Lord Birkenhead on Himself and Others ON the final page
of Lord Birkenhead's massive, but masterly and eminently readable volumes, we notice there is no "Finis"
but only " End of Volume Two." We trust he will continue these entertaining reflections of life in general and himself in particular, for, although some of the present papers are merely padding or propaganda, others are very good indeed, and will be long remembered.
Sometimes he is carried away by hts own powers of invective. He lays about him so breathlessly in his paper on the Bolsheviks, for instance, that we feel inclined to pick up one of the bloody little puppets he has knocked down and see fair play done. A big strong man should not be so rough. Again, his pages on Breach of Promise and the King's Proctor remind us of an elderly judge in reminiscent mood : they are only very mildly interesting, although, as always, he marshals his facts and develops his argument with accuracy and cogency.
It is in the second volume that we find most meat. Even here, however, the long reviews of Sir Sidney Lee's Life of Sing Edward and Lord Curzon's British Government in India might have been written by anyone with a good knowledge of public affairs, and " The Truth about Margot Asquith " was not worth preserving in its present form.
Of these essays, we can imagine Lord Birkenhead saying to himself : " Two volumes at two guineas—I must give them bulk and body. The public doesn't know good writing from bad, provided there's a famous name and a sauce of epigrams." But now we must unleash the hounds of our enthusiasm, for in spite of their obvious faults these two volumes contain that verve and brilliance, that courage and clarity, that honey and adder's poison that hold us entranced in Lord Birkenhead's happiest moments in an after-dinner speech.
The chapter on " Patriotism " has some amazingly good things, including the following very profound, yet lightly stated tiomment—" I think it all comes back to the idea of sacrifice enlarged." When he writes of "Eloquence," the author sails out bravely on a well-found ship, in an ocean whose every harbour he has navigated. Every ambitious young man will certainly read this chapter and those that follow with attention. Space does not permit of quotation, and the critic may well remain respectfully silent before the opinions of a master. In " Reality and Opportunity," the author speaks frankly and with wisdom of material success, " a subject on which, as he himself might say, he is not unqualified to express an opinion. Thomas Carlyle (" whom I dispraise for exuberance but must
commend for insight "—that is a delightfully typical aside) declared that the best university for any man was a collection of books. Lord Birkenhead agrees with this declaration, but he emphasizes the need for imagination, especially in business, and the necessity (" while democracy continues to
be our system of government ") of learning the art of self- expression. His own career is founded on it, and it is well -to remember that whatever other gifts a man may have, if he is not articulate he cannot hope in these days to shape the history of his time.
The core of the book is the section entitled " Milestones of My Life," and no one can read those pages without liking their author, for behind an egotistical front he hides a real modesty concerning the solid and typically English qualities that have made him what he is: The classical scholarship he won at Wadham, Oxford, when he was seventeen, his maiden speech in the Oxford Union, his meeting with Joseph Cham- berlain, his first election, and that famous speech in the House, when he spoke for sixty-five minutes with " a degree of calculated insolence and sustained invective which I am quite sure has never been attempted before or since by one who addressed the House of Commons for the first time "- these are the five stepping-stones by which F. E. Smith reached the Woolsack. Each incident is sketched in with bold, simple strokes, so that the story lives for us, and we sympathize with the ambitious boy, choosing the future scene of his successes at the University by its architectural symmetry in the moonlight, as we do the busy young lawyer who tells his wife as he drives to the House that his maiden speech will be either a triumph or a greater failure than Disraeli's.
We are glad to see that Lord Birkenhead has a bad word to say for the smoke of London, and we wish he would harness his great powers of persuasion—and invective if need be— to clear our air of the pollution that we daily pour into it. Of our climate he writes, " English manhood suits itself to all weathers and is glad to be out in the storm." That is true also of Lord Birkenhead. These papers arc the work of a brave and brilliant man, unsparing in criticism but generous in his enthusiasms. His political and philosophical opinions are not always expressed with the balance and dignity of his legal judgments ; but he is a genius and always worth listening to, even when intoxicated with his own exuberance.
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