The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-10-20
NEW BOOKS.
AudacIOus and Admirable.

H. q. Bailey'B story OF Under Castle
Walls ID. Appleton a CO.. opens with
much wit and audacity. Here are two
heroes at W whom the author docs not hesitate
to poke his sharp and excellent fun. His
LEONARDO, Duke OF Vellano, il tall. with red
hair and a big nose. He is persistently
unhappy. His Squarcis. a very capable
soldier and General, Is a bulky. mar y~ellouslv
round" men, ~copiously and ooarsely matched
and bearded and neatly aTrayed in sapphire
velvet. These two have a duel In the hnr
chapter, the result of a difference Of opinion
concerning the military merit Of Pompey
the Great.
Following this we see LEONARDO forced By
%ironioal circumstances into a succession Of
activities hateful to his soul-the soul of a
scholar accustomed to find in knowledge
the one refuge from the idle strife Of human
deeds" We see him at the court OF the
Countess Lucrezia Of Noventa. The count
ess with her dark eyes and scarlet lips. sitting
in her ivory chair, will be found TO be very
lovely. Indeed, there il only one beauty
more distinguished in the tale-tha Of
the wonderful Beatrice Traversari, whose
neck Of ivory and the glory OF whose general
form mo man saw to forget"
We have marked a brief passage Just
here. LEONARDO had bathed in a bath Of
green marble. THE sound Of music called
him to supper. The great hall was built
of white marble and vivid blue lapis lazuli;
below the gloom of the clearstory gilded
beams ran from side to side. A thousand
wax candles shone upon the gold and silver
and Venetian crystal. LEONARDO was set
next to Beatrice Traversari and breathed
his own private thanks to heaven while the
Bishop said grace. Pray, lady said
LEONARDO, will you be Virgil to my Dante;
will you tell me whom / seer And made
the speech an EXCUSE for studying the
beauties Of her face. why, sir, | fear you
see no one but me- Faith, why should
I look elsewhere2' For courtesy, sir she
said coldly; and LEONARDO bowed to the
rebuke. But Il was not for his big nose that
she snubbed him. 1t was because she
loved Francisco, Count OF Zena, who was
q Hermes and an Apollo, swarthy Of color,
and an excellent Captain Of cavalry.
This Is a very clever and very witty
book, and we should like to tell much that
Is In il. The reader will need TO look a long
way before he will find Il more astonishing
villain than Castracane. In his castle Of
! Castagnaro this msrauder kept wolves in
a nit and leopards in cages. To these he
| flung his enemies and all sorts OF people
whom he considered superfiuous. One Of
| his agents was Chrusopoulos the wise man,
LEONARDO and the Bishop Of Lojano had
occasion TO pay a visit t. this wizard. They
| sought to make him drink some Of his own
poison. LEONARDO held his sword point
--2l.-- - tha o. a rafa throat Tha Rlghon
in a p~assionless voice requested him to
drink. The sage made a queer noise In
his throat. HE looked wildly from one
man to the other and opened his mouth to
speak. But the sword point pricked, He
shrank away from it, and LEONARDO followed
him till the table stopped him. There he
stood, his eyes dilated, his hands plucking
n~ervously at the parchments that covered
the table, The Bishop urged. The sword
point pressed. But the sage sprang aside,
He caught a glass vessel and hurled 1t at
the lamp. There was Q roar. a binding
flash of white fame that wrapped him round,
Then black, impenetrable darkness and hot,
acrid smoke. The door banged loud
The sage had got away with a scorched race
and minus beard and hair. He might aS
we'll have stayed. He proceeded to do a
foolish thing. @He, a paid servant who had
failed in his task, went back to his master
Castracane, the tyrant of Frido. Ions
after certain men, clearing out the cages
of C~astracane's Ieopards, found in a crevice
of the stones a golden zodiac chain, gnawec
and broken" IL was the wizards chain, .
symbol and convenience Of his learned
calling. The leopards had rejected 1t al
not likely to prove nourishing.
At one point in his adventures LEONARDO
met with Carolus Aristophanicus, the Ger
man scholar and wandcrer. He was 9
humorist, wen in desperate seasons. like
most of the characters in the tale. Il know
more Of Aristophancs, the comic poet, thar
any man in the world, he assured LEONARDO
Bred a priest ne found there was no chance
he should ever be Pope, so he turned soldier
As soldier he found there was no chance
he should ever be emperor, 30 he turned
scholar. The stable was small where thesa
two sought to bestow their horses. 'Phew'
said Carolus Aristophanicue, "the heasi'
will have to breathe alternately. II theJ
do it together they will break their ribs
He liked his cells fried in oil rather that
butter. To LEONARDO, who preferred h'l'
ter, he said: "As in living, a man shoue
seek to develop his own private nature q
the uttermost, so in cooking, your coon
should develop the private virtue OF VIVA
he cooketh. Feels are oily, therefore c'os
them in oil and let them be oily IN sTce'ss
You AVE a turn for playing the fool NJ
a fool to all men and in all places. Ihu'
the cells and you realize the potential OF you
natures" The cells had hardly been eater
before the wayfarers were surprised by
troop OF C-astracane's red n black raiders
1t Is not practicable and it would be wron'
to tell who became the bride OF Gen
Squarcia, and whether LEONARDO marriet
the Countess Lucrezia, and whether the
battle OF Sestola was won by Castracan'
or by Bernadino Bruni, the military gehil
who twirled a rose while directing tn
movements of an army. The book ltsel
awaits the reader. 1t is a very capaol'
story, ingenious, witty, thoroughly enter
tanning.