' 
} 
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25 
poetic speech, in grace and colour and harmony of style, cannot be admit- 
ted; but neither can such distinctive equality be challenged on behalf of 
such a man as Tennyson, or Browning, or Swinburne, for each of whom, 
nevertheless, in vastness of range and magnificence of achievement, must 
be claimed room on a loftier plane than can be admissible to Dante Rossetti 
himself. Canon Binney, however, was able to show, by the test of quota- 
tions in one of the most sympathetic of voices, agreeably alternating with 
a flow of delicate and subtle criticism, that Christina Rossetti cannot be 
denied entrance, with an assured position of her own, among the truest 
singers of the world. And something even more: a listener to this lecture 
might unhesitatingly realize that in the band of women who rise before 
the mind as the immortal glories of their sex, not exclusively confined to 
the domain of literature, Sappho or Hypatia, Saint Theresa or Vittoria 
Colonna, Joan of Are or Madame de Sévigné, George Sand or Elizabeth 
Browning, the name of Christina Rossetti must be ineffaceably enrolled.— 
For the third Lecture Miss Beatrice Clay, B.A., chose a theme that was 
no less heartily acceptable to her hearers than it was obviously congenial 
~to herself. The subject was Arthur and the Round Table. In a lecture 
delivered by Miss Clay, the industry and patience in research, the width of 
illustrative reading, the soundness of judgment in selection of material, 
scarcely need specification. But the independence and even sternness of 
attitude exhibited in respect of certain methods of dealing with the 
Arthurian legend calls for a little more than casual reference. Miss Clay 
is wholly justified in the keenness of her criticism alike of Tennyson’s 
conception of faithfulness to tradition, and of his remarkable standard of 
duty for man or woman, throughout the Idylls of the King. There can 
be little doubt that Tennyson’s treatment of the great cycle of legends is 
vitiated from first to last by his truly painful resolve to find in the ex- 
-emplary Prince Consort of nineteenth century England a reincarnation of 
the far from “ blameless,” yet always~frank, brave, honest, royal Arthur 
of Ancient Britain. More faultless verses have never been written, even 
by Tennyson, than those in the earlier Idylls. But the vastness of 
dramatic vision, the soul-searching, heartrending depth of tenderness, the 
divine sovereignty over the inmost chords of human passion that came to 
him in ample measure in the seventy-second year of his age, in such an 
imperishable utterance as “‘ Rizpah,” had singularly and hopelessly failed 
him twenty-two years earlier in the more spacious field of Arthurian 
romance. A far more sure-handed revivification of the old worid of the 
legends will be found, as Miss Clay pointed out, in the work of one man 
among others, in William Morris, with his “‘ Defence of Guenevere.” 
Another master in the labour of restoration may be seen in Swinburne, with 
his “‘ Tristram and Iseult,’’ such a. miracle of musical language, in the 
measure of the heroic rhymed couplet as was never excelled even by 
Dryden or Pope. 
Miss Clay’s highly successful lecture concluded the efforts of a 
specially active session in this department. 
ASTRONOMICAL SECTION. 
Owing to the Secretary’s long absence from England, the above Section 
has had a somewhat quiet winter. The first Lecture of the Session was 
delivered by the Secretary, the subject being the “‘ Total Solar Eclipse 
of August, 1914.” The Lecture was transferred from a Sectional to a 
_ General Meeting.—The second evening was taken by Mr. J. K. Wilkins, 
M.A., B.Sc., who gave a most interesting Lecture on the “‘ Moon,” before 
a distinguished audience. 
Mr. Longbottom has resigned the Secretaryship of the Section, to which 
Mr. Wilkins was at the Annual General Meeting elected. 
