THE death of Mr. Bruce Cummings on October 22nd, at the age of thirty, brought to an end a literary career which was singular alike in its character and in its brevity. He did not expect to live to see the publication of his book, The Journal of a Disappointed Man, and himself inserted the last and the only falsity in it, except the name he gave himself: "Barbellion died on December 31st." But he did actually witness its remarkable success on its appearance in the early part of this year; and it is impossible not to feel that this must, to some extent, have alleviated his disappointment. He was remarkable, not only in his personality and his gifts, but also in the fact that he was fully and frankly conscious, at all events for some years before his death, that his journal would be published and would be examined as a literary composition. He compared it with the journals which were already famous, he speculated on the reception it would have, he experienced a thrill in discovering a sister-soul in Marie Bashkirtseff. And it is hardly doubtful that his expectations will be realised. His career was one of struggle under almost overwhelming difficulties. His earliest ambition was to be a naturalist; and without training or assistance of any kind he had almost achieved it, when the breakdown of his father compelled him to earn a more substantial, though still meagre, living as a reporter on the staff of a provincial newspaper. He struggled out of this pit, and eventually succeeded in obtaining a position at South Kensington, which, in view of the obstacles in his way, was an extraordinary performance. Through all this battle against odds he was handicapped by an ill-health which seems to have affected almost every organ in his body—a weak heart, susceptible, if not actually tubercular, lungs, dyspepsia, and disordered nerves; and these ailments were accompanied and intensified by a perpetual brooding over his health which, had it had no basis, might have been called acute hypochondria. But it was only after his marriage that he discovered, by a dramatic and extraordinary accident, that he was already condemned to death by a more terrible malady than any of these. Under the rapidly-approaching shadow of this end, he continued his work and his journal as long as his strength permitted, and survived, though but for a little and in a state of complete collapse, the success which had been so persistently denied him before. His journal tells an extraordinary story and reveals an extraordinary person. Its confessions are frank, quiet, and obviously truthful; and neither his introspective habit of mind nor his belief that his journal would be published seems ever to have vitiated his powers of observation and notation. But he was something more than a remarkable personality and a veracious reporter of himself. He was also a writer and a critic of great ability. His notes on literature and music, here and there through the diary, show considerable penetration and judgment; and his descriptions of persons and places are vivid, fascinating, and often humorous. A volume of his remains has just been issued under the title, Enjoying Life, and Other Essays; and this includes the paper on the great journal-writers to which he alludes more than once in his diary.

As a token of their admiration for a master in their craft, a number of poets recently united to make a presentation to Mr. Thomas Hardy, O.M., on the occasion of his entering his eightieth year. Their tribute took the form of a manuscript volume in which each of the poets wrote one of his own pieces and which was prefaced by an address written, it is understood, by the Poet Laureate, with whom are joined in the volume the Hon. Maurice Baring, Mr. Hilaire Belloc, Mr. Laurence Binyon, Mr. G. K. Chesterton, Mr. W. H. Davies, Mr. Walter de la Mare, Mr. Austin Dobson, Mr. Edmund Gosse, Mr. Maurice Hewlett, Mr. Ralph Hodgson, Mr. A. E. Housman, Mr. Rudyard Kipling, Mr. John Masefield, Mrs. Alice Meynell, Mr. Sturge Moore, Professor Gilbert Murray, Sir Henry Newbolt, Mr. Alfred Noyes, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, Mr. G. W. Russell ("A. E."), Mr. Arthur Symons, Mr. Herbert Trench, Sir William Watson, Mr. W. B. Yeats, and many of their younger fellows. A sentence from the address, "We would thank you for the pleasure and increasing delight that your art has given us," explains the purpose of the gift and supplies a text on which a discourse might be pronounced. For if it is a delight for an established master to receive the homage of his juniors, it should be, and is, an especial delight for them to be able to offer it. We think it probable that some of the younger contributors to this volume will live to remember with wonder and gratitude the fact that they were able, while he still lived, to express their gratitude to one of the greatest of modern English poets.

Mr. Edmund Gosse, the doyen of English critics, celebrated his seventieth birthday in September, and, through Lord Crewe, a presentation was made to him accompanied by a memorial of almost unexampled length and distinction. Each of the signatories has since received a beautifully printed "memento." Those who saw Mr. Gosse's paper on George Eliot will not need to be told that his powers seem, if anything, to increase with age. Great and diverse as have been his services to literature since his first book was (when he was in his early twenties) published, his finest work, both "original" and critical, has appeared in recent years; and it is easily conceivable that the decade between his seventieth and his eightieth birthdays will be his most productive. A man of letters can be paid no higher compliment: Mr. Gosse has retained, and will retain to the end, the energy and the freshness of youth, whilst his knowledge and experience, in the natural course of things, broaden and deepen.

The death of Leonid Andreef removes the most savage pessimist of all the pessimists who have come out of modern Russia. But the author of The Life of Man, The Seven that Were Hanged, and The Red Laugh was not a pessimist for pessimism's sake: he suffered and he expressed his suffering sincerely. One of his short stories—that which tells of a student and his girl who were overtaken by a band of ruffians in a wood—is perhaps the most ghastly story that has ever been written; yet the most revolted reader could not suppose that the author had been less revolted than himself. Andreef had refused enormous offers to work for the Bolsheviks, and died, in great poverty, from shock induced by a rain of Bolshevik bombs near his house.