CURRENT ADVOCATE IS COUNTED ONLY AVERAGE BY CRIMSON REVIEWER

The following review of the April number of the Advocate was written by A. R. Sweezy '29, managing editor of the Crimson.

It seems to be a well established tradition among Advocate and Lampoon reviewers that what damning is to be done must be done through the medium of faint praise. Not as a mark of disrespect of tradition, but merely by way of a change, the present reviewer would like to attempt the experiment of stating his criticism as such, thus relieving whatever praise may be forthcoming, from the taint of faintheartedness or hypocrisy.

In the first place let it be understood that the current number of the Advocate is preeminently an average issue, which means that it cannot rival the best productions of Harvard literary genius of the past, but that its material, on the other hand, must in nowise be considered as below the usual standard of Advocate endeavor. And an issue of whatever nature, conceived and produced during the drab weeks when winter has gone and spring has not yet appeared, may be considered of no ordinary merit if it lives up to even the usual standard.

The feature article of the present number is a resume by Dean Hanford of all the Reading Period results so far apparent. Treatment of this subject scarcely lies within the reviewer's province--suffice it to say that for a concise summary of Reading Period records and of the most important suggestions which have been advanced for improvement in future Reading Periods Dean Hanford here offers all that could be desired.

The rest of the issue contains poetry, prose, book and theatre reviews. The poetry shows technical skill and sounds very well, but would it be too much to ask that the Advocate print some time, just for fun, a poem which could be understood by the ordinary lay mind after a single reading?

The prose material includes two or three articles of varying length, subject, and merit; a story of considerable length on Latin America, the sea, revolution and a wop sailor with an O. Henry ending which is even less convincing than the rest of the story; and finally an essay on one of the minor incidents in the life of Alexander Pope, "Vendetta," by J. E. Barnett, which is probably the high light of the entire issue. It is a straightforward, readable account of Pope's literary feud with Lady Wortley Montagu--an account which is attractive chiefly, perhaps, because its pretensions are modest and the reader is pleasantly surprised to find them more than fulfilled.

Among the other efforts which, whatever their particular merits may or may not be, are unquestionably up to the Advocate standard are "Soliloquy" by C. D. Stillman. "Another 'Illustrious Defunct,'" by A. T. Burr, and practically of the book and play reviews. In book reviewing, the Advocate seems to have found a field especially well suited to the exercise of its talents.