53° 



REVIEW OF REVIEWS. 



NOTABLE BOOKS OF THE MONTH. 



LLOYD GEORGE AND THE BOER WAR. 



The Life of David Lloyd George. Vol. II. 

 By H. Du Parcq. (Caxton.) 



This second volume commences with 

 the Boer War, of which, like Mr. W. T. 

 Stead, Mr. Lloyd George was a deter- 

 mined opponent, though over and over 

 again his biographer says that he was 

 most certainly not " a peace-at-any-price 

 man." The subject naturally intro- 

 duces Mr. Chamberlain and Kynochs, 

 and in view of present-day events, it is 

 curious to read that, though many be- 

 lieved Mr. Chamberlain had a large in- 

 terest in that firm, in Lloyd George's 

 opinion his personal integrity was quite 

 beyond reproach ; though, on the other 

 hand, it could not seriously be doubted 

 that there was proper matter for inves- 

 tigation. 



The amendment which Mr. Lloyd 

 George moved to the Address on the 

 opening of the new Parliament of 1900 

 is certainly significant. This, and many 

 other keenly interesting chapters in the 

 history of England are well worth re- 

 cording, for, though the subject matter 

 is well in the minds of most, everything 



which is not of present-day interest is 

 easily forgotten. 



The part of the book which will be 

 most keenly interesting to -the general 

 reader is the eighth chapter, a retrospect 

 of Mr. Lloyd George's personal history, 

 marriage, and other details. There is 

 one very amusing reference to Mr. W. 

 T. Stead in a letter which Mr. Lloyd 

 George wrote at the end of 1902, on 

 Christmas Eve. The two had been 

 lunching together, and, says Mr. Lloyd 

 George: "He is full of a new scheme 

 to destroy the Church by giving the 

 appointment of the clergy to the 

 parish cquncils, with no religious tests 

 at all. He would make each clergyman 

 responsible legally for the moral con- 

 dition of the parishioners ; if there was 

 drunkenness and immorality in a parish 

 he would court-martial the rector." 



Mr. Lloyd George's dream of a 

 National Council of Education has still 

 to be realised, as are other schemes upon 

 which he is intent. His biographer does 

 not set out to represent him as faultless, 

 but as an idealist with strength of mind 

 and practical common-sense. 



A PHANTASMAGORIA. 



A Small Bay and Other*. By Henry 

 James. (Macmillan.) 



Mr. Henry James, who has now at- 

 tained his three-score years and ten, 

 gives us here glimpses, very charming 

 and very elusive, from the "rag-bag of 

 his memory " of the facts of his early 

 life, with something like sorrow that it 

 is impossible to recover anything like 

 the full treasure of the scattered, 

 wasted circumstances. He tells us, in 

 starting, that his object was to place 

 together some particulars of the early 

 life of his brother William, and then — ■ 

 with that strange subtlety which is so 

 characteristic and, to his devoted 

 readers, so charming — he allows us to 

 search, and search in vain, for more 



than a mention or two of that brother. 

 We get a glimpse of " W. J." in a sen- 

 tence or two here and there. For in- 

 stance : " He had gained such an ad- 

 vance of me in his sixteen months of 

 experience of the world before mine 

 began that I never for all the time of 

 childhood and youth in the least caught 

 up with him or overtook him. He was 

 always round the corner and out of 

 sight." " When our phases overlapped, 

 it was only for a moment — he was clean 

 out before I was well in " . . . and 

 then he is out of our sight again. 



But then there are so many " others." 

 W e get, too, a clearer view of Henry 

 James' impressionable self ; in fact, a 

 key which so opens his writings to us 



