LA. BELLE PAMELA (Lady Edward Fitzgerald). By Lucy ' Elliis
and Joseph Turquan. (Herbert Jenkins. 25s. net.) In this unusually massive volume the authors would seem to subscribe to the opinion of the Hon. Gwendolen Fairfax : that but for human susceptibility to physical charms History would be quite unreadable. Unfortunately they have pro- duced a result which might perhaps be ennobled as a chronique scandakuse,.in spite of being ponderous, over-long and full of irrelevancies,. but which cannot be considered of any, serious historical value,. To-.be brief, it is much ado about exceed- ingly little. Lady Edward Fitzgerald was a charming, beautiful, rather unfortunate lady, who might serve admirably as the heroine of a romance against the lurid backcloths of the French Revolution and the Irish Insurrection of 1798. Miss Ellis and M. Turquan have used her as .an excuse for the exhibition "of the real personality of Mme. de Genlis,". and of certain secret causes of the French Revolution. Of the latter no; more need be said than that these secret causes are revealed in the shape of the preposterous claim that Mme. de Geniis was prime author• of the upheaval through the influence which she wielded as mistress of the Due d'940ans-, History is sufficiently dramatic without being translated into melodrama. Mrs. Webster, who is frequently quoted in this book; made the same 'claim for the Illuminatus Weisshaupt. And one is about as justifiable as the other. The searchlight thrown in mercilessly upon Mane. de Geniis— not to mention her interminable correspondenCe, memoirs and quotations from her books—reveals scandal too musty to be entertaining, and a bourgeoise hypocrisy of outlook that cannot but nauseate the observer by its pettiness and inadequacy. As history the book suffers from lack of con- struction ; as biography from irrelevancies ; as romance from lack of wit and brevity. '
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