PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15892, 11 October 1913, Page 6

PASSING NOTES.

The Massey Ministry are steadily filling up the -measure of their iniquities. A Land'Jßill of Mr. Massey's subtle contriving has just passed its eccond reading bv 49 to 18, Sir Joseph Ward himself.- -the forty-ninth,—the Laurensons, Paynes, Webbs; Isitts, and other pure patriots left raving. Next thing,—the Supreme • Court Bench is to be strengthened by-two additional judges. Who will appoint them ? The Attorney-general, alias the Massey Ministry.

The proposals' of tho Bill certainly needed justification, especially from tho gentleman who was responsible for tho Public Service Act, and who, during the few weeks he was Minister of- Justice. (!) was claiming fh4 right to appoint : two of the highest functionaries in tho country, and was seizing tho opportunity to exerciso patronage. This act was part and parcel of what -was going on under the so-called Reform Government.

Thus from the Opposition benches Mr Russell, for himself and the pure patriots. I gather that in the intrinsic fitness of things the appointing of additional judges should be left to them. Next, completing this -week's indictment, the Machiavellian Massey has called to the Legislative Council a political opponent, Sir William Hall-Jones. Precedent, use • and ■wont, the example of Mr Seddon and Sir Joseph Ward, warranted the expectation that he would foist into the Conned" some party hanger-tin rejected at the polls. Whereas he hae gone and done the other thing, disappointing the Opposition of a serviceable election cry, and a just ( and lawful grievance. This is the most unkindest cut of all.

There is no zeal in the world like that of the faddist, the crotchet-monger, the reformer with a bee in his bonnet. ■ Here on my table are one—two —three—four printed' manifestos by as many religious cranks. The first, "Behold He Cometh,' by A.W., who has " descned spiritual beings at different times," and "in the month of May last was suddenly stricken down with sciatica," . . . .in " fulfilment of certain prophecies." The second " Things Coming to Pass," a 50-page pamphlet rammed full of pyramid calculations, Scripture texts, _ and mathematical form'ul®; author, Captain Robert Crossley, of Armadale, Victoria. The third, issued bv the " Prophetic News '' Office, shows in flaming reds and blues and yellows the Battle of Amiagecldon, a selection of Apocalyptic Beasts, a skeleton on a galloping horse, and the Future Napoleon pedeetalled for worship by a particoloured mob of men and women, eacli forehead branded by the mystic number 666. The fourth, bv Joachim Kaspary, whoever lie may be, asserts that, " the Humanitarian Era commenced in London on Sunday, June 17. 1866, of the expiring Christian Era, and is therefore .now 46 yeaTS old, which proclamation it supports by a farrago of "nonsense running to 16 pages. These weird productions, scattered broadcast through the Post Office, cost money and can bring no return. What the motive ? Vanity chiefly;—the flropai gandist zeal of the crank and the mystic is a diseased vanity.

Under this formula may be explained Sir Edward Durning-Lawrence, Bart., and his tireless endeavour to prove that Shakespeare was Bacon. Still minded to bestow all his tediousness upon us, he sends this week a yard-long screed for in-sei-tion—not in your capacious wastepaper basket, quoth he to the editor, but in your valuable columns." Vanity, indeed. Yet there is always fun in a ShaconBakespeare argument, "would men obeervincly distil it out. It' is of the essence 01 the theory that Bacon's nefarious plot to deceive posterity was shared by most of his literary contemporaries. _■ Ben Jonson was in it; Milton was in it. 1-heyall hung together, and were' all mad alike. Consider the famous epitaph written by Milton: . An Epitaph on the adjubable DbaJIATICKE POET, w. SHAKESPEARE. What neede my Shakespeare for his honour'd bones, _ '■ Tho labour of an Age, in piled stones Or that his hallow'd Reliques should bo ' hid • . , Under a starre-ypomting Pyramid 7 . . . You would never suspect that in'; these four lines we could find Bacon. Yet nothing easier. Fix your eye on the challenging epithet "star-ypointing." The y, represented in modern German by ge-, can go only with the past participle, says Sir E. D-L Skeat says it may be prefixed to any part of the verb; but who is Skeat? 'Let Skeat go hang! " Starypointing" must be corrected to "fitarypointed." Now eee what follows: A ball-pointed pen means a pen with a ball upon its point, a diamond-pointed drill means a drill with a diamond upon its point, and a " Starre-ypointed pyramid" means, must mean, and can only mean "a pyramid with a star ■ upon its point" {its apex). But n pyramid with a star upon its apex is a Beacon (pronounced Bacon, "Bacon, great Bcaoon of tho State," just as tea was pronounced toy, soa was pronounced say, etc.). . . . Yes, tho Epitaph telle us in the plainest and most unmistakable manner that Bacon is Shakespeare.

There is a fund of excellent matter in Sir Edward Durning-Lawrence. Pity that he cannot bo adequately accommodated iu these " valuable columns."

That Edmund Spenser, of the "Faerie Queene" is "the poet's noet" may be read in literature anywhere. Under academical examination you might be asked for "the source." Who first assigned to Spenser this distinction? Last week a student .who had sat for the university entrance scholarship appealed to me: "Do you happen to know where the/words originated, and by "whom'they were said?" I did not happen to kntnv. In my private belief the examiner himself didn't happen to know, but only thought he knew; also thinking,—though with compunction, of course—that he had a fair chance of stumping the examinee. For my own part, willing It) give some other learned Theban a chance, I left the question dangling: Who first called Edmund Spenser "the poet's poet"? No takers! And so, a week having passed, I have now to explain my own and other people's ignorance. The Dictionary of National Biography, article "Edmund Spenser," says: " Charles Lamb bestowed on Spenser his just title when he de-

scribed him as ' the poet's poet.' " Echo-

ing this, ■ the Encyclopedia Britaimica, ' new edition, save: "It was Charles Lamb .who named Spenser 'the poet's poet.' " But neither of them gives chapter and verge. Other authorities — Chambers's Cyclopaedia of English Literature for onesay or imply thai the phrase was of earlier date, as indeed seems likely enough"Spenser was early distingnished as ' the poet's poet.'" Turning to the niany-voiiimed Lamb, you may hunt and hunt; 'out will you find? 'Mention of Sppnser you will find—references kindly, whimsicaf, careless—his name sometimes spelt with a c, "Spencer"; but if you find " the poet's poet," kindly make a note of it and pass the reference on to me.

There are two ways of stating the reason for this honorific distinction. You may say that Spenser is of an exquisite quality .that none but a poet can savour to the full. He. is the poet's poet, cream of the cream. That is one way. Or you mav say that he is of a dulness that only a poet, interested on technical grounds, can endure. That is the other way: and it is Maeaulay's way. 'Die "Faerie Queenr," though "a glorious storehouse of -fancy legend," is an allegory in six bookij.

Not even Sixmser, though' afsuredly one of the greatest poets that ever lived, could succeed in the attempt to make allegory interesting. It was in vain that he lavished the riches of his mind on tho House of Prido and the

House of Temperance. Qno pardonable fault,, the fault of fedionsness, pervades tho whole of the "Faerie Queenc." Wo become sick of cardinal virtues and deadly sins, and long for tho eoeietv of plain men and women. Of persons who read the first canto, not one in ten reaches the end of the first hook, and not one in a hundred pthsrvpres io the end of flip poem. Very few and very weary arc those who arc in at the death of tho Blatant Beast. If ■ the' last

six books, which are said to have been destroyed in Ireland, had been preserved, we doubt whether any heart less stout than that of a commentator would have held out to tho end.

Here Macaulay gives himself away. Holding out to the end, as a stout commentator should, lie would have learned from the closing stanzas of the extant six books that nobody could'be in at the death of the Blatant Beast for the simple reason that the Blatant Beast does not die. The spirit of detraction and calumny is immortal,

So now lie rangeth through the world againe. And rageth eoro in each degree and state ; No any is that may him now restraino, He growen is eo great and strong of late,

Barking. and biting all that him doe bate, Albo they -worthy blame, or cleare of crime; Ne spareth he most learned wits to rate, Ne spareth ho tho gentle poets rime; But rends, without regard of person or of iime. In New Zealand a very fair embodiment of the Blatant Beast sits on the Opposition benches and gets reported in Han sard. - ">,

Macaulay, as most readers know, was of a meticulous accuracy, his foible omniscience. - "I wish I could be as cocksure of anything as Tom Macaulay is of everything," said Lord Melbourne. How he writhed under mis-reporting—and less distinguished persons have done that—he himself has put on record. There was a reporter fellow named Vizetelly, an amateur at the trade, I should say, who had presumed to publish some of his speeches.

Mr Vizetelly next makes me say that the principle of limitation is found " amongst the Pandects of the Benares. 1 ' Did lie believe that I uttered these words, nnd that the House of Commons listened patiently to them? If ho did, what must be thought c of his understanding? I£ he-didi not, was it tho part of an honest man to publish such gibberish as mine? . , . The Benares he probably supposes to be some Oriental nation. What he supposes their pandects to be I shall not presume to guess. . . , I spoke of tho Pundite of Benares; and he might, , without, any -very long or costly research, have learned where Benares is, and what a Pundit is. After all, a tea-party with the Pandects of Benares is not worse than being in at the death of the Blatant Beast. My respect for Macaulay—and it is great— leaves me still capable of a sneaking satisfaction in seeing him come a cropper,

" A Bachelor/ probably an Old Bachelor, writing to the Daily Times, would connect a low marriage rate, and implicitly a low birth rate, with " tho crush, of women in our cars between 4.45 and 5.30 p.m." He might have extended these limits. Most afternoons women in the cars outnumber men by three to one. Hanging on to a strap, I have often pondered thie phenomenon. The stream of women setting to and fro along the tram lines is as fixed as the tides, -and as mysterious, Whence, and why, and whither! When w ; omen journey tow'nward6 is it to the drapers' the sales, if sales are on—to the tea - rooms—to the picture shows? And—as the Old Bachelor asks with sinister .emphasis—do they get back in time to prepare for father and bairns the evening meal? LM me explain that I am not for what John Stuart Mill called the of woman." Quite! tho contrary,—l am willing to be subjected, even at the risk indicated by a rhymester in an English paper :

Eve said " Do," and Adam did; Soon of both was Eden rid, . And the first vote woman gave Brought all humdn to tho grave. But w.e must keep up the marriage rate. Although in this country there is a Jack for every Jill and 50,000 Jacks over —if we may believe the census figures—it does not become any Jill to be 6aucy. Old bachelors are inevitable; old maids are a reproach. However, dropping the homiletic, let me note that at Waimate, a prosperous rural community, the marriago returns for the quarter, a 6 reported by the Waimate Advertiser, though not high are of an encouraging uniformity : " Marriages, males6, females 6, total 6." " What a strange coincidence!" says the correspondent who sends me the paper. Yes; and it -will be equally coincidental that tho progeny of these marria.ges if boys will bo all males, if girls will be all females. Civis.