New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1907-04-21
LONDON NOTES.
I'm UncrOzCned LGureat6-Tke Yam
iShed acknowledgements.

London, April 6.-Mr. Hay used to say that
a man was young so long as he had recupera-
tive power. Mr. Swinburne, at seventy, is so
| Jealous of his early reputation as the poet of
everlasting youth that he will not admit that
he has ache pain, or that there is any abate-
ment of natural force. Friends congratulate
| Ing him yesterday on the completion of an
other decade found him as hale and hearty as
he was twenty years ago, and as ready to start
on with a stick for long walk at rapid pace
or to accept a challenge for a swimming match.
A LondOner by birth, he has never been con-
tented long way from the Thames AS he
lived near the river with the Rossettis and
George Meredith in the sixties. when hostile
critics We're attacking him lewd writer
OF the baser sort, so he is not far from it at
Putney. where for many years he has shared
the home of his intimate friend. Theodore
Watts-D unton. There. as in Chelsea, he has
circle Of literary and artistic friends, and
he talks with his old time fascination glanc-
ing intently from one TO another and making
quick illustrative gestures. Many Of his in
innate companions have gone-Burne-J Jones'
William Morris, Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Whistler, Millais and Robert Browning among
them; but how can ne account himself an old
man when two Of his Chelsea friends. George
Meredith and William Michael Rossetti, are APP
health and the same ardor for work in the
sixties, when "Atalanta in Calydon" "Chaste-
lard" songs and tragedies came with the on
rush of spring flood. A new tragedy, Cesar
Borgia," he is finishing at seventy, and it is
not likely to be his final work.
While the years have dealt gently with
the uncrowned laureate, he must have felt the
passage of time when he read the eulogies Of
the literary critics in the press. The matronly
Morning Post never dances with the wanton
satires TO delirOus reels: yet it halls him
as the last Of the seven great poets of the Vic
torian age-the six others being Tennyson,
Browning, Matthew Arnold Rossetti, Morris
and Coventry Patmore. Forgotten are his
rhapsodies on the roses and raptures of vice;
forgiven are his fiery lyrics Of revolution-his
rhymed Hbatons to the spirit of rebellion against
thrones and priestcraft. What is he now but
the Incompatible master of sheer technique"
the triumphant leader against the tyranny of
conventional FORMS" the Wagner of poeticaI
music'P Nor is this a solitary outburst of en-
thusiasm. There are scores of tributes 10 the
classic rank Of his work in prose and verse.
and confident forecasts of the pre-eminence he
VIII hold in imaginative literature as the gen.
eratons roll by. AS he contrasts these gilt
tering batteries with the ribald abuse and de-
structive criticism heaped upon him in the old
Chelsea days. he can hardly fail to realize that
he has lived a long time. Changes such as
these In literary estimates and the standards
or taste can come only gradually. Rossetti's
famous jest, There is no doubt as TO poeta
nascitur in Swinburnes case, but unfortunately
he is non fit for publication" now seems hol-
low enough. The uncrowned laureate has gone
his way and not troubled himself about unfair
criticism; and now no receives his due as a
master singer who has upheld consistently tho
n mi yFp f laffa h.
How many vagaries and fads have had run
and been forgotten since Mr.. Swinburne was at
Balliol with T. II. Green! .F1sthetcism was one
OF the earliest of them, and IL started AT oxford
when Oscar Wilde was raving about Walter
Pater and whatever was Greek. H1sthetes were
so numerous and so blatant with their lilies and
too-toos" that Mr.. Gilbert introduced them In
comic opera. and with the help of Sir Arthur
Sullivan's fascinating music chased them into
obscurity. That a quarter OF a century ago,
and Patience" is now revived at the Savoy
Theatre when the posturing and affectations of
the lily bearers and delirious transcendentalsts
have been forgotten. Old fashioned admirers
of Gilbert and Sullivan opera recall the follies
Of the earlier time when they hear the chorus
Twenty Lovesick Madens We" and watch
the antics Of the most intense young man.:
but what can the rising generation of playgoers
make OF IT when the aesthetic as he was ex-
hibited in those days no longer exists in London
drawing rooms? The jinges may be as anus
ing ever, the orchestration as ingenious and
the music tuneful. but the payfulness of
satire current fashions has now become
purely farcical. Absolutely" may be as COM
mon a word in smart society as it was then,
but it is used in a different way. and no coy
maiden thinks Of rolling her eyes when she re-
peats IT. Bunthorne has not stepped out of a
Mayfair drawing ROOM but has been coniured
into stage existence for a whimsical fantasy,
like the butler in Mr.. Barrie's Admirable erich
ton"
The aesthetic has gone. but there is always
somebody TO take his place. The masquerade
has changed, but cannot his voice be heard now
at fashionable lectures Plato and in current
fads for the Improvement of the smart set? AS
in Moliere's time, one silly fashion followed an
other so quickly that he had hardly finished his
rldicule of romantic nonsense in one comedy be-
fore there was the Journalism ard pursm Of the
"Femmes Savantes" to be laughed away in an
other farce; also one folly succeeds another
and has its run, short long. White haired
Mr.. Gilbert, who was so skilful during the sos
in dressing his puppets in aesthetic robes and
connecting them with the batteries of satire
could find affectations, snobbishness, manner
isms and absurdities in drawing rooms to-day,
If he were To look for them. Possibly there
would be nothing so grotesque the aesthetic
ism which he smothered with his delightful fool
ing, but there Is always employment for the
satirist. Mr.. Thackeray, if he to return
to life once every decade. could write fresh
Book of Snobs" and the world would be better
for it,
There are fashions in public amusements as
well as in drawing room follies. The outdoor
pageant has become the popular method of re-