Letters of Captain Engelbert Lutyens. Edited by Sir Lees Knowles,
Bt. (John Lane. 10s. 6d. net.)—Captain Lutyens never spoke to Napoleon, but was Orderly Officer at Longwood for fourteen months, and among his duties was to report daily or more often to Sir Hudson Lowe the prisoner's occupations. His letters record the pathetic trivialities that he observed from his quarters, or even through the windows of Longwood ; how " General Bonaparte " was dressed in the morning and afternoon, that he shot a goat or a rabbit on the lawn, or later such details of his illness as Lutyens could learn. If St. Helena had not been the scene of the final flicker of events that until 1914 remained the greatest of a century, these accounts would seem tedious. Lutyens made friends with the Comtes Bertrand and de Montho- Ion, and thereby irritated Sir Hudson Lowe, who appears here in a light that his detractors will enjoy. The later letters are concerned with Napoleon's gift of Coxe's Life of Marlborough to the library of Lutyens's regiment. This offended the narrow- minded authorities because the fatal word " L'Empereur " had been years before inscribed in the volumes. Hence, indirectly, Lutyens's dismissal just before Napoleon's death, and his protests to his superiors. The letters have apparently lain unpublished hitherto in the British Museum. For making them known in good form, with portraits, interesting old views, and a map of the island, we must thank Sir Lees Knowles, whose action is certainly public-spirited. The notes that he supplies are sometimes useful, but do not show him as a practised editor who knows how to weigh authorities, or even to name them. But we can be grateful to an amateur who does his best to make public new knowledge on a great subject.
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