A SIGN OF THE TIMES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 17, 20 January 1934, Page 2 (Supplement)

A SIGN OF THE TIMES.

"Of late two other tilings have happened, one on His Majesty's initiative, the other on the initiative of his people. The National Antlieni has been improved beyond belief by the adoption of the King's wish that it should be sung to a slow rhythm; and the people themselves have spontaneously adopted a sort of second national antliem, having chosen for loss august occasions one of the most beautiful, and for long obscured, poems of the nineteenth century, Blake's socalled 'Jerusalem.' This is very remarkable. The spirit of the poem is the spirit of the English landscape, both rustic and (by adoption) urban; and the significance is that the spirit of patriotism, which has found this poem by Blake to be its fittest vessel, was the same 'spirit of the countryside' that Shakespeare himself celebrated in Ilia famous lines about the island 'set in a silver sea.' Yet, too few people have noticed that the love of one's country is, at its heart, neither the detestable passion of the jingo, nor an overweening nationalism, but, simply, a love of its landscape, its 'clouded hills' and its skies. Both Shakespeare and Blake were agreed about that. The spontaneous popular choice of 'Jerusalem,' aided no doubt by the beautiful sotting provided by Sir Hubert Parry, is noteworthy here; ilrst to prove" the wholesome appetite for Art that, wisely encouraged, is at the service of the nation; second, to prove 1 lie kind, of spirit that would respond to the policy respectfully advocated to His Majesty here."—Osbert Burdett, "Fine Arts and the Monarchy," in the "London Mercury." — . n, BOOKS RECEIVED.

How to Get Well and Keep Well, by Robert J. Terry. (Wliitcombe and Tombs.) Paradise Plumes, by 0. Monro TurnbuH; Tho Old Woman Speaks, by Anne Heppic: First Aid to the Teeth, by Keith Vyden. (Angus and Robertson.) Devoted Ladies, by M. ,7. Fnrrell; Below the Belt, by David Hume; Hide and Seek, by Marcus Clieke; Desperado, by Daniel Ward; Restloss Guns, liy William Colt Mucdonald. (Collins.)