A FEW weeks ago one of those erudite but anonymous gentlemen who write leading articles of terrifying profundity for the Times Literary Supplement decided that it was time to leave Aristotle temporarily in peace and to cast a critical eye of appropriate severity - upon the degenerate century in which we (and he) live and write and read our books. The result of this critical eyeing of the last twenty-three years was a wail of dismay — which, after all, is quite in the accustomed order of things among critics. The learned gentleman reiterated an opinion first given literary form some centuries ago by a distinguished Homeric chieftain, who at the time was already whitening about the brow and inclined even then to look with scant sympathy on the scandalous goings-on of Achilles, Chryseis, and the rest of the wild young people by the banks of the reedy Scamander.

Nestor, to be sure, was not a literary critic. He was merely a king. But, allowing for that trivial difference in despotic degrees, the opinions of the Literary Supplement's contributor and the sometime since defunct chieftain of sandy Pylos are in singular accord. Two literary critics would naturally have difficulty in agreeing with each other, but a critic and a king, having so many monarchical tastes and habits in common, find agreement the easiest thing in the world.

Nestor's opinion, expressed in Homeric Greek (an outlandish language of which some people still persist in thinking highly) was to the general effect that men in his degenerate days were n't what they used to be:

Such men

I never saw, nor shall I see again. And these are some of the opinions of the Literary Supplement's critic-expressed, it will be observed, in the strange dialect peculiar to literary critics: Ours is 'a barren and exhausted age.' 'We must look back with envy to the past.' 'The writer of the present day must renounce his hope of making that complete statement which we call a masterpiece. He must be content to be a taker of notes.' We moderns suffer from 'a desiccation of the living tissues of literature into a network of little bones. Nowhere shall we find the downright vigor of Dryden, or Keats with his fine and natural bearing, or Flaubert and his fanaticism, or Coleridge above all.'

Modern scribblers, in short, are a bad lot in a bad way, and more than likely to come to bad ends which is a fair summary of what the Quarterly Review said about Keats. It will be observed that Nestor, being a mere king and not a critic, and living, moreover, in an age that wrote epics but lacked typewriters, adopted a conciseness of statement that would be scorned by a self-respecting modern critic — and all critics, as any author knows, always respect themselves, however difficult they may find it to respect their contemporaries.

Having let drive these broadsides bang, bang, bang! — into the presumably dismayed midst of literary London, the critic rested from his labors and was well content. Not so, however, the literary gentlemen of the still youthful twentieth century, most of whom are still alive and as is the wont of

authors when assaulted by critics kicking. In the due course of events to be precise, three weeks the retour offensif emerged valiantly from Mr. Harold Monro's Poetry Bookshop in Devonshire Street. The Times' literary lion, amid his various roarings, had proclaimed a list of masterpieces which he challenged his degenerate contemporaries to match an if they dared. Mr. Monro, of course, dared. A man who will try to make his living out of a poetry bookshop will dare anything.

The Times Literary Supplement had mentioned eight masterpieces published between 1800 and 1821. Mr. Monro matched them, book for book, with masterpieces of his own choosing, pub

1800-1821

1. Waverley

2. The Excursion 3. Kubla Khan

4. Don Juan

5. Hazlitt's Essays

6. Pride and Prejudice 7. Hyperion

8. Prometheus Unbound

lished between 1900 and 1921; and, having delivered himself of sundry furious opinions, sheathed his sword, remounted Pegasus, and galloped back to Devonshire Street, where he stabled the ancient nag and went about his business. Like an honest man, he admitted his inability to find a modern equivalent for Hyperion, concerning which, it is worth remembering, early nineteenth-century critics had by no means the high opinion entertained among early twentieth-century critics. This, doubtless, is but another sign of modern degeneracy.

Here are the books, arrayed like a football team, each player against his opponent:

1900-1921

This list, said Mr. Monro, is 'not comparative but equivalent.' The matched books are not by any means alike, indeed prose is sometimes set off against poetry, but each pair is a fair match. Closer comparisons are out of the question, for, to take but one pair, 'it would have been as impossible for an author of the earlier period to write The Way of All Flesh as for one of the later period to compose The Excursion. Notwithstanding, the two works each a chronicle of the development of individual character under particular circumstances are 'each equally illuminating and interpretative, both psychologically and æsthetically, in its own sphere.' As for the Times critic's rash assertion that ours is 'an

REVIVING THE NOH PLAYS

THROUGH the efforts of a group of Japanese leaders who are unwilling that new ways shall mean the dropping of the beautiful arts of old Japan, the Noh drama is having a revival of its popularity. The Noh has flourished for centuries, but when Japan was opened to the outside world, and the flood of modernism set in, the popularity of the plays vanished. The players, finding interest in their art dying out, were compelled to resort to other means of livelihood and, selling their musical instruments, scattered through the country.

Prince Iwakura, one of the leading figures in the restoration of the imperial family to power, was also the originator of the movement to save the Noh plays from extinction. In 1871 he visited Europe with several other prominent Japanese with a view to finding what might be done to foster Japanese art. The travelers observed that every European country was known for some special form of entertainment. Russia was the country of the ballet, Italy was the country of grand opera. The Prince asked his companions what art form should become the Japanese national institution. Gagaku, the ancient courtmusic, was too monotonous to remain interesting. Furthermore it savored of Chinese influence a charge from a charge from which the Noh drama itself is not altogether free.

Finally it was agreed that the Noh play was the highest form of artistic entertainment which embodied the true spirit of Japan. On his return to his own country Prince Iwakura set himself to reviving the Noh plays. About this time in 1877 to be exact General Grant, who had just recently retired from the presidency, visited Japan and was for a short time the guest of the Prince. A series of Noh

plays was presented for his amusement, and it is said that the enthusiasm of the famous American soldier did much to encourage his Japanese host.

After Iwakura's death, in 1883, interest in the drama fell off, but the Prince had already organized an association and the work went on. In 1897 the movement suffered another blow in the death of Yeisho Taiko, the mother of the Emperor Meiji, under whose rule the foundations of modern Japan were laid. This Empress had been a staunch patron of the Noh drama. With her death imperial patronage, though not completely withdrawn, was greatly lessened. In modern days various noblemen and commoners have interested themselves in the drama, and a number of changes have been made to suit it to modern conditions. Most important of these is the reduction of the length of plays from five to three hours for modern Japan lacks the leisure of the older days.

METAPHORS, DEAD BUT NOT DEPARTED

MR. A. CLUTTON-BROCK has gone to the trouble of drawing up a list of 'dead metaphors' in a recently published tract on 'Metaphor.' Among those that slumber in his cemetery - though their ghosts, alas, still haunt the printed page printed page are the following:

The lap of luxury, Part and parcel, A sea of troubles, Passing through the furnace, Beyond the pale, The battle of life, The death-warrant of, Parrot cries, The sexwar, Tottering thrones, A trail of glory, Bull-dog tenacity, Hats off to, The narrow way, A load of sorrow, A charnel-house.

The proud prerogative, Smiling through your tears, A straight fight, A profit and loss account, The fires of martyrdom, The school of life, Branches of the same deadly upas tree, Turning a deaf ear to, The flower of our manhood, Taking off the gloves, Written in letters of fire, Stemming

the tide, Big with possibilities, The end is in sight, A place in the sun.

A spark of manhood, To dry up the founts of pity, Hunger stalking through the land, A death grip, Round pegs (or men) in square holes, The lamp of sacrifice, The silver lining, Troubling the waters, and poisoning the wells, The promised land, Flowing with milk and honey, Winning all along the line.

Casting in her lot with, The fruits of victory, Backs to the wall, Bubbling over with confidence, Bled white, The writing on the wall, The sickle of death, A ring fence round, The crucible of, Answering the call, Grinding the faces of the poor, The scroll of fame.

KEAN AS A DRAMATIC HERO

MR. ARTHUR SHIRLEY, an English dramatist, has written an interesting play about the life of the English actor, Edmund Kean, thus adding one more to the series of plays which the people of the stage have woven about their fellows of earlier days. The French clown, Debureau, and the actress, Adrienne Lecouvreur, have already been thus theatrically honored by French playwrights. It is high time for an English playwright to bring the great English actor back to the boards, although English audiences have not been over-appreciative.

The new play is called Ned Kean of Old Drury, but the play covers only four years of the actor's tragic life, which ended at forty-six. When the play opens Kean is a barnstormer with his wife and child. The play closes with his triumph at Drury Lane in the rôle of Shylock on the night of January 26, 1814.

Mr. Shirley shows his wisdom in choosing these years for his portrayal of the actor. After all, they are the years that matter most and certainly

the years of Kean's life of which we know most and care to know most. The childhood and youth of the great actor are largely matters of tradition, and a good deal of this tradition rests under the suspicion of having been started by the subject himself. A comment from a recent issue of the London Morning Post on Kean's character at the time of his success is perhaps worth quoting: ·

Kean was then twenty-six, and had not, perhaps, had in the last fifteen years as many square meals. In the supreme moment of his return to his Cecil Street lodging, conscious that at last he had the world at his feet, he cried, 'You, Mary, shall ride in your carriage yet, and you, Charles, shall go to Eton! Oh, that Howard had lived to see it!' Was ever nobler cry uttered by man? Not a word, not a thought of himself, save as the husband of a woman some eight years his senior, and as the father of two children, the first-born dead from the common privation, the half-fed other slumbering in his rude cradle.

WELLS AND ARNOLD BENNETT

THE Westminster Gazette tells an amusing story about H. G. Wells, which it caps with another about Arnold Bennett:

It is said that when he was in America for the Washington Conference a wellknown American writer, who had an idea that Mr. Wells was self-important and arrogant, thought to upset him by addressing him as 'Herbert.' 'Don't call me that,' Mr. Wells is reported to have replied, 'call me 'Erb.' The story proceeds that the American writer became Mr. Wells's friend for life.

Mr. Arnold Bennett and Mr. Wells are said to be good friends on the strength of a mutual hatred of pose and humbug; and it is related that Mr. Bennett, when asked what induced him to write The Pretty Lady, replied gravely, 'Eight thousand pounds'