16 DECEMBER 1871, Page 20

CURRENT LITERATURE.

Beautiful Plcluros by British Artists. (Hotton.)—This is a very handsome volume, "A. Gathering of Favourites from our Picture Gal- leries, 1800-1870," as it is described on the title-page. Eighteen master- pieces of some of our moat famous artists, as rendered by engravers of the first order, constitute the contents. Constable's "Cornfield," J. M Turner's " Venice from the Canal of the Guidocca," Maclise's Orlando and the Wrestler," Mr. J. Gilbert's " Christiana in the House of Gains," and Mr. Madox Brown's " The Last of England " may be mentioned as among the most attractive of them. Mr. Sydney Armitage edits the volume, adding briof notices of the artists. In every particular, both within and without, the volume does credit to those concerned in its production.—We have soon very few volumes this season so in- teresting as Gems of Modern Belgian Art: a Series of carbon Photrupyrphs, with Essay, 6.c. By William B. Scott, (Rout- ledge.)--It is probable that many, it might almost be said, most English people were awakened to the knowledge that there is a great school art, not unworthy to be compared with any that can be named, now actually at work in Belgium, by what they saw in the Exhibition of 1802. The interest thus aroused has continued to increase. Tho names of Slinghelyor, painter of the well-known "Christian Martyr "; gallait, who took the public by storm in 1862 with his "Last Honours paid to Counts Egmont and Horn," " Delilah," &o. ; and Dyck- mans, whose "Blind Beggar" in the National Gallery arrests as many spectators as any work, ancient or modern (we must be understood as pronouncing no opinion on its merits), are almost as well known in this country as those of our own most famous artists. Wo have no doubt, therefore, that the volume before us will be exceedingly welcome. It contains sixteen photographs, taken by one of the processes which renders the impression permanent, of groat works of Belgian and

Datoh artists. Photographs it is now almost superfluous to praise.

The mechanical skill with which they aro now produced is so groat that the effect is almost uniformly good. We do not regret that in some instances in this volume the photograph has had to be taken from the pictures, and not, as is commonly the case, from engravings. Eagravings, it is tree, produce the moat effective result ; but there is a more than compensating satisfaction is seeing the artist without the medium of an interpreter. Mr. Scott's notices and criticisms are of more than average interest. —In The Child's Book of Song and Praise (Cassell and Co.) we have a collection of poetry, music, and pictures. There are some two hundred pieces of verse, selected from a list of writers in which wo notice many well-known names ; thirty-four pieces of music, acoompaninients for such of these selections ns seemed host suited for the purpose ; and more than two hundred illustrations. It is a very, all volume indeed.---B.oviele's Select Fables (Bickers) is a reprint from the Newcastle edition of 1784, and contains the artist's original wood engravings. The fables, of course, stand on their own merits, but Mr. Edwin Pearson's preface deserves some special notice. It contains a sketch, illustrated throughout with appropriate examples, of Bowick's progress in his art, from the rude figures which ho executed for " horn- books " in his apprenticeship (these date 1767-1770), down to the vignette of the large edition of "2E sop's Fables " published in 1818. The history of 11.3wiek is in some degree the history of English wood- engraving, and this notice of it is interesting and valuable.