Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1933-01-08

England" Hamilton recognizes a group of vol
unteer laureates" in which he includes Chaucer,
Cover, Kay, Andrew Bernard Shelton, Robert
Wilmington, Richard Edwards, Spenser and
Samuel Daniel. Under the Stuarts there was
greater approximation to a position of official
poet, in the favor shown to Ben Jonson, accom-
panied by his two pensions. After the Restora-
ton William Davenant received pension and
was locked upon as the official poet PROBABLY
the first English poet to receive the title OF
laureate, by royal letters patent, was John
Dryden, in 1910. Some of his successors have
been approved by popular acclaim; some have
been almost unknown before the awarding OF
the honor Robert Bridges, for example
known to few, at least in this country when he
was made laureate, but his subtle and polished
poem, The Testament of Beauty" published In
1929, brought him recognition as poet OF real
merit From Dryden's time, the poets laureate
have been: Thomas ShadweIl, Nahum Tate,
Nicholas Rowe Laurence Eusden, Colly Cibber,
William Whitehead Thomas Wharton, Henry
James Pye, Robert Southey, William Words
worth, Alfred Tennyson Alfred Austin, Robert
Bridges and the present Laureate John Mase-
field. Scott refused the laureateship, because
he felt that it might involve a measure of sac
rifice of his independence
John Masefeld, present poet laureate of Eng
land, who will lecture in Washington this week.
had established poetic reputation before
demonstrated his power in tragic drama In
1.-THE Tragedy of Man." THE Everlasting
Mercy and The Widow in the Bye-Street"
'Dauber" and THE Daffodil Fields" had been
accorded high praise narrative poems Of I'M
usual human sympathy, which also show Mase-
fields love of the sea and of the English coun-
tryside. salt Water Ballads" containing some
Of his best shorter poems, had already ap-
peared. Since his appointment as poet laureate,
Masefield has written 1.-The Wanderer OF Liver
pool" prose and verse biography of an old
sailing ship, and Minnie Maylow's Story"
collection of short poems which make use OF
legend and ballad material Two very recent
books are Jim Davis" New York: Thomas
Nelson g. sons, prose tale of adventure for
boys, and "a Tale of Troy" New York: The
Macmillan Coz, collection of short poems on
the Homeric subject of the capture of Helen by
Paris and the consequent siege of Troy
MEN AGAINST DEATH. BY Paul De Kruif.
New York Harcourt, Brace 8, Co.
ROPING, cropping, cropping. That describes
~ the method of all the scientists, the men
hghting against death on behalf Of all human
beings. whose experiments and successes Mr. De
kruf writes about enthusiastically He has
written about others of this fighting band be-
lore, many of them scientists in the United
States Department of Agriculture and Public
Health Service, in his books "Microbe Hunters"
and Hunger Fighters. A quotation from Charles
r Kettering on the title page forms a text
for the book THE doctors tell us there are
certain diseases that incurabe. Do you
know what incurable disease is? It is one
that the doctors don't know anything about
The disease has no objection to being cured at
all"
Some of the diseases which in very recent
years have had no objection to being cured are
diabetes, which insulin at least holds in check;
pernfcious anemia, which takes to fight be-
lore coplous administrations of liver: spotted
fever, carried by ticks and cured by a tick vac
cine, and undulant fever, which never bothers
any one who drink only pasteurized milk.
Twelve death hghters and their modest CROP
ing work are celebrated in this book: Sem
mei|ets, who discovered why blood poisoning
carried OH SO many mothers at childbirth;
Banting, who discovered insulin; Minot who
discovered the liver treatment for pernicious
anemia; Spencer, who found out the relation
between ticks and spotted fever; Evans
woman, who gave good reasons why milk pas
teurization was necessary; Mccoy who strug-
gleo alone with sick parrots, trying to find how
they gave parrot fever to human beings: Fin
sen, who applied the suns rays to the treat
ment OF skin diseases; Roller, who showed the .
Jolly OF men spending millions to get themselves
well when with free Doctor Sun they'd neye,n
start 10 De SICK" and Strandberg who made
use OF F1nsen's machine sun" for the treat
ment of tuberculosis
Faul DE kruif was trained as a bacteriologist
ana was at one time assistant professor of BAG
terlology at the University of Michigan. Dur
ing tne world War he a Sanitary Corps
captain and afterward was for two years an
associate in pathology in the Rockefeller In
sCtute. He goes to original sources for his ma
terlai' the men themselves If they are living.
ne mas gilt OF dramatic writing but it is to
ne regretted that in this book he has carried
~ I. Iarener than IN his previous books-has in
1"''' J"@~eo Things up a trifle too much.