CURRENT LITERATURE.
Vanity Pair Album. (182 Strand.)—We are disposed to repeat the words of the preface to the Album, "that it is unnecessary to say more of it than has been said of its two-and-twenty prede- cessors." On the whole, we are inclined to think that the style of portraiture is improved. There are, indeed, it seems to us, one or two failures, or comparative failures. " Lord Justice Fry," for instance, does not strike us as at all a good presentment of the man. But the exaggeration of characteristic features is seldom carried beyond the limits of good taste, and, we might add, good sense. The frontispiece, " Bench and Bar," is a remarkably in- teresting composition. The accompanying letterpress has a good deal of pungency. Nor can we say that the comments with which it concludes are undeserved. The intolerable length of trials nowadays, a length that makes them burdensome to the public and ruinous to the litigant, must be due to those who con- duct them. The Judges have no interest in shortening them, and the counsel have a very great interest in prolonging. The Album goes abroad occasionally for its subjects, and with excellent results. The Due d'Aumale, M. Freycinet, and M. Victorien Sardou are instances in point. The Emperor of Morocco makes a striking picture. Among the miscellaneous portraits, we have been struck by "Professor Gladstone," " Sir George Grove," and "Mr. George F. Watts."
Previous page
