New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1905-07-15


Lucca. 12mo. PIP viii, Boil (The Macmillan Com
pany)
Mr. Swinburne would appear TO have under
taken the interesting task Of setting his literary
affairs in order. Not long ago we had occasion
10 notice the publication of his poems in a new
and dehnitive edition, to which he had prefixed
a kind Of poeticaI testament. and, we have
recently announced he is giving his dramatic
compositions the same conclusive form. Incl
dentally in the midst Of all these proceedings,
he suddenly lets the world know that he, too,
has in his time, played the part Of the novelist.
II was we gather. a long time ago. In the dedi-
cation 10 Loves Cross Currents" which is ad-
dressed, OF course. to Mr.. Theodore Watts-Dun-
ton. the author describes the book this
buried bantIing" of his literary youth" On
internal evidence the date of its origin might,
roughly, have been determined. The trail of the
amateur is all over Loves Cross-Currents." If
IL had been published when 1t was written it
would have ranked as a mildly surprising cpl
sode IN the history Of the poet. Sent forth by
him in his old age, with some rather astonish-
ing predatory remarks it is far more likely to
take its place among the really fantastic curosi-
ties OF literature
II the predatory remarks aforesaid are aston
fishing. il is because they illustrate the tremen-
dous seriousness with which a man of artistic
proclivities VIII sometimes take productions of
for the life Of him. take in the same manner.
Mr.. Swinburne is modest enough, in his way.
But IN letting US know that his buried bant-
ling has been disinterred by Mr. Theodore
Watts unton, he also apprises US Of the fact
that his work has the approval of that gentle
man, whom he ingenuously calls "a master from
whose verdict on q strangers attempt in the
creative art OF fiction there could be no reason
able appeal" Then he goes to express the
hope that his friend may not be mistaken in his
favorable opinion Of "a study thrown into the
old epistolary form which even the giant genius
Of Ralzac could not restore to the favor it
5oyed in the days Of Richardson and Of Laclos."
We smile at this point, and we smile turn
the page and find the complacent author drag
iging IN Scott by the heels. What in the name
OF all things relevant or irrelevant, We are
tempted to ask him. are Balzac and Richardson
and Scott doing in this gallery? It is precisely
as If some minor poet Of our day, in intro
duction TO his precious rhymes, were to dis
course. about and about, on what Shakespeare
and Keats had done before him. The gulf could
not be wider or deeper in the one case than in
the other Loves Cross Currents is about as
schoolgirlish a performance as anything
have read in years. and Mr.. Swinburne, holding
high converse with his intimate in long ded-
cation, has the efrontery to allude TO Balzac!
Never was there stranger instance of mis-
placed paternal pride. To begin with, novel
ought at least TO be interesting, and this child
of Mr.. Swinburne's brain is almost unrelievedly
dull. The book has a prologue. running to
thirty-seven pages. IN this made ac-
quainted through an abundance of description
with English family whose transactions in
later years go TO make the substance of the let
ters in which the main story, such as it is, is
presently set forth. 1t is a fearfully padded
prologue The talk of two of the boys in it on
the subject Of birching fills six or seven
pages But this talk is expedition itself COM
pared with Mr.. SWinburnes epistolary ram
blings around the love affair with which
his various supposititious correspondents are
chiefly concerned. One of these correspond
ents, Reginald Hardwood, the hero of the birch
ing epic, has fallen violently in love with mar
ried lady in this egregious circle Mrs. Rad
worth's view OF the matter does not exactly
~5Ump to the eye" but we vaguely infer that she
10. at any rate. firtatiously enough inclined TO
encourage Master Reginald. That engaging
scapegrace. too old, alas! for the tawse goes
about signing like a furnace and for a time. it
seems not improbable that he will land his Clara
IN the midst Of a very pretty scandal. But we
have TO reckon with a certain Lady Mdhurst a
suavely formidable old dowager who writes
endless letters. freely sprinkIed with French
phrases. to everybody in sight. and she, out Of
her wisdom, finds way for setting all things
straight She is a delicate dame. When she
sees that "Redgie" is only to be saved by des-
perate measures, she amiably threatens the in
discreet Clara with the disclosure of some docu-
Tnentary evidence relating TO the young matron's
past which, for the general peace would much
better be left in oblivion. charming set Of
circumstances.
The petty nature of the plot Of Loves Cross
currents" is bad enough, but for sheer unadul-
terated boredom the envelope given 10 the plot
IS worse The men and women supposed to
write these letters leave the impression Of a
parcel OF gcssips retailing small beer to one
another with a gravity and an assiduity alto
gether appalling. Decidedly we wish that Mr.
Swtnburne had left his bantling buried fathoms
deep. Some one has expressed the opinion that
every man has the maBings Of a good novel in
him If Mr. Swinburne had left Loves Cross
currents" imprinted his admirers might have
gone on fondly thinking that he, too might have
distinguished himself in this field if he had
chosen But Mr.. Watts-Dunton's jealous inter
Vention has made the thought impossible
Mr.. Hewlett returns in The Fool Errant" to
the Italy which has given him again and again
such fruitful inspiration; but in this novel he
leaves the Renaissance for the eighteenth cent
uTSs and tells a tale different in some important
particulars from anything he has hitherto pro-
duced- II is an interesting tale. which may drag
here and there, but is. on the whole strong
enough to triumph over that and other faults
The hero is rightly described in the subtitle as
Citizen OF Lucca." but il is only at the close of
the book that he enters into the enjoyment Of
that designation. When we first meet him. in
the brief introduction. he is a tai young English
man. come from his native land TO Padua 10
study in the university there under the special