The letterpress of The Court Album is much as usual
; a mat- ter-of-fact account of the families of the aristocratic ladies whose " counterfeit presentment " forms the engravings of the book. Chesterfield says, that if it be worth while to do a thing, it is worth while to do it right. Surely, in the annals of the no- bility and gentry of the United Kingdom, there must be more of history, and better heraldry and genealogy; than are annually pre= sented in these pages ? If a particular house has neither public nor private events or distinguished characters related to it, a seat, a landscape, and a neighbourhood with traditions, must be con- nected with it. Mere flimsy and apocryphal stories of family heroines are, no doubt, bad things ; but almost anything would be better than this.
Several beautiful faces have been selected for the admiration of "genteel" circles and " fast" young men,—presented, however, mostly in the flimsy style of the habitues of such volumes. The head of Lady Harriet Hamilton, by Mr. H. Gray, shows a more manly and artistic feeling for beauty.
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