"THE POWER OF THE DOG."

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20402, 2 November 1929, Page 8 (Supplement)

"THE POWER OF THE DOG."

! DONN BYRNE'S LAST BOOK. Besders tn often dtceir&S by the ease ; ©f a flowing narrative into uudeTtstimaiing ibe in3iS€BS« aasoaai of labour that has predated iliis apparent lask of eSort. Indeed, the creation of *sch as impression is, perhaps, the asihor's greatest trhusph, seeing thai, by a higher art, be has concealed the art beneath. So that, ia Boaa Byrne's last fa&ofc, a tale cf the Napoleonic era, 1355-1215, the infinite pains sawdcx3 to assimilate the facts preheated, the Izboricvs • spade-work involved rn clearing the histories' background, are all oveisfaadovr«! by the Sowering of fact and fancy in tads as historical cove] as ti-i r/iae L"i Dens Byrne could have srrittea. Garrett McCarthy Dill en, an Ulster Loyalist, is crarnwl to JoceJyn Mario, aa flitter rebel, and irfeea Dillon goes to London to act as an side to Lord Cast'ercagh feu wife relates to accompany Lira. Aczxm the wide canvas of the picture pass ail the great figures of that great day, hut there is nothing stereotyped about the port raits re. -VII are seen through that pyre and aidont Celtic taad, v.hicfc ia Dobsi Byrne's characters seems bat a reSez of She aathor'e oho nature JVatn Byres bis Lees sr.et-red at as a romantic, feat *2ut w2J the sneer? rs sayto t};Li portrait of the " divine Emma," after Trafalgar, crewiiJy trying to make capital out of her association with the national hero: " The huge woman, Hearing SO, wish the cold gambler's eyes, shocked the young Irishman. Ho* coold ibis old barmaid hse ever captured great Nelson cf the Nile! ..." "She [Jocelyaj had a picture in her mind of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, or of My. Robert Emmet, and saw in thcm tragic, romantic men a pattern of chivalry. They had both of thesa failed, Fitzgerald before bs had struck one Mow, and Emmet's rebellion resulted in the murder of a kindly old man and some sordid looting. And because of their death they were the lovers of young woman's dreams, and the otber men v:bo faced a white and weary road of life, instead of & leap in Jo the cool waters of death, were only poor louts." One by one, or two by two, the characters of those troublous times pass across the stage —Emperors, Kings, statesmen, soldiers, poets and plooghboys. There is the frozen Castlereagh, hiding bis pain beneath an unchanging mask; "General Sir Arthur Wellcsley," yellow, grim and hating all other Irishmen; Nelson, the " reckless hero, with a brain as nicely adjusted as one of his own compasses;" a people's idol—" If this cove gets any bigger," said Canning, " then God save the Kin-|;" Wordsworth, the heavybased, clumsy, respectable figure, reviewing, as he tramps the Cumberland moor?, those brief, far-05. ardent days of youthful passion, when France had stood to him for a symbol of the new freedom of the world. * But these days' behind him. He hsd returned to " England, which was sound: England, which was safe; England, which was prosperous." Donn Byrne was a versatile writer, who excelled m many different forms, but perhaps he never did anything better than what was destined to be the Is si effort of that gallant pen before his untimely death. " Tee Power of tbe Doc," by Donn Byrr.e. (Sampson. Low.)