NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20098, 29 November 1930, Page 13

NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

MILTON IN FRANCE. Lifc , Milton, together wfth Observations on Parad:Be Lost." By liouis Bac no. with an introduction, by /•r. 2L no * rohn . The Hogarth Press. (7s 6d net.) Miss John has seen a delightful opportunity. fjer sense of character is acute, her critical scholarship is thorough and graceful. Her posses si:)n ol both has enabled her to write a most enjoyable book. Louis [{acme's Life of Milton and his observations on "Paradise Lost" rise enormously in value when exhibited in their proper place in the history of Milton's reputation in trance; and Miss John's introduction reflects on that strange hisio ; *y the light ol the personalities—llucine himself, Voltaire, little Anne-Marie du Chuieaubriand-- who made it. Luuis Racine, the milu, aiuiaule, i-iious, studious, uiiunginal, assiduously pociiu soil of iiis vein rated iather, the great Jean, is a most attractive • itu puLiieiic tVliss John fun ot him, but softly, and only enough to keen his outline lhe villain ol the piece, of course, is Vohane, who loohJily cast himseli tor the part ol Muton's discoverer, and th-yn, mortified to find a rival near his own epic till one. turned detractor, f rom cover and in aie open he argued that Milton was a clumsy genius, it a genius, and a humbug; but it was never to L<* lor^ott«?n~-though it was not true —that the whole credit for announcing Milton to France was his Much pW'nsanter, though much less 'HMiificunt, is the part "of Mine, du Boca go. who made Mi'ton's rough cosmic stur.v into a garden idyll. "1 have aimed at reproducing m miniature t'n imposing and lofty picture," she said; and, Miss John Rays, she did it "in the most ladylike manner.' Pastoral Adam, pastoral Eve are all they should be: unit In f ir.'-e h la bciuK* des traits: bve join;, la (joiicur aux plus brillants a 11 i-:i its. Adam replies to her pretty speeches ■with due compliment and gallantry: Ten (1 i scours enchanteurs ei remplis de Ho mou (ni'ur, dit Adam, augnienteni Ift lendresKe. 'lliev all thought Milton a pott crude in technique all except fJernard llouth (and he was an Irishman) who ailm red Milton's ''numerous and period, e style." If the periods were sometimes too long, still — What a variety of ,-aileni'es; what a nnblff l.urmony thrunirhf.ut the whole potm 1 Our modern tongues, in my have produced nothing e<|lial to it; and it is this „f i. II r- ."i-i-h t»r „ -s M Iton's poetry nearest that of Homer and Virgil. If Mouth he omitted, they would all have hrd Milton licked into seemlier shape, better indoctrinated, rationalised, and harmonised. They misled and mistook him, even while "they admired. Then came Chateaubriand, whose I'liritrtin il abord, erisuite indopendant, anabfcptjste, il deviont P.-iint, quiMint.* et enthoiiJilttsio: co n'f.st plus qtT ure Voix qui chantc I'tttnrncl reverse* Racine's judgment, with conscious or unconscious irony, in Racine's own phrases. His translations advanced from excel ont to exquisite faithfulness,• and, so Mis John puts it. "Milton, at length, has crossed the Channel." Her book is one to be grateful for. A SOLDIER IN SEARCH OF A SUPERMAN. Iznprr";s'onß a"d JW Grncral F. r. Croz!er, C.8., C.M G., D.S.O. Werner Laurie, Ltd. (21s not.) This is not a provocative book like 'A Brass Hat in No Man's Land," nor does it deal primarily 4vith the Great War. It is General Crozier's personal story, so far that has yet proceed.'d, from i>.*ch Idlxo 1 in Ireland to his quarrel mtii authority in 19"ii. There are certainly charges and recriminations in the linai cnapter, and an extraordinary assembly of confessions, miercnces, and exhortations in h;s "Conc.usion " 'lhe enemy is first alcohol (' consumed as a beverage"), then 'highbrow strategy and tactics" which ignore soldier psychology, then control ot the conn ry by men "out for the main chance." then (apparently) l'r.me Ministers who put "expediency" before "the glory of Knglancl." General Crozier is a little incoherent at this stage, mainly, one gathers, because all his complaints and attacks have been met by a 'gentlemanly silence." He is r.lso a little simple, if the word is not strained too far, an<l at tiftv very much what he was when he suffered his first 'great disappointment" in 1896 bv being "definitely and finally informed that he was neither tall enough nor heavy enough to enter the Army " Fortunately his disappointment led him into the Army by a far more interesting route than the path followed bv the heavier weights. He wont tea-planting to Ct.ylon, and when the South African Wur broke out ran away to Natal to become a trooner in Thorneycroft's Mounted Infnntrv. (As General Thorneycroft later married the author's mother. no one. except the central figure, himself is better qualified to exolniti the Spion Kop b'under which shadowed the stepfather's subsequent career ) From that tho next step was a commission in the Manchester Regiment, then service in Ashanti and Northern Nigeria —all very well told The next interesting nhase is a period of pioneering in Canada—ho had "one on half-pav in '9O5 —and after that we «till have XTloter l-ofore we reach the Great War. which, tho-gh it vields passages like this, is not his main theme: A constant procession of "dud" colonels came up and down to me from the base till I was Knt'sfied. I had no idea till then that such peop'e existed !n France. They came from what wan rnllcd a ~C .r>., s pool." into which some (food men occasionally fell, by accident, and clabbered out as soon a* they could, while others reveiled in the waters

of stagnation l.ke tadpoles in a cesspool. And all this [May, laiS] was when wo anted the very best commanding officers we could getl it lna 'l. v ; before we arrive at the c: atw" in heard, and "the .neviti.be and ratal hour" when General Tudor had to choose his path, and "chose the wrong one, going down with his shiy tn less than tive months, like a sea cap ain on the bridrre valiantly sinkin ! with a shipload of lunatics. ' while General Crozier "difappeared from the j sea ot Irish trouble, in so far as the I Tudor ship was concerned, of his own accord." we have the expedition to Lithuania—"a ghastly failure from ttie outs-et. for various causes." It is one of the attractions of his story thnt so manv of the General's ventures end in failure, and that the failure is so fratiklv admitted and explained Perhaps we shall have another book in two or three years admitting that it is one thinp: to call aloud for a Cromwell, who will, however, employ constitutional methods, another thino; to find him. and still another to get him accepted by the people. It is impossible to believe thnt the last word will be a shout in the darkness for a superman. WISE YOUNG TRAVELLER. Labels. A Medite rancan Journal. By Evelyn Wangh. Duckworth. (8s 6d net.) Young Mr Waugh—Mr Arthur Waugh's son, Mr Alec Waugh's brother —'began by announcing that he was going to Russia; and he did this partly because he wanted to go there and partly because the paragraphs about it in the newspaper gossip columns would be uaeful. "What a very, very, very, very bright young man this bright young man muat be," the readers would say, and run to get his book on Rossetti from the circulating library. At once Mr Waugh gives evidence of his sophistication. And at once he adds to it evidence of his careless candour: "The whole lie was a flop." The mixture ia highly agreeable, though sometimes, when tho pioportions are a little out, the reader will wince. Air Waugh did not get to Russia. Round the Mediterranean, however, he consoled himself quite successfully and filled his notebooks or his memory with vivac'ous impressions of travellers and other Bights. He is, of course, excessively knowing. He knows all about the French —"As a race, it is true, the French tend to have strong heads, weak stomachs, and a rooted abhorrence of hospitadty." He knows how, without breaking the licensing laws, a man can drink in London for eighteen hours a day, and, by spending the other ".i:: on a tra : n, make the whole of life "a happy round of toping." lie knows all about the "sense of period," which you I get at tlie public schools and the old I Universities, and which (he is "inclined," most judiciously, "to think") is "prnct-iOitlly valueless " He knows that cruis : ng ships, like the M/Y Steila Polaris, are always full of middle-aged widows of comfortable means, and why. He knows that Mohammedan art, history, scholarship, and social, religious, and political organisation supply nothing to shake Western pride of race. He knows everything, except (occasionally) the exact sense of a word, and the fittest way to set one after the other, and the virtue of silence. Nobody can travel with him without finding him a fresh and intelligent and amusing companion, who makes every day and every adventure enjoyable, and whose pose, though sometimes a source of an.ioyatiee, is a much nlore abundant one ot secret pleasure THE STORY OF THE FRENCH. France. A Short H'story of its Politics, liiter&tu o. and Art f Oin Earl'Mt Tirros 4o tlio Present. By Henry Dwight Sedgwick. George O. Karrap and Co.. Ltd. (108 "6d not.) Mr Sedgwick best explains his oWn plan in this book. It is "intended both for travellers bound for France and lor readers who stay at home, content to avoid the restless sea. grimv train, and tumultuous motor-car; and us aim is to tive a slight but continuous sketch in outline of the political growth of France from the time when she first became a Latin country up to the end of the Great \\ &r —in short, n brief biography of France." And as » nation . . . consists not of tho dumb m&ny, who move uneasily under the spur of economic or other elementary social impulses and appetites, but of tho few who have stepped forth from among the multi.ude to K'.ve utterance. 1 have said little of economi • or social movements, and have allotted wh;it space I could to the men to whom we owe the moat definite expression of what soein to me typical French traits and qualities in art. in literature, in the conduct and the appreciation of life. The Frenchman who figures in Mr Dough's Diary would say: "Formidable!" Mr Sed.jwick's design is neither precise nor such as he has the power, Tn coniprehfiisinn and compression, to carry out within the spare. The book is so crowded that nothing is ever really cleared up. Many passages nre intelligible only to the reader who knows enough tr. bo quite independent of Mr Sedgwick's help, and who will smile at the form in which it is given . Auguste Comte died in 1857, but his "Philosophic Positive" affected deeply the men who came after him. Claude Bernard, thG physiologist, lived till 1878, and it was n-drv the s-co-nl l.tnp.rp at L'n.-ii. ur (182'J 1895) performed the celebrated experiments with hydrophobia, fermentnt'on, and phylloxera, wh'ch earned him a plebiscite, I am told, from his fellow-countrymen as the ffreat est of Frenchmen. Facts as smnll and thin as matches nre laid 'town on general'sation l ? too broad and flat to mean anything. With reference to r aine, for instance: What he save about works of art i« still worth readinjf. Ho notices that the d-fect of tho Apollo Belvcdore is that it is obvioas that Apollo has a valet. Sometimes the htank. bland manner is that of the schoolmaster, at on-e beaming at his dull charges and patronising; them: He fEmile Fasuetl was a professor at the Eorbonne. and has written so cop'onsly, so very roniously. that you can find out vvbnt he thinks (and you will be dointr well} on who is who throughout French literature. This is undoubtedly the way to eneournce voun<r Wilkins. who asked an intelligent question, finite an intelligent question, about Alphonse Daudet last week, just as we were goint to ! begin that grammar test. It is not the way to write history. And now and again Mr. Sedgwick achieves a puzzling originality: The Abb# CoSenard is the best picaresque charactor since Shakespeare.

THE MURDEROUS EGOTIST. Plain Murder. Ey C. S. Forester. John Lane, The Bodlej Head. Thip is a bold and realistic story about a clerk who committed murder to keep his job. then asain to silence an accomplice, then attempted it again to get rid of another, nnd planned the death of his wife to open the way to his ambition. It is a pity the plot stands on one very weak leg. The brutal logic which impelled Morris to kill the managing clerk, before he could reveal to their employer the dishonesty of Morris and his two friends, surelv aimed just as straight at the managing clerk's informant, but Morris never thinks of him and we never hear of him again. Though the murderous theme of the book is re pulsive, Mr Forester makes an excellent study of Morris's swelling egotism. The render silentlv cheers the knock on the head wliicb drastically cures it.

A PLEASANT PULPIT. Speaking Poreonally. By Walter Murdoch. Angus and Eobertson, Ltd. (6».) Prolevssor -.Murdoch confesses his hesetting sin. and warns his readers to skip when thev catch him indulging j n it. He t=its down to write an essay, and in a moment (he groans to discover) he is ''thumping the pulpit cushion and thundering. 'Thirtysevinthly, brethren —' '' But the bin me is not his. Some ancestor, scouring away aver the heather before Cla vernjuse's dragoons, composed sermons as he went. Professor Murdoch's svmpath es are with the dragoons, but the theologian was too swift for them, (iml is too strong for him. But really he has onlv one what was the edifying Elbert Hubbard's word*—one pren-hmcnt: against "the suburban spirit. The suburban spirit—that is, for me, the evei last ng enemy. That, my breth—X mean that as I see it, is the peril of winch the V'Orid needs to be warned, in season and out of season. There is no need for anxiety. The preacher is not always preaching, and when he d.x-s preach, he has a good text: ,-ir.d "cheerf linens." as the old gentleman, e\-plain ; ni his failure to be a philosopher, said to Dr. Johnson "is always breaking flmjugh." These essays are in fact vcrv agreeable read'nq. stroni in pood .sense and humour. 1 rofessor rnay convert bis chair into a puln t whenever he likes: his audience will not desert him.

THE INVULNERABLE. Give Ilim the Earth. By Rupert Croft-Cookc. Chapman and Hall. An English widow brings her son home from the Argentine to be educated. The concentration of all her aflection find hopes on him helps to make him sclush, though not callously so, but since he does not alienate or otiend those whom he hurts he does not see his selfishness plain in its elle?ts. His friend, the Mouse, an obse-vant vouug man. anatomises him: You'll always find people who will adore you. Whatever you d d there wouid be someone to tell you it's right. That's why your life's so dangerous. If you don't see for yourself when you've been a rotter you'll ■jo on and on doing che:ip things and getting praised for them. That's what I mean. There's noth ng reaKy exceptional about you, Bruce, as I've told you before, except that you are, whatever you do, a likeable creature . . . Whnfever happens you're the kind that goes on. Look at you last night. With'n an hour of renoum!ii]£ one I'fe vou were planning another. W : th*n three hours of losing one g'rl you begun to be thrilled by a new one. You're practically invulnerable, you know. Mr Croft-Cooke's ch:. racterisntion is firm, even when he puts a heavy emotional stra'.n on it In deal mr with figures like Brace's aunt Eileen her mean little husband, or the shrewd and nnnsrent great-aunt Pittery. he is excellent.

WILL AGAINST REALITY. The Experiment of Bolshevism. By Arthur Feller. Tranclated by H. J. Stenning. Al'en and Unwln. (10b 6d net.) Herr Feiler surveys Russia at a period of peculiar interest. When ho wrote, last venr, "the protracted struggle within Bolshevism itself" was settled. Trotsky was broken, and the Right quietened. The Five-Vear Plan was to be the instrument of stabilisation and reconstruction ; and events now shaping themselves are properly intelligible on'y in the light of the facts very well assembled in this booh. It is matter-of-fact and thorough and judicious. Herr Feiler is not an emotional man, or if lie is he keeps his emotions well in hand; for they seem nowhere to distort or colour his view As for the Plan, he shows how formidable it is in scope and character, and also, very plainly, how formidable is the resistance it must encounter. technical and human. He sees the strnp:i;le aa on© "between reality and will-power." The Soviet Union trusts in the fulfilment of the I'm n ''to overtake and outstrip the te hn'call.v and economically most advanced capitalist countries," but there are misaivin,-»s— "combated with morose tenacity." A Government official said to Herr Feiler, who had asked him what could really be achieved: "We must put this five-venr plan through, otherwise we shall be thrown out."

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. The liOat Garden. By Geo. C. Foster. Chapman and Hall. The same characters, their lives extended by n magic elixir, live on through the greatest events of history, from the .sinking of Atlantis to tfie present day. The Fantasy is lightly '»ut intelligantly worked oat. Ctch and Strange. By Sale Collins. George G. Harrap and Co., Ltd. Emily and Fred Hill are dispatched bv a legacy to tour the world. Mr Collins easily switches each into a romance thnt divides them, stages an txrellent shipwreck, casts them on a Chinese junk, and leaves tliem wise and happy nt last. Captain Banner. A Drams In Three Acts. By George Pxeedy. Jolm Lane, The Bodlcy Head. (Ss 6d net.) Mr Preedy's imaeination works well on historical material, here provided by the tragic career of Catherine Matilda, sister of (Jeorge 111 , and Queen of Denmark. The play was successfully produced in London tast year. (1) Tho Fighting Fantastic. By Tvonne Moyse. (il) The Hawk of Como. The Longman Bomaaeas: Longmans, Green and Co. (3s cd net each.) Tho two first volumes in a series devoteu to the glamorous periods of history and tho adventures appropriate to them. Both novels »vere first published in 1928. Tho Lover's Rosary. By Brookes Mora. The Cornhill Publishing Company, Boston, Mass. A sonnet sequence which, if "first class reviewers" are to be helieved. "surpasses Rossetti's Sonnet Sequence and is one of the three great sonnet sequences in the English language. Price of this book is fifty cents."