NOTES.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 478, 10 April 1909, Page 9

NOTES.

Speaking at a dinner of the Poets' Club on national characteristics the other day, Mr. &. B. Shaw said that if one travelled a little one found the typical Englishman, Scotsman, or Irishman. . The typical Scotsman was a Spaniard; the typical Englishman did not exist m England; but if one went to iurkey one found him at once. A ballad was a piece of poetry written by someone to a tune he liked. The mysticism of the Scotsman was unconsciously derived from a play by a celebrated .Englishman-"Macbeth." The only race which he really did recognise as something distinctive was that of the Jews. The Jew was nothing like the ordiriai?'u'v?a; , et ? , w - as a < 3" alit -V of extreme gullibility about him. Mr. Shaw recommended all those who wrote verse to write it to music. Almost all the poetry he had written had been produced in that particular way It was not very long before he realised this truth. Ho wrote a very stupid literary ballad. He wrote a ballad of the Birkenhead long enough to satisfy Mr.. Chesterton—about 100 verses—but unfortunate y he mixed up the Birkenhead with a number of other ships that had gone down so that the thing became historically ivrone' Irishmen and Scotsmen, said Mr. Shaw rt garded art as being rather a fine thing' but the Englishman regarded it as being something wicked.

The old-stylo "Quarterly" manner of snubbing young poets has lately been revived by Professor-W. C. Wilkinson, of -the University of Chicago. His victim is—Matthew Arnold. In " Sohrab and Rustum " Arnold describes a spear as hissing when , thrown "down from tho shoulder." How faithfully the American critic deals with tho orrinc* poet may be understood from his comment :— "AVhether, indeed, a spear coining down from tho shoulder could hiss on its way, simply as tho effect of friction with tho air, my own experience witli spears, or knowledge of thorn gained tb rough reading, does not enable mo to say, but as a matter of more speculation it seems to mo extremely improbable. I prefer to supposo that the spevir was conceived by tho post as hissing tnitn vbxation at missing its aim. ,f