POLITICS AND POETRY.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 148, 23 June 1923, Page 17

POLITICS AND POETRY.

MR. BALDWIN, KEATS, AND OTHERS. (By CYRANO.) There is an old story about an Oxford or Cambridge don who took a colleague to a lecture on Keats. As they walked home afterwards the friend, who must have been a mathematician or a scien- I tist, said: "A very interesting lecture, X , but tell mc, what are Keats?" Among those who read the declaration of the new Prime Minister of Britain that he would rather have written Keats' sonnets than invented poison- ! gas or the gramophone, there will be j some whose ignorance of Keats will be ■ equally abysmal. Does Mr. Baldwin really like Keats? This coupling of Keats ; with poison gas and gramophones raises a doubt. Wolfe said as he went to his \ victory and death on the Heights of Abraham that he would rather have \rriten Gray's "Elegy" than take Que- ', bee ) but poison gas! Let us hope that Mr. Baldwin is a I lover of poetry, the noblest of the | humanities. If he is, he follows a great ■ tradition. All English Prime Ministers have either loved poetry or had a considerable knowledge of it. The old classical curriculum that was the prin- i cipal part of the education of the rul- | ing class gave statesmen a working knowledge of the great Greek and Latin ' writers, and quotations from Homer, j Virgil and Horace were part of the ' armoury of every Parliamentary orator. ' Such passages were addressed to an audience who understood them. Many i u-ere mere oratorical trimmings, but others were used with splendid propri- ' ety and created a profound impression. One of the most famous was a Virgilian quotation by Pitt. He was urging the abolition of the slave trade, and as he spoke the first beams of dawn shot through the windows of the House. The lines described the coming of the day "'with horses panting," and the appearance of the red star of evening in other regions. Gladstone, who had the classics alwaj's on his tongue, quoted Lucretius on the nature of the gods with tremendous effect in the controversy of ISB3 j over the form of oath that Bradlaugh j should take. Gladstone was pleading for I toleration. The lines, which are among the very finest of the whole world's poetry, were strictly apt, and the effect of the long roll of the hexameters, spoken by that "master of moving cadence and high sustained modulation," was such that "there was a silence as in a church, and a feeling as though the air was fanned by invisible wings." The classics were everything to some of the old school. Chatham had repeated to him on his death-bed the passage in Homer describing the funeral of Hector and the sorrow of Troy, and the dying Fox listened to his favourite lines from Virgil. There are English statesmen to-day who might turn to the classics in their last hours, but the practice of quotation ! from the ancients in the original has j quite disappeared from politics. Even I the phrase " in pari materia" has been : received with cries of "Translate!" This' decay is indicative of great political ! developments. Politics wore once confined j to a class, but now the door of entry is | wide open, and many members have little Greek or Latin, or none at all. ] Lord Morley remarks that the disap- | pearance of a once admired habit is : " significant of a great many more important tilings than a casual change in literary taste." Yet so true a lover of poetry must find at times that his affec- i tion conflicts with his satisfaction as a! democrat. Xo one who cares for litera- ! ture will forget the holiday discussions on poetry, rpcorded in Gladstone's " Life," j between Gladstone and Morley, or that sombre " Easter Digression" in the ! "Recollections"' of Morloy the agnostic. i It is there that he describes as "the! most melting and melodious single > verse" in all English, that marvellous line from " Macbeth''—"After life's fitful fever he sleeps well." But if the classics are banished from English political speeches, English j poetry is not. Fortunately, our superb ! body of verse has had in our own time many lovers in high places. Lord Salisbury, it is true, seems to have had no taste for poetry, and it fell to him to make the appointment to the Laureateship when Tennyson died. With characteristic cynicism he appointed Alfred Austin, who had written verse and rnanv political leading articles for the Conservative party. Asked why he gave the post to Mr. Austin, Salisbury re- ] plied. " Because he wanted it." It fell : to Mr. Asquith, who is a deep student of poetry, to make the next appoint- j moiit. and ho rhose Dr. Bridges. Thn ' choice surprised the public, but pleased tbe poets. Of the other Prime Ministers since Gladstone, Lord Rosebery has

I written admirably on Burns, and Mr. Balfour's knowledge of literature must be very wide. If Mr. Lloyd George does not often quote the English poets, he probably has a good knowledge of them, and he is a prosepoet himself. Of Mr. Bonar Law's tastes I have no knowledge. Mr. Asquith's quotations are very telling. In the peroration of his tribute to Bir Henry Campbell-B.annerm.an he went to the "Character of a Happy Life, ,, by Sir Henry Wotton, and in "his eulogy of his beloved friend and political opponent, Alfred Lyttelton, ho quoted ; "The Happy Warrior." [ This was the happy warrior, this was He I That every man in arms would wish to be ;Of Lord Kitchener he said in the dark hour of loss that "few men that I have known had less reason to shrink from submitting their lives to those pure eyes, I Ana perfect witness of :ili judging Jove. ; Nor need we suppose that the Labour party is indifferent to poetry. JNot only are there men on the Labour i benches who have had the best of education, but among the miners and artisans who have crowded to Westminister hot for social and economic justice, there are some who, like the fiery Burns-quoting David Kirkwood j from Glasgow, and tho English farmerI member who knows Shakespeare by 1 heart —have a knowledge of poetry that would put to shame many of the ! gentlemen on the other side of the House. Is Mr. Massey prepared to say that he would rather have written "Lycidas" ; than invented the income tax, or Mr. j Wilford that he would rather 1 have written "The Blessed Damozel" ! than driven the Otira Tunnel? j Our own politics are almost starkly \ hare of the graces of poetry, ! Mr. Seddon had one quotation—"God"s Own Country." In his Opposition days 1 Mr. Massey was fond of adapting to an opponent Lowell's lines: ' A lnaircful Providence fashioned us holler ■0' purpose thet we might our principles ewaller. I can remember only one coming from him as Prime Minister—'"Tis not in mortals to command success." Mr. Wilford quoted something last year, but I have forgotten what "it was. A felicitous quotation by Minister or member is most rare, and I fear the reason is not that members have had enough of another kind of appropriation, but that they have not the necessary know- ] ledge. It is a pity. The really approI priate quotation is a reinforcing argui ment and a delightful ornament, but more important is the culture that makes its use possible.