BOOKS OF THE WEEK

Here's Richness

By EVELYN WAUGH HILAIRE BELLOC'S death last summer came at the end of nearly fifteen years during which he had written nothing and made no public appearance. Most of his books were out of print. The weekly paper to which he had devoted himself so prodigally had ceased publication. And yet at his Requiem Mass the great nave of Westminster Cathedral was thronged and by a congregation the greater part of whom, it seemed to one observer, were drawn by Belloc's fame rather than by personal acquaintance. It was not a literary occasion. Belloc was strictly, perhaps even ruthlessly, professional as a writer, but he made his life among men of action and women of society. Younger writers were often disconcerted when they discerned behind his massive courtesy an absolute ignorance of who they were and what they had written. There were friends in plenty in the Cathedral that August morning, men and women whose wide variety gave witness of the fulness of the man they were commemorating. (Belloc has been spoken of as a bigot and it is worth noting that of his close friends not more than half shared his religious faith and very few, if any, his political opinions.) , But mingling with them and outnumbering them were people of all kinds and ages who may never have set eyes on Belloc but loved him in his work.

Those are Belloc's prime characters as a man and as a writer, his breadth of scope and the love he inspires. His poetry is quintessential of him. He himself recognised this fact most clearly. His prose works are copious, always lucid, often rising to fine passages of rhetoric, often memorable in their sharp definition of word, but they are for the most part the work of a craftsman, often a craftsman hired for an imposed task. His poetry is his art, something he kept quite distinct from literary ommerce, to which he gave his full concentrated attention, into which he distilled all the noble essences which made him unique as a man, in which he confided as his warranty of lasting fame. Most of it was written before 1914, none after 1939. But in his years of leisure and rumination he never undertook the task of collection and collation. That, he was confident, would come later and here, very punctually, we have it; a most welcome and worthy book.* Mr. Roughead is an editor of Scottish pr,udence and precision. Sir Francis Meynell, a pub- lisher of unwearied charm. The arrangement, the rare notes, the apparatus of reference are admirably convenient. The verses are set in the fine, clear italic of the Romulus fount and printed on paper which it is a pleasure to handle. One thousand six hundred and fifty'copies have so far been printed. It is to be hoped that an unlimited popular edition will follow. In only one particular can fault be found with this admirable pair, editor and publisher. Mr. Roughead states: "This book contains what I believe to be the whole of Hilaire Belloc's poetry, except for a few manuscript verses and printed frag- ments too slight to be worth including and some oral-tradition verses vague as to text and over-sharp in intention." It is not quite clear how many categories of exception Mr. Roughead here intends. Are all the manuscript verses not included held to be too slight? Are the `over-sharp' verses all also vague in text ? What is certain is that, for fear of offence some of Belloc's wittiest and most . characteristic verses have been omitted. The second Lord Devonport has set an example of truly noble magnanimity in giving his approval to the, pub- lication of ` The grocer Hudson Kearley.' Lords Swaythling, Wimborne and Rothschild and Mr. Edward James seem, with some reason, to have been less accommodating. Could not a few blank leaves have been included at the end of the volume on which owners might transcribe their favourite expurgata 7

• The Verses of Hilaire Belloc. Edited by W. N. Roughead. (Nonesuch Press. 42s.)

There are more than 370 items in the collection, ranging is size and dignity from: I said to Heart, "How goes it?" Heart replied: "Right as a Ribstone Pippin!" But it lied.

to the sonorous ode on wine. The children's rhymes, almost, every syllable of them a familiar quotation, are here reprinted without the illustrations which seemed an inalienable part 01 them. It is remarkable how well they stand alone. The order of the original books of verses has been broken and the various poems felicitously regrouped under their forms as sonnets' songs, epigrams, ballades and so on. There are eleven iten19, never before printed, thirteen that were privately printed, aau forty-six that have not appeared in any previous collection. Now that all is gathered in, it can be seen how small a Part of Belloc's work was Bellocian ' in the vulgar usage.

May all good fellows that here agree Drink Audit Ale in heaven with me, And may all my enemies go to hell Noel! Noel! Noel! Noel!

Early lines, interpolations in a prose fantasy, far from typical' but meat for the parodist; the ebullience of a brief mood' Belloc's verse is by turn humorous, comic, tender, witty, angry, melancholy, formal; very seldom jolly. It is in large the cony plete expression of a man's soul—and a great soul. His themes are the stuff of common life as he knew it in a warmer ages strenuous male companionship,. romantic love of woman, rh° sea, the seasons, the transience of earthly beauty, the no' remitting benevolent watchfulness of Our Lady and the angels. the innocence of childhood, the absurdity of pedantry and ambition, the wickedness and stark danger of power. Ills diction and prosody are the fruit of classical schooling. He OS a Christian Shropshire Lad and, by that enrichment, immeasuP ably Housman's superior. He needs no critical interpretation. He is here to be enjoyed. For that reason there were fevi, articles about him in the literary reviews and many mourners a' his obsequies. He had an idiosyncratic conspectus, formed early, which seemed not to vary from 1912 until the day of his death. In his opinions, he was a traditionalist and a revolutionary. It will be the gracious task of Mr. Robert Speaight, his biographer, to count the components of his intellectual structure and trace the origins of those seemingly discordant convictions which Co. existed harmoniously in him. The reviewer of his Verses has an easier task, to express wonder at their variety and richness' For satire :

Distinguish carefully between these two, This thing is yours, that other thing is mine. You haVe a shirt, a brimless hat, a shoe And half a coat. I am the Lord benign Of fifty hundred acres . .

I do not envy you your hat, your shoe. Why should you envy me my small estate?

And the ' Verses to a Lord who, in the House of Lords• said that those who opposed the South African adventure coo' fused soldiers with money-grubbers.'

For humour:

Sir! you have disappointed us!

We had intended you to be The next Prime Minister but three: The stocks were sold: the Press was squared; The Middle Class was quite prepared. But as it is! My language fails!

Go out and govern New South Wales.

For sustained classic dignity, the ' Heroic Poem on Wine.' For pure lyric beauty the lyric beginning : 0 my companion, 0 my sister Sleep, The valley is all before us . . . But it is tedious to call attention to such established land: marks. Lines of Belloc's sing a multitude of memories. Of wonder is, in finding them all collected, how profuse and how pure a genius is here displayed.