Coat-Pocket Books
Human Nature in Politics, by Graham Wallas; Life of Char- lotte Charke, by Herself ; The Ghosts of Piccadilly, by G. 8. Street. (Constable's Miscellany.- 1s. 6d. each).
OF the thirty-five compact and well-printed volumes already
issued in this series, none have been more interesting than the three last. Street and Wallas are almost classics in their several and most divergent manners : Mrs. Charke's auto- biography, telling of her adventures as a strolling player, is not literature at all (so the writer of the preface says), being ungrammatical and fantastical, but its verve and whimsy carry us along on a flood tide of high spirits that neither the politician nor the historian possess.
Not that Graham Wallas is dull, his keen vision, his ready gift of illustration and wide experience afford entertainment in equal measure with instruction. " Can we acquire a political emotion based, not upon the belief in the likeness of individual human beings, but upon the recognition of their unlikeness ? " Can we found a new world order, not on fighting, but upon the improvement of the- whole species, recognizing that racial as well as individual differences of type are valuable ? That is the master-question raised and considered in these pages. That they have had a _profound influence on the thought of the last twenty years should be reason enough for republishing them ; an equally important reason, however, is their applicability to the national and international problems of the present day.
The power of the Press, for instance—is it as great as we assume ? Can it sway votes ? How will broadcasting affect it ? Is democracy imperilled by our modern knowledge of mass-psychology ? Is it easy to manipulate the " Non- conformist conscience ? " What are the real factors of political popularity ? Is " Disraelism " a danger ? How may children be educated to a " sense of the State " ? These and a thousand other avenues of thought are opened up by a consideration of Human Nature in Politics. Every Parlia- Mentary candidate will have read or at least heard at second- hand the somewhat cynical maxims here presented. That is not enough : electors should read the book too, for it has hardly " dated !' at all in spite of being written in that settled first decade of this century when no one really believed that thrones would perish or kingdoms rise and wane. To-day we are wiser, but not yet wise enough to have fully realized how much of our politics is founded on emotion and how little on reason.
Emotion and not reason is also Mrs. Charke's strong point.
Here is a piece of dramatic criticism which justifies our view of-.her vigour :- "-I have had the Mortification of hearing the Characters of Hamlet and Othello rent in Pieces. by a Figure no higher than two sixpenny Loaves and a Dissonancy of Voice which conveyed to me a strong Idea of a Cat in labour, which, conjoined with an injudicious Utter- ance made up a compleat tragical Emetick fora Person of the smallest Degree of Judgment." -
Her book was publishectin 1760 and it is not surprising that it ran through two editions, Air there is much curious matter in it—a Cellinestpie insouciance of morality, an oscillation between tearing spirits and blackest depression, which keeps the reader sUrprised, an almost pathological haunting fear of hunger:a pathetic desire to be done with mumming and to settle down as pastry cook, pork butcher, or cinder sifter and a strain of abnormality in her masquerading as a man (for some reason which, she tells us, she is ' bound " by all the vows of Tritth and Honour 'everlastingly to conceal") that gives one the inipression that here was a remarkable woman, very well worth knowing. A clever actress, a sensitive and educated mind,a brilliant descriptive writer, this daughter
of 'Colley Cibber might have done much. But nothing she 'Put her hand to ever prospered. The peer to whom (in her breeched adolescence) she acted as footrrian and companion fin a guinea a week dismissed her when some " pragmatical Blockheads teized him " as to her sex. Then she went to Newgate and bought " a .considerable quantity of Pork at the best Hand ; which I -converted into Sausages, and with my, Daughter set out, laden .each with a Burden as weighty as we could well bear ; which not having been used to Lng- gages of that Nature, we found extreamly troublesome." But feeling feverish one day, she went for a walk in Red
Lion Fields, and " on my return, Oh disastrous Chance, a hungry Cur had most savagely entered my Apartment, confounded my Cookery, and most inconsiderately devoured my remaining stock, and from that Hour, a Bankruptcy ensued. The Child and I gap'd and steed at each other, and, with a Despondency on our Faces, we sat down and silently conceived that starving must be the sad Event of this shocking Accident, having at that time neither Meat, Moneys, nor Friends."
Mrs. Charke's fate was to be born out of her time. To-day she would never want for a guinea or two as a gossip writer. We see her last, poor but not unhappy, with a monkey, a tabby-cat and a lean, shaggy dog, writing a novel with the ink from a broken teacup. Does her ghost haunt Covent Garden, which she loved and which, of all London, still keeps a little of the flavour of her days ? She is as vivid to us as any great name that G. S. Street evokes from Piccadilly.
What strange by-ways are the " might-have-beens " of history ! Supposing, for instance, that the lady who lived at 106 Piccadilly (now the St. James's Club) had married Byron. What would Miss Mercer (afterwards Madame de Flahault and Baroness Nairne) have made of his life ? ." You ought to have married me," she said to him after the sad scene at Lady Jersey's where everyone cut him. And Byron, at Dover, said " If I had been fortunate enough to marry a woman like her, I should not now be obliged to exile myself from my country."
Then there is the Great Duke, with his white stock and blue frock-coat and the iron railings which still stand at Ansley House, and Lady Hamilton at a little house near Down Street where she danced the tarantella on April 15th, 1801, to celebrate the news of Nelson's victory at Copenhagen before Old Q., the Duke of Gordon, Calonne, the Duke de Noia, the Kembles, Greville, and Nelson's brother the rector of Chelsea. This reviewer has in his family a dessert-service designed by Sir William for his wife, in the Etruscan style, whereon that dance is portrayed with great vividness. To him, therefore, this scene stands out particularly : Emma's grace, the agility of her veteran husband, the coal-black Copt slave who re- placed his master when the exultant Emma refused to stop. Old Q.'s grin, the parson's rather shocked applause—how well that evening of triumph and confidence stands out against the background of a sad story ?
Let us end with Harriot Mellon, who married Mr. Coutts the banker when he was eighty, and lived just round the corner at No. 1 Stratton Street. They loved each other. He left her his fortune and said that he would return if he could, as a little bird to her window. Later, Harriot became the Duchess of St. Albans. When she was dying, she directed her attendants to take her back to No. 1 Stratton Street, and up to Mr. Coutts's bedroom. And a little bird sang at, her window as she died.
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