A Selection of Evidence English Historical Documents, 1042-1189. Edited by David C. Douglas and George W. Greenaway. (Eyre and Spottiswoode. 80s.) EVER since the...

The Social Content of Art Art and Social Life. By G. V. Plekhanov. (Lawrence and Wishart. 21 s.) IT is impossible to legislate for genius. That admission will, I hope, allay...

The Meaning of the Coronation By NORMAN SYKES E MUST not think but that there is some ground XAJ of reason even in nature, whereby it cometh to pass that no nation under...

CINEMA The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan. (Plaza.)-Sabotage. (National Film Theatre.) The Story of Gillbert and Sulliawn is one of the relatively few British productions of...

Shorter Notices '1The Book of Necklaces. B3y Sah Oved. (AlrthUr Barker. 30s.) ALL forIm1s of' jecWelley halve nlow becomc so closely mingled withl clothes and all the 'iicaks...

Akibar's Religious Thought reflected in Mogul IPainting. By Eminly Wellesz. (Allen and Unwin. l2s. 6d.) IN this piCtUre-book, forty photographs of details from Mogul...

Town and Country Supporters of Labour would have needed superhuman selfcontrol to have refrained from hailing the results of the municipal elections as a famous victory. But in...

Pettifogging at Panrmunlom Inimical though both the atmosphere and the procedure of the Panmunjom truce-talks are to hopes of a favourable outcome, progress of a grinding,...

AT WESTMINSTER T HIS Parliament is no doubt very different from that of 1828 which saw the birth of the Speacttor, and yet, though the setting has changed and the actors are...

A d'Artagnan of Today By H. WARNER ALLLN IF any man living can claim the name of d'Artagnan by right of kinship, it is Pierre de Montesquiou, duc de Fezensac. In the great...

German Lyrics Analysed I Gcrman Lyric Poetry. By S. S. Prawer. (Routledge & Kegan Paul. 25s.) TiiOSE who moan loudest about the prospective demise of poetryreading are...

A Convert's Meditations I The Word. By Adrienne von Speyr. Translated by Alexandcr Dru. (Collins. lOs. 6d.) ADRIENNE VON SPEYR, a doctor and the wife of the Professor of...

Lull in Laos On the crest of the wave, the Viet Minh forces are pausing in Laos. In the west, this new development has had a bewildered reception. What is behind it '? What, if...

News of the Week T'hat the Prime Minister dlid himself proud in the House on Monday there can be no doubt whatever. He was at his Churchillian best, hitting nails onil the head...

NO MANIFESTO HIS is not the momiient for the Sp)(cclaior to issue a T lmanifesto. It has been a going concern for one hUndred and twenty-five years. and its contents ha]ve...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Stalin's Double Sm,-I amn quite aware of the February interviews. Unlike Mr. Dain, however, I do not accept the facts which have been reported to us as...

Denton Welch SIR,-1 have been asked by the Literary Executor of the late Denton Welch to prepare a selection of his letters with a view to future publication. I should be most...

Football Fans SIR,-I have just seen Mr. Mallalieu's delightful article "Matthews Hero" in last wcek's Spectator. I was surprised lo read that football has until now produced no...

Case of the Missing Cliche SIR,-1 was interested to read Mr. Martin Cooper's letter (Speciator, May 8th) concerning the Sherlock Holmes stories. 1 think I may claim to be a...

Hispano-Phobia SIR,--May I be permitted to point out that, contrary to the comment by Strix in the .SpectalmO of April 24th, news relating to the Coronation' is not entirely...

Quotation Spotter SIR,-Although I have no comment to make upon Laura S. Dean's letter, "A Mis-quotation Spotter," her letter prompts me to mention that I am reading Jo/hn...

Art and the Abstract SIR,-May I be allowed to clarify at least one point which arises from Mr. Spencer's last letter ? It is this: the abstract-type of art, " modern " art-call...

Fishing up the Past BY RICHARD GARNErr' 1N an earlier article I described what it was like to put on compr'cssed-air breathing apparatus and swim cdown into the Mediterranean...

The Umpire An Umpire was ther in oure companeye An Arbitere, and that a gode, was he; At Trafforde Olde hie was, whan it was wonneAlso at Lord's and eke at Kenningtonne ; In...

Commonsense Psychology To Define True Madness. By Henry Yellowlecs. (Sidgwick and Jackson. 12s. 6d.) NEARLY thirty years ago, Professor J. B. S. Haldane, writing in the New,...

Carmen Scholasticum To a beautifid maiden who dleclaimed Latin lverses well Those petal lips were nc'cr designed To speak the language of the mind; Would that their discourse...

ImmrEortal Longings I suppose it isn't really funny, but the brochure which accompanied a letter fromn New York inviting me to join the Authors Guild of America, and which...

The Trained Observer By the time he got to me, the pleasant young Amnerican journalist was already fully informed about the village's preparations for the Coronation. (His...

Advice to Murderers Among persons of culture and refinement no topic more surely conduces to the truest pleasures of conversation than murder. In any company there will always...

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK P UPPETS dance on strings; and as I lay in the sun listening to the operator on nly 62 set trying to get through to Battalion H.Q., who were about four...

Meditation in a Traffic Jamn Twenty years ago people were deeply concerned over the speed at which we were living. The pace and racket of contemporary life, it was feared,...

Paradise Regainsed The second week in May always has an unsettling effect on my Labrador, for it is the rook-shooting season, and since ho retrieves anything, from a jacksnipe...

Homage to Ibn Khaldoun* The Bedouin deserts what peasants till. This rhythm throbbing in nomadic minds Encourages their steadfastness until They strip the green bark from the...

BALLET Swan Lake. (Royal Opera Housc.) EXACT co-ordination is implicit whenever one speaks of the perfection of human endeavour, and nowhere is this precise timing, this...

The Prime Minister British Prime Ministers. A Portrait Gallery introduced by Duff Cooper. (Allan Wingate. 15s.) A PORTRAIT gallery of BritislhPrimzle Miniisters which does...

This Year The spring was cold, the north-east wind held back Primrose and daffodil ; I saw the swallow, I heard the cuckoo, said so in the pub, Was pleased to be the first, and...

A Photograph Album Italy. By Mai-tin FlUdimani. (Thaames and Hludson. 42s.) HERE is a photograph of a Roman cab-driver sleeping in the sun in his corrozza in front of the...

Writer's Notebook One Man's Meat. By Ludovic Kennedy. (Longmans. 13s. 6d.) TIilS is a most honest, a most revealing, book. It becomes clearer every page that Mr. Kennedy was...

Happy Warrior Soldiers and Soldiering. By A. P. Wavell. (Cape. 8s. 6d.) IT is not necessarily or altogether ludicrous that one whose experience of warfare is limited to Mvhtt...

Founder of the B.M. Sir Hans Sloane and the British Museum. By G. R. de Beer. (Geoffrey Cumberlege, for the Trustees. 18s.) OF the founders of the British Museum the chief,...

On the Nursery Floor I Children's Toys throughout the Ages. By Leslie Daiken. (Batsford' I 25s.) IN his new book Mr. Leslie Daiken ranges the centuries, collects surprising...

Art Examination III your red almd white, small check, Amrc;.1can blouse, Bluue tdied jeatis rolled halfway to youl knees, And floor-soilccl naked fieet, with buIrIlishcd...

Fred of Univ. Fred of Oxford: The Memoirs of Fred Bickerton, until recently Head Porter of University College, Oxford. With a Preface by G. D. H. Cole. (Evans. 1 8s.) FIRED...

Trade with Muscovy By RICHARD CHANCELLOR O N a May afternoon just toul 11hundred years ago, a band of Englishmen sailed in their Tudor cockleshells donvil the Thames on thC...

Poison for Sawflics A benzine hexachloride liquid is particularly suitable for counteracting the sawfly on the apple-tree as soon as the petals have fallen. Where arsenate of...

A Scene in Sepia T. showed me an ancient picture of the village, a print that had been faded by time and had that brown tint that was once so popular with photographers. I...

A Convoy As I went to adjust the bedroom window a few nights ago-a fine rain was falling--1 could hear voices on the road on the other side of the glen. It was almost eleven...

Finches and Dandelions Idling for a while beneath the conifers on the slope that runs down to the cottage, I watched three kinds of finches, one of which, a chaffinch, was...

COUNTRY LIFE As we came home through the village after midnight, the hcadlights picked up a large rat that ran from one side of the road to the other. He looked almost silver...

St. Loe Strachey's Spectator By J. B. ATKINS N O one who worked under St. Loe Strachey hesitated to say that he was a great editor. When he became principal proprietor as well...

Posing for Posterity Hitler's Table Talk, 1941-1944. Introduction by H. R. Trevor- Roper. (Weidenfeld and Nicolson. 30s.) WHETHER one likes it or not, Hitler's Table Talk,...

Cecil Rhodes By EDWARD CRANKSIIAW IT is a hundred years since Cecil Rhodes was born at the Vicarage in Bishop's Stortford. When he died near Cape Town he was only forty-nine....

Contentious But Creative Rumours of Wars. By A. J. P. Taylor. (Hamish Hamilton. I 5s.) WHIEN Ml-. Taylor is praised or disparaged for his brilliance, pungency,...

Alfred the Great By SIR FRANK STENTON Ki ING Alfred has left the only name which has survived in general memory from the first five centuries of English ~~history to the...

REVIEWS OF THE WEEK Coronation Book-shelf By Ludovic Kennedy PUBLISHERS, one is told, arc above all else business-men ; and they do not market their goods unless there is a...

The Haworth Moors- By JACQUIETTA IIAWKES S a guest of the BrontI Society, I havc just paid my A first visit to Hawoi'th. It was a veCy real excitemenIet at last to approach a...

ART Picasso; Manz6; Ccri Richards. AN exhilarating week. At the Lefevre Gallery the best roomful of Picassos we have seen for eight years ; at the H1lanover, the first London...

Audit Day I've counted my soul away Into those vertical lines; Black columns, winding downwards Towards the Audit Day. J walk between two showers Alone in the budding wood, As...

Freud and his Beliefs A (General Selection from the Works of Sigmund Freud. Id ited by John Rickmran. New Impression. (Hogartlh Press. lOs. 6d.) Civilisation, War and Death:...

Fifty Years of Motoring By JOHN PRIOLEAU LDOKING back over the past 50 years of development in the design and performance of cars, one is sometimes struck, not so much with...

FINANCE AND INVESTMENT By CUISTOS SrOCK markets, as I write, arc still in a state of perplexing uLceIrtainty. On the favoLIurablC side can be set thle improving gold reservcs...

Sporting Aspects The Crowd Gets Set By J. P. W. MALLALIEU S OME batsmen are ready to hit a six off the first ball they receive. A. W. Carr probably felt like this quite...

De Gaulle's Departure? By D. R. GILLIE Paris LAST week General de Gaulle announced his decision to dissociate himself from all efforts to achieve his aims by parliamentary...

Rare and Not so Rare Rare and Extinct Birds of Britain. By Ralph Whitlock. (Phoellix H-louse. 21s.) Ti1E title of this book is rather misleading, because it tells the reader...

Mallarme- the Obscure Alailarnii. By Wallacc Fowlie. With Ten Line Drawings by Henri I Matisse. (Dennis Dobsoni. 30s.) - Wi can't expect results for another fifty years," a...

The London Library By DESMONI) FLOWER T'HE narrow unassuLnli 1g stone-fronted building which occupies the north-west corner of St. James's Square must be well known to every...

Humiour in Detachment 1)Octor at Sea. By Richard Gordon. (Michael Joseph. 1Os. 6d.) ONE of the most reassuring of icelings is a sense of' detachmcnt from one's inumediate...

CONTEMPORARY ARTS THEATRE King Henry VIII. By William Shakespeare. (Old Vic.) The Apple Cart. By George Bernard Shaw. (Halymarket.) WORDS alone are certain good-but not when...

MUSIC Cosi Fan Tutte THE performance of Cosi fan title with which the Sadler's Wells summer season of opera opened on May 5th was praiseworthy in many respects; and I should...

Life and Livers Nineteen to the Dozen. By ArlthUr Marshall. (Ha-mish Hlamiltoll. 8s. 6d.) TIHE wit of Mr. Arthur Marshall is flexible as well as concentrated; his pertinent...

A Mysterious Mariner The Wake of the Bounty. By C. S. Wilkinsoll. (Cassell. 18s.) TiouGci some people will have nothing to do with ' identifications " of the characters in...

1903 By HAROLD NICOLSON T is sad, when one opens thle bound Volumes of the Spectator for the year 1903, to observe that, whereas the ink is bolder and blacker than any that...

Recording Angel? Autobiography : My Childhood. In the World. My Universities. r'. . . . . - By Maxim Gorky. Translated by Isiolr Schneidr.- (Elek Books. 25s.) TIHiE...

Tue Weeklies GERALD BARRY WXT HEN I was presiding, in 1929, over that comparaj/j/ tively juvenile celebration, the seventieth anniversary VT of the Saturday Review, how could...

Epic Poetry The Sword From The Rock. An Investigation into the Origins of Epic Literature and the Development of the Hero. By G. R. Lcvy. (Faber. 30s.) ONE of the most potent...

Victorian Minds TIhe Victorian Sage. By John Holloway. (Macmillan. I8s.) MR. HOLLOWAY is a philosopher trained in the Rylean school of linguistic analysis at Oxford. A Fellow...

UNDERGRADUATE ARTICLE A Word to the Wise By 1E. ANTHONY THOMPSON (Balliol College, Oxford) W HEN ordinary people are unfortunate enough to overhear professional philosophers...

IMPASSE IN EGYPT T HERE is a temptation to blame both sides lor the break. which looks like breakdown, in the Cairo talks on the fUtuLre of the Canal Zone. The Egyptians can be...

A Study of Shakespeare I Shakespeare. By Hlenri Fluc11wc. Translated by GIUY Hamiltoll. With a Forewordi by T. S. Eliot. (l olglngilnlis. 25s.) IN a mood of critical...

Fiction I Going Up, Going Down. By Deniis Parry. (Hale. 12s. 6d.) I The Lotus and the Wind. By John Masters. (Michael Joseph. I 12s. 6d.) I Fenny. By Lctticc Cooper....

Church Bristol Survey in East By the Rev. MERVYN STO(KWOOD C LAIMS and counter-claims are oftcni made about the strength of church-m11elmbership. We arc told by the...

1853 By ROGER FULFORD O N March 29th, 1854, Great Britain declared war on Russia; some weeks previously the diarist Greville I had noted " the national blood is up."...