BOOK NOTICES.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4307, 16 March 1901, Page 1 (Supplement)

BOOK NOTICES.

THE BOOK OF THE BAY. “The Life and Death of Richard Yoa-and-Nay,” by Maurice Hewlett. (Alacmillan’s Colonial Library.) London: Macmillan and Co.; Wellington : Whitcombo and Tombs.

Emboldened by the instant success, now bulwarked securely with nn overincreasing loud verdict of permanent approval, which, was made by his ‘•Forest Lovers,” Mr Maurice Hewlett makes another excursion into the fair domain of early mediaeval romance, and with characteristic-courage takes one of the most noted and most picturesque figures in English history as his hero. His Richard Yea-and-Nay is that same Richard whom every English boy knows as tlie Lion Hearted, ho who loft the pleasures of court, and the excitement of the tourney ring for the wilder, more clamant fascinations of a campaign against the Saracen, then accounted a veritable pagan. The wonder is that more writers of romance have not chosen the same hero. Scott’s ‘'Talisman,” of course, must be remembered, but the Richard presented to us by the “Wizard, of the North” had hut little enchantment about him, and at the best was but a puppet-like creation of literary lath and plaster', tricked out in Wardour street armour. Mr Hewlett, mainly deals with the Richard of the earlier days, when as yet he was Count of Roietiers, and gives us a pen picture of a curiously composite character, a picture drawn with firm, unerring strokes, one which will linger long in the reader’s memory. As tlie title of his story infers, there were two Richards, ono of the heart so generous- that direst deed of enmity could bo forgotten and forgiven; the other is Richard whoso craft excelled that of his brother John—and that were surely no small tribute. Of his dual character, Jet Milo the Carthusian, whose records, it is Mr Hewlett’s fancy to pretend, have furnished the groundwerk of his story, bo heard, as lie winds up the long romance ou its concluding page : “King Henry was a great prince, who did evil to many, both in his life and death. My dear master, lord, and friend might have been a greater, had' not his head gone counter to his heart, his generosity not been tripped up by his pride. So- generous ho was, all the world might, have loved him as oue loved him; and yet so arrogant of mind that the very largess he bestowed had a. sting beneath it, as though ho scorned to give less to creatures that lacked so much. All his faults and many of his griefs sprang from this rending apart of his nature. His heart cried “Yea” to a noble motion. Then , came Ids haughty head to suggest trickery and bid him eny “Nay”! to the heart’s urgency. . . .” “He was a religious man, a pious man, the

hottest, fighter with the coolest judgment of any 1 have ever known ; a great lover of one woman. He might | have been a happy man if she had been let have her way. But he thwarted her, he played with her heart-whole love, blew hot and cold ; neither Jet ' her alone nor olavo to her through all. So she had to pay. And of him, unfriend howsoever, I say from the bottom of my soul, if his death did not benefit poor Jebane, then it is a happy thing for a woman to go blooding in the side. - But 1 know "that she was fortunate in Ids death, and believe that he was also. For lie had space for reparation, died with his loves about him, having been saved in time from a great disgrace . . . .” “King Richard knojv himself in those last keen hours, and (as we believe) won forgiveness of God.” The author shows us in turn Richard as lover, roisterer, bravo, warrior, statesman, and in the final scene as a much erring, but more than ever emir-

ageous knight, proud even while Death is beckoning, and abating not one jot of bis old virile stubbornness. Beside this man cf many parts stands prominent for several chapters tho figure of one of tho sweetest, fairest, and alas,most luckless heroines for whom English romance has yet been responsible. This is Jebane de Saint Pol, Jebauo of the Fair Girdle, who loves not wisely but too well, and who bears Richard an illegitimate son, Fulke, before finding a husband in the East. Of Jebane, the Carthusian monk, before mentioned, is allowed to give a beautiful word painting, a portion of which we may bo pardoned for reproducing: “The iris of her eyes, for instance, was wet grey, but ringed with black and shot with yellow, giving so the effect of hot green; her month was of an extraordinary bark-red colour, very firm in texture, close-grained.

like the darker sort of strawberries,” says he. The upper lip bad the sulky curve; she looked discontented and had reason to be, under such a. scrutiny of the miscroscope. Her hair was colour of raw silk, eyebrows set rather high, face a thinnish oval, complexion like a pink rose’s, neck thinnish again, feet, hands, long and nervous, “good working members,’’ etc., otci None of this helps very much; too detailed. But he noticed how tall she was and how slim, save for a very beautiful bosom, too full for Diana’s (ho tells us), whom else she resembled ; how she was straight as a birch tree ; how in walking it seemed as if her skirts clung about her knees. There was an air of mingled surprise and defiance about her; she was a silent girl. “Fronted like Juno.” he appears to cry, ‘'shaped like Hebe, and like Demetor in stature; sullen with most, but with one most sweetly apt, she looked watchful. but was really timid, looked cold, but was secretly afire. I knew soon enough how lief ease stood, how hope and doubt strove in her and choked her to silence. I guessed * how within those reticent members swift love ran like-wine ; but because of this proud, brave mask of hors I was slow to un- • derstand her worth. God help me, I thought ’her a thing of snow.” Tho love story of Jebane and Richard, we may not tell in full, for that were unfair to Air Hewlett, who shares no doubt the opinion of most authors, and it is notorious, of all publishers, that books wore written to be bought. But this much we may. say, that her lover treats her badly, accepting rather too readily the self-sacrifice she insists upon, tho poor girl hoping tho while at heart, as; a true woman in such sad plight must hope, that the lover will forbid its making. But before the agony of parting r.ames there is some splendid love-mak-ing, and Richard Yea is at his best in the fierce, passionate wooing that ends, like a tale of the old Border days, with a lover snatching his love from the bridegroom while even the priest is at bis work, and 1 galloping away to spend a honeymoon in Jehane’s tower, tho very description of which is instinct with the spell of true romance.

After this there is much clash of arms, indeed, for chapter after chapter the reader is in peril of being cloyed with axe-swinging, and lance thrusts, and so forth. Even Air Henley, whose “Song of tlie Sword” has stamped its author as the npefc of all good fighting men. could not bo more generous of blood spilling—on.paper.‘ But it must not be imagined Unit. Afi- Hewlett’s book is a mere record of butchery, as are certain’ of Air Rider Haggard’s stories. That there is much fighting is true, but it was a time when diplomatists were few, and men argued.

not with, “notes” and ‘ultimatums,” but with axe and lance, and when “conventions,” which nowadays generally suell “backing-down,” bad not come into fashion. So Richard, fights his way through life, now in France, or in England. anon in Germany, and yet further afield! iu the then all mysterious Palestine. But all thfe story is not of passionate love, nor yet of still fiercer war ; the statecraft and its side-issues of the time are sketched with masterly hand. Early in tho storv Air Hewlett gives us a striking portrait of Richard’s father, the Lion of Anjou. This time it is not the convenient Carthusian who nominally bolds the pencil, but the author himself:

.“The King looked his best on a throne, for lii.s uopor part was his best. It was, at least, the mannish part. With scanty red hair, much rubbed into disorder, ,a seamed, red face, blotched and shining; with a square jaw awry, the neck and shoulders of a hull; with gnarled, gross hands at tho ends of arms, long out of measure. a cruel mouth and a nose like a bird’s beak—his features seemed to have been hacked coarsely out of wood) and as coarsely painted; but what might have passed by such means for a man was transformed by his burning eyes, with their fuel of pain, into the similitude of a fallen angel. The devil of Anjou sat eating Kinpr Henrv’s eves, and you saw him at his meal. It gave the man the look of a wild boar easing his tusk ■ against., a tree, horrible, yet content to he abhorred, splendid because so strong and lonely. But the prospect was not comfortable. Little as he knew of Iris- father, Richard could make no mistake here. Tho old King was in a picksome mood, fretted by rage, angry that his son should kneel there, more than angry that he had not knelt before.” Evidently, as Mr Richard Swivoller’s friend would have said, the “old min” was not “friendly,” hut truculent as the greatest of the Angevins could be,

lie could even then, with'proplvetic eye, see the hold-spoken Iticha’rd rather than the smooth-tongued John as the better man of the two princes. We turn with curiosity to find Mr Hewlett’s portrait of John. It is given in one and the same frame which contains that of Richard—a study in contrasts—and both picturesque in words, and, according to more than one serious record, not far from being historically correct. On it:; mere literary meritsit is worth reproduction :

Tliis John—Sansten'e, Landlo.s, Lackland, so they variously called him —was a timid copy of his brother, a wry-necked, reedy Richard with a sniff. Not so tall, vet more - spare, with blue eyes, more pallid; than Ida brother’s, and protruding where Richard's- were inset ; the difference Jay more in degree than kind. . Richard was of heroic, build, but a. Well-knit, well-shaped hero; in John'the arms were too long; the head t6o small, too narrow. Richard’s eyes were perhaps too wide apart; no doubt John’s were too close together. Richard twitched Jiis fingers when lie-.was moved. John bit Ids cheek. Richard stooped from the neck, John from the shoulders. When Richard threw up his head you; saw .the lion; John at bay reminded you of a wolf, in a corner. John snarled at such times,Richard breathed through ‘lds nose. John showed his teeth, when-he was crossed, Richard when-he was merry. So many thousand points of imlikeness might be named, all small: the Lord knows there are enough.- The Angevin cat-and-dog nature Was fairly divided between these two. Richard ■had the sufficiency of the cat, John , the dependence of a dog; John had the cat’s socretiveness; Richard the dog’s dash. At heart John 'was a thief.

Of the plot of the story, we shall not attempt even the most meagre synopsis, for tho sufficient reason given above ; nor can we, space lacking, place others of Mr Hewlett’s admirable.portraits before our readers. The novel is packed full, almost too generously, .with stirring incident, and whether noth France, England or Palestine 'as a background Mr Hewlett’s characters are- ever vibrant with life. At all times an admirable standard of literary .skill is maintained in reproducing the very clash and clangour of arms. “The Forest Lovers” had for its chief fault an occasional’ overanxiety to introduce a - surplusage of archaic words or modern coinages of similar character, and hero again is the same failing, verging at times: upon a “preciousncso” which is: apt to irritate the reader by delaying a ready conception of tho incident described... But for the general vigour, the warmth of colour, the dash, the all-pervading fascination which one, buds in the story, there must he unqualified praise. / Mr Hewlett is comparatively a. ydpngmnu. He has shpwu what a -picturesque" pen can do with, one prominent figure in English history. We l look forward with pleasureable anticipation to further similar romances from his pen. Of late years \v© have had a surfeit of eighteenth century romances. It were well that tho Jacobites and the powdered and periwigged gallants of the later Georgian days were left alone awhile. Further hack are more stirring episodes and much more promising figures for heroes and heroines, What, an inspiration, for instance, could l not Mr Hewlett find in Froissart? For 1 the present, however, ho has earned the esteem, and gratitude of all who love true romance, nobly conceived and brilliantly told. Tho price of the hook is 2fi Od in paper and 3s Oil in cloth. It is a bonk which should be bought, not borrowed.