SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 63

Report by Margaret Osborne

A prize was offered for an extract from a new Essay of Elia on one of the following subjects: Shaw's Corner in Hertfordshire ; Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Canasta ; the South Bank, 1951; the Stone and the Abbey ; a present-day popular fallacy.

I confess that after I set this competition I began to be in a mild panic of uncertainty about the criteria of Elian-ness, or lack of it, by which I ought to judge the entries. My panic was not much allayed at first glance. Most of the essays could, at more or less of a pinch, have been written by Lamb in one or other of his moods, though perhaps not so many by Elia.

A few chances were spoilt by obvious and unworthy mistakes— one, horresco, though not without smugness, referens, of Latin gender. Some entries were too Elian, overburdened with tags and references. Others I discarded for too much topical axe-grinding. I preferred the light of touch and the timeless. (One possible winner was demoted to an anonymous but otherwise honourable mention on the perhaps illogical grounds that he quoted from a hymn—in itself improbable, I thought—that could not have been written till well after Lamb's death.)

Popular fallacies were indeed popular. The mysteries of Canasta apparently frightened competitors as much as they do the setter. The only Mts. Battle gets, with the prize, my gratitude for being the only one and not too esoteric at that. The Abbey and the Stone, which I expected to be the easiest, with such a close example to follow, turned out to be unpopular and unsuccessful, probably for that reason. Mr. N. Hodgson's Old Rectory was the best of the Shaw's Corners. Its beginning was unfortunately intangibly un-Elian but the end, with its apt Horatian tag, ille terrarum mihi praeter omnes ANGULUS ridet . . .

was excellent. The bright lights and modernism of the South Bank, 1951. were too much for Lamb. Prizes: f1 each to R. Kennard Davis, Michael James, R. J. P. Hewison, Roger Hobden and Cinna. Runners-up, W. M. Mathieson,

J. Rogan, Valerie Ranzetta and G. J. Blundell. 4,

PRIZES (R. KENNARD DAVIS) (A present-day popular fallacy that "This Is the age of the common man") Heaven help us if it were so! But I protest (whether it be due to some special infirmity of vision) that I have never yet set eyes on this phenomenon—this glorious epitome and compendium of humanity. Nor, if I may confess to so unfashionable a particularity, do I greatly desire to do so. For myself, I feel the differences in mankind perhaps to an unhealthy excess. I choose my companions chiefly for some indivi- duality of character which they manifest. When I sit down to a modest repast with G. D. and Will Weatherall and honest Captain Jackson, it is the singularity of each, the special essence, distilled by the alchemy of the viands, the warming liquors, the friendly vapour of the Indian weed, and the unregulated talk that gives savour to the feast. Boil them together in some Medea's cauldron, strain off the individual elements, and present me with the residue, labelled " common man," and my stomach will disrclish it.

This, it seems, is what our modern wiseacres seek to do. From the moment when the child, barely weaned, is snatched from his precious, private world of home to some vast common school, to the hour when he leaves his standard council house to breathe his last in a gaunt Institution, they labour to reduce him to a bare unit in a sum, an un- differentiated figure upon a chart. But Nature, who hateth uniformity and bestoweth a .separate beauty upon every leaf, will not be gainsaid, In his heart, man craves ever for the particular and the rare. 0 ye tribes of planners and statisticians!' I will then believe in the truth of your doctrines when I hear some lover serenading the Common Woman ith an ode!

(MICHAEL JAMES) (Mrs. Battle's opinions on Canasta)

Sometimes, when the mood took her, or when she desired a lighter sport than the serious dedication of whist, she would call for the canasta packs.' It was a silly game, she frequently told me, with a whole new abracadabra of outlandish terms—the meld—the canastra pure—the canasta mixed-Lthe wild card—the freeze—but there could be no doubt that it was modish and that the turn of fortune lent a rejuvenating excitement to the table. However, she steadfastly refused to learn the intricacies of the score. These were even worse than cribbage, she declared, and took such an unconscionable time: those who had elected to hold the pencil were obliged to worry so much over their calculations that they lost all enjoyment in the game.

On one occasion, playing at canasta with two of her nieces and the young fop who was their escort, and the game turning on the hazard of the ultimate up-card, this brave youth declared that at his club they played the American rules. I have never seen the old Lady more magni- ficent in her indignation, as she rose valiantly, a second Boadicea, in defence of her native land.

" I take it, Sir, that you are yourself a colonial, or you would not speak so readily of other rules than those which are followed in this household."

" But Mrs. Battle, ma'am, the game is American."

" And to which country, Sir, would you say the Americans owe eir allegiance ? "

" Why, to this one, for sure."

Sarah Battle, triumphant, modified the cold hauteur of her e)c, and permitted herself to smile.

" Well then, Sir, may we not proceed with our game, in the Enk/ish fashion ? "

(R. J. P. HtwisoN) (A present-day popular fallacy that "The English cannot cook ")

This is as slanderous an aspersion as any we have challenged. English cooking—truly understood—for simplicity of method applied to excel- lence of ingredients, leads the world. Think of roast beef, steak and kidney pudding, buttered eggs, devilled bones, tarts, syllabubs, junkets, flummeries. Are these not English ? Are they not cooking ? They admit, mayhap, to the charge of incorporating a superfiux of the carnivorous. They are solid, made for bluff tastes and healthy appetites. Our English cooks are no fabricators of kickshaws for the titillation of queasy palates.

Praxitcles would have been to seek given aught but the finest Parian, or the true components of his chryselephantine divinities. COW demanded pure gold as the only fit material fortis genius. If French- men and Italians have commenced maestri of sauces and ragoGts, 'tis but perforce—to gild and gloss the toughness of their beef, the poorness of their mutton and the paucity of both. We English deign not to dress ourselves, or our meat, in chains of maccaroni. Jack Cade in a Kentish garden lauded sallets, but his countrymen are more often • herbalists than herbarians. If now our attenuate bill of fare mono- tonously proffers cottage pie and watery greens, with prunes uncustarded for a remove, 'tis because, denied its traditional materials, a nation of artists has lost heart.

This saying is one with that other calumny, that the English are feeble linguists. At High Dutch and Spanish, and such propinquitous and modern instances, we may not shine. These demand but a fugitive and cloistered virtue. Propound a worthy task and, scorning the dust and heat, we bear off the palm. Where but in England shall we encounter such Latinists, such Grecians, Sinologues and mighty discoursers in the subordinate dialects of the Hindoo-Khoosh ?