SOME ILLUSTRATED BOOKS.
WE do not often do more than call attention to the fact of new editions, but G. P. Waite, by G. K. Chesterton (Duckworth and Co., 3s. 6d. net), is so well worth reading that we cannot help recommending it more particularly to those who are interested in the arts of painting and of good writing. The ten years that have elapsed since it was first published have probably taken us still farther from the Victorian period and manner than did the preceding decade, and Mr. Chesterton's reminder that "unless we sharply apprehend that spirit [of early Victorian seriousness] we shall misunderstand the work of Watts from the outset," may be even more significant now than when it was written. Mr. Chesterton's clear and incisive discussion of the ever-attractive controversy over the literary interpretation of pictures is full of interesting argu- ments and assertions. This edition might, however, have been improved by a note calling attention to the fact of the painter's death, even if it were not possible to alter the passages in the text in which be is referred to as living and working at Limmerleaze. The pictures, which are well reproduced in photogravure from Mr. Hollyer's photographs, are a very interesting selection of the master's work. In the same series We have Sandro Botticelli, by Julia Cartwright (Mrs. Ady), and Hans Holbein the Younger, by Ford Mader Hueffer. The former helps us to spend a very pleasant hour in the Florence of the Renaissance in the company of artists and Princes.
The Victoria and Albert Museum has issued a Guide to the Bayeux Tapestry (MM. Stationery Office, 6d.). This is an interesting, well-illustrated pamphlet, giving a short account of this tapestry, chiefly from the historical point of view.
In "The Artist's Sketch Book Series," edited by Martin Hardie, A.R.E. (A.. and C. Black, le. net each), we have some pretty little picture books of such places as Windsor and Eton, Harrow, and Newcastle-on-Tyne. The original pencil drawings are well reproduced, and one of these volumes would he a pleasant record of a visit to any of these towns.
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