us to lines of seven and eight beats (the latter is exemplified by the line last quoted); while Tennyson, in two pieces lately mentioned in these pages, ventured on nine beats. Three metrical experiments, printed here on March 28th,' essayed extension to ten and eleven. It must not be supposed that there is any difficulty in writing much longer lines, so far as grammar and sense are concerned. The question is merely at what stage such lines cease to impress as single entities. Here, for example, is one of those lines doubled in length, by crude enough methods, yet without introducing any grammatical pause:

With an arrowy rush and a thunderous roar, from the storm-shattered crest of the eminent mountain around and adown to the slumbering valley the masterful hurricane dreadfully leaps in delirious frenzy of virulent wrath.

That is a "twenty-stress" line, unhelped by internal rhyme or assonance; but would any one call it a real single line? Does it not impress simply as a congeries of shorter lines of five four-stress unrhyming lines, perhaps— which for a freak have been printed as one? Is there any more real unity in it than in the following, which every one will say are cases of four lines printed as one?

Come not back again to labor, come not back again to suffer, where the famine and the fever wear the body, waste the brain;

Soon my task will be completed, soon your footsteps I shall follow to the islands of the blessed, where we two shall meet again.

The natural limit seems to vary with race and speech-habit. Persian and Arabian poetry, I understand, habit

1 In No. 2. of these, "tremble and shriek" should have been "tremble and shrink," and the next line had a superfluous comma after "destruction." Otherwise the printing was admirably correct.

But such eccentricities serve only to show how unnatural to us is either a very short or a very long line.

The real limit, seemingly, is our power of co-ordination. Any line which cannot be comfortably grasped as a whole, either when heard or when presented to the eye, fails to give pleasure, and is shunned by the poet accordingly. It is partly matter of habit and

"Frederick York Powell." By Oliver Elton (1906). Vol. II., pp. 390, 394.

training. Six-beat lines were thought dangerously long less than a century ago; to Eighteenth Century readers an eight-beat line would have sounded monstrous. What our poets may have yet in store for us cannot be foretold, but it seems unlikely that our present metres can be considerably prolonged without other modification. As it is, most eight-beat lines tend to break into two halves; with ten or twelve the tendency would be still greater. For this reason, probably, Tennyson selected nine rather than ten for his experiment, and it cannot be said that his lines show no tendency to separate. Those "To Virgil," indeed, are usually The Academy,

printed as containing two unequal portions. Skilful use of rhyme and alliteration may help the reader through a long line, but there is the danger that these may emphasize rather than neutralize division. The practice of poets must decide the issue. Riper students of verse may suggest considerations overlooked by me; but, in the long run, it is practice alone which at once educates and decides. Solvitur ambulando. If our poets find that still longer lines will "go," they will write them, and then we may be able to see how and why they "go"; till then, prediction is probably, as usual, futile.

T. S. O.

The Government of India on Monday last armed itself with more effective safeguards against two grave perils to the public peace and the security of its rule. The law as it stood did not provide adequate means of dealing promptly with an Anarchist plot, the organizers of which were beginning to make and throw explosive bombs; nor did it enable the authorities to stop the traffic in explosive material of a yet more dangerous nature, in the shape of incentives to murder, outrage, and revolt, scattered far and wide by the newspaper press. An Explosives Bill and a Press Bill were laid before the Legislative Council and passed at a single sitting, the ordinary rules of procedure being suspended and the official majority crushing all opposition. The step taken by Lord Minto's Government, and of course sanctioned beforehand by Lord Morley, was abundantly justified. The reasons given by the Viceroy and by Sir Harvey Adamson, who as Member in charge of the Home Department is virtually Minister of the Interior, are unanswerable "The

danger is great and imminent," Sir Harvey Adamson declared, "and it is necessary to act quickly and with a strong hand." An iniquitous conspiracy has been discovered, employing murderous methods hitherto unknown in India; and it must be suppressed with the least possible delay. After the outrage at Mozufferpore, and the attempts to murder Sir Andrew Fraser and a French official at Chandranagore, there could be no two opinions as to the urgent and imperative necessity of amending the law relating to the possession and sale of explosives. On this point, it may be assumed, everyone will be agreed. In regard, however, to the Press Act, both the Viceroy and Lord Morley have no doubt been prepared for hostile criticism; and it is desirable that people in England should clearly understand the grounds upon which their action is based. The new Act is intended to give the Executive the power of suppressing newspapers which incite their readers to murder, to armed revolt, and to secret diabolical schemes

against the lives and property of Englishmen and, not infrequently, of Indians who are friends to British rule. Assassination and outrage have been unblushingly advocated; and, as Lord Minto says, the sale of this literary poison cannot be tolerated. It has been tolerated, in fact, too long. The unparalleled virulence, the abominable wickedness of journals like the Yugantar and Bande Mataram would justify even more stringent measures than are contemplated in the Press act.

The real question is whether the action now legalized is rigorous enough. The evil against which it is aimed calls for the strongest measures. At the Indian Civil Service dinner Lord Morley did not attempt to minimize the gravity of the situation. What was clear, he said, "was that heavy clouds had arisen on the horizon, and they were now sailing over the Indian skies. That could not be denied. But having paid the utmost attention that one could he did not for a moment feel that the discovery of a secret society, or a secret organization, involved any question of an earthquake. He preferred to look upon it as a passing cloud. He did not say that they would not have to take pretty strong measures of one sort or another if they wanted to remove that bank of clouds. They had got a dark and ugly moment, but he was convinced that they would go through with it without quackery and without cant." It is no longer possible to argue that the vaporings of the seditious Indian journalist are wordy nonsense; the hysterical effusions of a few disaffected and desperate, but not formidable, mischief-makers who are quite incapable of compassing a hundredth part of the crimes they advocate. For the matter of that we adhere to the view that coercion was urgently demanded, in the interests of the people of India, long ago. Lord Lytton's Press Act ought never

to have been repealed. There has seldom been a time when valid arguments might not have been adduced for reimposing its penalities. This was especially the case in 1897, after the assassination of Lieutenant Ayerst and Mr. Rand at Poona. But the point now is that recent occurrences and the imminence of the danger at the present moment have satisfied both the Viceroy and Lord Morley that a blow must be struck at the outrageous license of a scurrilous and malignant Press. Sir Harvey Adamson referred to "a new crime." Some features of the crime are not new, but that does not alter the case. The authorities in India insist that a crisis has arrived which compels them to do what they had wished to avoid. Lord Morley, the last man in the world to be hurried into impetuous activity, is of the same opinion. As we have already hinted, the only doubt is whether, even now, the Government is prepared to go far enough in regulating the sale of literary poison. The probability is that within the next month or two the value of the Press Act will be put to a practical test. The native Indian journalist occasionally propounds the most treasonable sentiments with an ingenuity which makes it difficult to bring him to book. For that form of sedition the new Act provides no remedy. There are plenty of newspapers, however, which have never condescended to these arts; and some at any rate are not likely to be deterred from their customary ways by anything but extinction. We may expect, therefore, before long to see whether the powers with which the Executive is now armed will suffice for the speedy and final suppression of a journal when it next makes an appeal to the passions of an ignorant mob and calls for vengeance on the Feringhis who would interfere with the right of speech.

It will be noted that Lord Minto him

self admits that it may be necessary to amend the Press Act. It would not do to say so in the Council Chamber, but the Viceroy perhaps feels a little uneasy as to the readiness of the High Courts to back up the Executive. Under the Act, the conductors of a newspaper may appeal to those tribunals against a warrant of forfeiture issued by a magistrate. A leading English journal in India regards this clause as a most unfortunate provision; and certainly a good deal will depend on the temper and perspicacity of the judges who may have to hear such appeals. But it is scarcely a permissible form of contempt of court to suggest that a miscarriage of justice is probable or possible. All that can be said is that, if the Act fails to answer its purpose, stronger measures must be resorted to. Should the necessity arise, it is within the prerogative of the Governor-General in Council to issue ordinances which would enable the Executive to dispense with any sort of judicial process; and such ordinances would hold good for a period long enough to permit of most effective action. It may seem, by the way, a curious irony

The Outlook.

of fate, to use Lord Minto's expression, that at a time when proposals are under consideration for enlarging the legislative councils, the Government of India should have found itself compelled to suspend the ordinary rules of the supreme legislative chamber in order to carry a measure which not one of the Indian members would support. Most of them showed their disapproval by absenting themselves. The three who attended, though they spoke in favor of the Explosives Bill, loudly denounced the hasty manner in which the Press Bill was passed. They even suggested that at least a month ought to be allowed for calmly discussing its provisions. Advocates of constitutional reform will be puzzled to find, in the situation thus disclosed, any valid argument in favor of giving educated and public-spirited Indian gentlemen a larger voice in the control of public affairs. A measure urgently required for the public safety, and only open to the criticism that it ought to be more rigorous, had to be passed by closure and by the weight of an official majority.

As its title leads us to suppose, this interesting volume is a plea for the recognition of folklore as a historical science. Seeing that the barrier between history and folklore is still unbroken, in spite of the efforts of Miss Harrison, Dr. Frazer, and others, the author has resolved to destroy it once for all, and has endeavored to convince us that historical fact is often the essence of tradition, and that we must look to folklore for most if not all our light on the early stages of the

"Folklore as a Historical Science." By G. L. Gomme. Pp. xvi-371. (London: Methuen and Co., n.d.) Price 7s. 6d. net.

psychological, social, and political development of modern man. In support of his argument, and by way of illustration, he has drawn on his vast store of instances, and discussed legends attached to places and historical persons, folk-tales such as Catskin, Faithful John, &c., which imply savage social conditions, and tribal laws and rules, rhythmical if not in verse, which have been handed down by word of mouth and preserved in historical times. Yet, in spite of the proofs at his command, he fears that the historians may refuse to admit the value of folklore as evidence, and be