Talk About Drink
The Compleat Imbiber Number Two : An Enter- tainment. Edited by Cyril Ray, designed by F. H. K. Henrion. (Putnam, 25s.) The Corn pleat Imbiber, Number Two, claims to be no more than an anthology. So you might well think that it's the sort of book you can take up every now and then—or skim through. Treat this book like that if you like. If you read it at all, it will give the editor and the publishers great pleasure. That's how I meant to treat it : but I found myself reading it from beginning to end—just as if it were a `gripping thriller' or an exciting novel. But did that finish it for me? Not at all! I wanted to go back, to look again at the illustrations, the make-up (if that's the right word), the decor (that's a better word), for which Mr. Henrion is responsible.
This kind of rave notice by someone who is neither an established nor an important critic may sound like a blurb. I can only say that I did not think it possible to enjoy a book of this kind so much : and that I am grateful for having had the chance to read it. Where else could you find T. E. B. Clarke at his most amus- ing; Raymond Postgate at his least pompous; Siriol Hugh Jones at her wittiest; Maurice Wiggin combining wine-loving and fishing—with Paul Dehn, Angus Wilson and James Laver in- cluded for good measure? Yes, and Dilys Powell, too: and a delightful account of an exercise in viticulture by Sir Guy Salisbury-Jones. And for those who knew James Agate as no more than a legend, or for whom his name is nothing more than a memory, Edgar Lustgarten's all-too-brief but economically phrased little essay 'A Drink With Jimmy' (with a remarkably evocative illus- tration) alone makes the book well worth its price even if there were nothing else to recommend it. But there's a lot more than that—including some wonderful anecdotes, which (when I find the chance) I intend to pass off as my own. By the way, Lady Elizabeth Montagu should know that her story about the drunken butler and Sir Austen Chamberlain was, I believe, authentically about Mrs. Ronald Greville (the hostess) and Lady Chamberlain.
It's a delightful book. It comes up or down to your own level—it even translates the Latin verse. The editor asks : 'How best can an editor usher in the talents that sit silent under his baton?' the answer? In the way in which Mr.
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