KING EDWARD’S “LIFE.”

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 3643, 2 October 1912, Page 8

KING EDWARD’S “LIFE.”

STRONG CRITICISMS OF AUTHOR

Sir Sidney Lee is receiving numerous remonstrances on the fidelity or the biographical sketch of King Edward that ho contributes to the “Dictionary ct National Biography.” The captious tell the author that he has said too much, and presumably they mean that nothing that is not coleui dc rose should have been admitted. Sir Sidney Lee replies in effect that a biography is a biography, and that to bo useful it must be accurate. There is always the restraint imposed by good taste but beyond these l , proper limitations there should be none other. As an example of Sir Sidney’s style we have his references to the royal effort to'heal the breach between the Lords and the Commons: “Ho found no comfort in the action of any of the parties to the strife. The blank refusal of the Conservative loaders to entertain his warnings was unwelcome to his amour propre. The prospect of straining his prerogatives by creating’ peers solely for voting purposes could not he other than uncongenial. .1 . . To the last lio

privately cherished the conviction that peace would he reached by some loss violent means/’ It is suggested elsewhere that King Edward’s diplomatic successes were largely duo to his love of comfort. It was personally inconvenient to bo on bad terms with •France, for example, and so the King addressed himself to the task of removing all possible causes of friction. We shall probably hear more of this biography when there lias been time for its full inwardness to penetrate the popular mind.