KIPLING AS HISTORIAN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 98, 15 June 1911, Page 3

KIPLING AS HISTORIAN.

“Mr Rudyard Kipling is about to. make his first bow to the public in the role of historian,” says the “Daily News.” “ ‘A School History of England’ will ho published shortly under iko joint names of Mr C. R. L. Fletcher and Mr Kipling. It is an open sec-, rot that the more solid historical matter will ho contributed by the first of those authors, while Mr Kipling will lie responsible for the more vivid parts of the narrative, and the poems which will supplement the text. “There will he no fewer than twenty-three ballads, which appear under such titles as ‘The Roman Centurian,’ ‘The Pirates of England,’ ‘Before the : Edgehill ‘Fight,’' ‘The Dutch in the Medway,’ 1 ‘Tlie. French Wars,’ and ‘Tlie Bells and the Queen, mu.’ • 1 “Chapter 'I ‘ of the new .history, which carries, the,' reader 'from the earliest times to the departure of the Romans, opens with) a -poem, entitled ‘The River’s .Tale’: — T: .. “ ‘Twenty bridges-from! Towo'r to Rew Wanted to know. what ' the' River know, i ' . - For they were young and the Thames was old, And this is the tale that the River told : 1 walk my beat from London town, Five hours up and seven down, Up I go and I end my run At Tidc-end-town, which is Tcdding--1,011. Down 1 come with the mud in my hands, And plaster it over tlie Maplin Sands. But I’d have you know that these waters of mine Were once a branch of the River Rhino, When hundreds of miles to the East 1 wont, ’ > *• ' And England was joined to the Continent. «• , | * | I remember the bat-winged lizardbirds, The Age of Ice and the' mammoth herds, And the giant tigers that stalked them clown Through Regent’s Park into Camden Town. And ! remember like yesterday The earliest Cockney who came my way, When he pushed through the forest 1 that lined the Strand, With imint on his face and a club in his ham!. . . . “Mr Henry Ford will illustrate the new history with a number of drawings. it mav be expected in July.” ‘ - -