“We regret this, because we see unmistakable signs of power in Mr. Shakespeare’s verse. He has a real instinct for blank verse of the robustious kind, and the true lyric cry is to be found in the songs of his play, although they are too often marred by deplorable touches of coarseness.
“He will, we suppose, regard us as fusty old-fashioned critics for the line we have taken; but, trusting to the promise which we think we discern in Mr. Shakespeare, it is by no means unlikely that in ten years’ time he will be the first to regret his extravagance and to applaud our disapproval.
“At any rate, although we must speak frankly of such a plot as Hamlet, we have not the slightest desire wholly to condemn Mr. Shakespeare as a poet because he has written a play on an unpleasant theme.
“If he turns his undoubted poetic gifts to what is sane and manly we shall be the first to welcome him among the freemasonry of poets. At the same time we should like to remind him that speeches do not make a play, and that his dialogue, halting somewhere between what is readable and what is actable, loses the amplitude of narrative without achieving the force of drama.”
The newspaper ended with a sonnet written in the House of Commons by Belloc, and by a correspondence column written by Raymond Asquith—both of which items I transcribe. This correspondence is, I think, the most brilliant of Raymond Asquith’s ephemera.
“SONNET WRITTEN IN DEJECTION IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.
“Good God, the boredom! Oh, my Lord in Heaven,
Strong Lord of Life, the nothingness and void
Of Percy Gattock, Henry Murgatroyed,
Lord Arthur Fenton, and Sir Philip Bevan,