Our Fortnightly Book Review

Radio Record, Volume V, Issue 25, 31 December 1931, Page 32

Our Fortnightly Book Review

The Irish Beauties

By

E.

Barrington.

THIS is the last of the romantic historical novels of the author who used the pseudonym of ©. Barrington, and it is quite up to the standard set by "The Divine Lady" and "The BExquisite Perdita." "The Irish Beauties" is the tale of the luck of the beautiful Miss Gunnings, and of how their loveliness rayished the great world of London. Beginning life in a ‘poverty-stricken tenement in a Dublin slum, the first step of their meteoric passage to fame and fortune was taken through the kind offices of Mrs. George Anne Bellamy, a play-actress of elastic ethical code and the generosity of heart that sometimes accompanies it. Through her warm heart and unaffected appreciation of the. beauteous Elizabeth, the two Miss Gunnings make entrance into Dublin society, attract attention of the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, who gives them letters to the most exclusive society in London, whither they wend their triumphant course. Maria, "a sweet rogue with hair like red gold and eyes like a blue. June morning," and Dlizabeth, who "was perfection’s self, and sure the Lord was well pleased the day He made her," storm the most exclusive social citadels, and assuredly for the younger at any rate, her face was her fortune, as the event proved. In the salon of Lady Caroline Petersham, the Irish beauties meet the wittiest and most renowned and brilliant figures of the England of that day. There was to be seen "the attentuated elegance known as Mr. Horace Walpole. who was quick-witted, fastidious, a dilettante author with ambition of an Alexander Pope, a past master in fashionable diplomacy, nimble in retort as the thrust of a rapier, faithful to a few friends, though seeing their weaknesses with the half contempt, half tolerance of the true cynic." And the great Duke of Hamilton. "A man of thirty with an air of gravity under his laughter. More manly than handsome, and of all the matches in the

Three Kingdoms, James Hamilton was the greatest available. Duke of Brandon in England, of Chatelherault in France,, of Hamilton in Scotland, a kind of triple divinity before whom no incense was too much to burn, no maiden sacrifice too pure and delicate to be offered. ‘Of vast possessions and gallant presence, no princess need hare disdained his name." The youthful, lovely Blizabeth Gunning attracted the Duke’s: cynical regard, His knowledge was women was vast, but it had not included the girlish purity and pride that were a part of her nature, as well as its sweetness. His pursuit of his quarry is described, but at long last he finds that she holds his heart, and the proudest Duke in Britain kneels at her feet and thus woos his future Duchess. "If I were James Hamilton, no more? With a shieling on the moors, the heathercock for food, and a Hamilton plaid to wrap his heart’s darling in; a fire of peats to sit by, and his hand empty but for love and his claymore-would the beauty of the world come to his breast?" And the beauty of the world eould not resist that manly, simple wooing, and then and there the impetuous Hamilton married his lovely bride, and the fortune of the impecunious Gunnings was made. There is much witty persifiage in the telling of the tale, famous figures flit through the pages, and Horace Walpole tells his stories to the scan-dal-lovying, fan-fiicking fine ladies of his court, "I dined with good old Mrs. Horton tvother night. being obliged to come in breeches and spattered boots, for which I was profuse in apology. Says she, with a curtsey of the reign of George the First: ‘Apologise not, sir, for your costume is a pleasure. I can see the gentleman through a pair of buckskin. breeches as well as through silk or satin!" And there are famous parties at Strawberry Hill, thronged with fashion, frivolity and finery; the whole told with the romantic grace and wealth of detail which the author has made her own,