Shorter Notices
The State of Mind of Mrs. Sherwood. By Naomi Royde-Smith. (Macmillan. 7s. 6d.) THIS is a biography with a purpose. The life is that of the author of The Fairchild Family and several dozen other works designed to improve early Victorian youth. The purpose is, basically, a reductio ad absurdum of private judgement For Miss Royde-Smith,. it appears, is a Catholic, and Mrs. Sherwood (it need hardly be said) was a Protestant, a Protestant so ignorant, bigoted and self-righteous that she ended by regarding as heretics all who did not accept her own peculiar interpretation of the Scriptures. The book can there- fore be read at two levels. A biography pure and simple: Mrs. Sherwood's career, covering acquaintance with the Swan of Lich- field, life in India, running a girls' school and vicarious Biblical research (it was her husband who was set to learn Hebrew) lends itself to piquant narrative and Miss Royek-Smith is always lively and often amusing. But die is too long. Quotation's run to pages ; we ate told too often that if Mrs. Sherwood had been this or that which she was not she might have written as well as Miss Austen ; the accumulated evidence of Mrs. Sherwood's industry in writing and Miss Royde-Smith's in reading so much rubbish is in the end depressing. But there is the other level to fall back on. The mutual reactions of Catholics and Protestants are always instructive and frequently entertaining ; and Miss Royde,Smith's disapproval of Mrs. Sherwood's exegetical antics is no less acute' though much better-bred, than Mrs. Sherwood's disapproval of the Continental Sunday. Whether Mrs. Sherwood's influence in fostering the morality that produced "the commercial prosperity and social ruth- lessness that characterise the mid-Victorian age" was important enough to warrant the expense of so much ammunitjon, let alone whether her morality did in fact have such an effect, are questions which different types of readers may answer as they will.
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