THE CASUAL WARD.i.
IN prose Mr. Godley is a parodist and a very deft one ; in verse he is an original humorist on his own account. His parody of the Cicero translation on the proposal to place • My African Year. By Cullen Gonldsbury. London : Edward Arnold. Du. siet.3 t The Casual Ward. By A. D. Godley. London : Smith, Elder and CO. Va. 8d. net.1 bicycles within the portals of the Bodleian could hardly be bettered ; nor his Thucydides on Influenza; nor the Tacitean Latin of the occult episode from the history of St. Edmund's Hall; nor the two Platonic dialogues, "Pbilogeorgos, or Concerning Bribery," and "Phileleutheros, or Concerning the People's Will." The exact scholarship, the whimsical Toryism, the driest of dry humour, form a combination of which Mr. Godley alone to-day has the receipt. "The Journalistic Touch," funny as it is, misses the nice decorum which is one of Mr. Godley's charms. Delicate is the humour of "The Tutor's Experiment" and "The Tortured Tutor." For the prose, generally speaking, a particular kind of ex- perience is postulated in the reader. He should know not only Oxford but University politics. The verse makes a broader appeal, as does the admirable and searching apologue, "The Difficulties of Mr. Bull." Mr. Godley satirizes fads and inconsistencies in verse which is full not only of metrical felicities but of crushing common sense. The reader is amused and delighted with the pinking of the rapier, and then suddenly impressed with a hammer blow. In "The Nation in Arms" we see this union of
methods, and in all the pieces is something which is only not a sting because it is so good-humoured. The idols of democracy
are chaffed and bantered till somehow they seem a little loose on their pedestals. Nor do modern literary fashions escape, as in "Art and Letters" and the brilliant "Fragment of a Jargonia.d." If anyone wants to see how perfect is Mr. Godley's skill let him read the last piece, "In Memoriam Examinatoria Cujusdem," or the delightful verses on the Education Bill as a subject of conversation, from which we quote two stanzas :— "Lo! when each morn I carefully peruse
(Seeking some subject for my painful pen)
The Times, the Standard, and the Daily News, No other topic floats into my ken Save this alone ; or Dr. Clifford slates Dogma in general ; or the dreadful ban
Of furious Bishops excommunicates Such simple creeds as Birrell, hopeful man! Thinks may perhaps appease th' unwilling Anglican.
From scenes like these my Muse would fain withdraw;
To Taff's still valley be my footsteps led,
Where happy Unions 'neath the shield of Law
Heave bricks bisected at the Blackleg's head; In those calm shades my desultory oat
Of Taxed Land Values shall contented trill, Of Man ennobled by a Single Vote,— In short, I'll sing of anything you will,
Except of thee alone, 0 Education Bill!"
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