1 Grace Darling and Her Times." By Constance Smedley. With a Foreword by Commander Stephen King-Hall. (Hurst & Blackett. 18s. net.) THE news of the great exploit of William Darling, keeper of the Long- stone Lighthouse, and Grace Darling, his daughter, when they rescued the nine survivors of the steamer Forfar- shire, in the early morning of the 7th September, 1838, reached the Insti- tution in a brief statement signed by four men. At the same time they sent in a statement that seven fishermen of North Sunderland also went out in their own boat and, " to the imminent risk of their lives," succeeded in reaching the wreck, from which they brought away three dead bodies.

The story of the exploit was told with the same brevity in the Insti- tution's Annual Report for 1838, where it was also recorded, " that the Silver Medal be presented to William Darling and his daughter, Grace Horsley Darling, and that an award of £10 be made, to be subscribed from the general fund, to be distributed amongst Darling, his daughter, and the boat's crew from North Sunderland." Grace Darling became at once a popular heroine—the victim of souvenir hunters, the subject of numerous artists.

During the four years of life which were all that remained to her (she died when she was only twenty-six) she bore the fatigue, the flattery, the publicity, with a modesty and good sense which have earned the admiration of posterity as much as her courage. Now, nearly a century later, she is secure in her place as a great national figure.

Thousands know her as a name sym- bolizing courage and self-sacrifice to whom the details of her exploit are unknown.

Much has been written about her, but not much that is worthy of the subject. Both Wordsworth and Swinburne wrote poems to her, moved by a whole-hearted admiration. Many lesser men have done the same, but it is only with the publication of Miss Smedley's admirable life that the story has been fully and accurately toldf and justice done to the other actors.

It was inevitable that the honest and deserved admiration which her own and later generations have felt for Grace Darling herself should have thrown them into shadow. Her courage was felt to be exceptional, theirs was taken for granted, and so, in the popular mind, she has come to stand as a solitary and brilliant figure. Her father has been almost, the boatmen of North Sunderland entirely, forgotten.

In one poem, which Miss Smedley oddly selects as the best written about her (a Northumberland ballad in which one would certainly have expected ac- curacy), Grace is actually represented as going out to the rescue alone.

Grace Darling herself loses nothing now that, in Miss Smedley's account, the other actors take their proper place.

But Miss Smedley, in championing the North Sunderland men, has gone further than was quite just in repre- senting them as entirely forgotten.

She quotes the Duke of Northumber- land as saying that " had twenty pounds been given to the North Sunderland boat's crew, they would have considered themselves amply re- munerated by the public." But she does not say that they did in fact receive awards from the Institution.

Nor does she record the awards of Silver Medals to Grace Darling and her father. It was very natural that the public should direct all its attention praise and generosity to Grace Darling herself, but it is important that it should be known that the Institution, whose special duty it was to recognize and reward gallantry in saving life from shipwreck, did recognize and reward all who were concerned.

The Owners of the " Forfarshire." Miss Smedley has also put right another injustice. It was believed at the time, and has been believed ever since, that the boilers of the Forfarshire, the failure of which was the cause of the wreck, were defective through culpable negligence. Miss Smedley shows that the owners of the steamer, the Dundee, Perth & London Shipping Company, were condemned unheard at the inquest which was held at Bam- burgh, although they had ready their answer to the charges which had been made against them, and although their representatives had hurried to Bam- burgh to give it. The Institution most heartily welcomes this vindication, after so many years, of a shipping company which is to-day a most § enerous supporter of the Life-boat ervice in Dundee.

Some of the critics have found fault with Miss Smedley for introducing a good deal into her book which only concerns Grace Darling very indirectly.

It is not for the Institution to join with these critics, since Miss Smedley has found room to include an interesting appendix on the work of the Life-boat Service. Her book has earned her the gratitude of all who are connected with the Service and of all who must be glad to see one of the greatest stories of our coast fully, accurately and vividly told..