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I
Some of the overlooked materials are noteworthy for their authorship. Over the years a number of uncollected poems appeared in the pages of CR, many of them written by members of the University, but some by writers known far from Cambridge. When the young Thackeray visited Weimar in 1830, he wrote a drinking song and translated a passage from Goethe's Faust that he titled “Rosa”; Walter Vulpius quotes these in “Thackeray in Weimar” (The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, 53 [April 1897]: 920-928, but he does not mention another poem from that time claimed for Thackeray in the CR. In a short piece entitled “Thackeray and Goethe” (71 [29 Oct. 1949]: 68), Trevor Jones reprints a poem signed “Leonora Splutch” from Das Chaos, a weekly magazine edited by Goethe's daughter-in-law Ottilie. Jones states that “The secret of the authorship of this poem was not divulged; but there is no reasonable doubt that it was written by Thackeray.” With the poem Jones prints a Thackeray drawing of Goethe:
[Description: SB 52, Page 194.]
America boasts of her Penn;
Goethe's the glory of Weimar,
Now standing alone among men.
Clapham's honours are fled; if it had 'em
They've taken up other abodes.
Wet Scotland is famed for M'Adam
Who's called “The Colossus of Rhodes.”
In London we've Brougham and we've Malthus,
And Cobbett, a glorious name.
Our Smoky metropolis shall thus
Long darken the annals of Fame.
We've Hunt, and the Duke of St. Albans;
Miss Kemble, whose talent's a chouse.
The glories of Chelsea are small buns,
Of Hammersmith, Brandenburg House.
Brunel has half scooped out a tunnel
To join muddy Essex to Kent.
Great Dublin has greater O'Connell
Who started the Catholic Rent.
Tartary's famous for Timour;
Penn's praises all languages sound;
Goethe's the glory of Weimar.
Where now can his fellow be found?
The CR also provides some otherwise unrecorded verses from Charles Stuart Calverley, who according to his modern editor Hilda D. Spear excelled in “light verse, parody and pastiche” (The English Poems of Charles Stuart Calverley, 1974, p. 9). Spear does not note eight parodic lines that Calverley (who attended Harrow) added to an anonymous versifier's poem. I quote the entire item, which appears as an editorial comment in CR 23 (1 May 1902), 279:
A few lines by Calverley have been recently discovered on the back of a copy of Latin verses, entitled `Fair Fidele.' The two first stanzas are in the writing of the versifier, and Calverley evidently completed the poem.
In tempest shake thy sylvan cell,
Or 'midst the chase on every plane,
The tender thought on thee shall dwell.
Each lonely scene shall thee restore,
For thee the tear be duly shed;
Beloved, till life can charm no more,
And mourned, till Pity's self be dead.
What though the earth thy ashes wraps,
And owls around the cold gave hoot?,
Though unromantic prentice chaps
Ramp o'er the spot with hobnailed boot?
Thy memory still our thought employs,
Still thy meek virtues we'll rehearse;
Shall turn thee into Latin verse.
The CR also contains unnoticed work by more recent writers. Bernard Stone's bibliography appended to Robert Greacen's The World of C. P. Snow (1962) lists one piece on Snow in the periodical but nothing by him there. In fact, Snow contributed an essay, “A Use for Popular Scientists” (52 [10 June 1931]: 492-493) and three reviews: of Sir James Jeans, The Stars in Their Courses (52 [29 May 1931]: 452); H. G. Wells, Autobiography (vol. 1: 56 [19 Oct. 1934]: 27; vol. 2: 56 [30 Nov. 1934]: 148), reprinted in the more accessible The Cambridge Mind, Ninety Years of the CAMBRDIGE REVIEW, 1879-1969 (1970), 280-285; and Aldous Huxley, After Many a Summer (61 [28 Oct. 1939]: 53-54). Eben E. Bass includes a 1959 article by Snow about Huxley in his Aldous Huxley: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism (1981), but he does not mention Snow's review.
Letters to editors usually are not listed in the bibliographies of writers, but these can be of great interest. B. J. Kirkpatrick's Soho bibliography of E. M. Forster's writings (1965; rev. 1968) admirably records a letter and ensuing correspondence in the CR over the nomination of the Chancellor for Cambridge University, but it ignores an even more interesting one. On 30 January 1948 Forster, writing from King's College, Cambridge, complained of noisy aircraft. The letter was printed in the next number of the CR (69 [7 Feb. 1948]: 310, 312):
Would any of your readers care to co-operate in an attempt to abate the nuisance of aircraft over Cambridge?
Sufferers may be surprised to learn that exercising over this area is prohibited, and that all, or nearly all, of the planes which disturb us do so contrary to regulations. I understand the Ministry would be willing to make enquiries, provided adequate information is supplied. What is required is the name and address of the complainant, the date and hour when the plane was seen, and also its number- or, if that cannot be deciphered, a clear description of it.
Both our Burgesses have been so good as to interest themselves in the matter. Complaints should be addressed to either of them at the House of Commons, and will be forwarded to the Ministry provided they are properly documented.
Through its innovative section devoted to reviews of books of all kinds, the CR list of contributors also serves as a roll of great teachers and scholars at Cambridge University: A. W. Verrall, E. M. W. Tillyard, G. M. Trevelyan, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, Sir Herbert Butterfield, Sir Ernest Baker, Bertrand Russell, Muriel Bradbrook, Joan Bennett, Sir S. C. Roberts, Brian Downs, T. R. Henn, M. R. James, F. L. Lucas, Joseph Needham, I. A. Richards, Sir
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