MATTHEW ARNOLD'S TREE.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1043, 4 February 1911, Page 9

MATTHEW ARNOLD'S TREE.

The "Oxford Magazine" is lending its columns to .the discussion of the quesbe renewed every dec-'ido or so—whether Matthew Arnold's tree in "Thyrsis" had a. veritable . existence. There is a letter on the subjcct this week from Mr. Claridge Druce, who. as the author of a book on the flora of Berkshire knows something of the country, and quotes besides certain witnesses that have spoken to the point. Mr.. Druce is ; clearly for a particular, tree, but lie makes frank concessions— : (1). that 'several trees have competed' for the honour; (2) that the one usually pointed out as "that single elm-trcc •bright" does not command the viewthat the poet saw; and (3) that this elm jis an,-pak.- : . On the other hand, it appears Jdiat,'it js an oak, "whoso, lower j brahclies~liave been lopped' elm-fash-ion"; that various friends of Arnold's have identified the tree, presumably on •his authority; -that it held the'"field without a rival".in--Mr. ; Di-iice's early Oxford days; and that, though objections have been mado to its youthfulness", it' is really some two "Hundred' years old. Mr. Druce, by some unhappy chance, just missed. an excursion with Arnold over the'ground of "Thyrsis" and "Tile Scholar Gipsy" that might; have sottled the matter,"and perhaps it. never .will bo positively set-, tied. This does not matter much,' lind 'wo- may either accept - Mr. Druce's theory that Arnold wrote from memory •and did not get his facts right or surmise that he cared nothing about the facts.. .If he made nn ,oak into, an elm and saw a view from, it that;was not visible to. the bodily eye, it is sufficient that the inner vision was . true; at least tho tree 'is beautifully planted in the poem. We may, if wo please, take'a . step on our own account, an< persuade ourselves into something very like a positive identification, even if it ■be to the scandal of topographers or historians. 'Shakespeare's "birthplace" is a capital place in which to rally sensations; perhaps he was born there and, anyhow, it. does very well. . And yet, though it is a very happy accomplishment to be able-to keep our scepticism under control, thero arc cases - in which'positive knowledge can help the spirit. Shakespeare's birthplace is very well, but it has not quite tho quality of Dove Cottage in Grasmero, whero the devotee may see the stones which Wordsworth veritably sot down in the garden, and the little bed-cham-ber into which he ushered Scout. There may not be very much in the difference, but there is something.—"Manchester Giuirdian."

"Toddy Wilkin's Trials," By Jens Lyng, author of "The Scandin- ■ avians in Australasia," etc. Jack-son-Petersen Printing Co., Melbourne. Is. This is a matter-of-fact story- about a small struggling printer, who, after his business worries havo been aggrai yatcd by the interferences of a factory inspector, decides to sell out . and "go on tho land." His trials are numerous, but r|t the end of the book 110 has overcome. all' that have so far arrived, and is oil the way to prosperity. The. story as a story has not much merit; but it is interesting because it affords an outlook upon political and economic conditions 111 Australia from the viewpoint of tho small selector. One of Teddy Wilkins's friends puts it thus: "We havo been squeezed from above by capital, and probably we shall soon lie squeezed from below by labour. It is onlv fair and just that the lot of those still worse off than ourselves—tho rural labourers—should ho improved, yet it seems an absolute necessity that simultaneously something be dono to protect thfc growers-against their oppressors' if groat acres are not to go out of cultivation."

In the February' "Lono Hand," Dr. Macmlllan Urown sketches a theory of a Caucasian race in Polynesia, who' discovered and conquered America many voars ago. All the other articles treatof Australian subjects. ' Lieutenant George A. Taylor expounds tlio need of a corns of airships for the defence of the Commonwealth. Australian cathedrals are described and illustrated. Tlio discoveries by which Jlr. • it. si Symonds claims tn have, nwlo the artesian waters of Australia available i'or agriculture are explained. C. A.'Jeffries writes of the work done at Darlington. Sydney, in educating deaf and blind children. There are also stories and verses b.v H. E. Riemann. Randolph Bedford. "Kodak," l?oderic Quinn, Henry Lawson, E. ,S. Emerson, and others. This month's batch of "Good Australians" consists of T. A. Jirowue ("Rolf fioldiewood"), J, ' jf' Maiden, Livingston Hopkins, and Sir John Gordon. ■ ' • «o"