... by ANTHONY COOKMAN MR. T. S. ELIOT is a fine but difficult poet whose almost inhuman distrust of earthly love has given his poetry a distinctive flavour. His detached criticism of the most universal of the emotions has helped to make him the idol of several generations of intellectuals. His latest play (seen at the Edinburgh Festival and opening shortly at the Cambridge) is going to give his ...

... Elizabeth Betven TO-MORROW IS ALREADY HERE, by Robert Jungle (Hart-Davis; 16s.), is sub-titled Scenes from a Man made World, and is, in my view, as grim a book as we are likely to have for many a season. For here is a picture, not of swift mass-extinction under atomic warfare, but of the slow subjugation of humanity by inhuman forces now taking place in atomic peacetime. Man, stated Shelley ...

... All X-lliiy Is Turned On Dean Swift Elizabeth Bewen A NOVEL by a great poet is something more than fiction-- it not only tells a story, it illuminates life. We must be glad that Edith Sitwell's I LIVE UNDER A BLACK SUN, which first appeared in 1937, is once again available; published by Peter Owen, Ltd., at 6s. Moreover, the theme of the story is one which has fascinated so many imaginations-- ...

... CJf ttjL The Globe Revue (Globe) GOOD revues have a way of popping up unexpectedly. The talents of a perhaps unknown company combine suddenly with mysterious felicity, and the trick is done. It happened again at the Lyric, Hammersmith, last summer. The unknown company was brought to the Globe and there became very well known indeed, sending patrons away happily persuaded that they had seen ...

... MAURICE LINDSAY, in writing his ROBERT BURNS (Macgibbon and Kee; 18s.), deals with the Man, his Work, and the Legend. He also delivers a knockout blow to a good deal of senti mental Burnsism. Much of the Burns cult has gone too far: to the non-Scot it is wearisome, putting-off; and to a Scot (himself a poet and critic), impassioned for the authentic genius and for the realities of his country, ...

... Ilorse Sense Criticus 99 EVEN to attempt to compress two hundred years of history into about three hundred pages of a book is a task which would appal most people, no matter how high their courage; yet it has not daunted Mr. Vincent Orchard, for he has presented the world with a book called Tailersall’s (Hutchinson, 30s.) being the veracious record of the famous firm of (originally) ...

... THE PRINCE OF DOGDOM Elizabeth Bowen THE dog has got more fun out of Man than Man has got out of the dog, for the clearly demonstrable reason that Man is the more laughable of the two animals. Who said this-- Dr. Johnson? No; James Thurber, whose THURBER'S DOGS (Hamish Hamilton; 12S. 6d.) is the ultimate and comprehensive. sive dog book. There have been more dogs (we learn from the jacket) ...

... PROGRAMMES in honour of Remem brance Sunday can be awaited in the assur ance of TV's proven capacity for rising to historic and ceremonial occasions. After the Cenotaph Service S on Sunday, the evening play, The S Silent People, is devoted (cryptically) s to the war record of a little-known S branch of the armed services. S Author Duncan Ross, once one of the B.B.C.'s most authoritative ...

... l&JL- The Square ISiui (Lrrie. Hammersmith) Anthony C'ookman IN a crossword puzzle the appropriate clue for this piece would be No sort of play for Simon Tappertit (3, 6, 4). Mr. Tappertit did not like human gore, and The Square Ring fairly spouts the stuff. But if you have no objection to oodles of red paint and the painful gaspings of men who have been battered almost out of recognition ...

... By E. V. Knox THE difficulty about dealing with Shelley's father-in-law is that if you don't treat him as a humbug his character hardly seems to emerge at all. If he had merely been an excellent and prolific writer (in his vast output, besides historical studies, there are two really good novels), we should not perhaps trouble about what manner of man he was. But a moral and political ...

... Elizabeth Bowen CORTÉS AND MONTEZUMA, by Maurice Collis (Faber; 15s.), relates a story more strange than imagina tion could have devised: a page out of history at its most dramatic. Prescott's Conquest of Mexico-- a masterpiece, in spite of what may be said of its starched prose-- was written, we are reminded, a hundred years ago: since then, scholar ship has thrown light upon much of which ...

... CLfc $AJL The llitit's ...