" The Squire ".
enry Chaplin : A Memoir. By the Marchioness of London- derry. (Macmillan. 21s.)
1-:RM1T'S Derby was one of the most romantic horse-races the history of the TUrf ; but the core of the drama lay t in the closeness of the race, the broken blood-vessel and c defeat of The Rake by Hermit, but in the painful valry on far other grounds of Lord Hastings and Henry laplin. The victory of his enemy's horse cost Lord Hastings c sum of £120,000. It spelled ruin. Lady Londonderry tells e tale with great reticence ; but this chapter in her memoir akes it memorable.
The book is valuable history on other grounds, for the Squire of Blankney " was known throughout England as the Squire," for good reason. • He was, as is well said, a. presentative—almost the last representative—of that type landed gentry whose social and political influence had meant much to Victorian England." He might be called " the t of the Squires " ; and he had all the qualities in excess. c half ruined himself on hunting and on the race-course.
s a Minister his rather tremendous periods—mostly evoked agriculture or Protection—belong to an extinct age.
c was generally beloved and admired in a form only possible a vanished age of feudal hero-worship. The memoir is not great biography. It is toothin and too spasmodic for that ; t it is honest. The daughter in the biographer does not de the father's faults. There is even direct criticism of me of his most generous acts ; . and the essential character this real and robust and lovable Englishman is truly parted. In more than one passage one heard as one read. and that is the greatest tribute to a biographer—the very and of Henry Chaplin's voice ; and the reproduction of me of the F.C.G. cartoons makes visible again a vanished litieal world. Perhaps there is too much racing and hunting, little of the essential' man ; but Henry Chaplin himself uld not have thought so. He knew the pull of his " master as " too well, and there is evidence in the book, that he was deeply rooted in the Victorian tradition to realize in his d age what the War was doing. His life and opinions are al historic stuff ; and are worth even fuller records than ese.
Previous page
