Welsh Journals

of general reference and effective direction do not yet exist: There is no national body responsible for studying the work of the universities as a whole and considering how far all essential fields of thought are covered." The same lack of effective interest is felt even in the application of finance. The Grants Committee, for instance, has no machinery for the detailed investigation of university problems." Vice- Chancellors and Principals sit and deliberate but no reports have ever been issued." The absence of any central concern for the essential (as opposed to. the adminis- trative) problems of the universities, taken together-or even grouped regionally- does not appear to have struck anyone so forcibly hitherto. But now new responsibilities must be faced and new machinery invented. Turning in those directions which offer the greatest opportunities, the author sees the universities devoting themselves to vast schemes of scientific expansion with aeronautics to the fore. Huge sums will have to be appropriated and will no doubt, be thoroughly, if not always wisely, employed. How much, one wonders, is going to be left for Arts ? Or rather, the question is How much are Arts departments ready to claim and spend? Where does provision for the liberal education come in ? And what of education itself in all this talk of Research ? What will it profit us if per misadventure the bomber of the future, experimentally produced in an aero- nautical annexe designed for civil aviation, should extinguish with a misplaced load the placid centre of Ethical teaching lodged in a neglected wing of the same establishment ? The pamphlet suggests such naive anxieties by its silence. But it is clear from the appendix of examples of the needs for planning that some of them are not absent from the author's mind. P. MANSELL JONES. ANNE RIDLER AND OTHERS. The Nine Bright Shiners," Anne Ridler. Faber, 6/ Rhyme and Reason," edited by David Martin. Fore Publications, 1/ Trident." Fore Publications, i/6d. Introducing Modern Poetry," compiled by W. G. Bebbington. Faber, 6/ "Poesie et Verite," Paul Eluard. London Gallery Editions, 7/6d. "Troisieme Front," E. L. T. Mesens. London Gallery Editions, 7/6d. The Nine Bright Shiners is Anne Ridler's second book of poems, and in it her poetic characteristics are distinct and personal. The subject that most concerns her is domestic love, and such circumstances of it as child-bearing, separaticn because of war, reminiscences so arising, and landscapes notable because in one way or another related to the love. Mrs. Ridler has also a strong feeling for Christianity which she succeeds in introducing seldom irrelevantly. Not many poets have chronicled domestic love and, except for Coventry Patmore, no English poet has made it the main theme of his work. Mrs. Ridler therefore, has something com- paratively fresh to offer; but it is really fresh because she thoroughly understands what she wishes to write about and writes with the tide of her feeling flowing, seldom with it in ebb, and never in slack water. The result is a general naturalness of language, and a wholesome lack of embarrassment in dealing with the necessary commonplaces of love-themes. For instance Remember him when the wind speaks over a still bed In restless report; remember Him faring afar in danger- Neutral stars and enemy sea-sped By the will unwilling, steaming against the heart, against the. blood, Faring for ever, and unimaginably far. And this is foolishness, for No parting is for ever, And all divergence meets in a round world. The sense of these lines is naturally commonplace, but the pulse of feeling livens it and the Copernican metaphorical rhetoric of the last line enlarges and refines. However, the first stanza above contains some of the habitual defects of Mrs. Ridler's writing. Reversed and echoing phrases such as the will unwilling may