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The Attributes of the Arts with a Bust of Mercury: Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, c. 1728, oil on canvas (Pushkin Museum, Moscow)
Oh when Mercury came to London
they "had him fixed".
It saves him from so many undesirable associations.
And now all the Aunties like him so much
because, you see, he is "neither, my dear!"
D. H. Lawrence: LondonMercury, from Nettles, in Last Poems (1932)
The Attributes of Painting and Sculpture: Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, c. 1728, oil on canvas, 64 x 92 cm (Private collection)
Some periodicals could be relied upon to react in blimpish fashion against anything new, experimental or foreign in the arts. The once powerful English Review, J. C. Squire’s LondonMercury, and more popular vehicles of middle-class taste such as Punch printed regular attacks on modern art, international Socialism, American jazz, and all young persons, especially young literary persons.
Alan Young: from Positive Refusal, in Poetry Nation No. 4, 1975
Among [Squire's] contemporaries ... his reputation was variable. Many of them, such as Virginia Woolf, found him coarse; they thought, with reason, that he drank too much; they had little confidence in the group, known as the Squirearchy, which surrounded him.
Alan Pryce-Jones [J. C. Squire's editorial assistant on the LondonMercury]: from The Bonus of Laughter (1987)
By 1920 Squire was well on his way towards establishing a literary coterie of the Right just as partisan, as militant and as dedicated as the Leftist coteries.
Robert H. Ross: from The Georgian Revolt (1967)
Alan Young: from Positive Refusal, in Poetry Nation No. 4, 1975
Among [Squire's] contemporaries ... his reputation was variable. Many of them, such as Virginia Woolf, found him coarse; they thought, with reason, that he drank too much; they had little confidence in the group, known as the Squirearchy, which surrounded him.
Alan Pryce-Jones [J. C. Squire's editorial assistant on the LondonMercury]: from The Bonus of Laughter (1987)
By 1920 Squire was well on his way towards establishing a literary coterie of the Right just as partisan, as militant and as dedicated as the Leftist coteries.
Robert H. Ross: from The Georgian Revolt (1967)
Sir John Collings Squire [editor of the LondonMercury, 1919-34]: John Mansbridge, 1932-33, oil on canvas, 622 mm x 749 mm (National Portrait Gallery, London)
D. H. Lawrence: from The Paintings of D. H. Lawrence, privately printed for The Mandrake Press, 1929
Twenty-five of Lawrence's paintings were exhibited at the Warren Gallery in Mayfair, London, 1929. After complaints from visitor to the exhibition, police raided the gallery on 5 July 1929 and seized thirteen of the paintings, which were removed to the Marlborough Street Police Station. The paintings were later returned to Lawrence on condition they never again be shown in England.