Pirate And Cavalier
Rupert of the Rhine, the Pirate Prince. By George Edinger. (Hutchinson. 18s. net.) Reviewed by G. M. DURNEORD A life of Prince Rupert has been so long lacking, an inadequate notion of him so long in possession of the public mind, that it is with an almost uncomfortable jerk that Mr. Edinger . rouses us to follow Charles Us brilliant cavalry leader through one of the most varied and hazardous careers in history. We should perhaps have had more confidence in the author's general reliability had he not thought it necessary to employ a tone of breezy Protestanism reminiscent of Westward Ho (even introducing the "slinking Jesuit"), and superfluous as well as out of date since it has yet to be proved that Rupert had much use for religion of any sort.
But he succeeds in making us love his " steadfast, stern, retiring, modest, quixotic and impulsive" hero none the less. and henceforth. besides applauding the Prince's astounding courage throughout a series of hairbreadth adventures by sea and land, we shall also admire the versatility of those gifts which made him at once the inventor of the torpedo and the mezzotint. An exciting tale very well told.