PUBLIC LIBRARIES

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 144, 14 December 1935, Page 30

PUBLIC LIBRARIES

BOOKS OF THE WEEK The Chief Librarian of the Wellington Public Libraries has chosen "Richard Savage," by Gwyn Jones, as the book of the week, and has furnished the following review:-— It is seldom indeed that a historical novel is so very thorough and yet so entertaining as Mr. Gwyn Jones's fictional life of Pope's "literary jackal and spy. The ".story opens in 1714 when Richard Smith, a shoemaker's apprentice, is told at an appointment which he has agreed to keep with a Mr. Suter and a .Captain Rawsley that he is the illegitimate son of' the Countess of Macclesfield and Richard Savage, Fourth Earl Rivers. Smith is dazzled by the news and promptly adopts the name of Savage and has golden visions of a swaggering future among the wealthy nobility. He finds, however,' that, his mother is now respectably married .to .a Colonel Brett, and wishes to forget her earlier indiscretion. Suter's death brings the papers which it is hoped will substantiate Savage's claim into Rawsley's hands, and Rawsley is prepared on terms to help Savage in pressing the cause, in which, however, he has very little confidence. Through the agency of an old Jewish antiquary and receiver of stolen, goods named Mengels, Savage is introduced to Alexander Pope. Rawsley secures him the post of secretary librarian to a : wealthy merchant named Hagley, and Savage is so overcome by. his good fortune as to address a letter directly to his mother. Mrs. Brett is, of course, greatly agitated. : Savage's circle of acquaintance changes and among his friends may be numbered Sir Richard Steele. He is" unable, however, to make the acquaintance of his mother and her new husband, Colonel Brett, who has become familiar with his persistent course of conduct, and seeks nothing better than, an opportunity to silence his tongue altogether. From this point the book is a record of crime and of London literary life about the coffee houses; and the story of his unsuccessful play "Woman's a Riddle," and of his successful comedy, "Love in a Veil," after the production of which, under the influence of drink, he forces his way into the Brett household and thrusts himself upon his mother. The episode ends in his being thrown out by a footman. During the rush of; life that follows, Savage attacks the character of his mother in the columns of the "Plain Dealer," a proceeding which culminates in violence between Savage and Brett, who is steadfast to his wife in spite of. the calumnies which Savage has been spreading. Savage's arrest for murder in 1727, his subsequent release by an interested party, his attack on Pope, "The Author to be Let," and his scurrilous, satirical poem on his mother which drives her out of society and his final breach with Pope and death in penury occupy the closing chapters of' the book. , Mr. Jones has well succeeded in bringing back the gay and raffish society of the early part of the eighteenth century. Literary men were proverbially famished, and although Pope lorded it in'the salons of the fashionable, the more disreputable kind of poet was generally something of a nightbird and perhaps petty criminal. The description of the terrific siege of Candish's Eating House in Whitefriars when the militia were called in to aid the police seems far fetched to our imagination now,'but was in actual fact probably not even the most spectacular of Jhe battles that has raged about that well-known sanctuary into which the. guardians of law and order were at the best of times loth to penetrate. Although in giving credence to this, method of writing history, or more "properly biography, a good deal of trust has to be placed in the author; since there is no onus upon him to study accuracy very. much, yet after all Mr. Jones has the courage to call his book a,novel, which many of vthe writers of novelised history fail -to'■do;, and by the very word "novel" makes no.false claims to implicit belief. Having thus far set himself on side, he proceeds to ; give us what certainly tallies with the history texts as an accurate description of the London of the period. No matter what liberties he may or may not1 have taken with his principal characters, historical accuracy is best served by a complete and perfect setting for their actions, and it is in the construction of his stage and the decoration upon the drop scenes that Mr. Jones has based the success of his book. Savage is a little-known character to fill a complete stage as he. does here, but there is nothing whatever in the book in-; consistent with what is known of one j of the most gaudy beggars-on-horse-.' back who has. ever figured in English! literature. ■■'• I