BIBLIOGRAPHIES OF MODERN AUTHORS

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Most of these reviews are or will be reviews of ideas. In contrast to what was the case twenty years ago the reviews which are devoted to new and bold artistic manifestations remain on a lower level. Before the war thePhalangewas a very live and picturesque review around which were grouped a number of the old-time Symbolists and newer writers, from Francis Viélé-Griffin to Guillaume Apollinaire. Almost all the young made their débuts in thePhalange. It is regrettable that its director, M. Jean Royère, has decided not to revive it after the war.

The literature which is attached to Futurist and Cubist art has for organ the reviewLittérature, rather slender but curious. During the war there began to appear a very sumptuous Cubist review of literature and art,L'Elan, which was very interesting but did not survive its fourth number.

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It does not come within my present scope to refer to the old reviews, which are well enough known to English readers. But I must mention that in the last year a new one has been added to these, theMinerve Française, classical and traditional in tenets and of an excellent literary standard. Finally, as for the weekly papers, half way between the dailies and the reviews properly so called, they are not so important in France as in England.L'OpinionandL'Europe Nouvelleare at present the most alive; those and theRevue Hebdomadaire, which is in another category.

In fine, the young French reviews to-day are preoccupied with ideas first and art second. It is difficult for them, even when they are willing, to avoid a definite orientation towards politics and the problems of politics. They are the natural voices of a generation which is prevented by actual events from indulging in detached speculations. But that period of transition will pass and will no doubt soon help forward a movement in France for the recovery of the precious privileges of spiritual liberty.

ALBERT THIBAUDET

BIBLIOGRAPHIES OF MODERN AUTHORSMAURICE HEWLETTVerseA MASQUE OF DEAD FLORENTINES. Dent. 1895.SONGS AND MEDITATIONS. Constable. 1896.ARTEMISION, IDYLLS AND SONGS. Elkin Mathews. 1909.THE AGONISTS—A TRILOGY OF GOD AND MAN—MINOS, KING OF CRETE, ARIADNE IN NAXOS, THE DEATH OF HIPPOLYTUS. Macmillan. 1911.HELEN REDEEMED AND OTHER POEMS. Macmillan. 1913.SINGSONGS OF THE WAR. Poetry Bookshop. 1914.THE SONG OF THE PLOW: BEING THE ENGLISH CHRONICLE. Heinemann. 1916.GAI SABER: TALES AND SONGS. A Collection of Poems. Elkin Mathews. 1916.THE LOVING STORY OF PERIDORE AND PERIVALE. A Poem. Collins. 1917.THE VILLAGE WIFE'S LAMENT. A Poem. Secker. 1918.ProseEARTHWORK OUT OF TUSCANY. Being Impressions and Translations. Dent. 1895.THE FOREST LOVERS. A Romance. Macmillan. 1898.PAN AND THE YOUNG SHEPHERD. A Pastoral. Lane. 1898.LITTLE NOVELS OF ITALY. Chapman & Hall. 1899.THE LIFE AND DEATH OF RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY. Macmillan. 1900.NEW CANTERBURY TALES. Constable. 1901.THE QUEEN'S QUAIR, OR THE SIX YEARS' TRAGEDY. Macmillan. 1904.THE ROAD IN TUSCANY. Macmillan. 1904.QUATTROCENTISTERIA: HOW SANDRO BOTTICELLI SAW SIMONETTA IN THE SPRING. Mosher, Portland, Maine. 1904.[Taken fromEarthwork out of Tuscany.]FOND ADVENTURES. Tales of the Youth of the World. Macmillan. 1905.THE FOOL ERRANT. Heinemann. 1905.THE STOOPING LADY. Macmillan. 1907.THE SPANISH JADE. Cassell. 1908.HALFWAY HOUSE. A Comedy of Degrees. Chapman & Hall. 1908.OPEN COUNTRY. A Comedy with a Sting. Macmillan. 1909.LETTERS TO SANCHIA UPON THINGS AS THEY ARE. Macmillan. 1910.[Reprinted fromOpen Country.]REST HARROW. A Comedy of Resolution. Macmillan. 1910.BRAZENHEAD THE GREAT. Smith, Elder. 1911.THE SONG OF RENNY. Macmillan. 1911.MRS. LANCELOT. A Comedy of Assumptions. Macmillan. 1912.LOVE OF PROSERPINE. Macmillan. 1913.BENDISH: A STUDY IN PRODIGALITY. Macmillan. 1913.THE LITTLE ILIAD. A Novel. Heinemann. 1915.A LOVERS' TALE. Ward, Lock. 1915.LOVE AND LUCY. Macmillan. 1916.FREY AND HIS WIFE. Ward, Lock. 1916.THORGILS OF TREADHOLT. Ward, Lock. 1917.GUDRID THE FAIR. Constable. 1918.THE OUTLAW. Constable. 1919.He has also written introductions to Bidder'sIn the Shadow of the Crown(1899); toCynthia(1918); toTwelfth Night(Vol. 2, Renaissance Edition of Shakespeare); to Stendhal'sThe Chartreuse of Parma; and to Wilfred Thorley'sConfessional and other Poems.MAX BEERBOHMTHE HAPPY HYPOCRITE. A Fairy Tale for tired men. Bodley Booklets. 1897.[In 1918 Mr. Lane published a new edition with coloured drawings byGeorge Sheringham.]THE WORKS OF MAX BEERBOHM. Lane. 1898.MORE. (Essays.) Lane. 1899.THE POET'S CORNER. (Caricatures.) Heinemann. 1904.YET AGAIN. (Essays.) Chapman & Hall. 1909.ZULEIKA DOBSON, OR AN OXFORD LOVE STORY. Heinemann. 1911.A XMAS GARLAND. (Parodies.) Heinemann. 1912.FIFTY CARICATURES. Plates. Heinemann. 1913.THE SECOND CHILDHOOD OF JOHN BULL. (Cartoons.) Swift. 1912.CATALOGUE OF AN EXHIBITION OF CARTOONS BY M.B. (Leicester Galleries.) 1913.SEVEN MEN. Heinemann. 1919.

A MASQUE OF DEAD FLORENTINES. Dent. 1895.

SONGS AND MEDITATIONS. Constable. 1896.

ARTEMISION, IDYLLS AND SONGS. Elkin Mathews. 1909.

THE AGONISTS—A TRILOGY OF GOD AND MAN—MINOS, KING OF CRETE, ARIADNE IN NAXOS, THE DEATH OF HIPPOLYTUS. Macmillan. 1911.

HELEN REDEEMED AND OTHER POEMS. Macmillan. 1913.

SINGSONGS OF THE WAR. Poetry Bookshop. 1914.

THE SONG OF THE PLOW: BEING THE ENGLISH CHRONICLE. Heinemann. 1916.

GAI SABER: TALES AND SONGS. A Collection of Poems. Elkin Mathews. 1916.

THE LOVING STORY OF PERIDORE AND PERIVALE. A Poem. Collins. 1917.

THE VILLAGE WIFE'S LAMENT. A Poem. Secker. 1918.

EARTHWORK OUT OF TUSCANY. Being Impressions and Translations. Dent. 1895.

THE FOREST LOVERS. A Romance. Macmillan. 1898.

PAN AND THE YOUNG SHEPHERD. A Pastoral. Lane. 1898.

LITTLE NOVELS OF ITALY. Chapman & Hall. 1899.

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY. Macmillan. 1900.

NEW CANTERBURY TALES. Constable. 1901.

THE QUEEN'S QUAIR, OR THE SIX YEARS' TRAGEDY. Macmillan. 1904.

THE ROAD IN TUSCANY. Macmillan. 1904.

QUATTROCENTISTERIA: HOW SANDRO BOTTICELLI SAW SIMONETTA IN THE SPRING. Mosher, Portland, Maine. 1904.

[Taken fromEarthwork out of Tuscany.]

FOND ADVENTURES. Tales of the Youth of the World. Macmillan. 1905.

THE FOOL ERRANT. Heinemann. 1905.

THE STOOPING LADY. Macmillan. 1907.

THE SPANISH JADE. Cassell. 1908.

HALFWAY HOUSE. A Comedy of Degrees. Chapman & Hall. 1908.

OPEN COUNTRY. A Comedy with a Sting. Macmillan. 1909.

LETTERS TO SANCHIA UPON THINGS AS THEY ARE. Macmillan. 1910.

[Reprinted fromOpen Country.]

REST HARROW. A Comedy of Resolution. Macmillan. 1910.

BRAZENHEAD THE GREAT. Smith, Elder. 1911.

THE SONG OF RENNY. Macmillan. 1911.

MRS. LANCELOT. A Comedy of Assumptions. Macmillan. 1912.

LOVE OF PROSERPINE. Macmillan. 1913.

BENDISH: A STUDY IN PRODIGALITY. Macmillan. 1913.

THE LITTLE ILIAD. A Novel. Heinemann. 1915.

A LOVERS' TALE. Ward, Lock. 1915.

LOVE AND LUCY. Macmillan. 1916.

FREY AND HIS WIFE. Ward, Lock. 1916.

THORGILS OF TREADHOLT. Ward, Lock. 1917.

GUDRID THE FAIR. Constable. 1918.

THE OUTLAW. Constable. 1919.

He has also written introductions to Bidder'sIn the Shadow of the Crown(1899); toCynthia(1918); toTwelfth Night(Vol. 2, Renaissance Edition of Shakespeare); to Stendhal'sThe Chartreuse of Parma; and to Wilfred Thorley'sConfessional and other Poems.

THE HAPPY HYPOCRITE. A Fairy Tale for tired men. Bodley Booklets. 1897.

[In 1918 Mr. Lane published a new edition with coloured drawings byGeorge Sheringham.]

THE WORKS OF MAX BEERBOHM. Lane. 1898.

MORE. (Essays.) Lane. 1899.

THE POET'S CORNER. (Caricatures.) Heinemann. 1904.

YET AGAIN. (Essays.) Chapman & Hall. 1909.

ZULEIKA DOBSON, OR AN OXFORD LOVE STORY. Heinemann. 1911.

A XMAS GARLAND. (Parodies.) Heinemann. 1912.

FIFTY CARICATURES. Plates. Heinemann. 1913.

THE SECOND CHILDHOOD OF JOHN BULL. (Cartoons.) Swift. 1912.

CATALOGUE OF AN EXHIBITION OF CARTOONS BY M.B. (Leicester Galleries.) 1913.

SEVEN MEN. Heinemann. 1919.

ITwas impossible to know from the reception ofMarriage à la Modeat the Phœnix Society's production last month whether the numerous complaints of the behaviour of the audience whenThe Duchess of Malfiwas performed had had effect or not, for Dryden's comedy puts no strain of any sort on the audience. It is a sign both of Dryden's greatness and of his weakness. For that "superhuman craftsmanship" of which Professor Saintsbury speaks is the privilege of a writer whose imagination does not outrun his powers. There is nothing in his mind that he finds difficult to express. And the difference in merit between one Dryden play and another is not a difference of degree in technical accomplishment—of success in expression—as it is with greater poets, but a difference in the value of the subject-matter. When Dryden gets hold of a good dramatic idea he writes a good play, when his material is deficient in interest his play is inferior. There are no violent ups and downs in any one play, whereas a poet of more passion and imagination does more mixed work. Some of Shakespeare's finest scenes and passages are in his least satisfactory plays, and though Shakespeare's natural genius for language was immeasurably greater than Dryden's so that it was impossible for him to write at any length without writing here and there wonderfully, yet he had, almost necessarily, less absolute command of it. Dryden's was an intellectual mastery that practically never failed him either in prose or verse. He is not considered to have had any natural gift for comedy. Hazlitt says: "Dryden's comedies have all the point that there is in ribaldry, and all the humour that there is in extravagance. I am sorry that I can say nothing better of them. He was not at home in this kind of writing, of which he was himself conscious. His play washorse-play. His wit (what there is of it) is ingenious and scholar-like, rather than natural and dramatic," and more recent critics have suggested that Dryden was unfitted for the new comedy that became universal after the Restoration—the comedy that held a mirror up to Society rather than to Nature—since Dryden "was not much a man of society."

It seems to me that this last criticism is largely true, but if he is not witty in the sense that Congreve and Sheridan are witty, he is often quite as amusing, and I cannot altogether agree with Hazlitt's pronouncement that his wit was "ingenious and scholar-like rather than natural and dramatic." Nothing could be more natural, for example, than the Epilogue toMarriage à la Mode, spoken by Rhodophil, which convulsed the house at the Lyric Theatre, and I doubt if it would be possible to find among all the Restoration Comedies an Epilogue so "dramatic"—revealing such insight into the feelings aroused by the play in the audience, and making such effective use of that knowledge. When Rhodophil says:

There are more Rhodophils in this theatre,More Palamedes, and some few wives, I fear:But yet too far our poet would not run;Though 'twas well offered, there was nothing done.He would not quite the women's frailty bare,But stript them to the waist, and left them there:And the men's faults are less severely shown,For he considers that himself is one—Some stabbing wits, to bloody satire bent,Would treat both sexes with less compliment;Would lay the scene at home; of husbands tell,For wenches taking up their wives i' the Mall;And a brisk bout, which each of them did wantMade by mistake of mistress and gallant.Our modest author thought it was enoughTo cut you off a sample of the stuff:He spared my shame, which you, I'm sure, would not.For you were all for driving on the plot:You sighed when I came in to break the sport,And set your teeth when each design fell short.

The audience at the Phœnix Society rose with uproarious laughter to each hit, it was so palpable. Again I find all the comedy scenes, the scenes between Palamede, Doralice, Rhodophil, and Melantha wholly admirable and exhilarating to a degree. I would almost gladly give up the whole of Congreve and Sheridan for this poetical, extravagant and romantic humour. The name of poet still clung to dramatic wits in the time of Congreve, and Congreve had perhaps some slight excuse for calling himself a poet, but when the eighteenth century had really arrived, when the abominable Sheridan came we had got into a prose age indeed. And yet I have no wish to call Sheridan—and still less Congreve—abominable, except by comparison with Dryden. We also have to acknowledge that the cultivation of verbal wit, of repartee, of elaborate social rococo, was the expression of the poetic fire instinctively preserving itself in an age so spiritually unfavourable to romance that it had to make itself externally romantic. Having lost imagination it fell back on decoration. A whole elaborate social ritual was built up to provide stimulants to the imprisoned senses. When inThe Way of the WorldMrs. Millamant says to Mirabell:

Good Mirabell, don't let us be familiar or fond, nor kiss before folks, like my Lady Fadler and Sir Francis: nor go to Hyde Park together the first Sunday in a new chariot, to provoke eyes and whispers, and then never to be seen there together again; as if we were proud of one another the first week, and ashamed of one another ever after. Let us never visit together nor go to a play together; but let us be very strange and well-bred: let us be as strange as if we had been married a great while, and as well-bred as if we were not married at all.

It is acri-de-cœur. It is of the very essence of poetry in a narrow and worldly age. It is such passages in Congreve that justify Hazlitt in declaring—by comparison—that Dryden's wit was scholar-like rather than natural, for there is not a passage in Dryden's comedies so real, in the sense of being so local an expression of that passion for beauty which haunts the human heart and which in a society of the kind in which Mrs. Millamant moved will find such odd embodiment and be to ordinary eyes so completely disguised. In such a passage Congreve proves his right to be called a poet. What poetry there is in the society with which he is dealing he has expressed; for that appeal of the fine lady to Mirabell was a clutching at straws, a last despairing attempt at the preservation of some particle of beauty, of romance in the sordid life in which the married woman of fashion was about to be engulfed.

The poetry of this scene reaches back to the beautiful scene inMarriage à la Modebetween Palmyra and Leonidas, though, as I have said, Dryden is more romantic, and so neither Palmyra nor Leonidas are of any age, they are merely the youth of all time. But surely no one can read the following passage without being moved to admirationof its beautiful ease, its romantic simplicity as contrasted with the romantic luxuriousness of the Elizabethans:

Leon.:How precious are the hours of love in courts!In cottages, when love has all the day,Full, and at ease, he throws it half away.Time gives himself, and is not valued, there;But sells at mighty rates, each minute, here:There, he is lazy, unemployed, and slow;Here he's more swift; and yet has more to do.So many of his hours in public move,That few are left for privacy and love.Palm.:The sun, methinks, shines faint and dimly, here;Light is not half so long, nor half so clear:But oh! when every day was yours or mine,How early up! what haste he made to shine!Leon.:Such golden days a prince must hope to see,Whose every subject is more blessed than he.Palm.:Do you remember when their tasks were done,How all the youth did to our cottage run?While winter-winds were whistling loud without,Our cheerful hearth was circled round about:With strokes in ashes, maids their lovers drew;And still you fell to me, and I to you.Leon.:When love did of my heart possession take,I was so young my soul was scarce awake:I cannot tell when first I thought you fair;But sucked in love, insensibly as air.Palm.:I know too well when first my love began,When at our wake you for the chaplet ran:Then I was made the Lady of the May,And, with the garland, at its goal did stay:Still as you ran, I kept you full in view;I hoped, and wished, and ran, methought, for you.As you came near, I hastily did rise,And stretched my arm outright, that held the prize.The custom was to kiss whom I should crown;You kneeled, and in my lap your head laid down:I blushed, and blushed, and did the kiss delay;At last my subjects forced me to obey:But, when I gave the crown, and then the kiss,I scarce had breath to say, Take that—and this.

The whole of this beautiful scene was delightful on the stage, and by Palmyra (Miss Rita Thom), in particular, the verse was exquisitely spoken. One had that experience, rare indeed in the modern theatre, of subconsciously feeling that the whole audience was hanging on the words.

Again, what could be finer in its way than the scene—greatly helped by the stage-production at the Lyric Theatre, and by Mr. Norman Wilkinson's setting giving it an appropriate atmosphere of masquerade—where Doralice and Melantha are in boys' habits? Here Melantha's French affectation is used with the greatest skill to bring about a scene which is the very essence of romantic swagger. There are few scenes, if any, in Congreve or Sheridan that equal in wit this repartee between the pretended boys,Doralice and Melantha, egged on by Palamede and Rhodophil, leading up to Melantha's final extravagance:

I'll sacrifice my life for French poetry,

and the audience rocked with laughter at Miss Athene Seyler (Melantha) and Miss Cathleen Nesbitt (Doralice), who were superb in their representation of the parts.

Whenever these old comedies are revived there is always bound to spring up from somewhere a demand that they should be bowdlerized. Really the misplaced squeamishness of some men and women is something to marvel at! I have seen nearly every revue, musical comedy, and play that has been produced in London during the last two years, and I declare unhesitatingly that there is something radically wrong with the mentality of the people who can go habitually to the London theatres and music-halls and yet find that there is anything "filthy" about Dryden. Certainly there is no innuendo in Dryden, he is frankly outspoken. But filthy! Shade of Charles Lamb! What is to be done with such people? Not once during the whole performance ofMarriage à la Modewas there an occasion when the most sensitive of young girls could have felt even momentarily uncomfortable. Such was far from being the case with a play that had quite a long run at a London theatre not long ago, to which, as far as I know, no one objected!

But I do not want to resist any attempt to make the Phœnix Society bowdlerize Dryden on that ground. Dryden—even more than Congreve—is inoffensive. There are dramatists with dirty minds; we often have had their works performed in London—adapted from the French or in their native English—but even these no one, I hope, would suppress. Dryden emphatically is not one of this class. A cleaner, more wholesome writer never put pen to paper, and the morbid squeamishness that objects to Dryden is the squeamishness of ill-health. It is a case for the doctor, for it is expressive of a pathological malady. On the subject as a whole it would seem an apt occasion to quote some sentences of Lamb's celebrated defence of Congreve, Farquhar, and Wycherley, as there appear to be people who have not heard of it. Lamb explains that these comedies have disappeared from the stage of his day—and he lived at the beginning of the age of Mrs. Grundy—because "the times cannot bear them." It is not alone, he adds, the occasional licence of the dialogue, it is that they will not stand the moral test that is so ridiculously applied to them. The age screws everything up to that. "Idle gallantry in a fiction, a dream, the passing pageant of an evening, startles us in the same way as the alarming indications of profligacy in a son or ward in real life should startle a parent or a guardian. We have no such middle emotions as dramatic interests left." Pursuing this idea, he adds: "We carry our fireside concerns to the theatre with us. We do not go thither like our ancestors, to escape from the pressure of reality so much as to confirm our experience of it; to make assurance double, and take a bond of fate. We must live our toilsome lives twice over, as it was the mournful privilege of Ulysses to descend twice to the shades." Here Lamb with the extraordinary penetration characteristic of that rare mind hit upon one of the principal causes of the bankruptcy of the theatre during the hundred years that were to follow him. We are, even at this moment, struggling to get free from that literal-mindedness which is the soul of materialism and which would fetter us down to what it calls realism and will have no extravagance of thought or language, and for whom an escape into the free speech of the theatre—an escape most necessary and most salutary—is, if you please, filth! "All that neutral ground of character," laments Lamb, "that happy breathing-place from the burthen of a perpetual moral questioning—the sanctuary and quiet Alsatia of hunted Casuistry—is broken up and disenfranchised, as injurious to the interests of society. The privileges of the place are taken away by law. We dare not dally with images, or names, of wrong. We bark like foolish dogs at shadows. We dreadinfection from the scenic representation of disorder and fear a painted pustule. In our anxiety that our morality should not take cold we wrap it up in a great blanket just out of precaution against the breeze and the sunshine. I confess for myself that (with no great delinquencies to answer for) I am glad of a reason to take an airing beyond the diocese of the strict conscience—not to live always in the precincts of the law courts—but now and then, for a dream-while or so, to imagine a world with no meddling restrictions—to get into recesses whither the hunter cannot follow me." And concludes Lamb, with fine common sense, "I come back to my cage and my restraint, the fresher and more healthy for it. I wear my shackles more contentedly for having respired the breath of an imaginary freedom."

It is not often given to any one man to have said the last word on a subject, but I think that on this question Charles Lamb has said the last word. Modern science lends its support to his judgment. The psycho-analyst is beginning to realise that the damage inflicted by socially necessary inhibitions can only be cured by art. It is to be hoped that we will hear less and less of this canting nonsense of "filth" applied to such noble and beautiful work as Dryden's. It is also to be hoped that the Phœnix Society may have a long life, for in the two productions it has so far given us it has more justified its existence than has any society I know of founded in the last dozen years.

W. J. TURNER

THENational Gallery nowadays is a constant source of novelty. The familiar pictures which have been hidden so long are reappearing in brighter and more deliberate surroundings, and we are compelled to see them anew instead of merely battening on our past impressions. Not all the rooms are equally successful in their mural decoration, but nearly everywhere an improvement has been effected on the old gloomy colours. The function of decorations in a gallery is unostentatiously to show the works of art in the best contemporary light. For it is one of the paradoxes of classical art that, although its beauty is immortal, each generation sees this beauty from its own point of view. In fact, the immortality consists precisely in the possibility of continual recreation, and the environment is an outward assistance to such a process. Mr. C. J. Holmes is only obeying the spirit of the period in introducing the clear colours of full daylight. It is to be hoped that the British Museum authorities will follow suit and make their sculpture rooms slightly more exhilarating.

Among the most interesting recent additions are the purchases made at the sale of the Degas Collection in 1918. Many of them have been exhibited already for some time, but a few have only appeared lately, and several are still in the background. The later appearances include the large and rather prosaic study of soldiers, by Manet, and a finely-drawn but photographically-painted portrait by Ingres. In the neighbourhood of the Manet is an interesting comparison between two Corots, one painted in Italy early in his career, the other in his later, more typical period. The early landscape reveals an aspect of Corot that is little known in England. The conception has a clearness and thoroughness that is often lacking in his twilight fantasies, which are inclined to be stereotyped. From the Studd Bequest we have two interesting but oversweet figure and landscape sketches by Puvis de Chavannes.

Our collection of French paintings is growing, but we want many more—if not permanently, then on loan; why not?

The most notable English additions during 1919 are the three Whistlers from the Studd Bequest. TheLady with the Fanis inclined to be sentimental; theRiver Nocturnehas considerable charm, but it is on too large a scale for so slender a theme. TheNocturnewith the fireworks is the most nearly perfect.

When the rearrangement of the Gallery is complete many pictures may have to be kept downstairs. There are several at present on view in the English rooms which one hopes will be reserved for the curious and the importunate. There is also a large and unfortunate compilation by Holman Hunt hung in one of the approaches which might be better elsewhere.

The new El Greco is a very important acquisition, although it was probably not a quarter the price of the family group by Romney. It contains the quintessence of El Greco's nervously hard and dramatically intense vision (no, Mr. RogerFry,29not melodramatic!), and it is not subject to exotic Venetian influences, as is his other composition on the same wall. It has been carefully cleaned, and the result is a triumph. Apparently under the old blackened varnish the colours were preserved with all their original purity and poignancy. The picture looks as though it were painted yesterday. In another sense too it is very modern. I say this reluctantly because I am opposed toan arbitrary division into ancient and modern, which implies an unwarranted depreciation of the "ancient." Obviously the "modern" is a mere passing phase, a torch which is hurried through the darkened rooms of the past, lighting up now this room, now that. It is in fact a question of temporary interest and relevancy, not of objective merit, although the latter may only be fully understood through the medium of the former.

29Mr. Fry is compelled to admit a dramatic content. But, he says, it is "melodramatic" (implying it should not be there). This is a subtle evasion. For what if it were not melodramatic?

Mr. Epstein is a great portrait sculptor. He has a wonderful power of "living into" his models. He produces not only a likeness, but also that kind of likeness which we can enjoy without knowing the original, and in a certain sense even more than the original when known. For he sees what we should scarcely be able to see without his vigorous assistance. Standing before one of his portrait heads we have the consciousness of some magnetising influence, evoking all kinds of subterranean thoughts and emotions; we are drawn out of ourselves into our external objective vortex.

It is objective and yet essentially the creation of Mr. Epstein's "realistic" vision. Realistic is a difficult and dangerous word, but we know what is meant by it, although often when we try to explicate that knowledge still further we arrive at something which the word does not, or should not, or need not, mean. It should not mean, for instance, photographic, or immoral, or ugly. It may contain a consciousness of all these elements without being them, for to be conscious of them surely means to supersede and dominate them. "Realistic," of course, might be extended so as to cover everything, but in the present instance of ordinary usage it is limited to one particular aspect of things, which, curiously enough, is rather a negative than a positive one. It is the positive consciousness of negatives such as difficulty, failure, struggle, pain: it is the intense and overpowering desire to know them fully, to drain the imaginative experience of them to the dregs, because once they have taken a hold on our awareness, only by that means can we triumph over them.

Not only does Mr. Epstein endeavour to bring home to himself and to us in his character studies a sense of individualised conflict (though he is never gloomy), he often approves of sternness and ruggedness as good in themselves; he enjoys the titanic groping of life. And it is perfectly true that without some sort of a fight existence would be hopelessly inert and hyper-æsthetic; but we do want sometimes the calm and untroubled pleasure of attainment. Indeed only the complete process conjoining the two opposites is completely good, yet we inevitably stress now the one, now the other facet, placing in the centre of our consciousness either the fact of struggle and failure or the fact of success: for art is itself part of the process. And Mr. Epstein's art stresses the "realistic" side, not only in the sense that he is in desire revolting from it, but also that he appreciates it, enjoying the process as much as the arrival at the goal. For instance, he has made several studies of his own baby, over whom he has kept his head severely. Indeed he seems to have been too ferociously interested in the animalism and precocious ugliness of a small baby to have been at all tempted to idealise; at the same time he is impressed with the baby's vigour and vitality.

Sometimes it seems to me he loses sight of the whole in the elaboration of expressive detail. In the bust of Lord Fisher in the War Museum Exhibition he has obviously attempted to produce the leathery, wrinkled texture of an old man's skin, because he saw it as a significant feature. But in the effort to get this difficult effect he has lost sight of the significance and produced a mere verisimilitude of wrinkledness. Similarly in hisChrist, the feature which arrests us most is the clay-like gruesomeness of the loosened wrappings. We shudder at the faint suggestion of decomposition and we are wounded by the slit in the opened palm of the hand. But practically the whole force of the composition has spent itself in these subsidiary details.

This is a very important exhibition, and confirms the report which has been current for some time that Mr. Duncan Grant is an artist of unusual originality. I am deliberately emphatic, not only because I am very enthusiastic about some of these pictures, but also because I feel sure that many people will have been "put off" from the first by a few of them, in which Mr. Duncan Grant, under the influence of the modern abstractionist and pattern-making theories, has taken undue liberties with the human body. Even in these pictures there is much that is very fine, but it is quite independent of the stupid distortions which only have a marring or comic effect. But consider, for instance, the Still Life No. 23,Bowl, Skull, and Jar. Whatever other criticism may be levelled against it, it is immune from the charge of arbitrariness. Personally, I have nothing but praise for it, as being a magnificent piece of lyrical painting. There are several other pictures—landscapes, still lives, interiors—possessing the same exquisite qualities, notably Nos. 2, 4, 7, 9, 12, 21. The last named, styledJuggler and Tight Rope Walker, which is in many ways the most brilliant of the whole collection, does evince here and there a certain exaggeration. This, however, can be overlooked because it does not rivet our attention.

On the other hand, in No. 29,Venus and Adonis, the placing of the lady's neck on her left-hand shoulder, with the consequent elongation of the right-hand shoulder, stirs up in our minds a whole swarm of general reflections, so that our æsthetic enjoyment of other real values in the picture is practically swamped. It is true that in caricatures we allow without cavil all sorts of liberties. But only because the result is expressive, and actually where we appreciate the caricature we do not notice any distortion, we see the work as convincinglytrue.

Mr. Wadsworth has almost found himself in his Black Country pictures, or better he has found a real object which coincides with his particular "vorticist" predilection. Continually is he obsessed with a certain forked-lightning pattern which zigzags over the world. Where it does not he often puts it there and, partially removing the world, leaves a pattern. However, in the slag heaps and belching chimneys and curved canals and splintered roofs of the Black Country, at any rate sometimes, this pattern comes back to earth, and the result is a striking picture. Vorticism and Futurism, in so far as they are art tendencies, represent the scientist and business man of the nineteenth century emerging painfully into emotional expression. Mr. Wadsworth and the "Futurists" have not been the first to discover science and industry artistically, but hitherto stress has been laid on the general impressiveness, the mystery and atmospheric volume of the subject. Mr. Wadsworth's particular contribution concerns the sheer joy in brutal mechanical movement and in the deadly bulk and solidity of industrial products and by-products. His best drawings are of ladle slag heaps, consisting of metallic-looking boulders hurled out into a desolation that yet teems with the energy that made and discarded them.

*****

We have to congratulate Mr. D. Y. Cameron and Mr. George Henry on their election as Associates of the Royal Academy.

HOWARD HANNAY

ITwas Dr. Vaughan Williams who, sometime about 1912 or 1913, suggested Purcell's operaThe Fairy Queenfor performance at Cambridge. In 1911 Mr. Clive Carey and a few others had organised at Cambridge a performance ofThe Magic Flute. Mozart's last and greatest work for the stage was in those days not so familiar to English audiences as it is now. It had not been seen in this country, as far as I am aware, since it was given by the students of the Royal College of Music about twenty years ago. That it should be attempted by Cambridge amateurs was regarded as preposterous—even Covent Garden had shied at it. But the promoters of the Cambridge opera were less nervous. If they had confidence, it was a confidence in Mozart and in the opera rather than in themselves. They knew the opera intimately enough to have convinced themselves that the chief difficulty ofThe Magic Flutelay not in the extreme compass of the two parts of Sarastro and the Queen of Night, but first in the necessity for a clear and logical exposition of the story, secondly in the complication of the ensemble numbers, and thirdly perhaps in the psychology of what is really the most difficult part of all, the Orator (Der Sprecher). If singers could be found who were prepared to sing the parts of Gabriel and Raphael inThe Creation, they could make at least a decent show of Sarastro and the Queen. Ensemble singing was merely a matter of musicianship and hard work; the personality of the Orator was of necessity a question largely of luck in finding the right man and coaching him intelligently. The producers of the Cambridge performance were guided by two principles, to aim at clearness and unity of style rather than at magnificence, and to pin their faith to a great dramatic composer rather than to a star cast.

The reception given toThe Magic Fluteencouraged them to consider the possibility of performing another opera in 1914. Several operas had been passed in review when Dr. Vaughan Williams made his brilliant suggestion, a suggestion which was very quickly adopted. The opera was prepared for performance and put into rehearsal in the summer of 1914, with a view to bringing it out in December of that year. The musical portions of the first three acts were well in hand and most of the dresses designed at the moment when war was declared. As soon as the war was definitely over, and Cambridge had begun to resume something of its normal aspect, the opera was resumed, although a bare half-dozen of the original cast remained, andThe Fairy Queenwas finally presented for the first time to a modern audience on February 10th of this year.

It may be of interest to those who witnessed the performance to learn something of the peculiar problems which confronted the producers and of the principles on which they tried to solve them. The only material available at that time was the Purcell Society's full score and a copy of the original libretto of 1692. The British Museum possessed also the second edition of the libretto (1693). The first thing to do was to prepare and print an acting version and a vocal score. It must not be supposed thatThe Fairy Queenis an opera in the modern sense, likeDido and Æneas. It is an abridged and altered version ofA Midsummer-Night's Dream, into each act of which is introduced a sort ofballet-divertissementwith songs and choruses. These musical episodes have practically nothing to do with the play. In Act I. Titania enters with her fairies and orders music to entertain the Indian Boy. This is interrupted by the appearanceof a drunken poet, who is blindfolded and pinched by the fairies. In Act II., instead of "Ye Spotted Snakes," there is a long allegorical scene introducing Night, Secrecy, Mystery, and Sleep. In Act III. adivertissementof a broadly comic character is commanded by Titania for the amusement of Bottom. In Act IV. Oberon summons up a pageant of Phœbus and the Four Seasons in honour of his reconciliation with Titania, and lastly the fairies provide in Act V. the most magnificent and extravagant show of all to celebrate the nuptials of Theseus and Hippolyta. It will be seen that there is a certain amount of dramatic reason and also of artistic unity and contrast about these musical episodes. The first, for the Indian Boy, is fantastic and childlike; the second, for Titania, voluptuous and mysterious; the third, for Bottom, half-comic and half-erotic; the fourth, for Oberon, is a sort of Sun-God's festival; the last, for Theseus and Hippolyta, an epithalamium.

The first difficulty to be faced was that of the Shakespeare dialogue, which is all spoken, not sung. Should the librettist's textual alterations be kept, or the original restored? Had the textual alterations been violent enough to stamp the whole play as belonging definitely and unmistakably to the age of Dryden we should have had no hesitation in sticking to them. We were quite clear from the start that we meant to produce Purcell's opera and not Shakespeare's play. But the alterations to the text of Shakespeare were just enough to be irritating to an audience whom we assumed to be familiar with Shakespeare, and troublesome to actors who were probably in the same case. The chances were that the actors would forget the alterations here and there and return unconsciously to the original, and that the audience would merely suppose that they had not learnt their parts properly. Besides, the opera was so long that drastic cuts were imperative. Here again we at once decided that as far as was practicable it should be Shakespeare and not Purcell that was to be cut. We therefore started by restoring the original text of Shakespeare in all the scenes which had not been cut altogether by the librettist, and then proceeded to prune the Shakespeare down until we had reached either our time-limit or the limit of intelligibility. The latter was reached first, and on that we proceeded to cut down Purcell. An obvious course was to adopt the version of 1692, rejecting the scene of the Drunken Poet, and the two songs,Ye Gentle SpiritsandThe Plaint, which were added in 1693. But the scene of the Drunken Poet was too good to throw away. The two songs we abandoned with some reluctance on account of their singular beauty; but they could easily be spared from the point of view of the stage. IndeedThe Plaintwould have been impossible to accept; it is dragged in for no reason by special request of Oberon, and is not only extremely long, but profoundly melancholy and totally inappropriate to the cheerful atmosphere of the Epithalamium.

One of the librettist's alterations was to transfer the whole ofPyramus and Thisbeto the rehearsal scene in the wood. The players act it "in our habits as we shall play it before the Duke," and the interruptions of Theseus and the rest are assigned to Puck. Here again we restored the original, if only to save time. The idea then occurred to us to save the play by having it acted in dumb show during theEntry Danceof Act V. This solved the problem of what to do with this particular dance-tune; it gave us additional time to prepare the Chinese scene behind the tableau-curtain, it saved the time occupied by the play, and spared us the very tedious mirth of all the knockabout business which inA Midsummer-Night's Dreamhas now become traditional. Further, it brought the clowns in again at the appropriate moment, and, what was more important, it associated Shakespeare more closely with Purcell's music. The little pantomime was worked out at rehearsal entirely by the actors themselves. They first walked through the directions of thePyramus and Thisbeplay; then the music was played and the action tried with it. No further alteration was needed at subsequent rehearsals, for it so happened that every one of the actors was musical, and they stepped and moved to Purcell's notes by natural instinct.

There remained still a few bits of music to be disposed of. In the seventeenth century people had to sit in the theatre for a long time before the play began, and to pass the time a concert was provided, consisting of aFirst Musick, orSecond Musick, and lastly theOverture. Under modern conditions it would have been more in accordance with the spirit of Purcell to send our orchestra out into the street to play the First and Second Musick to the queue that was waiting to enter the pit and gallery, but since we could not imagine that police regulations would permit this, we utilised the four little pieces at different points as incidental music to the play. In so doing we knew that we were untrue to the strict traditions of Purcell's day; but we did not wish to cut these pieces out altogether, and we further thought that they would help to Purcellize the Shakespeare. We were somewhat surprised to find that several of the audience seemed to expectA Midsummer-Night's Dreamin its entirety, once the play had started. Our assumption, which apparently was wrong, was that everybody knew Shakespeare's play practically by heart, and that we need do no more than just indicate its outlines, leaving the rest to be filled up by the imagination under the inspiration of Purcell's music.

The opera is scored for the usual Purcell band. In the big instrumental numbers two trumpets, kettle-drums, and two hautboys are added to the string. A few numbers have two flutes, but flutes and hautboys never occur simultaneously, which leads me to think that in Purcell's days the flutes and hautboys were generally played by the same players. The solos are accompanied sometimes by violins and bass in three parts, more often by the harpsichord and bass alone, the other instruments playing no more than theritornelli. On the question of orchestration we never had a moment's hesitation. We were determined from the very first that we would not add a single note to Purcell's score. This meant, of course, that a very serious responsibility would be thrown on the harpsichord. We had experimented once with a harpsichord in a Bach Concerto at a concert, with the very embarrassing discovery that the harpsichord player could hardly hear a note that he played, while the unfortunate conductor could hear nothing else but the harpsichord. To the audience, as a matter of fact, the result was quite satisfactory. The harpsichord in the theatre was a more perilous problem, especially as we were not able to have any rehearsal of any kind in the theatre until the day before the first performance. Would the harpsichord be audible in the audience? Would it be audible on the stage? Would it stay in tune under the very variable conditions of temperature? Would one harpsichord be enough, or ought we to have two, as Hasse had at the Dresden Opera House? Would the harpsichord be monotonous as well as inadequate? Ought we to have in addition a pianoforte or possibly a harp? We decided to do the very best we could with one harpsichord and chance it. In view of the probability that the harpsichord might become amazingly monotonous, the harpsichord part was considered with the greatest possible care and no pains spared to make it as varied, as effective, and as expressive as possible. Once in the theatre, the instrument was tried in various positions until the right place for it was found. It was clearly audible both on the stage and in all parts of the house without ever becoming too insistent. Here I must say how deeply we were indebted to the sensitive musicianship of the player, an undergraduate in his first year, who, although he had never placed his fingers on a harpsichord until about a fortnight before the performance, was gifted with exactly that fine sense of scholarship in music which is the first essential of the completemaestro al cembalo.

EDWARD J. DENT

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