EXHIBITION
From Elizabeth to Elizabeth : A Biography of the British People. (Hutchinson House, Stratford Place, W.L) From Elizabeth to Elizabeth : A Biography of the British People. (Hutchinson House, Stratford Place, W.L) BY the doorway a remarkable fifteenth-century Ethiopian manuscript of St. Luke and St. John is placed next to an admirable selection of photographs of the Great Victorians from Mr. Gernsheim's collection, and from that point onwards it becomes increasingly apparent that the zeal of the organisers—who are working in the best of causes, the National Playing Fields Association—has outrun any sense of proportion or logical arrangement they may once have possessed. Good, bad and indifferent material has been piled together with cheerful abandon and with the blithe optimism that supposes "all will come right on the night." Curious contrasts abound. There are many interesting literary manuscripts, of Gray and de QuinceY among others, and of distinguished contemporary poets. And close to a gramophone record of T. S. Eliot's " The Waste Land," auto- graphed by the author, one can study the rough draft and final MS. of a sonnet by Dr. Marie Stopes in memory of King George VI. In one of the most intriguing corners a painting of the winner of the St. Leger in 1875 hangs beside a placard asserting that " The Atom can be a Boon to Man," while just below this, among a miscellaneous collection of worthies, appear likenesses of Richard Wilson, the artist, and Blanche Parry," Welsh Maid of Honour to Queen Elizabeth." One turns in a patriotic daze from a model of a housing project called "High Paddington " to a copy of John Wallis 's Philosophical Transactions in a neighbouring show-case. Amid the confusion, a selection from Mrs. Langley Moore's famous collection of costumes provides much the most coherent and instructive exhibit.
DEREK HUDSON.
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