COMPARATIVE ESTHETICS.
The Representative Significance of Form : an Essay on Comparative rEsthetics. By George Lansing Raymond. (Putnam's Sons. 9s.) —In a large experience of reviewing we have never encountered a book quite so unreadable as this. To review it at all adequately, in the sense of expressing dissent where dissent seemed necessary, would require at least the dimensions of a Quarterly article But one may judge of Professor Raymond's arguments by an instance or two. Seeking to establish the ethical character of the highest art, be refers to the fact that Titian and Pheidias worked for the adornment of religious edifices. Surely the one objection to Titian as a painter is the essentially irreligious character of his pictures on sacred subjects ; and we should question whether Pheidias had any other ideal than one of high physical perfection. Again, he cites, with some justice, the opening passage of "The Lotus Eaters" as "strictly poetical," then goes on to quote lines from an author named Gilbert West :— "Then shall my youthful sons, to wisdom led
By fair examples and ingenuous praise, With willing feet the paths of duty tread
Through the world's Intricate or rugged ways Conducted by religion's sacred rays," &c.,—
upon which he makes this comment : "This verse, though in. tended for poetry, is rendered prosaic by constant mention of the .:onditions preceding those perceived, conditions possible to know Duly as a result of investigation." This fair specimen of Professor Raymond's critical theories should suffice, but we cannot refrain from quoting his remark on the lines, "Come away, come away, Death, and in sad cypress let me be laid,"—where previous critics have questioned only whether a coffin of cypress wood or a shroud of cypress ("cypress black as e'er was crow") should be understood. "It does not seem to have occurred to these critics that as poetry is an art and poetic language the language of perception, the expression is more likely to refer to the appearance of the
cemeteries in which the dead are laid away. Universally, in Southern Europe, these cemeteries are filled, and in such ways as to be recognised at great distances, with what, owing to the principle of association, may be termed sad' rows of cypress trees. When the reference is ascribe I to the conditions pre- ceding coffins or shrouds rather than to the apparent effects—i.e., rather than to these dark rows of cypress trees casting their thick shadows over the cemeteries—the expression of the poet is inter- preted as if it were scientific rather than artistic." We think that we have fully justified our opinion of Professor Raymond's book,—and our abstinence from perusing the whole of it.
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