New-York tribune., 1909-05-01


The disposition of many English critics 10
tolerate and even praise the efforts in verse OF
Mr. Thomas Hardy is calculated to fill an i'm
partial reader with cynical amusement Mr..
Hardy is a remarkable novelist; as poet he
IS naught and it is absurd TO pretend that he
means anything TO literature in that character.
We note that, at last, an English reviewer frees
his mind concerning these follies of brilliant
mind. ""The London Spectator" says:
OF Mr. Thomas Hardy we desire to speak. If pos
from the Madding crowd This Woodlanders. -
such as London Nights" however. make it very
difficult for US TO keep our patience, Here Is a
stanza from the first poem. entitled The Two
Rosalinds":
Now the poster stirred an ember
Still remaining from my ardors Of some forty
When the self-same portal on an eve it thrilled me
A like announcement bore"
Mr. Hardy does not OF course. write like this out
OF necessity and because he cannot write better
and sephisticai theory as to the true poetic style
Frankly. do not like the results of his theory
His later poetry reminds one of a concrete block
in Which there Is too y much & SAND and and too little s
a failure both in style and thought. what are
say about "Reminiscences OF a Dancing Man"
poem which begins as follows:
who now remembers AImack's balls
Williss sometime named
In those two smooth hoored upper halls
and later contains a stanza about Cremorns-
And those wild whirling figures born
OF Julen's grand quadres'?
Finally. Mr.. Hardy asks;
WHO now. recalls those crowded rooms
or old yclept The Argyle? p
rooms where, he tells us.
We hoped in boiSterous style"
No doubt he did; but is the reniniscen6e really
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers also dropped
into verse over the Argyle Rooms
''Or hail at once the patron and the pile
OF vice and folly Greville and Argyle
We are bound to say prefer the earlier effort.
Three -fourths OF the accessons to the mem
bership Of the English Wesleyan Church in the
last ten years have been directly due to the
work done in the central mission halls. Presi-
dent William II. Crawford of Allegheny Col
Iege. in The Church and the Slum" eaton &
Mains), describes the methods employed in this
growing enterprise in which many forms of So
cial service impeed by an evangelical spirit
In a disduisition on Omar and the 'Rubayat"
1.-THE Athenasum' says Of the Persian that the
oldest and most authentic accounts of his life
show that his contemporary as well as his
posthumous reputation rested almost exclu-
sively on his scientific eminence. He was a
learned astronomer and mathematician, and
also d SUCCESSFUL dStrOloSSi' tiAouSh II was Ie-
marked that he had 10 great belief In astrologi-
cal predictions 1t is added;
In the ancient biographies of Persian poets his
is mentioned only fortuitously, and even at
the present day his Countrymen do not esteem him
anything better than poet OF the third class.
Whether their verdict is just are TO longer in
large number OF the quatrains attributed to Omar
TO be found in the works of other poets. and
were really composed by them. To these demon
strably spurious quatralns the total of which might
be doubled treblej by exhaustive investiga-
ton, We must add many more belonging TO anony-
nous authors which have been swept from all
sides into the original stock. for as Omar grad
uaIIv came to be looked upon the prince OF Per-
san Quatrain writer's. the cOpyists followed In hls
ca Sc a maxim put in the mouth of the Prophet:
Whatever good thing has been said. have said
it." Thus the collection. il has come down TO
MS ia the result of a process of accumulation eX-
tending six hundred II is impossible 20
identify the genuine minority among the mass Of
spurious immigrants and except in one or two IN
stances We cannot say Of any single quatrain that
II was certainly written by Omar himself On a
moderate reckoning three-fourths Of the quatrains
sscribed him not his.