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The King's Pictures

This painting was a special
favourite with Queen Victoria,
who purchased it and pre-
sented it to H.R. H. Prince
Albert on his birthday in
1852. The scene depicts
Florinda, Count Julian's
daughter, and her companions
in the garden of a palace,
observed by Don Roderick.
The tragic disaster arising from
the betrayal of Florinda
by Roderick forms the subject
of Southey's poem, "Don
Roderick, the Last of the
Goths.' The artist, who
studied at Munich and Rome,
settled in Paris, where he
became painter to King Louis
Philippe, and later to the
Emperor Napoleon III. and
Princess Eugénie. Paul
Delaroche, who painted the
Napoleon, reproduced on the
opposite page, was a pupil of
Baron Gros, and died in Paris,
1856. For long, all historical
painting in England was based
on his style.

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Florinda and Her Companions From the Painting by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

Reproduced from "The King's Pictures" (Vol. I. Buckingham Palace Collection), by permission of the publisher, Mr. William Heinemann

The King's Pictures

TWENTY-GUINEA EDITION DE LUXE OF THE ROYAL COLLECTION

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Reproduced from "The King's Pictures" (Vol. I.-Buckingham Palace Collection), by permission of the publisher, Mr. William Heinemann The Royal Collection dates back to the reign of Henry VIII. At the accession of James I. there were already pictures of great value by Holbein, Antonio Moro, Gheeraerts, and others. The Civil War did great damage to the collection, miny priceless works by Titian, Raphael, Correggio, and others, being sold abroad. Charles II. and James II. added little beyond a few portraits by Lely. The first two Georges were no lovers of art, but the eldest son of George II. made many important purchises, and it was through his influence that George III. purchased an extensive collection of paintings by Venetian artists of the eighteenth century-Caneletto, Zuccarelli, and others. On the accession of King Edward VII., the Royal Collection was completely revised and re-arranged

The Library

BOOKS TO ORDER THIS
THIS WEEK

"The Life of Walt Whitman." By Henry Bryan Binns. (Methuen 10s. 6d. net.)

:

"Kate Greenaway." By M. H. Spielmann and G. S. Layard. Beautifully illustrated with reproductions from the artist's work in line and colour. (A. and C. Black: 20s.)

Those who learnt to spell from the old-fashioned "Mavor's Spelling Book," will recall with gratitude the pleasure given by its charming illustrations, which did. so much to make this dreaded task more bearable, and to them "Kate Greenaway," by M. H. Spielmann and G. S. Layard (A. and C. Black: 20s. net), will bring a train of delightful reminiscences. The effects of

On a letter to Mrs. Frederich Locker-Lampson DRAWING BY KATE GREENAWAY

even

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if they weren't sweet enough without. Besides, I can't have you wasting your time and wits in that scattered dew of fancy. You must really gather yourself into a real rivulet between banks in perspective and reflect everything

truly that you see.

You absurd Kate, to think I was tired of your drawings. I was only tired of seeing the corners unfinishedyou're nearly as bad as me, that way. Now be a good girl, and draw some flowers that won't look as if their leaves had been in curl-papers all night-and some more chairs-with the shade all right, and the legs all square--and then I'll tell you what you must do next. From this it will be seen that Ruskin exercised a great to-day influence over Kate Greenaway, and there is no doubt that his friendship and advice were eagerly sought for in everything-art included. This book contains literature and art, both of the brightest description, and bearing the happiest relationship to each other.

Kate Greenaway's art were more far reaching than so quiet and simple a person could ever have dreamed of, and one hardly sees a child whose dress does not bear some characteristic of the Greenaway vogue. And yet there never was a more unobtrusive personality than that of the artist herself, who was so little seen in the great world which would have delighted in "lionizing" her. A French critic once declared it to be his suspicion that "Kate Greenaway must really have been an angel, who would now and then visit this green earth only to leave a new picture-book for the children and then fly away again." The great stimulus in Kate Greenaway's life, apart from her art, was her friendship with John Ruskin, who thought highly of her genius, and on one occasion declared that in her drawings, "You have the radiance and innocence of reinstated infant divinity showered again among the flowers of English meadows." The illustrations, both in colour and in the well-known black and white line, with which this volume is so abundantly furnished, bear out the great critic's every

On a letter to Ruskin DRAWING BY KATE GREENAWAY

word. The reproductions are done in Messrs. Black's best style, and alone make the book a thing of beauty. But it has other treasures for which the literary student will be grateful, including as it does a large number of letters from Ruskin, never before published. What a nimble wit this dictatorial old gentleman had when writing to those he loved. Who can imagine the stern old moralist, who has incurred the dislike of every healthy girl by his "Sesame and Lilies," writing such a letter as the following:

You are not to put any more sugarplums of sketches in your letters

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On a letter to Rusain DRAWING BY KATE GREENAWAY

"Who is Walt Whitman?" is not so common a question now as it was in England during Whitman's life-time, for there are few people who have not felt their blood leap at his Song of the Open Road." American literature is becoming much more widely read in this country, though it is surprising to find that so many people who are always on the quest for "good things" are so lamentably ignorant of such modern work as the nature-writings of John Burroughs and the novels of James Lane Allen. Whitman, however, is taking his place, and there are few private libraries now which have not their copy of "Leaves of Grass." Whitman's bold dictum that nothing in nature was impure was too much for the England when of fifty years ago, the Nonconformist Conscience was much more rampant than now, and yet its frank, healthy sanity would seem enough to commend it to any but the unclean. "The Life of Walt Whitman," by Henry Bryan Binns (Methuen : IOS. 6d. net), comes at an opportune time, for it should do much to keep Whitman from again falling into neglect. It is the biography of a man who was a force in his generation.

G. F. J.

DRAWING BY KATE GREENAWAY

A BOOKMAN'S GOSSIP

Japan Once More

Although most of my recent reading has been of the kind described as "light," I have contrived to sandwich in an occasional book of another class, and there is one I should like to mention which I have found quite as light and entertaining as any novel. When I add that it deals with Japan, my statement may seem surprising, as Japanese books have become something of a bore during the last year or two. Mr. R. G. Webster is, for that reason, the more to be congratulated on the production of a thoroughly interesting and admirably written work on so hackneyed a theme. In "Japan: From the Old to the New" (Partridge: 6s.) he has wisely maintained a strong personal note, and his lively descriptions of life in that country thirty years ago, where he travelled before the railroad had reached far inland, contrasted with his more recent experiences, are not only interesting, but valuable. He

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them could I convey an adequate idea of their treatment. I can do no more, therefore, than give an impression. Mrs. Penrose seems to me the stronger writer, as her story is the more steadily handled, while it has a deeper note of fatalism than Mrs. Graham's, which, at least, out of all the marital 'miseries so frankly described, extracts in the end some hope of happiness and does even, if negatively, remind us that "better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith." I am not prepared to say that these stories are untrue to life; for, indeed, in every detail they might have happened; but I do consider that they are not the pleasantest of my recent reading. With any previous work of Mrs. Graham's I am not familiar, but it seems to me that Mrs. Penrose is by way of coming into her kingdom as a novelist of marked and individual power, as this new story of hers, which is less dominated by a "purpose," has hardly anything of the exaggeration one remembers in some of the

Abyssinian Chief and followers in "Review Order"

From "With the Abyssinians in Somaliland."
Christopher Addison.

is the great climax of woman's life that our lady novelists find it so hard to write of any other subject, for it would be difficult, indeed, to name a novel by a lady which allows for other interests in the world than love and marriage. In the past, it used to be that the hero and heroine had their quarrels and misunderstandings in the first twenty-three chapters, and got married in the twenty-fourth, to "live happily ever after." But now the fashion seems to be to get them married in the first chapter, and let them live unhappily for the remainder; or, at most, to have the couples re-arranged and re-married differently at the end! Two recent novels which have come my way fit in with this description; namely, "The Tower of Siloam" (Rivers: 6s.), by Mrs. Henry Graham, and "As Dust in the Balance" (Rivers: 6s.), by Mrs. H. H. Penrose. I cannot possibly spare the space to outline these two stories, the first of which is the more involved in plot, and only by summarising.

By Major J. Willes Jennings and (Hodder and Stoughton)

characters of her otherwise admir ably written tale, "The Modern Gospel," which appeared about

six or seven years ago. There was a lighter touch, perhaps, in "The Love that Never Dies," but this new novel confirms her as a writer to be noted among the ranks of our newer novelists.

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A Bit of Light
Comedy

This is, I think, no bad description of a very delightful book I have been reading, which

came to me as a

not unwelcome change from the less agreeable atmosphere of the two novels just noticed. Mr. R. E. Vernède is a writer with whose short stories I have passed many pleasant moments, but "The Pursuit of Mr. Faviel" (Rivers: 6s.) is, I fancy, his first attempt at a long novel, and he may be fairly congratulated on a success. It is no small matter to be entertaining for upwards of 300 pages, to keep the fun going, and to manoeuvre adroitly so many as Mr. Vernède introduces into his comedy. But he does this admirably, and he almost succeeds in justifying for humorous prose Coleridge's uncanonical theory of poetry: "The perfection of which is, to communicate from each part the greatest immediate pleasure compatible with the largest sum of pleasure on the whole." For his story is not only humorous as a whole, but abounds in episodes and scenes which, taken individually, are instinct with that quality. It would never do to disclose the wager

characters

and its quaint working-out which form the pivot of the story, but Faviel gets his Judith, as we feel certain from the first he will, and everybody, including the reader, is at the end delighted; as O'Levin said, "there was nothing left to wish for." This O'Levin is one of the many amusing folk to whom the novelist introduces us : an Irishman who edits "The Earliest Evening Paper in London," and speaks in just such a charming brogue as an editor who once did edit an evening paper in London has not quite got rid of, though there is no attempt whatever in O'Levin to reproduce anything of the character of a living editor. Gaiety is the order of Mr. Vernède's tale, and we can be doing with many such wholesome and amusing novels in these days when writers of fiction are a thought inclined to over-seriousness. I can warmly commend "The Pursuit of Mr. Faviel to readers in quest

of a racy book which does not

worry one with the grey, grim problems of existence.

Photo by

moment when Royalty "kicked him downstairs," of Thackeray in his leisure between books, and of many another mid-Victorian celebrity. If the books throw no new light on political and literary history, we are, nevertheless, given, through them, several

Elliott and Fry

Mr. R. E. Vernède Whose amusing novel, "The Pursuit of Mr. Faviel," has just been published

Jatt

"Mrs. Brookfield and Her Circle"

It is a nice point how far it is justifiable to print and issue to the public volumes of private letters, other than those of historical or literary value. A man or woman may, in the course of their lives, have encountered many famous people, and observed the inner movements of politics and Society, about which they may have written freely to their friends; but are these letters necessarily of value? If so, what masses of superfluous tomes would litter our bookshelves, and those of the second-hand bookseller. Whatever the reading public may decide on that point, human nature will out. Private letters, no matter how lacking in importance, do attract the average being, and there are few species of books with which one better likes to be left alone in idle moments than volumes of them. Such a work, for instance, as "Mrs. Brookfield and Her Circle" (Pitman: 285. net. ; 2 vols.), one opens and devoursin parts--greedily. The brilliant hostess of the middle of the last century, the wife of the popular cleric, the Rev. W. H. Brookfield, was indeed fortunate in her "circle." Imagine it! On terms of friendship with, and in the confidence of, Tennyson, Gladstone, Carlyle, Palmerston, Thackeray, Wordsworth, Browning, to mention only a few of the persons of whom one gets glimpses in these volumes. A word or two with Gladstone over fish dinners in the forties (when he was, even then, wobbling over the Irish question), and after dinner conversations with Carlyle at his prime, a glance at "Pam

66 From

The Abbé Liszt

intimate peeps at the personalities of those whom we now know merely as household words.

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Mr. G. K. Chesterton-Artist

It seems a little unfair that a writer already sufficiently gifted as is Mr. G. K. Chesterton should invade the realms of black and white, and put so many of its struggling and uninspired workers to shame. In "Biography for Beginners" (T. Werner Laurie : 6s.). "G. K. C." shows that he can be as humorous with a pencil as with a pen. Here we have a book written, as we are informed, for the use of upper forms, in which there is a happy union between letterpress and illustration. Both are imbued with the spirit of audacious impishness. Now the verse scores, again the drawings. There is a cool and refreshing disregard of metre in the one, of anatomical proportions in the other. This work, which should be a lesson to writers of biography they might disregard dulness for a change is edited by E. Clerihew. It is with no little pleasure that we draw aside the curtain which hides the great unsigned from the public, and reveal this gentleman as the writer of the series of articles in THE BYSTANDER "Concerning" prominent personages of the day, but nothing in this brilliant series can quite come up to this editing of Erasmus :

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After dinner, Erasmus

Told Colet not to be "blas'mous," Which Colet, with some heat, Requested him to repeat.

"The Book of the Peach"

It is a generally accepted maxim in the horticultural world that the present generation of gardeners do not understand the culture of the peach as well as their forefathers did. Mr. H. W. Ward, F.R. H.S., in the above excellent handbook upon peach culture, has gone a great way towards "changing all that." "The Book of the Peach" (Walter Scott: 58.) is an excellent manual for the cultivator. Written in delightfully simple language, it contains the most thorough instructions for the successful cultivation of a fruit, which, considering the many favourable aspects in the walled-in gardens of England, is tar little grown. Of Mr. Ward's qualifications to write upon this fascinating subject it is necessary to mention but one-his record as a successful exhibitor of choice hot-house and wall fruits at the annual summer and autumn shows during his twenty-five years' tenure of the position of head gardener over the Longford Castle gardens, Salisbury.

Hit the piano with his fist.
That was the way

He used to play

Biography for Beginners."
by G. K. Chesterton

at the

Illustrated

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