BIOGRAPHY AND MEMOIRS

WAR BIRDS: The Diary of an Unknown Aviator. Hamilton. 158.

LORD BYRON IN HIS LETTERS. By V. COLLINS. John Murray. 128.

FRANZ JOSEF AS REVEALED IN HIS LETTERS. By OTTо ERNST. Methuen.

158.

THE MARQUIS DE SADE. By C. R. DAWES. Holden. 21S.

THE

HE title Diary of an Unknown Aviator rather invites suspicion, but the publisher has wisely put the matter beyond question. It would be little less than a tragedy if any shadow of doubt were allowed to dim so wonderful a picture of human courage and endurance. The diary, edited by a friend who plays no small part in its story, begins in September, 1917, on board the R.M.S. "Carmania" in Halifax harbour. It was due to a wish to have " a few recollections jotted down in case I don't get killed." Not the least interesting entries are those which give an unconscious picture of himself. From the South, he is a born fighter: "I am not going to lose my temper any more, I fight too much," is his first resolution, with which, true to type, the diary begins. Impatient under discipline and suspicious, even unduly, of official routine and authority, he was yet eager to learn and although adventurous, yet determined to take no unnecessary chances: "I want to die well and not be killed in some accident, or die of sickness," and indeed he was spared that "tragic anticlimax."

His vitality is amazing, even for a young American. Realising to the full the chances against him, in common with all his friends, he faces the future without flinching, but is determined to extract from what of life may be left him everything it can afford. But there is another side to his character. New to England, its beauty astonishes him: "We came through the most beautiful country I ever saw, it made me think of Grimm's Fairy Tales."

It is well that people should be told what war in the air really means. The risks began long before the fighting. At Ayr, where he was first-trained in aerial fighting, "funerals are wholesale." The difference in the machines led to constant trouble. Of six American Naval Pilots three "were washed out in one week" trying to fly in "Camels," a make of machine it seems difficult to handle. In two days, four more were killed. The English Col.-Instructor, in order " to put pep in the boys," gave a stunting exhibition himself and then made all the Instructors go up in the treacherous "Camels" and do the same.

It is pleasant to read of the Scotch practitioner who "wouldn't take money from a man who's died for his country," but his Scotch theology was horrified at their philosophy of life:

Springs refused to have his teeth finished as it was not worth while, as he might be killed at any moment.

"Oh, dinna ye take any thought for your soul when the day draws nigh to release it to its Maker."

And he refused to do any work for the cheery materialist unless he came to kirk with him, which he did, but could not refrain from horrifying the Scotchman by pretending to look for Matthew in the Old Testament " !

There seems to have been a good deal of prejudice against us. Even the writer begins with a feeling that the English were almost enemies and is quite surprised to

find the English cadets" as nice as can be and go out of their way to help us when they have the opportunity." At time goes on, he likes us more and more and constantly congratulates himself on being with the English Air Force instead of his country's. Every one that has come in contact with the British swears by them," and the final verdict is," I'm for the British and I don't care who knows it." From Ayr and its "statues of Bobby Burns and bars," they are transferred to Hounslow. The author, his friend Springs and others take a house in Berkeley Square" with a cook and a butler" who must have been rather startled by their opening party. Owing to a deficiency of food tickets the menu was restricted but

Everybody had a bottle of port and champagne. The butler brought in a big platter of fish and Springs served them by pulling them up by the tail and tossing one to each guest as if they were seals. At the end of the fish course I was alone at the table, the rest were chasing each other all over the place.

It was not surprising that eventually the lady next door complained of the

racket."

His experience was certainly varied. The opportunities of London in the War were conscientiously explored. It is incredible how much they all managed to drink, with apparent impunity.

The accounts of the fighting in the air are Homeric. Reading them in cold blood it seems incredible that any human being could stand the strain. The losses are appalling: every time two pilots meet, it's only to swop news of who is killed." Friend after friend goes, and with them something of the survivor's gaiety:

It's only a question of time until we all get it. I am all shot to pieces-I only hope I can stick it—I don't want to quit. My nerves are all gone and I can't stop-I have lived beyond my time already.

When he is flying his nerve returns. He finds " ten Huns and took them all on and gets one down-but it is "the eternal waiting around that's killing me." The boy who had "never been serious about anything so far in life," feels "I'll never be otherwise again." In the end he was shot down by a German plane, so his ambition was fulfilled of dying well, “ as every brave man should wish to die, fighting, and fighting for my country."

A request for " a sound edition of Byron's letters in one volume," made by a friend in France during the War, set no easy task, but Mr. Collins in attempting the impossible has achieved a very readable volume and given us pictures of the man revealed by himself from the nursery to Missolonghi. No one has been more written about than Byron, and with less success. Moore's life was unworthy both of its subject and its author, and most of the rest have been more concerned with unedifying controversies of scandal than the man himself. The most attractive picture, and probably the truest, is given in his letters. They destroyed for ever the legend of the disillusioned sensualist at war with mankind.

The letters dealing with his marriage make the affair no less perplexing. That he was in love with his wife, or persuaded himself he was, there can be no doubt. After she had refused him, he writes:

I must be candid with you on the score of friendship. It is a feeling towards you with which I cannot trust myself.

His letters to Lady Melbourne put this beyond doubt. She probably was, as Moore thought, "too straight-laced" for him, but in announcing the engagement to his friend, Byron writes:

I must of course reform thoroughly, and seriously if I can contribute to her happiness, I can secure my own. She is so good a person that-that, in short, I wish I was a better.

The real reason of their separation must always remain a mystery. She leaves him on affectionate terms and on her way home writes him a letter, beginning: "Dearest heart," and signed by a pet name. That in seeking a separation she was influenced by her parents is probable, but Lady Byron took the line that his conduct had made return impossible. The strongest point against her husband is that she told her legal adviser her reasons for this view and that he agreed with it, but they have never been disclosed.

Some years after he writes to his wife:

Notwithstanding everything, I considered our reunion as not impossible for more than a year after our separation,

and goes on to suggest

that in the few points of discussion which can arise between us, we should preserve the courtesies of life and as much of its kindness as people who are never to meet may preserve more widely than nearer connections.

and adds:

Whether the offence has been solely on my side or reciprocal, or on yours chiefly, I have ceased to reflect upon any but two things, that you are the mother of my child and that we shall never meet again. I think if you will also consider the two corresponding points with reference to myself it will be better for all three.

Hypocrisy was never Lord Byron's failing, and it is difficult to understand how he could have written this letter if he had any matter of grave reproach on his conscience. It is still consistent with the known facts that his own explanation, given just before his death, may be the real one: "The causes were too simple to be easily found out.' It is difficult to believe that a better selection of letters could not have given a better picture of a man who played Franz Josef's part for sixty years in the affairs of Europe. The notes are confused and inadequate, and the letters are not given in chronological order, and not even provided with an index. Mr. Otto Ernst has little sympathy with his subject. Small allowance is made for the extraordinary difficulties of his position, succeeding as a boy to an Empire which had rejected his father in a capital which had sent his mentor Metternich flying for his life. These letters show at any rate how conscientiously he approached his task. It is suggested that he was devoid of human feeling. There is no evidence of it in these letters. The methods to his hand were those of the system he had inherited. If severe his severity was judicial, and he is shown frequently interposing in the interests of mercy.

The Marquis de Sade has so long been a figure of monstrous legend that there may be room for Mr. Dawes' life. He does not attempt to defend the man's life or writings. The book is merely a plea in mitigation. There is something in the theory that his long incarceration in the Bastille may have had its influence. But his early life was so scandalous that he had to flee from Marseilles to avoid arrest, and incautiously returning was held in various prisons for thirteen years. It is not true that he was, as Barras asserts in his Memoirs, in the Bastille when it was captured. He was so troublesome a prisoner that the unfortunate De Launay had been removed to Charenton twelve days before the Bastille fell. His cruelty is said to have been exaggerated. During the Revolution he became Citizen Sade and Secretary of the Section des Piques. Marat was his hero, which is not so surprising as the fact that he used his influence to save from the guillotine his wife's parents, who were largely responsible for his twelve years' imprisonment-so he had one good deed to his credit before he ended his discreditable existence at the age of seventy-five.

CHARTRES BIRON

NAUTICAL LITERATURE

THE DAIRY OF HENRY TEONGE. Edited by G. E. MANWARING. Routledge. 12s. 6d.

THE PERILOUS ADVENTURES AND VICISSITUDES OF A NAVAL OFFICER 1801-1812. Being part of the Memoirs of Admiral George Vernon Jackson. Edited by HAROLD BURROWS. Blackwood. 158.

HISTORIC SHIPS. By R. S. HOLLAND. Benn. 12s. 6d.

WHALING NORTH AND SOUTH. By F. V. MORLEY & J. S. HODGSON. Methuen, IOS. 6d.

YACHTING AND YACHTSMEN. By W. DODGSON BOWMAN. Bles. 16s.

H

ENRY TEONGE, vicar of Spernall in Warwickshire, was so pressed by his creditors that on May 20th, 1675, he set out for London to seek service under Charles II as a naval chaplain. Clad in "an old coat and breeches of the same; an old pair of hose and shoes, and a leathern doublet of nine years old and upward,' he was immediately appointed to the frigate Assistance, sold his "lean mare with saddle, bridle, and boots and spurs "to his landlord for 26s., and "bought a small bed, one pillow, one blanket, one rug" for 218. With this outfit he joined his ship, but a few days later he was in luck, for he tells us that " early in the morning I met with a rugged towel on the quarter-deck: which I soon secured. And, soon after, Providence brought me a piece of an old sail and an earthen chamber-pot: all very helpful to him that had nothing." Fortunately for us, too, when the ship called at Deal he was presented with "a little jugful of ink; which did me a great pleasure," otherwise we might never have had this diary to read.

A large number of women accompanied the ship from the Thames to Dover when "all our ladies are sent on shore in our pinnace; whose weeping eyes bedewed the very sides of the ship as they went over into the boat, and seemed to have chosen (might they have had their wills) rather to have stuck to the sides of the ship like the barnacles or shell-fish than to have parted from us. But they were no sooner out of sight but they were more merry; and " he adds "I could tell with whom, too, were I so minded.”

The Assistance sailed for the Mediterranean and the diarist records the daily happenings which make up life on board ship. It is interesting to notice that even in 1675 it was an old custom to drink the toast of "wives and sweethearts "every Saturday night at sea, a custom still kept up in the Service. Punch, which was the usual drink on board, flowed freely, and living altogether was better than might have been expected. When off the Rock of Lisbon

our noble Captain feasted the officers of his small squadron with four dishes of meat, viz. four excellent hens and a piece of pork boiled in a dish; a gigget of excellent mutton and turnips; a piece of beef of eight ribs, well seasoned and roasted; and a couple of very fat green geese; last of all, a great Cheshire cheese; a rare feast at shore. His liquors were answerable, viz,: Canary, sherry, Rhenish, claret, white wine, cider, ale, beer, all of the best sort; and punch like ditchwater; with which we conclude the day and week in drinking to the King and all that we love.

On Sundays there was a sermon whenever" the business of the ship " permitted, and the Captain felt so inclined. Teonge's sermons must have been somewhat

monotonous, for he usually preached on the same text for three or four weeks running. Throughout the whole diary there is no mention of the barbarous punishments which were so common a century later. One man only was flogged, and he had twenty-nine lashes with a cat-o'-nine-tails, and was then washed with salt water, for stealing our carpenter's mate's wife's ring." On another occasion Teonge records that "this morning (as 'tis the use at sea) is Black Monday with the boys, who are many of them whipped with a cat with nine tails for their misdemeanours, by the boatswain's mate." But the Captain was certainly an adept at the art of making the punishment fit the crime. For instance :

This day two seamen that had stolen a piece or two of beef were thus shamed: they had their hands tied behind them, and themselves tied to the mainmast, each of them a piece of raw beef tied about their necks in a cord, and the beef bobbing before them like the knot of a cravat; and the rest of the seamen came one by one, and rubbed them over the mouth with the raw beef; and in this posture they stood two hours. Or again," this day David Thomas and Marlin the cook and our Master's boy had their hands stretched out and with their backs to the rails, and the Master's boy with his back to the mainmast, all looking one upon the other, and in each of their mouths a marline-spike, viz. an iron pin clapped close into their mouths, and tied behind their heads; and there they stood a whole hour, till their mouths were very bloody: an excellent cure for swearers.

But it is not only with life on board ship that Teonge deals: he describes the various places called at and their customs. While the Assistance was at Alexandretta, which he calls Scanderoon, he took the opportunity of visiting Aleppo, and his account of his journey is most interesting. At one village

many foul women were making of butter of the buffaloe's milk, which they put into a calf's skin, or hog's skin, and so do roll it, and knead it on the ground till it be a substance, more like grease than butter, both for looks and taste; for the chief lady of the town (as I suppose by her habit) presented us with some of it, and a little of that would go far.

Teonge's Diary was first published in an incomplete form by Charles Knight in 1825, and the manuscript then disappeared, but Mr. G. E. Manwaring is to be congratulated on digging it out and republishing it in full, and on his excellent notes. It has been said that Admiral Jackson was the prototype of Peter Simple, and at any rate he had adventures enough. Joining the Trident in 1801 at the age of fourteen, he served for short periods in several ships, but his propensity for practical joking was continually getting him into trouble. Whilst midshipman in the St. Lucia in the West Indies he was flogged for a prank on shore, and forthwith deserted his ship with a comrade. Taken by a press gang, he served before the mast for a time until he was again rated as midshipman, but although a good seaman he had a knack of falling foul of his immediate superiors, and was often put on the most unpleasant jobs which came along. On one occasion he was sent in charge of a Swedish prize, and as prize crew he was given all the "bad hats" in the ship, who plotted to carry the prize to America, and nearly murdered him. On another trip with a prize he had an even narrower escape from death, for he was aloft when the foretopmast went overboard during a gale, and was flung into the sea, but was washed back by the next wave. Jackson was second lieutenant of the Junon at the time of her capture by four French ships in 1809, and was taken to France as a prisoner of war, and then his real adventures began. Twice did he escape only to be recaptured, the first time after hiding in Caen for fourteen months, and on a third occasion he was caught red-handed at