merely specious enthusiasm to imagine that art at any time differs in anything but harmony, intensity and universality. The Modern Quarterly maintains its freshness and increases the range of its interests. There are several interesting contributions to this number, including the second and concluding part of Mr. Robertson's exceedingly able essay on 'The Genius of Poe'. The Dial, December, January and February.-The Dial seems to have grown a little tired. It still publishes the best selection of reproductions of modern art of any magazine printed in English, and its Foreign Letters and reviews are excellent, but it seems more and more to eke out vaporous Italian philosophy and sentimental Irish fiction with inadequate native contributions. But American journalism would be gloomy indeed without The Dial, so it is to be hoped that it will renew its strength. This year it has made its annual reward of a thousand dollars to William Carlos Williams, who contributes to the number in which the announcement is made the following characteristic poem: TREE The tree is stiff, the branch the tree will remain, stiffly upright. A longer and more considerable poem by Dr. Williams appears in the February number. The American Mercury, December, January and February.-In the December number the editor publishes some interesting figures relating to his magazine. It began three years ago with a print order for the first issue of 10,000 copies. There were two reprintings of this issue, making a total of 15,500 copies. By the end of the first year the magazine's circulation stood at 55,500. The circulation continued to rise steadily and at the end of the second year stood at 74,000. At the end of last year it had reached 105,000. These are not the only interesting figures published; there are two further tables showing the nationality and residence of the 361 authors who have contributed to the magazine, and their occupations. Sixtyone were women. The great majority were native Americans. Only 4 of the 361 authors were living in England, and only 14 were born in England. There were 52 journalists, 35 professors, 16 business men, and 174 writers. The distinction between journalists and writers is not stated. There is food for thought in these figures. In the first place, they are inconceivable for England. The American Mercury is not a popular magazine in our sense of the term: it has elements in common with the Truth of Labouchère, but it has a wider range than Truth ever had, and particularly more pretence to literature. For the Mercury is the product of a higher journalism than Truth ever commanded: there is a cool command of energy and science in its direction. It is undoubtedly an instrument of power, and within the limits of its materialistic and hedonistic outlook, a source of enlightenment. It is also intensely national; nowhere does the American nation wear the aspect of a cohering and decisive unity as in the pages of this magazine, and this despite its fierce denunciation of national shams. The only essential quality we miss is humility, which is not to be expected in a Nietzschean like Mr. Mencken. This is how he welcomes Mr. Clissold, in an excellent review in the December number: 'The type is admirable, and essentially new in the world. The Greeks, for all their intellectual adventurousness, never produced it, nor even, indeed, came to any suspicion that it could exist. They tried to formulate history without statistics, science without experiment, and ethics without psychology. The modern man is something quite different. If he lacks the daring of the Greeks, then he at least has vastly more information. No college professor of to-day is so stupid that he doesn't know more than Aristotle. No schoolboy can read even Thucydides without occasionally coughing behind his hand. This increase of sheer enlightenment, in Wells' view, is gradually producing a type of man who is at once a philosopher and a man of the world-a sort of super-Goethe, purged of romantic illusion, and capable of visioning progress over long periods and against all imaginable obstacles, even the obstacle of human imbecility.' There is a good article in the January number on Herman Melville, by Fred Lewis Pattee, and another on 'Rhodes Scholars by O. B. Andrews, Jr., in the February number. Also received: The Forum, The Century, Harper's, Scribner's, The Saturday Review of Literature, The Nation, The Literary Review. There is not space to notice these magazines in detail, but attention may be called to the following articles as being particularly worth reading: 'Note to Novel Readers', by Zona Gale (The Saturday Review, December 18th), being technical notes of some freshness and interest by a very practical novelist; 'The Indecency of Censorship', by Joseph Wood Krutch (The Nation, February 16th), and ‘An End and A Beginning', by the same writer, in The Saturday Review for January 8th. The last named article is a very wise discussion of the competing claims of psychological and metaphysical criticism. It is a question too big to be paraphrased in a footnote, but we may note with pleasure that T. E. Hulme gets his due as a protagonist in this conflict of attitudes, to-day the most momentous conflict, not only in criticism, but even in philosophy. H.R. NOTE "The Monthly Criterion' is published by Faber & Gwyer Limited at 24, Russell Square, London, W.C.1 (Telephone Museum 9543), where all communications should be addressed to the Editor. Manuscripts cannot be returned, unless they are accompanied by a stamped addressed envelope, and no responsibility can be taken for the loss of manuscripts. The subscription rate is thirty shillings per annum, post free. Made and Printed in Great Britain by Trend & Co., Mount Pleasant, Plymouth. VOLUME V INDEX JANUARY 1927 TO JUNE 1927 I Titles All Summer in a Day, reviewed No. II, p. 273 American Periodicals, by H.R., No. I, p. 165. No. III, p. 369 Autobiographies, reviewed by Hamish Miles, No. III, p. 353 Beauty in Art and I iterature, reviewed No. III, p. 365 Benson Murder Case, The, reviewed by T. S. Eliot, No. III, p. 359 Can We Then Believe? reviewed No. I, p. 158 Cathra Mystery, The, reviewed by T. S. Eliot, No. III, p. 359 Collected Poems (Read), reviewed by F. S. Flint, No. II, p. 267 Commentary, A, No. I, p. 1. No. II, p. 187. No. III, p. 283 No. II, p. 253 Composition as Explanation, reviewed No. I, p. 162 From V. B. Metta, No. I, p. 100 Crewe Train, reviewed No. II, p. 277 Crime and Custom in Savage Society, reviewed by Robert Graves, No. II, p. 247 Crime at Diana's Pool, The, reviewed by T. S. Eliot, No. III, p. 359 Dangerfield Talisman, The, reviewed by T. S. Eliot, No. I, p. 139 Danish Periodicals, by F.S.F., No. I, p. 181. No. II, p. 282 East Wind, reviewed by Humbert Wolfe, No. 1, p. 130 End of Laissez-Faire, The, eviewed No. I, p. 154 England, reviewed by Bonamy Dobrée, No. I, p. 109 English Bards and French Reviewers, by Humbert Wolfe, No. I, p. 57 Fielding The Novelist, reviewed No. I, p. 157 Field of Mustard, The, reviewed No. I, p. 162 Fifteen Joys of Marriage, The, reviewed No. I, p. 155 Footnote to History, A, by Sherwood Trask, No. I, p. 43 Footsteps in the Night, reviewed by T. S. Eliot, No. I, p. 139 Footsteps that Stopped, The, reviewed by T. S. Eliot, No. I, p. 139 Formation of the Greek People, The, reviewed by W. A. Thorpe, No. I, P. 124 Four Knocks on the Door, reviewed by T. S. Eliot, No. III, p. 359 Fragment of an Agon, by T. S. Eliot, No. I, p. 74 Franz Werfel: Versuch einer Zeitspiegelung, reviewed by A. W. G. Randall, French Periodicals, by F.S.F., No. I, p. 172 Future of the Church of England, The, reviewed No. III, p. 367 Genesis, reviewed by Humbert Wolfe, No. III, p. 347 German Chronicle, by Max Rychner, No. II, p. 241 German Periodicals, by A.W.G.R., No. I, p. 177 German-Swiss Periodicals, by A.W.G.R., No. I, p. 183 Goodbye Stranger, reviewed No. I, p. 161 Go She Must, reviewed No. II, p. 271 Grammar of Late Modern English, reviewed by T. S. Eliot, No. I, p. 121 Helena, by Karel Capek, No. III, p. 314 History of England, A, reviewed No. III, p. 368 House of Sin, The, reviewed by T. S. Eliot, No. I, p. 39 |