COMPETITION

No 639: Heave ho!

Set by M. K. Cheesetnan: The Boat Show is with us again. Com- petitors arc asked to celebrate it with a sea shanty (not more than sixteen lines) for all Britain's part- time amateur sailors (incItIding the PM, of course). Entries, marked 'Competition No 639,' by 29 Jam', ary.

No 636: The winners

Charles Seaton reports: A letter appeared recently in the SPECTATOR apparently from E. M. Forster in the Elysian Fields. Competitors were asked to submit other letters from the same addresi on matters discussed in the SPECTATOR. This brought a good response from the next world, including a repeat from E. M. Forster. In Greek mythology only the souls of the virtuous inhabited Elysium and some of our correspondents would have been hard pressed to establish their credentials had not Virgil perversely sited the Elysian Fields in Hades, thus regularising a prize- Winning letter from Attila, not to mention Oscar Wilde and Lord Byron.

The 'Peace and War in our Time' controversy in the 26 De- cember issue provoked a number of letters from former military Persons. Attila's, submitted by Adam Khan, makes his point forcibly:

Here, you: some of us, I might Mention Caligula, Cumberland, Goebbels and Wallenstein to name

a few, find the attitudes expressed •

Ltin your 'Peace and War in our "Time' incomprehensible. You sound as if fighting wars was un- desirable; death in battle, fright- ful; a bit of rape, loot and general licence, to be frowned on. What You getting at, friend? Fighting, after all, and well you know it, is

as natural as fornication, and you don't seem to frown on that, now, do you? This Calley you're so down on, what's he done, then? So he done in a dozen or so vil- lagers including women and kids: certainly a bit wasteful as regards to the women, we all know some warriors tend to be sort of heedless of tomorrow, but otherwise what to expect in the campaign season? You tell Calley he can count on a welcome here from us.

Attila The reprint of Addison on 'The Vanity of Honours and of Titles' brought several letters from him, including a request for a fee. Here is George van Schaick's entry: Oscar Wilde—and Henry James —rose to the bait of Colin Wilson's review, but the best Wilde (from Martin Fagg) came in answer to a 'Spectator's Notebook' paragraph: Sir,

I was mightily astonished to find in your SPECTATOR No 7436 a trifle I had composed for No 219 and had printed therein long ago. My friend Dick Steele is vastly amused for he declares you have found a new way to fill your paper with no need to pay the writer for his pains; though I hoped very much that you had rather chosen my words for some small merit in them.

The rest is strange indeed, but understanding so little I would take issue with your Master Quince who would begin the year in Spring instead of in January. Where this conceit would place Christmas I know mot, but that good knight Sir Roger de Coverley avers that 'it happens very well that Christmas should fall out in , the middle of winter . . . the poor people would suffer very much from their poverty and cold if they had not good cheer, warm fires. and Christmas gambols to support them.'

Joseph Addison

I suspire, I positively gasp with relief! Recent recruits to these celestial pastures have been telling me that that most hallowed of Britannia's traditions, her Self- Righteousness, has recently been most dangerously undermined. They tell me that the love which, in my day, Dared Not Speak Its Name, is now uttering it fortissimo on every conceivable occasion, and that the English are ceasing to exercise their immemorial privi- lege of 'compounding for sins they are inclined to by damning those they have no mind to.' But now I deduce—from your being obliged to discontinue a discreet homo- sexual advertisement by the pru- dish wrath of your readers—that that indomitable matron, Mrs Grundy, is still alive, well and liv- ing in the Sunday Express build- ing. What inexpressible reassurance these tidings bring! Britannia is herself again, and I have, thank heaven, lived and died completely in vain,

Oscar Wilde The 'Gay Liberation' article drew this from Lord Byron (through the medium of Peter Peterson): Sir,

I can assure your contributor, Mr Lumsden, that I myself felt at times that we Englishmen should live more like Turks than, in my days, most of us managed to do— though perhaps I say it who should not. Since my sojourn in Maho- met's Paradise, however, where I took up residence on my departure from Greece, I have learnt to think otherwise. To quote my old friend, Tom Moore: "Tis but black eyes, and lemonade.' The truth is that seduction demands resistance; even incest loses its attraction if it has no relish of damnation in it. My advice to Mr Lumsden is to do as I did, and cultivate, so far as a per- missive age allows, a Puritan con- science. There would then be no need to degrade by the vulgar

.title of Gay Liberation what was once a fascinating defiance of the norm.

Yours ever, B.

That egotistic chatterbox Ber- nard Shaw was, as might have been expected. the most prolific letter-writer. Typical was this mis- sive, entered by Harrison Everard: Dear Sir,

With regard to your absurd literary competition requesting let- ters from the Elysian Fields it really is ludicrous to expect its in- habitants to waste their time sup- plying you with free copy unless you print something worth read- ing in your journal. I have searched through the pages of the relevant issues in vain for any re- ference to the greatest playWright ' that Ireland has ever produced, though naturally England claims me for her own. This is because she is saddled with that ridiculous Warwickshire clodhopper Shak- spear. I note that your Christ- mas Quiz contains questions about his so-called plays, but there are none about mine. Not that there should be; they were written for the delectation of posterity (which includes you) not as the raw mate- rial for parlour games.

Bernard Shaw Other correspondents included John Knox (increpatory), Welling- ton (indignant), Queen Victoria (laudatory—'1 have now given orders • that all fires in my palaces are to be lit using only pages torn from your useful magazine'), Shakespeare (Olympian), Damon Runyan (racy), James Agate (thea- trical, but a late entry, through spending too long correcting the commas) and several who thought themselves too well known to need to sign their letters. Prizes of three guineas go to each of those quoted and commen- dations to H. A. C. Evans, P. W. R. Foot, Rufus Stone and T4 Griffiths.