Page 13 Advertisements Column 1

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20772, 4 February 1933, Page 13

Speaking to a correspondent of the "Observer" about Francis Thompson, the twenty-fifth anniversary of whoso death fell last month, Mr Wilfred Mcyncll, his friend, recalled the early appreciation of the poet's work: When his Poems first appeared, in 1893, they at oneo had a spontaneous and cordial welcome. This man. who had no friends other than those his work had won for him, happily reversed the older traditions of early poetical neglect. Full appreciations came to him from Meredith and Patmore, from William Archer and Trail, from Garvin and Le GaUiennc. from George' Wyndham and Wilfred Blunt, from Chesterton and Quillcr Couch, to name no discerning others.' There wore, besides, little personal episodes that perhaps even more instantly affixed the laureb. Barbellion, in a passage held over from the "Diary of u Man," and appropriately included in "Enjoying Ufc," said that, despite all his sufferings, ho was glad to have lived to see men fly through the air like birds and to have read the poems of Francis Thompson. And DurneJones, sayitg that no words »ince Gabriel's "Blessed Damozel" had so movod him as this newcomer's "Hound of Heaven," went on to confess that he uudrossed, and dressed, arid undressed again—three processes ho hated—not knowing what he did in those minutes of verbal -intoxication. This sort ■of overwhelming individual appeal lias not ceased with the growth of