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[In the last number of the Quarterly' (p. 433) is a review of Life and Man,' by the late T. A. Bowhay, in which doubts are expressed as to whether the book was the work of a fictitious author or not.

We now learn that these doubts were mistaken, and that the expressions used have caused annoyance to Mrs Bowhay, the author's widow. We therefore take this opportunity of voluntarily expressing to Mrs Bowhay our regret and apologies for having inadvertently caused her pain or vexation.

'Pam' and Scipio-Blake, Spenser, and Fanny Burney— Phineas Fletcher-Her Majesty'-The Black DeathAncient Fishing--Books on the Bible-' From a Pillow' -San Bernardino and Tagore-Essays on Literature and Music-Irish Satire and Some Nonsense.

IT is a curious circumstance that Palmerston should have been so little studied since the two formal biographies of him appeared in the 'seventies; and possibly the neglect is due to the cause suggested by Mr Philip Guedella in his 'Palmerston' (Benn)-the magnitudinous diversities of his career. Almost without intermission-from his twenty-fifth birthday, when, having actually already declined the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, he became Secretary-at-War and administered supply to the army fighting against Napoleon in the Peninsula, until his death as Prime Minister, triumphant and already a legendary figure-he was immersed in national business. Europe as it was before the Great War had been greatly influenced by his activities; he was one of the signatories of the 'Scrap of Paper.' His interest in affairs was world-wide and yet particular; his industry was amazing and untiring; his spirit was irrepressible, as very exalted persons were amply to discover; he had a brilliant common sense, an absolute and impudent courage, with a way of slipping out of the difficulties he often had wilfully made which proved inexpressibly annoying to such serious persons as Gladstone and Bright. Beyond those qualities which earned for him and justified his long career as a minister of the Crown, he had a personality which endeared him to the bulk of the people, so that 'Pam' or 'Cupid' with

his smile, the springy step, the tilted hat, the cane, the small but manly whisker,' was a popular necessity to the public life of his time and a true representative of the honest and managing Briton. Mr Guedella has brought into a right perspective and compass this jolly figure, which for a time seemed to bestride Europe like a colossus. He has written a clever book-clever is inevitably the adjective for Mr Guedella-though often the cleverness glitters; and while occasionally his references will not be fully recognised by readers who know not their Creevey and the other political gossips, he has certainly realised his man. Naturally, for it is a poor biographer who does not love his subject, Palmerston is the hero of this comedy, and those he was thrown against, such as Baron Stockmar, Aberdeen, John Russell, and even poor Prince Albert, with his industrious and serious endeavours to comprehend and control that cheerful, flashing, open-air swashbuckler of a Foreign Secretary, come off generally badly in consequence. Possibly because of his splendid faults, Pam' was a great Englishman, and there is no knowing what disasters might have fallen on the Empire if, with his daring, he had not been at the helm of the State through critical years. So many of his contemporaries in office were mere politicians.

The old world had similar examples, as the next book shows. The soldier, statesman, patriot, gentleman, whom Captain B. H. Liddell Hart estimates as 'A Greater than Napoleon' (Blackwood), is Scipio Africanus (the frontispiece shows a curious likeness to Bonaparte); and, so far as the particular comparison is concerned, the assertion is largely justified. Not only does he establish Scipio on the eminence which is his due, but he has written an account of military and political strategy and tactics which should be studied by historians and menof-arms; for it is easy to recognise parallels between the campaigns of Scipio and Hannibal and the recent worldupheaval. Lucidly Captain Hart follows and explains Scipio's ever-victorious expeditions to Spain, Africa, and Asia; and shows the prudent foresight which made the results of his successes as permanent as the shortsighted and jealous politicians of Rome would permit. As to the comparison suggested in the title, Napoleon was, he

deems, greater in strategy than Scipio; but far inferior in the tactics of battle and in what he calls 'grand strategy,' that is, in seeing beyond the moment of victory to its consequences in the after-years-beyond Versailles. Broadly, Scipio was infinitely the greater. He did his duty selflessly always; he played the game; he gave to others their chances. He was nobly merciful to the defeated, and had such personal attractiveness that his enemies, Hannibal and Syphax, were charmed by him. The author sums up his supreme quality in words which not Napoleon or Cæsar or Alexander, or any other great conqueror (save perhaps the Duke of Wellington) and very few men could share. He left envy of others' fame to lesser men. His aim was service.' The new series of English Men of Letters' is improving as it goes along. Mr Osbert Burdett's 'William Blake' (Macmillan), in spite of the flaws about the burial, is second-best of the five volumes recently published. It is unexpectedly good as it shows a balanced judgment and, while tackling the difficulties presented, is free from the conscious cleverness that marred Mr Burdett's earlier work. Within the limited compass of this volume he has studied the character and the works, artistic and literary, of Blake pretty completely, recognising the omissions and exaggerations due to want of helpful discipline in the formative years. The only essential omission is that of Blake's wonderful gentleness and sympathy for the young, the simple, and the wronged, as illustrated in such of his songs as 'The Chimney Sweeper' and that splendid, moving lyric, 'Auguries of Innocence,' which animal-lovers should arrange to have read from all pulpits once at least in every year. It is true that Mr Burdett tells the story of the circus-boy; but Blake's passionate love for the under-things of life deserves a full chapter. Before the book is reprinted he must correct his facts about the burial. Not a few years,' but merely two days passed before the common grave' in which Blake's body was interred was used again; and within nine days of his burial no less than four other coffins had been put above his. Also, his wife was not buried beside him, but at a distance of 'seventy graves' away. A writer in this series should not altogether depend for his facts upon so old a biography as Gilchrist's.

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If Mr Legouis' brief study of 'Spenser' (Dent) implies a renewing interest in the work and personality of the 'poet's poet,' the star of the dawn of the great Elizabethan revival, then it is doubly welcome; for in colour, imagination, and variety of movement, as well as in the flowing, rhythmic music of his verse, Spenser has a power which justifies continuous study and not the neglect which generally has been his lot. The chapter devoted to him by M. Legouis in his recent History of English Literature' promised an inspiring study; and although naturally we must differ from some of his conclusions, the little book is helpful. The author has, however, no authority for describing Spenser's father as very probably a journeyman clothier; while it is likely that in following the popular judgment of Leicester as an evil man he is going wrong; for Spenser was not one to praise and follow for the sake of personal advantagewitness his hazardous championship of Lord Grey of Wilton after his fall. And so, too, with his expressions of loyalty to Elizabeth. It was the fashion of her poets to laud Gloriana, and sometimes she was unworthy of their praise; but yet those passages honouring the Queen, which glow in his verse, are not phrases of lipservice. They spring from truth and an inspiration glad to sing. There are other points for criticism in this book; but yet it is welcome. It would be interesting to know why M. Legouis identifies 'pleasant Willy' in the 'Tears of the Muses' with John Lyly. Manifestly it was not Shakespeare.

As Mr Brimley Johnson shows in his title 'Fanny Burney and the Burneys' (Paul), it is Madame D'Arblay who is the really interesting person in this book; and the other Burneys, Susan, Edward, James, Sarah, and the rest of them, with the exception of the musical father, Charles, of whom, however, we see too little, are only more or less entertaining relatives. So that on the face of it-and the reading confirms the impressionthis is a volume meant for those who are devoted to Fanny, and is not of much interest to the crowd. Next to the balloon,' wrote Mrs Barbauld in those days, 'Miss Burney is the object of public curiosity.' Well, the balloon has journeyed safely to its anchorage in the ultimate heights, and Fanny rests in the hearts of the

comparative few. Those who are faithful will be glad to read the extracts given here from her Journal in France, and the letters, of a domestic interest, written to her by her favourite sister, Susan. And that is pretty well all that this volume amounts to. Book lovers are ever thrilled by a discovery; and although Miss Ethel Seaton's find of a first-copy manuscript of Phineas Fletcher's 'Venus and Anchises and other Poems ' (Oxford University Press) has no revolutionary effects, it is, as Prof. Boas truly remarks, one of the minor romances of research. In itself it is of small interest. Phineas Fletcher and his 'Brittain's Ida,' which is the better-known title of Venus and Anchises,' are pale stars in the vastness and brilliance of English verse; but the circumstances of the discovery at Sion College are interesting. There it has been for many years, easily available, it seems, yet eluding the numerous scholars who have used the Library. The possibility stimulates. What literary treasures of the noblest importance may not be lying overlooked under our noses? It is a possibility capable of thrilling the dustiest of bibliophiles. We return to the realm of history.

No small part of the success of Mrs E. Thornton Cook's 'romance' of the Queens of England, 'Her Majesty' (Murray), is derived from the portraits, which truly illustrate the excellent text. They point the characteristics of their royal subjects; and one sees at a glance how those ladies came to play their parts in history. The determined jaw of Katharine Parr, for instance, explains why she was able to put an end to the fatal weakness for widowerhood of the eighth Henry; while the blowsy vulgarity of Caroline, the wife of George IV, and the gentle womanly beauty of the beloved Queen Alexandra, respectively show how the career of the one was a loud failure and that of the other a gracious success. It is easy to overlook the national importance of the consorts of our kings; but this book brings out the truth that their quiet influence often was as valuable and far-reaching as that of the partners of their exalted station. In 1348 the Plague came to Europe from China, and since then, in diverse forms, generally of diminishing intensity, and sometimes under the convenient name of influenza, it has revisited