KIPLING AS HISTORIAN.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume L, Issue 12766, 22 June 1911, Page 6

KIPLING AS HISTORIAN.

" Mr. Rudyard Kipling is about to i make his first bow to the public in the-i 1010- of historian," 'says ,the "Daily i News," " 'A School History of Eng- J land' will be published shortly under the joint names of Mr.- C. R. L. Fletcher ,and Mr. ■ Kipling:1-' .It is an open .secret that the more solid historical matter will be» contributed by the first ot these authors, while Mr. Kipline; j will be responsible for the more vivid parts of the narrative, and the poems which will supplement the text. "There will be no fewer than 23 ballads which appear under such titles as The Roman Centurion,' 'The PirateV <>f England.' 'Before the Edgehill t Fight,' 'The Dutch in the Medway,' 'The French Wars,' and 'The Bells and the. Queen, 1911.' / . . " Chapter I. ofv the now history, which carries the " reader from the j earliest times to the -departure of the Romans, opens with a poem, entitled :Tho River's Tale' :— / "' •'Twenty bridges from Tower to Kew Wanted t;> know what the llivcr knew, For they were young' and the! Thames •was old, . ' And this is the tale that tho River told; I walk my beat before London Town, I'ive hours up and seven down, Up I 'go nnd I end my. run At Tido-end-town, which is Teddington. -~;, Down I come with the mud in niy hands, And plaster it over, the Maplin Sands. But I'd have you know that these waters of mine Wero once a branch of the River Rhine, When hundreds1 of miles to the East I went, And England was joined to the Continent. ■• "I remember the bat-winged lizard-. birds, Tho Age of Ice and the mammoth * herds And the giant tigers that stalked them down Through Rogent's-park into Cam den Town. And I remember like yesterday Tho earliest Cockney who came my ' way, When bo pushed through the forest that lined the Strand, ■With paint on his face and a club in his hand.' . . " Mr. Henry Ford will illustrate the iiew. history with a'-number of,,drawings'. It may be expected *in July."