Welsh Journals

time to the collection of the facts about the Silurist, Gwenllian Morgan and Louise Imogen Guiney. It is an admirable and a valuable work. The one complaint I should care to utter is about the title-page. I think, first of all, that the word study should have been used in the title rather than "interpretation." The latter word suggests an exposition of the poet's thought, a presentation of his poetic character, and an unravelling of the mystery of his genius. The book contains little of this, though it does give us some interesting and eminently sensible studies of certain influences that shaped his purpose and his modes of expression. I should also have liked to see on the title-page an acknow- ledgement of the contribution of Miss Morgan and Miss Guiney, whose collections are described in the preface as the main source of the book. Dr. Hutchinson acknowledges his debt to the two women handsomely enough in the preface and elsewhere in the volume, but their preparatory researches were such as to deserve mention on the title-page. The work is thorough and executed with a becoming modesty. There is, mercifully, no obtrusion of the writer's own whims and fancies and reflections about Life, God and Art, none of the qualities which make so many modern biographies less valuable as biographies of their subjects than as sources for future biographies of their authors. For students of Vaughan henceforth this book will be indispensable. The chapter on Welsh influences is most helpful; and throughout Dr. Hutchinson's desire to do justice to the Welsh background of Vaughan's life and work is abundantly manifest. Wales ought to give a warm welcome to this fair, temperate and solid book. DAVIES ABERPENNAR. BRITISH COUNCIL "WELSH" THE WELSH AND THEIR COUNTRY: by WYN GRIFFITH. Longmans. i/ The British Council, which aims at projecting British culture abroad, has never been a popular institution; it is, in fact, the Cinderella of such official cultural and information organisations as the Arts Council (C.E.M.A.), the B.B.C., and the Central Office of Information (late M.O.I.): Its small editorial staff are tragically unhappy. in their work at Hanover Square; its would-be dignitaries are literally hissed in the clubs; it's all most unfortunate. The only possible solution seems near: to close the whole thing down and reconstitute a brand new Council under some other name, which will probably take place any day now. And the reason for all this is more than apparent in their Welsh pamphlet. Rumour-which reached Dublin before me-has it that a young poet, a nationalist, and a geologist were originally approached to do this descriptive commentary — and their efforts scrapped for various reasons, the high general level of mediocrity desired by the Council's presiding genius predominating. All this is hard on Wyn Griffith, Berkhamstead's famed pay-as-you-earn P.R.O. and secretary of a metropolitan Cambrian institution, for whcm one can but feel a genuine respect. But considering that this first Governmental venture into independent Welsh propaganda is twice as costly as Ulster To-day (which is printed in Belfast), almost as dear as H.M.S.O.'s 348-page Welsh in Education and Life," and merely encroaches on ground that could be well left to the Travel Association or film short documentary writers (not a line or a key of a poem or song is quoted) one does feel a little cheated. Flat journalism covering the safe points and angles (dictated by committees) hardly makes for a fresh exciting script. Besides the thirty odd photographs (pix) are far too dark, and there isn't one of island life. I pass on these suggestions to Lady Megan Lloyd George, M.P., for future reference. She can christen the booklet Wilmot's Folly." In the meantime, I look forward to The Ulstermen and Their Country," by W. R. Rodgers, which, I am told, is excellent. The moral, which the British Council has yet to learn, is Don't take bread out of poets' mouths I Keidrych RHYS.