THE VICTORIAN CENTURY

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21975, 26 December 1936, Page 13

THE VICTORIAN CENTURY

* jtrom the regency to TO-DAY jhe Hundred Years. By Philip G«efclla. Hodder and Stoughton. (12s (?d net.) From W. S. Smart. Regency Pageant. By Paul H. Em« d':n. ffcdder and Stoughton. (15s n et.) From W. S. Smart. (Rr>vie«'*d by 0. M. 1.. I.IISTEK.J There has been lately a marked Increase of interest on the part of i general reader in history, and especially in the history of the last hundred years. Novelists in search of a story make easy money by disinterring notabilities of the past— Shelley, Byron, and many another — an d decorating their life histories 1 with the rather shoddy sentiment of to-day. The picture shows feel the pressure of the sam,e, demand, and Mr Arliss obliges *with an impersonation of a succession of the great men of the past-. It is fitting > -men, that a hand more ' competent Mian that of the artist who wrote the scenario of “Cavalcade” should attempt a lively, comprehefoSive picture of the hundred f which span the interval bct Queen Victoria’s accession he present day. It seems necesmoreover, that such a sketch, jf it is to suit the present public, should be seasoned by the spice which debunking or denigration ! supplies, and which gives young people the comfortable feeling that they are better thap their forefathers. For the truth is that we no longer pray with our fathers to be delivered “from envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness,” but are quite ready to welcome one or more of these undesirable qualities if they are introduced to us with sufficient cleverness and wit. For such a task Mr Guedalla is eminently fitted. He is clever, he is wittw, his pen wears neither sheath nor padding, and he has the added advantage that his well-deserved reputation as a historian guarantees |or his readers the accuracy of his facts, though not, possibly, the relevance of all the deductions which he draws from them. “The Hundred Years” is a most fascinating book, and carries the reader breathlessly the whole length of this eventful period. The interest never flags as i he changes from crisis to crisis, from country to country. There is not a page without a striking passage; not ' a chapter in which we do not congratulate ourselves that there is no editor to blue pencil those purple patches which by convention are the weeds in the literary garden. For Mr Guedalla throws convention to the winds, and he furnishes us a • tapestry of purple patches worked on a slender background of penetrating statement and sound history. Interwoven with this rather flamboyant splendour one comes across some tightly packed, neatly wrought sentence, which almost compels us to exclaim, with Kioling’s hero, “ M eat, sir! Oh, damned neat!” But kb style, which was so effective in i those fine works, “Independence , Day” and “The Duke,” seems in this volume to have run riot. The meteorological notes which, used with discretion, so often accent ' a vivid picture, become tedious when they appear at the opening of almost every chapter. It is picturesque and perhaps a little touching to write that the June sun shone on the Kensington Gardens when the little Queen hurried down in her nightgown to meet her aged Councillors. It is striking, and certainly ' surprising, to read that ‘‘The gale was rising fast, and the windows of i the world began to rattle ” So violent and universal a draught is no ; doubt a fitting opening for a chapter of violence and unrest. But these frequent weather notes can be over- > done, and are overdohe in this fascinating book. Again, it is an admirv able introduction to a chapter on Russia to state that “The golden . spire of the Admiralty still hung in the sky over St. Petersburg, and the rust-red Palace stood beside the frozen Neva.” But when four, if not five, times we meet the spire still ; golden, and the Palace still rust-red, ’<i: we are inclined to suspect a certain : paucity of imagination in the writer. ‘:i These, however, are only specks on the sun. We have a mote serious ouarrel with Mr Guedalla. It may be admitted that the period of which he writes was a time of spectacular - illusions; that balloons floated over- „ head, filled with gas and decorated with slogans which to-day sewn ( pretentious and absurd. It is tne ' .historian’s duty to dispel these illusions and to puncture these balloons. But does this justify Mr Guedalla m v looking down upon a world so fruitful of noble effort, and pronouncing it, or rather its inhabitants, as uni- • formly bad? I have read this book ’ twice through and I haVe foUttd only •. twO people, Lord Roberts and The ;, Duke,” of Whom Mr Guedalla writes with approbation, admiration, or i ; respect. Surely he does not think that he 01“ his readers have so reached the limit 6f human attainment that they are entitled to sit in supercilious silence, smiling at the ;. follies and foibles of the great men ■ of this remarkable time? We may enjoy the searching anV alysis of the ihiquities of the German ErftperOr, whom Mr Guedalla belabours with the gusto of Punch m ; hiS famous cOmb&l with the pOliceman; but It is hard to forgive his clever, witty, and withal shallow caricature of that great man, Lora ", Talfour, his insistence on Lord Bal- ./ four’s every weakness, and his sneer ' at the notable company of “Souls’ to . which he once belonged. His indiCt-r-ent of Chamberlain for his conduct in the months preceding the - Eouth African imbroglio is severe; Eut.it is dignified. His unveiling Of the bundles and ineptitudes of the Pofer War is savage, but amply justii fed. His onslaught on the shoddy \ Xhipcrialism of Chamberlain’s day is pChetrating and direct. Why, then, ; sphil this fine section of his book by spotting many pages with scraps of the worst doggerel that Kipling ever Wrote? i But enough of criticism. It is a pleasanter task to express unqualified admiration of the sombre splendour of the pages in which Mr Guedalla recounts the crumbling of the Russian Empire, the SqUalid ahtir climax of the Tsar’s abdication, and Whts at the tragedy of his death. For the student the most valuable of this book will doubtless be thfe vivid pictures in which the author places in their true perspeci t|Ve many names such as Fashoda, Tingiers, and Algeciras, which through lapse of time have lost their Vfllue and slipped from their context. The cross sectiohs of the political Vjfbrld Of Europe with which Mr QUedaUa from time to time inter-

rupts his brilliant narrative are of permanent historical value. TO turn frohi these lively pages to Mr Emden’s “Regency Pageant’ is at Price a rest and a disappointment. The title promises sbmdthihg racy, even risky, and full of colour. MiEmden is neither racy hOr risky: nor do his pages often stray beyond the values of a monochrome. Nevertheless, he plods honestly through his period, deals effectively With its chief factors, and a to his great credit avoids thfe cloud of vulgar detail which seems to cling fOr eVfer rOUhd the history of George IV,