LITERARY NOTES.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXVIII, Issue 3502, 3 August 1898, Page 1 (Supplement)

LITERARY NOTES.

WITHt PAPER-KNIFE AND PEN. I. “ William Ewart Gladstone : Statesman aud Scholar,” - edited by Dav.d Williamson London and Melbourne : V.’ard, Lock and Co. Wellington : Whitoombe and Tombs. ir.-iii. “ Philippi the Guardsman,” by T. B. Threlfall. “Marching Backward,” by ErnestS. Williams. London and Melbourne ; Ward, Lock and Co. Wellington : S. and W. Maokay. IV. -V. “ The Man of the Family,” by F, E. Phi lips. “ The Well-beloved,” by Thomas Hardy. M-icmilbn’a Colonial Library. Wellington -. S, and W. Maokay.

The enterprise shown by certain publishing firms in issuing biographies of the late Mr Gladstone within two or three weeks of the great statesman’s death would be more astonishing than it is were it not that many of the so called “ records " and “ chronicles ” are of the flimsiest, in fact, possible character ; in bookmaking. Such a remark, however, does not. apply to the well printed, well illustrated volume “ William Ewart Gladstone —Statesman and Scholar ” (i.) which has been published by Messrs Ward Lock and Co., and a copy of which is before us. This biography is the work of three separate hands, Messrs E. G. Emerson, Eonald Smith and David Williamson, the latter gentleman editing the whole and adding a prefatory “ Tribute and Appreciation.” With the exception of Mr 'George Barnett Smith's bulky work on the same subject Messrs Ward, Lock and Co’s biography is far the most complete record of Mr Gladstone’s political career that we know of, and having been brought up to date, the details of the last two years and final illness being given at some length, is at present the most comprehensive work on the subject that the public can procure. The work lacks, it may be, the personal tone which is a leading and not unpleasant feature in Mr Justin McCarthy’s “ Story of Gladstone’s Life,” but it is less open to the charge of undue eulogy, and is in many ways a more faithful and unbiassed chronicle of the statesman’s life than is Mr McCarthy’s biography. Written in a clear, straight-forward style, it gives very full information on almost every event connected with Mr Gladstone’s career, and not the least valuable of its features are the extracts from the deceased statesman’s most famous speeches. Mr Williamson’s “tribute and appreciaiion" is conceived and executed in an excellent spirit. There is sufficient of the personal touch to make it gossippy whilst at the same time there is no improper intrusion into the inner privacies of Mr Gladstone's life. Very aptly does the editor quote Eobert Browning’s lines :

“ One who never turned his back but marched breast-forward. Never doubted clouds would broak,”

Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph. Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better. Sleep to wake.

“ All through his career," says Mr Williamson, •* he was courageous, never espousing a cause because it was likely to be successful, but because he felt it was a righteous cause, never hesitating, even with the certainty of losing power and prestige, to load his party into the lobby where it would be outnumbered ; and to the very last he faced pain and suffering with a bravery which inspired all those who nursed him with admiration. His religious faith sustained his physical endurance when all his political hopes were shattered, and it burned as a bright flame in the darkening hours of ill-health and restricted activity."

The book, which is a bulky tom# of over 420 pages, is well illustrated, but one ongraving—that facing page 385—has evidently slipped in by error. It is entitled “Mr Gladstone during his last Premiership," but the fact is that it ia a duplicate of a picture appearing in connection with a story which was published in the “Windsor Magazine" of October, 1897. The story was that of a young man who possessed a singular talent for “ making up" to represent popular celebrities, and who, to win a bet, actually makes his way into the House of Commons and takes up Mr Gladstone’s seat on the front Ministerial bench. He is detected as an impostor by an under, secretary, whom the picture represents at the moment he is whispering to the bogus G.0.M., “ Look here, my fine fellow, I don’t know your name, but you’re certainly not Gladstone.” How this particular picture came to find a place in a biography of the statesman is a mystery to which the publishers alone hold the key. Apart from this, the illustrations to this valuable and interesting work are in every way admirably chosen and well executed. In its sober, tasteful binding, and sold at a price (ss) which will render it accessible to the great mass of the public, the volume ought to enjoy a very widespread popularity.

What with Professor Sloane’s “ Life of Napoleon,” tho Rev Baring Gould’s ponderous though intensely interesting tome on the same subject, and the numerous articles in American and English magazines dealing with the eventful career of the “ Man of Destiny,” we have had quite a deluge of Napoleonic literature during the past two or three years. There was room, however, for a good stirring romance depicting the Napoleonic campaigns from tho point of view of the .private soldier, and this omission is now well supplied by Mr Threlfall’s excellent story, “ Philippi the Guardsman” (ii.), which has just been published in Messrs Ward, Look and Co.’s wellprinted cloth-bound Colonial Library series. Mr Threlfall’s hero is a young Italian who is dragged away from his native country to serve in the Grand Army, and who follows the Imperial Eagles right across Europe until the fateful Moscow is reached. Mr Threlfall evidently has “got up" his subject with great care, and there is an air of truth abont his story which is distinctly attractive. The horrors of war have never been more vividly set forth, and from first to last there is an intensity about the narrative which compels attention and interest. Wo follow the army to Moscow, taking part in engagement after engagement ; wo witness the scenes of rapine which marked the first few days of occupation, and then comes the burning of the ill fated city, and the long and dismal retreat. The story of that retreat and of its horrors is the strongest feature in the book and is a triumph of descriptive writing. Mr Threlfall introduces just a trifle too much of tho “ occult" into his story, the hero's love Annetta, appearing in speotoral form at dangerous moments and warning her soldier sweetheart, but it would be captious to grumble at this when tho story as a whole is so dramatic and effective. As to tho author’s powers as a realist the following brief extract (from a description of a battlefield) should serve as a convincing tribute: We could not take two paces without stumbling upon the poor creatures. Here, against a broken cannon, reclined an old French grenadier, the hero of a hundred fights, with a scornful smile on his face as he calmly awaited death ; there, a young recruit weeping and moaning whilst he pushed a handful of earth into his gaping wound. Two more paces and one’s eye would fall on an Italian with both legs shot off yet still living ; a Russian with an arm and shoulder carried away, but giving no sign of pain ; a Spaniard with half his face gone ; a German with a bullet through his chest ■ spouting blood at every painful breath j a Cossack with his stomach blown out j a Swiss with the roof of his head gone, showing the pulsating brain ; a splendid grenadier trying in frantic grief to push back his protruding entrails, meanwhile cursing horribly; a Russian with a broken leg, straightening it, then tying it to a broken branch and hobbling away to join his comrades; or a little Parisian with tho flesh stripped off one thigh jeering at death.

As a series of pictures of war, and especially as an exposition of the horrors of the famous retreat from Moscow, “ Philippi the Guardsman " deserves the highest praise. The hero is a fine fellow, and lovers of the conventional “ happy " ending will rejoice exceedingly to find that ho and his Annetla coins together again in thdr beautiful Italian village. The story, which is well illustrated, is one of the best military romances we have read, and should have a large sale. (Price, 2s 6d pajfef ; !JS fid cTcfth,

Miss P. Emily Phillips’ 'story “ The Man of the Family (iv.) has for heroine a brave - heaated girl, Barbara Dalyt-11, who is the mainstay of her family, and for hero a weak, luxury-living young artist, whose parents have both wealth and position. Sebastian Le Roux is a , trifler, a dilettante, who meets Barbara in Paris. The pair love each other, but o> returning to England Sebastian is weak enough to engage himself to his cousin, a lady in his own station in life. No sooner this is dona than he repents, and for a while he hovers about the two girls in a state of uncertainty between ease and comfort, plus a wife whom he does not love, on the one side, and a penniless girl, who is much better worth his love, on the other. Family influence carries the day, and Le Boux marries his cousin, brave Barbara battling with poverty and nearly breaking her heart over a man who is not worthy of her love. Again and again Le Roux tempts her, but the girl is courageous and well-principled, and we leave her at the close of the story finally dismissing her old love and accepting without complaint her hard life, a life soon, tbe reader will trust, to be ended by hot meeting with a better man than Sebastian Le Roux. The background to the main story introduces us mainly to the family life of the Dalyells, the good-heart.-d, “wastrel" brother Tom, and the weak, whining, shiftless father. Barbara, the real “ man " of the Daly ell family, bears her cross nobly, and will have the sympathy of every one who reads what is a very well-written but pathetic story. (Price, 2s 6d paper; 3s fid cloth).

Mr Ernest E. Williams, who is a fellow of the Statistical Society, created quite a small sensation last year by a series of articles entitled “ Made in Germany,” in which he pointed out the grave dangers which threaten British manufacturers and merchantsthrough Teuton competition. In his new booklet, “ Marching Backward ” (in.), he puts forward some very plain and rather ugly facts, the burden of which is to prove that unless John Bull wakes up at once from his apathy and inaction with regard to foreign competition he will soon be hopelessly outdistanced in the race for trade. British exports are yearly decreasing whilst the imports are increasing, and Mr Williams makes it perfectly clear that many of the causes for the decline in British commercial supremacy lie at home and not solely with the foreigner. His chapters on the Shipping Ring, as he calls the Shipping Conference, aro indeed an eye-opener and are not without interest for New Zealand colonists! He formulates a most formidable indictment against the Peninsular and Oriental Company in particular and proves beyond doubt that the British shipowners, as they now conduct their business, play, right into the hands of German and other foreign competitors. “ Marching Backward ” is not a very big book, but its every page is packed with statistics and arguments of the highest interest to all who wish to see the Mother Country prosperous. It is a book which should be read by every politician, journalist and public man who is desirous of studying the present problem of how best to preserve British trade and to cope successfully with foreign eompetion. It is an excellent shillings worth.

Since Mr Thomas Hardy's curious but clever stors? “The Well-beloved"— A Sketch of a Temperament" first appeared in the columns of the “ Illustrated London News " in 1892, several of its chapters have been re-written, the result being a much more coherent whole. The idea of the one man loving and being loved by three generations of women in the same family is a somewhat daring experiment, but there is nothingin the least improbable in its working out once the “ temperament " of Jocelyn Pierstonis taken for granted. Of the three Caros whom he loves, the first, Aviee, is decidedly the most char min", and we fancy that more happiness would have fallen to the lot of Jocelyn hadhe wedded withher at2othan philandering along until, at 60, he marries Marcia Bencomb. But Mr Hardy, to his devotees, amongst the ranks of whom we are proud to count ourselves, is always a charming writer, and although wo cannot accept “The Well Beloved” or “ The Pursuit of the Well Beloved ” as anything approaching say “ Par From the Madding Crowd." “The Woodlanders,” or “ The Mayor of Castorbridge,” it is free from the objectionable realism of “ Tess ” and “ Judo the Obscure.” The pictures of life amongst the curious little community of stone workers in the peninsula of Portland are delightful. Every Hardy-ite,and there must bs many in Wellington, ought to secure a cony of “ The Well Beloved. (Price 2s 6d paper, 3s 6d cloth.) Scrutator.