Sir Lyttelton SIR NEVILLE LerreeroN gives as an excuse for
this book that he has " had so full and happy a life that what has given me pleasure to write may give a few others pleasure to read." Except for the word " few " we fully endorse his excuse. He will give pleasure to the hosts of friends of Sir " NevvY,', a statement which implies that he has kept his youth and the power of making younger friends.
Sir Neville had intimate knowledge of the War Office " machine," knowledge which Lord Kitchener up to 1914 complained had been withheld from him. He had been in the confidence of Secretaries of State, of Kitchener in Egypt and South Africa, of Wolseley and of Roberts. He also knew the rank and file intimately, for he always had their affection and confidence. A genial nature and his obviously cheerful courage in danger ensured this, and no doubt it was helped by his being the best cricketer among them, • playing in the spirit that makes cricket the best " leveller," whether in village cricket in Hagley Park or garrison matches on matting pitches at Gibraltar. One can see here that as his fame grew his popularity reached beyond his belayed Rifle Brigade to all battalions that came under his command. The book illumi- nates the vast changes that we know took place in every direction in the Army during his service. Flogging, drunken- ness and disease were common when he joined : the losses from cholera in India were appalling. The account of the Boer War is exceedingly interesting though it is not intended to reveal anything new. We can read between the -lines something of a special debt that the Empire owes to Sir Neville and Lady Lyttelton. During the months that followed Vereeniging nobody did more to dissipate enmity and bring together- Boer and Briton.
" The two periods of my life, he writes, " to which I look back with most satisfaction were my -Captaincy of • Evans's house in 1868-4 and the campaign in Natal in 1899-1900." They were the days when he had the -beSt chances of shewing leadership. In Natal he led to success against infinitely greater
difficulties than at Tel-el-Kebir or Omdurman. At Eton William Evans, a dying man, handed over his house to his daughters, who had to consult and trust the captain in every- thing and were fortunate that he was Neville Lyttelton. There is much here of interest about Eton, Ireland, cricket, Mr. Gladstone, and a multitude of subjects, but we assure our readers that they will not find mere repetitions of what they found in Lady Frederick Cavendish's writings or other litera- ture that has grown up round the Glynnes, Gladstones, Spencers and Lytteltons.
.- Plainly the writer might have shone in other spheres had he not been a soldier. He could not advance as a scholar like his father and some of his brothers, but he has kept up a love of the Classics and of music. The memoirs of such a man put to shame many others that reveal ill-breedini. There is not a line of vulgar gossip here, not one inexcusable personal remark or breach of confidence. He can say that he did not like one man or that another made a bad mistake, but with no innuendo, no hint of self-praise, and generally with a charitable excuse (or a gehocrir of which an amusing example is that the Duke of Cambridge " could not be regarded as a convinced army reformer " !). No one, had he wished, could have served up more scandal than the man
who held his offices and incidentally sat on the first committee of inquiry into the Dardanelles failure and on the Commission on the Mesopotamian campaign.
Now he is the most popular veteran in Chelsea Hospital. We must quote one description of Florence Nightingale given him by a Crimean pensioner, for we would exchange it for nothing in Mr. Lytton Strachey's picture :—
" She gave me my first hot meal. She was a fine woman ; she had no thought of marriage. She wore a black silk dress and the rustle of it- frightened . away the rats from eating the linseed poultices."
There are many other plums that we must leave readers to pick out for themselves, while we hope that this gallant veteran will celebrate many more birthdays of the Royal Founder whose best memorial is where Sir Neville governs his old comrades.
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