" LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES!'
In the series of "Little Biographies" (Methuen and Co.) we have to notice Sir Walter Raleigh., by I. A. Taylor (3s. 6d.), and Erasmus, by Ernest F. H. Capey (3s. 6c1.) Both are good specimens of their kind. The contracted hunts within which they have to be brought compel the omission of some of the things in which much of the interest of biography consists. This is especially to be noticed in the Erasmus. His is a personality of which, thanks to the multitude of his letters, we are able to form a very clear idea. Perhaps we may say that Mr. Capey succeeds better in making us understand what he did than in showing him to us as he was. We miss that very significant scene of his first visit to Warham, so characteristic of the man and of the class of wander- ing scholar to which he belonged, but room, we suppose, could not be found for it.—Mr. Taylor in estimating the character of Raleigh has a peculiarly difficult task. Whatever we may think of the meanness of King James—and there is something peculiarly revolting in his complaisance to the Spanish Court—Raleigh was not a single-hearted, unselfish patriot. In this volume he is very fairly dealt with. "It is difficult," says his biographer, "to bring him into harmony with himself," and he follows up this remark with some notable instances which almost constrain us to say : " Nemo unquam fuit sic impar sibi."
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