Revolutionary Types. By Ida A. Taylor. With an Introduction by
R. B. Cunninghame Graham. (Duckworth and Co. Is. 6d. net.)—Miss Taylor, who has already given us excellent literary work in her Lives of Sir Walter Raleigh and Lord Edward Fitzgerald, has undoubtedly increased the debt that the reading public owe to her by the publication of these very interesting sketches. We may perhaps differ from the author as to what does and what does not constitute a revolutionary type, but certainly the lives of the persons chosen as types are drawn with a vigorous and fascinating pen. We see John Pym pervading with his remorseless conscience the prologue to what Clarendon called the Grand Rebellion, and Thomas Harrison with his self-conscious fanaticism illuminating its epilogue. The prepos- terous but terrible Saint-Just here demonstrates the unfailing relationship of insanity and revolution ; while the pathetic and great Toussaint L'Ouvertnre, the liberator of Haiti, and the victim of a man greater in political bulk, but infinitely lower in aspiration, teaches us the lesson that none are so intolerant as successful revolutionists like Napoleon. Miss Taylor having given us Washington, who in no sense is a type, omits Napoleon, who typifies all that successful revolution ever means. We have here Pius IX., the Pope who failed, but we have not here Wyclif, the priest who succeeded. It is, however, easy on such a subject merely to criticise. The book is worthy of real praise for its literary merit and its self-restraint, qualities that are particularly evident in the sketch of the unhappy and brilliant adventurer who bore the darkened name of Benedict Arnold.
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