NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 19918, 3 May 1930, Page 13

NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

HAKLUYT. The Principal navigations, Voyages, Trafflquos, and Discoveries of th« English Nation. By Richard Hakluyt. With an Introduction by John Maeefleld. Xlluatratod by Thomas Derrick. 8 Volumes. J. M. Dent and Sons, Ltd. (63ft net.) Somebody recently referred to "those unaccountable Elizabethans." We nod our heads sagely over the splendours of their achievement in action and in art, and trace the springs of their energy, and measure the objects for whic!' they strove; and no doubt we creep a little nearer to understanding an age of prodigies. But when the facts have been neatly wrapped up in words, the sense of wonder returns after all. It seems as if we have only disposed the facts better, and not explained them at all. It is then that "unaccountable" becomes veritably a tribute, like Andrea del Sarto's sigh, before the sketch by Raphael, the statement and the riddle of his genius, "Out of me! Out of me I" Hero, at least in part, is the fascination of Elizabethan literature. Shakespeare has more than tho inscrutability of individual genius; Hakluyt records a mystery. Each yields to us his age/ and each witliolds it.

If the impulse to explore and master the earth defies exact measure, an impulse of Which Hakluyt, more than any man, shows us the strength and the many workings, it is another marvel, of single purpose and skill, that he offers us in his own great book. As a boy he visited a cousin at Westminster, and saw "lying open upon his board cer* faine booties of Cosmographie, with an universal Mappe." This sight, his cousin's discourse, and the words'of the .107tli Psalm, to which that talk directed him, resolved him to "prosecute that knowledge and ki,nde of literature, the doores whereof (after a sort) wero so happily opened before me." From then onwards he devoted himself to his task, acquiring languages, studying sciences, corresponding with the geographers of Europe, visiting returned voyagers, collecting logs and every sort of firsthand evidence. In 1589 the first edition of the "Principall Navigations" was ready; and tho Indefatigable historian of the Empire's origins wag at once busy on tho amplified second edition', which was completed in 1600. He knew not only what to do and .how great a task it, was, but how ®st to do it. Ho was an excellent writer; but he subdued his own pen in order to preserve untouched the narratives ol the great adventurers themselves. He would not paraphrase or adorn, when he could transmit; and fot his firm, self-denying grasp of what posterity would most value in a contemporary record posterity ean never cease to be grateful Hakluyt was unsparing of himself:

I call the worke a, burden, in conaideratlou that those voyage* lay »o diiporsed, Mattered, and hidden in several hucksters' hands the is sneaking o£ log# "and other records] that I .now woonder at my seLfc, to Bee how I was able to endure the delsyeS, ouriofity, and backwardness of many from whom I vitht to receive my originals. Nine years later he said again;

VThat restless nights, what painful days, what heat, what <cold, I haye endured; how many long and chargeable journey# I have travelled; how many famenta libraries I have searched into; what variety of ancient and modern writers; what a number of old records, patents, privileges, letters, etc.; I have redeemed from obscurity and perishing. The result justified and crowned . the labour, from which* a»;Archdeacon 'Hector of (lednoy, between 1(503 and 181#, Haltluyt had pleasant ease. He wis buried in Westminster,' but his memorial there lias not been found, tie needed none, other than he had provided for himielf in the capital work of English travel. It 'las never been issued in a more agree' able and handy form than the eight volumes of this reprint.

FROUDE AND CARLYLE. treiifle ihi Csrlyle. By Waldo S. Sons, Xiengmaas, ansa and 09,

Hiis is an attempt to "assemble, once for all, the essence of the abundant literature which has grown out of the Froude-Oarlyle controversy." The author, who is Professor tit English in the College of Wooster, TJ.S.A«>: tells us thai he "ventured a nnst statement" on the subject lourteen yew ß ago, and was encouraged to continue by ttie hfearty approval of Mr Seecombe. Now he traverses tie whole field- igain, not hesitating, he tells tis, to repeat where lie' feels that clarity demands repetition, but presenting i only a smtiil portion of yast amount of ni&terial he hiS accumulated; It i!i pl&osant to fiad an. author, especially a controversial biographer, admitting that there is a ''limit to the size of books," and particularly pleasant to meet one with so Orderly a mind. The preface is folldwed by. a list of the Sources, (cited by abbreviation), this by ;a farther list of the I Controversiae Personae, the main body .of the book by a long Section .oh the Illustrative Documents, and these in i turn by an admirably compiled index. ! There are also two folates* eich W»I taihing a facsimile or Mary Carlyle s copy of a portion of Jane Welsh var- ! lyle'a Journal and of- Thomas Carlyle's Notes on the Love Letters. Then in setting out the, controversy .itseU Professor Dunn takes such short and firm steps ("The Controversy . in Brief," "How Froude Became i Involved." "Froude Undertakes the Commission," "Mary Attacks Froude," and so on) that it is impose sible to lose one's way or be in doubt, at any stage of the proceedings, of the precise point at issue. Anyone who reads tile book right through—it is only 350 pages long—will know more about the controversy than he hais ever known before, but it is not certain that he will be sure that the last word has been 6aid, or that Professor I>uhn has completely cleared Froude, for this is his real purpose, of all the charges that have been laid against him. He does clear him of any suspicion of lack of integrity and unworthy motive, but not quite of the suspicion of lack of candour and or discretion. Nor, interesting though the book is, absorbingly interesting,

can it really be regarded as of gnat importance. While it is tro# that tfce Froude-Carlyle controversy is th© most famous in our recent literary history, no conceivable issue to it will seriously a fleet the reputation of th« two central figures. Carlyle's fame » secure whether he* was a good or a bad husband, whether the two braises ho left on his wife's wrist were brutality or accident, and whether lie did or did not lore Lady Ashburton. Froode'a fame is not quite so secure, but nothing can obscure his distinction as • writer or his extraordinary, if uneren, performance as a historian.

AMONG SAVAGES.

Savage Gentlomeu. By Mabel C. Cole. George G. Harrap. 10c U S«t

Mrs Cole is tho wife of an anthropologist, and with him spent Jthree and a half years among the head-hunting: tribes of the Philippines. Her book i» therefore a record of the more personal aspects of th«j expedition, though it contains a good deal of scienee by the way. When, for example, she is describing the spirit world of the beadhunters, she is not merely an ethnologist 's wife, but an ethnologist herself, absorbed by her subject, bnt freer than most scientific writers are of Scientific phraseology:

I.itUe by little we discovered that the.e primitive people have a highly dcveiop*< torn ol spiritism. More than a hundred fifty spirits are known to them by cam*, an*! these spirits visit the people through lOfdiuw. l , who itinke their vrishea knotrn. . . . Atooea, who was a frequent visitor at onr h«t«e. Wav a medium. She was wore than thirty yaara old, she told us, before she called by tfes spirits to her high office. The# one »i*at r,he was seized *lOl * fit of tretnMi** vlmm .she was not cold, and she kneia* that ah® wa* "called."

It is like this all the way. J>r. and Mrs Cole arc sometimes in peril of their lives and sometimes living comfortably as the honoured quests of some "savage gentleman," and that ride things is simply and sincerely told. But they are also looking every da* for specimens for the American Field Museum of Natural History, *»d i» describing the search, with its 4UWti<*» rewards,' and disappointments, Mrs Cole is a popular scientific lecturer whose audience will not often jratra.

The Misadventures of a. Tropical KWbe»H. 8. Dickey. Tko Better Bni It* net.

Like Mrs Cole's this book Is wwetimes popular and sometimes iekntiiic, but it is to be hoped that no o»« wOl = be so unfortunate as to open Dr.JDielwy at the page on whieh he describes lite adventures with a hydrophobic pig. Foe here he is neither popular nor Mies* tifie,- but mo lo drama tie; he does M* know what is wrong with the pig «r make any attempt to find out, im tie account he gives of his en counter with it might have eome direet from Mmchausen. In general, . however, IMS Dickey is not in the least -Miraehaissenish, but simply a man who preferred an adventurous life to a tame one, and accordingly .went straight to CWmsVJs after taking his degree instead rf staying at home and piling up dollars. One of his adventures Is to have frta hands tied behind his back, and then be hung .by thorn to a tree for tweatytwo hours with myriads of ants biting him. On another occasion he meeta Sir Roger ,Casement, who gives him the impression that although he "wasn't exactly mad, he was extremely •dicentric," largely as a result of his Gongo and Puttunayo experiences. Bot while Dr. and Mrs Cole are oaifcr three and a half years in the Philippine*, their countryman, Dr. Diekey, is thirty years in Sooth' America, net primarily as a man of science, bat most «t the time as a -d{Kstor In the Mffviea «S mining or rubber compaxdM, 1 mms Ik enssing the however, he is i»«- 1 .-pressed' by tlio asaMl , of the 1 IMißift'!j ■ has most to dot - that: Washington maymSifliw 'Pifm. '•' to this fact, and fttfroty#Hjh cordingly. / ">4 , 4CKNowLpn*pjii**. Drifting Leave*. Bf S. K. '4 Klathaws and awmrfcXfi. t ' There is good worit In this *wiis novel. Margaret' Wilson** -Iwtp^ihjF" '• Archie Stanton, who —-"frl" 1 tTTIT > years before, tarns- to pity, whta ill and helpless; and she ijlarry and support hint. Bat forbids it. J < ' r The Mad Sftafltartm. Bar C I inflfH * fMfri yn oflfc- «1K ■ I - humour «»* **£ sopbrfielat, th«» «wrtiMU»l disturbances earned in * V;group of "ordinary**' te' . extraordiyny delicate creature WW ... aaaa , peace ,fer h«*«fc'4r»*Jfiftl Mill nature denies it » turbance is ne»t w comes, she is flown-" 1 l " v ! !whp tfrg jHagr i« lt ?»f4 tor** and his Mfo jRMfc J him forget his station in Kfti her a greyhound. When it still the ''darling, £xudiah, pnnietf, ; ftK|.v Puritan," but he has advaaeed point at whieh he is willing to SMMfct" family and consent to Ills daughters - marriage to "a man." Pilgrim's Port. By IH»M »*; _*** Bedfe? Bwf c«eeieli»m#a Bs«fc Arcade, Sydney.) The story of John Gmfiso% retired K.C. and man of letters, and of Ida grandchild Joy, who mums to hist "out of the blue" to "revive the a*eSent soahdal of his dead son's eiepeswwt with a famous Spanish dancer.'* Till with all Miss Hinc's "sympathetle" insight. I ■ Father Gregory. By P. C. Wren- Ata JftnarayA 2s net reprint, in a handy siar, with large, clear print, of a novel that lua been selling freely for seventeen years. This is the seventh impression. The Thousandth MSa. By I«wts Cte&jaSßs and Been. Rett Beads an* MHMtfSB. A love-story that begins oddly a man's recognition of his JMtkfi on the music-hall stage, and leads to the discovery of his father. The mat wb more conventionally.