5 JANUARY 1929, Page 30

Mr. Brett's very readable and thought-provoking book on Wellington (Heinemann,

15s.) is not intended, he telli_ us, tie a description of the life and times of the iron Duke: ' No battles are described in it• ' • no political issues explained. The writer attempts " to seek him out in the fog of war, to dis- entangle him from the thickets of ancient politics." He is shown to us as he moved among the men and women of his day, a great man belonging by rights to a time rather earlier than the one he lived in, living in the present in accordance with the rules of the past, blind where the future with all its speculations, aspirations, and rebellions were concerned, and having no judgment to pass upon the far greater man whom he had conquered, except that the fellow wasn't a gentleman."