SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Under this heading we notice such Books of the week as have not Leen reserved for review in other forms.] The Marquis of Salisbury. By F. D. How. (Isbister and Co. 6s.)—This is as good a specimen of the kind of book to which it belongs as we have seen. The difficulty which the writer of the biographies of living men has to deal with is that he is bound either to invective—and this is really out of the question—or panegyric. Mr. How's book is not an impartial survey of Lord Salisbury's political career. There are points of considerable import- ance which he practically ignores. There is the "free-lance" period, when the young politician attacked in the Press the acknowledged leader of his party ; there are the " blazing indiscretions" of the responsible statesman ; there is the indifference to the interests of literature ; there is the narrowness with which ecclesiastical patronage has been administered. But one quite sees that these things could not have been insisted on. What has been admirably done is the survey of Lord Salisbury's undoubted services to his country ; the firmness, sagacity, and consummate control of temper with which he has borne himself in some very dangerous crises. Perhaps the most striking example is his behaviour in the Venezuelan affair. The story is very well told by Mr. How, and it itI needless to summarise it here. Another great merit of the book is the tact with which the private life of Lord Salisbury is treated. Not the least informing part of the biography is the series of cartoons from the Westminster Gazette, &c., which Mr. How has been permitted to reproduce.
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