New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1891-12-14
LORD ROSEBERY'S "PITT.'
III.
WORD ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND HIS
STYLE; WITH EXAMPLES-IIIS ESII-
NATE OF PITT.

NATE OF PITT.
London. November &C.
This is Lord Rosebery's first book, and it is
remarkable first effort in authorship. He Is
forty-four years old just twenty years older thah
Pitt when he became Prime Minister of England.
The mere number of his years makes the iac' oi
first book remarkable, and the circumstances VI
his career add TO the surprise For although Loro
Rosebery is and has been great reader, his reau-
ing has not had literature as its chief AIM iiis
aim seems to have been politics, 10 wnic"
literature has been but the handmalden' lc"
Englishmen know more OF the poh'icai a""
diplomatic history of their country or Oh 'nose
neriods which interest him. Such practice
as no has had in the use of words has
been. for the most part either coloqulai or
or.tor;caI Il is not a training which would or
dinarily fit man to write good DOCK Much
must be allowed for natural gifts; much also for
that fulness of mind which comes from any sort
of reading continuously followed.
Rut as La Bruyere sad il is trade to make
book as il is TO make watch III requireo'
therefore. an apprenticeship. You would not ex-
meet a man who had not been taught the mystery
to make good watch the first time; even though
no had carried a good one all his life. 1t would
have technical faults, and so has Lord Roseberys
first book, though it goes much better than nrst
watch would. SO far as style is concerned, IL Is
Ia many respects excellent 1t is not always
correct but it is often picturesque, forcible, CO.
pious 1t is even too copiops at times Ills
rhetoric has some of the exuberance OF youth; is
sometimes riotous and untamed; the steed runs
away with it's rider; most often when he mounts
metaphor.
These are faults on the right side: which
more FREQUENT use of the pen will correct But
when Lord RoSebery is at his best it is astonishing
how good he is: how well he writes what a
vocabulary. he has, and with what originality
and force he so uses common words as 10 give
them new significance and effect. If ne has
not training, he has instinct. He has swift
perception of the value Of phrases, and he has
so much 10 say that he cannot help saying 1t
well; paradox, perhaps, and not OF umyersaI
application. His speeches show him possessed OF
dangerous readiness of retort; this, in printed
book naturally takes the form of antithesis OF
NJ epicram in which he is often extremely happy
would take as a good instance of Lord Rose
bery's power of expressing character in a few
strokes his character of George Third. and con-
trast it with Sir George Treveyan's in his Early
life Of Charles James Fox" Now Sir George
Treyelyan from his youth upward has had pen
in his hand and every sentence in his elaborate
portrait of the King whom the good American
Justly detests betrays the practised hand and the
touch of a master of the art 1t is more brilliant
for more elaborate, than Lord Rosebery's; finer
picture; not perhaps better portrait Inc
Younger writer has seized the essential features the
things that are characteristic and descriptive
What more does one need? Yet one reads
Sir George Treveyan's for the pleasure OF
reading it, and with constant and conscious adj
miration of the craftsmanship. But open this
little book of Lord Rosebery's where you Will,
YOU come upon phrases which are flashes OF light.
aTbe vapid virtue of Rockingham there is
Rockingham in two words. The dull dumb
duke" of Portland, depends, perhaps, too mucl,
on ALTERATION, but the effect is gained. The
"scowling hypocrisy of Thurlow" is almost photo
graphic. Shelburne has never been better hit off
than in the remark that " his good faith was al
ways exemplary but always in need of explana-
tionp That is but the summary of long
ANALYSIS of Shelburne which exhibits the author
in one of his best moods, using his material as it
has not been used before, and clearing up the
mystery of Shelburne's character and career. The
comparison of Fox TO the German Apostle of light
and freedom is an instance of audacity justified
by success
With his passion, his power his courage, his
openness his flashes of imagination, his sympathetic
errors; above all his supreme humanity, Fox
sort of lax Luther, with the splendid faults and
qualities of the great Reformer"
On the other hand, will cite as an example Of
Lord Rosebery's failures passage which one of his
panegyrists-and he has panegyric in the press
without stint-cites a success-nay, as not
worthy to rank with the efforts in this kind of Lord
Beaconsfed himself Still speaking Of Fox he says
that " he charmed equally the affections of Car
Isle and Fitzpatrick, the meteorc mind of Burke
the pedantic vanity of Parr, the austere virtue
of Homer, and the hedgehog soul of Rogers"
That is labored and monotonOus in method. He
has put forth all his muscular power but he
leaves his reader on the earth 1t is not unworthy
of Lord BeacOnsield because Lord Beaconsield,
also, had many failures. more general com
parison between Disraeli and Lord Rosebery might
be set up and pursued in some detail 1t
would be interesting, but the utility of
comparisons is dubious, and the business in
hand does not r. require it to be done
Different in manner is the device by which his
devotion 10 parliamentary life is impressed on the
reader
= lie went into the House of Commons as an
heir enters his home; he breathed in it his
native atmosphere-he had, indeed, brearhed no
other; in the nursery, in the schoolroom at the
University, he lived in its temperature; it had
been, so TO speak, made over to him as a bequest
by its unquestioned master. Throughout his life,
from the cradle to the grave, he may be said to
have known no wider existence. The objects
and amusements that other men seek in a thousand
ways were for him all concentrated there. 1t was
his mistress, his stud, his dice-box, his game
preserve it was his ambition, his library his
creed. For it, and it alone, had the consummate
Chatham trained him from his birth. No young
Hannibal ever more solemnly devoted to his
country than Pitt to Parliament
Different again the fine image he has found
for Mr.. Gladstone's oratory; those rolling and
interminable sentences which come laundering in
mighty succession like the Atlantic waves on the
Biscayan coast" His humor he has kept fol-
the most part in strict control. 1t breaks out at