effortless, he has fallen into the spectator’s error of concluding that it is effortless. And because, again, a considerable part of the work of the “learned, self-conscious craftsmen” is pedantic and artificial, he has been confirmed in his error. The truth of the matter, however, is with Mr. Pound. Dangerous as it may be to require that a poet shall be learned in his profession, it is much more dangerous to deprecate his learning. By a happy fluke, it may be, a perfect poem may occasionally be written “without previous study”; from too much previous study there may also occasionally result only verse smelling of the lamp; but in the long run, and for the cultivation of poetry as an art, there is no doubt that the most fruitful way is the way of the craftsman and the adept. MR. EZRA POUND ON RELIGION.—Mr. Pound has been called over the coals for his impolite dismissal of Mr. G. K. Chesterton as a danger to English literature. But, good gracious, Mr. G. K. Chesterton’s reputation is not so frail that it cannot take care of itself against a spirited idiosyncrasy. Mr. Pound has expressed his honest opinion; but what is discussion for but to elicit honest opinions, and then to extract the truth from them? There is undoubtedly a fragment of truth in Mr. Pound’s view of Mr. G. K. Chesterton’s influence, and it is this: that Mr. Chesterton is a most dangerous man to imitate. His imitators become apes. But that is not to say that Mr. Chesterton is not himself a great writer. Shakespeare is likewise a dangerous man to imitate; and we should only be repeating good criticism if we affirmed that the influence of Shakespeare upon English style has been on the whole bad. But this is not to detract from the greatness of Shakespeare. Every writer of a unique style is liable to ruin his imitators; and, from this point of view, the wise thing to be done is to classify good writers as writers to be imitated and writers never to be imitated. Among the former are the writers whom personally I prefer; for I love best the men of the eighteenth century, who aimed at writing as nearly as possible like the world, and through whom the common genius of the English language spoke. But there is pleasure and profit also in the highly individualised styles of the latter sort of writers, beginning, let us say, with _Euphues_, and represented to-day by Mr. G. K. Chesterton. Mr. Pound may have no fancy for the unique and personally conducted style of Mr. Chesterton, but it is a matter entirely of taste and not of judgment. Should he announce that he cannot tolerate Swift or Burke or Sterne, writers of pure English, then, indeed, I should join in deploring his judgment. As it is, I listen to his remarks on Mr. Chesterton as I should hear his opinions of crab-soup.