The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-06-22
,hich are taken in hand by the literary

which are taken in hand by the literary
fund.-,
Lord Curzon has not the fame, neither
as an orator or d literary man, of Lord
Rosebery. yet as chairman of the literary
fund dinner, he did not hesitate to chal-
lenge recent assertion of the Public
Orators with regard TO literature, jump
Ing it with no lack of emphasis and
to the obvious delight of his audience
Lord Rosebery, in making a speech some
| months back about Burns, declared that
poverty produced masterpieces and that
wealth smothers.
II believe that is absolute fallacy,'
said Lord Curzon, which finds no sup
port either in recorded history or in in :
herent probability 1 decline to admit
that there is any stimulus in poverty
or any inspiration in squalor Byron was
genius although he was a peer. Burns
was genius although he was a plough
man. But Burns genius was not due to
his being a ploughman any more than
Byrons genius was due to his being a
peer. If Burns had not been a plough
man but had been a planter in Jamaica
he would still have written great works
| of genius, although they would have been
works of different kind.
Cites Examples
Burns wrote works of genius not be-
| cause he was poor, not because he was
d ploughman, but because he was gem
| ius. | would carry my argument a little
further, and | would ask you when in
the history of literature has poverty as
sisted in developing literary genius ?
Chaucer was rather impecupious per-
son, but his best work was done when
he was in good circumstances Chatter
ton did not write better because he was
penniless and starving. Goldsmith died
in debt for over e2000 but his best work
was written when he was in comfort
able circumstances. Balzac was an i'm.
more or less in debt. But because he was
irnprovident and in debt, that did not
make him write better fiction.
Il ask you to take the cases of Shakes
peare, Milton, Addison, Swift Pope, Dry
den, Burke, MaCaulay, Shelley, Gibbon,
Wordsworth, Tennyson OF none of these
can it be said that chill penury re-
pressed their noble range and froze the
genial currant of their soul. None of
these men were poor in the sense that
Burns was poor. Most of them We're
fairly well Off; some of them were ex-
ceedingly well off. while a limited num-
Der of them belonged to the classes.
But go a little further afield and
look at the great literary men of foreign
countries. | think I remember from my
school days what Horace said about be-
ing driven by poverty to write poetry.
But If poetry tempted him to begin to
write 1t was Maecenas who assisted him
to go on. 1t was the same patronage un-
der which Virgil wrote his best efforts.
Both Horace and Virgil dined habitually
at entertainments like these at the tables
of the rich, and it was under these in
f1uences that they achieved their most re-
markable productions. Take Dante and
Goethe. 1t cannot be said that either of
them produced under the spur of pow
erty.
VOltaire Striking Example
My most striking case of all is Vol
taire. Voltaire lived happily for himself,
in days before Marconi shares. But Vol
taire made a very good thing out of
several government lotteries. He specu-
lated largely and successfully in the
money out of army contracts. No doubt
had he lived nowadays we should have
had house of commons committee sit.
ting on Votaire.
Il daresay Lord Rosebery may be quite
right in one sense. l daresay it may
be true that few milionaires are gem
iuses | do not happen to know any who
are. But then few paupers are geniuses
also. and yet, according to Lord Rose
berry, you ought to have a Czarus in
every niche of the temple of fame"
Up to the time of writing no reply to
Lord Curzon has been forthcoming from
the distinguished author of "The Last
Phase"