KIPLING AS HISTORIAN.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3252, 24 June 1911, Page 3

KIPLING AS HISTORIAN.

A NEW ROLE

“Mr Rudyard Kipling is about to make his'.first bow to the public in tlio role of historian,” says the London “Daily News.” “‘A School History of England” will he published shortly under the joint names of Mr C. R. L. Fletcher and Sir Kipling. _lt is an open secret that the more solid historical matter will be contributed by the first cf these authors, while Mr Kipling will be responsible for Die more vivid parts of the narrative, and the poems which will supplement the text. “Thor© will be no fewer than twentythree ballads which appear under such titles ,as ‘The Roman Centurion,’ ‘The Pirates of England,’ ‘Before the Ed gelid! Fight,’ ‘The Dutch in the Medway,’ ‘The French Wars,’ and ‘The Bells and the Queen, 1911.’ “Chapter I. of the new history, which carries Die reader from the earliest times to- the departure of the Romans, opens with a poem, entitled ‘The River’s Tale’:—

“ ‘Twenty bridges from Tower to Ivew AA r anted to know what the River knew, For they were- young and the Thames was old, And this is the tale that the River told • I walk my beat before London Town, i Five hours up and seven down, Up I go and I end my run At Tide-end-town, which is Teddington. Down I com© with the mud in my hands, And plaster it over the Maplin Sands. But I’d have you know that these waters cf mine Were once a branch of the River Rhine. When hundreds of miles to the la ist I went, . . And England was joined to the Continent. **#■*■* I remember the hat-winged lizard-birds, The Age of Ice and the mammoth herds. And the giant tigers that stalked them down . _ , Through Regent’s Park into Camden Town. ; And I remember like yesterday The earliest Cockney who came my way. When he pushed through the forest.that Diat lined the Strand, With paint on his face and a club in his hand. . . .’”