for all time, nor even for an age, but rather for a week or a day: By ways no gaze could follow, a course unspoiled of cook, Mr. Kipling does himself some injustice in lowering the average merit of his collections by the inclusion of such journey-work as this. It is reassuring, however, to note that the average rises with each volume. Departmental Ditties consisted for the most part of mere smart society verses, very rarely aspiring to the level of poetry. In Barrack-Room Ballads the proportions were reversed, the element of literature largely preponderating over that of mere journalism; while in The Seven Seas journalism pure and simple is reduced to a minimum. Of Mr. Kipling's technique the main thing to be noted is that he excels in rhythm rather than in sonority. The "love of lovely words," which infallibly marks the poet born, is not very strong in him. He will always choose the racy and precise rather than the nobly harmonious vocable. Where his verse attains real grandeur it comes mainly from his study of the Bible; and even then he seems to give us Isaiah to a banjo accompaniment. Not without a peculiar fitness has he sung The Song of the Banjo, that "war-drum of the White Man round the world": With my "Billy-willy-winky-winky-pop !'' (Oh, it's any tune that comes into my head!) So I keep 'em moving forward till they drop; With my "Tinka-tinka-tinka-tinka-tink!" (What d'ye lack, my noble masters? What d'ye lack?) So I draw the world together link by link : Yea, from Delos up to Limerick and back There is a good deal of the "Tinka-tinka-tinka-tinka-tink" in Mr. Kipling's metrical art. He is always playing pizzicato; we miss what another poet has finely called The continuity, the long slow slope And vast curves of the gradual violin— and still more the shuddering swell of the great organ. But on his own instrument he is a consummate master, inventive, various, delightful. There are no greater triumphs of vernacular rhythm (if I may call it so) in the English language than The Last Chantey and Mandalay. Even in the early Departmental Ditties there are fine and memorable things, such as Arithmetic on the Frontier, and especially The Galley-Slaves; while in each of his later volumes he seems to take a larger and sincerer view of life, and to rise ever nearer at certain points to what, rather snobbishly perhaps, we are apt to call the grand manner-in other words, to real dignity and simplicity. And whatever may be his ultimate place in literature, there can be no doubt that his poems have won for him what perhaps he values more—a place in the history of his country. RECESSIONAL. God of our fathers, known of old- The tumult and the shouting dies- An humble and a contrite heart. Far-call'd our navies melt away On dune and headland sinks the fire Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! Judge of the Nations, spare us yet, Lest we forget, lest we forget! If, drunk with sight of power, we loose Such boasting as the Gentiles use, Or lesser breeds without the Law-Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget, lest we forget! For heathen heart that puts her trust And guarding calls not Thee to guard- RICHARD LE GALLIENNE THERE is such a thing as looking a part too well; and Mr. Le Gallienne's eminently poetical exterior, taken along with his liquid and exotic name, have done some injustice to his real talent. Such a name and such a physiognomy are hard to live up to. People instinctively, though quite unjustly, look for pose and affectation in their possessor, and decline to take his work simply on its merits. If Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, for example, wanted to introduce a poet into one of his comedies, he would choose just such a name and suggest to the actor just such a make-up; and he would take care to give the poet a ridiculous part to play. Much better be called John Keats, and make the name (in spite of Blackwood's ridicule) a synonym for all that is divinest in song, than come before the world with a readymade velveteen name, so to speak, which at once proclaims the poet, and sets a malicious world agog to find it a misfit. Moreover, Mr. Le Gallienne himself, in the course of an industrious and voluble career, has been at no pains to live down prejudice or conciliate fastidiousness. His very considerable gift of utterance has often run ahead of reflection and of tact. He has not been guiltless of crudities both of judgment and of invention. He has given free expression to an occasionally rampant individuality, without justifying it by any convincing proof of underlying strength. His note, in the orchestra of literary journalism, has been a shrill rather than a deep one. It has attracted perhaps disproportionate attention, and has had the effect of setting a good many worthy people's teeth on edge. But Mr. Le Gallienne is not a man to be dismissed with a grimace. His talent, his faculty, are real and rare. He has an instinctive perception of the beautiful in life, nature and art, and no common power of giving beautiful form to the thoughts and feelings engendered by this perception. His criticism, at its best, is itself a form of poetry. It is the spontaneous utterance of an inborn, unforced joy in art. Mr. Le Gallienne feels with his own nerves, thinks with his own brain. He writes about literature because he was born to love it, not because he happened to drift into an æsthetic set at college, and found editors who would send him books ere yet solicitors would send him briefs. Individual impulse, not corporate tradition, is the mainspring of his work. I am far from contesting the advantages of academic training. Many men it makes, no doubt; but some it mars in the making. It takes a very strong individuality to emerge unscathed both from the schools and from the cliques. The self-made man of letters, on the other hand, shows Nature's guarantee for the authenticity of his calling, so far as it goes. He may lack surface polish, but at least we know that his culture is not a glossy veneer. Mr. Le Gallienne, I take it, is a self-made man of letters. In his criticism, we feel that we are listening to eager and loving human talk about literature, which may not be "the better opinion," correct, judicial, certificated, but has at least the merit of being sensitive and sincere. So, too, in his Prose Fancies: they are perhaps a rather "rank, unweeded garden," but they have an irrepressible vitality far beyond that of many a trim parterre. There are pages of the truest poetry in these Prose Fancies. They are always best, indeed, when most fanciful, most poetical. But as prose |