4 JANUARY 1946, Page 9

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

GILBERT MURRAY, who kept his eightieth birthday on Wed- nesday after an illness which suggested at one time that he would never keep it at all, is one of the men—perhaps the only man I know —of whom it seems hardly possible to write except in superlatives. What he has achieved in the field of scholarship Ii7ould fill a page of The Spectator and leave much unsaid. The same is true of what he has said and done and written in the field of international relations, particularly, of course, in relation to the League of Nations and the League of Nations Union. In connection with his devoted service to the latter it is worth recalling a remark I once heard Dr. H. A. L. Fisher (himself a member of the Union Executive Committee) make, that "of course in reality it is a scandal that the finest classicist in Europe should spend his time presiding over our deliberations like this." Gilbert Murray does indeed represent the finest flower of classical humanism, and it was in respect of that (I hope) rather than of his public work that he was awarded the O.M. in 1941. But when all is said G. M. will be remembered to the end of their days by those who know him not for what he has done but for what he is. Through a life which has known many sorrows as well as many satisfactions he has carried a splendid serenity, mens aequa rebus in arduis, which leaves those whom it inspires marvelling.