rose

Yet further proof is apparent in a "Romance of the Immediate Future," Baroness von Suttner's When Thoughts Will Soar,' which suggests fully the futility of Teutonic methods except for This novel describes practical warfare. the efforts of a young heiress to spend her vast fortune for the good of the nation, and her dealings with a young poet and an American of the Peace Palace breed. The climax is a week at Lucerne, where the sky is transformed into a kinematograph sheet, and the air made weird by the Toker organ, whose tone and crescendo can pass the utmost limits of sweetness and power (no wonder Romain Rolland said, Some Germans love all music, good or bad"). The gist of the novel is that men are to be taught to fly morally the practical outcome of such aspirations appears to be the Taube and the Zeppelin, apostles of such moral flight, as is the 17-inch howitzer of mental culture.

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What else could be expected? Life is far too full of light and shade to be interpreted wholly in terms of the one to the

exclusion of the other; it is proportion

well. Admirers of Mr. Bridges, who may have regarded with some apprehension the prospect of a study by an untried writer of so elusive a theme, will acknowledge that Mr. Young has produced a recognizable portrait, and has chosen his points of emphasis with discrimination. He has written, moreover, with appropriate dignity of style.

The main preoccupation of Mr. Bridges as a poet has certainly been with the form of his verse, and an adequate criticism of his production is hardly to be expected, except from a student of prosody. Mr. Young recognizes this, and devotes three chapters to Mr. Bridges's prosodic theory and practice. His susceptibility to rhythmical effects is considerable, but his theory, especially as coming from one who feels competent to patronize and dismiss the theories of Mr. Bridges, is curiously inchoate. Perhaps he was partly misled here by his desire to eschew the aridities of scientific nomenclature. A little consideration should have convinced him that prosody is of no use to the dilettante,

and must either be treated so that a

precise and coherent meaning is conveyed or not at all. With the best will in the world, we have been unable to infer any clear scheme from Mr. Young's chapters. We sympathize with many of his statements, and are grateful to him in particular for his exposition of the value of Mr. Bridges's experiments in classical metre. In his conception of the principles of accentual prosody he seems quite in explaining the aim or the achievement childishly astray; nor does he succeed of Mr. Bridges in his departure from it.

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wanted. His analysis of such a poem as "Who has not walked upon the shore? is charming, and we wish he could have given more space to constructive appreciation of this kind; a few pages might have been spared from two chapters of comment. upon the dramas. Discussion here easily becomes superfluous, for if they were actable they would be acted.

Mr. Young has done good work in emphasizing the freshness, the rectitude, the fundamental sweetness and sanity of the Laureate's work. He appreciates also finely, if not quite fully, his many exquisite love poems. A chapter on the Religion of Love' makes some needless. concessions to the standards of the normal man, whom the normal poet of passion exists, it appears, to satisfy. Mr. Bridges "accordconceives love, says Mr. Young, ing to the Book of Common Prayer"; and has not the phrase, in its context, an ironical flavour? If so, we brush the irony aside and accept the phrase as adequately describing the achievement for which Mr. Bridges is most endeared to us. No one who knows his love poetry questions its sincerity, its virility, its fire. Without being in any sense a conventional expression, it carries into the realm of song qualities the most vital to love as an experience, the most foreign to love as a theme. Here, we feel, is the faithful singer, not of an ideal, but of an embodied love; here is one who gives in terms of poetry what life gives to such as know its gold from its dross.

Miss Taylor's monograph on Maeterlinck is hardly in place in a series of critical

TWO CRITICAL STUDIES. THE interesting and appreciative monograph on Mr. Robert Bridges is variously described by the publisher as by "F. E. Brett Young" and by " F. and E. Brett Young," with the result that we remain uncertain whether we are indebted for it to one author or to two. For convenience' sake we proceed on the former assumption, in which the practice of the authors, if more than one, of assuming a collective personality and using the pronoun "I" will justify us. This is, we believe, Mr. Brett Young's first appearance as a critic, and he has certainly acquitted himself

Robert Bridges: a Critical Study. By F. E. Brett Young. (Martin Secker, 7s. 6d. net.) Maurice Maeterlinck: a Critical Study. By Una Taylor. (Same publisher and price.)

impossible.

But though as a prosodist Mr. Young mystifies more than he enlightens us, his pleasure in what is at once most individual and most perfected in the Laureate's poetry gives real value to his literary criticism. He is right, we feel sure, in basing Mr. Bridges's claim to immortality on the five books of Shorter Poems. He constantly praises our own favourites among these, and finds in them just those qualities for which we love them most. He remarks excellently on Mr. Bridges's peculiar appreciation of what we might call the commonplaces of English landscape-the lane and hedgerow, the trees and towers which to every Englishman mean home; on his rare command of descriptive atmosphere (for which he quotes in full, and it could not be quoted too often, the beautiful poem' November'); and on the general contentment and niceness of his language, and his genius for the discovery of the word-jewel where it is

suffice to show the completeness of her homage. Even among Maeterlinckians many have been found to acknowledge that the mingling of science and romance in which M. Maeterlinck indulged, for example, in the Life of the Bee' had obvious drawbacks, and led him into errors of taste, at least. The climax of incongruity in that volume occurred in the description of the Queen Bee's nuptial flight. Miss Taylor quotes this wonderful passage in full, and introduces it in lantype, we should be at a loss to know where guage so exalted that, but for a change of introduction ended and quotation began. Her chapter concludes:

howsoever greatly men estimate its worth, "Howsoever nobly men conceive of truth, look as high as they will....(they can never look too high)....truth ever rises as they draw nearer. And this for Maetérlinck is the conclusion of the matter.” This sounds conclusive till we reflect that among sensible people it is the beginning of the matter rather than the end.

A Survey of Elementary English Education. By E. B. R. Prideaux. (Blackie & Son, 2s.net.) Elementary School Standards. By F. M. McMurry. (Harrap, 3s. 6d. net.) THE first of these volumes is designed for the service of those who offer in certain examinations the History of Education as one of their subjects. As such it is a work of a familiar type-concise, simple, judicious, and lucid. Useful to the examinee, its very merits will make it unattractive to those who read at leisure and do not desire to be reminded of the days when they also were called upon to face examiners. Yet even they may thank the author for recalling the theory and practice of Robert Owen, which combined to produce one of the most pleasing chapters in educational history. Who but a pedant would not rejoice in a system which discountenanced the use of prizes and punishments, which sought to substitute for coercion a healthy public opinion, which taught even the smallest children to consider their companions' happiness equally with their own, and which tried to make lessons pleasant (though not effortless) instead of disagreeable? It is nearly a century since

these ideas were translated into action on the banks of the Clyde; to-day they are still among the ideals of many forwardlooking minds.

Turning to Mr. McMurry's book, the reviewer finds himself chastised for his cavalier tolerance of Mr. Prideaux's

lucidity. For Elementary School Standards' is undeniably hard reading-hard, that is, to us in England. For this is an American work, and American writers, when they deal with education, employ a phraseology to which over here we are unaccustomed. Very likely this book is child's play to a New Yorker, but the Briton's forehead must be corrugated before he can master it :—

Nigh foundered, on he fares,
Treading the crude consistence, half on foot,
Half-flying,

ards,"

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stumbling and slipping amid "standvalues," purposes," and relay races." Presently, however, he winst through to something like firm ground, and discovers that the zone of difficulty leads up to a glorified report on the condition of the public elementary schools of New York City. The report is not exactly cheerful reading, since it contains the avowal of much frank dissatisfaction interest, we gather, are not fostered. with the existing order. Initiative and Uniformity is made a fetish. Among the principals, who exercise a somewhat perfunctory supervision," there is lamentable absence of inspiring leadership." The teachers themselves are hampered by lack of authority to punish troublesome children, or to have them punished; and so are constantly the victims of foul language and violence. The by-law of the Board of Education which forbids the teacher to lay correcting hands upon the pupil should, as Mr. McMurry urges, be

6

repealed. The report contains many other sound recommendations of reform. But the idealistic reader must admit to himself, nature of America will have to undergo with a sigh, that the juvenile human very great alterations before the milder, happier theories of Robert Owen can be current in New York City.

California. Painted by Sutton Palmer. Described by Mary Austin. (A. & C. Black, 18s.)

MISS MARY AUSTIN undoubtedly succeeds in giving a picturesque impression of California in its many aspects of beauty and wonder. She is wise to adopt in full detail the

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aboriginal account of its making, by Padahoon the Sparrow Hawk, and the Little Duck who brooded on the face of the waters in the Beginning of Things," and she supports this wisdom by judicious gleanings from the early history of a land she knows thoroughly. The mountains; the coastland of adventure, greatly aided by Francisco Lopez and his appetite for onions; Monterey and the old Spanish gardens, wealthy in herbs of healing; the Twin Valleys; the land of the sagebrush and alkaline desolation-all these are treated with keen observation and illuminating comment.

The rhyme of the Raphael-eyed muchachitos

Up in heaven there is a bullfight; The bull has horns of silver and a tail of gold

recalls the Daudet story of that native of the Midi who was enticed out of heaven (where he had no business to be) by the cherubim calling, at the instigation of St. Luke, "El toro, el toro." On hearing the cry he leapt into the void to see where the bullfight was to be: what a pity one of those muchachitos was not present!

THE MAKING OF HISTORY.

THE series to which Mr. R. H. Gretton contributes his study of History' has scored some successes, and here he adds remote interest for any class, because its to their number. History is not now a messages, often vague and conflicting, have become living, even palpitating. Consequently, any one does a useful and can explain what necessary work who history really is, how it ought to be taught, what are the calculable results of teaching it rightly, and so forth; and all this ponent can show us, by correcting pedants work is enhanced in value if the exlittle book supplies not a few such corand pundits, what history is not. This

At Monterey music appears as the best missionary to the savages, under the inspiration of a small "tin-piped wooden hand organ, built by one Benjamin Dobson, of 22, Swan Street, London, in the year 1735." Their favourite tunes seem to have been 'The Sirens' Waltz' and Go to the Devil! ' Buried in the beach beyond the anchor-rectives, beginning with definitions and age is the teakwood hull of the Natala, clearing away the débris the author is ending with principles, so that carried Napoleon to Elba. able to produce a more or less rational

6

Of the charming Californian garden of Doña Ina the author provides a full catalogue, concerned not only with healing antidotes. These grow side by side; herbs, but also poison plants and their "there was never an evil plant let loose in the gardens of the Lord, but the remedy was set to grow beside it." So thought Doña Ina, like those ancients who stated that the mongoose, when bitten by a snake, instantly found and ate the herb that should save it. We also hear of the sentimental side of plants and the Album Mexicana' which describes their various meanings.

Those who know Mr. Owen Wister's 'Virginian' and remember the story of

scheme.

that after

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been thought to mark a line of splendid and advance, now grows inprogress conspicuous because his highest claim is seen to be local or partial. Significantly enough, Mr. Gretton attacks John Richard Green and Leopold von Ranke in this very connexion. Green, with his anti-" drumand-trumpet" theory-so Mr. Gretton argues-underrating "the pageantry and the clangour, and even the rise and fall of kings," neglected the only things by which the people at large had seen, or handled, or travelled, or gained experience- in a national sense. On the other hand, "it never occurred to Ranke that the subject-matter of history was other than the intrigues of rulers, the ambitions of nobles and priests, the factions of statesmen and parliaments." These limitations are obvious, and their weakness is intensified by Acton, though he held up Ranke as a model, by means of his pregnant phrase that History is all one." Once take that saying as a text, and the field enlarges itself almost miraculously. Add to it a spice of metaphysics, and the falsities of inadequate vision, as of definition, vanish into thin air. Mr. Gretton seems fully alive to this. He has written only a little book; but unquestionably he has sound and wide views on his tremendous subject.

he says,

It is interesting to see, when Mr. Gretton essays to define history, how he sets about it. "The word history," has a double meaning; it signifies the course of human events, as well as the record of that course.' We cannot complain that this is incomplete, if we are willing to look beneath and beyond the actual words to satisfy ourselves that we are travelling in the right direction. The course of human affairs, obviously, is something which we seldom take account of, except at times of crisis. But the fact that we are passing through such a crisis now makes us all more or less anxious, if not to take a part, at least to make or keep a record of what is happening, and perhaps to go further than that. We want to have, each man among us, a share in historic events. The drift of individual experience is not, as a rule, exciting. We are seldom able to view ourselves as part of a great moving drama. Historians of all schools, no doubt, have been trying to persuade us to do so. Now, however, we do not need any persuasion. We have the feeling that their view is right, and we are anxious to pass the conviction on. We want to become historians in Mr. Gretton's dual sense, as actors and recorders, and this conviction places us abreast of his point of view, making us critics of the historians of an earlier age, many of whom have blundered considerably in the conduct of their business. Mr. Gretton is instructively emphatic on this head, and bluntly drives his opinion home. "Formerly," he says,

the historian planted himself imaginatively at some point in the past, and worked forIt was not by an accident that

ward. certain people were moved to print the date 4004 B.C. at the opening of the Bible,

or 764 B.C. at the beginning of a Roman History. It was essential to their point of view that they should have a definite place modern historian finds that definite place at which to set out upon their travels. The in his own day. He does not transport himself to a past period, and work towards his day. Looking backwards, he singles out the significant features of the past, and it is of less consequence to him than it was to his Their vitality predecessors to date events. with which they respond to the searchlights." is not in themselves, but in the spark of fire

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We cordially agree with the idea that the" spark of fire" is everything. There is a touch of it, by the way, in Mr. Gretton's own writing. The "searchlights" of history, on the old principle, had to be searched for. On the new principle we may realize how we are bathed in their rays. Suppose we look back through the ages, considering, it may be, the interdependence of nations or the inevitability of wars, remembering that right and wrong are real distinctions, as Gibbon declared. The correct standpoint is therefore a matter of ethics as well as of time. Either way the pull" of the unseen has to be taken into account, just as one planet affects the movements of another. On the ethical side, there are economics and politics to be considered. On the historical side, the succession of events only repeats phenomena which reflect laws that are found to be universal, once understood; and from this it is but a step to the metaphysical proposition that there is really no time, except Yet observe and all this while we are following Mr. Gretton in his suggestive survey-the essential point remains that if the unseen, which we must make an effort to understand, explains the seen as soon as we get a tolerable apprehension of it, the converse is quite as encouragingly true. The seen also interprets the unseen. That knowledge ensures a new appreciation of our modern searchlights, which include, it is refreshing to remark, both poetry and drama as auxiliaries of the forces of truth. This thought brings us back to Acton's idea of the unity of history, for it is to this that Mr. Gretton makes his final appeal. Thus the whole matter revolves in a perfect circle.

the eternal

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now."

TWO FIGHTING VETERANS. moirs' are now before us, is still such an LORD CHARLES BERESFORD, whose 'Meactive man that it is difficult to believe that he was born so long ago as 1846. In his time he has ridden a pig down Park Lane and driven a water-cart round Rotten Row. He has broken his chest-bone, one collar-bone three times, the other once; pelvis, right leg, right hand, foot, five ribs; and his nose three times. But in spite of these things, and a hundred other adventures, he still appears to be young and stronger than most men of half his age.

He joined the Navy in 1859, and confesses that he narrowly missed getting in because when he had to sign his qualifying certificate he made a mistake in the spelling of his own name. His ready answer

to his examiner and his Irish resourcesaved him then, as they have saved him since in many tighter places. He began. life at sea at a time when the changes. from sail to steam, from wood to iron, and from iron to steel, were in progress; and he records how when he first crossed the Line and was undergoing the usual ceremonies he was held under water so long that he was nearly drowned, and

hauled out unconscious.

One opens the book expecting it to be full of good stories, and one is certainly not disappointed, though some of the tales have the flavour of age, and some of the best in which the author figures as hero find no place in his own memoir. He writes with so much good humour that we are ready to believe all his stories. We do not doubt that

in the middle watch for the benefit of the

"in the Navy the cow used to be milked

officer on watch; and that, in order that the admiral should get his allowance of milk, the cow was then filled up with water and made to leap backwards and forwards. across the hatchways";

For

The author devotes much space to the Soudan War of 1884-5, and gives a fine picture of the work done by our soldiers and sailors. The way in which he and his men worked and fought is vividly described, and he never forgets to give full credit to those who helped him. the politicians at home who were concerned with the conduct of the war he has little to say that is good, and no allowance is made for the difficulties caused by Gordon's change of plans and refusal to obey orders. But that is a matter which is by the way, and it is with the actual fighting that the book is really concerned. In a letter written in Egypt at the time the author declared

issue.

The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Charles Beresford. Written by Himself. With 23 Illustrations. 2 vols. (Methuen & Co., 17. 10s. net.)

Forrest. (Cassell & Co., 16s. net.)

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that his camels had so many shot-holes in their backs that he was obliged to put shot-plugs in, to keep the water in when they drank." He now adds :

"It was true that I put shot-plugs in the camels. My official report (and what can be truer than an official report ?) contains ....the sole entry camels' sides by plugging them with oakum. Lord Wolseley laughed when he read it."

of the Navy there are more points where we agree with Lord Charles than where we differ from him.

In another part of his book he writes:

"Matters have changed so little since the South African War, that, although our Army and Navy are relatively inferior to what they were in 1899, the politicians are still alternately boasting of what will be done in an emergency, and declaring that

The description of the battle of Abu Klea contains much excellent writing. The work of the Naval Brigade is not forgotten. Their losses were great; and the author states that every man of the brigade handling the guns outside the square was killed except himself. He notes that after Abu Klea every one was suffering from cold and absence of food and water. He himself had lost his tobacco, and a man who had six cigarettes gave him three. About this he says:—

"I would cheerfully have given a year's income for them, as I told him. We agreed that it was hard to die without knowing who had won the Derby."

When Gladstone was in the Ionian Islands he delivered " a superb oration in the Greek tongue"; and a tale collected on the spot is to the effect that when he had finished

46

the official in attendance, while complimenting him upon his eloquence, observed what a pity it was that Mr. Gladstone delivered his speech in the English language." On Irish politics there is an abundance of amusing reading, but, though Lord Charles tried the House of Commons When he first entered St. Stephen's he many times, he never seemed happy there. objected to something or other, and was told that he would soon get used to the tactics of Westminster; but he never did, and he writes:

"I have spent years in politics, and I have never shaken down to political methods. A thing is either right or wrong. I have never scrupled to vote against my own party when I thought they were in the wrong."

His independence caused Disraeli to say to him :

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If

'My boy, don't you know that it's your first duty to vote with your party? every one voted according to his convictions, there would be no party system. And without a party system the Government could not be carried on."

That the author is more at home on sea than at Westminster may be seen by his political arguments about the Admiralty. His view is that it was the

a

right of the Cabinet to formulate policy, and that it was the duty of the Sea Lords to provide what was required in order to carry that policy into execution; and that the Cabinet had no right whatever to dictate to the Sea Lords in what the provision should consist, for that was a matter on which the Sea Lords alone were competent to judge.'

Here many will differ from Lord Charles Beresford, and we can imagine the way in which the present very active First Lord would reply to some of the arguments of the book. But as to the needs

We saw when this war broke out the truth of this statement :

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But then the author loves to gird at politicians, and likes to say that "the English are ruled by people having the appearance of men, but the ways of a weathercock.”

a

un

We have noted half dozen The Navy, unlike the Army, is always on active service, and is perpetually prac-important misprints, and we feel sure tising in peace what it will be required to that the author does not mean that do in war" when he proposed the Kaiser's health he really called that monarch "Emperor of Germany.”

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and the author points out that the record of a command afloat consists almost entirely of incessant routine work: only difference between peace and war is that in war the target fires back." When Lord Charles was in the House in 1902 he emphasized what he calls the central defect " of the Navy the absence of a war staff. That staff was not established till ten years later, but the author shows that the need for such a body is proved by the fact that

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ever since it was formed its members have been working day and night." The credit for having constituted the Committee of Imperial Defence is rightly attributed to Mr. Balfour, but some mention should have been made of a wellknown letter, signed by Mr. Spenser Wilkinson, and by others who have since died, addressed to the leaders of each Mr. Balfour's hands, helped him to get great party, which, if it did not force

his way.

As to the progress of the Admiralty in the matter of organization for war, Lord Charles Beresford quotes from the book of Sir John Briggs to which we called marked attention many years ago. At the time when that book appeared Sir John was forced to say this of his forty-four years' experience at the Admiralty:

The time for the appearance of 'The Life of Lord Roberts was opportunely chosen, for it appeared just as he had reached the age of 82 years. As happily his Lordship is well and vigorous, the biography is necessarily incomplete, but the story of his life and great services up to date is vividly told, though in places it is obscured by his

torical detail to such an extent that the

chief figure is for the time lost.

Frederick Sleigh Roberts was born on September 30th, 1832, at Cawnpore: his father (Sir Abraham Roberts, G.C.B.), then a Major commanding the 1st Bengal of the few men in authority who realized Fusiliers, was afterwards known as one of the few men in authority who realized the falseness of the position at Kabul have averted, the disasters of 1841-2. during the First Afghan War; his advice, if taken, might have lessened, or even

After a short time at Eton, and the

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usual period at Addiscombe, young Roberts was appointed to the Bengal Artillery in 1852, and proceeded to India. His services there, always distinguished, are familiar chiefly through his admirable book FortyOne Years in India,' on which Sir George Forrest's work is largely based, and need not be repeated. Having risen to the chief command in India, he continued Stewart, paying special attention to the the work so well begun by Sir Donald improvement of shooting by the troops

and to their social welfare. After return

ing home he was appointed Commander

in-Chief in Ireland.

Later, when our position in South Africa during the Boer War had become critical, he was sent there to avert the disaster which incompetence had rendered imminent. Though 67 years old, and suffering from the loss of his only son, a gallant and promising young officer, whose portrait is given at p. 194, he set forth in December, 1899. Soon after his arrival, under his direction system and organization replaced chaos. A plan of campaign was prepared, and before long the tide of misfortune was turned. Success followed his steps, and he returned home victorious, leaving to Lord Kitchener the completion of the work, a arduous business than was anticipated. His reception in London will not be forgotten by those who saw it. Honours

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