarle Street (£105): one to Kinnaird (1822) on the morality of Don Juan.

* * * * *

Mr. Francis Edwards has also issued a catalogue of autograph letters which contains many items of remarkable interest. _Hrothgar_, a seventy-eight verse ballad (unpublished), by George Borrow, is a curious by-product of Beowulf scholarship, which ought to be worth the thirty pounds at which it is priced. Among the five autograph letters of Thomas Carlyle we find one addressed to the Bishop of Chester (August 23rd, 1840), in which Carlyle writes: "May I apply to you for a charitable service on behalf of a certain Mr. Mazzini, an Italian neighbour and friend of mine?" Two holograph manuscripts of John Evelyn are offered for £15 and £25 respectively. Ten pounds is the price of a letter from Sir William Hamilton (Naples, 1792) to Horace Walpole, in which Hamilton remarks of his famous wife: "She is ... most grateful to me for having saved her from the precipice into which she had good sense enough to see she must, without me, have inevitably fallen, and she sees that nothing but a constant good conduct can maintain the respect that is now shown her by everybody. It has often been remarked that a reformed rake makes a good husband, why not _vice versa_?" Why not? The answer is to be found in a letter from Nelson to Lady Hamilton (Yarmouth, 1801; £21). Other Nelson and Hamilton autographs, the Morrison collection, are on sale at Messrs. Suckling's, of Garrick Street.

* * * * *

Other interesting letters and manuscripts offered by Messrs. Edwards are by Dr. Johnson, Samuel Richardson, Swinburne, Meredith, Landor, Pepys, Lamb, Southey, Thackeray.

* * * * *

We are glad to notice that a manuscript by a young contemporary can command as big a price as ten guineas. This is the sum asked by Messrs. Davis and Orioli for the autograph MS. of Mr. Robert Nichols's _The Faun's Holiday_, published in his volume of _Ardours and Endurances_. To buy it would certainly be a speculation; but we believe there is a good chance of the speculation turning out profitably.

* * * * *

Early Editions of Fielding: Messrs. Bowes and Bowes, of Cambridge, are asking £25 for the first edition (two volumes in contemporary calf) of _The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, and of his Friend, Mr. Abraham Adams_. A copy of the second edition, published in the same year as the first, is offered for 31_s._ 6_d._ by the Ex-Officers' Book Union, 16 Rathgar Avenue, West Ealing.

* * * * *

Messrs. Pickering and Chatto are offering a copy of _Endymion_ (Taylor and Hessey, 1818), in the original boards, for £78. Another interesting Keats relic is the original autograph MS. of a portion of _Otho the Great_, which is offered by Messrs. Maggs Bros. for £60. The MS., entirely in Keats's own writing, is a fragment of the first scene of the play.

* * * * *

We note that a fine copy of Fulke Greville's _Poems_ (1633), of which we recently had occasion to speak, is for sale at Messrs. Dobell's, the price being six guineas.

* * * * *

Messrs. Maggs Bros.' new catalogue, _Bibliotheca Aeronautica_, price 5_s._, is a fascinating book. It contains the account of some fifteen hundred volumes dealing with the problem of flight from the earliest times to the present day. The first section contains books published prior to the invention of the Montgolfier Balloon in 1783. A fine copy of Francesco de Lana's _Prodromo Overo Saggio di Alcune Inventioni_ appears in this section (£16 16_s._). Paltock's famous flying novel, _The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins_, London, 1751, is offered at £15 15_s._, and the work which Restif de la Bretonne founded on it, _La Découverte Australe par un Homme Volant, ou le Dédale Français_, at £18 18_s._ Fine engravings are reproduced from these books.

* * * * *

In the second section we find a number of Blanchard's narratives, including the account of the first aerial crossing of the Channel; we find Lunardi's _Account of the First Aerial Voyage in England_, London, 1784 (£7 10_s._); several books on the Montgolfier brothers, as well as the works of the great Baron Munchausen, so famed for his aeronautical exploits.

* * * * *

The third section of the catalogue deals with the evolution of aircraft from 1851 to 1899. An interesting item is the first edition of Rémy de Gourmont's _En Ballon_, Paris, 1883. A large number of works by Tissandier, author of the _Bibliographie Aéronautique_, Paris, 1887, naturally appear. We may here note the remarkable fact that by far the greater number of the volumes on flight are in French. British interest in the problem was not aroused till a good deal later, after the first practical difficulties had been solved. A first edition of Jules Verne's _Robur le Conquérant_, Paris, 1886, is included (15_s._). His _Six Weeks in a Balloon_ also deserves a place.

* * * * *

In the fourth section we come to "Aeroplanes and Dirigibles in the Twentieth Century." The period opens with the intrepid Santos-Dumont and his flights and falls over Paris. His _My Airships_, London, 1904, is priced at 10_s._ The handsomest aeronautical work published during this period is perhaps _La Conquête de l'Air_, by Grand-Carteret and Delteil, a finely illustrated folio, offered at £3 3_s._

* * * * *

A fifth section contains pictures of famous balloon ascents, portraits of aeronauts, caricatures, and the like.

A. L. H.

CORRESPONDENCE

A PROTEST

(_To the Editor of_ THE LONDON MERCURY)

SIR,--Your dramatic critic writes of my play _Sacred and Profane Love_, "A writer of Mr. Arnold Bennett's eminence and great sagacity would be the last person to expect us to take this play seriously as a contribution to dramatic literature." Only a certain ingenuousness prevents this remark from being outrageous. Of course I expect the play to be taken seriously. Your writer is perfectly entitled to condemn my play; but he is not entitled on the strength of his opinion to attribute to me an attitude which is not mine, and which, if it were mine, would render me odious in the sight of artists. Why in the name of my alleged great sagacity should I publish a play which I did not expect to be taken seriously? Did your critic perhaps imagine that he was being charitable? One does not expect from the critics of THE LONDON MERCURY the ineptitudes which characterise the dramatic criticism of the stunt daily Press. I mention the matter because I think that an important point of principle is involved, and because this is not the first time that one of your critics has exceeded his province. In your first number there were references to the work of Mr. Frank Swinnerton which amounted to a quite gratuitous imputation against the artistic integrity of the author.--Yours, etc.,

ARNOLD BENNETT.

12B George Street, Hanover Square, W.1, December 19th, 1919.

[We gladly publish Mr. Bennett's disclaimer, but we think he exaggerates the gravity of the supposition he repels. We need scarcely say that our critic had no intention of imputing to Mr. Bennett anything which we supposed would render Mr. Bennett odious. Taking the view that he did of Mr. Bennett's play, our critic thought he was paying a compliment to Mr. Bennett's intelligence. If it is odious to write, occasionally, things which we do not regard as serious contributions to literature, we can only say that a great many artists have made themselves odious. As for Mr. Swinnerton, our reviewer, detecting a falling off, suggested that it might be due to the novelist having got into the habit of turning novels out regularly instead of waiting for the impulse. If a serious reviewer is to be precluded, when he thinks himself justified, from making suggestions like that, he might just as well be muzzled.--EDITOR.]

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"THE DUCHESS OF MALFI"

(_To the Editor of_ THE LONDON MERCURY)

SIR,--Mr. Turner says he can hardly believe that the section of the audience which behaved so abominably at the "Phœnix" performance consisted largely of the theatrical profession. I think he is right. I happen to know that an effort was made by two actors in the audience to get a request for order made from the stage during the first interval.

Nor were these people entirely of the "uneducated" sort--in the conventional sense. One of the worst offenders was a terrible woman sitting next to me, who occasionally interrupted her nervous giggle to remark, "A wonderfully characteristic touch!" or something of the kind. I believe she must have been a don.

May I suggest that at the next performance by the "Phœnix," if similar trouble occurs, the matter should be brought to the notice of the management during the first interval, and that a request should be made from the stage by the latter? Personal requests to individual offenders were made by more than one member of the audience at the performance in question, but without result. It is worth while making a concerted effort to prevent the authentic joy of the theatre, when at last it is offered to us, from being marred by the behaviour of vulgar sentimentalists and neurotics.--Yours, etc.,

VICTOR GOLLANCZ.

Authors' Club, 2 Whitehall Court, S.W.1, January 9th.

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TAM HTAB

(_To the Editor of_ THE LONDON MERCURY)

SIR,--In vain Mr. L. Pearsall Smith held out a juicy carrot. Lest Mr. J. J. Biggs also be disappointed in his hope of a solemn ass, I beg to offer myself in that capacity, and with well-feigned eagerness point out that this page, if held to a mirror, will show that TAM HTAB is no more the reverse of BATH MAT than MOOR EEFFOC of COFFEE ROOM.

As you say, these public inscriptions are responsible for much distress.--Yours, etc.,

A. P.

January 6th.

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THE LAMBKIN MSS. AND MR. BELLOC

(_To the Editor of_ THE LONDON MERCURY)

SIR,--Your valued bibliographer classifies the _Remains_ of the Rev. J. A. Lambkin among the verse attributable to their editor. I feel very strongly the impiety of this error. For, although the influence of that eminent divine is traceable in the Dedicatory Ode prefixed by Mr. Belloc to the _Remains_ of his great mentor, it is nevertheless in the realm of prose that we must look for Lambkin's main contributions to knowledge and literature. True it is that the late Fellow of Burford's justly famed Newdigate Poem is included in the definitive edition--indeed, Mr. Belloc must have felt the impossibility of rejecting its claims to such inclusion--yet, if I may quote a delightful "Lambkinism" which deserves a wider fame, "One swallow does not make a summer"; and, as one who owes a goodly part of the culture discernible (as I trust) in this letter to the author of the _Article on the North-West Corner of the Mosaic Pavement at Bignor_, I feel I should be untrue to the memory of my late dear tutor if I allowed such glories to be catalogued as if they formed part of the verses of a mere poet. No, sir, Lambkin is "this England's" Seneca, and all who treasure a great cultural inheritance should rally to do justice to its _Remains_. The late Dr. Pusey, whose character held so much in common with that of his younger disciple, never tired of narrating that wonderful instance of Lambkin's profound yet finely epigrammatic Latinity which is connected with the death of the late Pastor of Bremen, I think. I was present on that occasion, and can testify that, far from any library, Mr. Lambkin, after a short silence lasting perhaps for two minutes, whispered the words _Requiescat in Pace_--surely the most terse and crisp of potential epitaphs and one almost certain to secure the immediate popularity which it obtained, falling as it did upon the receptive soil afforded by the Oxford Movement from which event in our history the expression dates. As the fact is not generally known, perhaps, sir, you will allow me to state here that the present Sir Ezra Crumpton-Padge of Whortlebury Towers, near Brixton, is now the sole surviving link between the author of _Physiology of the Elephant_ and our own times, the claims to this honour made by M. Lamkinski, President-elect of the Kacheefucan Soviet, having been expressly refuted by that gentleman's father-in-law, M. Georgeovitch Bernardenko Shavkin, the well-known big-game hunter and editor of _Agapé_.

Curiously enough Mr. Belloc's fine monograph on the "_Padge_" _System of Rhetoric_ makes no allusion to this interesting example of what we may surely describe, in the truest sense of Lambkin's happiest aphorism, as a "survival of the fittest." Your bibliographer will doubtless wish to note these _errata_. Meanwhile I trust the importance of the subject may condone in some measure for the length of this letter.--Yours, etc.,

R. N. GREEN-ARMYTAGE [Curator L.L.].

Lambkin Library, Whortleboro', near Weston-S.-Mare, January 10th.

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ONED

(_To the Editor of_ THE LONDON MERCURY)

SIR,--Your reviewer, in his notice of Mr. Dormer Creston's _Clown of Paradise_, claims to record a neologism which he commends to the notice of the editors of the _Oxford Dictionary_. Unfortunately they have anticipated him. If he will turn to the _Oxford Dictionary_, vol. vii, page 123, the top of the second column, he will find eleven examples, the last from a book published as recently as 1839, of this astounding grammatical invention.--Yours, etc.,

GERARD HOPKINS.

Oxford University Press, Amen Corner, E.C.4, December 17th, 1919.

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CANDIDE

(_To the Editor of_ THE LONDON MERCURY)

SIR,--It is interesting to learn from Mr. Lewis H. Grundy's letter in your issue of December that an English translation of _Candide_, with the name of M. de Voltaire as the author of the original, was published in London as early as 1759.

According to the preface of the edition of the Académie des Bibliophiles of 1869 _Candide_ first appeared at the beginning of March, 1759, the _Journal Encyclopédique_ of the 15th of that month containing an article on the book, which is headed by the following:

"We do not believe that this tale has a German original. It is attributed to M. de V."

This note produced a reply from Voltaire signed "Démad."

Though the reply is dated April 15th, 1759, it did not appear in the _Journal Encyclopédique_ till July 15th, 1762, with the following note:

"This letter has been mislaid for a long time, and when it reached us we made fruitless efforts to discover the existence of M. Démad, Captain in the Brunswick Regiment."

A facsimile of the title-page of the first edition of 1759 is also given in the edition of 1869, and is the same as that quoted in the Bibliographical Notes of your issue of November.

_L'Ingénu_ was also published anonymously in 1767. The title-page runs as follows:

"_L Ingénu, Histoire véritable, tirée des manuscrits du Père Quesnel, à Utrecht, 1767._"--Yours, etc.,

ERNEST F. GYE.

61 Tregunter Road, S.W.10, December 19th, 1919.

LEARNED SOCIETIES, ETC.

THE SOCIETY FOR THE PROTECTION OF ANCIENT BUILDINGS

In the recent Housing Supplement issued by the _Times_ the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings has expressed its views on the housing problem in connection with old cottages. There are in this article two main points worth noting. The first is that until a subsidy is made, proportionate to the value of the work of repair, old cottages will not be readapted, but allowed to fall into ruins. The failure to award this subsidy tends to shift the responsibility, in regard to the upkeep of such property, from the owner to the State, for whilst the State encourages and partially finances new building, old cottages, though in theory valued by the Ministry of Health, in practice will hardly receive the attention they deserve. The second point is this: that the Society shows clearly it is no lover of mere decay, or old and mouldering walls, features we are apt to associate with the sketches of an early nineteenth century schoolgirl.

It lends no countenance to the habitual carping at all things new. It is as eager that the architecture of to-day should be as clean and decent--the natural expression of the life of to-day--as it is anxious to preserve, and where possible render habitable, those buildings of the past embodying the spirit of _their_ time.

But since "words will build no walls," if our fine old cottages are to be preserved, it will need something more than mere discussions or eulogiums on their value as relics of the nation's past. By all who are interested more practical help must be given, and it is for this that the Society now makes a special appeal.

THE ROYAL NUMISMATIC SOCIETY

The monthly meeting of the Royal Numismatic Society was held on December 18th, Sir Henry Howorth, Vice-President, presiding. Mr. G. F. Hill read a paper entitled "The Mint of Crosraguel Abbey," written by Dr. George Macdonald, who was unable to be present. Recent excavations at Crosraguel ("Crossregal") Abbey, a Cluniac foundation in Ayrshire, founded in 1244, and endowed by the Scottish kings with extraordinary privileges, resulted in the discovery in a latrine-drain of a large number of small objects, some of a miscellaneous nature, others evidently the remains of a local mint: large quantities of small tags of brass, needles, portions of thin sheets, etc., as well as objects and pieces of copper and lead, together with 197 coins of billon, bronze, or copper and brass. The coins are (_a_) contemporary imitations of pennies of James III. and IV., and farthings of James IV., including twenty which are a combination of the obverse of one type with the reverse of another; (_b_) fifty-one pennies bearing a _cross_ on one side and a _regal_ orb on the other, and the inscriptions _Jacobus Dei Gra. Rex_ and _Crux pellit omne crimen_ variously abbreviated; (_c_) eighty-eight copper or brass farthings, of types not hitherto known, inscribed _Moneta Pauperum_. The imitations of class (_a_) are the "black money" known from records. The pennies of class (_b_) are almost exclusively found in Scotland, though they have hitherto been attributed to one or other James of Aragon. They were clearly minted at Crosraguel, the types having a punning significance. They and the farthings are the only known instance in Great Britain of an Abbey coinage, such as is very frequent on the Continent, _e.g._, at Cluny. The inscription _Moneta pauperum_ shows that the coins were intended to provide small change for the especial benefit of the poor like the seventeenth century tokens. The mint was probably suppressed by James IV.

At the meeting of the Society on January 20th, Rev. E. A. Sydenham gave the results of his study of the "Coinage of Augustus."

THE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION

The passage through Parliament of a new Public Libraries Bill was effected with the minimum of friction--one might almost say "of interest." But public libraries, accustomed as they have been through fifty years to Legislative stonings, can hardly yet realise that they have in their hands at length the very bread of life. For some, that statement "renews the unspeakable anguish" of dissolution--of the day when they closed their doors to the public from sheer inability to exist. Others may witness to a miracle of healing, rescue when _in extremis_. Others, again, survey the newly-granted means wherewith to end bravely contracted debts. But the majority become slowly conscious that the burden has fallen from their backs, and that they may go forward with a lighter step to a far brighter future. The removal of the rate limit will effect a revolution in public library practice; but its results cannot become at once apparent. It rests with individual library authorities to make a rate each year--to afford their charges the opportunity, as they now possess the power, of proving to all sections of the public that they are necessities and not luxuries. That some of these Councils will fail is certain--the public library idea is not yet sufficiently commended to minds with the parish pump ideal; and only external pressure and the education of the general public in library values will bring certain painfully parochial legislators into line with their opportunities. In London the situation is diverting; one Metropolitan Borough has awakened rather late to its peril, and like a surprised bather is frantically making for shore; with a desperate consciousness that close behind is the shark-like shadow of the London County Council. Other two Boroughs must be in doubt as to whether their very exiguous libraries, possessed of neither service nor system--neither use nor ornament--will place them out of reach of attack. And, if so, for how long? Other legislation is foreshadowed, and the Library Association (deeply grateful that the long years in the wilderness have ended) intends to bring libraries to all the people as a necessary preliminary to bringing all the people to the libraries.

A correspondent writes of a report in our first issue: "On page 109 you state that our forty-second annual meeting marked 'a definite cleavage between librarians and the Board of Education' with respect to future library policy. Here you innocently place the Association in a false position. The third interim report, the subject of the discussion to which you refer, was that of a committee appointed by the Ministry of Reconstruction, and was addressed to that Ministry. The Minister of Education considerately invited the opinion of the Library Association on that report. The Library Association, whilst approving certain recommendations contained therein, differed from others, and submitted a reasoned statement of its views to the Board of Education, as a reply to Mr. Fisher's request. It is therefore obvious that there is no 'cleavage' between librarians and the Board of Education; and an incorrect statement to that effect would give a wrong and damaging impression of the facts. Moreover, the Library Association is by no means exclusively composed of librarians. A very considerable proportion of those present at the Southport meeting were members of library authorities, many of whom were also members of education committees."

THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES

Of the three fragments of Christian art described by Mr. Dalton, one is a spandril of morse ivory 3 inches long, carved in high relief with two soaring angels back to back. This fascinating example of the Winchester School of Art dates from about 1000 A.D., and having been found in a garden at St. Cross, is now appropriately housed in the museum a mile away. The other two are products of the Near East: the first a detail from a mosaic pavement in a small church of the sixth century at Umm Jerar, south of Gaza, representing a phœnix on a fire-altar, a rare instance of this motive in early Christian times. The other is a marble slab in the British Museum, apparently part of a screen, from a church at Miafarkin, north-east of Diarbekr, Kurdistan. Dating probably from the twelfth century, it is carved in low relief on both faces, and a central medallion bears a double-headed eagle, which had already started on its eventful career. A gift from Sir John Ramsden has enriched the national collection with a fine example of the penannular brooch, for a long time in the Breadalbane family. It was probably found in Scotland, and falls into its place in the series of Irish or Scotic works of art, the date being towards the end of the eighth century. The material is silver-gilt, with gold filigree and glass settings; and even the back is ornamented with medallions of trumpet spirals.

THE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY

The occasion of the annual meeting of the Society, which was held on January 19th, was saddened by the recent death of Sir William Osler, the President of the Society, who had held that office for seven years. During that time he seldom failed to preside at the Society's meetings, and his courtesy and geniality, no less than his keen interest in bibliography, and especially in the Society's own sphere of work, won him the warm regard of the members. For some years past he had been engaged in the preparation of a monograph on medical works printed in the fifteenth century, which, it is hoped, will be issued by the Bibliographical Society. Sir William's successor in the Presidency is Mr. Falconer Madan, formerly Bodley's Librarian. At the January meeting he read an abridgment of a paper which he had written describing the work of the Daniel Press, which since the death of its founder and owner has passed into the possession of the Bodleian Library.

BOOKS OF THE MONTH

POETRY

FLORA. By PAMELA BIANCO. Verses by WALTER DE LA MARE. Heinemann. 25_s._ net.