was, and constantly drawing his subjects from the sphere of ideality, he nevertheless gave complete reality to his conceptions, and relied to a great extent for his effects upon the scenery of his native land. This volume which is especially admirable for its brevity, is superbly illustrated. A full catalogue of Botticelli's works is included, and there is a useful bibliography.

The series of small illustrated volumes on "The Great Masters in Painting and

PERUGINO. (Great Masters in Painting and Sculpture.) By C. G. Williamson. The Macmillan Co. 8vo, $1.50.

The Macmillan Co.

Sculpture" has received a valuable accession in the shape of a biography of Perugino by Mr. G. C. Williamson. The Umbrian painter has, of course, been discussed by every authority on Italian art, but no full account of him has hitherto been published in English. Mr. Williamson understands perfectly the requirements of the series which he edits, and so produces an extremely compact book; yet though he is brief he manages to tell all that is necessary of his hero's life, and is equally adequate in his interpretation of the works. Perugino is one of the most

The book on the late Lord Leighton, by Mr. Ernest Rhys, of which a third edition in crown octavo form, has just been published, is likely, so far as its text is concerned, to convey a rather inaccurate impression of the noted English painter. Mr. Rhys is too enthusiastic by half. To anyone familiar with Lord Leighton's glaring defects as a colorist, his gaudiness and opacity, it is disconcerting to be told that he delighted "in softly-blended colors," and there is equal fatuity in the observation that "his ideal of beauty is more nearly that of Correggio than any seen since Correggio's time." On the other hand, Leighton was a strong

FREDERIC LORD LEIGHTON, P. R. A. An Illustrated Chronicle. By Ernest Rhys. With many illustrations reproducing his pictures. The Macmillan Co., 8vo, $3.00.

designer, and an interesting though somewhat nerveless draughtsman. His works are seen at their best in black and white reproductions, and thus the illustrations in the present volume make it attractive where it is otherwise of doubtful value.

Mr. Andrew Lang's biography of Prince Charles Edward Stuart is scarcely to be described as an "art book," but it may not inaptly be mentioned in this place for the sake of its magnificent plates. These reproduce, in the delicate tints made familiar by the house of Goupil, contemporary portraits existing in public and private collections. Lagilliére's portrait of the Prince in youth forms the frontispiece in a plate of several colors. Mr. Lang's narrative is necessarily tinged with sadness, for the Young Pretender touched the extremes of romance; his star rose in splendor and declined in shabby gloom. But as a collection of beautiful pictures the memorials reproduced in this publication yield almost unqualified delight to the

lover of art.

PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD. By Andrew Lang. Profusely illustrated with photogravures from original sources. Fac-simile frontispiece in colors, 28 full-page plates, and 12 smaller prints. Limited Edition. Charles Scribner's Sons, royal quarto, $20.00 net.

IT

T is doubtless true that books about literature have become so numerous that they sometimes defeat the object for which they were written and obscure that which they aim to reveal. If one must choose there can never be any hesitation in making a choice between Homer and the most authoritative account of him, between Shakespeare and his most intelligent interpreter. It is often assumed that this choice must be made and that the real books, in which the race has written its deepest history, are being pushed aside by the multitude of manuals, commentaries and studies which come from the press in increasing numbers; and after the fashion of a time which has fallen into the habit of depreciating and sometimes vilifying itself, the unmistakable evidences of interest in the study of literature are accepted as proofs of the decay of the taste for literature. The simplest is, as a rule, nearer the fact than the most esoteric explanation, and the multiplication of books about books affords rational ground for the hope that more people are reading good books seriously than ever before; and it is quite certain that there is more orderly and consecutive study of literature than before.

A good deal of the critical and explanatory work which is finding its way into print in these days is done with ample knowledge and with sympathetic insight, and is of great value to the reader whose interest in the books of power has any depth or reality. There are many of these books which need comment and explanation if one is to get their full meaning. One must read Shakespeare

A NEW STUDY OF THE SONNETS OF SHAKESPEARE. By Parke Godwin. G. P. Putnam's Sons.

for pure joy in the truth of life and beauty of art which are in him; but if one is to get the full force of his thought or the significance of his form one needs the help of the literary historian and of the special student of the sources of Shakespeare's plots, the influences which affected his art and the relation of his work to the thought and life of his time.

There are other questions in connection with the classics of literature which engage the attention of students in the exact measure in which these students are brought under the spell of the material with which they deal. No group of poems in our language has given rise rise to more discussion than Shakespeare's Sonnets. Their relation to the poet's experience, the identity of the two friends and of the rival poet, and of the patron to whom they are addressed, present problems which have taxed and are likely to tax in the future the ingenuity of critics and, in some cases, the patience of students. Mr. Godwin's interpretation of the Sonnets is novel and courageous. He rearranges them in an order which conforms them to his theory, moves them eight or ten years back in point of time from the period to which they have generally been assigned, rejects entirely the traditional "dark lady," gives a large place to Anne Hathaway in the inspiration of the sonnets, and in place of the young friend whom many of the earlier sonnets seem to implore to marry in order to bequeath his beauty to the world substitutes the abstract idea of the poetic creative art. The manner of the theorist is, after the manner of the majority of theorists about Shakespeare, somewhat irreverent toward the exponents of other

views; but it is frank, vivacious and entertaining. Mr. Goodwin's study is the fruit of long familiarity with the Sonnets, and is interesting where it is least convincing. The series of historical studies which is being issued under the general title of "Periods of European Literature," is a good example of the intelligent co-operation which the serious reader who is eager not only to read the great books intelligently, but to understand their relation to one another, and their significance as human documents, receives from the special student. These books, so far as they have appeared, have been successful in putting behind the literature of different periods the background of literary movement, as that movement has touched and reflected spiritual and material conditions. Mr. Smith's Transition Period covering the time between the fourteenth century and the early Renaissance, is quite as interesting to the lover of history as to the lover of books. It deals with one of those epochs which register a change in fundamental ideals of life and art, and finds its illustrations in such rich and varied material as the early Scotch poetry, the work and tradition of Villon, the rise of Humanism in Italy, the origin of the modern drama, the problem of ballads and folk-songs.

Another class of books about books deal more or less directly with biography, or recall phases and aspects of literary work which are often neglected or forgotten. Mr. Pollock's Jane Austen: Her Contemporaries and Herself, is a good example of a minor study, in an easy vein and an informal manner, of what may be called the details of literary work. Jane Austen evokes this affectionate, somewhat personal attitude; it is difficult to come

THE TRANSITION PERIOD. BY G. Gregory Smith. Charles Scribner's Sons.

JANE AUSTEN HER CONTEMPORARIES AND HERSELF. By Walter Harris Pollock. Longmans, Green & Co.

into her atmosphere and be content to treat her in a purely critical spirit. In this brief study Mr. Pollock corrects some mistakes into which the biographers have fallen, brings into the field of observation some of Miss Austen's contemporaries who have slipped into the shadow while she has emerged into the light, and points out the qualities in her work which explain. her pre-eminence among the women of her time who wrote fiction.

The scholar and philosopher who said in the seventeenth century, of the art of writing that it was "an innocent way of entertaining a man's self to paint the image of his thoughts," had the instincts of a man of letters, and an account of such a man may properly find place among books which deal with literary themes. Mr. Greenslet's Joseph Glanvil is an interesting contribution to our knowledge of English thought in the seventeenth century. Glanvil came under the influence of that very interesting group of men known as the Cambridge Platonists; scholars and thinkers of progressive temper, of liberal spirit, and possessed of true ideals of culture. Their influence was one of diffusion rather than of concentration; they broke the force of the materialist philosophy and made room for the spiritual freedom and the deeper insight of a later period; they were, in a word, the broad churchmen of their time, and the broad church movement has always disclosed its affinities with literature. Glanvil is an interesting example of this type of mind, and Mr. Greenslet, with a sound instinct for proportion, has made an intelligent study of his character and spirit.

The step from literature to life is a short one and easily taken, and to pass from these literary studies to Mr. Whib

JOSEPH GLANVIL. By Ferris Greenslet. Macmillan Co. THE PAGEANTRY OF LIFE. By Charles Whibley. Har. per & Bros.

ley's Pageantry of Life is like going from the gallery in which the pictures are hung to the studio in which they are being painted. The book is in a light vein, but there are touches of pathos and even of tragedy in it. The story of the dandy from the time of Francis Weston, who cast dice and played cards with Henry VIII with the reckless grace of a man of fashion, to that of the young Disraeli, has never lacked its dramatic episodes and its deep human interest. To the pageantry of life, its brave show of gallant bearing, faultless dress, and elegant manners, men of gifts as well as men of vanity have attached importance, and the art of bearing ourselves with splendor in the eye of the world has seemed worth while not only to dandies like Nash, Brummel and D'Orsay, but to men of affairs like Fox and Disraeli. It is the story of the dandy which is told in these chapters, in a series of English and French examples. Mr. Whibley has brought out both the weakness and the dignity of the men of fashion whose practice of the fine art of manners and dress has given them historic interest.

The two volumes devoted to Italian Cities, by those accomplished writers, Mr. and Mrs. E. H. Blashfield, are far too fascinating to be described in a phrase; the material is too varied and rich for brief characterization. The secret of Italy, which charms, beguiles and baffles the tourist and even the student, is to be read, if anywhere, in her cities; those beautiful and pathetic records of the life and genius of a great race which has had its flowering season and no longer commands the magic of its great age. That secret Mr. Hewlett approached very closely in his "Earthwork Out of Tuscany," and in these volumes it is brought before the imagination with more simplicity and in broader lines. The titles of the chapters

ITALIAN CITIES. By E. H. and E. W. Blashfield. 2 volumes. Charles Scribners's Sons.

-Ravenna, Siena, Assisi, Perugia, Parma -suggest the rich background of natural and architectural form, of art in every shape and color, of mysterious, tragic and splendid history which the writers have sketched with sympathetic skill. They have learned the secret of reflecting and conveying romantic charm as well as aesthetic impression, and they reproduce the beauty and mystery of a life which used art as a natural speech and of an art which served the commonest no less than the highest needs of men.

The atmosphere which men of sensitive imagination find in Japan is so full of the feeling for beauty, for charm, for the delicate pleasures of the eye and ear, that life and art seem to be almost equivalent terms of that country. Mr. Hearn long ago surrendered himself to the spell of Oriental thought and art as expressed and interpreted by the Japanese. He is what the psychologists call a sensitive, and the most delicate shading or shadowing leaves its record on his imagination. The accuracy of his reports may be questioned, but the charm of his manner is indubitable. The six short stories or sketches which he retells in this volume are tenuous at times to the vanishing point, but the skill with which they are suggested rather than narrated is exquisite.

Still more characteristic of the dim and elusive imaginings in which Mr. Hearn delights are the little group of Fantasies, in the weaving of which he gives his imagination entire freedom from any touch with reality. His gift, like Loti's, is the gift of a sensitive imagination.

The immense distance in thought and feeling between the East and the West is brought into view when one lays aside Mr. Hearn's mystical and elusive studies and opens Mr. Bowker's direct, practical and thoroughly wholesome presentation

Co.

SHADOWINGS. By Lafcadio Hearn. Little, Brown &