“LOCKSLEY HALL’ PARALLEL

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27047, 23 May 1953, Page 3

“LOCKSLEY HALL’ PARALLEL

; KJTLER’S CRICKET POEM IN “THE PRESS”

[Reviewed by R.L.I Book of Cricket Verse. An An- ’ thology edited by Gerald Brodribb. Rupert Hart-Davis. 215 pp. Samuel Butler’s cricket poem that I contains prophetic vision perhaps as ' —markable as Alfred Lord Tennyson i showed in "Locksley Hall” is included in Mr Brodribb’s anthology. | .fte lines are familiar in which . Tennyson foresaw aerial transport and aerial warfare: r— I dipt into the future, far as human ’ eye could see, 1 cjw Die Vision of the world, and all s "the wonder that would be; ' Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, l Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping ! down with costly bales; ’ Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and . there rained a ghastly dew * from the nation’s atry navies grappling in the central blue;

It does not stretch the imagination unduly to believe that Butler wrote, about 10 years after Tennyson wrote ‘‘Locksley Hall,” and foresaw television. Butler's poem, The English Cricketers,” appearing appropriately on page 100 in the anthology, was written to celebrate a great dinner held when the English cricket team of 1864 was in Christchurch. The poem was printed in ‘‘The Press” on February 15, 1864. After some lines •bout the visitors’ reception and the match in Christchurch, Butler looks into the future: . Mark me well, eirttrr as swift as swiftest thought shall fly, find space itself be nowhere.

He visualises a cricket match in . Future Tinleys shall bowl from London to our Christ- ~~~ church Tennants, •Rje poem ends with what surely is a prevision of television: jHrrors shall hang suspended in the air, yjjed bv a chain between two chosen liars, lad shall be a telescope fo read the passing shadows from the world. ftich games shall be hereafter, but as Me toy foundations only.

Of course, Butler’s poem is only one of the very good things in an anthology that dips widely and wisely into cricket’s graceful literature. From the very great are pieces by Wordsworth, Blake, Byron, and Thomas Hood. Conan Doyle, “the first and best of all literary cricketers,” is represented, and A. A. Milne, E. V. Lucas. Edmund Blunden, P. G. Wodehouse and Francis Meynell Selections range from a piece by Robert Herrick (15911874) about stoolball, to an up-to-date piece by John Arlott, “To John Berry Hobbs on his Seventieth Birthday.” Also of particular Christchurch interest is Arnold Wall’s poem. “A Time Will Come.” This includes the oftenquoted passage which many believe perfectly describes cricket: , . . the beautiful, beautiful game, That is battle and service and sport and art. There are odes to masters of cricket of all the ages, including Alfred Mynn. Grace. Jessop, Quaife. Woolley, Verity, and Cecil Parkin’s "Pome on Himaelf.” But one misses Edmund Blunden’s “Hammond of England.” As expected, there is the cricket verse from Henry Newbolt’s “Vital Lampada”: There’s a breathless hush in the Close tonight— Ten to make and the match to win— It is a shame that Newbolt’s lines have become so hackneyed, because not only do they convey a grand sense of the urgency and crises occurring so often in cricket, but the poet pays a high and fully worthy compliment to ericket by employing the game to emphasise the spirit of tradition. There are some lighter touches, of which perhaps the most quotable is bv a woman. Dorothy Spring. Her ‘ Slip Up from Somerset” runs: A cricketer Lord’s-bound frohn Yeovil Turned up by mistake at the Eovil; So he said "Never worry," And batted for Surrey, Though this met with some disappreoml. Mr Brodribb’s anthology is wellindexed. and there are notes about the poems and their writers. It should tad a place on the bookshelf of every lover of cricket and of poetry. They should answer the passage in Samuel Butler’s piece: Claudius: But will it pay, Horatio? Horatio: Let Shy lock see to that, bul yet I trust He’s no great Loser

ESSAYS Ay Han Summer and Other Episodes. Michael Lloyd. Heinemann. 200 pp. These beautifully written essays describe the first impact of Italy upon the imagination of a young Englishman of barely 20 who came to the East Coast of Italy with British Military Intelligence during the war. They deal hardly at all with the external events in which he was involved, but give rather a most eloquent and moving account of his tone* life and his deep and joyful response to the old civilisation and palpitating life of Apulia. His winter hd summer in Bitonto and the surrounding countryside opened up for him an aesthetic vision ■Which, had hitherto been absent in his life; that he should experience it so profoundly in Italy was partly perhaps the result of his early associations, for his family had lived in Italy in the last century and memories of it were still s}roJ?g--i From the essays on Italy and the charm of the sunny Adriatic sea-board towns Mr Lloyd passes to write two essavs on Oxford, which provides a constant contrast, both to the mind and i the senses, with atmosphere of the South; a final Conclusion returns again to Italy. The rich and poetic use of language in these essays ana the unusual sensibility and receptivity of the author's mind make them memorable I reading.

, The Attack and Other Papers. By R~ EL Tawney. Allen & Unwin. 194 PP. * This is a collection of essays by the distinguished economist and author or "Religion and the Rise of Capitalism and other historical and economical ■ volumes well known to students. They are reprinted from "The New Statesman.” “The Times Educational Supplement," "The Manchester Guardian and other reviews, and range over a variety of topics. The opening essay describes, in connection with an appeal that war should be commemorated by a monument in education, going the top” in the First World War. The , second contains Reflections of a Soldier on his spiritual remoteness from the home community. Others comment on Chinese culture, .the meaning ot Freedom, the Webbs and .their work, or Christianity and the Social Order. All bear the stamp of the way or thinking that has marked Christian Liberalism of the twentieth century, ■ given expression by one of its most able and earnest exponents. Landoner’s Post Letters to Gog and Magog. By Frank Swtanerton. ; - Hutchinson. 175 pp. It was Wilfred Whitten, the friend and contemporary of E. V. Lucas and Arnold Bennett, who first used the , Pseudonym “John o’ London the centre-page article in T.r. s Weekly”; later he started his owr weekly, John o’ London’s Weekly and continued writing its centre-pagt Until he died. After Whitten’s death ;! Robert Lynd became “John” and madt ... him an even more widely read anc ' admired commentator on lite anc ? books. Lynd's successor was Frank Swinnerton, who for the last three years has continued to address “Go? . and Magog,” to two city giants, ovei the famous signature. The essays ir this lume have been selected fron ■ his contributions. Written, as he says ' for a literary periodical of wide cir eolation, whose readers may consis ! Of anyone from dons to manual work /;«s, they “avoid the abstruse, bu r tange over a great variety of literar; Ifcatters with charm and considerabli [Warning.