WE

ON THE LINE

E have now completed a full year since we first undertook to offer to the public a monthly exhibition of readable books. Our object has not been to divide the publications of the day into classes according to merit, or to decide whether any book should take rank as of permanent or ephemeral value: it has been to recommend rather than to dissect, to appreciate rather than to appraise. It may be well, at the beginning of another year, to restate our aims as they were originally put forward.

We shall give a list; the books will be recent; they will be such as in our opinion no one can ignore without loss; among them will be found foreign books, especially books in French; all classes of literature will be eligible. On the other hand, the list will not claim to be an exhaustive one; it will not necessarily be confined to books appearing within the month; it will not consider the interests of the expert in any branch, but the pleasure of the general or omnivorous reader. It will contain comments, but brief and not detailed the mere report of a patrol, so that the reader may not feel he is being led to attack entirely unknown positions: it is far from our intention merely to add one more to the chorus of critics. The books we do not like we shall leave others to advertise.

This modest programme we may claim to have carried out with some fidelity; and we have certainly been generously paid by favourable comment both public and private. This has, especially of late, been so frequent and so marked, that we cannot any longer allow the common impression to go unchecked which ascribes the whole of the work in this

department to one hand. The Editor has done but a small portion himself: whatever praise has been awarded is due to the writers whose names are here with their consent subjoined:

REGINALD BALFOUR
MARY COLERidge

ROGER FRY

THOMAS HODGKIN, D.C.L.
ANDREW LANG

ALEX. FULLER-MAITLAND

JAMES H. F. PEILE (Rev.)
A. T. QUILLER-COUCH

GERALD RITCHIE

EDITH SICHEL

F. WARRE-CORNISH

(Vice-Provost of Eton.)

The books hung on the line during the year have reached the total of one hundred and fourteen: of these thirty-four were fiction, ten poetry, and the remaining eighty included Memoirs and Biography, Natural History, Religion, Art, Music, Antiquities, and books on the War. Seven of the whole number were books in French, and no fewer than twenty-eight others were books of American origin or translations from the Russian, French, German, or Swedish. The ten volumes of poetry were all English, and formed, we are interested-but not surprised-to note, decidedly the most remarkable group of all. It is a living and fertile literature which in a single year puts forth fruit on branches bearing the names of Laurence Binyon, Robert Bridges, Lucilla," George Meredith, T. Sturge Moore, Herbert Trench, and W. B. Yeats. For the rest, the year must be pronounced below the average, as perhaps was only to be expected in the present state of public affairs.

66

"Guided by the moon and the dead soldiers on the line by which I advanced"—the little phrase, dropped into the midst of a description of the Sikh War, lights it up with a flash of vivid remembrance beyond all imitation but that of genius. Shakespeare, when he made Harry Hotspur, uttered a forecast of the character that reveals itself in The Autobio

graphy of Harry Smith, (Murray. 24s. net.) "Fie upon this quiet life!" said the "little clever-looking old man when, at the age of seventy-two, he saw himself compelled

to retire. Here is the record of what he called "life" indeed in 1844:

I have now served my country nearly forty years. I have fought in every quarter of the globe, I have driven four-in-hand in every quarter, I have never had a sick certificate, and only once received leave of absence, which I did for eight months to study mathematics. I have filled every Staff situation of a regiment and of the General Staff. I have commanded a regiment in peace, and have had often a great voice in war. I entered the army perfectly unknown to the world, in ten years by force of circumstances I was LieutenantColonel, and I have been present in as many battles and sieges as any officer of my standing in the army. I never fought a duel, and only once made a man an apology, although I am as hot a fellow as the world produces; and I may without vanity say, the friendship I have experienced equals the love I bear my comrade, officer or soldier.

66

Sir Harry felt for his horse as if he had been half a horse himself, for his thirteen dogs only a little less. He shot his favourite charger, Aliwal," with his own hand; but he could not come down to dinner afterwards. Every night, however ill he might be, he dressed; in imitation of the Great Duke perhaps, or because he was vain of his beautiful little foot. He could not bear a man who ate his pudding with a spoon or left his glass of wine unfinished. His powers of resource were, like his prejudices, immediate and direct. In Mobile Bay,

where no bread was to be got, "a sort of vision" bade him turn oyster-shells into mortar, and thus enable the men to construct bakers' ovens. When he had no ammunition he fired the buttons off his jacket. He was not afraid of being dramatic nor too refined for popularity. He would weep for a comrade; he said so afterwards without reluctance. He was not ashamed to fall in love and to avow religious faith, and he saw no reason why either of these things should be kept secret ; he stood too often face to face with death to care about mystification. If modesty was not among his virtues (and the Ercles vein suits autobiography much better), pride had neither art nor part in him. He was the first to draw attention to the fine conduct of an enemy. He justified to the Colonists of South Africa the Government which had distrusted and super

seded him. He accepted an invitation from Lord Grey, the man who, of all others, wronged him, and that in public, and with the added provocation of irony. At the age of twenty-four he married a high-born Spanish beauty of fourteen, who threw herself on his protection after the siege of Badajos; and the rest of the Peninsular War was their honeymoon. Whenever a fight was imminent he would leave her as near the battlefield as might be, and when it was over she would come to look for him. She behaved in the most ladylike manner as regarded crying and fainting, but we are not without a suspicion that he enjoyed this quite as much as her marvellous prowess on horseback, her dancing and singing, her kindly gaiety of heart, her constant courage. Every soldier, from the Duke downwards, became her devoted admirer, and the words in which "Johnny Kincaid" speaks of her rival those of her husband. The note of depression is never struck throughout this gallant Odyssey but when "Enrique" has to leave her; and even then, so cheerful is the temperament of Enrique, that pictures of "The Sorrows of Werther" avail to brighten his existence, and to inspire him with "a hope which never afterwards abandoned me." If Goethe had read this passage, it might have gone far to console him for the maiden who drowned herself with "Werther" in her pocket. Yet sorrow was true enough.

I shall never forget her frenzied grief when, with a sort of despair, I imparted the inevitable separation that we were doomed to suffer, after all our escapes, fatigue, and privation; but a sense of duty surmounted all these domestic feelings, and daylight saw me and dear Colborne full gallop thirtyfour miles to breakfast. We were back again at Castel Sarrasin by four in the afternoon, after a little canter of sixty-eight miles, not regarded as any act of prowess, but just a ride. In those days there were men.

He went to America, where the exclamation, “ Heavens,' says I, if Colborne was to see this!" became frequent. Warfare was not conducted as a Peninsular man held that it should be. He was back again, after a second expedition, in time for the great sensation of 1815.

As we neared the mouth of the British Channel, we had, of course, the usual thick weather, when a strange sail was reported. It was now blowing a fresh breeze; in a few minutes we spoke her, but did not make her haul her main-topsail, being a bit of a merchantman. Stirling hailed as we shot past. "Where are you from?" "Portsmouth." "Any news?” "No; none." The ship was almost out of sight, when we heard, "Ho! Bonaparter's back again on the throne of France!" Such a hurrah as I set up, tossing my hat over my head! "I will be a Lieutenant-Colonel yet before the year's out!" Sir John Lambert said, "Really, Smith, you are so vivacious! How is it possible? It cannot be." He had such faith in the arrangements of our government, he wouldn't believe it. I said, "Depend upon it, it's truth; a beast like that skipper never could have invented it, when he did not even regard it as news. 'No; no news; only Bonaparte's back again on the throne of France.' Depend on it, it's true." "No, Smith, no." Stirling believed it; oh, how he carried on!

The story of Juana's wild ride to Waterloo to seek her husband among the slain must be read in her own words. The despatch containing the news of Aliwal was praised by Thackeray; who dare praise it after that? "My fight at Aliwal was a little sweeping second edition of Salamanca-a stand-up gentlemanlike battle," says the General himself. Boy or girl, man or woman, not one but must think life a braver, a deeper and more glorious thing with such a book as this in hand. The editor has done his part to perfection; it only remains for us to quote from him the fair and fit conclusion of the whole matter.

Historians may perhaps find some matter of instruction in the autobiography now presented to them. But is it too much to hope that it may have a still happier fortune, and that young Englishmen and Englishwomen yet unborn may be kindled to a noble emulation by the brave and glowing hearts of Harry and Juana Smith ?

It would be as easy as it would be unfair to judge and condemn St. Nazarius-(Macmillan. 6s.)-by the ordinary standards of fiction, to point out that it lacks incident, construction, realism, and, in fact, all the qualities that go to make the success of the Modern Novel. The truth is that the narrative form is purely accidental, though happily chosen