LITERARY LOYALTIES

Evening Star, Issue 19942, 11 August 1928, Page 17

LITERARY LOYALTIES

[Written bv C. R. Allen, for the ‘ Evening Star.’] Among the group of seven, including Tennyson, Hallam, and Monckton Milnes, to whom was given the collective title of “The Cambridge Apostles,” was one Spedding, who was cuiefly memorable for the shape of his head, which was completely bald, and hislifel ong devotion to the memory of Bacon. He provides us with a prime example of literary loyalty, since he seems to have been uttered without desire to impress his personality upon his generation. Had it not been for his election to that remarkable septemvirate he would probably exist only in the minds of the erudite. Theodore Watts-Dunton, on the other hand, would have won fame as the author of ‘ Alwyn ’ had he never undertaken the rehabilitation of Swinburne. When “ Spy ” portrayed WattsDunton in ‘ Vanity Fair,’ kissing the toe of Swinburne, ho was unusually wide of Uie mark. It would have been more appropriate, in this case, to limn a parody of the famous picture’ which advertises the merits of Bears Soap. 1 f Watts-Dunton did not succeed in making a clean boy of Swinburne, he at any rate essayed to niako a passable citizen of him. Ho worshipped him, only in the literal sense of the verb, in that ho recognised his worth just as Alice Meyncll recognised the worth of Francis Thomson. It was inevitable that the writing of Thomson’s biography should have been undertaken by a member ot the family which consistently befriended him. Everard Meyuell’s life of Francis Thomson is one of the great biographies of late pre-war days. The day has passed when omen were considered to be sentimentalists as biographers, and we aro justified in believing that the picture Lady Burne-Jones draws of her husband is a life-like portrait. His was a gentle and luminous!) spirit, and not tho least lovable trait was bis loyalty to his fellow pre-Rapliaelite, D. G. Rossetti. It was a loyalty that was tried in a very subtle manner. When_ Rossetti passed into that inexplicable cloud which seemed to separate him from his friends, Burne-Jones displayed a readiness to “stand by,” which is one of the most difficult forms of service to render. I had always imagined that Hogg showed a kind of robustious loyalty towards Shelley which that erratic genius needed. This at least is the impression produced by a perusal of that remarkable biography, which the late Dr A. C. Benson places side by side with Boswell’s ‘ Life of Johnson and Carlyle’s ‘ Life of Stirling.’ It appears that Hogg philandered with Shelley’s wife and this discounts that good-natured brusquerie which lends the wor its great charm. I had always thought of Hogg as suffering the official displeasure of Oxford University in company with tho poet, and sharing with him in many a long tramp, and, without a shadow of illusion, worshipping, in the sense I have already indicated.

To come nearer home, Mr Hilaire Belloc provides us with a bracing instance of literary loyalty in the magnificent scolding which he administers to the aggregious Don who dared to belittle his Chesterton. There is nothing finer in resourceful invective to bo found in modern English satirical poetry. When one calls to mind tho relative size of Mr Belloc and of Mr Chesterton one may extract some amusement from the idea of Mr Belloc squaring up before the aforesaid Don like a bov at school defending his small brother from the playground bully. Mr Chesterton is so well equipped for self-defence, in the battle of books, at all events. It is probable that a similar attack on Mr Noel Coward would evoke some kind of demonstration from Mr Beverley Nicholls. In his latest causeno the author of ‘ Twenty-five ’ sets Mr Noel Coward upon just such an eminence as that from which tho modern young man would hurl the Pineros and the Wildes of yester-year. My own loyalty to the memory of Tennyson impels me to point out that, in this same volume, Father Ronald Knox, in his anxiety to solicit our opprobrium for a certain couplet in ‘ Maud,’ rather clumsily misquotes it. Mr Ni'cholJs’s citation of the historic “ I shall meet Him as gentleman to gentleman ” story is not particularly happy. Tennyson was no gentleman, and there are plenty of good stories exteant to prove it, and despite Father Ronald Knox, Shine out, little head suunied over with curls, To the flowers, and be their sun, is sound poetry. We may be allowed to close with a story of Tennyson’s loyalty to Browning. incidentally the story supplies justification for the statement that the author of tho ‘ Idylls ’ was no gentleman. He vas walking across one of the courts at King’s College, Cambridge, when Tie was accosted by Professor Oscar Browning. “I’m Browning,” stated that notorious tuft-hunter,

“ You are not,” replied the poet, and went upon Ms way.