(_From an Oxford Correspondent._)
Considerable resentment has been caused in various centres of poetic
activity by the preference recently expressed by the PRIME MINISTER
for the products of Welsh minstrelsy. In a letter addressed to HUW
MENAI, the working South Wales miner poet, Mr. LLOYD GEORGE declares
that he has read his poems with the "greatest delight." If the PREMIER
had merely said "great delight" no untoward consequences would have
ensued, but the invidious use of the superlative threatens to embroil
the whole country in that internecine war recently predicted by
the Editor of _The Athenaeum_ in his gloomy survey of Neo-Georgian
literature.
Meetings of protest have been held in Hampstead, at Letchworth,
Stratford-on-Avon and the Eustace Miles Restaurant, but the most
remarkable and orderly of these demonstrations was that which took
place at Boar's Hill on Saturday last, under the presidency of the
POET LAUREATE. Boar's Hill, we need not remind our readers, is _par
excellence_ the fashionable intellectual suburb of Oxford, and has
been called the "Paradise of Bards." Dr. BRIDGES in a brief opening
address, speaking more in sorrow than in anger, dealt with the
statistical side of the question. He pointed out that of the residents
at Boar's Hill one in every six was a true poet, and three out of
every five were masters of the art of prosody. There were no miner
poets on Boar's Hill. Their motto was _Majora canamus_.
Professor GILBERT MURRAY, who followed, laid stress on the perfect
harmony which reigned amongst the residents, in spite of the fact
that all schools of poetry were represented, from the austerest of
classicists to the most advanced exponents of Neo-Georgian _vers
libre_. They were a happy family, linked together by a common devotion
to the Muses, and in their daily output of verse showing a higher
unit of production than that recorded of any other community in either
hemisphere.
Mr. JOHN MASEFIELD moved the only resolution, which was carried
unanimously, to the effect that Mr. FISHER, the Minister of Education,
should be requested to convey to the PRIME MINISTER the regret of the
meeting that he should have overlooked the paramount claim of Boar's
Hill to be regarded as the Parnassus of Great Britain. In _Murray's
Guide to Oxfordshire_ it had been spoken of as "a health resort for
jaded students," but that was an obsolete libel. Constitutionally
vigorous and daily refreshed by draughts from the pellucid springs
of the Pierides, they led a life of exuberant health, as the vital
statistics of the neighbourhood would abundantly show. On Boar's Hill
people began to write poetry earlier and continued to do so later than
in any other spot in the British Isles.
Sir ARTHUR EVANS, in proposing a vote of thanks to the Chairman, made
the gratifying announcement that Mr. MASEFIELD was already engaged on
a companion poem to his "Reynard the Fox," commemorating the _genius
loci_ under the inspiring title of "The Sticking of the Pig."
* * * * *
A Very Free Translation.
"'Have you come to make peace?'
'_Nous verrons pour cela_ ('That is what we have come for),' replied
Krassin at once."
_Daily Paper._
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[Illustration: _Martha_ (_to ancient spouse, who has narrowly escaped
being run over by passing car_). "AN' SERVE YER RIGHT TOO IF IT 'AD
A-KNOCKED YER. YER DU GO RACIN' A'EAD--NO SENSE."]
* * * * *