254
PARTISAN REVIEW
On current issues, the same habits of mind show themselves,
im–
mensely to England's credit, in the debate on Burgess and Maclean,
where even Sir Anthony was given dignity by the traditional English
grasp of the moral dangers of an all-out security program (though no
one quite faced up to the question of why the Foreign Office acted like
a college fraternity in protecting for so long these two demoralized
people). For the same reason an effective outcry greeted the govern–
ment's suggestion that it might jam the Athens radio--which it is now
doing-to keep the virulent Greek propaganda out of Cyprus. The
English may have to endure a government which has blundered in
Cyprus as if it were a Republican administration dealing with a banana
republic. But during the House's debate on Cyprus, even Mr. Bevan
was diverted from his curious argument that the real cause of the
trouble was American oil companies, by his indignation at this jamming
of the Athens broadcasts.
As befits one of the country's intellectual centers, Oxford managed
to put on a display of more nearly ideological passion over the contest
for the professorship of poetry, but the conflicting ideologies were char–
acteristically vintage. Dr. Enid Starkie, who led the Auden forces, seems
to be a cross between Amy Lowell and Jim Farley-a cigar-smoker and
a formidable political manager who was responsible for C. Day Lewis'
victory over C. S. Lewis five years ago. Her campaign was a nostalgic
echo of the most advanced thinking of the '30s. The right-wing opposi–
tion was characteristically late into the field with its candidate, Sir
Harold Nicolson, and characteristically ill-organized. Its leader was Mr.
John Sparrow, apparently still keeping warm the opinions of modern
poetry which he expressed with such muddled vehemence in the '30s.
He was formidably supported by Sir Maurice Bowra and a considerable
number of people with an inclination to mutter "reactionary" questions
about Mr. Auden's whereabouts during the last war. As the MA's,
properly gowned, approached the Convocation House to vote, they were
greeted by a sign which the undergraduates had painted on the wall
of All Souls (of which Mr. Sparrow is Warden) : "Auden for Proff."
But even this bold resort to radical spelling did not sway quite enough
of them, and Mr. Auden triumphed over Sir Harold by twenty-four
votes, with Mr. Knight drawing off a solid block of ninety-one
"protest votes."
I am quite incompetent to judge the fine arts, but the rankest ama–
teur was bound to have his eyes knocked out by the Royal Academy's
exhibition of English Taste in the Eighteenth Century, a perfectly
