James Edward : the Old Pretender. By Henry D. Roomo.
(B. H. Blackwell, Oxford. 2s. 6d. net.)—In this essay, to which the Stanhope Prize has been this year awarded, we have an excellent appreciation of a personage of some importance. It is true that he owed this importance to his circumstances, not to himself. Yet at one time he might have changed the course of history. Never had a Pretender a better chance than James Edward bad before the '15. Scotland, apart from a not very powerful minority, was with him ; Ireland would not have objected ; England was half ready to accept him. It is worth while inquiring why he failed. Generally, we may say, he failed because he was absolutely unequal to the situation, and had no able counsellor. In Mr. Roome's pages we see causes and effects marshalled with the most satisfactory precision. For a Stuart; James Edward was a respectable person. He was devout, though his religious ideas admitted of a very loose morality ; he was honest, and he was brave. The only distinction that he achieved was living longer than any of his race had lived before him. Even in this he was surpassed by his younger son, the Cardinal of York.
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