THE LATE REV. A. J. CHURCH.

pro THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Perhaps I may be allowed to add a few words to the appreciative notice that is sure to appear in the Spectator of your late esteemed colleague and my dear and honoured friend. Of his work as a Schoolmaster, Professor, Pariah Priest, Reviewer, let others speak. There are many far more qualified to do so than I am. May I just say a very few words of him as a Poet P—and in particular I might mention one or

two points in connexion with his Oxford prize poem on " The Sea of Galilee."

It was a beautiful poem. This was one of the opening Stanzas :- " Fair as of old it lies, but sad, and lone,

And lifeless—only wheeling from the cliff

The cormorant cries, and on some wave-washed stone

The crane stands watching, or some fisher's skiff Spreads on the vacant waters to the gale The solitary whiteness of a sail!"

The original edition, published at Oxford, has of course been out of print for many years, but Mr. Church included it in the only volume of poems he ever published, " Vitalis, and Other Poems" (Seeley and Co., 1887).

In the preface to this book he said, " These few verses are all that I have been able to do towards realizing

one of the dreams of my life—the winning a place, though it were but the ' lowest room,' among English

poets." It was a modest ambition, and surely it was more

than achieved! Most competent judges would say that Church's poetry was marked by truly refined feeling and the most fastidiously polished form. Who, for instance, could deny the beauty of " Unseen " P It tells of a dead sculptor who carved high up on an arch, out of sight of the curious sightseers, an angel's face from the remembered features of his own dead bride. None could see the master-

piece.

"Yet at early morn on a midsummer day,

When the sun is far to the North, for the space Of a few short minutes, there falls a ray, Through an amber pane, on the Angel's face.

It was wrought for the eye of God, and it seems

That He blesses the work of the dead man's hand With a gleam of the golden light that streams On the lost that are found in the deathless land."

Or the grace of those charming lines P " In memoriam puel- lulae duloissimae," which begin- " Ah, what is left for love to prize P

A little dress or trinket-toy Which once could make the innocent eyes

Brighton with glimpses of the joy The woman feels in being fair— A chair loft sadly in its place— A little tress of chestnut hair—

A little likeness of her face, Ah ! vacant of the living light

Which magic sunbeam never gave— And, on our city's northern height, Across a thousand streets—a grave."

I wonder who the little child was to whose memory he penned these lines P Her initials were D. P. W. Both these poems, I believe, appeared originally in the Spectator.

One more curious item of information I may mention in connexion with the Oxford prize poem, and it is this (told me by A. J. C. himself), that he composed it for the most part whilst teaching mathematics in the old Merchant Taylors' School! What drudgery such teaching must have been to him, and what powers of detachment and concentration he must have possessed to conceive such a poem amidst such uncongenial surroundings, and on such a Parnassus!

Well, he has gone, and it will be long enough before we shall find such a type of the old Oxford scholarship that was at once strong and refined—nay, the trend of modern edu- cation seems calculated to destroy the type altogether. In conclusion I would like to ask whether his " Stories from Romer," &c., are as popular as they used to be. There used to be a great demand for thorn amongst both boys and girls,

and I am glad to see they are stocked even in our South London public libraries.—I am, Sir, &c., JOHN HUDSON, M.A., F.R.S.L.

325 Southampton Street, Camberwell, S.E.