New-York tribune., 1920-12-20
By
Heywood Broun

them in his writings. There was h..
tie at Thermopyla against Antiochn.
the Great, Of winch he wrote. The
who saw him charging the enemv. ro,.
ing and pursuing them, declared th..
Cato owed less to the people of po.o.
than the people of Rome owed ~
Cato"
Marcus Porcius Cato seems to b.r.
been one of those unfortunate ;ra;
viduals who lived before his time u.
died without ever having the onnor.u
nifty to set himself on record concern
ing moving pictures or Sunday be seh.n
For some reason beyond our era.,
Max Beerbohm is invariably presen,.s
to the American public as a queer no,
son whose cleverness may be denend.a
upon only to amuse small crouns =.
men who have received summa c,.s
laude degrees in English from the hos.
Of our leading universities in the Ea..
Even his American publisher. Alfred
Knopf, advertises Seven Men as ssson
the cognoscenti." We are not entireIr
ready to deplore this state Of afra;rs
for the limited edition Of Seven Mon
which Knopf has issued is by far tbo
handsomest book received this ve.r
Frankly, if no review copy had been
sent we feel that we should sooner =.
later have saved up four dollars TO hpv
the book. But we also realize mar.
fectly that the fact that Max Beerbohm
seems to us the most amusing OF an
living satirists by no means entities
US to place among "thc cognoscenti
Rolling off log is difficult feat COM
pared to liking Seven Men.
Stephen Leac cocks theatrical bur.
lesques, such as Behind the Beyond
arc justly assumed to be fit fare for
a wide-reading public, but not one Of
them is to be compared with the blanl
verse Florentine tragedy which forms
a part of Beerbohm's tale "Savonarola,
Brown. Perhaps the highest point in
this play is reached at the moment
when the Murderer is confronted bv
the Pope and asked to identify him.
self and explain his crime:
Murd.
Cesare Borsia,
Lucrezia's brother. and CLAIM
brothers
Right To assassinate whatever man
Shall wantony and in cold blood reject
Her timid offer of poison'd ring
However, we have fondness also
for the climactic scene in the great
third act in the Piazza, during which
SNvonarola wins the Florentine mob to
his cause by the impassioned oration
which begins:
Some OF the people all the time and can
Fool all the people sometimes, hut hc
cannot
Fool all the people all the time"
Of course, Beerbohm's skill in parody
and burlesque is no news to Mr.. Knopfs
'riends "the cognoscenti,' but just why
this fair should be limited to the few
oy the fact that it is better than any
other product of the sort in our day
must be left to some astute student Of
mob psychology. Or perhaps it might
'e referred to some student of pub
ishers' psychology.
There is still another avenue down
which Max Beerbohm could drive be-
wecn applauding multitudes O. Henry
'cllowing was captured through the
killful manipulation of the trick end
ng in the short story, but O. Henri
Knew no trick to be compared with that
IN which "Enoch Soames," the first
tory in Seven Men is based. This is
/ marvellous bit of whimsy and we most
lrgently advise readers to 20 to it ct
'nce, for even now the temptation is
trong upon US to break faith and tell
he plot and we know that it will sound
'etter if you get it direct from Beer
,ohm.