WHAT I HAVE SEEN AND HEARD
What I Have Seen and Heard. By J. G. Swift MacNeil. (Arrowsmith. 18s.) What I Have Seen and Heard. By J. G. Swift MacNeil. (Arrowsmith. 18s.) Mn. Swirr M.seNem's book of recollections is not an auto- biography and has no direct concern with political history "except in so far as it concerns the men who make it." "The words of the play on the stage," he declares, are not his affair, he writes merely "of the actors and their asides which were not heard by the audience."
All that he tells us of men and their sayings excites our interest and curiosity. This is specially true of the romantic figures of Parnell and Rhodes. In 1887 Mr. MacNeil travelled in the same ship with Rhodes to South Africa and after- wards passed some weeks in his company at Kimberley. One night as the two men walked up and down the deck Rhodes related how Gordon had asked him to go with him to Khartum, and he had consented to join him there if after six months Gordon Still wanted him. Before the six months was up Gordon was dead. "I wish I had gone with Gordon," said Rhodes. "I believe I could have saved him, and if not I would willingly have died with him." Rhodes was not the man over whom one would have expected that the heroic but eccentric soldier could have cast his spell. Rhodes knew him too upon his fanatical 'side. Gordon, he said,. had talked to him "of strange beliefs in spiritual influences which were in some cases malevolent. He thought, for instance, that the horrors of evil were far more potent on sea than on land, and on mountains than on low- lands." This last notion is in direct contradiction of the generally received idea that the hill tops symbolize aspiration.
The cold, aloof personality of Parnell and the depth of the impression' which he and his rather sordid intrigue made upon the House of Commons are skilfully brought before the reader, and the comic side of the whole proceeding is well illustrated by the following story :—" Mr. William Redmond in a very fervent speech attributed the policy of deposing Parnell to the wiles Of English politicians who, he declared, seized on the scandal as an excuse for getting rid of an Irish statesman .whom they feared and hated. The opposition to the retention of Parnell in the chair of the Irish Parliamentary Party, he insisted, was due to the interference and dictation of Mr.
Gladstone, who was assuming control over the Irish Party. 'Who,' he asked draniatically, is the master of the Irish Party ? ' Immediately Mr. T. M. Healy quietly asked, And who is the mistress of the Irish Party ' ? "
Though upon the whole What I Have Seen and Heard must be accounted very light literature, no criticism of it would be fair which left out of account the remarkable facility of the author for suggesting serious and even tragic situations. The later days of Mr. John Bright in the House of Commons make a sad picture, and the majestic figure of Mr. Gladstone abashes the present-day student of newspaper politics. The enthusiastic admiration which Lord Peel and Lord Ullswater drew from this "Irish member" by their justice and impar- tiality may well fill Englishmen with pride.
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