of view of the progress of the scientific side of his research. Possibly if he knew me he might realise that I can derive happiness from a point of view differing both from his and from that of the most human of all the saints.

I remain, yours truly,

WILLIAM PLATT.

4,

Hallswelle Road, Golders Green, London, N.W. 11.

'ROBERT POLEY: AN ASSOCIATE OF MARLOWE.'

To the Editor of the NINETEENth Century And After. SIR,-May I venture to supplement Dr. F. S. Boas' very interesting article on Robert Poley that appeared in The Nineteenth Century for October. The recent focus of interest on Poley and others of the associates of Christopher Marlowe, on both sides of the Atlantic, makes even so minor an addition as mine of potential value. Dr. Boas remarks that Ede and Yeomans agree that Poley was liberated from the Tower about, or just after, Michaelmas in 1588, and questions with much reason the possible inference that that concludes a term of two years'' continuous' imprisonment. By good fortune, the bills of the Lieutenant of the Tower (during those years, a Sir Owen Hopton)' for the fees and custody of prisoners of State' are preserved, and in excellent condition, at the Public Record Office. In three of these bills (E407/56, Nos. 44, 47, and 50) mention is made of Poley. The final entry of his name to be found there confirms Yeomans'' about Michaelmas' to a nicety:

(No. 50.) Item for the diet & chardges of Robarte Pollye beginninge the xxiiijth of June 1588 and endinge the xxixth of September then next followinge beeing xiiijteene weeks at xiijs iiijd the weeke for himselfe ixli vjs viijd one keeper at vs the weeke iijli xs ffewell and candell at iiijs the weeke lvjs Summa ❖ xvli xijs viijd.'

Prior to June 24, 1588, Poley seems to have enjoyed a space of freedom, for there is no bill for his expenses in the preceding quarter. But it will be difficult indeed to reconcile with the dates of his earlier (his second) imprisonment Mistress Hollford's deposition, circumstantial as it is, that Poley was behaving in a scandalous manner at Mistress Brown's house ⚫ about Shrovetide last.' For Shrovetide in 1588 was in February; and Poley was immured from Christmas Day in 1587 till the following Lady Day, as appears in one of the Tower bills:

(No. 47.) Item for . . . Robert Poolie beginninge the xxvth of December 1587 and ending the xxvth of March then next followinge beeing xiijteen weekes... Summa xiiijli xs iiijd.'

Without doubting Poley's culpability, yet one must ask if Mistress Agnes Hollford's indignant memory was not slightly astray as to the date, unless one may read the evidence 'Shrovetyde Anno Domini 1585.' There are then no conflicting dates. I submit the amendment very diffidently, but the figures seem plain.

Poley would seem to have been his own master, too, for a year and a

quarter between his first and second recorded imprisonments. For his confinement to the Tower in the first instance, with Babington and the other conspirators, the only occasion which can be viewed as a 'blind' to his Papist friends, seems to have been of brief duration :

(No. 44.) Item for the dyett and chardgs of Robte Pawley beginninge the xviijth of Auguste 1586 and endinge the Laste of September then next folowinge beinge syx wicks at xiijs iiijd the wicke for hymselfe iiijli one keaper at vs the wicke xxxs ffewell and Candell at iiijs the wicke xxiiijs Amountinge to the Somme of ◇◇ vjäi xiiij3.'

So again here is positive support for Dr. Boas' assumption that in February 1586-7, when Poley sought renewed credit and service with Leicester (vainly, one must infer), he was indeed at liberty, though out of favour with his masters. His other employer, Sir Francis (Mr. Secretary) Walsingham, seems to have been more placable, and two months after delivering Poley from the Tower gave him employment, even until his (Mr. Secretary's) death in 1590, as a messenger to and from the Courts abroad,' for her majesties affaires.'

Girton College,
Cambridge.

I am, sir, yours faithfully,

EUGÉNIE De Kalb.

Communications should be addressed to the Editor of the NINETEENTH CENTURY AND AFTER, 10 & 12, Orange Street, Leicester Square, W.C. 2.

Letters as well as articles will be considered for publication, but letters should be confined to criticism or amplification of articles which have already appeared in the Review. No anonymous contribution is published.

THE past few months have witnessed a very welcome revival of interest in this country in foreign affairs, and if the comment upon them which has appeared in certain sections of the Press has not always given evidence of a very profound appreciation of the issues at stake, it is at any rate satisfactory that the problem of Great Britain's attitude towards her neighbours is at last receiving some attention from the ordinary citizen. 'The modern tendency to leave all save the simplest of political questions to the specialist has of late years been very much pronounced where international problems have been concerned, and the electorate of to-day is by no means so well informed upon these matters as was that of the pre-war era, but signs are not wanting that a reaction against this indifference is to some extent setting in, and of this the interest aroused by the ill-fated Anglo-French Naval Agreement is conclusive evidence.

Unfortunately, there is a marked tendency among those who discuss, either in print or upon the platform, the policy which

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they consider the Government should pursue to take sides, and to maintain that the only salvation of the country lies in an alliance with France or with the United States of America. There have always been, and probably there always will be, two schools of thought in the matter of British foreign policy, the one maintaining that England must never forget that she is primarily a European Power, and the other declaring that she should turn her back upon Europe and think solely of her Imperial responsibilities. Neither counsel is that of perfection, and their respective value varies from time to time according to circumstances; on the whole, however, the via media between the two extremes is the path generally to be preferred, and such is the case at the present moment. There is no need to make the Foreign Office an annexe either of the Quai d'Orsay at Paris or of the State Department at Washington.

Before, however, analysing the arguments either of the proFrench or of the pro-American party it is as well to decide what the aim of British foreign policy should be, and then to consider the international conditions in which this policy is to be pursued.

There can, one imagines, be no two opinions on the fact that the chief object of British statesmanship at the present time is to preserve the peace of the world, while taking every precaution that if war breaks out the Empire shall not be implicated unless, as was the case fourteen years ago, national interests are at stake. One would have thought that the sacrifices made by Great Britain in the cause of peace were sufficiently obvious to silence the most convinced of Anglophobes, but unfortunately such has not proved to be the case, and the cry of perfide Albion still raises a cheer on the extreme Left and on the extreme Right in more than one European country. In this connexion it is to be hoped that M. Rostand's play will not be regarded as in any way typical of public opinion in France, but it is significant that a French novelist who should have known better has accused the British Government of financing Abd-el-Krim, while the Communist charges against Sir Austen Chamberlain of counter-revolutionary activities in Russia are too well known to require more than a passing mention. In a way it is perhaps as well that these accusations should be brought, for they serve to remind us that, however pure our motives may appear to ourselves, their altruism is by no means so obvious to our critics on the other side of the Channel and of the Atlantic.

On the other hand, successive British Administrations have shown that all three parties are agreed that the maintenance of peace is the basis of the Empire's foreign policy. In pursuit of this ideal not only has the old claim to the mastery of the sea, upheld for centuries, been abandoned, but parity of naval arma

ments with another Power has been adopted in its place as a fixed principle. The Army, proved in numerous wars to be second to none in the world, has been reduced to the strength of a police force, while both its training and its reserves have been curtailed to an extent which many competent critics declare to be excessive for safety. While, lastly, by the Pact of Locarno the British Government pledged itself, in a way quite unprecedented in the recent history of the country, to come to the aid of the League of Nations if, in certain circumstances, there appeared to be a threat of war from any quarter. It is true that the Geneva Protocol was rejected, not, as is sometimes alleged, solely by the Conservative Administration of Mr. Baldwin, but by the vast majority of the electorate at the last General Election; yet, so far as the British Empire is concerned, the Protocol contained pledges which could never have been carried out, and in this case the refusal to sign it surely argues good faith rather than duplicity, an attitude which also characterises the reservations which the Foreign Office so wisely made to the Kellogg Pact.

If, then, it be admitted, as it is by every section of opinion in the country, that the preservation of international peace is the principal object of British foreign policy, the question thus arises whether this end can best be served by isolation or by making alliances and agreements with other Powers, either in Europe or in America, and it is on this problem that controversy centres at the present time. In short, there is general agreement as to the end which it is desirable to attain, but there is a great conflict of opinion as to the means of attaining it, and a decision is not made any easier by the lack of clear thinking, and sometimes even of common honesty, only too often displayed by the protagonists on both sides.

There are still those who believe that utter isolation from the rest of the world is possible, and who urge upon the Foreign Office a policy of complete detachment-at any rate, so far as European affairs are concerned. Inasmuch as this attitude is a reaction against the continued interference in Continental politics which was so prominent a characteristic of the Administration of Mr. Lloyd George and of Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, it is natural and by no means to be deprecated, but it can undoubtedly be pushed too far, and in any event it ignores certain very important facts. In the first place, Great Britain is already committed in certain circumstances by the Locarno Pact to armed intervention on the mainland of Europe, and, however injudicious it may have been at the time to enter into an engagement of this sort, to repudiate it now would be one of those remedies that are worse than the original disease, for it would produce chaos once more.