24 MAY 1930, Page 20

, • Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch is always a jolly companion,

but never more so than when he is pleading a difficult or unpopular cause. He has long been an admirer of T. E. Brown,. the Manx poet, whose centenary has just been celebrated ; and- Brown owes much of his fame outside the Isle of Man to " Q's " inclusion of seven of his poems in The Oa ford Book of Victorian Verse. Sir Arthur, then, need not be accused of merely adorning an pccasion in the long memoir, full of fervour and gusto, which he contributes to T. E. Brown : a Memorial Volume (Cambridge University. Press, 10s.). Sincerity ob- viously inspires his eulogy, and the same note of unqualified affection for. Brown, both as poet and as schoolmaster at Clifton, is struck by all the other writers—including Sir Herbert Warren, Mr. F. S. Boas, Sir Hall Caine, and Sir Henry Newbolt —who supply personal recollections of "the greatest Manx- man." Brown deliberately limited his audience by writing most of his poetry in the now dying Manx dialect. He had an intense patriotism for his native isle, and *ems to hive troubled little about the wider popularity which his friends— all honour to them !—hre anxious to secure for the cornpara= tively small bulk of his English classical verse.