THE BOOKMAN,’ Graphic Office, Auckland.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIX, Issue III, 10 July 1897, Page 85

THE BOOKMAN,’ Graphic Office, Auckland.

*‘The Queen of the Moors.’

There is nothing particularly distinctive, either in style or matter, in this novel, but it is well written, and has a plea-

sant, healthy tone about it. It is the moors of Devon, not the Moors of Spain, of which the heroine, Miss Cecil Caltnady, is Queen, she being a proprietress of Dartmoor, whose will is law throughout her own domain. Hers is an extremely strong will, but, being combined with a high courage and a good heart and a great many personal attractions, we take kindly to it. Miss Calmady will have none of the suitors who come a-wooing her, but, in her wilful way, goes herself a-wooing a picturesque young French prisoner of war, confined in Dartmoor Prison (the story is laid in the early days of this century). She assists in his escape from prison, nurses him through an illness, and finally marries him — though Arnaud de Valence is portrayed in such vague outline and faint colouring that the reader cannot satisfactorily sympathise with Cecil’s attachment to him. But the other characters of the book are like Cecil herself, drawn with considerable vividness and skill.

* • Caeli Rhode* : A Biography an(l an ... , Appreciation. .

This is a work that should find ready p U bij c favour at the present moment, when the Diamond Jubilee rejoicings throughout the Empire have kindled or fanned into flame imperalist ideas in all , have come of The Blood.’ For

Cecil Rhodes is pre-eminently the pioneer of the • Imperialist Idea ’ in South Africa, and the hearts of all true Britons cannot fail towarm towards the man who has, so long and steadfastly, held magnificent ideas of Great Britain’s destiny, and who has so magnificently attempted to materialise those ideas in one quarter of the Empire. The writer of this biography seems to be very well conversant with his subject, and if he appears to write occasionally with a somewhat too partial pen, it is a failing so natural to biographers that it is easily condoned. Not the least interesting portion of the book are the two chapters contributed by Dr. Jamieson, entitled ‘ My Reminiscences of Cecil Rhodes.’

This book of Balsac’s has no claim to be * About Cathe ‘ ca ]j e< i an historical novel. It is simply rlne De’Medicl.’ w h a t its title implies—a book about CatherineDe’Medici. Butas Catherine De’Medici, despite her crimes—or, perhaps, on account of them—is an extremely interesting historical character, and as her time is also an extremely interesting period in French history, it is safe to aver that a book which relates to this Queen of France and her time must be interesting, though there is plot, and Balsac mars his vividly realistic pictures and portraitures by too great a tendency to turn aside into unnecessary disquisitions. The astrology and alchemy, in which Catherine De’Medici seems to have placed so much faith, is treated by Balsac with a serious importance greatly at variance with the spirit of the nineteenth century. If the author’s intention was, as it appears to have been, to remove from Catherine’s character the weight of obloquy that has rested on it for centuries, I do not think he has been successful, though he may have been able, in certain particulars, to shift the grounds of the obloquy.

* • The Truth Dreyfus Case.'

Even after we have finished the reading of this booklet, we still feel at liberty to ask, ‘ What is the truth of the Dreyfus Case ? . Fo r, of cottrsei one cannot be

unaware, while reading his statement of the case, that M. Lazare is exercising the functions of special pleader for the unfortunateex-Captain Dreyfus, who has been recently tried and condemned on the charge of treasonably disposing to the Germans of French military information. M. Lazare’s view of the case may be the right one, and Captain Dreyfus’ judges may have committed most lamentable error ; or, it may be, that the truth is in the opposite direction. However that may be, the general reader has not the means of deciding, and M. Lazare’s booklet only gives the case for the defendant.

_ . , * ‘A Literary Gent '

This is one of the ‘ Strange Sins ’ series 0 by Coulson Kernahan. It tells, with a large amount of artistic force and

brevity, the story of the progress of one man's besetting sin, and adds another tale of misery and degradation to the many that have already been written to illustrate and denounce the terrible evils of drunkenness. But I do not think that the present story has sufficient literary merit to justify its republication as a booklet in itself.

* ‘ The Queen of the Moors,’ by Frederic Adye : Macmillan and Co. (Champtaloup and Cooper.! * ‘Cecil Rhodes : A Biography and an Appreciation,’by Imperalist: Macmillan and Co. (Champtaloup and Cooper.) * ‘ About Catherine De’ Medici,’ by H. De Balsac: Macmillan and Co. (Champtaloup and Cooper.) * ‘ The Truth About the Dreyfus Case,’ by Bernard Lazare : Ward, Lock and Co. (Wildman and Lyell.) * ‘A Literary Gent,’ by Coulson Kernahan: Ward, Lock, and Co. (Wildman and Lyell.)