LITERARY GOSSIP

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22467, 30 July 1938, Page 18

LITERARY GOSSIP

Martin Joseph Routh. whose life has just been written by R. D. Middleton and is published by the Oxford University, Press, was born on September 18, 1755, and died on December 21, 1854. He had talked with a'lady whose mother remembered Charles II; had known Dr. Thomas Leigh, Master of Balliol, a contemporary of Addison; had seen Dr. Johnson, with his brown wig, dressed in a snuff-coloured coat, going up the steps into University College; and had seen two under-grad-uates hanged on Merton College gallows for highway robbery. Dr. Routh resided in Magdalen College as Demy, Fellow, and President for 83 years, being President for 63 years. The history of Dr. Routh’s magnum opus, “Reliquiae Sacrae,” a collection of the shorter works and fragments of the Church Fathers of the second and third centuries, is in two ways extraordinary. In the first place, publication was completed 60 years after the work was announced. In 1788 he issued the prospectus: 26 years afterwards, in 1814, the first two volumes appeared; and in 1848, 60 years after the prospectus was issued, the fifth volume, completing the work, was published. Routh was then in his ninety-fourth year. In the second place, 150 years after the issue of the prospectus, the work is still on the current Oxford catalogue! Dr. Routh invariably wore a wig (one of his wigs has been petrified by placing it in, the river at KnareSborough), cassock, gown, scarf, and bands, shorts, and buckles. An American visitor said it seemed to him he had gone back a century (Dr. Routh was then 96)—“ although impressing one as the most venerable figure I had ever beheld.” His valuable library went to the University of Durham. It was said that he possessed so vast a collection of booksellers’ catalogues (advance proofs of which were often sent to him), often annotated by his own hand, that they filled 30 yards of his shelves. Mr Middleton’s biography presents a character of entertaining oddity: Dr. Routh’s friends remarked how frequently he used the expressions and sometimes ponderous manner of speaking of a bygone age. To his servant he would at, times exclaim; “Bring it back, sirrah.” Of the Bishop he would say, “There comes my Lord of Oxford.” Not long before his death his gardener at Tylehurst became insane and had to be sent away. The gardener begged leave to see his master once more and to ask his blessing. The President gladly received him. The man stooped as if to kiss his hand, and in so doing bit a piece out of it. “How did you feel, Mr President,” said Sir George Dasent afterwards, “when the man bit your hand?” “Why at first, sir,” said Dr. Routh, “I felt considerably alarmed, for I was unaware, sir, what proportion of human virus might have been communicated by the bite; but in the interval of reaching the house I was convinced that the proportion of virus must have been very small indeed; then I was at rest, but. sir. I had the bite cauterised.” . . ; The President’s language could at times be a little forcible if ho felt in the humour, though no one took these apparent outbursts very seriously. About four years before Dr. Routh’s death one of the Fellows of the College met the butler coming from the Lodgings and asked how the President was. “Well, air ” was the reply, “he has called me a fool, a thief, and a liar already this morning, so I think the old gentleman is pretty well.”

Routh liked to have his dogs about him. The Fellows decided to enforce the rule against keeping dogs in College. “Then, sir,” said Routh. “I suppose I must call mine cats.” One of his dogs, Romulus, came of a litter which had been bereft of their mother by an accident. The puppies were therefore placed in the care of “a cansible cat,” says Mr Middleton. “Strong-minded as she was, she determined to educate them on her own lines, with the result that Romulus would never get his feet wet, and had learned to wash his face with his paws.”

“Wings of Song,” the autobiography 'of the world-famous singer, Lotte Lehmann, traces her career from childhood in “the friendly little town of Perleberg” to her latest appearances in Salzburg, Vienna, and America. A photograph carries the story a step further, to her arrival in Sydney. This record it; a happy one: Lotte Lehmann “cannot imagine that the day will come” when she will tire of her profession. She is no more likely to weary a reader than any hearer, especially in what she calls (by comparison with opera) “the purer

and more heavenly kingdom of lieder-singing.” But every reader will share with her one disappointment. She closes her book as she looks forward to “a new summer Festival at Salzburg with ‘Fidelio’ under Toscanini.” Political changes have shuttered that prospect. It seems that international politics are regulated (or disordered) by forces which threaten and obstruct the international freedom of art.—Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co. Ltd. 252 pp. (10/6 net.) Through Whitcombe arid Tombs Ltd.

Some curious facts from “Burial Reform and Funeral Costs,” by Sir Arnold Wilson, M.P., and Hermann Levy, published by the Oxford University Press: The activities of “body-snatchers” and “resurrection-men” (the latter a term so common that the blasphemy passed unnoticed) was ended by the Anatomy Act, 1832. Of some 70 coffins dating from the last half of the eighteenth century disinterred from a city churchyard recently in connexion with road-widening, for re-

burial elsewhere, eight were found to be filled with stones. . . . When Sir Henry Thompson sorted his ■ cremation- campaign, the Kpglgn public was little prepared for the nw idea. Lady Dilke, the young wife® Sir Charles Dilke, was the first Englishwoman to be cremated by herom desire, at Dresden on October 9. under the superintendence of Dt Siemehs, F.R.S.. as it could not K done in England. “A widespread expression of shocked public optoim arose.” ... Of 560,000 deaths occurring in Great Britain in 1936. only 83.000 were « persons the expense of whose, sepulture was not a serious financial Durden upon the relatives. ‘ Surprising as it sounds, colons tor burial have been in general use about 150 years. . , Canon Bamett tells of a town-tow child’s essay on things seen on a outing. One little girl, penuonfia that: “From the oak tree is mad* arefins and other expensive articlesDowd estimated the amount *p*®on flowers at burials in the UmW States of America at 84,000.000 dollars in 1921. . urnrrf If expenditure on coffins m rapes of one-half of the deaths one year could be reduced to « resultant saving would be fwjre No figures are available as to eamenw* ture on memorial stones, but u aac the sum so spent could be devoted w the need of the living, it is auej® put the resultant' saving at not re than £1,000,000 a year. It is now disclosed fay hlf Ushers that Michael Innes, ainbor “Death at the President’s Lodging and “Hamlet. Revenge!” is oftg*? known as Professor Innes Stewan* of the University of Adelaide, r*® third detective story, “Lament for Maker,” has just been Gollancz. It will he reviewed week. Announcements of more than pafing interest from Cassell include Collected Poems of Laura and also those of Robert Graves. 1* Memoirs of de Caulincourt, hapr leon’s secretary, are included. Huac* Belloc is represented by a study* Louis XIV. The Summer Number of “Pun*S enlists a remarkable , comic artists—Derrick Suu®*’ George Morrow, Reynolds, Fougasse, Pont, Shepard, Doup» Seviour—whose work in colour*" line is (of course) great fun. AgSi in prose and verse take seconajprer but it would be dastardly not, mention the compressed detecm story, “The Clue of the Scone,” by “H.F.E.”— Bradbury, new and Co.; 1/-. Walter Starkie’s new book. Waveless Plain,” reports the - rarian of the Canterbury Library, is a many-sided recoru_ his Italian experiences. A new tory of England is A. L. Morton People’s History of England, „ worth reading as a background the Fabian Lectures of _ A assembled in “Dare We Ahead?” Mr G. D. H. Cote*% fessor Harold Laski, and Russell are among the Two additions have been WJ> Sgei the drama section: “I Have Here Before,” by J. B. *^ 1 . es z| y W& “Operette,” by Noel Coward, of which have been runnmg_{ cessfully in London. Among books of medical inter®* “Bushveld Doctor,” by C. ggtjd: poldt, a medical officer Africa, and “The Fight for Paul de Kruif, author ol Against Death.”