REPORT ON THE LAST COMPETITION

The Editor offered a prize of £5 for a report. on ten Biographies for Beginners."

The judgments of our competitors were furiously at variance. One would praise to the skies. a " Biography " by which another would confess himself to have been seriously pained. Mr. E. 0. Tancock quotes a remark he attributes to Henry Sidgwick :—" I can see that this is nonsense, but is ,it the right

kind.. of nonsense ? Perhaps _there is.. no right kind of nonsense. at all, but preferences arc . entirely _personal. The number of votes cast for the seven leading " Biographies ". is as follows.

Arbiter Sl. Francis of Assisi

65 -•

Proxenos .Dr. William Paley-

52

D. B. Wardle : Thomas Carlyle ..

47

'Parnassus : John Donne .

47

Beryl Egerton : Mr. Stephen Gwynn.

•

42 Haifa : Euclid • • .. • • • •••

59

Colin D. B. Ellis : Archbishop Laud.. . 20..

The prize in the previous competition, therefore, goes to ." Arbiter."

Sr.' FRANCIS —toi? ASSISI.

St. Francid of Assisi, - Was inespablo• of -taking things 'easy ; This is one of the advances

We have made upon St. Francis.

Will " Arbiter " send us his address ?

The reports were fairly even in merit. We enjoyed specially the entries of "-Bombita," " Lucian the Less " and "N.

" H. C. M.,". " G. T. T." and " M. B. J. S." wrote • excellently in rhyme—and so disqualified themselves. Of the rest we thank . and congratulate P. R. Laird, Matt. Richardson, Reginald B. Sayers, "Arbiter" himself (without whom the number of votes for St. Francis would have been 64 and who puts_ Archbishop Loud second), George van Raalte, and T. S. Attlee. The prize is awarded to Mr. W. P. Baines (The Yews, Rooksmead Road, Sunbury-on-Thames). • His report is a little heavy, but it is a marvel of compression.

REPORT ON " BIOGRAPHIES FOR BEGINNERS."

Biography, to deserve the name, must reveal the man, and the particular form of biography represented by " Biography for Beginners " must make this revelation with point, with inconse, quence comical to the verge of absurdity, and with originality. To put it in another. way. the biography must be a joke, it must be a good joke, relevant in its inconsequence, and in rhyme and ic-1son new. Not ell of the competitors have succeeded in fulfilling these conditions. For failure in one particular or another and for a general failure to be more than. very mildly amusing I should rule out " Ira D. Sankey and D. L. Moody," " J. C. Squire,". and " The Archbishop of York." It is probably a mistake in any ease to attempt to write a biography of a partner- ship. Good stories may be told,,of partnerships, of Gilbert and Sullivan, Salmon and Uluckstein, Sankey and Moody, and jests may be made at their expense ; but the stories and the jests are not biography. Similarly, anyone who attempts to write a biography of an office like that of the Archbishop of York chooses a rather irresponsive theme. " Euclid," to me; has no great point and lacks originality, unless the rhyme of " Ptolemy and " follow me " is original. Moreover, it is not biographical either of Euclid or Ptolemy. There is irony in " St. Francis of Assisi," but there again the verse is not biography. Its point is directed not against St. Francis but against us. • The same kind of fault mars " Arch- bishop Laud," which, for that matter, is rather a " nonsense " Verse than a biography. " John Donne " is much better. " Fearful fun " and " incorrigibly devout " strike the right note. But the verse ends in the air. Every time I read it I find myself asking what happened in the non-existent fifth line. " Dr. William Paley " is a genuine biography. The biographer gets value out of the rhymes and the result is amusing. The fun is perhaps a little academic or scholastic, but the effort has claims to be considered and I should put it in the first three. ,In " Mr. Stephen Gwynn " the wit has more body and more sting. It is a good " biography," but I am afraid there are a good many of whom it might have been written. For that reason I put it below " Thomas Carlyle " which seems to me to say as much that is true of the sage of Chelsea as can be said in sixteen words ; and .to say it with wit and humour. The prize, therefore, in my judgment should go to D. B. Wardle.

W. P. BAINES.