THE ACADEMY

London, England

17 June 1911

(pages 755-756)

THE MAGAZINES.

The propinquity of the Coronation has cast its shadow over the Magazines, not altogether to their advantage. We yield to none in our loyalty, but Coronation odes, in verse and prose, not to speak of anecdotal reminiscences of his Majesty, and various other matter evoked by the event, are somewhat apt to weary the attention, especially if they are not confined to one magazine, but pervade them all . . .

Among the Coronation articles it is difficult to choose. Their theme is not so much an event as a symbol, therefore it is not easy to evoke a great deal of variety out of it. . . .

The English Review has succeeded in avoiding the subject altogether. For Yoshio Markino’s altogether charming article on the “Queen of the John Bullesses” can scarcely be called a thing turned out to order. It is something much more than that: it is a genuine and delightful revelry of the soul. He writes, he claims, not as a foreigner. He says: “My flesh and bones are entirely made with the English substances by this time, so the medical science says, and my heart and brain are more Britonised by many kind-hearted John Bulless friends. Why, then, should I not be loyal to the Queen of the John Bullesses as much as the most loyal Britons? Do you say I am getting less patriotic to my own country? Nonsense! It makes me so grieved to think that there are many fools who misunderstand the word ‘patriotic’ as the ‘fighting spirit’ with the neighbouring country. Don’t you know friend-making is far more patriotic?” Indeed, Mr. Markino cannot fail to be both patriotic and charming—if, in fact, these are not the symptoms from one standpoint or another. His article makes delightful reading. In the same magazine Mr. Masefield has a poem called “Truth.” Like so much of Mr. Masefield’s work at the moment the matter in it cannot but compel, despite the fact that it is phrased with something too much of deliberation and consequent coldness. These attributes certainly cannot be claimed for any of Mr. Aleister Crowley’s poems, nor for the poem that follows Mr. Masefield’s with the title “On the Edge of the Desert.” Being free from the echoes of Swinburne more than usual with his work, this poem has more distinction in it.