3 AUGUST 1929, Page 19

From the hirsute jowl of Lorenzo the Magnificent to the

smooth cheek of 'a pretty girl who drowned herself in the Seine, and from the nerve-racked profile of Sheridan to the Antiniius-like beauty of Napoleon, a pageant of death masks is displayed to us in Undying Faces, by Herr Ernst Benkard (Hogarth Press; 30s.) which terrify, exalt, amaze, enthrall, Death sometimes ibrings peace and repose, reflecting the spiritual side of man. But not always. Henry II. of France, who died with a lance-wound in his right eye, died very clearly in pain, for we may still see it as plainly as those did who watched by his bedside four hundred years ago. Lenin is there, and Heine, terrible in his paralysis, and the powerful head of Hegel. The two most impressive photographs in this fine collection are those of Napoleon and Frederick the Great; but all the illustrations are good, and the text, translated from the German, is well done. This is one of the most curious and interesting books we have seen for some time.

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