Volume 1 — CORRESPONDENCE

SURTEES

(To the Editor of The London Mercury)

Sir,—In your admirable columns on Bibliography A. L. H. writes (November issue): "It is interesting to note what high prices the works of Surtees can always command." They certainly do; but is it not Leech rather than Surtees who gives them their value?

Handley Cross is doubtless immortal because of the creation of Jorrocks and James Pigg, the best portrait of the hard-riding, reckless, witty Northumbrian since Shakespeare's Hotspur, but Plain or Ringlets, Ask Mamma, and the rest are surely only valuable on account of Leech's illustrations?

I imagine that the original Handley Cross, in three volumes, 1843, London, will not fetch as much as the later and expanded Handley Cross, with Leech's illustrations, published London, 1854.

I have recently inherited a set of the five Surtees-cum-Leech issue (usually styled first editions), and I am in doubt as to what to insure them for in view of the present high prices.

Still more so in the case of other still greater treasures: early Aldines, Jensons, first editions Jonson, Spencer, Milton, etc., but above and beyond all in the case of a first folio Shakespeare, a splendid copy and intact.

According to Sir Sidney Lee, out of 140 known copies twenty only are "perfect" (with Shakespeare's portrait printed on title-page), other twenty are intact (with portrait inlaid), and the remaining 100 are all deficient in one way or another.

Well, suppose by some dreadful dispensation my library was burned down and this gem consumed, what would it cost to procure another?

My bookseller tells me to insure it for £1500, but would this procure another?

I feel certain it would not. What, then, is the proper insurance?—Yours, etc.,

A Pursuer of Books and Foxes.

[We certainly think that figure far too low, but the prices of first folios vary greatly. Perhaps some reader can give insurance information.—Editor.]

AMERICAN POETRY

(To the Editor of The London Mercury)

Sir,—The writer of your "Letter from America," in the December number, commits himself to the astonishing statement that "Mr. Nicholas Vachel Lindsay is the one American writer of verse whose work shows signs of genius." Such a statement should not pass unchallenged. It is as if an American writer, visiting England, were to remark that Mr. Rudyard Kipling is the only English writer of verse with signs of genius. The parallel is quite exact. Lindsay has the same free-and-easy facility, the same preference for ragtime rhythms, the same tone of vulgar optimism, the same desire to preach a gospel, as the author of Mandalay. The only difference is that Lindsay is rather more limited in his range, if anything. He has never succeeded in doing but one type of poem—the ragtime exhortation. To say that he and he alone in America shows genius is preposterous.

What about Robert Frost, whose work and influence were paramount in the development of Edward Thomas?—a fact admitted by a recent biographer. What about Edwin Arlington Robinson, a poet who comes nearer to Hardy than anyone in America? What about Conrad Aiken, Carl Sandburg, Wallace Stevens, Alfred Kreymborg, Maxwell Bodenheim? All of these authors have shown signs of genius, each in an entirely different and quite individual way. They have not repeated themselves into tedious stereotype as the magazine writers of vers libre, or as Mr. Lindsay has. Without any desire to belittle Mr. Lindsay's clever but superficial talent, I should respectfully suggest to "R. E. C." that some of his remarks about the conventionality of American writers apply very strongly to Lindsay. They do not apply to the men I have just mentioned.—Yours, etc.,

John Gould Fletcher.

37 Crystal Palace Park Road, Sydenham.

TAM HTAB

(To the Editor of The London Mercury)

Sir,—May I point out what seems to me a very curious literary coincidence?

In No. 2 Mr. L. Pearsall Smith, in his delightful collection of "Misadventures," describes "a cabalistic inscription written in letters of large menace on my bath-room floor. TAM HTAB ... Like Belshazzar ... my knees smote one against the other. It was ... BATH MAT, lying there wrong side up."

In the second chapter of Forster's Life of Dickens, among some notes on the hardships of Dickens' childhood, the novelist himself thus describes a coffee shop in St. Martin's Lane: "In the door there was an oval glass-plate, with COFFEE ROOM painted on it.... If I ever find myself in a very different kind of coffee-room now, but where there is such an inscription on glass, and read it backward on the wrong side MOOR EEFFOC (as I often used to do then, in a dismal reverie), a shock goes through my blood."—Yours, etc.,

J. J. Biggs.

70 West Side, Clapham.

[These public inscriptions are responsible for much distress. There was a woman named Jones who had her child christened Nosmo King, having been taken by those names on two glass doors, which stood open. When she passed again the doors were drawn together.—Editor.]

SENSIBLE AT BOTTOM

(To the Editor of The London Mercury)

Sir,—May I point out a small inaccuracy in Mr. Shanks's exceedingly interesting essay on Samuel Butler? Mr. Shanks writes, "It is possible to remark of him (Butler), adapting the remark made of Dr. Johnson, that he may have been very sensible at bottom." The passage in Boswell referred to, I think, is a remark made by Johnson of a "printer's devil" who had married a "very respectable author."—Yours, etc.,

A. H. Scott.

Kelstone, Charterhouse, Godalming. December 15th, 1919.

SOME CORRECTIONS

(To the Editor of The London Mercury)

Sir,—The London Mercury sets so refreshing a standard of English, by precept, and still more by example, that it is with some temerity that I venture (1) a correction, (2) a criticism, and (3) a query.

1. Major and minor Elizabethan and "Georgian" poets receive full and correct designation. Could not the same be spared for Canon Ottley, of Oxford, who on p. 128 appears as Attley? It might be granted in recognition of his Chancellor's Prize for Latin Verse, the award of which demands, I imagine, a certain measure of poetical feeling in addition to the mathematically stressed rhythms of our schooldays.

2. There may be subtle and political humour intended in the word dignatories (p. 236), but with my last breath I would protest the better (and only) spelling to be "dignitaries," take it derivatively or euphonically as you will.

3. Is the sentence considerable interest has been evinced at the large majority (p. 235) English at all? Should it not be either:

"Considerable interest has been evinced in the ..." Or

"Considerable interest has been evinced by the ..."?

But here, like Rosa Dartle, I merely ask for information—not being a competent grammarian—and leave it to fair judgment.

Could you not follow up the article on "Particles" with one on "Split Infinitives"? We were always taught that they were the unforgivable sin. Yet I have just found two unblushing examples in one of Mr. Thomas Hardy's novels. If he may use them, why may not the children in our village school?—Yours, etc.,

C. A. Tait.

Meopham, Kent. December 13th, 1919.

[In answer to the first and second charges we plead guilty to misprints; the third error was due to a slip of the pen.—Editor.]

JOHN THOMSON OF DUDDINGSTON

(To the Editor of The London Mercury)

Sir,—A material error occurs in the review of my book, John Thomson of Duddingston, in your journal for December. The price is given as 42s., whereas the published price is 31s. 6d. net; edition de luxe, £3 3s. net. The correct title of the book is: John Thomson of Duddingston, Landscape Painter; with some Remarks on the Practice, Purpose, and Philosophy of Art. Some reviewers express a high opinion on the latter department of my book; the full title ought, therefore, to be given—in justice to the volume.—Yours, etc.,

Robert W. Napier.

26 Bruntsfield Place, Edinburgh.

THE MOON

(To the Editor of The London Mercury)

Sir,—I do not know whether the scope of your "Correspondence" pages is intended to admit small criticisms of the original pieces of poetry and imaginative prose which you publish. If it is, I would beg leave to offer two perhaps niggling comments upon The Moon.

(1) In Stanza 22, "Emperor" is a fine word and perhaps inevitable: but would it be merely pedantic to remind the poet that when Bonaparte was in Egypt in 1798 he was not yet Emperor, nor even First Consul?

(2) In Stanza 30, eighth line, does not grammar require the reading "but thee" instead of "but thou"? "But" here is a preposition, not a conjunction—in spite of the "Boy on the Burning Deck." Burns (I think) has a line somewhere that clearly shows the true usage:

i.e., "without thee." I do not think "but" in such a phrase can rightly be construed as merely equivalent to "and not."—Yours, etc.,

A. F. G.

December 12th, 1919.