Author of "Affairs of Scotland, 1744-1746."
With Plans and Illustrations. 12s. 6d. net. [In preparation.
Mr. Charteris has a good subject in "Butcher" Cumberland, not only on account of the historical and romantic interest of his background, but also by reason of the Duke's baneful reputation.
In the present volume the author has carried the career of the Duke of Cumberland down to the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. The period includes the Duke's campaigns in Flanders against Marshal Saxe, the Battle of Culloden, and the measures taken for the suppression of the Jacobites in Scotland. Mr. Charteris has had the exceptional advantage of studying the Cumberland Papers at Windsor Castle, and it is largely by the aid of hitherto unpublished documents that he is now able to throw fresh light on a character which has been the subject of so much malevolent criticism. At the same time the volume deals with the social and political conditions among which Cumberland was called on to play so important a part in the life of the nation. These have been treated by the author with some fulness of detail. Cumberland, in spite of his foreign origin, was remarkably typical of the characteristics of the earlier Georgian period, and an endeavour has been made in the present volume to establish the link between the Duke and the politics, the morals, the aims, and the pursuits of the age in which he lived.
MY ART AND MY FRIENDS.
The Reminiscences of Sir F. H. COWEN.
With Portrait. Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net.
In the course of a long and distinguished musical career, Sir Frederic Cowen has had opportunities of visiting many parts of the world, of meeting all the most eminent artists of the last half-century, and of amassing material for an extremely diverting volume of personal recollections. As a child he enjoyed the privilege of being embraced by the great Piccolomini; as a young man he toured with Trebelli, and became acquainted with the famous Rubinstein, with Bülow, and with Joachim. In later life he numbered such well-known musicians as Pachmann, Paderewski, Sir Arthur Sullivan, and the de Reszkes, among his friends. Nor was the circle of his intimates entirely confined to the world of music; he was on terms of the closest friendship with Corney Grain, with George Grossmith and Arthur Cecil; he capped the puns of Henry J. Byron and Sir Francis Burnand; he laughed at the practical jokes of Toole, at the caricatures which Phil May drew for him of his friends. To the public Sir Frederick Cowen is well known as the conductor of Covent Garden Promenade and Philharmonic Concerts, as the composer of such celebrated songs as "The Better Land" and "The Promise of Life," of "The Corsair" and "The Butterfly's Ball." In these pages he shows himself to be a keen but kindly student of human nature, who can describe the various experiences of his past life with a genial but humorous pen. The inexhaustible fund of anecdote from which he draws tends still further to enliven an amusing and lively volume.