IN A WALLED GARDEN.* THE short essays contained in this
volume, which is of moderate size, light weight, and pretty exterior, make very pleasant reading indeed, of a popular b at not trivial kind. We pre- aume that the essays were written in the " walled garden," as there is no other connection whatever between the title of the book and its contents. And as with the title so with the preface—the ghostly procession of old-world squires and dames simply precede, and in no way mix with the subjects of the essays—they suggest romance ; but Madame Belloc deals with fact in these pages, and not with fancy ; and very
pleasantly does she bring the old friends before us again,— George Eliot, Joseph Priestley*, Mrs. Jameson, Mary Howitt, Lady Georgians Fullerton, Adelaide Anne Procter, and others. She has treated the characters in some of the first
essays very effectively, after the manner of the writers of con- temporaneous history, bringing the time in which they lived, and the thoughts and feelings which were occupying the public mind, and forming the public character, very vividly before the reader. In speaking of Joseph Priestley, for instance, she
thus brings out the contrast between the grave Presbyterian youth at his theological studies and the world outside:— "No hermits of the desert, no monks of La Trappe, dwelt more serenely in an atmosphere apart. It was the time of Louis XV. in France, and George II. in England It was the time when Jeanie Deans walked from Scotland to London to beg her sister's life of Queen Caroline, and met Madge Wild- fire in the way. It was the time when the polite world was com- posed of Men, women, and Herveys ; ' when Squire Pendarves was found dead in his bed in Greek Street, Soho, leaving his young widow to be courted by John Wesley and wedded by Dr. Delany ; when statesmen bribed and young blades drank, and Sir Harbottle carried off Harriet Byron, whose shrieks brought Sir Charles Grandison to the .rescue, sword in hand. It was the time when the Jacobite Rebellion flamed up and expired; when
the young Pretender marched to Derby of Dick Turpin and Jack Sheppard, of smugglers, and the press-gang and
of all this there is not the faintest mention in the account which Dr. Priestley has drawn up of his own childhood, youth, and young manhood, though he was himself destined to be one of the
principal illustrations of the Georgian era He might have dwelt in some far serene planet where the inhabitants were wholly given up to study and prayer."
In this manner Madame Belloc brings into vivid relief many of the heroes of her short but interesting essays. There is not much that will be new to the world of readers, but all comes with the freshness and interest of a personal friend's
• In a Mall:d Garden. By Beal' e Rayner Belloc. London : Ward and Downey. criticism, or—as in the case of Dr. Priestley (who was Madame Belloc's maternal grandfather)—of one deeply concerned in the subject of her pen. In her essay on George Eliot she makes a remark on Middleinarch, which we should be inclined to extend over all George Eliot's writings, taking the works as a whole, in spite of all the life and humour of the characters and scenes. Madame Belloc says :—" Middlemarch is to me as a landscape seen in the twilight,—au feint gristitre. It is from first to last the plaint of a lost ideal. It would be easy to account for this by saying that the writer had lost the wider hope.' 1 prefer not to do it." In this we differ from Madame Belloc; for surely that hope must tinge with life and vigour, howcves unconsciously, the writing as well as the life of all who possess it, and the absence of it must leave all grey and lifeless. Madame Belloc, as far as we understand her, attri- butes this grey colour to the narrow horizon and the cramped intellectual life of the dissenting circles in which George Eliot had been brought up.
The first half of the volume will be found the most attractive to most readers. The shorter essays on a variety of subjects do not equal the earlier ones by any means, nor do we find the "Chapter of War" very interesting, nor the reminiscences of Catherine Booth, " Mother of the Salvation Army," whom the author appears to have seen only twice. We should mach like Madame Belloc to tell us, by the way, how she knows that Catherine Booth's personal appearance "was that of Paul." She states unhesitatingly that it was so. How does Madame Belloc know that St. Paul was so much like Catherine Booth ? Madame Belloc must have some sources of information, unknown to the world at large, on the subject of personal appearance ; for she tells us just as confidently that Adelaide Anne Procter resembled the Archangel Michael. The Archangel Michael is generally represented as armed with a flaming sword fighting with Satan ; but we at least are not in a position to argue the point. Joking apart, the essay on the Procter family, on Mary Howitt, and Lady Georgiana Fullerton, are three of the best in the book ; and the essay on Mary Howitt contains a very in- teresting letter from the subject of the essay to the author, which has never been published before, speaking of her (Mary Howitt's) own conversion. Madame Belloc evidently feels a great drawing to those who, like herself, have found an outlet for their devotion in the fold of the Roman Catholic Church ; for all the subjects of the nicest of these essays are converts to that Church (except the venerable old Presbyterian—Dr. Priestley—who lived and died a Noncon- formist). And we do not wonder at Madame Belloc's bias, for there is a wonderful fascination for most of us in those enthusiastic natures who find belief more natural than scepticism, and adoration more profitable than reasoning.
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