CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK.
Lane. 21s. net.)—Mutatis rautandis, we are inclined to say to 1dr. Chapman very much what we have said to Mr. Melville. The ecordid tragedy of the wife of George IV., the details of which are fax better forgotten, seems to exert an extraordinary fascination ever the writers of today, and we have examined the work of Pro- fessor Clerici with some curiosity to see whether his industry and acumen could throw any fresh light on what he himself has aptly termed If pin lunge scandals del seeolo XIX. We are frankly dis- appointed. The minute researches into Italian records, public and private, of which his translator speaks so appreciatively, have yielded practically nothing that is of value for forming judgment upon Caroline's conduct, though they help to elucidate some obscure passages in Italian history. Perhaps the most remarkable feature in the book is the pervading assumption that Caroline's relations with her courier could admit of no inno- cent construction. But so far as we follow the Professor, this verdict is based mainly, if not entirely, upon the evidence of the foreign witnesses, principally Italian, whom Brougham and Williams reduced to pulp in cross-examination. Still, on such a matter the flair of a fellow-countryman is not to be despised. He restores, by the way, the genuine spelling, " Pergami " for " Bergami," a discovery which entailed an amending clause in the Committee stage of the Bill of Pains and Penalties. As regards Caroline's life in England and Germany, the book is a mere recapitulation of facts, inventions, and suppositions, which may well be new to the foreign reader, but scarcely justify its translation into English. Mr. Chapman has produced a very read- able version of the original, but he ought not to have allowed "Huskisson " to have been spelt "Hutchinson." Nor can we speak in warm terms of his introduction, which is largely made up of copious extracts from the Malmesbury Diaries and Lady Charlotte Bury, together with much gossip that had better have been omitted. Some of the illustrations are exceedingly curious, and the book altogether is worthy of a better subject.
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