A Dictionary of Artists of the English School. By Samuel
Redgrave. (Longmans.)—The two qualifications of a really good dictionary—that A Dictionary of Artists of the English School. By Samuel Redgrave. (Longmans.)—The two qualifications of a really good dictionary—that it should ha useful for reference and pleasant for desultory reading—
are both to be found in this volume, which gives an account of the lives and works of painters, sculptors, architects, engravers, and ornamentist.,
from "Abel Richard, medallist, who was a goldsmith, and was in the
27th Henry UL nominated to be maker and cutter of the money dies," down to Sir Edwin Landseer, who died in September last, and including not only the native-born, but those who made England their home, or at least their studio. Mr. Redgravo shows himself well fitted for a work which must have cost him many years of careful labour, not only by his knowledge of his subject, but also by the simple and practical, yet genial style in which he treats it. There is no fine writing, there are no pompous criticisms and judgments. There are plenty of details, birthP,
marriages, deaths, lists.of works, and so on ; and yet there is a life and warmth in them all which makes the reader feel in each case that he has before him the story of a real man, even if it be told in only-half-a-
dozen lines. We turn to one or other of the great names in art, a Vandyck, a Reynolds, or a Flaxman, and we find in a few columns the portrait of the man as well as of the artist, with all the characteristic features which we might otherwise find—and that not better—in whole volumes. Or we look out some comparatively obscure name, known personally to ourselves, or linked to some greater historical person ago, and we find that Mr. Rodgrave has, in a few words, perhaps, told us the story of his life, as we know it should be told.
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