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AES, JULY 2, 1911LITERARY NOTES FROM ENGLANDThe Verse of an American in Favor with the New Orderof “Souls99LONDON, June 21—You may care to know that a young American poet, Mr. Ezra Pound, is in this coronation London season in P|«*sant favor .with the intellectual* or May fair and Belgravia. By the intell ct -als ” of those fashionable regions of Lon don I mean in particular not men but the Duchesses, Countesses, and other ladies of title who manifest an interest in literature. They were once the souls, a group of “ light and leading to which Mr*. Asquith, •-hen Miss Margot Tennant,and Mr. Arthur Balfour belonged, or, rather, I should say, they are the successors of the souls,” for younger ” intellectuals ” have grown up in Mayfairand Belgravia.Don’t think for a moment, pray, that in what I have told you I have been speaking of Mr. Ezra Pound personally. So far as I know, he doesn’t want anything to do with soulful folk of the fashionable world. I am not sure if they have got so far as to take an Interest in him personally. It is his poetry to whichI refer, and he has a new volume Just coming out, M The Canzoni of Ezra Pound.”Now there is something very fetching about that title, ilc old form used for an effective new appeal. Y/o have had 44 The Personalia of Ezra PoundM and 44 The Exaltations of Ezra Pound/' Those titles made people here wonder whether Ezra Pound was not some old master poet whom they had missed. Ezra Pound! That undoubtedly was a name with something in it. It attracted, it piqued one's curiosity; even perhaps the curiosity of reviewers. When they dipped into the 44 Personalia and the 44 Exaltations they were pleased with them. 44 Here/* they said, 44 is a fellow who can write, who has something to say, and who says it in his own distinctive way/* They said all this in their reveiews, then asked each other who was Ezra Pound, andwhere did he hail from.He hails from Pennsylvania, and, I think, from the Quaker city of Philadelphia itself, and he writes verse’ on our side of the Atlantic. He is a wandering scholar, to whose scholarship we owe one book in prose. It is called M The Spirit of Romance/' which is a title you might expect from Mr. Ezra Pound,and it is all about the Troubadours, in whose tracks he follows—an American troubadour of the tone color.Somehow, I suppose, those general details concerning Mr. Ezra Pound havegot about, and maybe have penetrated, with his poems, to the drawing rooms of Mayfair and Belgravia. Anyhow, his London publisher, Mr. Elkin Mathews, assures me that he is being very well read there. The news may surprise the poet himself if it overtakes him in his wanderings. It need cause no uneasiness in the mind of his father, the Hon. Homer Pound, of Philadelphia. His son would be the last to exaggerate the importanceof the thing, and it might even amuse him. He will write poetry because be must, and he will be read by fashion and intellect, as well as by intellect without fashion, just because he. is worth reading. He says strong things quaintly in his verse, and the duchesses and the countesses like the strong things, declaring : 44 Why, here is a new Whitman/'There is not in the least likely to be an ode on the coronation of George V.in Mr. Ezra Pound's coming “ Canzoni/' If there were, the duchesses and countesses would probably pass it by, having had coronation enough. But it . would be interesting to see if a mind so original and picturesque s Mr. Pound s had something new to say on the coronation. It is a hard topic to write about, as even the Poet Laureate has found. The result is that the output of coronation poetry has been entirely lacking in distinction. It may have been well enough in the old bardic days to sing of kings and their doings. It is very different to write of them now, and Mr. Ezra Pound is wise not to tune his lay in that direction.Yes, our coronation verse has been disappointing; but what else was to be expected? Moreover, it is a disappointmentwith which we can put up. The Thackeray centenary, which we are about to celebrate, has produced a better poem than anything I have seen on the coronation—a poem, this, which Mr. Austin Dobson has in the July Cornhill, a magazine of which, needless to recall, Thackeray was the first editor. -You need thehuman note to work on for live verse, and you have it in Thackeray, not in a coronation. Merely Mr. Austin Dobson reflects that July 18, 1811, saw the birth of the novelist, and the opening lines ofhis ode spring to his pen:Ah! What a world the words bring . back—Those bald words in the Almanack.A RICH TREASURYaThe Three Volumes of the Catholic Encyclopedia Which Have Appeared This YearWORK on 41 The Catholic Encyclopedia has progressed rapidly this year, three volumes (IX, X, and XI) having been published since January 1. This year’s volumes contain a great many important articles contributed by American and European scholars who are recognized authorities with respect to the subjects they dlscusa.Volume IX is notable for its biographicalsketches which cover the lives of the Leo and Martin Popes, the Louis Kingsof France, Mary Qtieen of Scots, Le Sage, Saint Machutus, Cardinal Lavlgerie, Martin Luther, and many other interesting persons. The matter other than biographical includes treatises on law, liturgy, marriage, mass, martyrs, and Free Masonry.Volume X contains a number of treatises that deal with topics of commanding interest, in one of the most valuable ofwhich Dr. Arthur Vermeersch presents with great lucidity the Orthodox-Catholic view of 44 Modernism. Other contributions of note are a review of the career of the great Napoleon, a history of medicine. an evsay on Saint Matthew, a dissertation on metaphysics, an examination of Methodism, a discussion of the mir-tcies o£ Christ, and a number of articles relative to American affairs.A large portion of Vol. XI. is taken up with contributions that deal with American* cities, dioceses, States, institutions, and public men. A nine-page article by Joseph Mooney contains some striking facts about the extent, importance, and prosperity of the New York See. Other interesting articles relate to diocesan matters in New Orleans, New Mexico, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregan, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania. Incorporated inall of these articles there is a great dealof instructive American history.In a biographical way Vol. XI. is extremely rich; the world's great Peters and Patricks are among those whose life-stories it tells. The miscellany includes articles on optimism, pessimism, nihilism, paganism, ontologism, the Universities of Oxford, Paris, Padua, and Palra and the Peace Congress. (Robert Appleton Co.)“THE NEWS’’ OF OUR SIRESA Volume of Extracts from the Newspapers Which Regaled Boston in 1689»THE first volume of what is designated as “ An Historical Digest of the Provincial Press” is now ready; it la the opening number of the Massachusetts series, and covers the period from 1689 to the end of 1707. How many volumes will be required to finish up the digest is not stated; but from the fact that its editors, Lyman Horace Weeks and Edwin M. Bacon, intend that it shall present a “ collation of all items of personal and historic reference relating to American affairs” printed in American newspapers down to the close of the Revolution, the inference may be drawn that their output will quite outrun the capacity of a fiVe-foot shelf.It Is to be hoped the enterprise will turn out in that way, for there is no historical matter relating to our early American days that surpasses in Interest and value that which is contained in the columns of the provincial press. Every number of those old newspapers mirrors faithfully the character and life of its own particular people. If anybody wishes to know what the fathers were like, let him read their newspapers. The aim of the editors of the digest of these Journals Is to give everybody who cares for It opportunity to read accurate transcripts from publications only to be found these days in museums and public libraries—and for the most part in a frail and perishing condition.The volume under notice gives extracts from “Publick Occurrences,” The Campbell News Letters.” and ” The Boston News Letter,” all Boston publications. (Boston; The Society for Americana,Inc.)THE BLUEJACKETS OF 1812A new edition has been published ofJames Barnes’s “Naval Actions of the War of 1812,” which had its original publication in 1896. This excellent work contains graphic stories of engagements in which the Constitution, Chesapeake, Hornet, Wasp, Comet, Essex, President and other famous ships took part (Harper Bros.)
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Sun, Jul 02, 1911
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