PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14686, 20 November 1909, Page 4

PASSING NOTES.

As respects the British Budget, it would tsocni that the die. is cast, and (he Rubicon croesed. The Houso of Lords will follow Lord Lansdownc, and J/orcl Lansdownc has given notice of an amendment couched in -pretty nearly the words I suggested for him la=t week :

Thai ilic lfcuse is not justified in Riving its ion-en; to the bill until it i>»3 been submitted to the judgment of the country.

There is no revolutionary look about Uik It is not quite the same thing

Cry " Havoc," ir.d let slip the d'egs of war. 11 is merely the lMereiulum—long and foolishly prayed for—come at last. But there is an Art of Putting Things, at which the other side are not inept. There is also an art of whipping things into froth and lather, at which fhcothsr side are (lone, as the cables will show us day by clay. Two remarks on the situation occur to me. One, that it is absurd to suppose that such papers as ine Times and The Spectator, to name no others, are preaching Tyranny, Monopoly, Privilege. The Spectator's doctrine'is—"Tax wealth: make the rich man pay. Don't tax any particular embodiment of wealth—land, house*, factories, ships.- Tax wealth itself; tax it wherever you find it; tax it well." There is surely nothing very wrong in this doctrine; but it is not the doctrine of the Budget. My other. remark is that much ignorant cant is talked about the nun-representative character of the Lords. It is certain that on this Budget question the Lords represent a large section of British opinion, it is certain that such men as Disraeli, Hartington, Uosclien, Hicks-Beach, and scores of others who passed from the Commons to the Lords, were representatives of the people, after as before. To represent the people you don't need election. Look at Journalism. I represent a few thousands myself; yet was never elected. Your typical journalist scorns the idea.

Sir Joseph Ward propounds the humorous doctrine that to criticise; his facile borrowings is to lose all rights under his parsimonious spendings. You speak against the new loan?—very well; then you won't get any _of it. Your share will be to help in paying tho interest. Railways and such like Benefactions out of ioan are for the meek and lowly. This pleasant, theory crops out with especial energy whenever there is any question of railway construction in Otiigo. I am willing to believe that it!i.s little more than theory, and that Sir Joseph has Bt.ill some instinct for fair play. He is tco seasoned a politician to think that he can escape criticism, or to squirm unduly when ho gets it. Nobody understands better how much he deserves it. Thus he goes to England that ho may attend a Defence Conference; he comes back and tells us many things; and he adds, "Oh, by the way, I borrowed a million." Ho borrows a million in the casual and incidental way of the father of a family on his way home from the oilko buying a box of chocolates for the youngsters. I could wish that we were all children to be properly grateful. But we are not, and Sir Jcseph cannot hope to play the heavy father with any great success. There is no harm in his borrowing a million; so far as I am concerned he may borrow another, lint he has to remember that the million, when borrowed, is ours, not hie, and that it must ho whacked out squarely. Fair play is a jewel.

£0 the brewer and the prohibitionist have fallen into each other's arms; Herod and Pilak> are mado friends. Not that either hopes any the Icr.s to cut the other's throat. Indeed the significance, the ironic charm, of those, scandalous endearments lies precisely here—that the brewer means to cheat the prohibitionist, tho prohibitionist the brewer. It follows that the details of their alleged agreement are oi minor interest. " Agreement," forsooth, when their one point in common is the sword's point! It in amusing to hear the wine and spirit merchant complaining that he had no part in ttee ccllogneings and He needn't trouble; nothing has i«illy happened; things are jiif.t as they were: My own dealings are with tho wine and spirit merchant. Although, as I explain in this column every other week, 1 drink no whisky, I ncvertheleas keep it in tho house. There are iimes when whisky seems the propercst thing to sat before a friend. If I want a dozen of whisky, I don't trouble the pniiikan; 1 ring up the merchant. And when brewer and prohibitionist tell me in concert that before long there will be no ringing up in this behoof, nor any whisky anywhere at all within these Islcn of the West, I take kavo to doubt their prophetic competency. The prohibitionist lias prophesied all along to that effect; what ruins his credibility just now iii that the brewer chimes in.

Familiar to readers of the Otago Witness is the name at the foot of the letter given below, Charles Oscar Palmer. It usually appears at the foot of a screed i.[ vcvew.

Kaikoura Suburban.

Bear " Cine," —1 have followed Passing Xotes with more or less, generally move, interest since the past dale when you found some virtue in my apostrophe to yourself. 11 it he any pleasure or interest to you I would like to say that

" Civ'is" is not carried away by the rush or excitement of the moment, " the topmost froth of thought" (is it?), flic liltlebatiaii theories cf the moment. Beneath ins banter lies a good substratum of sound, common—or is it uncommon? —sens:e. • So much for another apostrophe.

.\ii appreciation of Tennyson follows this appreciation of " Crvis " : but I have room only for my own. Not to say that Tennyson' must by tli.ii' time he a little tirad of appreciations. Pais for Tennyson, and let us come to Shakespeare.

Bacon wrote Shakespeare, cli! Was it ltaleigh who said. "I did the thing myself"? Met a Baconian once; He had never read Milton's—

What needs my Shakespear for his honour'd bones, The labour of an ago in piled stones, Or that his hallowed reliques should he hid _ • Under a s,tar-ypoinling pvr.inwT?

Nor Spenser's" "Tears of the Muses," Yet he sr.id that Hums could never be doubled as the author of " Cottar's Saturday Sight." His work was too recent. Was net Sliaksspcnvo recent to Spenser and Milton ?—Rsgarcts, from CItABLES OSCAR PauiHl.

At Shakespeare's dentil, 1616, Spe.ii.-er had been dead nearly 20 year?, hence cannot 1)3 cited for the purpose stated. Hut Bsn Jor.son can; ar.d—for the ShawnBakcspeare [Kople-there's the rub. They can only get rid of Ben Jonson and his testimony 'by proving him either a fool or a cheat, and it is certain that lie was ireither.

That Bacon was Shakespeare and Shakespeare Bacon is still a i-acrcd belief in soi'.-.c quarters. Xor is it the first craze of its kind.

That Solomon was the author o! the Iliad, and JTausicaa the authoress of the Odyssey; that the Comedies of 't'rrencc. the d'lneid of Virgil ami the Odes of Horace were the compositions, of mcdlccval iv.enks; that the Annals of Tacitus were forged by Poggio Bracciolini; that Paradise. Lost was concocted by a syixlior.te: that Khi» Alfred wrote I the Beowulf, and Gcorijo ill the Letters of Junius; that Emily Tennyson wa.i tl:o author of In Mciiioriani-a!l those absurdities have been gravely maintained, and some of them supported by arguments surprisingly specious and inijcniotis, as veil as with" profound and curious erudition.

Tl is from the late Professor Clmrton Collins that 1 quote this sentence. Ifc volume "Studies in Shakespeare" has a paper headed " The Bacon-Shakespeare Mania," which, as a summing up of the whole absurdity, I may commend to anxious inquirers, if such there be. Cocksure fanatics there certainly are. One of I hem in an Otago paper the other day was citing as a Bacon-Shakespeare argument, conchii-ivo and unanswerable, the lontj-tiiilctl noiirensß word in " Love's Labour Lest," a word that reeds a line to itself—

Honorilicabilitudinitatibus. This Ilia >Shacon-l'akc(r[»ares have tortured into an anagram' equally prepos-

terous as Latin on as English : " Hi ludi, tuiti sibi, Fr Bacono nati." " These plays, originating with Francis Bacon, are protected for themselves." It turns out, however, that the pregnant polysyllable was merely a copybook heading used by writing master*, and that examples of it exist as far back as the reign of Henry the Sixth.

" For the best chestnut we offer a prize of one guinea," says the editor of the Westminster Gazette's Problem Page :— the '' chestnut" contemplated in this sporting offer being not a vegetable product but a story that age has withered and custom staled. Obviously the best would he the worst. If it is " the best bad joko" that you are looking for, your criterion lia« lo bo—the Ladder the Letter. So in this case. An array of chestnuts from which to pick the best is a parade of broken-kneed cab-horses lo decide which is fittest for the knackers. And a competition in chestnuts him points in common with a competition in taradiddles, which is an American amusement—like baseball, graft, and Tammany—though there is one Knglish example on recowt. A bishop, travelling third class on the railway (as a good bishop naturally would), found him-i-flf cabined with a party oi Xorlh-country miners, an old copper kettle, and an argument about ownership. Presently it was agreed that the utensil should go lo the, man who could tell the biggest lie, the competitors generously offering to include llio scandalised bishop. "Why/ 1 he exclaimed, " I have never told a lie in my lite." There was a moment of stupefaction, and then a voice: " Bill, gi'o un the kettle." This story, though a chestnut of respectable antiquity, would hardly have taken the Westminster's guinea. It is not good enough; that is to say, not bad enough.

The guinea went to an old Scotch story badly iold.

A man of Kircaldy one day visited a neighbouring village, mid listened so often to the pleasing invitation oi " a«ilher wee dr.ippio " that, as he journeyed home, his feet strayed from the path and his wanderings were devious. Tho night was dark, and the way home lay l)y a graveyard, in which ,ras an open gra.vc. Into the grave Jock tumbled, and, rinding it comfortable, slept. Towards morning: a coacli rumbled past and the driver awoke tho echoes with his horn, tli-s result being (he ultimate 'awakening; of Jock. As the coach disappeared from sight he managed to get his head abovo tho grave-side, and ioi a time surveyed the scour with dumbfounded gravity The world was still, but for the sound of. a distant roll, and tho graves were around him, littlo mounds 0! unequal lengths; tombstones, some high, some low, all in order, undisturbed, and in their places. At last he found his voice.

"ilercy me!.'' ho ejaculated—" an' is this a' tho righteous (0 be found in KircaMy?"

Too many words, all through; 'ajid tho end spoiled. What Jock caid, when, pecking out of the grave lie saw himself t«_ b* alone, was : " A puir show for Kirca'dy!" You can't improve on that.

Tho proximo accessit in this classical competition came from Ireland.

Pat: Phwat lis lit, Moike, that runs about the farrum-yard trid two legs an' leathers on, en' grunting like a pig? Jlike: Sure an' that's horrible; "phwat is ut?

Pat: It's a fowl, Maike. Slilte: That's very good. But phwat about the "runt? ■

Pal: Faith, Oi put that in to make ut harrdcr.

This is trivial enough, and Irish enough; but for a chestnut it lacks notoriety. Cms.