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.]
* * * * *
"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.
* * * * *
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.
* * * * *
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.
* * * * *
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.
* * * * *
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.
Miss Bianco is twelve years old--at least she was when these drawings
were made. There is a sameness about them. Almost all of them contain
a rather languishing female face, with something of a primitive
Madonna about it and something (if we dare suggest it) of the
sophisticated 'nineties. In the coloured and in the more elaborate
of the black-and-white pictures the faces are framed in setting of
conventional but charming flowers, with, as Tennyson would put it, here
and there a rabbit. The drawings are unreservedly amazing for a girl of
Miss Bianco's age; if her future progress were to be on a par with her
present precocity she would become one of the greatest artists in the
world. We cannot assume that; nor, on the other hand, need we rummage
in our notebooks for ancient generalisations about the fate of ancient
prodigies. Miss Bianco is remarkable now; and she will be what she will
be. If we _were_ predicting we should say that she would become a very
skilful and charming decorator, a more complicated Kate Greenaway.
She has at least performed one great feat already: she has provided
little platforms from which Mr. de la Mare's Pegasus has sprung into
the æther. We can imagine nothing which could more finally illustrate
how small suggestions may germinate in a poet's mind than the verses
which Mr. de la Mare has written to these so slight, so purely
decorative pictures. His imagination has been coloured and excited by
every smallest hint of a mood; and where, to the passing observant eye,
Miss Bianco has left nothing more to be said to the little she has
stated herself, anything, a droop of the eyelids, an indicated detail
in the background, serves to send Mr. de la Mare off dreaming into
remote fairylands. Behind one of Miss Bianco's damsels, slit-eyed and
straight-fingered, is a path leading to a small crude building. The
wind bloweth where it listeth. On this small thing, missing girl and
child and leafy tree, Mr. de la Mare's eye has rested. The outlines
have filled in, atmosphere has trembled in, sounds and lights; and the
outcome is something of which Miss Bianco never dreamed:
Is it an abbey that I see
Hard by that tapering poplar-tree,
Whereat that path hath end?
'Tis wondrous still
That empty hill,
Yet calls me, friend.
Smooth is the turf, serene the sky,
The timeworn, crumbling roof awry;
Within that turret slim
Hangs there a bell
Whose faint notes knell?
Do colours dim
Burn in that angled window there,
Grass-green, and crimson, azure rare?
Would from that narrow door
One, looking in,
See, gemlike, shine
On walls and floor
Candles whose aureole flames must seem--
So still they burn--to burn in dream?
And do they cry, and say,
"See, stranger; come!
Here is thy home;
No longer stray"?
The poem _Suppose_, which appeared in our first number, starts on its
fantastic flight from a face with eyes of wonderment in it; and from
another head--a head crowned, a neck girdled--comes _The Comb_, perfect
in itself without any picture:
My mother sate me at her glass;
This necklet of bright flowers she wove;
Crisscross her gentle hands did pass,
And wound in my hair her love.