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subdued disorder, constituted a fine record) did not suffice to console one so dependent upon constant mental activity. Unwonted leisure soon became irksome.' In the following September he accepted the Chairmanship of the Royal Commission on Venereal Disease which reported in February 1916, and marked a turning-point in the attitude of the Government and the public towards a grave social evil.

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Lord Sydenham's position as a Naval and Military critic had long been filled up. In the year preceding the war, however, he again found himself in literary harness, writing, for the first time in his own name, in the Times,' and some of his writings were singularly prophetic. When the war came in August 1914 he offered his services in any public capacity, but was told that nothing suitable to his position could be found: This was the bitterest disappointment of my whole life.' Nevertheless, in the House of Lords and elsewhere, there were opportunities for various forms of activity of great use to the public, and consolation must have been derived from one circumstance. Taking up, in 1904, a proposal for the national insurance of the war risks of shipping that was put forward originally by Sir George Tryon in 1890, Lord Sydenham had striven hard to get this measure adopted. His dispatch to India in 1908 caused him to be absent from London when the proposal was shelved, but he wrote a valuable paper from Bombay expressing his dissent from this decision. In May 1913, when Sir Maurice Hankey was Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence, Mr Asquith as Prime Minister fortunately appointed a Sub-Committee, with Mr F. Huth Jackson as Chairman, to reconsider the question. That sub-committee reported at the end of April 1914, just in time for its recommendations-which followed Lord Sydenham's lines-to be put in force and to operate successfully when war broke out. The chairman acknowledged his indebtedness to Lord Sydenham's writings, in connexion with this great achievement that did so much to save us from economic disaster in the early days of the war.

In December 1915 Lord Sydenham became Chairman of the Central Tribunal to deal with appeals from all the local Committees engaged in administering the 'inade

quate National Service Act.' In April 1916 he joined the Air Board under Lord Curzon to deal with the apparently chaotic conditions which seemed to prevail in our Air Forces, especially as affecting the R.N. Air Service which 'largely duplicated the Royal Flying Corps in purely military operations, while the development of a Fleet weapon was unfortunately delayed.' We are told that this Air Board was apparently wrecked in December 1916 by the hostility of the Admiralty. In August 1917 Lord Curzon offered a seat, which was accepted, on the Second Chamber Conference, presided over by the late Lord Bryce, which reported in 1918. Throughout the course of the war, Lord Sydenham was constantly in correspondence with men who counted in public affairs, and during those and subsequent years his activities covered also the presidency or chairmanship of the Belgian Field Hospital, the British Empire League, the British Science League, the Safety First Council, the Indo-British Association, the Empire Land Settlement Committee, the Association of Technical Institutes, and the British Empire Producers organisation; as well as the treasurership of the Y.W.C.A. and membership of the Royal Life Boat Executive. Even these multitudinous activities, superimposed upon speeches in the House of Lords and an abundance of literary work, did not suffice to relieve so active a mind from dwelling on the world-wide tragedy:

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'Upon all who closely followed the changing scenes in the great tragedy and had not the relief of active participation, the war must have left an ineffaceable mark the sense of helplessness in face of national calamity was often overpowering. . . . When peace came, I had passed my seventieth year, and I first realised that old age had come.'

Concluding chapters are devoted to the House of Lords, now reduced to the position of one of the weakest Second Chambers in the world,' and to grave issues there debated; to the aftermath of the war, with its unfulfilled demand for great statesmanship; and finally to the future, in a chapter headed 'Quo Vadimus ?'

That chapter touches upon problems in all parts of the world that bear directly or indirectly upon the Empire Defence which has inspired the main work of

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the author's life. It strikes a tragic note, verging on pessimism: World conditions, which I have attempted to explain, clearly indicate that our modern civilisation is in danger.' The inference is that these conditions are beyond human control on account of their great complexity, and that history cannot help us to forecast the future,' but nevertheless it is allowed that religion holds its own even in Russia:

'Massacres of Bishops and priests, and the desecration of sanctuaries, have not sufficed to conquer the faith of the peasant masses, which may revive to be the salvation of a free Russia. Last Christmas, for the first time since the capture of Russia by the Marxists, the church bells were allowed to be rung. Was this concession a sign that the Soviet realises that the Cross may yet prevail?'

And, for ourselves:

'In no other country is social service so freely given to relieve want and suffering, and to minister to infants and to young children. Nowhere else can be found so much useful public work carried out by voluntary agency, or more generous contributions from all classes to charitable objects. This is Socialism in the only form which can benefit mankind; but Socialists ignore and affect to despise manifestations of practical Christianity. . . . The triumph of Socialism would bring an end to the Empire to which my life has been dedicated, and I am forced, in old age, to watch events with growing anxiety.'

No reply is forthcoming to the question whether the endurance of 'our modern civilisation' should weigh in the balance with those who are content to work for the defence of a community with the attributes described by Lord Sydenham. He has lived to see the zenith of the British peoples when fighting for life as one united nation in the Great War.' He can rest content in the knowledge that his own laborious life, with its alternating periods of great success and bitter disappointment, contributed in no small measure to victory.

GEORGE ASTON.

-he

of

SOME RECENT BOOKS.

William Blake-Life in the Stars-Natural Man-Korea
-Japan and China-Shakespeare and Crashaw-
Flaubert-Florence and Torquemada-Are We Over-
populated?-John Smith-Slavery-France and America
-The Balearics - Religion-
Religion - Topsy Turvy-Trollope

once more.

THE recent centenary of the death of William Blake, whose radiant and militant spirit surely could never die, was an opportunity, well used, for emphasising the truth that he is one of the master-beings of our race. The celebrations were wide-spread, sincere, and a convincing testimony to his hold on the love and conscience of those who think in English. Prophet and warrior, poet, artist and seer, his work and personality must endure and be an influence for lasting and increasing good; although his books of prophecy are a lost wisdom, meaning next to nothing, for the reason that if once there was a sufficient key to their mysteries that key is lost. Greater than the prophecies, however, are the poems, of innocence, experience, simplicity, inspiration, humanity; and greater even than the poetry was the personality of the man— the little man with the blazing eyes, concentered sanity, restless energy, infinite vision, and fighting spirit, whose activities and ideas doubtless fogged, perplexed, and sometimes angered the fools of his time, but who yet was a true builder of practicable ideals which will make our England greater spiritually, and therefore more potent, among the nations than she was, or could have been, without him.

We have received from Messrs Dent three volumes, which appropriately and happily mark the centenary. They are edited and introduced by Mr Max Plowman, whose thoughtful suggestions tend to the justification of Blake and prove himself to be an authority. They are-a facsimile edition, as close as colour-processes can make it, of 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,' showing how, with Blake, the poet and the artist worked as one ; the graver helping the pen and the pen inspiring the graver; the most complete collection, at a cheap price, yet extant of 'The Poems and Prophecies,' an addition to the

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wonderful 'Everyman' series; and Mr Plowman's own volume, 'An Introduction to the Study of Blake,' and the three works provide an excellent survey of the compass and rich quality of his powers. Hard as the conditions of Blake's life must have been, and no man of British genius, not even Burns, was more driven by the sharpnesses of anxious poverty, he was a happy man; sure in his visions of the ultimate triumph of the angels and himself, rejoicing in his works as they sprang from the eagerness of his hands, mind, and heart. Of all his achievements none was so fortunate as his choice of a wife. But that is an old story; though to omit the fact from any recognition of the victories and glory of Blake would be to play 'Hamlet' without Ophelia, the Gravedigger, and the Ghost together. Let us be thankful for the birth, life, and creative inspirations of William Blake, and for the truth that through his ideals and songs, Jerusalem is being builded in this green and pleasant land in spite of the pessimists.

Of all people, living or once alive, none would more have appreciated Sir Francis Younghusband's book on 'Life in the Stars' (Murray) than William Blake; for therein are touched questions of supreme spiritual, as well as physical, value, and very bold essay is made as to the human constituents of stars which even the telescopic-camera or the spectroscope can barely discern. Of course, pretty well all that Sir Francis suggests and imagines is purest conjecture; but is not all progress in scientific truth merely one more advance into regions of conjecture? He puts forward an inspiring proposition, and it is easily seen that such super-mystery as the origin of life on our modest yet amazing planet is in all probability a part of the universal scheme, and that our life is possibly linked with life elsewhere among the multitudinous worlds. It may be that in some of his details Sir Francis is dangerously precise. That if one in a million, of the five thousand million suns with which the firmament is studded, has human life commensurate with ours, then five thousand worlds must be similarly endowed; and that if it be so, it is not too much to assume that five of those exceptional planets may have life higher than ours, a humanity which compared with that of the Earth may even be angelic

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