REPORT ON THE COMPETITION

The Editor offered a prize of £5 for a quotation applicable lo the University Boat Race.

[F the prize were awarded for any quotation from Virgil or Homer, there would scarcely be enough of it to recoup the

Jib:Laing competitors for their postage. And, in one way, that Is -very cheering ; many people are afraid that knowledge of Lgiin and Greek is becoming an oddity. One or two other

quotations suffered from overpopularity, amongst them Chaucer's two lines-

" The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne, Th' assay so hard, so sharp the conquering."

The mast awful extract sent in was from Lewis Carroll's Dynamics of a Particle : this famous mathematician can rarely have been guilty of so elaborate a joke :-

" Thucydides tells us that the favourite cry of encouragement luring a trireme race was that touching allusion to Polar Co-ordinates which is still heard during the races of our own time—p, 135 , cos 0, they're gaining ! "

We sympathized deeply with competitors, who could not keep their own partisanship out of their entries ; lint'it would sot be at all Passible to award the prize to an intransigeantly biased quotation. Perhaps Mr. J. Law's quOtation froth the Duke of Wellington was Partisan--" Never mind ! we'll win this battle yet " ; there seems to be only one-application to it. And, On the other hand, there is surely a subtle and one:sided

reference in Mr. James Mowatt's entrY:—

" Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep. " (Troilus and Cressida, Act IL, Scene 3.) " O. Kilpatrick's " lines from Longfellow's The Goblet of Life would have come more pat if events had been different :- " The prayer of Ajax was for light

Through all that dark and desperate fight."

Most of the entries fall into three groups : (1) those which comment upon the boat-race crowds ; (2) those which record

the feelings of the onlooker ; (3) those which refer to the struggles of the crews. Of the first group, none is neater than " C. M. R.-M.'s "

" I would you did but see how it chases, how it rages, how it takes up the shore ; hut that's not to the point ; oh' the most piteous cry of the poor souls, sometimes to see 'em and not to -see 'em." (The Winter's Tale, Act III., Scene .3.) Miss Dorothy Carlton gets both crew_ and crowd into her sadly irreverent quotation from Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn :— " What men or gods are these . . . What mad pursuit What struggle to escape What pipes and timbrels ? What wild ecstasy ? "

So, too, Miss C. Biggs • " Thither come.. some to win the 'prizes. Some come to sell their merchandise, because it is a kind of mart: Some come to meet their friends, and to make merry, others come only to look on." ' (Bacon's Essays. )

Mr. P. Ewart gives an excellent sentence from Sir A. Helps' Friends in Council :—

" Extremely foolish criticism is likely to be uttered by those who are looking at the labouring vessel from the land."

It was good to see William Morris remembered ; and of all the descriptive passages, without by-reference or jest, Mr. E. R. North's extract from The Earthly Paradise was the best :—

" And onward still they drave -; and if-they saw Land upon either side, as on they sped, 'Twas but as faces in a dream may' draw Anigh, and fade, and leave nought in their stead ;

And in the shiprnen's hearts grew heavy dread . To sick despair ; they deemed they should drive on Till the world's edge and empty space were won."

" True Blue " quoted a passage from Hazlitt which has all the essayist's roundness and grace of phrase : Hazlitt could Line a commonplace moral with very great accomplishment :—

" There is something in this which he who does not admire may he quite sure he never admired anything in the whole course of his life. It is skill surmounting difficulty, and beauty triumphing over ;kill."

A passage from Paradise Lost (II., 380-382) was very well applied by Mr. E. 0. Tancock to the misfortunes which so frequently overtake the crews in training, or during the race twit Mr. Tancock headed his quotation " Measles," but the reference might well be enlarged :—

" for whence

But from the Author of all ill could spring

So -deep a malice, to confound the race . . . ? "

The untrustworthy nature of forecasts was the favourite theme of many competitors, Mr. H. E. Malden giving the most classical statement :—

" IL:Ma 89t1Arrws KpalVOth7t efd- roc6v6' ari-y3,7 rOSE irpciv.ta. (Euripides, Medea.) He translates—" The unexpected oft the gods contrive. They have upset the odds."

Miss May Kendall allows more scope to human freedom " But certain issues strokes must arbitrate."

The competition has been very successful, with a large entry for so short a period. We thank all the competitors whose quotations we have printed, last week and this week. It made the task too easy when competitors quoted accounts of actual or fictitious boat races in the past ; several sent in admirable " straight " descriptions from Praed and Charles Reade. And, though we confessed to a preference for slyness and double meanings, in the end we award the prize to Miss E. M. Joy (Hill Cottage, Liss, Hants) for a simple and well-

known quotation from Terence, well applied :- THE UNIVERSITY BOAT RACE.

" Magno conatu rnagnas nugas." (By great effort to obtain great- trines.) E. M. Joy.

NOTE.

A New Competition will be announced in next week's Spectator.