A Diary of St. Helena (Allen and Unwin, 6s.), edited
by Sir Arthur Wilson, is a reprint of the celebrated diaries of Lady Malcolm, giving the conversations of Napoleon with Sir Pulteney Malcolm, in 1816 and 1817, on the island of St. Helena. They form depressing reading, but throw much light on the legend, still current in some quarters, that the English ill-treated the Emperor after they had him in their power. Sir Hudson, to use the now foreign-sounding form followed by Lady Malcolm, appears to have been a sincere man of small imagination, and hampered by the strictness of his instructions as to the confinement of the great prisoner, whose name, it must be remembered, still served to frighten children until well on in the century. The British had small reason to trust Napoleon, who was, in addition, ill served by the vexatious stickling of his attendants, and by their abuse of their privileges. Sir Arthur Wilson leaves the edition unmarred for the general reader by over-copious notes, and contributes a short intro- duction concerned with the authenticity of the diaries, dis- pelling attacks which have been made upon it. It is decidedly a book which will be welcome.
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