1764), a clergyman and poet, was noted in the eighteenth century for his
rough satires. For Thomas Gray, see “Andrew Marvell,” n. 23, 219. William
Cowper (1731–1800) was the author of many celebrated lyrics and a long
poem, The Task. Oliver Goldsmith (1730–1774) was the author of The Citizen of the World (1760–1761), a fictional Chinese gentlemen’s account of English manners and mores; The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), a sentimental novel; The Deserted Village (1770), a nostalgic poem about the passing of a simpler, happier, rural past; and She Stoops to Conquer (1773), a play. All these authors, according to the book by Mark Van Doren which Eliot is reviewing, attested
to Dryden’s importance and influence.
5. George Crabbe (1754–1832) was a Romantic poet; Byron defended Pope and
the eighteenth-century poets (implicitly Dryden) in his satirical poem English
Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809). Van Doren argues (265) that the begin-
ning of Poe’s poem “Israfel” was influenced by Dryden.
6. From John Dryden, The Secular Masque (1700), which treats the transition
from one century to another (in Latin, saeculum means “century,” whence the title). Momus is reviewing the achievements of each of the gods in the last
century:
m o m u s : All, all, of a piece throughout;
Pointing to Diana:
Thy Chase had a Beast in View;
to Mars:
Thy Wars brought nothing about;
to Venus:
Thy Lovers were all untrue.
j a n u s : ’Tis well an Old Age is out,
c h r o n o s : And time to begin a New.
The passage is quoted by Van Doren ( John Dryden, 189) without speech
indications, as if it were an independent poem, and Eliot follows him.
7. From Shelley, Hellas: A Lyrical Drama, ll. 1060–1065.
8. The Oxford Book of English Verse, ed. Arthur Quiller-Couch (Oxford:
2 3 6
n o t e s t o e l i o t ’ s p r o s e , p a g e s 17 3 – 17 5
Clarendon, 1900), 700–701. Quiller-Couch excerpts the final chorus from
Hellas and titles it “Hellas.”
9. [Eliot’s note:] John Dryden, by Mark Van Doren (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Howe).
10. “Mac Flecknoe” is a short satirical poem (217 lines) which Dryden wrote and
published for the first time in 1682. Absalom and Achitophel, a longer work (1031 lines), he published a year earlier.
11. Thomas Shadwell (1642?–1692) was an English dramatist and poet. His
plays, written in the tradition of Jonson’s comedy of humours, are noted for
realistic pictures of London life and frank, witty dialogue. They include The
Sullen Lovers (1668), Epsom Wells (1672), and The Squire of Alsatia (1688).
He succeeded Dryden as poet laureate in 1689. Having attacked Dryden in
The Medal of John Bayes (1682), he was lampooned as Og in Dryden’s Absa-
lom and Achitophel, part II, and as “T.S.” and “Sh———” in “Mac Flecknoe.”
Elkanah Settle (1648–1724) is better known to students of music than
of literature; he wrote the lyrics for many songs by Henry Purcell. He is
satirized as the character Doeg in Absalom and Achitophel, part II. Shaftesbury is Anthony Ashley Cooper, first earl of Shaftesbury (1621–1683), an
English statesman who was first a supporter and later an opponent of King
Charles II. Initially a believer in parliamentary government, he came to
oppose the autocratic regime of the English Commonwealth under Oliver
Cromwell, and after Cromwell’s death in 1658 was influential in restoring
Charles II as king of England. He became a key member of the so-called
Cabal, an elite advisory group serving King Charles. In 1660 he was made
privy councillor, in 1661 chancellor of the exchequer, and in 1672 earl of
Shaftesbury. But in 1673, after the king’s brother James, duke of York, had
publicly acknowledged his conversion to Roman Catholicism, Shaftesbury
renounced his earlier religious toleration and supported the anti-Catholic
Test Acts. He was dismissed from oªce and in 1678 supported the anti-
Catholic agitation connected with the Popish Plot. As leader of the Whig
faction in Parliament, he opposed the duke of York as heir to the throne.
In 1681 Shaftesbury was held for treason, but was released and fled to Hol-
land, where he died on 21 January 1683. Dryden, who himself converted to
Catholicism, satirizes Shaftesbury in Absalom and Achitophel. George Villiers (1628–1687), the second duke of Buckingham, was a member of the Cabal
and was made a privy councillor. He wrote a play, The Rehearsal (1671), which patronizes John Dryden. He was dismissed from oªce in 1674 on charges
of misusing public funds, but continued to intrigue with the duke of York
until he retired from politics in 1681. He, too, is satirized by Dryden in
Absalom and Achitophel.
12. Of the four lines quoted immediately below by Eliot, Dryden quotes the first
in his “Author’s Apology for Heroic Poetry and Poetic Licence,” which pref-
aced The State of Innocence (1677); see John Dryden, Of Dramatic Poesy and Other Critical Essays, ed. George Watson (London: J. M. Dent, 1962), vol. 1, 205.
13. Eliot is quoting from Davideis, an unfinished epic poem on the life of David
n o t e s t o e l i o t ’ s p r o s e , p a g e s 17 5 – 17 9
2 3 7
by Abraham Cowley (on him, see “Andrew Marvell,” n. 6, 217). Eliot’s
quotation splices together lines 79–80 and 75–76.
14. John Dryden, “Mac Flecknoe,” ll. 72–78.
15. On François Villon, see “Andrew Marvell,” n. 38, 221.
16. Matthew Arnold, “Thomas Gray” (1880), in The Complete Prose Works of
Matthew Arnold, ed. R. H. Super (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,
1960–1977), vol. 9, English Literature and Irish Politics (1973), 202. Arnold’s passage on Dryden is quoted in Van Doren, John Dryden, the book Eliot is
ostensibly reviewing, on 322.
17. Walter Pater, “Style,” Appreciations: With an Essay on Style (London: Macmillan, 1899; rpt. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1987), 7. Pater’s
comment on Dryden is quoted by Van Doren, John Dryden, 324. For Eliot’s
view of Pater, see “Prose and Verse,” 162.
18. William Hazlitt, “On Dryden and Pope,” lecture IV in Lectures on the English Poets, in P. P. Howe (ed.), The Complete Works of William Hazlitt (London: J. M. Dent, 1930), vol. 6, 68.
19. For Mallarmé see “Prose and Verse,” n. 23, 225.
20. Pope’s “portrait of Addison” (the essayist Joseph Addison [1672–1719]) takes
up ll. 193–214 of his “Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot” (1735).
21. Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, part I, ll. 156–158.
22. Dryden, “Cymon and Iphigenia, from Bocacce,” Fables, ll. 399–408. The
same passage is quoted, with the same punctuation that Eliot uses, in Van
Doren, John Dryden, 213.
23. Eliot is quoting from Dryden’s poem “Alexander’s Feast, or the Power of Mu-
sic; an Ode in Honour of St. Cecilia’s Day,” ll. 66–68 (the entire poem is 180
lines long). The poem, a classic representative of the ode, features a famous
flute player named Timotheus. This passage is not quoted by Van Doren.
24. John Milton, Paradise Lost, V, 407–413.
25. Nathaniel Lee (c. 1653–1692) is chiefly known for having co-written Oedipus: A Tragedy (1696) and a Preface to John Dryden’s opera The State of Innocence, and Fall of Man (1677), from which Eliot is quoting
here.
26. John Dryden, “Author’s Apology for Heroic Poetry and Poetic Licence,”
which served as his preface to The State of Innocence (1677); see Dryden,
Of Dramatic Poesy and Other Critical Essays, vol. 1, 196. Eliot will next quote lines 1–6 from that opera.
27. John Dryden, Miscellany Poems, in Two Parts: Containing New Translations of
Virgil’s Eclogues, Ovid’s Love-Elegies, several parts of Virgil’s Aeneid, Lucretius, Theocritus, Horace etc. (London: Jacob Tonson, 1685).
28. John Dryden, All for Love (1678), ed. N. J. Andrew (New York: Norton, 1975), II.281–291, 295–296. The play is a restaging of the Antony and Cleopatra
story, and both passages here are addressed to Cleopatra by Antony. Neither
is quoted by Van Doren.
29. “The Indian Emperor must have sounded suddenly and loudly like a gong.
Dryden broke forth in it with consummate rhetoric, consummate blu¤, and
consummate rhyme” (Van Doren, John Dryden, 110).
2 3 8
n o t e s t o e l i o t ’ s p r o s e , p a g e s 18 0 – 18 3
30. John Dryden, Aureng-Zebe (1675), ed. Frederick M. Link (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1971), II.257–267 and 272–279. The play dramatizes
the virtuous activities of Aurengzebe, a son who defends his aging father,
the emperor, against the intrigues of his brother and various high oªcials.
31. Pierre Corneille (1606–1684) and Jean Racine (1639–1699) are the two
great French tragedians of the seventeenth century, more or less contempo-
raries of Dryden.
32. Charles Baudelaire, ll. 21–22 of “Les Petites Vielles” (Little old women), first published in 1859 and then collected in the second edition of Les Fleurs du
mal (1860): “Have you ever noted how some coªns of little old women /
Are almost as small as that of a child?”
33. Dryden, Aureng-Zebe, V.301–303. Eliot has spliced together speeches spoken by di¤erent characters:
i n d a m o r a : His love so sought, he’s happy that he’s dead.
O had I courage but to meet my Fate,
That short dark passage to a future state,
That melancholy riddle of a breath.
n o u r m a h a l : That something, or that nothing, after death:
Take this, and teach thy self. [ Giving a dagger. ]
The passage is not quoted by Van Doren.
34. John Dryden, “To the Memory of Mr. Oldham” (1684); Eliot quotes the entire
poem.
London Letter, July 1921
1. Although dated July 1921 by the editors of the Dial, the essay was probably written in mid-June. On the one hand, it refers to two new ballets, Cuadro
Flamenco and Chout, which premiered in London on 29 May and 9 June, respectively; and it refers to a photograph of Einstein which was published
in the Daily News on 11 June (see n. 3, 239). On the other hand, it contains no reference to Le Sacre du printemps, which was first given with new choreography on 27 June. Yet Le Sacre is conspicuously mentioned in Eliot’s next London Letter, September 1921. It is reasonable to infer that the essay was
written before Le Sacre had premiered but after the photograph of Einstein
was published, or sometime between 11 and 27 June. On the Dial, see
London Letter, March 1921, n. 1, 202.
2. The Daily News, 17 June 1921, 5, col. 4: “The Drought / Lowest Rainfall for /
35 Years / Parched Crops”:
There was again no rain yesterday, and the drought has now lasted—
with slight showers, which can hardly be taken into account—nearly
five months.
In January the fall of rain was very slightly above the average. Of the
136 days which have elapsed since the end of the month, 89 have been
n o t e s t o e l i o t ’ s p r o s e , p a g e 18 3
2 3 9
entirely rainless and of the others the total fall recorded amounts to only
3.6 in.
The normal figure for January to June over a long period of years is
rather more than 11 inches. The fall this year has been slightly over six
inches. Since September, the amount of rain which has fallen has been,
except for two months, below the normal average of the past 35 years.
Charles John Darling (1849–1936) was appointed a justice in October
1897 and served until his resignation in November 1923. His reign as a
media favorite began in 1918, when he presided over a sensational libel trial
brought forward when the beautiful American dancer Maud Allen sued the
Conservative MP and journalist Noel Pemberton Billing, who had charged
her with lesbianism (part of his crusade to stop the first London production
of Wilde’s Salomé). The trial became the most well-publicized since Wilde’s
in 1895, and newspapers followed it obsessively. Darling was soon noted for
his double-edged witticisms. “The Law is open to all . . . just like the doors
of the Ritz Hotel” was only one among many. His comment that he could
not distinguish between Albert Einstein and Jacob Epstein the sculptor is
probably an invention of Eliot’s.
3. Albert Einstein, returning from the United States to Germany, disembarked
from the steamship Celtic in England on 8 June 1921. That same day he gave
the Adamson Lecture at the University of Manchester. On 10 June he went to
London, where he was greeted at the railway station by Lord Richard Burdon
Haldane (1856–1928), the first viscount Cloane, a former politician who also
had lively scientific interests. Einstein gave an address to the Royal Astro-
nomical Society, then was taken to Burlington House to see Newton’s por-
trait, and then to a dinner at Lord Haldane’s house with distinguished guests
who included George Bernard Shaw, Arthur Stanley Eddington, Alfred
North Whitehead, and the archbishop of Canterbury. Einstein resumed his
round of appearances on Monday, 13 June: he went to Westminster Abbey,
where he left a gift of flowers at the tomb of Isaac Newton, then to King’s
College, where he gave a lecture that was extensively covered in the press.
He appeared in a photograph together with Lord Haldane in the Daily News,
11 June 1921, 5, col. 4, under the headline “Some Einstein Perplexities.”
The caption read: “Professor Einstein, who is spending the week-end with
Lord Haldane, enjoying a joke with his host outside his chambers in Queen
Anne’s Gate, yesterday.”
4. The Pons-Winnecke comet was visible from England around 17 June, and
newspapers reported on its appearance. See the Times, 1 June 1921, 4, col. 5,
“Stars of the Month.” A report on “the sunspots” appeared in the Daily News,
10 June 1921, 6, col. 5, under the headline: “sunspots’ new turn. / Electrical
Chases Round a / Discomfited World”:
The rotation of the sun on its axis has again brought the great
sunspot area visible, and telescopic observation shows that the titanic
convulsion in the photosphere is still in progress.
2 4 0
n o t e s t o e l i o t ’ s p r o s e , p a g e s 18 3 – 18 4
Other sunspots may appear at any time while the unrest continues,
for the region of the sun involved is little short of 2,000,000,000
square miles. The whole of this region, there is reason to believe, is a
huge magnetic field, and it is continually discharging streams of elec-
trified particles into space.
These particles, should they come earthwar
ds, enter the upper strata
of the atmosphere and set free its potential electricity, which runs amok,
as it were, round the earth, causing aurorae at both poles, upsetting the
normal records of the instruments which record the phenomena of ter-
restrial magnetism, and at times, as last month, rendering temporarily
useless the world’s telegraphic systems.
If there is a repetition of these happenings this month we may
expect it during the next few days.
A discovery which, in the opinion of Dr. Crommelin, of Greenwich
Observatory, “seems to make it desirable to rediscuss the dynamics
of the stellar system,” has just been made by Dr. Pannekoek, a Dutch
scientist.
He has demonstrated the existence of a gas or dust cloud to the right
of Orion’s belt, the area of which, he says, is twenty thousand million
times greater than that of the sun.
“The poisonous jellyfish and Octopus at Margate” are probably Eliot’s
inventions, reports of the sort that typically appear in what is now called
“the silly season,” the time when Parliament is in recess, theaters have
closed, and there is a dearth of news.
5. On Robert Lynd, see London Letter, May 1921, n. 21, 233. It is not known
where Lynd made the comment which Eliot attributes to him. For J. C.
Squire, see London Letter, March 1921, n. 16, 206.
6. The Daily News, 17 June 1921, 5, col. 7, “news in brief: A New Complaint”:
“Many people are su¤ering from a complaint resembling influenza, due, it is
stated, to germs being blown about in the air owing to the non-watering of
the roads.”
7. A strike by miners began on 1 April 1921 and lasted for four months. The
complex negotiations between the owners and workers were closely followed
by the press. They came back into prominence when the owners and the
unions met on Friday, 10 June 1921. See Daily News, 10 June 1921, 1, col. 7:
“Coal Peace in Sight? / To-Day’s Conference of Delegates.”
8. Eliot’s sentence is a pastiche of two motifs from the Old Testament. One
derives from the prophet Jeremiah, who repeatedly laments that the people
of Israel “have forgotten the Lord their God” (Jeremiah 3:21), or since God