Mrs. BONNER has done well to write a record of the life and work of
her father, CHARLES BRADLAUGH, which FISHER UNWIN publishes in two
volumes. If it had been one 'twould have been better. Mrs. BONNER has
been assisted in her labours by Mr. J. M. ROBERTSON, who deals with
Mr. BRADLAUGH'S political doctrine and work, and describes in detail
his parliamentary struggle. The consequence is that the record runs
into two closely-printed volumes, a proportion that somewhat
overweights the interest of the subject. Mrs. BONNER is, naturally,
indignant at the treatment her father received in the early days of
his parliamentary life and in other public relations. But Mr.
BRADLAUGH was a fighting man. He gave hard knocks and, to do him
justice, did not unduly complain when knocks were dealt back to him.
It is a pathetic story how the crowning triumph of his life came in
the hour of his death. He never knew that the House of Commons had
unanimously agreed to the motion which expunged from its journals the
resolution excluding the junior member for Northampton from its
membership. That confession, my Baronite says, was the completest
justification of the action on Mr. BRADLAUGH's part that enlivened the
Parliament of 1880-5 and was the immediate cause of the birth of the
Fourth Party.
Mr. JOHN DAVIDSON'S _Earl Lavender_ is "pernicious nonsense," and the
Aubrey Beardsley frontispiece--if, considering its subject, it can,
with absolute correctness, be described _as_ a
"_front_ispiece,"--might, a few years ago, have endangered its
existence. But "I suppose," quoth the Baron, "I am becoming
old-fashioned, and 'we have changed all that now.' But in view of this
extraordinary illustration, is it a book that can be left out
'promiscuously-like' on the drawing-room table? I trow not," quoth the
Baron. "And as to _The Great God Pan_ ('Key-note' series),
well--infernally or diabolically clever it may be, but should I be
informed," quoth the Baron, "that we should never look upon its like
again, I, for one should not grieve."
Another Keynoteworthy book, _i.e._, one quite worthy to belong to such
of the Key-note series as the Baron has read, is _The Dancing Faun_.
Had a novel appeared some years ago in the palmy, but not less leggy,
days of the drama at the Gaiety, entitled _The Dancing Vaughan_, when
the elegant KATE of that ilk was the light and leading _danseuse_,
what a vogue such a volume would have had among the patrons of the
above-mentioned Temple of Burlesque-Extravaganza. "_Où sont les neiges
d'antan?_" and "Where is dat barty now?"