Some Poems of H6lderlin. Translated by Frederic Prokosch. (The Falcon Press. 5s.) FOLLOWING in the steps of Winckelmann, Herder, Schiller and Goethe, H6lderlin idealised...

Shorter Notices Walter de la Mare: An Exploration. By John Atkins. (C. and J Temple. 4s.) THIS essay begins with a questionable thesis and makes a number of sweeping...

SIR,-Sir William Beach Thomas deplores the apparent indifference of the Church to the cause of kindness to animals, and notes that it is not mentioned in the Bible " in...

HINDSIGHT IN INDIA SIR,-I think that there is a great deal of force in the recent article Hindsight in India by your special correspondent. The greatest British gift to that...

FALSE DEMOCRACY SIR,-Your correspondent is justified in his criticism of the current misuse of the word "democracy," especially in Eastern Europe, but he is less happy in his...

THE BOUNDARY COMMISSION SIR,-Both the letters in your issue of December 26th point to the need for a revision not of boundaries only, but of our voting system. Whether Mr....

SIR,-Your Counirv Life column is always full of interest, but a recent paragraph on Churches and Animal Welfare contains a statement that is certainly open to question, namely,...

CHURCHES AND ANIMAL WELFARE SIR,-In your issue of January 2nd, Sir W. Beach Thomas writes with regard to kindness to animals: " Its absence in the Bible has often been noticed,...

THE REPLY TO RUSSIA f AVING regard to the fact that it was one of a series of party H broadcasts the Prime Minister's radio talk of last Saturday deserves high praise. It...

Mar. Dalton is for the moment unemployed-or, to put it more gracefully, en disponibiliie-so we are treated once more to the old speculations about Mr. Dalton going to the...

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK IT is not surprising that the appointment of a leading London solicitor to succeed Mr. Hugh Lyon as Headmaster of Rugby should have caused something of...

The Government will be very unwise, more unwise than I per- sonally expect it to be, if it continues obdurately indifferent to the sustained, increasing, reasoned and all but...

In applauding the historical acumen of the Post Office official who, finding a letter from America addressed to " Mr. John BoydCarpenter, M.P., British Parliament, Oxford,"...

I see that when the interim aid agreement was signed in Paris M. Bidault very tactfully made adroit reference to the help given by France to the American revolutionaries I50...

There are, of course, some words so impregnably established in the English language that it is futile to assail them at this time of day. Otherwise we should insist on...

THOSE WHO DON'T ASK SIR,-The Egg and I meet distressingly seldom, the potato merchant fails to return, and the new Highland lament is " Porridge No More "-all this while our...

WHY FOXHUNTING SURVIVES SIR,-After having lived in the shires for upwards of twenty-seven years, may I point out to your correspondent that there is not a single moral or...

MAN OR PARTY? SIR,-I am surprised to find your correspondents, Messrs. Bleackley and Parnell, advocating government by referendum, which is what they presumably mean when they...

PERIODICALS FOR GERMANY SIR,-As the result of a chance appeal in The Manchester Guardian for used periodicals to English-reading German Nationals, G.E.R. (German Education...

THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST SIR,-Surely Mr. Dyer, in his letter which appears in your issue of January 2nd, has not treated as carefully as he might the sentences he quotes from Mr....

FILMS IN BOSTON SIR,-I have read the letter in The Spectator of November 21st from a correspondent in Canada, headed British Films versus Hollywood-, and I thought you might be...

DERIVATION OF SURREY SIR,-In the review of Mr. Eric Parker's book, Surrey, in The Spectator of January 2nd, I observe that the name of the county in question is stated to be...

THE LOCAL WEEKLY By L. C. LLOYD IT is a curious fact that to many people " the Press " means the daily and evening papers. They completely overlook the very much more...

Geopacifics Our Evolving Civilisation: An Introduction to Geopacifics. By Griffith Taylor. (Oxford University Press. 21s.) PROFESSOR GRIFFITH TAYLOR has made a name for...

Sir WaIter's Fun Private Letters of the Seventeenth Century. By Sir Walter Scott, Bart. With an Introduction by Douglas Grant. (Clarendon Press. 7s. 6d.) THESE Letters were...

B.O.A.C. and the Taxpayer It was not difficult to forecast, as was done in these notes last week, that B.O.A.C.'s report would make even gloomier reading than B.E.A.'s. For the...

Education as a Profession It is not difficult-and not surprising-to find a note of pessimism running through some of the Christmas educational conferences. The Headmasters'...

France's First Problem Unless the problem of inflation is solved there will be no stability, political or economic, in France. It is no more possible to ignore a rise in prices...

Coal in 1947 A year which saw the nationalisation of the mines, a disastrous industrial crisis caused by a shortage of fuel, the introduction of the five-day week for miners,...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR A "FREE" NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE SIR,-I like your medical corrcspondent's wistful appeals to Mr. Bevan to be more conciliatory to the tough B.M.A....

SIR,-Mr. Harold Nicolson rightly deplores the exploitation of all animals in circuses, but his views on their training are erroneous. To begin with most performing animals are...

THE REVOLUTIONS OF 1848 SIR,-Miay I make the following comments on Professor Hawgood's article on the revolutions of 1848: 1. Lamartine was not a "veteran." He had no great...

SIR,-May I be allowed to elaborate the correspondence upon the subject of doctors and the State by offering a few relevant criticisms upon tne dental aspect of the case? This...

PERFORMING ANIMALS SIR,-Is not Mr. Nicolson in his Marginal Comment a little hard on that ancient institution, the circus, at least as far as the treatment of animals in the...

ON A LAKE IN NEW ENGLAND "Now in the far-off English scene The scentless, songless months are gone, And autumn brings again the green Blended with russets of its own." "Better...

In My Garden By far the most popular of winter-flowering plants is the yellow jasmine, which never fails and is very easily reproduced by layering. It flowers freely however...

Winter Bachelors The response of some other birds, to the date if not the %%eathler, is hard to explain and is not, so far as I know, explained in any text-book. My garden at...

Eradication of Elm Suckers A winter occupation has been the eradication or CnuLclCation of a number of elm suckers that had sprung up in groves after the breakingi of two large...

COUNTRY LIFE LAST vear and already this wear English weather has more than jusitield the old accusation that it is not weather, but a collection of sarmples. In 1947 cold,...

WOOLLENS FOR EXPORT By GEORGE PENDLE Glory be to God for dappled things ... And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim. WHAT are the State planners to do when they are up...

SOUTH AFRICA'S TREND By FRANCIS CLEMENTS THE South African elections are still some distance ahead, but Union politics already occupy more space in the Press than any other...

NEW RISORGIMENTO? By PETER CALVOCORESSI HE year i848 was prolific of constitutions. Their introduction T was accompanied by great excitement and high hopes, not least in those...

Railways of the Past The Trains We Loved. By Hamilton Ellis. (Allen and Unwin. 15s.) ELECTRICITY, amalgamation, the diesel-engine, and now, above all, nationalisation, have...

West End of London Soho Square. By Margaret Goldsmith. (Sampson Low. 15s.) THE history of the march of London from the City westwards is fascinating, and the history of Soho...

Fiction Scott-King's Modern Europe. By Evelyn Waugh. (Chapman and Hall. 5s.) Atonement in the Sun. By Ren6 Guillot. Translated by Philip John Stead. (Staples Press. 6s.)...

In Savoy, or Yes is for a Very Young Man. By Gertrude Stein. (The Pushkin Press. 5s.) THIS short, almost trivial, five-act play was one of the last things written by Miss...

The Wanderer. By Alain-Fournier. Translated by Frangoise Delisle. (Paul Elek. lOs. 6d.) THIS competent and sensitive translation of Alain-Fournier's great novel, Le Grand...

Western Highlands. By Arthur Gardner. (Batsford. 21s.) THIS volume embodies two of Mr. Gardner's previous books-The Peaks, Lochs and Coasts of the Western Highlands, and Sun,...

Thomias Wolfe. A Critical Study. By Pamela Hansford Johnson. (Heinemann. 6s.) Tno0NIAS WOLFE is a strange figure on the American literary scene and, for the literary critic, a...

Classics and the Social Revolution of Our Time. By Lord Greene. (Oxford University Press. 8d.) IN a stimulating and constructive address to what was presumably the Classical...

THE PLAN BEFORE CONGRESS AFTER a short lull during the Congressional recess the issue of A American aid has once more taken its place in the forefront of world issues. Even...

Greek Uncertainties Neither the news of the fighting in Epirus nor the departure for Greece of I,ooo American marines, with a formidable range of equipment, gives any hope of a...

THE LAW AND THE SCREEN By BASIL WRIGHT THE Cinematograph Films Bill which is now before Parliament appears at a time when the film situation in this country is in a state of...

FINANCE AND INVESTMENT By CUSTOS EVEN in these days the City sometimes makes shrewd guesses. Its recent forecasts that the compensation stock offered to home railway investors...

The Tower of Babel I Comes The Reckoning. By Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart, K.C.M.G. I (Putnam. 18s.) "AFTER the war of I914-i8," Sir Robert recalls, "I was the first British...

BOOKS OF THE DAY A Thousand Years of Philosophy An Introduction to Ancient Philosophy. By A. H. Armstrong. (Methuen. 15s.) THIS interesting survey of ancient philosophical...

THE CINEMA "Crossfire." (New Gallery and Tivoli.)-" The Mark of Cain." (Gaumont and Marble Arch Pavilion.) ON the assumption that the public gets what it wants, it must be...

MUSIC I WAS strongly prejudiced against folk-dancing when I went on January 3rd to the Folk Dance Festival in the Albert Hall. On quite insufficient grounds I thought of it as...

CONTEMPORARY ARTS THE THEATRE "4The Boltons Revue." (Boltons Theatre, Kensington.) ONE of the troubles about a revue is that you have got to call it something. A new comet...

MARGINAL COMMENT By HAROLD NICOLSON [ ENJOY reading the comments of intelligent foreigners upon I our British character and ways of life. If the comments be laudatory, then I...

THE ART OF LEISURE By JOHN GARRETT NOT far from where I live in Wiltshire the fine old village of N Farleigh Hungerford stands on its hill. It is dominated by a...

FROM FARM TO CONSUMER By H. D. WALS'T'ON A YEAR ago the Minister of Agriculture and the Secretary of State for Scotland set up a committee "to review the working of the...