"Spectator" Competitions

RULES AND CONDITIONS

Ditties must be typed or very clearly written on one side of the paper only. The name and address, or pseudonym, of the competitor must be on each entry and not on a separate sheet. When a word limit is set words must be counted and the number given. No entries can be returned. Prizes may be divided at tho discretion of the judge, or withheld if no entry reaches the required standard. The judge reserves the right to print or" quote from any entry. The judge's decision is final, and no correspondence cam be entered

into on the subject of the award. Entries must be addressed to Editor, the Spectator, 99 Gower Street, London, W.C. 1, and be marked on the envelope Competition No. (—).

Competition No. 49 (SET BY " CARD.") A ',Run of two guineas is offered for the best list of names suitable for any five of the following ten imaginary persons.

(I) A. rabbit fancier living in Cavendish Square. (g) A doctor practising in South Kensington Station: (8) A Cabinet:Minister afllict0d with St. Vitus Dance, (4) A butcher suffering from religious mania.

• (5)' A croquet-playing

• pugilist. -

(6) A prohibitionist married to a whisky magnate's daughter. (7) A soothsayer with a stammer. (8) A peer who has lost his memory. (9) A bearded woman in love, (10) A man who does match-tricks.

Entries must be received not later than Monday, March 21st, 1932. The result of this competition will appear in our

issue of April 2nd, 1932. •

Competition No. 5o (sET BY "DEEM.")

. . .

A PRIZE of £2 2s. is offered for a Birthday Greeting addressed to a child, in not more than twenty-live lines of English verse.

Entries must be received not later than Monday, March 28th, 1932. The result of this competition will appear in our issue of April 9th, 1932.. ,

The, result of Competition No. 48 will appear in our next issue.

Limerick Competition No. 20

A: PRIZE of £1 ls. is offered each week for it new and original -English Limerick verse on some subject dealt with in the current number of the Spectator. The twentieth of these competitions closes on Monday, March 28th,"1932. Entries shotild be Marked " Limerick No. 20."

The result of the eighteenth of these competitions will be announced in our next issue. '

• [It is requested that, to facilitate the work of the judges, entries should, when possible, be submitted' on postcards.]

Report of Competition No. 47

(RlEPOET AND AWARD RV Conf.) A PRIZE of £2 2s. was offered fur the best six lines of verse to complete either of the two fragments by Thomas Lovell Beddoes, published in our issue of February 27th.

Entries for this competition, although RUMCDRIS, did not • in the main reach any high standard of proficiency. The majority of competitors indulged in faintly Swinburnian re- construction, wholly divorced from the spirit and teeliniqu, of the poet on whom they were supposed to have been model- ling themselves. Mr. F. L. Lucas has admirably deseribed Beddoes' gift : " It is his power of at once thinking abstractly' and seeing concretely that makes hint a master of the macabre.'• The- entries. of Naomi Finkelstein (for a good attempt to reproduce the quality of Beddoes' vocabulary) and It. Whistler are commended ; and the prize is divided between " Steepleton " and T. E. Casson, Haydoek Lodge, NCWI on- le-Willows, Lancashire.

THE WINNING ENTREES.

A. Who. tireyuu . :What I cannot express with Itunlantatigusge Nit thou with thought 'accept. Whittlio yob flee.

A. : A wild, old eseature. • • — B. An old man I Know then,

Across the flaming orifice of hell Passes, as through a magic lamp its glass,

A frozen ocean, on whose midst is graven The wrizled, grey resemblance of a emu,'

Who lived hid centuries before the clinals Had stolen the first drop of the broad flood ;

And the reflection of that antique form,

Ruddy and firm when Hell Oilers up and blazes,

Pale, when it falls, or diu-kened by the passing Of fiends between it and the limning liree, Now, at this midnight moment, dyes the sight

Of sonic distrusting youth, and, with a voice

Strayed from n sleeper's tongue, seems likest iris, Speaks just as I do—

A. Wind do you mean It. r That I am Adam-got ten, A soul and skeleton in a flesh-doublet : What else I Dost think that I could be this shade 1 This lounge graven on n frozen flame P Light plays through me in many-coloured stains, Now Rearm, now Hell, now of a mu of' stars ; Eden was mine owe-- A.: Who arc you then P B.: Listrn and hear this voice Articulate of dreams : I am yourself. STEItinwrore.

If.

Whereby the king and beggar all lie .born On straw or purple-tissue, are but bones Mal air and blood, equal to one mother And to the unborn and buried ; so we go Plating ourselves among the unconceivod And the old ghosts, wantonly, smilingly, For sleep is fair and warm . . .

. . . It cloth create Remembrances of pre-nativity, Tresses of comets faded;and strange keys To unlock forgotten knowledge on the boughs Of the .4sh of Life, where in old fountains throb The gurgling waters of the night-long Past, ,Sunned by the Now, arid star-lit by the Future. •

T. E. CASSO!Y.

Result of Limerick Competition No. 17 Tim most popular subjects for Limericks this week were ; Feet in the Air (J. B. Morton), Escape and Prayer (F. Yeats. Brown), St. Thomas Aquinas (G. K. Chesterton), A Letter from Cockaigne, The Costume of the Theatre, and Latin Pronunciation (Bishop Welkion). The prize is awarded to J. Hall, 2 Quadrant Road, N.1.

THE WINNING ENTRY.

F,-:ET IN THE Ant. By J. B. MORTON (page 282).

This movement—commenced, I opine, For the study of Modern Art (Fine) ;

Will, sooner or later,

Affect the Spectator,

%MIA Malt A10.191.1.1 Ile 801117) It 0,)11,1

Commerpled :

CARLYLE- -AND IIISTOltr (page 263).

Carlyle, in a fit of depression, Gavo the National Gallery a session ; Before a wild ape

Ho tuljueted his cape, And amid " Brother, behold retrogression."

C. W. GICIFTR,I.

A 1.1.7,2R FROM COCKAI.NE (pago 286 Tito League of- Nations).

A note from Cockaigne told us all About apples and Darwin and Saul ; Yet I think he'd believe a Bit more in Geneva Vt'ere it not that Cockaigne was no small. A. Fon:, Sault.

THE COATI-ME or ma Takicou: (page 293).

In mask, it is said, and cothurtius

From of old the Erinnyes bum us; And as Vestures grow lee's, - More Furies express The facile descent to Avernus. T. E: u.