29 DECEMBER 1944, Page 18

THIS is the best book yet written about Hopkins because

it is, so far, the most comprehensive, if most detached, and the most thorough study of the poet. It is to be followed by a second volume, and the author's preface contains a threat that Vol. II may be smaller than Vol. I, but it is to be hoped that this threat does not materialise, for there is much matter in Hopkins's remarkable letters and in his note- books which should be studied and commented upon by Mr. Gardner, who shows himself to be a sympathetic and understanding critic. Mr. Gardner is exceedingly happy in his examination of The Wreck of the 'Deutschland,' and his observations on Hopkins's metrical and linguistic experiments; He puts his finger right on the spot when he calls attention to the fact that Hopkins called his metrical principle "Sprung Rhythm" and not "Sprung Metre " -' for the root of Hopkins's treatment of verse lies in the fact that he measures it by stresses and not by syllables. There is nothing new in this, it is a principle as old as the earliest English poetry, although it was much neglected during most of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Shakespeare is full of this so-called "Sprung Rhythm," as are many of our seventeenth century poets. There are other matters about which we may dispute with Mr. Gardner, but it is best to leave these until the appearance of his second volume.