THE POETS PASTORAL

As certain harbingers of spring as bright golf hose, mud in the Yard, and the April Hours are the Dowse Institute lectures. For a long, long time the bequest of Thomas Dowse has enabled students willing to make the trek to Sanders Theatre to spend a pleasant evening with an exclusive circle, and incidentally to gather more than a little information about poetry one year, art another, music a third. The climax of this year's series, which has been devoted to music, comes this evening in a lecture on Gilbert and Sullivan, with the attractive sub-title "Illustrated by a Chorus of Harvard and Radcliffe Students."

No composer and lyricist could have presented a happier and more seasonable combination than the delightful Victorian couple. The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra-la, are perfect in themselves, but when they are sung to Sir Arthur's music the result is the incomparable gaiety and freshness of a season that, alas, seems all too tardy in arriving--which reminds one that The Mikado is still wandering somewhere between New York and Boston, and that Spring is unofficial until Winthrop Ames has sent his latest revival to lead those bored with sophistication to the Plymouth.