A Forgotten Genius : Charles Whitehead ; a Critical Monograph.
'fly H. T. Mackenzie Bell. (Elliot Stock.)—In spite of much enthusiasm and much vigorous assertion, Mr. Bell fails to make out a case for his hero. Whitehead was in some respects a powerful although an -unpleasant novelist ; and he was also a very clever versifier, whose lines rise at t;mes to the dignity of pcetry. His friends may have been justified in anticipating a brilliant future for the author of "The .Solitary ; " and if not in verse, yet as a prose-writer, the expectation was in a measure justified by the romance of "Richard Savage,' which has received the praise of Rossetti. Whitehead, however, had what his biographer calls an "infirmity ;" and thus his life was -virtually wasted. His ability was great, and it was recognised by some of his most brilliant contemporaries ; yet he has left nothing which the world will not willingly let die. Mr. Bell writes a jeremiad on the anthers who have been neglected by their country ; and winds up by saying that in no instance is the "neglect of high genius more com- plete than that of Whitehead, more cruel, more tragic." There is no ground for this assertion. Whitehead was his own enemy, and he had no other. How could the public help a man whose " one fatal propensity" unfitted him for work, for society, and for -friendship ? Even Dickens was "compelled," as Mr. Bell admits, " to cease to hold intercourse with him ;" and when the biographer asserts that Whitehead was "driven" from London we are compelled
to ask by whom ? There was the taint of madness in his family, and this may account for his destroying "an excellent constitution ;" but the nation was not to blame because, to quote the writer's own words, Whitehead's "baneful habit led to his being often in most straitened circumstances." Mr. Bell's critical judgments are far from sound ; but readers who wish to know what Whitehead wrote, will probably find ample satisfaction in the copious abstracts and quotations with which this monograph abounds.
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