KIPLING'S GIFT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22350, 22 February 1936, Page 36 (Supplement)

KIPLING'S GIFT

Dr. H. H. E. Craster, Bodley's Librarian, announces that, m addition to the autograph manuscripts which Mr. Rudyard Kipling presented to the British Museum and McGill University, Mr. Kipling bequeathed under similar conditions to the Bodleian Library the manuscript of " Puck of Book's Hill," and that this has now been placed on view in the Bodleian Picture Gallery. Of all the stories told in " Puck," Dr. Craster writes, the most memorable are those that tell of the adventures of Parnesius. " centurion of the seventh cohort of tlie thirtieth legion." That cohort, it may bo remembered. " lay at Hunno whero the Great North. Road runs through the Wall." No record of the preseuce in Britain of the seventh or of any other cohort of the thirtieth legion was known to the historian, but some six years aftor the publication of Mr. Kipling's book there was unearthed in excavations at Corstopitum, within two cr three miles of tbe scene of Parnesius' adventures, a building stone inscribed (by some freak of Puck) with the natno of this very cohort. Mr. Kipling was informed of the unexpected corroboration of bis historical accuracy, and it was perhaps that curious testimony from excavations inspired and largely executod by Oxford men that prompted his choice of " Puck of Pook's Hill " for presentation to , tho University of which ho was an honorary doctor,,