The title of Mr. David Loth's Royal Charles : Ruler
and Rake (Routledge, 15s.) is self-explanatory, and almost all we need add is that the book is an excellent piece of work. The author would not claim for it that it enlarges our stock of knowledge about Charles II, but it is admirable human portraiture and eminently readable. Mr. Loth, who is an
American, treads the paths of seventeenth-century English history with confidence, sympathy and knowledge, and to these he adds the quality of humour—a quality which specially and unusually distinguished his royal subject. It was humour alone which kept Charles from being a bitter cynic, indifference gave him tolerance, and he was readily generous at other people's expense. There was more, too, in the King's career than an exchange of bawdy jokes and a loveless life among harlots, and to the human aspect of that career Mr. Loth gives full expression. When a new edition of the book is called for, as it surely ought to be, the author might add to it an index and note that Montrose was hanged, not beheaded, as implied on page 68; and that we speak of Scottish or Scots, not " Seot " Presbyterians. Might we suggest, too, that Mr. Loth could have made more of, though he does give extracts from, Charles's delightful correspondence with his beloved sister " Minette," Duchess or Orleans, the only human being whom, himself apart, the king sincerely loved ?
* *
Previous page
