A Historical Romance
Brave Employments. By Marjorie Bowen. (Collins. Ss. 6d.) ONCE again Miss Bowen has maintained our trust in her as a writer of sound historical romance, a painstaking chronicler and a wizard-who can clothe dead bones anew. This time she takes for her theme the upheavals in Ireland during the years 4689-1691, beginning with the arrival of King James II at Kinsale Harbour. It is, so far as dressed-up history ever can be, an honest record. Miss Bowen permits herself various surmises for the story's sake. For instance, she produces 'a motive for the murder of the notorious Henry Luttrell, whose death has always mystified historians.
It is difficult to say which is the best of this long but never tedious book, its fact or its fiction. There are some excellent character studies of King James, of Patrick Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan, in whose valour the Irish maintained faith until his " flight of wild geese " carried their hope away. Luttrell,
Lord Galmoy and D'Avaux are also well portrayed. But, to the common reader, the chief interest of the book, apart from the picture it contains of distressed, seething and turbulent Ireland, lies in its love story. The Sarsfield, re-created by Miss Bowen, is a great and fastidious lover. There were three women in his life. The first of these was an almost symbolical figure, the spirit of Ireland herself, who was intro- duced to him by a Shanahus, or story teller. The second woman was Olivia Joyce, who married the Marquis de Bonnac and followed him to Ireland because she hankered after Sarsfield whom she bad rejected. The third was Sarsfield's cold little wife. Miss Bowen allows these three to play their parts in and out of the story, to add relief to the records of history, and to supply a plot within the great plot of warfare. Her method is most successful, and her book deserves to be read both as a novel and a minor study of Irish character.
B. E. T.
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