MR. LAURENCE HOUSMAN'S NEW BOOK.*
Tuosz who have enjoyed Mr. Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians and The Life of Queen Victoria will find Mr. Laurence Housman's little Angela and Ministers exactly to their taste. The three short dialogues are beyond measure clever and attractive. The first shows Queen Victoria, Lord Beaconsfield and Mr. John Brown at Balmoral. There follows a conver- sation between Lord Beaconsfield and his doctor, and—this is perhaps the best—a scene between Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone, Lord Rendel and Mr. John Morley. All three have that tone of detached ironic kindness which made The Life of Queen Victoria superior to Eminent Victorians. The way in which Mr. Laurence Housman has got Lord Beaconsfield's style is a perpetual delight, and he has represented with great nicety the half-sentimental terms on which the Queen and her Minister stood.
Artistically the least perfect of the three little episodes is the amusing extravaganza in the middle. Lord Beaconsfield is in bed and is interviewing his doctor. He has had a dream, he says—a horrible dream about primroses. " As the victim of inebriety sees snakes, I saw primroses."
" I assure you that the horror I then conceived for those • Angels and MIMIC/re. 13, Laurence Housman. London : Jonathan Cape. 7s. &I. =LI
pale botanical specimens in their pestiferous and increscent abundance, exceeded what words can describe. I have felt spiritually devastated ever since, as though some vast calamity were about to fall not only on my own intellect, but on that of my country. Well, you shall hear. (He draws his trembling hands wearily over his face, and sits thinking awhile.) With all the harsh abruptness of a soul launched into eternity by the jerk of the hangman's rope, so I found myself precipitated into the midst of this dream. I was standing on a pillory, set up in Parliament Square, facing the Abbey. I could see the hands of St. Margaret's clock pointing to half-past eleven ; and away to the left the roof of Westminster Hall undergoing restoration. Details, Doctor, which gave a curious reality to a scene otherwise fantastic, unbelievable. There I stood in a pillory, raised up from earth ; and a great crowd had gathered to look at me.
. .
Doctor, imagine my feelings ! My sense of ridicule was keen ; but keener my sense of the injustice—not to be allowed to know why the whole world was thus making mock of me. For this was in the nature of a public celebration, its malignity was organised and national ; a new fifth of November had been sprung upon the calendar. Around me I saw the emblematic watchwords of the great party I had once led to triumph :
Imperium et Libertas,' Peace with Honour,' ' England shall reign where'er the sun,' and other mottoes of a like kind."
All this is delightful ; but when the doctor proceeds to interpret the dream along psycho-analytical lines, we feel that an anachron- istic note has been struck. It would have been far subtler had the psycho-analytical aspect of the dream been as unper- ceived by the two interlocutors as is necessarily the prophetic exactness of the vision. The reader will, however, probably forgive much for the skilful use of the great Minister's prose methods.
The last scene, set in March, 1894, when Mr. Morley breaks to Mrs. Gladstone that Mr. Gladstone is going out of office, is on a far higher level. Not only is the delineation of character by means of the light, slender strokes of such a dialogue masterly, but the little play contrives to be emotionally effective. The symbolic use of the comforter which Mrs. Gladstone is knitting throughout the conversation is excellent. The contrast between Mr. Laurence Housman's handling of Mrs. Gladstone in her maternal, protecting role towards her husband, and a fancy picture of the same theme if it had been treated by Sir James Barrie, might be instructive to a young playwright. A more delicate piece of pdtisserie than these three little plays can hardly be imagined. The last one would probably act very well. If it is not boldly enough conceived for the regular stage and an unselected audience, it might be immensely attractive acted
by amateurs for a sympathetic circle. TARN.
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