LITERARY GOSSIP.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18906, 22 January 1927, Page 13

LITERARY GOSSIP.

The discussion started in "John O' London" by Dr. Harrop's articlo (reprinted recently on this page) still goes on. Here is a contribution from Limerick :

-May not Horace Walpole. after all, lmvo suggested this famous image to Macaulay's mind:' In one of W'alpole's letters to Mann, dated November L'.tth, 177-i, tho writer, lamenting tho lack "of geniuses in I'.ngland at that time, says, "Don't tell mo 1 am grown oid and peevish and supercilious; name tho geniuses oi 177-1. and I submit. The next Augustan age will dawn tin the other •>'dt> of the Atlantic. There will

perhaps be a Thticydides in Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and in time a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newtoll at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St. Paul's. . . ." Now, in 1833 Maoaulay reviewed these re-cently-published letters for the •'Edinburgh Review." In 18(0 his essay on Von Hunko's History of the Popes appeared in the same Review in which the famous New Zeaiandrr passage occurs. Is it not probable that the Walpole imago reciirrcfl to his mind, tho only alteration being the substitution of a New Zealander for a Peruvian?

There was a moment in England, Mr S. K. Patcliffe, of the "Manchester Guardian," says in an American review of "The Whispering Gallery"—the American supplies have apparently not been withdrawn—when Hesketh Pearson might havo been described as the most celebrated, or at least notorious, author of tho day. But his book, preluded by an extravagant flourjsb, was blown up with a swiftness and ferocity unequalled in recent years, and the London publisher ran miserably to cover. Low, like no other, lay the Bodley Head. 1 have known many literary hoaxes, but never anything in tho least like this. And since the book, in England at least, was instantly killed, this notice may as well be confined to a few points in connexion with the incident itself.

The fake being evident to every informed reader who looked into the volume with any cure for ten minutes, it was odd that the task of exposure should have been left to Lord Rother*mere's organ, the ''Daily Mail," which, under its new editor, certainly did the job with uncommon gusto. Hesketh Pearson, who ought to have known the Harmsworths and their ways, fell into the mistake of using his sketch of. Lord NorthcliiFe as the first chapter of his hook. The opening incident.is rather moue silly than most, but it 30 happened that the report of Northeliffe's talk, while absurdly wrong in detail, was otherwise lifelike. Tho thing indeed was 50 close that the Harmsworths were stung into action against the wretched author, and for three days the readers of tho "Daily Mail" were provided with all the thrill of a man-hunt, the publishers in the meantime being driven into tho desperate search for a way out.

It may perhaps be worth while, Mr I'aicliffe adds, to give one yiicco <if authoritative testimony in respect of tho diuier talk in Downing Street, poihaps the most widely quoted scene in the hook. A distinguished Liberal editor who knew the Prime Minister's entourage at the time as intimately as any man in England, writes to me: I have often been at No. 10 for lunch or dinner when Lloyd George has been present and heard the talk between him and Asquitk. It was always polite and decorous but not

very intimate. The notion of \bvcjnith addressing LI. G. as David is ' simply farcical. LI. G. 011 his part was deferential and addressed Asquith as Prime Minister. Nothing could have been more correct on either side. Asquith in 1916 was worn with apsiety both about the war and abput his sans, three of' whom- were constantly exposed to danger.

According to Mr A. '(J. Gardiner in his new book "Portraits and Porttnts," Mr L. C. M. S, Amory is tlio nmt influential member of the British Government and the ihost dour, drab, humourless, heartless figure in the Cabinet; a dio-hard, after the heart and pat-, tern of the London "Morning Post," If .words (says one reviewer) can succeed'in dispersing the apathy of tjie Englishman toward his country's future, ono might expect results from his being told that his potential Prime Minister, and the probable successor to the present incumbent, has the philosophy of a barbarian, the vision qf a heathen world and the sombre frenzy of a dervish of the desert; that he is a man who learnß nothing and forgets nothing and who has an infantile conception of what constitutes greatness of a nation.

Dean Inge is Mr Gardiner's bol ideal. He admires the Dean 'a sacerdotal sadism and his clerical contempt. "When you agree with him, ho goes down like mlik, and when you disagreo with him, tho ginger is gloriously hot in tho mouth." Perhaps no one has ever told as much of the truth about the gloomy Doan as he knows. It is no easy matter to tell the whole truth about thin-lipped clergymen who do not love their fellow-mon.